M4A3E2 Jumbo: The Wall of Steel

The M4A3E2 Jumbo is an USA heavy/assault tank. Its amazing frontal armour provides great protection, which makes it excel at frontally attacking enemies. Additionally, its fast reloading gun makes it possible to fire more shots than its foes when fighting. A skilled Jumbo player can deal with opponents like the Tiger and the Panther with ease. Though penetrating opponents can be difficult at first, it is still a tank worthy to pick up.

Armour

The M4A3E2 has impressive upper frontal armour. It has 101mm of RHA placed at a large angle (47 degrees) with effective thickness up to 180mm. It can only be penetrated by the German long 88mm, KwK42, Soviet 122mm and other heavy guns. The lower frontal armour is between 114 mm and 139 mm thick which can be penetrated more easily. This will cause the tank to stop moving due to a damaged transmission. There are some weak spots up front, though: The hull MG only has 59mm of protection and can be penetrated with most guns. Also, at the lower front, close to the tracks, has almost no angle. It can be penetrated easily by Tigers, Panthers, etc. There is also a part of the cupola and the turret ring of the tank that might be penetrated.

The Jumbo also has 76mm of side armour (upper), and 38mm of side armour (lower). This side armor protects you from autocannons, and some light guns when angled. It gives you little protection from any bigger guns. The rear armour is bad, with only 38mm of armour, and one hit will set the engine on fire. 

The turret armour is surprisingly tough. 178mm of front turret armour is enough to block most shots it will face such as the BR 271M, BR 365K and the PzGr39 (75mm). Some guns still can penetrate you. For example, the German 88mm KwK36 gun and the 75mm KwK42 gun can penetrate you at short distances. 152mm of side and back turret armour is enough too. It can block most shots you will face.

Survivability

Here is an overview of the Jumbo's survivability by analysing the deaths of it.

• Crew Loss: Most Jumbo kills are caused by crew loss. The crew aren’t spaced far enough to take more than two standard shots from German and Soviet guns. One shot to the Jumbo's side might send it immediately back to the hangar.

• Ammo Explosion: This is not a common death. The ammo is placed at the bottom of the hull, which is challenging to shoot at. When you do get shot in the ammo storage, it will cause crew death too. That being said, increasing the amount of ammunition carried does not significantly increase the chance of the ammo being shot, so you can take as many rounds as you'd like.

Armament

The Jumbo uses the 75mm M3 cannon which is not powerful against most enemies it will face. It has enough vertical guidance for hilly terrain (-10/+25). For aiming horizontally, the turret can rotate up to 24 degrees a second, which is enough for a close-up engagement but might have trouble dealing with armoured cars. There's nothing special about vertical rotation, 4 degrees a second, but it is enough for most cases. The cannon also has a good reloading rate up to 5 s, which is very impressive.

This gun can use four different kinds of ammo: M72 shot (AP), M61 shot (APCBC), T45 shot (APCR), smoke shell and M48 shell (HE). Here are some guidance on these ammo.

• The stock round M72 is terrible: no filler, poor AP performance, and often ricochets... If you are going through the grind, use this shot to disable cannons and tracks. After that, go around your enemy and shoot their side armour. 

• The M61 is the best round available: it has some explosive filler and 104mm of AP. However, this penetration is hardly enough when facing heavy tanks such as the Tiger. When facing heavy tanks, it isn't enough to pen most of them, but you can leverage the reload to break their barrel, then shoot/machine gun their tracks, and then move around to their side to get a side shot.

• T45 shot. This might be the only way to deal with the Tiger. However, the T45 doesn't have a filler and has poor post-penetration effect, so try to aim for ammo storages. Keep in mind! Do not use APCR at a big angle, or the shell cannot penetrate! Use this shell when you can't penetrate with the M61.

• The smoke shell is both good for retreating and blocking the sight of the enemy. Use smoke carefully! Some aircraft will aim their bombs and rockets into smoke.

• M48 shell. This shell can target SPAAs and lightly armoured SPGs, but cannot do any damage to armored targets. If successful, the enemy crew will be knocked out.                                                                                                   

Machine Gun

On top of this tank is a 12.7mm Browning MG, good for killing open top vehicles and sometimes aircraft. This gun is operated by the commander, so try keeping him alive. There is also a coaxial 7.62mm M1919 too. It's not as useful as the Browning, but still can help with killing open top vehicles with exposed crew. The coaxial gun is also useful for shooting into smoke and marking enemies on the mini map in Realistic Battles.

Mobility

As an assault tank, its speed is adequate: Between 38 km/h (Forward) and 5 km/h (Reverse). It can pick up speed fairly fast, but not as good as most medium tanks. On top of that, the Jumbo only has single-current transmission, which makes turning on the spot challenging.

In battle, the Jumbo can easily speed up to 25kph+, and can easily obtain speed on paved roads and flat grounds. However it suffers from climbing hills, treading water and pushing down heavy obstacles due to its rather low power to weight ratio compared to light and medium tanks.

The reverse speed isn't so impressive. It can retreat, but can be challenging, which can get you killed in close combat.

So, how to play?

Act as a spearhead when attacking enemies. Your front armour can absorb a lot of damage for your teammates and won't put you in too much trouble when being hit. Then, use your stabilizer to fire at your enemies and give them a surprise! You can also launch an attack on a point with your teammates. However, things will get challenging when your team is losing the battle, you might want to act as an iron wall blocking the enemies from advancing, but when enemies are popping left and right, this isn't a good idea. Use your decent mobility as a heavy tank, circle around and get to the back of the advancing troops of the enemy and give them some cold shots from your cannon and send them back to their hanger!

Here are some roles that the Jumbo can perform:

You can lead your team and launch an attack on the enemy fiercely, it is actually designed to perform this task in history! Your thick frontal armour will come in handy, you can block enemy fire and create opportunities for your team mates, at the same time, you can also take out some foes by yourself which will contribute a lot for your team. But be sure, not to show your side or you will die quickly.

There is another option too: The Jumbo has decent mobility for a heavy tank, so it is effective when flanking, giving other flankers a surprise! As a bonus, flanking can put you on the side of the enemy, which is easy to penetrate with your gun. But be careful, flanking is dangerous, someone might try to flank the flanker, so watch out when you hear enemy movement.

These two roles are the ones that the Jumbo is good at, other ones such as sniping is not ideal for the Jumbo since it lacks good armament. 

Thank you for reading!