M26 Pershing

[Ari Maenpaa]

M26 Pershing in CM:

Excellent mobility.

Fast turret.

Gyrostabilizer.

Better gun than the German 75L70.

Tungsten rounds.

Relatively small silhouette.

100% quality armor.

3 MGs with lots of ammunition.

CM portrays the Pershing to be so good that I find it very difficult to understand why it is often mentioned to be equal with Tiger I or Panther. In CM's terms the only "weak point" is the curved front turret armor and even that is superior to Panther's. Otherwise the frontal armor (particularly the glacis plate) is almost impenetrable to all German guns but 128mm (Jagdtiger). All other tanks have somekind of drawbacks modelled in the game, but not the Pershing. Could it really have been this kind of wonder tank in reality? A relatively new tank model with no teething problems affecting it's combat efficiency?

IIRC Rexford and John Waters mentioned in some earlier thread that the Pershing's hull was made of cast steel and therefore it should be less resistant than rolled steel which was used in many other tanks. This difference is missing? Also there have been long threads (no more, please) about the better German tank optics which could have made difference in some circumstances.

Does CM model the Pershing in too positive light or was it truly the best tank of the war? I mean many sources generally mention the Panther to be the best tank of WW2, but in CM these two seem to come from totally different planets. Fortunately there is difference in the point prices too.

Opinions, please.

Ari

[Blenheim]

Good point, really.... probably the answer is that the Pershing saw very little combat, so in fact was not a major actor in the war. But just wild speculation here.

Any grog answering?

[Stalins Organ]

Compared to most WW2 tanks the Pershing was indeed a paragon of all things good.

The Centurion was also, but just a little too late to see action.

But then what would you expect, since they were both relatively well designed to a decent philosophy and incorporated the best tech available at the time?

[Abteilung]

We used Easy Eights in Korea because they had one quality the Pershing didn't, reliability.

[Ari Maenpaa]

Thanks for comments.

Yep, the reliability seems to be the first problem with new designs. Fortunately in CM's scope that isn't much of a nuisance.

I did some additional research and according to David Honner's "Guns vs Armor 1939 to 1945"-site ( http://www.wargamer.org/GvA/index.html ), the Pershing's whole frontal armor was, in fact, cast. Also the frontal turret armor isn't regarded to be rounded unlike it is in CM.

The same source also states that cast armour resisted less well than rolled armour of the same hardness and thickness. Cast armor wasn't worked/squeezed down into thinner form as rolled armor was, therefore it had an INFERIOR grain structure and LOWER ballistic resistance. Cast armour was at a disadvantage to rolled armor because it was of complex shape and varying thickness and couldn't be given uniform heat treatment, which had an adverse effect on its ballistic properties.

Currently CM doesn't SEEM to make any difference between rolled armor and cast armor thus giving an unhistorical benefit for all tanks made of cast armor. Shouldn't there be a lower armor quality modifier for tanks made of cast armor (including the Pershing)?

Ari

[Abteilung]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Ari Maenpaa:

The same source also states that cast armour resisted less well than rolled armour of the same hardness and thickness. Cast armor wasn't worked/squeezed down into thinner form as rolled armor was, therefore it had an INFERIOR grain structure and LOWER ballistic resistance. Cast armour was at a disadvantage to rolled armor because it was of complex shape and varying thickness and couldn't be given uniform heat treatment, which had an adverse effect on its ballistic properties.

Ari<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Excellent information. My only addition would be the tendency of cast and FH armor to have lower resistance to successive hits as compared to RHA.

Also I am trying to find documentation of a certain Russian armor making practice. Cast armor was sandwiched between two thin RHA "sheets". Any help finding info to support or refute this would be appreciated.

[Ari Maenpaa]

Abteilung,

Thanks. Unfortunately I can’t help in your “problem” at the moment. But you might want to search the already mentioned http://www.wargamer.org/GvA/index.html and http://history.vif2.ru/

Couple of words just to close my case for good:

Belton Cooper in “Death Traps” verifies that Pershing’s front hull armor was cast indeed.

Also a closer look at a Pershing instantly reveals that the gun mantlet is rounded. So there seems to be a slight error in GvA site.

BTS has made an admirable job at removing the "uberpanzer" factor from the German tanks by lowering their actual armor values, but at the same time, it seems, SOME of the similar problems on the other side of the hill have been left on lesser attention.

