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Pershings............a few questions?


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No Super Pershings, probably due to extreme, almost non-existent rarity.

Pershings were classed as mediums I think, so I'm not sure why they were in 'heavy' companies unless simply to distinguish them from Sherman companies.  Someone with more knowledge will be along shortly I'm sure.

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6 minutes ago, jtsjc1 said:

Wasn't the M26 reclassified as medium after the war? In Korea it was classified as a medium tank.

It was reclassified in 1946. Though, that was a bit problematic because U.S. doctrine had a role for medium tanks and the Pershing was too heavy and under-powered to be able to fill that role.

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From what I've read only one T26 E4 'super pershing' pilot model made it to germany before wars end. Regarding the issue of the pershings being underpowered, after the war 1948 I think, they were fitted with a more powerful eng and improved gun and reclassified as the M46. Picture is of 'super pershing'.

T26E4_Super_Pershing.jpg.5abde37ab57ce1b6040d1935d16d5feb.jpg

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The M26s are weird classification wise anyway. They get reclassified to heavy tanks relatively late in development since the T25/T26 pilots and even the T26E1 are still labeled as medium tanks before the latter gets reclassified. They also are kind of hard to integrate in with the way CM does tank companies and the like. Like 3rd Armored Division just put their Zebra mission Pershings in with the medium tank companies (which is why Eagle 7 was in a platoon with Shermans), but 9th Armored Division T26E3s were used in both a heavy tank platoon in the 14th Tank Battalion and individually with the 19th Tank Battalion. I would like to ask if the M26s have T33 APBC in the game like they did in real life since I noticed I tended to bounce shells off the Panther glacis when getting into slugging matches on the front. Not really a problem at all since it encourages flanking, I just remembered them having T33 in CMBO but that could just be my memory playing tricks on me.

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1 hour ago, Aldirin said:

I would like to ask if the M26s have T33 APBC in the game like they did in real life since I noticed I tended to bounce shells off the Panther glacis when getting into slugging matches on the front.

Hi Aldirin and welcome.

Great post and good question.  I'm also interested in the answer as I'm playing US in a PBEM of Pershing vs Tiger, and the proverbial is about to hit the fan.  I don't need shells bouncing off those Tigers, or the Panthers that are with them.  Looking in the manual, it just says AP 🤔.

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20 minutes ago, Vacillator said:

Hi Aldirin and welcome.

Great post and good question.  I'm also interested in the answer as I'm playing US in a PBEM of Pershing vs Tiger, and the proverbial is about to hit the fan.  I don't need shells bouncing off those Tigers, or the Panthers that are with them.  Looking in the manual, it just says AP 🤔.

If it makes you feel better, when I played that, the Pershings didn't have a lot of trouble with Tiger Is unless they were angled just right.

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Long story short is the Pershings had access to T30E15/16 HVAP (APCR) rounds, T33 APBC which was a heat retreated M77 AP round with ballistic cap that was specifically meant to be able to penetrate sloped armor better than the other 90mm rounds while mostly solving the issue the M77 had with shattering (mostly...), then the usual M82 APCBC and M71 HE rounds. The Jackson could fire all of the above too but the T26s were certainly issued their fair share of the special rounds since the famous Panther duel at Cologne involved 2 T33 and a T30E16 HVAP round, while the other fights with Panzer IVs and the Tiger in Elsdorf were done with the T33 mostly, with a HVAP that hit the Tiger right basically on its final drive. I know Zaloga says the T33 was the standard AP round for the Pershing but I'd be curious about seeing that in a primary source additionally, guessing it's probably in one of the Zebra Mission reports.
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On 2/1/2024 at 6:39 PM, Vacillator said:

Pershings were classed as mediums I think, so I'm not sure why they were in 'heavy' companies unless simply to distinguish them from Sherman companies.  Someone with more knowledge will be along shortly I'm sure.

What I read is that it was a bit of psychology.  They called them Heavies so the troops would have more confidence in them versus the big cats they came up against.

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Could just be a doctrine kind of thing too. All Allies believed that the Panther was a heavy tank for over a year after their debut because according to their technical specs, that's what made sense.

The US Army knew that they had heavier tanks coming up and that the Pershings would at least become the new medium tank, but at that time they were the heaviest tanks around. Perhaps that's what led to them being called "heavy tank companies"?

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