War Thunder - American Tanks coming in Patch 1.45 "Steel Generals" - video Dailymotion

Toreno

Now that Gaijin have finished their reveal of the first American tanks for Patch 1.45 "Steel Generals", I take a look at what vehicles we will be getting, as well as a quick analysis of each one.  Sources⬇️ WWII: The Directory of Weapons The Directory of Modern Military Weapons Weapons of World War II Wikipedia (I know its not the most reliable site, but for tanks such as the M2 Medium which I have no books on its something I have to put up with unfortunately)  Photo sources/citations⬇️ M2 Medium tank http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AM2_Medium.Aberdeen.00081tph.jpg By User:Fat yankey (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons  M2 Light tank http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AM2-tank-england.gif By not stated [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons  M4 Sherman http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AM4A1_to_M4A3_tank_animation.gif By U.S. War Department [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASherman_tanks_and_F7F_Tigercats_at_Camp_Lejeune_in_1949.jpg By U.S. Navy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons  http://devblog.warthunder.com/2014/05/22/m4-748-sherman-armour-changes-part-2/?hl=en  M41 Walker Bulldog http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ARVN_M41_Walker_Bulldog.jpg By Starry, Donn A. Mounted combat in Vietnam. DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons  M103 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AM103_Coleman_Barracks.jpg By John Herrgott [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons  Social Media ⬇️ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/toreno.bsky.social Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Toreno4 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toreno170 Mastodon: Toreno17@mastodon.social Threads: https://www.threads.net/@toreno170 Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/Toreno17 Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/toreno5/videos   Game: War Thunder  ⬅️  #warthunder #tank #tanks #usarmy #sherman #chaffee #m103 #m24

Transcript

00:00Hello everybody, and welcome back to another episode of War Thunder.

00:03As you can probably tell from the pictures of the American tanks, this is going to be one of those

00:08episodes where I look at new vehicles and aircraft being added into the game

00:12and give a basic analysis on them.

00:15What will be good about them, bad about them, how they'll fit into the game.

00:19All that good stuff. This is my first time doing it on tanks, so please forgive me if I

00:24get anything too wrong. I mean, not the information, but if I do things wrong in the video in general.

00:31I have tried to use sources from books as much as possible. I will leave them in the description.

00:38I have had to rely on the internet for some of the stuff, especially on the first tank we're

00:42going to be dealing with. I've also got some pictures of the tanks in the real world,

00:48to hopefully mix it up a little bit. But without any further delay, let's get on to it.

00:55Now the first tank we're looking at is the M2 Medium tank, the one that was first revealed.

00:59Now according to the dev blog article they've done on it, it was a United States Army tank

01:04first produced in 1939 by the Rock Island Arsenal, just before the commencement of war in Europe.

01:11It weighed 18.7 metric tons, had a main armament of one 37mm gun, with 200 rounds of ammunition,

01:19and a top speed of 26mph. Now other sources I've seen have also talked about the secondary weapons

01:26being between 7 and 9 .30 caliber machine guns, with 12,250 rounds. Yeah, that is a

01:36lot of ammunition and a lot of machine guns. I've never heard of a tank having that many machine

01:42guns if I'm honest. Armour, for the M2 it was 6.4 to 32mm. Now interestingly there was a second

01:51variant, the M2A1. As far as I can tell this was the main variant produced. There was 18 M2s and

01:5994 M2A1s. So the M2A1 had 51mm of armour instead of 34. I assume we're going to get both of these

02:10in the game because the M2 I assume will be like a reserve tier tank, something like that.

02:17And we'll possibly get a M2A1, the next one up, and then presumably we'll move on to the M3 Stuart.

