M46 Patton: A vital upgrade for the French army

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Welcome to another suggestion for France. Here we’ll be having a look at the M46 in French service:

The M46 is in fact a further development of the M26 Pershing, a fact that is rather obvious when looking at the exteriors of the vehicles. The main upgrades in the vehicle were supposed to resolve issues with the M26 Pershing, but the upgrade further also became a project to replace both the M26 and M4 Sherman. The Pershing was still considered a heavy tank at this point, meaning that the M46 was to be the first tank to merge heavy and medium tank responsibilities in a single package, thus arguably becoming the first MBT built by the US.
The main part of the upgrade was the replacement of the old engine with a new Continental AV1790-3, which provided 800 hp, a very welcome upgrade over the 500 hp that the engine in the M26 provided. Some changes were made to accommodate this new engine: the rear engine compartment was lengthened, the drive sprockets were raised and relocated much more rearwards, and compensating idler wheels on the tracks were added as tensioners.

In France, the M46 was only briefly in service. Just like in the US, French military command had noted the issues with the M26, mostly related to its poor engine power and resulting mobility. So when the M46 was made available, this was considered a worthwhile upgrade over the M26. However, with a deal for the M47 already in the air, the number of M46 that were acquired seems to be limited. The vehicles entered service in the 2nd Foreign Calvary Regiment, where they mostly served as training vehicles in anticipation for the arrival of the M47. The M46 and 47 shared an engine, making the M46 a very useful vehicle to get crews accustomed to the improved mobility.
Once the ordered M47s had all arrived, the M46 was fully replaced and removed from service. Despite its limited service, France operating this vehicle is still a rather unusual fact, as only 3 countries outside of the US ordered this vehicle, Italy, Belgium and France.

General characteristics:

  • Weight: 43.7 ton
  • Crew: 5 (driver, co-driver, gunner, loader, commander)
  • Engine: Continental AV-1790-3 V-12 (810 hp at 2800 rpm)
  • Power-to-weight: 18.5 hp/ton
  • Top speed: 48 km/h
  • Reverse speed: -20 km/h

Armament:

  • Main Gun: 90 mm M3A1
    • Stowage: 70 rounds
    • Ammunition:
      • M318A1 APBC
      • M82 APCBC
      • M332 APCR
      • M71A1 HE
      • M431 HEAT-FS
      • M313 Smoke
  • Coaxial weapon: 7.62mm M1919A4
  • Commander’s weapon: 12.7 mm M2HB

Place in-game:
Despite a very brief and uneventful life in French service, I still believe that the M46 is a worthwhile addition to the French tree. Its current BR in-game of 7.0 makes it a very desirable vehicle to further expand French lineups in this range. Currently France has the AufF1 sitting all alone at this battle rating, making it a difficult vehicle to play as you either need to uptier a 6.7 lineup or bring it along at 7.3, neither of which are ideal options. With the M46 at 7.0, there would at least be one other tank to bring along, making you a bit less of a detriment to your team. The vehicle would also serve as a very valuable backup to the currently miserable 7.3 lineup.
Besides this, if Gaijin ever decides to add the M47 Patton for France, the M46 would make the perfect stepping stone to bridge the gap between it and the M26.

Sources
5 Likes
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+1 !

M26 action

Some pictures of the Belgian ones:

Pictures

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And its skin for in-game:

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These are pictures of an M26A1. The lowered rear sprocket and exhaust are telltale signs. An M46 would have its rear sprocket more in line with the roadwheels and two very noticeable mufflers placed on both of the rear fenders. M46s also have a compensating idler between the rear sprocket and last roadwheel.

There is a Belgian M46 at this location but it’s not this vehicle.

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4

more copy paste vehicles wont do the game much good tbh.

if anything WT should start bringing back and adding the paper tanks from countries histories to fill gaps.

