The M4A3E2 (76) W also known as the Jumbo is an American heavy tank placed at a battle rating of 6.3. Many players/content creator’s(including me) have stated that it is heavily over-tiered, but are they correct? We are going to be comparing it to the Tiger H1.
Armor:
The Jumbo has great both hull and turret armor with thickness that can reach up to 200mm, It has only one reliable weakspot which is the MG port (Machine-Gun port), since the Cupola is quite small and round making it very hard to shoot correctly.
Although the front armor is good the side side armor is quite a different story. You see, the turret armor is all-around very good having 152mm on all sides, but the hull (especially the lower part) is very weak, Having only 76mm at the strongest part and 38mm on the weakest, which makes it very susceptible to angling. The Tiger H1 on the other hand doesnt have this luxury called “Having angled armor”, With its front hull armor being 100mm and the turret having variable thickness (90-200+mm).
Firepower:
The Jumbo is equipped with the 76mm M1 cannon, with it having 146mm of penetration at 100m and 63.7g of Explosives. It is very good at lower Br’s such as 5.0 on the M4A1 (76) W, but struggles when taken to higher Br’s as 6.3. The Tiger H1’s gun is way more powerfull and at a lower Br.
Mobility:
The Jumbo has a top speed of 35km/h, while this not being exactly good, it does have a quite good acceleration though. Having 13.2 hp/t, I’d say that it takes the lead here compared to the Tiger H1’s 11.3 hp/t.
Gun Handling:
The Jumbo has an excellent low speed stabilizer which is limited to 24km/h which makes it great for flanking and low speed engagements, relative to the Tiger H1’s Un-stabilized gun.
With all of this in mind should it still be 5.7?
The short answer is Yes.
“Well you’re basically indestructible!”
Which is where the weak side armor steps in, Just flank 'n spank — even with the weakest guns such as the one on the T-34, the side armor and the MG port will be easily penetrated.
Yes, it might be a little overpowered but it doesnt hurt to have an good tank for once in a while.
I’ve played about 30ish matches in the Jumbo. Not a large amount, but a good enough sampling to know how it plays and feels.
Honestly? It’s fine at 6.3. It has good armor, its gun is good, and its stabilizer makes it a great brawler. The gun feels good to use, even against Tiger 2’s and tanks similar to that. Its reload rate is pretty decent too. I’ve done fairly well in it in those matches, especially considering how poor I am as a tank player.
I think it’s for where it is, it’s fine. In a downtier, it’s a monster. In an uptier, it can struggle a bit, but it’s still possible to effectively use.
Putting it at same br as a Tiger 1 its unfair, the armor its too good to be on side with it, literally needing a steady precise shot to mg port.
While a Jumbo with stab can easily kill you on the move to the hull UFP (or cupola in case of H1), even a 75mm APCR does the job. Even so, stab makes it easier to destroy the enemy gun before he can brake and aim.
it curbed stomped every game because most people struggled with it, its fine now because you only ever see one or two at a time, but when it was at 6.0 (like it will be if it gets moved down) there be at least half a dozen out at a given time where the ability for most people to exploit the jumbo’s weaknesses gets thrown out of the window.
also something something dont use it as your first spawn in an uptier, run someone else, if you dont have something else drop back down until you have a proper lineup, the whole point of lineups is to have multiple options that favor different environments, thats why germany 6.7 sucks so much. yes the tiger 2h is amazing, but when you need something with speed, your only options are the m41, which act more like a light tank destroyer thanks to its piss poor suspension (think amx 30 amazing suspension) and the jagdpanzer 4 5… i mean uptiers also hurt this lineup but i am getting off topic.
point is, jumbo 76 is fine at 6.3, if you have nothing else to run but the jumbo 76 even in uptiers, stop playing that lineup until you do, or do what the cool kids use to say, get good.
Armor easily matches Tiger II tanks. in case of the turret, its even 150mm all around, so hull down no weakspots, not even from the side. Hulldown turret is immune to most tank fire below 6.0.
Gun has no muzzle break, which is op in WT. Can’t hit it as easily as guns with brake. Thats a huge thing in War Thunder, cause brawling + shoting gun is War Thunder 1x1.
Its got cal50 vs. enemy tracks (immobilizing tanks with short cal50 burst), planes and all sorts of light vehicles. This makes those absolutely op in comparison to tanks using just rifle calibre MGs, which can’t even penetrate the lightest vehicles. Alot utility here.
Only true weakspot can be easily hidden with decals, camo etc. Its also very mobile, good reload and gun handling for a heavy tank.
Its main gun is stabilized. Thats a bummer. For all those small maps it you have a huge advantage over all other tanks of that age. Most maps just support low engagement distances and brawling. You’ll always fire off the first aimed shot, which is often whats needed to win a duel.
Especially German Tanks are helpless vs. that much utility. On long distance maps it might be balanced more or less. But we all know most maps are rather close range. All of these features come full into play on Sweden and all this garbage maps. So its BR should be above Tiger II. 7.0 BR minumum. Stabilized gun after all and 250mm armor. Very late war design. Introduction date very late 1944. Well after Tiger II. This should be also reflected, explains why its superior.
Sure let’s just put it at the same BR as the checks notes regular jumbo. No logic conflict there whatsoever. Like the whole reason the regular jumbo is 5.7 anyway is that the 75mm gun starts to struggle heavily at such BRs
You can shoot the LFP weakspot with nuke shell, it takes out driver, radio operator and transmission. If lucky, you can take out more people, depending on where you hit.
It won’t 1-shot Jumbo in most cases.
But it will immobilize it. Then you either have to kill the driver twice more or shoot the MG port.
