M4A1 doesn’t have better firepower than a Pz IV, it’s a straight up lie. It does reload a bit quicker and has a 12,7, but that’s about it. Again, the HE filler difference in those 2 tanks is just meaningless. Pz IV’s gun is much more powerfull and 12,7 isn’t enough to make up for it and there is nothing more to say here. As far as i know stabilizer doesn’t contribute to the “firepower” of a vehicle.
When it comes to M4A2, or hell even M4 i could understand mentioning it’s armor, but M4A1? This thing is no better than a Pz IV G in this regard. It gets blown up by basically any decent shot into the hull, even a russian 45 which is a reserve tier gun can deal with it.
What you also forget when we talk about these 2 is the fact that these are rank II vehicles and there is one more important factor when it comes to tanks of such rank. Being idiot proof. And in this regard the Panzer IV is clearly superior. You can center mass shoot anything you face, you can one shot anything you shoot, you don’t need to judge distance too well with high velocity and you don’t even need to bother with any ammo knowledge since your stock shell is also the best one.
Having stabilizer at 3.3 isn’t unfair. It’s just that players you usually meet at this kind of BR have absolutely no idea that you have one.
Really, i dont understand this complain. The italian Panzer 4G have a more powerfull gun with a extra armor in the turret and the most important, is rank 3, so his BR is well deserved.
Another important thing is italy at 3.7 have a very good line up with 6 vehicles availables.
This is just another case of biased one nation fanboys crying without reason.
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Reload rate? M4A1.
Penetration? Pz IV.
Post pen damage? M4A1.
Stabilization? M4A1.
Secondary armament? M4A1.
Muzzle velocity? Pz IV.
Reload rate > Penetration.
The M4A1 will deal with a variety of targets faster and more efficiently than a Pz IV thanks to the 50. cal, reload and one-shot capability.
You seem to neglect the fact that most shots taken are side shots where penetration doesn’t matter as much, especially since not everything is a KV-1. The Pz IV’s are some of your most common adversaries and they’ve got no armour whatsoever against a Sherman.
Being guaranteed to get the first shot off counts as firepower in my book.
The M4A1 has an easier time killing a Pz IV than the other way around, not just thanks to the stabilizer but also the myriad of other advantages I listed.
Ah yes, the tank with inferior armour, hull traverse, turret traverse, reload rate, survivability, gun depression, post-pen damage, secondary armament, acceleration and no stabilization is somehow easier to play?
I’m sure that’s why the stats are as follows:
It doesn’t matter if people know you have one, you just do and you can abuse that fact accordingly.
And it’s a MAJOR advantage.
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Most people only think about firepower as armor penetration.
However there are much more valuable features that all influence firepower because penetration is only the last step that takes place for defeating an enemy.
Gun depression is equal but the Sherman has much faster turret traverse speed in addition of having a stabilizer. Both contribute in being able to fire at targets the Pz IV couldn’t.
Similiar how mobility influences how you can position yourself to be in the position to shoot at targets.
Less mobility == less firepower.
The better ballistics and penetration make the Pz IVs gun better at range but this rarely comes into play in the meta of WT, where 80% of the maps you get are some close range city maps or similiar.
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Minor note, but the M4A1 actually has -12° of depression, making it the best of any of these mediums.
I also found out why their arguments are so flawed and clearly indicative of someone who’s arguing from paper stats, and not from any actual experience:
(S)he doesn’t even play these vehicles.
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I don’t play them anymore, because i’ve played them enough already. This is my 2nd account in the game, i was maining germany on my 1st one and that’s where majority of my experience with Panzer IVs comes from, i sadly forgot passowrd to it after taking more or less 1 year break from the game in like 2020 or so
I had well over 200 battles in all Pz IVs combined, majority on H and G variants
I don’t think about firepower as penetraion. I think of it as overall quality of offensive armament. And Pz IV gets a much better muzzle velocity and penetration in exchange for a bit of meaningless post pen damage, lack of 12,7 and like 2 seconds of reload, which does matter, but not in every scenario
Both of these tanks have diffetent upsides and require you to play them differently. Sherman can fire on the move so you use it to your advantage, with quick reload and good turret traverse it exceeds at close range combat. Pz IV on the other hand is much more effective at range and is basically a hard counter to all armor reliant tanks around this battle rating. Regardless of whether you use a similar BR tank like KV-1 L-11 or a quite literally full uptier heavy tank like KV-1 ZiS-5, T-14 or even Churchill Mk. VII (in the case of churchill a bit of aiming is required, but with how armored it is a sheer fact that it can do anything to it is impressive), a Panzer IV will be able to delete it without any issue, while all other tanks of this BR must rely on weakspot sniping or barell disabling in such scenario
Also just because maps in WT aren’t as big and open at lower tiers, it still doesn’t mean you can’t engage your enemies at range. There are plenty of maps where you can simply go on a flank and snipe at enemies from far away. In such scenario there is no tank at around this BR that would work better than a Pz IV. Just think about maps like Eastern Europe, Poland, Volokholamsk or Flanders. All are present around this BR fairly often, or at least used to be not so long ago and all give you excellent options when it comes to sniping and flanking
I’m sorry, but I don’t find the (admittedly predictable) ‘‘My second account’’ argument entirely convincing.
