This is the 1:16th scale Tamiya R/C M4 Sherman Tank with the 105mm Howitzer option, it measures in at a hefty ~38cm long (~15 inches), and it has fully operational tracks and a rotating turret.
The M4 Sherman is one of the best-remembered tanks of the Second World War, and of the 20th century, with almost 50,000 built for the war effort. They saw action in every major theatre of war, and they remain a favorite at military museums around the world today.
Above Video: This video from Tamiya about their 1:16th scale R/C M4 Sherman tank model shows how it works internally – there are a lot of extra parts required to make it work just like the original.
History Speedrun: The M4 Sherman Tank
The M4 Sherman was developed quickly, driven by the urgency caused by the Nazis rapid spread across Western Europe. When France fell to Germany’s Blitzkrieg in the early summer of 1940, the United States had no medium tank capable of fighting modern armored warfare. The War Department fast-tracked the M3 Lee as a stopgap, but its 75mm gun had a severely limited traverse (the side-to-side arc it can swing through) – a major tactical liability.
Even before the M3 entered full production, the U.S. Ordnance Department had begun work on a proper successor with a fully rotating turret.
The design that emerged was named the T6, it used the M3’s basic automotive components and lower-hull layout but replaced the sponson-gun arrangement with a redesigned upper hull and a new cast turret mounting a 75mm gun.
The T6 prototype was completed on September the 2nd, 1941, and the design was standardized as the M4 shortly thereafter. First production rolled out of the factory in February of 1942. The tank was named by the British, following their convention of giving American tanks the names of Civil War generals, after William Tecumseh Sherman.
What followed was one of the most extraordinary feats of wartime industrial production in history. Between 1942 and 1945, 49,234 Shermans were built across ten major production facilities by manufacturers including Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, and even the Lima Locomotive Works and Pressed Steel Car Company.
An overhead shot of the M4A4 Sherman production line in the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant, Warren, Michigan – 1942. Image courtesy of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) Archives.
The Sherman saw action in every theater of the war, including North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Northwest Europe, and across the Pacific, and it was distributed through Lend-Lease to British, Canadian, Free French, Soviet, and Chinese forces.
The M4 was produced in a dizzying array of variants, major hull types included the cast-hull M4A1 and the welded M4, M4A2, M4A3, and M4A4, each distinguished primarily by its powerplant. Armament evolved from the original 75mm gun to a high-velocity 76mm, while close-support variants mounted a 105mm howitzer for infantry support.
The British developed the Firefly, fitting the devastating 17-pounder anti-tank gun into the Sherman turret. Suspension progressed from the original vertical volute spring system (VVSS) to the wider-tracked horizontal volute spring suspension (HVSS), the latter earning the nickname “Easy Eight” from its E8 experimental designation.
The Sherman was not the best-armed or best-armored tank of the war, not by a long shot – German Panthers and Tigers outgunned it – but it was reliable, mechanically simple, and easy to maintain and produce in overwhelming numbers.
It remained in frontline service well beyond 1945, fighting in Korea, the Arab-Israeli wars, and the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, with some nations (Paraguay among the last) operating Shermans for many decades after the war ended.
Above Video: This episode of Real Engineering tells the story of the M4 Sherman, its development, key variants, and its use during WWII.
The Tamiya R/C M4 Sherman Tank Shown Here
The Tamiya 1/16th scale R/C M4 Sherman 105mm Howitzer (Item No. 56014) is a reissue to mark the 50th anniversary of Tamiya’s original 1/16th scale R/C Sherman, which debuted all the way back in 1974.
The kit includes the M4A3E8 Sherman armed with the 105mm howitzer – a close-support variant used by U.S. Armed Forces in the latter stages of WWII and into the Korean War. As a “Full-Option” kit, it ships with Tamiya’s DMD T-05 digital twin-motor differential control unit and the DMD MF-02 multi-function unit for sound and light effects, along with a speaker, flash unit, LED for the front machine gun, turret rotation and gun elevation units, and two pre-assembled gearboxes.
The reissue also includes a photo-etched commemorative plaque marking the 1974 to 2024 anniversary.
The model measures in at 37.6cm (14.8 inches) long, 18.3cm (7.2 inches) wide, and 20.5cm (8.1 inches) tall, with a fully equipped weight of 3.4 kgs (7.5 lbs). It’s built around an aluminum lower hull with die-cast metal drive sprockets, idler wheels, and suspension arms, and it rides on a coil-sprung HVSS suspension system that mirrors the full-size tank’s setup.
The RC capabilities are extensive for a kit of this type, the Sherman offers proportional forward and reverse over a range of speeds, with gradual turning, pivot turning, and super pivot turning for excellent maneuverability.
The turret rotates 360° and the cannon raises and lowers, while head and taillights light up when the tank is in operation. Both the main cannon and hull-mounted machine gun produce firing effects with synchronized light and sound – the engine sound is recorded from an actual Continental R975C-4 nine-cylinder radial, the same engine that powered the real M4A3.
The kit includes decals for three different vehicle markings and a tank commander figure (this is torso only, and it’s unpainted and unassembled), and the body is finished in ABS plastic over the aluminum and ABS chassis.
This is the 1:16th scale Tamiya R/C M4 Sherman Tank with the 105mm Howitzer option, it measures in at a hefty ~38cm long (~15 inches), and it has fully operational tracks and a rotating turret.
It’s an assembly kit, not ready-to-run, and completion requires a 4-channel radio system (Tamiya specifies the Tamiya Attack), a 7.2 volt battery with compatible charger, and Tamiya TS and acrylic-lacquer paints for finishing.
It’s now available on the official Tamiya USA online store here.
Images courtesy of Tamiya USA
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