02:25Now it wasn't a particularly successful tank. I mean it did have okay armour I suppose,

02:31frontally at least. I mean the Panzer II in the game, the 2C, the German reserve, has 35mm on

02:39the hull and 30mm on the turret, the Russian reserve tier. The T26 only has 15mm so it's

02:49better than the Russian and German tanks. And well it has got okay sloping at the front, I think that

02:55was probably one of the only upsides to the shape of the tank. The frontal glacis is quite well

03:04sloped but it's got a lot of flat sides and edges at the rear and the side. It's an extremely tall

03:12tank. It's a lot taller than the German and Russian tanks from what I can understand,

03:20or reserve tanks, so it's an easy target. And other than frontally it should be relatively

03:27easy to penetrate. Now the M3 37mm gun wasn't that good once the war really got started,

03:36it was obsolete against most tanks. But it is a higher calibre cannon than the German tanks,

03:43the 20mm cannon, less than the Russian 45mm cannon. And since it will probably be going

03:49against light tanks, pre-war and early war light tanks, it could still have a role to play,

03:55be rather successful. It had six crew from what I understand, a commander, a driver and four

04:01gunners. I don't know if that changes depending on how many machine guns you have, but like I said

04:05it could have seven to nine. All in all I think it's going to be a mix between the German and the

04:13Russian tanks. Like I said it's got a gun similar to the Russian tank, armour similar to the German

04:21tank, but the speed is also similar to the German tank. So if you play it well, if you use it as a

04:27sort of shoot and scoot tank, if you rely on that frontal armour, never show your flanks or your

04:32rear, well it goes without saying anyway, you could probably make some good use of it. That

04:38tall superstructure is going to be a bit of a problem though, you are going to be a bit of an

04:42easy target. I'm not sure on the turret armour, but it's probably not going to be as thick as the

04:46glasses. So yeah, it seems like an okay reserve tank for America. Just play it to its strengths

04:54and strengths, avoid its weaknesses and you should do alright. Now one quick bit of advice,

05:00when looking for information on the M2 medium tank, don't get confused with the M2 light tank.

05:05I'll show you a picture of the light tank now. Often a few people try to find information on

05:10the medium tank and end up looking at the light tank and just getting completely wrong information.

05:15The medium tank was never used in combat, the light tank I think was used at Coradal Canal or

05:20somewhere in the Pacific. That sort of led on to the M3 Stuart from what I understand.

05:26Could be in the game, but just don't get confused between the two tanks.

05:30Now the next thing on our list, it's not a tank so much, it's an M16 MGMC. I'm reading from the

05:37dev blog description again. It was used in the Philippines in World War 2 and also later in

05:42career. It was an M3 based multiple gun motor carriage equipped with the Maxson M45 quad mount,

05:48more specifically the M45D. With four M2HB, I believe that stands for heavy barrel machine guns,

05:555,000 rounds, had a weight of around 9.3 tons and its maximum speed was 45 miles an hour.

06:02So, well you can see it's an anti-aircraft gun fitted onto a half-track. I'm not really sure

06:12what else to say about it. It would be at a disadvantage compared to the German and

06:17Russians because it uses such a low caliber. I believe the Germans, I think the lowest one

06:22the Germans use is something like 20mm. The lowest the Russians use is 25mm, just looking for the

06:27Germans. The lowest the Germans use is 20mm. These are 50 caliber machine guns so 12.7mm.

06:35So in sheer stopping power, it will have a bit of a disadvantage. Where it will have the advantage,

06:42I'm guessing will be in the rate of fire. I mean it's a machine gun, not a cannon, so it will

06:47probably be firing a hell of a lot of rounds up into the air. So more chances of actually hitting

06:53your target, not as much of downing it unfortunately, but you will be firing so many rounds.

