T29 tank – possible mantlet changes

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Source: The_Chieftain’s Facebook page

Hello everyone,

looks like we have some changes upcoming in the T29 Heavy mantlet. For those who don’t remember, the T29 mantlet looks currently like this:

T29

Yesterday, Chieftain managed to quickly visit the Fort Benning base, where the real life T29 is located to do some measurements. Here are a few pictures of the event, as published on his Facebook page (go ahead and “like” it, lots of interesting stuff there):

ben1

ben2

ben3

As you can see from the photos, the mantlet is significantly thinner than it is in the game. According to Chieftain’s post on US forums:

As to T29/34/30 mantlets, the gun area appears to be about 10″, and within 5″ of the gun thins down to 8″ where it stays. The only thicker areas are the ‘wings’ and ‘overhangs’ at the top and bottom, which are a good foot thick but will merely frame the mantlet.

Based on that statement, here’s a drawing from FaustianQ (US forum) on how it might actually look like in milimeters:

T29GS_zps0eb7ef87

Well, at least that’s what Chieftain measured. Whether this will be implemented into the game (or when) is not known. It is possible the developers will take the same route with T29 like they did with the Tiger – they might nerf the armor and offset it with something else. I am not well versed in US tanks, but what I think happened is that the original 279mm were taken from Hunnicutt’s book (as it was projected for the tank to have the mantlet this thick). That’s the reason this might actually go both ways and T29 might stay as it is.

75 thoughts on “T29 tank – possible mantlet changes”

    • its called Wot Tank Viewer ;-)
      its realy a nice program that runs outside of wot you can look up all the armor thickness from all tanks and you can also give your tank a cammo paint and so on ;-)

      • WOT Viewer does all this for free. Anyone that pays is stupid and the website should be illegal because the makers charge money for content made by WarGaming.

        • It’s not like they are forcing you to pay anything. When I payed for that site (surprisingly fast service, and it’s 1 dollar, not 3) WOT Viewer wasn’t available to the public.

          Also, i don’t know if WOT viewer shows hidden stats like ground resistance and dispersion on the move but that in itself was worth the 1 dollar, the armor models are just a bonus.

          They also give detailed changelogs between patches, something which WG seems to refuse to do themselves.

          • And where does it says that all that info(ground resistance, dispersion etc.) are correct on that site and not some info pulled out of their arses?

  2. Hmm, since the mantlet is spaced armor, even the “thin” 203mm mantlet would still be a big problem for tier 7,8 tanks and even some tier 9 tanks, so I don’t see this is a really really big nerf :P

  3. If they nerf T30 like this than that gentle monster is officialy dead. But if they decide to buff RoF on it’s guns(mainly 155), even if that tank needs that buff badly it would make it a bit OP.

  8. I do think if they make this change, it would be a big nerf. As you can see, behind the thickest area of the current mantlet of the T29 is a zero armor thickness zone.

    Thus if they nerf the mantlet in front of this area from 279mm to 203mm, most tier 8 heavy tank guns and anything above that will be able to go through it pretty reliably and given that this tank’s biggest strengths are its immense turret armor, its amazing gun depression and its penetration, this tank would be severely worse.

        • Working as intended ; the ARL 44 and AMX M4 45 were designed to be money and experiences trenches to prevent too many people from owning AMX 50′s.

          • I skipped halfway from ARL to the AMX M4 by free XP I earned and I have to confess if I earned more free XP sooner I would probably skip whole ARL; but it is not that it is a bad tank, it just has wrong playstyle for me, too sluggish, unreliable turret armor and too weak sides for effective angling. But that gun, on T6… it is a beast of its own. AMX M4 I do not have elite yet but already I can feel its potential, when elite it may be a little FCM50t perhaps

  10. I really hope it will not be implemented when I just started to enjoy playing with T29 :/

  12. Hey SilentStalker, you might want to read the Chief’s response to Faustian’s picture. To summarize, the red lines drawn for 254mm and 305mm should be twice as thick as shown.

  13. As a happy T29 driver, I don’t feel a change to historical values would affect my enjoyment of the vehicle in question. However, as a relatively unhappy T34 driver and worried future T30 driver, I hope they leave it the way it is.

