No. People would still complain about it, because things like the M-51 and Ikv 103 will always be facing Second World War vehicles even if the BRs are decompressed.
And also ordnance-based BRs (shells, missiles, bombs, etc).
Why would M-51 always be facing WW2 vehicles? (Not mentioning IKV because it’s a different thing).
Also, I think it may be acceptable for M-51 to face LATE WW2 vehicles on full downtiers. The issue as of now is that M-51 has the same BR as mid-WW2 tanks…
With the current BRs, I think M-51 would be more than perfectly fine at 6.7 instead of 6.0, and, if there were some decompression, it could perfectly be 7.0 or even 7.3. 6.0, even more so as of now, is way, way too low. This thing can come across KV-85s, Chi-Ri IIs, M6A1s and M4A1 (76)s…
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Because the M-51 isn’t good enough to face Cold War vehicles. The only good aspect about it is the gun, otherwise it’s mid or terrible in every other regard and performs especially poor in close-quarters thanks to the, relatively, long-reload and poor gun stabilization.
This thing can come across KV-85s, Chi-Ri IIs, M6A1s and M4A1 (76)s…
Yeah, and the 76-mm Shermans and the M6A1 have the advantage over it except in extreme long-ranges. The KV-85 and the Chi-Ri II can deal with it just as easily as it can deal with them. It’s a slow and badly armoured tank that has poor on-the-move-shoot capability and can’t stop without its gun bouncing. The only place it excels in is performing like a tank destroyer and either setting up ambushes, something that every tank is good at, or sitting back at extreme long-ranges, though its armour would still be fragile there.
Go ahead and play it before making a take that it’s 6.7 material.
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When I finish the Naval match I just got in, I will!
was about to say this lol beat me to it XD
Exactly.
It has the same gun as the AMX-30 at 8.0, but the AMX is an actual MBT and not a fancy Sherman. It doesn’t help that that 105mm cannon is often worse than the French 100 and 120mms because it’s HEAT round sucks, and it is especially worse than the german long 88mm in every way but pen.
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So, my impressions after a few matches. Also important to take into account that I played them with the tank practically stock, while talking to my mother, alt-tabbing to watch Invincible clips and having dinner;
1- The mobility isn’t great, but it’s not terrible either. It’s what you would expect from a Medium Tank, particularly a Sherman.
2- Its armor CAN withstand shots on the mantlet, including from Tiger’s gun. The hull is just, well, a Sherman’s, but this is a MEDIUM tank, it’s not meant to be all that strong anyway.
3- I’ve died once to CAS, and three other times to vehicles of this one’s own era, such as LeKpz M41 with its HEATFS. That’s only natural.
4- On the other hand, whatever you shoot, you kill. There’s no tank or armor you can’t penetrate. The ONLY non-penning shot I’ve taken was an extremely misplaced one that hit on a volumetric hellhole.
I will now play another match, since I’ve already got some modifications and finished having dinner, so I will try to play more serious.
But my first impressions so far are that it’s FAR from being as terrible as some of you picture it.
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No one is saying it’s terrible. It’s just balanced where it is.
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Saying that it needs to face vehicles 20+ years older in order to “stand a chance” is suggesting that it’s terrible enough not to be able to fight anything beyond that…
Anyway. I think it’s just… fine. Not great, not terrible. Its performance is basically tied to the user’s. However, it’s objectively a BAD experience to face with midwar tanks.
I think an uptier would significantly increase the quality of gameplay of its current opponents, while it wouldn’t affect its own gameplay negatively. In fact, it may even affect it positively, since it could easily receive a reload buff just for being 0.7 BRs higher.
I would personally put it at 6.0 with a 6 second aced reload (compared to the current 7.5 one). Hell, the tank would probably be better off at 6.7 with a 6 second reload than it is at 6.0 with a 7.5 second one.
Think about it; its performance wouldn’t change. It would still lolpen anything it faced, while it would still have meh mobility and survivability. The M-51 experience wouldn’t really change all that much, except it would hopefully reload significantly faster to make up for the up-BRing.
It would just mean 5.0-5.3s wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore, and that 5.7s and hopefully 6.0s would have to deal with it less often than as of now.
