it’s true the tank is very strong i just dislike that they false advertisement as 150mm armor which was not the true values.
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in its current state its fine at its current BR. However being able to do horrible things in a incorrectly underarmoured scout tank will be fun
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the good thing maybe the turret will get a better armor
will be good as light tank with other tanks at 8.0 Br.
Also neutral steering !
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T-34-85’s top speed is 55km/h, its reverse speed is 8km/h, and it’s HP/Ton is 15.6.
M4A3’s top speed is 42km/h, its reverse speed is 5km/h, and it’s HP/Ton is 15.2.
The T-34-85 is a clear winner, with its most noticeable features being the top speed and in some cases the reverse speed.
Moving onto the gun handling, the T-34-85 has 25 degrees per second turret rotation speed, 4 degrees per second vertical targeting speed, and -5 degrees of gun depression.
The M4A3 76 has 21 degrees per second turret rotation speed, the same 4 degrees per second vertical targeting speed, and a much better -10 degrees of gun depression.
T-34-85’s turret traverse is better, allowing it to be more useful in CQC, but the M4A3 76’s gun depression allows it to play hull-down on a lot of hills.
The T-34-85’s armour is decent for 5.7, but starts to become obsolete past 6.0, though it can use its rear (like the IS-2) to act as armour such that APHE prematurely detonates and gets absorbed by the radiator, transmission, and engine. The turret ring also gets hidden as a result:
The Sherman’s hull armour is less usable, even when angled, and can’t use its rear as protection since the transmission is in the front, and the rear is also angled:
Overall, the armour of the T-34-85 is a lot more useable than the M4A3’s, but it’s not extremely good.
As for the weaponry, the T-34-85’s gun, the BR-365 round has 164g of TNT and very good angle pen, with 71 degrees until chance of ricochet being 100%. However, you can only reload at the quickest of 7.4s.
The M4A3’s M62 round has only 63.7g of TNT, considerably worse angled pen, but better flat pen. However, this gets compensated by a 5.9s reload, which is a lot better than 7.4s (1.5s faster).
M62 @5.9s would be better for Panther Fs and for dealing against multiple targets, whereas BR-365 @7.4s would be better against most other targets, also dealing more damage in the process, though it may struggle more with multiple targets and missed shots due to the reload.
Their firepower is more of a side-grade.
As for the gimmicks, the Sherman gets a 50.cal and a very useful low-speed stabilizer.
If the sherman didn’t have access to these two gimmicks (especially the stabilizer), I would say the T-34-85 would be better in most, if not, all cases (other then when fighting over hills).
Let’s say they are relatively equal, and so giving the T-34-85 that stabilizer definitely warrants a 0.3 BR increase. Hence 6.0. But would a 0.7 BR difference to the M4A3 make sense?
The T-34-85 (STP) also gets (only) two barrel smoke grenades on its rear, which is definitely helpful, but I wouldn’t say that warrants a 0.3 BR increase too.
So you have the stabilizer, two barrel smoke grenades, and BR-367, which you say…
is a skill issue for it being called a side-grade.
Well let’s look into it closer:
The standard M62 shell does pretty decent at angles, though it’s nothing crazy.
It can penetrate flat angles rather well too.
The BR-367 shell effectively is a better M62 shell, doing better against weak angled plates.
And also does better at flat angles too.
The BR-365 shell, however, is quite remarkable against weak angled plates.
But can suffer against thicker flat plates, like the Panther F’s.
So the BR-367 is better than M62 in every way (though it’s nowhere near M82 shot’s 185mm flat pen, angle pen, and 137g of TNT), but it has much worse explosive filler (77g instead of 164g) than BR-365, and has worse angled performance… for better flat pen.
I’d say that’s a side-grade.
So if we have a T-34-85 with a stab, side-grade APHE (to BR-365) and two rear smoke barrels, I would say it would be a strong 6.0 but a relatively weak 6.3.
Assuming the stab is worth a 0.2 / 0.25 BR increase, the smoke barrels are worth a 0.1 BR increase, and having access to said side-grade APHE is worth 0.1 maybe 0.15 BR increase. Totalling around 0.40 / 0.5 BR increase, or 6.1 (rounded down to the BR of 6.0) or 6.2 (rounded up to the BR of 6.3)
Could really go either way but I wouldn’t say it’s better than the T20, which is 6.3, and has the same top speed as the T-34-85s, but an actual usable reverse speed (18.7km/h), better acceleration (16.8 HP/ton instead of 15.6 HP/ton), much better reload (5.9s instead of 7.4s), gun depression (-10 instead of -5), 50.cal, and the 24 degrees turret rotation speed (1 degree off from the T-34-85s).