06:58If you do actually get a proper lead on your target, you're going to be putting so many bullets

07:03into them, you probably will have a decent chance of downing the enemy. But if you only get a few

07:09bullets into it, obviously a few 50 caliber bullets isn't going to have quite the same

07:13effect as a 20mm. Where it will go, I'm guessing this will be a tier 1 or tier 2. I mean,

07:19because taking into account it's caliber, I mean it seems to be how it's done roughly,

07:24the higher the caliber, the higher the tier. I think it will have some success. I mean,

07:31for those of you who have tried the Germans and Russians, I haven't tried them myself,

07:35I'm not sure what their rate of fire is. But if you're looking for something that's got a higher

07:40rate of fire than them Flak Panzers and Russian self-propelled AA guns, you probably will quite

07:48like the Halftrack. The other disadvantage obviously is, if you're in a German anti-aircraft

07:57gun or a Russian anti-aircraft gun, if a tank comes across you, you can fire back and have a

08:02reasonable chance of doing some sort of damage. I wouldn't even bother with the Halftrack. I mean,

08:09you might disorientate them if you fire enough bullets at them and cause enough sparks, but

08:14that's literally all you're going to do other than scratching paint. So, good to have it in

08:18the game. It'll be a unique anti-aircraft gun compared to the other ones and yeah, I think

08:25it'll do reasonably well if you stick to just anti-aircraft gun duties. Don't even bother going

08:30near a tank for this thing. Now the next tank we'll be looking at, I'd be rather surprised if

08:35nobody could recognize it, the M4A1 Sherman or M4A1-76-Sherman tank. Going by the description

08:46guides you may have given us again, M4 Sherman is the main medium tank designed and built by the

08:51United States for the conduct of World War II. Employed in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Western

08:56Europe and throughout the Pacific theatre. A total of 49,234 Sherman tanks were produced between

09:061942 and 1945. Modification M4A1-76 was armed with a 76mm M1 cannon to fight the most up-to-date

09:14German tanks, the Panzer V Panther and the Panzer VI Tiger. This modification was produced towards

09:24the very end of World War II with 3,396 tanks built in general in total. Now first of all, just

09:32in case anyone's been confused, this isn't the Sherman Firefly. That was armed with a 17 pounder

09:4076.2mm cannon. This is armed, well this is the M1 with a 76mm cannon. Just in case anyone's getting

09:49confused there, there are probably going to be some people who have got confused possibly.

09:56It's also quite dissimilar to the M4A2 that we've already got in the game. I believe you could get

10:01it if you were an early access multiplayer tester for the ground forces. Like I said, it was the

10:06M4A2 you could get for being early access and the main difference is the M4A2 was welded and

10:15more angular, so you know lots of angles. Whereas the M4A1's hull was cast steel, so it displays a

10:22more rounded shape. That's what it says in my book anyway, so that sort of explains why they look a

10:27little bit different because I've seen that question come up a few times before. Now with regards to

10:33armour, there's a bit of confusion, at least for me. The picture you're seeing is actually what

10:39the one Gaijin used when they made the changes to the M4A2's armour. Like I said, the only

10:44difference between the M4A2 and the M4A1 was one was welded, one was cast. As you can see here,

10:52it's basically the biggest bit is about 76mm, or the thickest bit of armour, apart from this

10:59little bit down at the bottom which is 108mm. This has caused some confusion because a lot of my

11:05books which give the specification for the M4A2, like I said, they seem to be the same apart from

11:12how they were produced, the casting, welding. I don't think that would affect the armour too much,

11:17I'm not an expert in armour though. But they both list it as about between 13mm and 105mm,

11:23whereas the Wikipedia lists it as about 76mm maximum and then Gaijin, well they had

11:31confusion themselves because they had to change it, they basically have it as

11:36108mm, 76mm, you know, mostly 108mm, 76mm around the turret for most of it, there's one bit that's

11:4389mm. So, a bit of confusion how they're going to do that. I'm assuming it's going to be similar

11:49to the M4A2, or at least similar to how it was after it had been corrected. I haven't really

11:56looked much into the M4A2 in the game, I don't know how it performs in the game, I've heard a

12:00lot of complaints it's over-tiered, I don't know how it will be once it's actually added into the

12:04game, the M4A1, 76mm, obviously it's got a better gun. But yeah, I can't give a definitive answer

