M-51
| This page is about the Israeli medium tank M-51. For the premium version, see M-51 (W). For other M4 versions, see M4 Sherman (Family). |
Contents
Description
The M-51 is a rank IV Israeli medium tank with a battle rating of 6.0 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update "Wind of Change". It is the sole "reserve" tank of Israel, therefore, for several battles it is repaired for free and it's possible to spawn this tank several times in a single battle. It looks similar to M4A3 (76) W, but feels smoother at the edges and has a different weapon.
It's important to know, that even if you gain access to this tank, your beginning crew level is still level 1 (meaning, that you can't even buy expert qualification for the crew), while everyone around will has level 30 to 60 and (very likely) an expert training.
General info
Survivability and armour
The hull armour is mostly inadequate. Almost every popular tank in the BR range can penetrate the tank's front with ease even when it is presented at an extreme angle, short of light tanks and SPAAs. Still, frontal armour can protect the tank from bombs and rockets. The side armour is quite weak and is arguable the weakest part of the tank, as even SPAA can penetrate it at various angles. The rear is technically the best protected side when it comes to hopeless situations - if the opponent hits too high, then shell bounces into tough turret and does nothing; if opponent hits too low, then engine might stop the shell. Unfortunately, tank's awful reverse speed does not allow it to charge with rear forward, so it can only be used defensively.
The turret armour is bad and good. Turret sides are unlikely to protect from anything but 20 mm SPAA, but the front is decent. The gun mantlet actually allows the turret to deflect stray shots and can allow the tank to fight in hulldown position, but the turret's top is not cut off on the "mask" level, but higher. The actual roof is connected to it with 26 mm RHA plate, which is not even angled enough to bounce shells in the first place, and most of opponents in tank's rank are either extremely tall, have angle negating shells, or both. Because of this, if the M-51 is charging into high ground, it is easily destroyed before it can even fire, especially in AB. By keeping distance and vertical angle, the tank can reduce the probability of being penetrated.
Armour type:
- Rolled homogeneous armour (hull side bottom, hull roof - engine)
- Cast homogeneous armour (hull, turret, cupola)
| Armour | Front (Slope angle) | Sides | Rear | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 63.5 mm (44°) Upper glacis 63.5 mm (cylindrical) Transmission housing 38.1 mm Hull corners |
38 mm (2-15°) Top 38 mm Bottom |
38 mm (14°) | 63.5 mm (46°) Front glacis 19.5 mm Crew compartment 20 mm Engine compartment 9.5-9.5+4 mm Engine vents |
| Turret | 55 mm (12°) Turret front 80 - 250 mm Gun mantlet |
51 mm (10-17°) | 51 mm 51 mm (65°) Bustle |
25.4 mm |
| Cupola | 63.5 mm (cylindrical) | 25.4 mm | ||
Notes:
- Suspension wheels are 15 mm thick, tracks are 20 mm thick, and torsion bars are 10 mm thick.
Mobility
Without upgrades, even in AB the tank will never be able to take initiative from opponents, as it accelerates poorly and loses a lot of momentum when turning at low/zero crew level - opponents will always be first to the capture point and almost always will react faster in combat.
With all the upgrades, it is still slower than most of other tanks, but it will feel far less clunky to drive and will more often reach maximum speed. It will also accelerate surprisingly fast, for how it performed before.
Remember, the reverse speed on this tank is only 3-5 km/h, combined with poor hull plating it requires the commander to make decisions count, or to not rely on mobility at all.
| Game Mode | Max Speed (km/h) | Weight (tons) | Engine power (horsepower) | Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forward | Reverse | Stock | Upgraded | Stock | Upgraded | ||
| Arcade | 43 | 6 | 40 | 713 | 878 | 17.83 | 21.95 |
| Realistic | 38 | 5 | 407 | 460 | 10.18 | 11.5 | |
Modifications and economy
| Mobility | Protection | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armaments
Main armament
The gun fires HEAT and HE with characteristics typical of a rank IV SPG, but its velocity is very close to the default APHE (usually a bit slower), which makes learning curve less strict than it normally is. The tank is also reasonably tall, so HEAT does not lose a lot of power like with the SPG of the rank, which struggle with heavy tanks due to an insane angle of attack.
Gun accuracy is great even without the gun adjustment upgrade and with zero crew experience, but its vertical elevation speed is awful, and the gun is constantly tilted by changes of movement pace, which makes handling it difficult. This makes personal user skill to fire on move without braking a necessity.