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@GibM46toFrance

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The bestest of them all, i am mesmerized by its beauty

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world of tanks

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lame ass argument when most of mid tier france is WOT slop looking designs.

i don’t mean do the history channel wunderwaffe designs but the designs that had one or only a few made as testbeds, tech demonstrators or designs that were cancelled for political/historical context reasons, we already have a lot in game that nobody whines about. tortoise, FV4005, FV4202, OBJ 292, T1/M6 are all prototypes, testbeds, stopgaps and cancelled designed in game which don’t get complained about being in game because they add variety and content to the game.

Also one of the most requested vehicles to ever be added to war thunder was TOG 2, made famous by World of Tanks.

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lol

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Oh yeah, Rookie mistake, my Bad

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Okay but those post war prototypes you are talking about, at least in the case of French medium and heavy tanks programes, are too good for their own sake.

We need to fill gaps between WW2 era and post WW2 era, and in that mater France put into service :

  • M24s (second biggest user in the world after USA),
  • M4A1E8 (76) (VVSS and HVSS) (again one of the biggest user in the world and kept them into service till the 80’s),
  • M26 and M26A1,
  • M46 (in a smaller number),
  • M47s (one of the biggest user in the world too with various kits and modifications);
    (- Panthers could be listed aswell as France had a units with a good number of them)

All those would give us proper line ups for the Brs comprised between 5.0 to 7.3, that’s a pretty big deal and we don’t have a lot more options for the role of Medium and Heavy tanks that will fit in those Brs aswell.
We stil can have a lot of TDs, SPAAs and Lights Tanks though, but having variety + historical accuracy means C&P sometimes, and line ups comprised of only 1 or 2 types of tanks can be very frustrating. Also we could ask for the M.51prototype made in France to beef up a little more.

Those are easy C&P, so they just need to change the textures and markings. I’m not saying they should give us them all in one go, but it’s also a good way to add more vehicle easily especially in places where they are needed.

Same goes for Air, both plane (late WW2 and early jets) and helicopters as french navy used the Lynx (France was part of the program) and french models that were exported like Dauphin 2 and Ecureuil that are represented in Chinese tree and not in the French tree.

Conclusion : C&P is sadly inevitable and won’t change the game if it’s correct historically speaking, and trees still get unique homemade stuff each updates. It also give more options for Event/BP reward or premium without taking from us interesting prototypes.

8 Likes
12

+1
This area of the tt is ruff sometime because is either a banger (5.7,6.7,7.7) or miserable witch betwen 6.7 and 7.7 we have interesting tank destroyer and nothing around it to make a proper line up (and don’t have spaas betwen 6.0 and 8.7, but we a some spaas who could be added like the amx-13 dca)
and for those who say the don’t want copyandpaste, gaijin could add the AMX-13 SS.11 TCA, literally the premium but the SS.11 are not control by keyboard I think adding it in 6.0 would be good

1 Like
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Congrats. I’ll be sure to pick this one up.

5 Likes
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bruh its locked behind a paywall
i guess i gotta change my name

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I came here to see what was French Mains opinions as it seems most of the discussion is hating BP M46 but like, I’d rather it be this (and probably still get a TT M46?) than it be another EBR or any other native French tank lol

1 Like
17

Yeah it’s copy paste, but honestly I’m really happy with this choice. Cool, useful vehicle that was only in limited service for a brief amount of time. Doesn’t take anything much away from the tree. It’s ideal.

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french main here, i’m genuinely pissed off by this decision, it’s not unique and it’s literally just a tech tree m46 but put behind a paywall, there’s nothing particularly unique about it, hell, they could’ve at least given us the m47 or m48 with the french guns.

2 Likes
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Also, to add to that, as stated in the post- 3 countries have used this which one of those is belgium, we could have had the belgian m46 alongside the french m47s and m48s. that to me sounds like a beautiful idea.

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There’s no french M48, neither is there a Belgian or Dutch one.
There’s 3 M47 versions however that could be added, but I’d rather see any of the unique versions as a more accessible vehicle than a BP reward.

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iirc i remember hearing about an m48 with a french gun, think i read abt it a few months ago, however, there is indeed a french m47 which had a french 105mm heat launcher. also my statement was saying that there’s 3 countries that used the m46, belgium is one of those.