12:14or definitive answer on the armour, unfortunately, because, like I said, there seems to have been a

12:18lot of confusion around it. Now, looking through my books again, I've got specifications for the

12:24M4A2, mainly, and I've got it listed as 40kmh. Now, this 40kmh in miles per hour is 24,

12:34and this is for road, cross-country it's listed as 28kmh, or 17mph, and that sounds a little bit

12:41on the slow side, I mean, the Tiger 1 can go at 28mph, so assuming that's road speed, 40kmh,

12:51yeah, technically the Tiger would be faster than the Sherman. Now, I had heard they were

12:56actually roughly similar speeds, or could go similar speeds, but I've never heard of the

13:02Tiger being faster than the Sherman. Now, when I go and pop over to Wikipedia again,

13:08not exactly something I particularly rely on, I've got it listed as 25-30, or 40-48,

13:16um, which, um, well, 40 on my one comes out as 24.8, uh, 48kmh comes at just under 30,

13:26so maybe they're rounding, I don't know, but that sounds, you know, a lot more feasible,

13:32or, you know, a lot more likely than the, um, 28kmh. So, yeah, I believe it would probably be

13:41about 40-48kmh, so about 25-30. Now, where do I think it would go on the tech tree? I'm going

13:49to have to base this all on the penetration value of the gun, really, because, like I said,

13:54a bit of confusion around the armour, I'll doubt they'll look at the speed for where they're going

13:59to tier it as well. Now, assuming you're using the armour piercing capped ballistic, capped,

14:04that's a bit of a weird name, um, it can penetrate between 98 and 93mm of armour at 500m.

14:11Now, um, this is kind of similar to the late tier 3 tanks that the Germans and Russians use,

14:19um, I think Germans is about mid-tier 3, Russians late-tier 3, so I think it will probably be

14:28a late-tier 3, mid-tier 3 tank, very, uh, I can't see it being any lower than that,

14:33and I really, really doubt it would be tier 4. Um, I think it would be an OK tank,

14:40depending on the muzzle velocity of the gun, I'm trying to find it,

14:43oh, I can't find the muzzle velocity of the gun, unfortunately, but I think if you're,

14:48you know, at a distance, you probably will have a decent chance of destroying your enemy with this.

14:54Will it be as good as the other German or Russian tanks? Not really sure, I mean, I'm not,

15:00I haven't used the M4A2 Sherman, that was already in the game, because obviously I wasn't a tester,

15:06but I think this would be a decent tank, and, you know, if you play it to its strengths again,

15:11um, yeah, it would be, you know, you can't really do a game without the Sherman in it,

15:14I'm just hoping they will add the 75mm gun variant as well, because obviously we need

15:19a tank for lower than tier, mid-tier 3, and I think it would be a good tank in general for

15:24the game to have. Now the next tank on our list is the M41 Walker Bulldog. Um, going by the

15:30description given by Gaijin, the M41 Walker Bulldog was a US light tank developed to replace the M24

15:37Chaffee. It was named after General Walton Walker, who died in a jeep accident in Korea, its weight

15:42was 12, 23 and a half tons, had a main armament of a single 76mm M33, um, M32 gun, sorry, and

15:51vehicle had a top speed of 45mph. Now I haven't been able to find much information on this tank,

15:57um, mainly because my books don't actually list it for some reason, even the Cold War ones,

16:02so I'm sort of having to rely on internet sources again, I do apologise, um, now as far as I can

16:07tell it had a crew of 4, um, and the armour was only up to 38mm thick, but again it was a light

16:14tank, um, you know, if it's anything like the Chaffee or the Stuart, I assume this was mainly

16:19for scouting, um, but, you know, obviously at some point they've decided to have a very big gun

16:24on it. It probably won't be able to take many hits, but it should be able to deal with any targets

16:29that it comes up against. It also had a secondary armament of one 30 calibre and one 50 calibre

16:35machine gun. Now, these were first used in Korea, um, and in the Vietnam War, I don't know how they

