T26E4 Super Pershing

The T26E4 is an American tier 8 heavium tank. Its front is covered in spaced armour, which gives it a strong armour profile, it has a decent 90mm gun, and it has decent enough mobility. The raw engine power is weak, making it quite slow on uneven terrain.

1. Disclaimer
2. Armour
3. Playing against a T26E4
4. Gun
5. Mobility
6. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
7. Gameplay advice
8. Overall
9. Is it worth getting?
10. Most recently sold for:
11. Camo cost:
12. Historical info:

Disclaimer

T26E4 is a medium, but it has many heavy-like characteristics, so in the review it may sometimes be compared to heavy tanks instead of mediums

Whenever the review mentions a tank “facing against” the T26E4, this is assuming that the enemy tank does not fire HEAT, as HEAT is highly ineffective against the T26E4’s armour, and there isn’t much use to give a breakdown of its performance against a T26E4.

In regards to enemy tanks penetrating the T26E4’s armour, there is no definitive “this shell will penetrate, this shell won’t”. Many rounds that this tank faces only have a chance of penetration, and are not guaranteed. Similarly, you can’t rely on the armour with 100% confidence for the same reason, sometimes an enemy will get lucky and penetrate.

Armour

(The T26E4 in the images is using Enhanced Amour)
Image slider may take a few seconds to load

Drag slider Right -> to view 225mm AP
Drag slider <- Left to view 265mm APCR
When facing head on:
Upper plate: 290mm on lower half, 272mm on upper half
Lower plate 210mm
Turret cheeks 140-200mm
Gun mantlet 330mm
Turret roof 150-180mm
Left cupola 140-195mm, Right cupola 150mm

VS tier 7:
Tier 7 tanks will really struggle against the T26E4’s armour. The only weakpoints that tier 7 tanks can really reliably penetrate will be the bottom left and right of the turret cheeks, which aren’t covered by spaced armour, or the left hatch on the roof.

Enemies can also aim for the machine gun port, but its a very hard shot to hit on a moving T26E4.

VS tier 8:
Lower penetration tier 8 tanks (such as MT with under 205mm standard penetration) will face the same issues as tier 7 tanks, and have to aim for the turret cheeks or roof.

Higher penetration tier 8 tanks, with 210mm or more standard penetration, will be able to fairly reliably penetrate the lower plate of the T26E4.

To penetrate other areas of the tank, enemies will have to use premium ammo. This is detailed in-depth in the section below, stating what penetration levels are needed against the different armour plates of the T26E4.

VS tier 9:
Tier 9 tanks will face mostly the same issues as tier 8 tanks. They can reliably penetrate the lower plate, the lower turret cheeks, and the roof areas of the tank.

The upper plate will require most enemies to use premium ammunition to go through, and the gun mantlet will be penetrable to tier 9 enemies, but not reliable. The upper areas of the upper plate are also penetrable, but also not reliable.

(Its important to note that the T26E4’s armour effectiveness greatly increases with movement, as the weakpoints will be much harder to hit, and the combined angling of 3-4 armour plates on the tank’s front which will increase armour effectiveness.)

Side armour:
The T26E4 has 80mm side armour, which is good for a medium tank. Its still best to avoid sidescraping in this tank though, as its front track wheel is quite weak and fairly easy for high caliber tanks to penetrate, even when well angled.

Playing against a T26E4

The T26E4 has many hidden weakpoints. These are shown above and explained below.

Note that these weakpoints are not reliable, as the T26E4 is fully covered in spaced armour, and will likely be moving about in battle, making aiming for these quite hard.

Also note that the black line on the upper plate in the image above shows the division between the thicker (290mm) and thinner (272mm) part of the upper plate.

Gun mantlet center:
Note that the center of the gun mantlet is stated as being 220mm, however this is nominal thickness, and due to the amount of spaced armour and its thickness, penetration reliability is greatly reduced.