By my understanding the resistance of rolled armor (RHA) and cast armor shouldn’t be rated to be equal like they currently are in CM. Once again according to GvA, tests in USA in 1942 and 1943 show that cast armour resisted less well than RHA of the same hardness and thickness. Cast armour 51mm thick showed a 15% to 20% inferiority compared to 51mm RHA plates when hit by 75mm projectiles. Even if the production methods evolved during 1944 and 1945, wouldn’t the difference still have remained, although being smaller (10%-15%) maybe? It would still have affected tank duels considerably.

I realize very well that these remarks are too late to have an effect on CMBO, but hopefully they will affect the forthcoming CM games and help them to be even more accurate in armor modelling. I’m not an expert on this matter, so if you have more accurate information, feel free to correct my conclusions. I don’t want to make it seem like there would be something in this regard to correct in CM if there’s not.

Ari

[Commissar]

Pershings are strong but hardly an uber tank. I've used MkIV to take out Pershings all the time. I've even penetrated their front armor with old MK IVs. I good shot to the side will take out a Super Pershing as well from a lowly MkIV. Pershing are good tanks in CM but like everything else it has its weak points that can be exploited. One that I can think of is that the Pershings seem damn slow.

As for the Panther being the best tank of WW2, you should see what the web czar of "The Russian Battlefield" has to say about that. Pretty interesting. Absolute peformance, the Panther probably stands out but in terms of reliablity, cost, and actual effect on the war and future tank design, that award goes to the T-34. I don't think enough Panthers were ever made to make a true difference although I'm sure most Allied tankers would rather not meet up with one.

[Gen-x87]

I would hardly call the tiger one of the top 2 tanks.

I would give the KT and Panther that role. Looking at the tiger I am actually trying to figure out what is the purpose of this tank. They name it a heavy tank but without sloped armor it can be penetrated quite easily from my experiences and it is slower than the Panther.

Panther has become my favorite tank by far. 2000 point games with 2 panthers working in tandem and it is going to be hard for an allied player to beat up that combo without alot of help and luck

Pershings can be killed by KTs from the front, which means probably tigers can kill them also. I would imagine the 88mm AT can also take one out.

I am impressed by the speed of both the turret and ground speed of the pershings. Jesus they can move! If I was an allied player I would run circles literally around the german armor while firing

Gen

[Stalins Organ]

Remember the Tiger 1 was first built in 1943 - well before 17 pdrs, 85mm's or 76mm's let alone tungsten ammo (although some 17 pdrs were rushed into action on 25pdr mounts because of it, and hte 85mm gun in the T34 and KV85 were also results of it!).

At the time it was pretty much invulnerable to everything out there, SU-152's and Sturmoviks excepted!!

[Mattias]

Even "worse" Mike, the Tigers went into action for the first time in august 1942.

M.

[Renaud]

iirc the tigerI was originally designed in the 1930's, definitely pre-war. Thus the blocky construction.

Ren

[Stalins Organ]

Ah well, ther eyou go then, another penetration that hd an effect!!

[Michael Emrys]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mike the bike:

Remember the Tiger 1 was first built in 1943...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Neat trick considering that it first saw action near Leningrad in August,1942.

Michael

[Stalins Organ]

Yeah, yeah, yeah......hang on, I'll just make this knife a bit blunter before I rip out my guts......

[Warmaker]

The M26 Pershing is no problem to me whenever I face them. The numerous 75mm equipped German units can penetrate any spot on the front of the M26, though not as easily as the regular Allied soda cans naturally. The 88's on the KT and Jagdpanther can still act as an excellent can opener on it also, but it does the same to any tank out there. The M26 though does have the punch to deal with the Panthers frontally, and it's not everyday that I see my Panthers backing away from an Allied tank.

For any Allied player, don't feel too comfortable about the Pershing's armor. Though greatly improved over the usual Sherman models, it is still very fragile to German AT fire. IMHO, stick with your Sherman 76 and Fireflies. The Pershing is anything but an "ubertank" since it can be taken out by the commonplace 75mm guns.

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Warmaker ]

[Ari Maenpaa]

Now my point wasn’t that the Pershing is a totally invulnerable uber tank in CM. It’s turret armor is clearly a “weakpoint” on otherwise stunning armor. But instead look at the cast frontal HULL armor and how that is modelled. It is considerably tougher than it should be.

