US Army OOB

[cbo]

MarkSheppard said:
The T26E4 was delivered to the 3rd Armored Division's Maintenance Battalion on March 15, 1945; consequently saw ten days of actual combat before V-E Day.

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Armor on both hull and turret is the same as the normal Pershings.

Even though the E4 had the same armour thickness as the M26 (T26E3), it was up-armoured by the 3rd Armored Division maintenance battalion before being released for combat. They added a vertical slab of 80mm armour cut from a Panther to the gun mantlet, making it 114mm + 80 mm = 194mm. Additional protection for the front hull was made in the form of 38mm "boiler plate" that was welded together to form a new, angular nose that could be welded on to the hull front. Judging from the description, this was not armour quality steel, but rather some plate found lying around in an abandoned factory. The hope was that the new nose would be more inclined to bounce off incomming rounds because the slope was better then the basic M26 hull and that the gap between the new improvised nose and the hull would also help prevent hull penetrations.

In reality, they basically wrecked the T26E4 as the added 5 tons of weight was all on the front, making the tank extremely nose-heavy and it ended up in a tank dump in Germany immidiatly after the war. The other 25 T26E4s never left the USA and eventually ended up as targets.

So if the tank you want to introduce to the game is the one-off vehicle that actually made it to the fight in Europe in 1945, then it should have the added armour and possibly lower speed due to the extra weight and the overloaded suspension.
It it is supposed to be a what-if vehicle representing the basic T26E4 that might have entered combat later in the war, then the standard values apply.

Also, as the tank fired two-piece ammunition, the rate of fire was reduced from 8 RPM to 4 RPM, so in game terms, whatever the ROF of the M26/T26E3 is, it should be halved.

Claus B