So about USF, I made some digging and find interesting stuff.
1- If you go Mechanized support center and unlock Improvised armor, you'll receive around 20% more armor for the majority of your units except for the M8 which receive 30%. And your regular sherman 60% more armor for its rear.
2- If you go War machine accessible at the bottom left tree on the Armor commander, you'll receive a 33% manpower reduction on the selected units.
3- Strength and Steel reduce from 25 to 50% the cost of your vehicles
4- And I don't know if it is a bug but if you decide to upgun your sherman to the 76 version from the mechanized support center AND you have war Machine, it also reduce their cost to 202 manpower.
5- Independently from 3- and 4-, the Improvised armor upgrade does not affect the Ez8 which make it having less armor than your upgraded sherman. So if you upgrade Improvised armor and upgun 76 you don't necessarily need an Ez8.
![](https://www.coh2.org/file/20736/usf-stats2.png)
(FA = front armor, SA = side armor, RA = Rear armor)
Edit: correction and adding Strength and steel in the graph