It loses out on the better shells, smoke barrels, and armour (though the latter two aren’t really important if you have the gun depression and reverse speed to take cover and get out of most situations).
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russian APHE pens better at stupid angles than flat on from my own experiences.
I used to think russian bias was a joke until i realised what you can easily pen with those shells + lots of other USSR tree decisions
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its still never going to be a light tank. much more of a fast medium.
Glad my 20pdr APDS will shred through it soon.
Hence the BR-367 isn’t a huge improvement over the BR-365.
You do realize I am not the one that suggested it? If the OP 6.7 heavies went up, the STP would make a fine 6.3
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I can read:
Its just very bad reasoning used for the proposal
Its maybe the most balanced T-34 variant in the game, because its not undertiered crap that makes every match a sealclubbing.
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Ofc this is only the non Russian ones, somehow.
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Not any more than the M4A3(76)W should be 6.0 lol.
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better armour, and faster. in game its a superior tank.
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Their mobility is close enough. the M4A3(76)W wins in stabilizer and reload while the T-34-85 has better armor, hell even if you give the small mobility advantage to the T-34-85 it would still be a decent trade off. The M4A3(76)W and T-34-85 are pretty solid counterparts for 5.7.
And I know you want to bring the argument “I have played them and have a 60% winrate in them, so that means they are strong”, but be aware that you are not the only one that can play that card.
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I have no idea what my winrate is. from playing shermans (and plenty of sealclubbing in fireflies, yes that one isnt stabilised but thats not a big deal), myself i simply cant see their much more sluggish mobility letting them work anywhere near as well.
I just know that the thing is disgusting at 5.7 as you WILL beat everything that hasnt got the armour to ignore you unless you are side on to them, even then a lot of the time a slight angle allows the BR365 shell to lolpen because those shells penetrate angles like they are made of ice cream wafer sandwiches.
Edit: yea youre right my winrates are in the 60%s on the D5T (allegedly the bad one) and on the partisan. 72% in the IS1 too btw, and thats just a T-34-85 with better armour
In my experience the M18 at 6.0 is just an upgrade over the T-34-85. It has usable optics, significantly better mobility, and it doesn’t have nearly useless armour that just weighs you down.
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I assume these Shermans you have played are the Firefly and Sherman II? Then you aren’t wrong about the mobility for those tanks, the main thing is that the M4A3(76)W beats these in terms of mobility.
Compared to the Firefly the M4A3 is lighter (32.9t vs 37.1t) and has a better engine (500 HP vs 425 HP). Compared to the Sherman II the M4A3 is slightly heavier (32.9t vs 30.6t) while having a better engine (500 HP vs 400 HP.
I have a 63.5% winrate in my M4A3(76)W over 565 games, so that winrate range isn’t particularly impressive for a 5.7 tank.
It also doesn’t make the T-34-85 look like this vastly superior medium tank.
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Its beyond me how that little rat is still only 6.0. It genuinely looks like an AMX-13 equal but with FV107 scimitar mobility. if it was only in a minor nation it would be 6.7 easily
(I know why, USA mains. I hunt them in the tetrach on occasion for the fun of it)
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Im also including the Ram tanks in the sherman list as they are basically lower tier jumbos, especially in playstyle.
Extra ton of weight, and lower top speed. Will get though gears faster on hilly terrain but as most maps are flat bowls at that BR the T-34 still wins overall. Far better reverse too.
this is from stock grinding, Im grinding the USSR tree and have moved on to the IS-2 now. Stock grinds for most other tanks ive played in germany and britain have been painful more than not. USSR was instantly more than competitive once i had parts.
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???
The firefly is heavier than the M4A3 and has a worse engine. The Sherman II’s lower weight is also massively offset by the 20% less engine power.
5 vs 8 is hardly a massive difference in practice. Both die if they need to reverse.
Stock grinding doesn’t have to mean that much in terms of winrate. My French M4A3E2 is stock (6 games played) and sits at an 83% winrate.
Both of these tanks can easily be the same BR and honestly should be.
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was comparing the sherman 76 to the t34
still a 30% improvement, and it makes cresting from a hull down spot to shoot much safer, even with half the depression
it does for a lot of the vehicles ive played, however tbf thats primarily britain which gets screwed over a LOT
or extremely close, like 5.7 for the sherman and 6.0 for the T-34 ;-)
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