And even if it’s all true, you’re still saying you’ve not played these vehicles in 4 years or more.
90% of a T-34’s hull is immune to a Pz.Kpfw IV’s gun at point blank range when angled properly:
And that’s just the 3.3 version. The turret is significantly smaller than that of a Pz IV and the 4.0 T-34 has a turret that’s volumetric hell.
The KV-1’s entire hull is immune to the PzIV at point blank range under the same circumstances, the turret of the KV-1 is another case of volumetric hell.
In return these Russian vehicles can penetrate a PzIV’s footballfield of a turret face at practically any distance, or simply centre-mass one-tap it via the hull:
And these PzIV’s cannot angle whatsoever unlike their opposition, in fact, even a slight off-angle and the entire hull side becomes a massive bullseye.
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What you show is a perfectly angled tank, with you looking at it from below. It quite literally never happens. As your gun is positioned higher than enemy hull, in vast majority of cases you will be looking down on it, greatly reducing the effective armor. In real battle scenario T-34 hardly ever will survive a Pz IV shot frontally unless you hit a driver’s port even if it has some time to prepare a good angle, not even mentioning a case where you just snipe it out from far away.
When it comes to KV-1 though, you must have a massive skill issue to not pen a KV-1 L-11 with a Panzer IV. If enemy won’t react quick enough to angle his hull perfectly you just shoot center mass and even if he does his whole turret is a swiss cheese for you as long as you avoid edges of the mantlet. Only KV-1 variant that could pose a challenge to to Pz IV’s gun is E/B variant which is known to be stupidly busted.
The vertical position of his camera does not matter if he has “Consider camera vertical angle” turned off, which is what should be done for the vast majority of cases.
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Vertical position of the camera is very important as in the case of a plate angled vertically like in T-34’s case, any change in vertical angle will have a huge impact on an effective thickness.
You will hardly ever shoot at the hull of any tank from the same level unless your gun is placed very low, which is not the case for any of the Panzer IV variants
Tank height, in the grand scheme of things, does not matter. The height of your tank is too small to have any impact at all distances except when actually physically touching the enemy tank. Having your gun placed 1 or 2, even 5 meters above the ground doesn’t matter when the distance you’re shooting is 5 times larger.
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It has a huge impact in the close combat he displayed his T-34 in.
In the range of below 100 meters it can impact effective armor by a lot.
And in long range shooting you also need to account for shell arc which will also decrease the angle
No, it really can’t.
Assuming a height of 5 meters, this is how many degrees you gain over the T-34’s armor.
Again, it only starts to matter when you’re actually touching the enemy tank.
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Which is… a lot? When it comes to armor dependent entirely on angle, even 3 degrees can make a massive difference. It could reduce the effective thickness of a plate by more than 10-15 mm in some scenarios which is a lot for a WW2 gun
Also, i believe we are going off topic again.
It was about Pz IV G and H variants being undertiered, not about some obscure armor mechanics
Again, that’s 5 meters, not the ~2.5 that the Pz.IV’s gun is placed at, not to mention that the T-34’s armor itself isn’t at 0 meters, it’s already placed above ground, which makes the actual height difference far smaller than the math I’ve showed. What I showed is a complete exaggeration where even still the difference in degrees is small.
Do a 2 meter height difference and it becomes 1 degree. Due to him hitting at a compound angle (both horizontal and vertical components on the armor), 1 degree vertical difference wouldn’t do anything.
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The closer the range, the higher the impact, again i spoke off distances below 100 meters, as from 100m onwards it will loose it’s effect. But regardless, i believe we are again going too deep into something that is completely irrelevant for in game scenario. Pz IV will penetratee the hull of non-STZ T-34 9 times out of 10 and just because it can’t do so at the very best angle you can achieve in a T-34 is just an obscure and impractical fact
