Category: Historical Articles

War Thunder’s M6A2E1: The First Paper Tank in the US Ground Forces

~ Sirchby ~ 6 Comments
War Thunder has just released a devblog for the upcoming Battle Pass vehicle: The M6A2E1 Heavy Tank.
The first U.S. paper tank in War Thunder: The M6A2E1
M6A2E1 will be the first paper tank available for the US Ground Forces Tech Tree as an event vehicle. While there were two existing M6A2E1 (M6A2E1-1 & M6A2E1-2), this tank won’t be either of them. It’s caused by the additional slab of rolled armor in front of the M6A2’s main hull. The armor setup was a part of the uparmoring project to allow the deployment of M6A2E1 to the Europe Theater of Operation by increasing the effectiveness of frontal armor by up to 7.5″ (190.5 mm). However, it was rejected, simply because of how nigh impractical it would be. And so, the two aforementioned pilot vehicles were never welded with the addon armor, and retained their original hull armor thickness of 4″ (101.6 mm).
The second pilot M6A2E1-2. Notice the lack of welded addon armor on the front hull, and bolted on machine gun port.

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The Largest APCR Projectile on a Tank Gun: T35E1 HVAP

~ Sirchby ~ 1 Comment
This was the largest APCR projectile to be developed for a tank gun in WWII. Designated as Shot, H.V.A.P., 155MM, T35E1, or just simply called as T35E1
HVAP.
The 155 mm T35E1 HVAP, and 90 mm M304 for scale.
Grown out of the concern from encountering enemy heavily armored tanks, the U.S. Army Ground Forces was pressed to develop a necessary anti-tank munition for their latest heavy tank in development, the T29 and T30. These tanks were intended to support allied forces with combined heavy armor and heavy firepower to defeat the most well-fortified enemy positions with different roles. The T29 would be used to combat other tanks with its 105 mm gun, and the T30 would be relegated for anti-fortification with its 155 mm gun. Leaving the T29 aside since it was was built to confront hostile armor anyway, the T30 was stuck with no self-defense munition to hit back should it come across opponents like King Tiger or Jagdtiger.