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How’s it an objectively bad experience for midwar tanks to face it? It’s a Sherman with a bigger gun. It isn’t hard to face, while also not being complete crap to play as. The desire to change its BR by adjusting its reload is backed by your inherent bias against HEAT-slingers rather than it needing to actually be moved.
At 5.7, you get M4A3 (76) W, a Sherman with a 76mm gun. Makes sense.
At 6.0, you get M-51, a Sherman with… literally AMX-30’s gun and shell.
The 5.7 Sherman needs to carefully aim and shoot.
The 6.0 Sherman has a gun and shell decades newer that can (and will) punch through anything it may come across like a hot knife through butter.
M4A3 (76) W has a vertical stabiliser for low speeds, slightly better mobility and better reload? Yes.
In exchange, M-51 has 251mm more worth of penetration power- more than twice as much.
Just a 0.3 BRs difference between these…
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except the m51 is a much larger target the heat while good is not a brain dead shoot pen kill i mean hell if you want to talk about bad br compression tiger 2s vs Sherman 76s the tiger 2 sure doesn’t look weak in a down tier now does it
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Yeah, because the M4A3(76)W HVSS also has better mobility, better armour, and is better at brawling due to the faster reload and the semi-stabilized gun. The .50 cal. is the cherry on the top in providing it a more potent anti-aircraft and anti-light vehicle capability than the M-51. If anything, the M4A3(76)W HVSS is just overtiered rather than the M-51 being undertiered.
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…or maybe both are affected by the same evil; compression.
M4A3 (76)W is overtiered at 5.7 because it’s useless against the 6.7s it faces, but it would be untertiered at 5.3 because it would be OP against the 4.3s it would face.
M-51 is undertiered at 6.0 because it’s OP against the 5.0s it faces, but it would be overtiered at 6.7 because it would be useless against the 7.7s it would face.
That’s why I think M-51 should be, at least, 6.3 with the current BRs, and, with further compression, 6.7.
If all or most BRs were decompressed by a factor of 0.3-0.7, most if not all balance issues would disappear forever.
Right now, the issue is that some tanks are either too good or too bad at certain BRs; either too good or too bad whether it’s a full uptier or a full downtier.
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Or just keep it at 6.0 and decompress it while remaining at that same relative BR. There’s no reason to change its relative placement, except to a few tanks at 5.0 which shouldn’t be there in the first place imo cough Chi-Ri II cough. At the moment, the M-51 is perfectly balanced where it is. It’s not as good as any of the HEAT slingers at 6.3+ and can be dealt with by pretty much every gun after 4.0, while its firepower is balanced by the meh or horrid aspects of every other part of it.
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not really, according to WT wiki, it’s a variant based on the French AMX-30 gun.
which fires the same round, at 200m/s less.
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meanwhile France has both SA-50 and Fl-10 Sherman’s at 5.0.
With 202 and 182 mm pen, true solid shot, but both from around 1955.
there are these kind of vehicles everywhere, just look at both ST-A’s also 1955-60, also get HEAT-FS. sure only “305” but more then enough, and they sit at 6.3.
so my bid would be raise M-51(both) to 6.3, both ST-A’s have a better selection of rounds and are better mobility wise to the M-51. Same BR as Ratel 90, which has even worse mobility and armour.
or if you want to go higher: 6.7, where the ST-A3 / Type 61 are, no armour, better mobility, HEAT FS goes to 320.
as mentioned before multiple time the M-51’s are a one trick pony:
400mm HEAT, that’s it.
low mobility, both in forward and reverse, as well as hp/t;
long reload, 9,75 sec on expert crew;
no stab, gun takes forever to settle;
only premium has the “USA standard” 50 cal;
In order to clean up this mess a massive decompression overhaul.
but there will always be the discussion: Date of construction/ implementation versus effectiveness in Game
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How about if they put PT-76 and other crappy HEAT singers at higher BRs (7.0+), but give them very low spawn cost or (to avoid people spawning in them 10 times per game) a limited number of free spawns? It would work so that every time you spawn in a “normal” vehicle you get 1 extra free spawn in this crappy backup vehicle.
How about just keep it where it is because the BR systems are working as intended?
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