Of M4 Improved Description

Hello everyone,

a while ago, new American tier 5 medium tank was leaked from supertest – the M4 Improved. I wrote about it here. There is this little thing about it I noticed… well, let’s have a look. This is the M4 Imp model in the game:

BblwDEgSt4o

Notice the mantlet and the turret. Now, the description of this vehicle from the supertest client:

imp

It says: “A project of the M4 tank with sloped hull and turret armor was developed by the Detroit Arsenal company in August 1942. The implementation of this project would bring significant improvement to the Sherman tank protection without increasing its weight and worsening vehicle characteristics. This tank existed only in drawings”.

Hmm… but wait, that’s odd. If you remember, I wrote a short article about the history of the project. In it, I took the data from possibly the best resource for the Sherman tank, Hunnicutt’s “History of the American medium tank” book (page 195 onwards) and Hunnicutt states that the Sherman Improved design was submitted on 13.3.1942 by Aberdeen, not Detroit. The Aberdeen proposal looked like this:

M4_IP

As you can see, this drawing is obviously the vehicle modelled in the game. So where did that Detroit come from?

Well, after the Aberdeen study, Detroit Arsenal followed up on it and created another “improved Sherman” later on, in August 1942. The Detroit proposal looked like this:

untitled

As you can see, it looks quite different from the original M4 Improved by Aberdeen. Basically, Wargaming did put wrong description to the vehicle, the one modelled in the game is the Aberdeen proposal, not the Detroit one. It’s not a big thing, just an interesting one – well, to me anyway.

33 thoughts on “Of M4 Improved Description

  1. Please don’t tell me it’s another premium or reward tank… please.

    When will we have more proper tech branches ?

    • Mid to late 2015 at the earliest. Look for mentions of French mediums, Japanese TDs (?), or even a European branch in other FTR articles.

        • Yeah Britbongs are fine and stuff but they have gotten enough love recently. Why they can’t focus more on researching french tanks ? They keep complaining they’re unpopular but that’s because all X’s have auto-loaders which aren’t for eveyrone! C’mon WG, make some french regulars!

          I just can’t look at how they’re going to waste AMX CdC by making it premium.

          Oh yeah and they could actually complete chinese tech, I mean, this would actually be cash for them once it hits Chinese server!

          Eh 2014 was a bad year for WoT, no new tanks except for Britbongs and half of features promised instead of those new tanks were postponed or scrapped…

      • Gosh I’d love Jap TD’s! As for Frenchies… I feel happy and sad they’ll give us FINALLY AMX-30 but why no midle stuff ? AMX CdC is tested and ready, they invented WT auf E-100 so why they can’t invent french tech for tier VI and VII?!

        They still have G1 project to fill the gaps, ain’t even mad if they used it to connect several branches. It’s historical and sexy like all french tanks :^)

        • They don’t need to build any tank : France have still ~100 and more canditates for wot…

  2. O, SS, you are such a tank nerd. :P

    Anyways, I agree, the reknown WG quality control failed here.

    But seriously, do we need more premium/reward, lowtier, poor armour tanks in the game? Meeh, spend the modeling tema elsewhere please.

  3. Personally, between the two, Detroid proposal looks more interesting. Wonder why they went for Aberdeen…

  4. I guess we will see lots of premium/reward tanks popping up – IM missions will be up and they need reward tanks.
    I wonder but I start to suspect they turn FV4202 into a reward tank.

  5. Is it just me, or does the Aberdeen proposal look like an M4 that crossbred with a Panther?