Purely basing on the game balance, the ultra tough cast armor is probably a good thing, I don’t deny that. But historical that seems NOT to be, if the evidence that I have shown is to be taken seriously.

I put a Pershing (without ammunition) and a Pzkpfw IV face to face at 20 meters apart. So there were almost no side angle. The Panzer just couldn’t puncture the Pershing’s frontal HULL armor. Not upper or lower hull. Somehow in one test it took 19 hits before the Pershing succumbed to a front turret penetration.

Neither could a Tiger 1 penetrate Pershing’s frontal hull armor at 20 meters range in my tests. Shots only ricocheted from frontal upper and lower hulls. A Panther performed a little better. It occasionally succeeded to get a lower hull penetrations from 20 meters. So, please, no more tales about all German 75’s penetrating any spot on the front of the M26. If it did happen, it was a weak point penetration and those happen very rarely. Btw, I did these tests in version 1.12.

The weaknesses in the German armor quality are modelled largely. Even defects of 5% are factored in. All Stug models and Panzer IV’s have armor quality of 95%. Now I’m talking about a factor possibly triple times bigger on the same CM scale. Why to dismiss that? What if there have been a turretless assault gun version of Pershing? How ultimately hard would that be to knock out in CM?

Ari

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Ari Maenpaa ]

[Commissar]

That maybe so, but in the various battles I've generated using Pershing and fighting against Pershings, I've hadn't had too much trouble taking out Pershings at long range, medium range, short range, whatever (from the front or the side or anywhere). Even if your tests suggest that a German 75mm will only penetrate at a Pershing's "weakspot", either the German guns find those weakspots a lot or there are a whole lot of weak spots on the Pershing. The MkIV's 75mm does have a tendency to bounce off the Pershing's frontal armor at longer ranges, but the Panther's 75mm generally doesn't have too much trouble. Panther 75mm rounds may be deflected sometimes, but they also penetrate Pershing frontal armor a good number of times from a fairly long distance. Most shots I've seen hit a tank's turret anyway and not so much the hull. The Pershings are more likely to survive a hit that say a Sherman or a MK IV but they don't seem to be too big a troublemaker EXCEPT for that gun of theirs. Are you sure you're talking about the Pershing and not the Super Pershing? What you describe before sounds like what I've experienced against the Super Pershing and not the regular Pershing. If your tests were on the regular Pershing I don't know what to tell you. My experience has been quite different

The Super Pershing is quite a bear. I've had many shots just bounce right off that sucker from all sorts of angles, whether it be the hull or turret. I don't think I have had that much more success with the 88mm against those beasts from the front.

As for accuracy in the Pershing modeling, beats the hell out of me. Most of my study has been on German and Soviet armor. I've never paid all that much attention to US armor. If you can find some hard data, let BTS know about it. I don't know if they will "fix" it since it seems that CM1 is a "finished" game but after CM2 and the various following patches they just might do something. Any Pershing or Super Pershing experts out there??

[ 05-07-2001: Message edited by: Commissar ]

[MikeyD]

When Pershing was first issued it was billed as 'America's New Heavy Tank' for propaganda purposes, despite the fact that is well in the 'medium' class and was not even close to the German heavies for protection.

The 90mm gun was reported to be exceptionally accurate and a great leap forward from the Sherman 76, but again it wasn't in the same league as the Tiger II's 88 or the Soviet 100mm gun. An equivalent gun to the Tiger II's 88 would be the uberweapon on the Super Pershing with its EXTREMELY long shell casing. This weapon was simply too big for the poor unbalanced Pershing turret.

As for reliability, one odd thing that I heard was the Pershing used belts to run things that belts aren't customarily used for, like the transmission! And inexperienced driver could throw a tranny belt simply by turning too aggressively. Once you mastered the technique, though, it was supposed to have been a dream to drive.