16:43did in Korea, in Vietnam apparently 17 M41s knocked out 22 North Vietnamese Army tanks,

16:50um, in one battle, um, 6 of them were T-54s and 16 were PT-76s, so, you know, T-54s are like

16:58the best tanks, or one of the best Russian tanks in the game, so hopefully it'll be able to stand

17:04up to the late tier Russian tanks. Again, that armour's going to be a bit of a problem, but

17:09with the speed, 45 mph I think it was listed, yeah, 45 mph, it's going to be an extremely fast

17:16tank. This is going to be, you know, one of those shoot-and-scoot tanks, drive to an area,

17:20fire off a shot, knock out your enemy, and then quickly drive off before they can return fire,

17:26or anyone notices you're there. Um, so you're going to have to play this tank, you know,

17:30actively, you can't just sit there and camp sort of thing, because, you know, if anyone sees you,

17:34you're dead, in like the first tier, or at least majorly damaged. Where it will go tier-wise,

17:41um, I don't know what the penetration value of the gun is, I mean, that's why I was listing how

17:47many tanks were knocked out in that battle, because I haven't been able to find much

17:50information on the gun, but if it's meant to go against tier, um, T-54s, there, let me just check,

17:57now they're both tier-5, the T-54s in-game, so I'm guessing this will be an extremely late

18:05tier-4, or tier-5, I mean, there's no way it can be any lower than that, it's a post,

18:11it's a Cold War tank, it must be tier-5, there's no way, I'd be very surprised if it's lower than

18:16tier-5. I think this will be a very good tank to have in the game, as well, um, yeah,

18:23because it's fast, um, you know, good gun, I mean, most of the tier-5 tanks in the game at the

18:29moment are just, you know, ridiculously slow, well-armoured, big gun, so this will sort of

18:35move away from that, hopefully, and yeah, I think it'll be an extremely good tank to have in the

18:40game. Now, this next tank on our list, I was extremely surprised to see, in a very good way,

18:47um, I'd read about it before, but, you know, it was something, a tank that had always kind of

18:51interested me, along with the Conqueror Heavy Tank, um, we'll go by Gaijin's description of it

18:58quickly. Early prototypes of the M103 Heavy Tank were created in 1951-54 to counteract, um,

19:05counteract the heavy tanks developed by the USSR. Um, it was put in service in 1956, being the

19:11largest and most heavily armed combat tank ever made by the USA, I believe it kept that record

19:16until, like, the 1980s with the Abrams. A total of 300 pieces of A1 and A2 modifications were built.

19:23These huge combat vehicles stayed in the USMC service until 1973. Now, the M103, like the

19:31Conqueror Heavy Tank, were sort of designed to provide, um, long-range support, in the case of the

19:36M103, to the 90mm armed M48 tanks, um, it's actually described as an upscaled M48 tank,

19:43more or less, and to, um, counter the Soviet IS-3 tanks with their 122mm guns. Because,

19:51remember, they, before the, during World War II, they hadn't had anything to really counter

19:55German long-range guns, and then they had to deal with these 100mm plus guns from the Soviets.

20:02So, um, it was armed with a, I believe it was a 120mm gun, yeah, a 120mm gun,

20:09and two .30 caliber machine guns, coaxial, and one .50 caliber on the roof, um, which,

20:15you know, pretty much standard. Um, ammunition types could, could, the following ammunition

20:20types could be fired, APT, HE, HET, WP, WPT, and TPT. Now, WP, I'm guessing, is white phosphorus,

20:31um, TPT, I'm, I've no idea what the hell that would be, honestly. Um, I will try and find out

20:38what it is, um, very quickly. Try and see if I can Google it. Um, no, I can't find anything on

20:46it. If I find any information, I'll leave an annotation. Um, like I said, um, these were

20:52heavy tanks, one of the heaviest the US Army actually built into, like, the Abrams. Um,

