The most interesting aspect of the vehicle is probably the turret. Since it was basically a testbed vehicle to study the feasibility of mounting a 105 mm high velocity gun on the T29 heavy tank, it was designed with a gargantuan turret, so big, the turret ring of the M6A2 hull had to be expanded from 69″ (1.75 m) to 80″ (2.03 m). Unlike the T29 though, the M6A2E1 will only have 5-man crew, comprised of driver, commander, gunner, and two loaders. The bow gunner is eliminated since there is no bow machine gun to use anymore due to the appearance of the addon armor.
The 105 mm T5E1 will perform exactly the same as the one armed on the T29, but with one, small, but very significant catch: Its direct sight telescope will only have a fixed 3x magnification. The M6A2E1 was never considered to use the advanced variable telescopic sight T143E1 as the T29 was, so it only equipped the substitute telescopic sight M70E2 during firing trials. If the designation sounds familiar, it’s because it was an elongated version of the M70 direct sight telescope found the late 75 mm Shermans and tank destroyers, but adapted for installation in a large gun mount such as the 105 mm.
Last but not least is its mobility. It weighed almost 70 metric tons (69.85 tonnes), 5 tons heavier than the T29. While powered with an equally massive G-200 engine, it will still encounter some problems traversing through rough terrains, especially considering its overall dimension. With the current engine rating setup of M6A1 in the game (800 hp), it’s going to have about 11.45 hp/ton ratio.
War Thunder Forum’s Community Tech Lead Smin1080p has made a statement regarding the status of this vehicle.
“The tank was modelled intentionally with the additional planned armour protection plate on the frontal hull. As well as the plan drawings there is also further material supporting the planned addition of this armour if the tank was fully realised. The program was cancelled in reality and the tank never saw combat, but in War Thunder it will see combat so the plate becomes more significant.Without them, the tank would practically have no armour at all frontally which for its size and position is a core balance issue and makes the tank entirely redundant since it will actually see combat in War Thunder.”Source: Reddit
Oh contrare!
The tiger II with the 105mm gun was also a paper vehicle, technically so was the actual assembled E-100
The Panther II with an 88mm gun is technically as fictional as most of the chinese tanks in WOT. It wasn’t even a paper design.
I didn’t say anything about the other tech tree vehicles, though.
This only concerns the US ground forces tech tree.
They removed 105 Tiger and Panter II from tech tree.
If you do some research, the Panther 8.8 is acually a Panther Ausf. F. Wargaming can just put the GT101 motor the E-75TS has to make it more akin to the Turbo Panther.
To all the people who doesn’t know it, the Turbo Panther, also named Panther Ausf.F Mit Gasturbine, was a project to adapt the GT101 airplane motor to a Panther Ausf.F model, to improve horsepoewer per ton relations and to make it a more mobile medium tank with reduced gasoline/diesel consumption.
that’s wrong, it is not a paper tank but a partially completed one, if all it is lacking is the armour slab (like the one they added to the Jumbo) it is 99% complete
The actual M6A2E1 had to redesign its entire upper front plate and seal the MG port and driver port to adjust with the additional armor plate like the M6A2E1 in War Thunder. That includes removing both ports and bolt the holes with armor plates of equivalent thickness to the upper front hull.
The redesign was not applied to both the M6A2E1-1 and M6A2E1-2, and they just simply covered the MG port and kept the driver port completely intact instead.