[Warmaker]

I'm can't give you percentages/# of penetrations against the M26, my memory isn't that good. But dealing with Pershings when they pop up is absolutely no problem for me. The fact that this Allied "heavy" can be easily be destroyed by Panthers (a "medium tank") doesn't lend itself too well to even TRY to stand on the same level of the Koenigstiger. How do I adjust my battleplans on the fly whenever one of the M26's do show up? Simple, aim a 1 or 2 75/88mm guns at it and send the crew home to their maker, just like any Allied soda can. It has bark, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't take a pounding like the KT does. The Super Pershing is much tougher, but as seeing it as an opponent, it just seems to "slough" it's way through the battlefield much the same way Allied players see the Tigers I/II. Eerie sight, until it's sitting there burning.

[Commissar]

The Super Preshing has all the speed and grace of a pregnant yak. Reminds me of the King Tiger. I'd love to see the King Tiger take a lap at the Indy speedway. Not only will most of us have grandchildren by then, but it will probably break down half way around the track and need to be towed back for repair. Reading Soviet impressions on the KT is hilarious. Talk about mechanical problems.

The allies' large use of tungsten in v.1.12 makes the Tiger and KT pretty pointless for me. I've had both taken out by frontal shots by these "soda-can" Shermans and other allied tanks. It's happend too many times to be a mere lucky shots (at least I think so). Oddly enough, I find the Hetzer to be a lot more useful. Their cheap as hell (compared to the Tiger and KT), they have a gun that usually take out Allied tanks in one or two shots, they are probably faster than the Tiger/KT, and have better ability to survive hits (that radically sloped armor just deflects shots off). I've had Hetzers that survived a dozen or more hits with no problem while my Tiger/KT gets knocked out by a lousy tungsten round from a Sherman or other British tank. Anyway....

[John Kelly]

The Pershing is not impervious to the 75mm/L70 round of the Panther. As a matter of fact, the Jumbo has thicker armor. The 90mm gun and wide tracks make it a much better all around AFV and the Allies finally had their "heavy tank." John

[rexford]

Pershing gun and armor analyzed using info in our upcoming book, effective armor resistance at 0°:

Glacis, 102mm @ 46°

176mm resistance against 88 hits after slope effects and cast deficiency, can be penetrated by 88L71 to some impressive ranges. Will stop Panther hits at 300m due to 183mm armor resistance.

Upper Glacis Center Area, 102mm @ 20°

105mm against 75mm hits after slope effects and cast deficiency, PzKpfw IVH penetrates to 1000m

Nose, 76mm at 53°

167mm resistance against 75mm hits, Panther penetrates to 500m

Mantlet, 114mm round (say 30° impact, which covers more than half the hits on mantlet)

143mm against 75mm hits, Panther penetrates to about 1000m, 88L71 penetrates to FAR OUT.

If Pershing uses 90mm gun with 2800 fps muzzle velocity, this gun is about equal to Tiger 88L56 in terms of penetration and is inferior to Panther by quite a bit. HVAP is what makes 90mm a winner, and relatively thin Tiger E armor.

Panther glacis, even brittle ones, will stop 90mm APCBC at any range (2800 fps muzzle velocity). HVAP is the key against Panther glacis.

Face to face, Pershing may have slight advantage over Panther for as long as HVAP holds out. Pershing is better able to withstand wide angle hits on side armor than Panther, especially by pesky little guns.

Is Pershing best tank of WW II? Face to face, Tiger II chews up Pershings, where only HVAP saves Pershing from total obliteration.

Report given to Eisenhower says U.S. gun sights need bright light to work well, and German sights were superior during overcast conditions, which occurred alot during fall, winter and spring. Were Pershing sights superior to 75mm and 76mm armed tanks, the ones that don't work well during overcast conditions?

Panther G has 2.5/5.0 gun sight magnification, what does Pershing have?

122mm APBC from IS-2m can penetrate Pershing front armor to very long range.

Pershing is good but not great. 88L71 Pak would give Pershing a difficult time, and 88L56 Flak, given enough shots, could stop alot of Pershings by punching through the mantlet. Remember, German crews trained to aim at turret/hull line, which is where that 102mm at 20° front armor is.

[rexford]

The 15% deficit of 2" cast when hit by 75mm rounds came from our group. 102mm cast performs a bit better when hit by 75mm rounds.

We have ALOT of armor analysis reports for T34, KV-I, IS-2m, T34/85, etc., and Russian cast armor was one piece in all the analyse's by Brits and Americans. No sandwich plate combo's anywhere to be seen.

[Stalins Organ]

Rex did the 90mm actually have HVAP in WW2?