Pz IV can be easily killed anywhere. M4A1 has some weakspots indeed. But I can kill Pz IV frontally with Wirbel from 200m away too.
And in Pz IV going hulldown exposes your biggest weakspot - turret, so there’s no safe spot for Pz IV. Things that do not penetrate Pz IV turret front are super rare
Also, fun thing about M4, you can usually get your gun and .50 cal on target before SPAA demolishes you - I have killed my share od M4A1s in Ostwind, it’s nowhere near as common or easy as you make it out to be.
Said demolishion requires hitting upper edge of the hull, with Sweden’s 40mm SAPI I have much easier time hitting Pz IV turret.
And Pz IV has to stop and wobble, wobble, wobble, while M4 will just smash me on the move.
And BTW, it’s not like Ostwind going TD is some super common occurence and vs other SPAAs Pz IV G is in a worse position.
Anyway, M4A1 is a very good tank, but just like in Chaffee taking return fire is not a smart idea, though when hulldown, it’s no longer an easy kill, so there’s that. And with -12 gun depression, going hulldown is an obvious choice.
thou cant nowadays. Wirbel has incredible 45mm of pen with APCR
Tho i get your point, my point is it is noticeably harder choice between IV F2/G and M4A1. At least i would`ve picked germans in this comparisson.
You can.
Don’t know how exactly, but I did it a few times recently with M42 and it should perform roughly the same as Wirbel.
Though its API has more pen in HVAP belt due to belt velocity bug, so there’s that.
But I don’t think I went through turret front.
You have to try some M4A1 goodness vs Germany. Each time you and the other guy just “run into each other” you win. Lower tier tanks have a lot of problems penetrating you, as the “belt of weakness” is between turret and UFP, so it’s very easy to miss.
German 50mm is not doing that great either.
And your own gun quite reliably 1-shots almost everything.
Recently I had a fight, Stug III G (4.0) vs Sherman II (3.7).
I penetrated his turret twice, he returned some time later, hit short, shell ricocheted and killed me through the bottom. Fair enough. I respawned, shot him 3 times 2 bounces, and finally he died - he did not shoot me this time, I bounces nothing.
Then another Sherman 1-shot me.
Turan III also gets 1-shot by US 75mm, be it in the turret or hull.
Pz IV sometimes survives a turret shot, but your transmission is gone basically every time vs US 75mm
See the pattern? Sherman gun is deadly. German 75mm needs a center mass shot, because turret shot will allow the enemy to retreat and 1-shot you 1 minute later.
That’s why I generally prefer US 75mm. It gets the job done.
And no “wobble wobble wobble” that makes Turan a nightmare to play for me. BTW, I avoid M4A2 recently, as it has bugged suspension and randomly wobbles HARD throwing your shot off. Or maybe it’s just Gaijin’s “game balancing algorithm”, who knows.
Same problem never happens to my 3.7 Sherman Composito.
Italian M42 with quad 20mm, the one that is a monster SPAA :)
Actually I absolutely hate M42 as it’s ridiculously good at killing planes (the guns have otherwordly performance with HVAP belt, as it laucnches API at HVAP speed and that API is in fact APHE)…
I hate US M42 too, but this time for being pretty much unkillable using normal weapons.
It’s 1 vehicle that Soviet 45mm on Yak-9K consistently fails to kill.
The early Pz IV like G have 30mm side armor. M4 Sherman cal 50 has bit over 30mm pen. At close range you can machine gun their sides and hurt the crew, damage modules. You can also detrack them in no time. Then the stabilizers, better shell… etc Pz IV vs. Sherman is outright unfair on most of those forced close range and chokepoint maps.
Pretty unlikely to kill one with a .50cal but yeah, Pz IVs are an easy kill for Shermans, T-34s and even Cromwells.
Even though it can be a bit annoying to kill them with solid shot.
Still they are the easiest to solid shot anyway. Everything is annoying to kill with solid shot.
My Churchill VII is a machine that turns 21 penetrating hits into 2 kills and 7 assists.
Seriously, that turret is something else. Look how far from cannon that 57mm APHE and AP struck and still did 0 lasting damage, because breech eats everything.
Never shot the M10 turret, I always aim for the upper chassis. But yes, this vehicle has truly alot of punch (high pen gun + cal 50) for its low BR. Could easily be 5.3. Was the historical counter for German heavy tanks.
Well, this is what always happens with the game. Before, that shot would kill the turret crew, but now the gun mount absorbs all the damage so no one dies. Another funny thing about the M10 is that by adding the tracks to the front of the hull, it becomes immune to many guns.
Returning to the main topic. If the StuG IIIG is at Br 4.0, the Pz4H could easily be at Br 4.0 as well, since one is low but has a fixed gun, while the other is taller, somewhat more vulnerable, and has a turret. Furthermore, it’s a tank with APHE (Attack Protection Equipment), which gives it the flexibility to fight against higher Br tanks without problems. The only real problem is tanks like the Kv1 Zis5 due to their extra armor, while the KwK39 should be more than enough to eliminate T-34s and M4s (with the exceptions of the T-34 STZ and the M4A3E2).
It’s an open-top SPG that has the equivalent firepower of a T-34 with both worse protection than any tank at its BR and mobility that’s just average. It is absolutely overtiered.
The problem is, as long as M4A2 sits at 4.0, this is pointless. M4A2 is a better KV-1Sport. But at lower BR.
If Pz IVs go up, so should Shermans. I am a Pz IVG guy anyway, as IVH lacks smoke and mobility is not great either.
