M36 GMC (China)
| This page is about the tank destroyer M36 GMC (China). For other versions, see M36 Jackson (Family). |
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Contents
Description
The ␗90-mm Gun Motor Carriage M36 represents the PVA (People's Voluntary Army, 中國人民志願軍) captured M36 at Cheorwon County (철원군，鐵原郡) during the Korean War or the 10 M36 in ROCA service (see history for more details); ROCA utilized their M36s during the First Taiwan Strait Crisis where the ROCA used them as a mobile artillery platform to fire back upon PLAGF as part of the artillery wars between the two powers. These M36s did have claimed records on both victories or losses against PLAGF until the late-1970s when they were eventually decommissioned and spread out through the Taiwan Island and on Kinmen Island as monuments.
Introduced in Update 1.91 "Night Vision" as part of the Chinese tech tree, it is a version of the American M36 GMC in the Chinese tech tree, the vehicle shares identical characteristics. The only major differences is the Chinese M36 does not possess the M304 APCR shot round available to the American M36 GMC.
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°) |
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 | |
Modifications and economy
| Mobility | Protection | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armaments
Main armament
The 90 mm 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 | 185 | 182 | 169 | 155 | 142 | 130 |
| M71 shell | HE | 20 | 20 | 18 | 17 | 16 | 16 |
| 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 | - | - | - | 47° | 60° | 65° | |||
| M82 shot | APCBC | 853 | 10.91 | 1.2 | 14 | 137.2 | 48° | 63° | 71° | |||
| M71 shell | HE | 823 | 10.55 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 1,210 | 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 | 9 | 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 | 39 (+8) | 30 (+17) | 21 (+26) | 12 (+35) | 7 (+40) | 1 (+46) | No |
Notes:
- Recommended load is 21 (+26) shells to remove most ammo from the hull.
- Racks 5 and 6 are ready racks and take priority in being filled as well as depleted.
- Full reload speed will be realized as long as ammo exists in either ready racks. If both ready racks are empty, a penalty to reload speed will occur.
- Simply not firing when the main gun is loaded will load ammo from racks 1 to 4 into 5 then 6, as long as there is ammo present in racks 1 to 4. Firing the main gun will interrupt the loading of the ready racks.
Machine guns
| 12.7 mm M2HB | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mount | Capacity (Belt) | Fire rate | Vertical | Horizontal |
| Pintle | 1,000 (200) | 576 | -10°/+70° | ±60° |
Usage in battles
Playstyle with the M36 should be about the same as the M10 GMC. 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 playstyle 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.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Easily achieves its top speed of 42 km/h regardless of the terrain, allowing it to get to most positions in good time
- Excellent firepower; easily penetrates and knocks out 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 like the American one
History
ROCA Service
Under known documentations, the PLA nor ROCA received the M36 GMC (but PLA did captured one during the Korean War as PVA [People's Voluntary Army] in 1951, now displayed in Beijing), however the ROCA have received the M36B2 variant from France.
As part of the retreat from Vietnam due to the total loss of French Indo-China, 8 of the M36B2 of the French Army were returned to USA and then handed to ROCA in 1955 to the 3rd Armored Artillery Company, 600th Field Artillery Group of Kinmen Defense Command as a part of the emergency military aid against the ongoing artillery war between ROCA and PLA at costal Xiamen/Kinmen. They were positioned into fortified position with a slope for better trajectory against PLA targets on the other side of the Xiamen Bay. A memoir from a ROCA veteran claimed that one of these M36B2 took down a PLA broadcast station while records from ROCA have recorded losses of two M36B2 during the war.[1] The remaining of these M36s were likely decommissioned in 2000 as some photo suggests that two of them were still in commission as late as 2001.
All the remaining 6 tanks are currently in Taichung (at Chenggongling Training Facility), Hsinchu (in ROCA Armor Training Command at Hukou Township; a theme park at Xinfeng Township respectively), Kaohsiung (ROCMC School at Zuoying) and 3 on Kinmen (2 are still in their combat fortifications while the remaining known one is at the Rushan Fort [乳山故壘] tank walkway[2])
Media
- Skins
See also
- Vehicles equipped with the same chassis
- M36 Jackson (Family), except the M36B1
- M10 (Family)
External links
References
- Citations
| 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 |
