Work on a replacement for the M3 Grant medium tank began in 1941, before the last Grant was produced in December 1942. The British adopted the new model with its 75mm smoothbore gun and named it the Sherman after Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman. Compared with other World War II tanks, the M4 Sherman showed outstanding speed, maneuverability, reliability, and ease of maintenance, and it could travel as far as 2,500 miles on one set of tracks without major maintenance. From February 1942 through July 1945, United States war factories produced 49,234 M4 Sherman tanks in various versions. The M4A2 had a welded hull and twin General Motors diesel engines, each a 6-cylinder liquid-cooled Model 6-71 rated at 180 horsepower at 2,100 rpm, and 8,053 M4A2s were built between April 1942 and May 1945, the longest continuous production run of the type. Production began at Fisher Tank Arsenal and Pullman Standard Car Co. and later continued at American Locomotive Co., Baldwin Locomotive Works, and the Federal Machine and Welding Co. The Sherman Medium Tank became the backbone of U.S. and British armored units in World War II because it was relatively inexpensive and quick to produce, though by the end of the war its armor and firepower were found to be weak against late-model German tanks such as the Tiger II. In the Korean War, the M4 Sherman again went into combat as part of the armored force that broke out of the Pusan Perimeter, continued in fighting throughout the war, and then served in peacekeeping until it was declared obsolete in 1956. Sherman tanks remained in the inventories of many countries, and Israel used them in all of its wars up to 1973. This M4A28 Sherman tank was manufactured in January 1944 at Baldwin Locomotive Works. Its E8 designation indicated an improved suspension system, and its 75mm gun was made by the General Motors Oldsmobile Division. Because few Sherman M4A28s saw action in the European Theater under the US flag, this tank likely saw action in the Pacific Theater or in Korea. It weighed 70,000 to 72,800 pounds, carried a 75mm Gun M3, one .50 caliber M2-HB Browning machine gun, two .30 caliber M1919A4 Browning machine guns, had a crew of five, could reach 29 mph on roads, and had armor ranging from 0.5 to 3 inches.