The weakpoints at the center of the mantlet are shown above as the green boxes left and right of the gun.

Through quite a bit of testing, it was determined that shells with between 230mm and 265mm penetration have only a roughly 50% chance of penetration when hitting this weakpoint.
Shells with 270mm or more penetration are far more reliable and able to more consistently penetrate the mantlet center.

Lower plate:
The lower plate will often be highlighted red, though this is a fake highlight. It is penetrable by rounds with 210mm penetration or more.

Some rounds with 200-205mm may be able to penetrate occasionally, but its far less reliable, even when the tank is not angled.

The yellow highlight on the lowest part of the lower plate is where the hull doesn’t extend to. This area is just a spaced armour plate, there is no actual armour behind it.

Machine gun port:
This area is only 80mm thick, and is penetrable to every tank in tiers 7-9. Its a very hard shot to hit, but its a weakpoint.

The green highlight around the machine gun port (shown above) is covered in spaced armour, and you’ll need about 220mm or more penetration to be able to go through.

Green highlight on upper plate:
This area is the least angled part of the upper plate, with only 1 plate of spaced armour over it. This area can be penetrated roughly 60% of the time by 220mm or more penetration.

Blue areas on the turret:
These areas are very hard to penetrate, and you should avoid shooting them regardless of how much penetration you have. These areas may show up as being penetrable in game, but they aren’t.

Yellow area on turret:
This is a 15mm box which half covers the cupola, and its not penetrable to enemy standard rounds. To penetrate this reliably, you’ll need around 260mm of penetration.

Gun

The T26E4 mounts a 90mm gun

-Alpha damage is 225 on AP, 190 on APCR, and 270 on HE
-It has a 6.1s reload giving it 2227 DPM
-Penetration on AP is 205mm, APCR is 258mm, and HE is 45mm.
–Estimated aim time is 3.3s/3.6s
–Base aim time is 1.9s, but it can get down to 1.55s.
-Dispersion is 0.344/0.310
–Gun handling is 0.2/0.2/0.12, or 0.17/0.17/0.1 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -10 degrees

This gun is decent, its penetration is good, its aim is good, its DPM is decent (but not great for its lower alpha), but its accuracy is mediocre and it has poor gun handling. The gun depression is very nice and makes the tank very flexible.

Overall this gun feels alright, its quite derpy and inaccurate if you don’t stop to aim shots, but when you do stop and let the gun aim, it gets fairly accurate quite quickly, and the penetration is nice.

Mobility

-Top speed is 40.2km/h forwards, and -18km/h in reverse
-Traverse speed is 48.9 deg/s on hard terrain, and 43.5 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 11.3 hp/t, it has a weak 575 hp engine for its 51 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 14.1 hp/t on hard terrain, and 12.5 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are very good, at 0.8/0.9/1.1

The terrain resistances save this tank’s mobility from being poor. There is so little differentiation in its terrain resistance stats that the tank hardly loses any mobility, whether its on road, off road, or in water.
Overall the mobility of the tank is pretty good, especially when compared to heavy tanks. It has great traverse speed, decent top speed, very good reverse speed, and quite good acceleration.
Compared to mediums though, this mobility is sluggish.

(Note that due to this tank having a weak raw acceleration rate, it slows down by a huge amount when going up hills, as it just doesn’t have the strong engine needed for it, even though its terrain resistances give it an improved effective acceleration rate.)

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

The T26E4 has no special consumables or provisions.

Engine power boost consumable:
Though the mobility of the T26E4 is actually quite good by heavy standards, sometimes you may want to use this consumable to boost that mobility. Due to its fairly weak engine for its weight, this consumable is very helpful for going up hills or quickly reaching and staying at the 40km top speed.

Gun Rammer:
T26E4 has quite good penetration on both its standard and its premium ammunition, and so it doesn’t need calibrated shells. Its DPM is not very impressive though, so it definitely cannot afford to drop the gun rammer from its loadout. Most enemy mediums will have better DPM and are already at an advantage, lowering your DPM by using calibrated shells only gives enemies a bigger advantage ofer your tank.