The only way to reduce the tilt is to upgrade movement modules, as it reduces the tilt threefold. Due to the low gun elevation speed, the elevation mechanism upgrade is a must have, and it is generally a good idea to pull the gun up before charging downhill, as to not disarm the tank in process, particularly at low crew level.
| 105 mm M-51 | Turret rotation speed (°/s) | Reloading rate (seconds) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mode | Capacity | Vertical | Horizontal | Stabilizer | Stock | Upgraded | Full | Expert | Aced | Stock | Full | Expert | Aced |
| Arcade | 56 | -8°/+20° | ±180° | N/A | 22.8 | 31.6 | 38.4 | 42.5 | 45.2 | 9.75 | 8.63 | 7.95 | 7.50 |
| Realistic | 14.3 | 16.8 | 20.4 | 22.6 | 24.0 | ||||||||
Ammunition
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm) | |||||
| 10 m | 100 m | 500 m | 1,000 m | 1,500 m | 2,000 m | ||
| OCC 105 F1 | HEAT | 400 | 400 | 400 | 400 | 400 | 400 |
| OE 105 F1 Mle.60 | HE | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 25 |
| Shell details | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile Mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (m) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Explosive Mass (TNT equivalent) (g) |
Ricochet | ||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | |||||||
| OCC 105 F1 | HEAT | 800 | 10.95 | 0.05 | 0.1 | 1,020 | 62° | 69° | 73° |
| OE 105 F1 Mle.60 | HE | 800 | 12.1 | 0 | 0.1 | 2,000 | 79° | 80° | 81° |
| Smoke shell characteristics | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile Mass (kg) |
Screen radius (m) |
Screen deploy time (s) |
Screen hold time (s) |
Explosive Mass (TNT equivalent) (g) |
| OFPH 105 F1 | 600 | 11.4 | 20 | 5 | 25 | 50 |
HEAT shell does what HEAT shells do the best: destroys any tank regardless of its armour. It can be used at point blank range to knock out Panthers with a single shot by hitting their hull straight to the middle. It can also be used in typical HEAT fashion to bombard any enemy 600 m away over a hill, even without direct sight - returned APHE fire will not hit the tank back, since it's generally a bit faster, and even if there is an artillery genius on the other side, the gun mask should be able to handle it.
The HE shell is nice to have. Even if it's difficult to memorize which tank's roofs it can penetrate, the HE can be used to bully sneaky light tanks and beat certain SPGs like the Type 75 SPH.
Ammo racks
| Full ammo |
1st rack empty |
2nd rack empty |
3rd rack empty |
4th rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 56 | 33 (+23) | 9 (+47) | 4 (+52) | 1 (+55) | No |
Machine guns
| 7.62 mm M1919A4 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount | Capacity (Belt) | Fire rate | Vertical | Horizontal |
| Pintle | 600 (250) | 500 | -10°/+60° | ±180° |
| Coaxial | 4,750 (250) | 500 | N/A | N/A |
Usage in battles
Describe the tactics of playing in the vehicle, the features of using vehicles in the team and advice on tactics. Refrain from creating a "guide" - do not impose a single point of view but instead give the reader food for thought. Describe the most dangerous enemies and give recommendations on fighting them. If necessary, note the specifics of the game in different modes (AB, RB, SB).
Pros and cons
Pros:
- HEAT launcher paired with a tall turret is a death sentence for any tank
- Turret front can block or bounce inaccurate shots, decent for hulldown tactics
- Can be used as artillery over a hill to negate its downsides (mostly in AB at 600 m range)
- The gun is reasonably accurate even when stock and with untrained crew
- There are three of them, which means you only have to pay for the repair once (there are also free repairs several times)
Cons:
- The tilt of the gun is very distracting; paired with the poor vertical gun elevation speed any panic on commander's side is fatal
- Fire-on-the-move techniques take time to be fully mastered
- Turret armour has a fatal flaw which makes it weak when charging into high ground (or in general against good snipers in AB)
- The hull armour is effectively useless at the rank, it's easy to forget that it still exists and can save from airstrikes or SPAA
- When initially unlocked, must be used with a level 1 crew with no expert training against elite crews of other nations - very high personal skill requirement or patience strain
- Very vulnerable to APHE shells - a momentaly lapse in attention often leads to instant defeat
History
Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the vehicle in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the vehicle and adding a block "/History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Vehicle-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref></ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article with <references />. This section may also include the vehicle's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===, also if applicable).
Media
Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.
See also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example:
- reference to the series of the vehicles;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
External links
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- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
| Israel medium tanks | |
|---|---|
| M-51 | M-51 · M-51 (W) |
| Magach | Magach 1 · Magach 2 · Magach 3 · Magach 3 (ERA) · Magach 5 · Magach 6 |
| Magach 6A · Magach 6B · Magach 6B Gal · Gal Batash · Magach 6C · Magach 6M · Magach 6R · Magach Hydra · Magach 7C | |
| Tiran | Tiran 4 · Tiran 4S · Tiran 6 |
| Sho't | Sho't · Sho't Kal Alef · Sho't Kal Gimel · Sho't Kal Dalet |
| Merkava | Merkava Mk.1B · Merkava Mk.2B · Merkava Mk.2D · Merkava Mk.3B · Merkava Mk.3C · Ra'am Sagol |
| Merkava Mk.4B · Merkava Mk.4M · Merkava Mk.4 LIC | |