20:57it says here one of the, they were sent to West Germany, like the British Conqueror, but

21:01because of the size and weight, were difficult to conceal, which, you know, you can understand,

21:08because they're big, heavy-ass tanks. Now, none of my books actually have the list, um, the armor

21:13listed, unfortunately. The general figure I'm getting online is about 180mm. It's not quite

21:18as thick as the IS-4's turret, or the IS, or the Tiger II's turret, um, but it should be, you know,

21:26decent enough. Hopefully, the gun will make up for it. Now, um, most of these actually went to

21:31the Marines, from what I can understand. They were used as infantry support. Um, some of them

21:35were rebuilt to have a different engine, the M103A2, which increased the operational range from

21:4180 to 295 miles an hour, um, yeah, miles, and speed from 21 to 23 miles an hour. Now, one downside,

21:49um, more of the gun than the tank itself is the ammunition. Instead of being loaded normally

21:56like you just put the shell in, um, the propellant and the actual shot you're firing were sort of

22:02separate. Um, 38 projectiles, and you had the same number of charges. So, you had to load both into

22:08the tank, and this has resulted in a weird situation where you have five crew, commander,

22:14gunner, and a driver, but two loaders. Um, so, yeah, that's probably going to slow the rate of

22:21fire right down. Um, but at the end of the day, I'm very glad they put this tank in. Um, I was

22:27very surprised when I saw it on the list. So, yeah, congratulations to Gaijin for me for that.

22:33Um, I think it'll be, on the tech tree, it'll be tier 5 easy. It's meant to deal with the IS-3,

22:38a tier 5 tank. Um, the only other tank, you know, there's only a few other tanks above that, so

22:44it'll be tier 5 easy. Um, no, you know, that's what I'll say it'll be. Um, I'd be extremely

22:51surprised if it's any lower than that. But, um, slow tank, good gun, slightly worse armor than

22:58some of the other tanks, um, or about the same as some of the other tanks, but it should be,

23:03you know, if you operate it well, it should be, as a long range support weapon, it should be a good

23:07tank to use. So, that's the end of that, um, look at the American tanks. How do I think they were

23:14actually beat? Um, well, I think I'm rather confident about, um, tanks being, the American

23:19tanks being added in. They seem to have added a good mix of them, um, you know, lower tier tanks,

23:25higher tier tanks. Wondering how they're going to do for tier 2 and tier 4. I mean, remember we did

23:31only get 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, um, vehicles, one of which was an AA vehicle. I am interested to see how

23:37they'll do tier 2, especially tier 2, because none of these really seem to fit in there, except

23:43possibly the M2A1. Um, and what other information could we get? Um, it'll be included in, they'll

23:50be included in update 1.45, known as Steel General, so I'm guessing that's going to be

23:55mainly based on American tanks. Um, when, when is that going to come out? I'm not entirely sure.

24:01I think I've heard Lassalle mention something like 1.45 will be in, um, about the end of the year,

24:08new year, um, so probably on the other side of, um, of, um, it'll probably be after January 1st,

24:16not very, um, far after. Possibly a little bit before, if they really, you know, work extremely

24:23hard on it. But yeah, I'm looking forward to these new tanks and anti-aircraft guns being added in.

24:29Um, I think they'll be really good, and I'm not much of a tank player, but I'll definitely stick

24:34around to play, play some of the tanks, or at least test them out. Especially looking forward

24:38to the M103 and some of the higher tier tanks. Now we've just got to wait for the British and

24:43the Japanese, and we'll have them all sorted, and we can move on to the naval warfare.

24:47So anyway, thank you for watching, um, sorry it's been a bit of a long video. Um, leave a like if

24:52you like the video, subscribe if you like these sorts of videos, leave feedback, can always do

24:56feedback, um, could always use your feedback, sorry, um, yeah, um, thank you for watching,

25:02I'll see you next time.

War Thunder - American Tanks coming in Patch 1.45 "Steel Generals"

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