Use the gun rammer, it gives this tank a 6.1s reload with 225 alpha, giving it 2227 DPM. This is still decent enough, and you’ll be able to still out-reload many enemies with higher alpha.

Enhanced Armour/Improved Assembly:
Both improved assembly and enhanced armour are a valid equipment choice on this tank.

Improved assembly will let your tank take more hits when it gets penetrated, as it would improve the base HP from 1400 up to 1484. The tank’s already good armour will still hold up well against most enemies it faces.

Enhanced armour will improve the frontal armour of the tank on the armoured areas, the upper plate, lower plate, and the gun mantlet. This importantly makes it easier to bounce shots off the lower plate, and from enemies with very high penetration rounds which may be able to go through the mantlet or upper plate.

Enhanced armour won’t benefit the weak turret cheeks, as even low penetration tier 7 tanks can penetrate those easily.

Vertical Stabilizer:
As the T26E4 is a more frontline brawling tank, it will constantly be on the move, and thus needs to have good gun stabilization as it often won’t have time to fully aim.

Though the accuracy of the tank is not great, its also not bad enough to warrant using refined gun, so take vertical stabilizer. Gun stabilization is the most lacking aspect on this gun, and its vital to improve it.

Gameplay advice

T26E4 is a “medium heavium”. Its a tank with heavy-like characteristics, but it plays on the medium flank.

General gameplay:
Try to avoid going to the heavy flank unless you have to. Though the T26E4 is a heavuim, its strengths are only really an advantage when they are used on the medium tank.

Heavies have just as much armour, more penetration, more alpha, and more HP than your tank, and will just “be a heavy tank” better than the T26E4 can. Its better to use your tank’s armour advantage against medium tanks, so go to the medium side of the map.

Position your tank well, don’t try taking positions that your tank isn’t capable of taking. Its very slow by medium standards, so don’t be rushing aggressive early positions like the hill on mines, and don’t cross out in the open when the early stages of the battle are passed. Your tank is slow and will get caught out.

Go hulldown:
Even though the lower plate is fully covered by spaced armour, its still weak against most same tier enemies, and all higher tier enemies. The lower plate is also the most well known weakpoint on any tank, so most enemies will automatically try to aim for this.

Hiding the lower plate makes your tank harder to penetrate against same and higher tier enemies, and they will have to take more time to aim for either the turret roof or turret cheeks.

Use gun depression:
The T26E4 has a very good -10 gun depression, when using this it hides the lower plate and makes the upper plate much stronger.

Even though the weakpoints on the turret cheeks are still showing, you can mitigate this by moving back and fourth along the ridgeline. This can cause less accurate enemies to miss and either hit the hull or the gun mantlet. Moving slightly also makes it much harder for enemies to hit the hidden weakpoints on the hull or the gun mantlet, and overall just lets the T26E4’s armour be far more effective.

Bait with your frontal armour.
An example of this is shown below. As the T26E4 has so much spaced armour on its front, that when it becomes over-angled, nothing can really reliably penetrate it, whether its HEAT, AP, or APCR.

Baiting with your hull should be done in situations where you want to push out around a corner, but enemies are holding their shot.
Many enemies will expect the lower plate to be penetrable at that angle, so sometimes players will shoot your over-angled hull when you poke out like this.

Aim your shots.
Due to the poor gun handling for its fairly low alpha, and its rather mediocre accuracy, make sure to not rush shots. The base aim time of the tank is relatively quick, so you don’t need to aim for too long to make sure your shot is accurate. If you don’t aim, then its likely you will miss quite a few shots just due to the tank’s poor gun handling.

Try to avoid 1-on-1 fights.
The DPM of this tank is fairly decent, in the scope of all tier 8s, however for a 225 alpha medium tank, it gets beaten in DPM and reload time by tanks with similar 220, 225, and 240 alpha guns.

