M36 GMC (China)
Contents
Description
The ␗90-mm Gun Motor Carriage M36 is a rank IV Chinese tank destroyer with a battle rating of 5.3 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.91 "Night Vision".
General info
Survivability and armour
Armour type:
- Rolled homogeneous armour
- Cast homogeneous armour (Gun mantlet, Transmission area)
| Armour | Front | Sides | Rear | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 38.1 mm (56°) Front glacis
50.8-107.8 (9-63°) Transmission housing |
19.05 mm (37°) Top
25.4 mm Bottom |
19.05 mm (42°) Top
19.05 (1-45°) Bottom |
19.5 mm Front roof
9.5 mm Engine deck |
| Turret | 31.75 mm (2-53°) Turret front
76.2 mm (°) Gun mantlet |
31.75 mm (0-21°) | 25.4 mm (2-23°) | N/A |
Notes:
- Tracks are 30 mm thick, bogies are 10 mm thick while the wheels are 20 mm thick.
- Small slivers of 5 mm armour hang off the top side hull armour, giving minuscule protections at those areas.
- Track blocks on the side hull armour allows an extra 30 mm of armour at their locations.
Mobility
| Game Mode | Max Speed (km/h) | Weight (tons) | Engine power (horsepower) | Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forward | Reverse | Stock | Upgraded | Stock | Upgraded | ||
| Arcade | 52 | 7 | 28.1 | 710 | 954 | 25.27 | 33.95 |
| Realistic | 48 | 7 | 442 | 500 | 15.73 | 17.79 | |
Armaments
Main armament
The 90mm cannon on the M36 is great at its BR. The stock AP has good penetration but lacks damage, so it is recommended to quickly unlock the APCBC which is superior in every aspect.
| 90 mm M3 | Turret rotation speed (°/s) | Reloading rate (seconds) | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mode | Capacity | Vertical | Horizontal | Stabilizer | Stock | Upgraded | Full | Expert | Aced | Stock | Full | Expert | Aced |
| Arcade | 47 | -10°/+20° | ±180° | N/A | 21.10 | 29.25 | 35.52 | 39.28 | 41.79 | 9.70 | 8.63 | 7.95 | 7.50 |
| Realistic | 14.28 | 16.80 | 20.40 | 22.56 | 24.00 | ||||||||
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 | ||
| M77 shot | AP | 162 | 160 | 148 | 135 | 123 | 113 |
| M82 shot | APCBC | 173 | 170 | 159 | 145 | 133 | 121 |
| M71 shell | HE | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 |
| 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% | |||||||
| M77 shot | AP | 822 | 10.61 | N/A | N/A | N/A | 47° | 60° | 65° |
| M82 shot | APCBC | 813 | 10.94 | 1.2 | 14.0 | 137.2 | 48° | 63° | 71° |
| M71 shell | HE | 823 | 10.55 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 925 | 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) |
| M313 | 821 | 10.7 | 13 | 5 | 20 | 50 |
Ammo racks
| Full ammo |
1st rack empty |
2nd rack empty |
3rd rack empty |
4th rack empty |
5th rack empty |
6th rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 47 | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ (+__) | __ |
Machine guns
| 12.7 mm M2HB | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount | Capacity (Belt) | Fire rate | Vertical | Horizontal |
| Pintle | 1,000 (200) | 576 | -10°/+70° | ±60° |
Usage in battles
Play style with the M36 should be about the same as the M10. The speed is slightly better and armour is still just as thin, but it has an improved turret traverse rate and a 90 mm gun, making it able to engage targets much easier. The play style is also similar to the M18, since they have the same concept - speed and manoeuvrability with a powerful armament.
The greatest advantages of the M36 are its speed and its armament. As such, the best course of action is to make use of the speed to get to good early game positions on the map. The 90 mm gun is powerful at its BR, and it can penetrate many tanks at its BR from the front. But, this is not the case for more heavily armoured targets such as those in the IS series or the Panther series, but it can reliably kill every tank at its BR from the side in 1 to 2 shots because of the high explosive filler in the APCBC round. In addition, most enemy tanks can reliably penetrate you from the front, as the M36 does not have thick armour. Your armour can only protect you when a shell hits it at an extreme angle, or against low penetration weapons, such as those one some anti-aircraft vehicles. All of these factors mean that the M36 should never engage enemy tanks from the front, unless they are preoccupied with a friendly vehicle or not looking in your direction, but the M36 should engage enemies from the side. As such, the M36's mobility should be used to get to positions that the enemy would not expect where it will be able to shoot the enemy in the side before they even realize you are there. The M36 can also use its mobility to flank effectively. If an enemy knows your location and has an operational gun, you should not push out into their line of fire, as they are likely to come of better than you. If an enemy is likely to be able to shoot you, do not chance it, as only one shot will often knock out or disable the M36.
In a downtier, there are not a lot of heavily armoured tanks that the M36 can't penetrate, so the player can also choose to not flank, but to sit at a position and be a sniper. It's best to find a spot that:
- Overlooks a key street / passageway where enemies will likely to pass / go to
- Has hard cover or hill to hull-down
- Has bushes to hide in
- Is not too close to the frontline
This way when any enemy comes in sight, the M36 can easily finish it off, therefore "locking down" this key passageway, preventing the enemies to push and attack which gains a significant advantage to your team.
One thing to note: if there is an enemy plane in the vicinity, getting to cover is a priority as the turret is open topped, and a plane can kill all three turret crew in one pass with only low-calibre machine guns.
Modules
| Tier | Mobility | Protection | Firepower | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | Tracks | Parts | Horizontal Drive | M82 shot | |
| II | Suspension | Brake System | FPE | Adjustment of Fire | |
| III | Filters | Crew Replenishment | Elevation Mechanism | ||
| IV | Transmission | Engine | M313 | ||
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Easily achieves its top speed of 42 km/h regardless of the ground it drives on, allowing it to get to most position in time
- Excellent firepower with a maximum penetration of 173 mm and 137 g TNT; easily pens and one-shots most opponents like the Tiger H1, Pz.IV 70 and the Shermans. Combined with its 5x scope magnification it is a deadly sniper.
- 10° gun depression provides great terrain adaptation.
- Around 16°/sec of turret rotation is adequate to respond to surprise attacks
- Powerful roof mounted M2 MG can deal with light vehicles and incoming planes
Cons:
- Only 5 km/h of reverse speed can get the player killed sometimes.
- Weak armour overall. Can die from artillery strikes or small bombs
- Open topped, vulnerable to aircraft attacks
- Quite big and tall for a tank destroyer. Harder to hide
- Does not have access to the better APCR as the American one
- 4.6k max repair cost
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
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- encyclopedia page on the tank;
- other literature.
| China tank destroyers | |
|---|---|
| PLA | |
| Gun vehicles | PLZ83 · PLZ83-130 · PTZ89 |
| Missile vehicles | AFT09 |
| ROC | |
| Missile vehicles | CM25 |
| USA | |
| Gun vehicles | ␗M8 HMC · LVT(A)(4) (ZiS-2) · ␗M10 GMC · ␗M36 GMC |
| Missile vehicles | ␗M113A1 (TOW) |
| USSR | |
| Gun vehicles | ␗SU-76M · ␗ISU-152 · ␗ISU-122 · ␗SU-100 |