Try to avoid getting in a 1v1 fight with an enemy medium tank unless absolutely necessary, as good players will often be able to out-DPM, out-trade, and find the weakspots in your tank’s armour.

Wiggle the armour and constantly move the tank:
Try to always angle and wiggle the tank when your lower plate is exposed or when backing into cover. It makes weakpoints harder to aim for, and is really helped by the T26E4’s good traverse speed.

Due to having fairly thick spaced armour and decent spacing between it and the base armour, angling and wiggling the tank’s front will greatly increase the chances of enemies being unable to penetrate.

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The T26E4 is not an ultra aggressive medium tank, despite its improved armour. Its lower DPM and alpha mean that it has to maintain a slower style of gameplay, and it excels in situations that don’t progress extremely quickly. If the battle moves too quickly then the T26E4 can’t keep up with the pace, both with its speed and with its gun; and in such quick battles it hardly gets to use its armour anyway.

Don’t play over aggressively in this tank and you should be able to do quite well in it.

Overall

Armour – 8.5/10
Gun – 4.5/10
Mobility – 4/10
Speed – 3/10

T26E4 Super Pershing is overall an alright tank, but not great. 

Armour is very strong for a medium. Upper plate and lower plate are both thick, and the turret has a strong gun mantlet. Only downsides are small but numerous turret weakpoints.
Gun has poor gun handling and mediocre dispersion, but good penetration and gun depression. DPM is fairly low for its also mediocre alpha damage.
Mobility is poor, with a very weak engine, though good terrain resistances. Traverse speed and reverse speed are decent considering the armour.
Speed is low for a medium, 40.2km/h.

Is it worth getting?

The T26E4 is an OK tank, it can perform well, as all tanks do, but most of the time its just quite average in its performance.

Its armour is very good for a medium, with the upper plate, lower plate, and gun mantlet able to rival heavy tanks, though it still has weakpoints around the mantlet. This is all the tank really offers, as its weak engine ruins its speed on any uphill terrain (even very small inclines), and its gun is just below average in overall handling and DPM.

Overall the T26E4 is currently not worth getting. If you like what the T26E4 offers, maybe consider a T26E5 instead, as it has similar capabilities, but is much more suited to the tier 8 meta.

The T26E4 is worth 5,500 gold. The tank is decent, but not that great. It can still work in battles, and it does have the highest credit earning potential in game.
As its a tier 8 tank it earns far more than lower tier and higher tier premiums, and it has the highest credit coefficient of any tier 8 tank, at 190%.

Most recently sold for:

7,500 gold in bundle with T34 & KV-5– August 2023

Camo cost:

Historical info:

The T26E4 was an upgrade attempt on the M26 Pershing towards the very end of World War 2.

The T26E4 was fitted with a much more powerful and long barrelled gun, increasing its accuracy and penetration ability.

A counter weight was placed on the turret rear to keep balance in the turret, due to the much heavier and longer gun.

Strong springs were placed in 2 cylinders on the roof of the tank, and were attached to the top of the gun mantlet. These springs would help the gun to remain balanced and in place during movement (and when not moving), and would also help with the gun elevation and depression.
-The released tension of the springs would work against gravity when elevating the gun, thus making it easier for the gun to aim upwards.
-The additional tension from pulling the springs (when aiming the gun down) would cause the gun’s depression angle to be easier to control, as the spring tension was acting against the gravity from the long and heavy gun barrel.

The spaced armour plates were taken from destroyed Panther tanks and pieces from a metal boiler. The additional weight was not counteracted by any stronger engine, hence the T26E4 was an extremely weak-engined vehicle.

History in game:
T26E4 along with the T34 was one of the earliest American tanks in WoT Blitz.

The legendary camo used to be called “Hunter”, Wargaming changed the name when they wanted to use the name for ISU-152’s camo.

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