    • IMO it will still be able to bounce quite a few shots. My Centurion Mk.1 has a 165mm mantlet and it bounces tier 8s and 9s all day when hull-down. As long as they don’t hit the very sloped roof which has only 51mm(IIRC) armour.

      • Wrong. The turret front itself is 165mm, the mantlet is 100/200mm (the upper/lower 100mm thick parts overlap with the turret front).

        The roof is 50mm, but it’s at near ricochet angle, so it will just autobounce sub-150mm guns with some added angle (i.e. hulldowned on an incline).

        • Still, even at 200mm with empty space behind it (which is what the T29 apparently actually has) and 100mm with 165mm behind it (still less than the T29′s 279mm mantlet), it bounces well enough.

          BTW, I might have missed it while reading, but does the article have any reference to the front turret armour behind the mantlet in the real T29?

  15. Interesting,

    but I just though about Gameplay. ATM T29 is a bit overpowered, cause something should be wrong with the commander copula. T29 is rly hard to PEN at least. Not like that T30, T34 one (And i tested it with the same guns). But if i though now over this:
    Well Goldammo can then Pen the T29 turret at T7, not to mention T8 TD’s can pen by every shoot, but well maybe thats the new T29 but what would they do with T30/34. They r T9 and T8 and atleast the T9 T30 then ve a really big Problem with those L7 on the Mediums and in T10 (at least should be 50% of games) not to mention what then happened.

    So if they change this I relly interested how they ll balance them. More Speed for T29/34 and for T30 reload time and aiming circle buff? So a T9 turret TD with something around of 14s for 750 average dmg on a gun needs just 1s aiming to be fully aimed with maybe 2k HP?

  16. good, nerf every tank which is fun in any way (‘OP’ tanks), so we will have only average performing-boring useless garbages. and the best garbage will be OP – so it will be nerfed again, until we will just sit in paper boxes, shooting at the enemy with our fingers.
    and those who got longer fingers, will be cut off, because they are overpowered.

    • Getting real tired of this slippery slope bullshit.
      >Implying every tank will have to be identical to be well-balanced
      >Implying nerfs continue even after balance has already been achieved

    • Nope it is not, cause if u look first Picture u see that behind the Plate there is the white room with 0 Armor. So if u get hittet there ur gun ll be dead almost the time.

      And thats the point, atm the turret is so gd cause the plate is so thick u can pen itself. But if they nerv the plate ll ve a gd chance to pen it, if u do so and hit the right place u ll do dmg, cause behind is no more armor, just a gun. Like that new german TD’s

  18. While we’re at it, according to FaustianQ, the T34 only had -8 depression (as the 120mm has a bigger breech than the T29′s 105), I assume this applies to the T30 as well.

    But there are plenty of historical inaccuracies that WG ought to be aware of, and I’m pretty sure at least the non-OP T34 and T30 get to keep the “projected” 279mm mantlet, just like the Maus has the “projected” 20km/h top speed, instead of the real 13km/h.

    • “at least the non-OP T34 and T30 get to keep the “projected” 279mm mantlet, just like the Maus has the “projected” 20km/h top speed, instead of the real 13km/h.”
      Exactly, The Maus is the real measure of how balance is achieved by creating the perfect scenario version of the tank. If the Maus or Tortoise were to have their “real life” speed we would not play those tanks ever, so if WG.net were to nerf the American T29/T34/T30, which may I remind you are capable or being Penned by premium Tier 3 ammo if fired in the right place (I know, I killed a low health t29 with my M22 Locust), the tanks would forever be consigned to hiding back at base and hoping for a win. At present, its not wise to be in front of the team in the T34 or T30, they are far to weak frontally to take any sort of blows, and for the most part can’t angle to achieve any bounciness. The only current advantage of that line of tanks is the Mantle which can be use by hiding behind team mates and large obstacles. If Wg.net nerfs the gun mantle, what sort of buff can you expect with these tanks? I know from watching the prototype trials videos that the T29 series tanks were horrible at climbing hills or plowing through snow, they needed a whole compliment of ground crew to make sure the tank didn’t get stuck. So giving it speed/mobility would kinda be a stretch, and buffing the alpha of American guns would force a buff to other nations 120mm guns, making it more accurate would cause more heavies camping in games full of TDS…etc, etc… This is why I feel that there is no good reason to change to mantle, the tanks are fairly well balanced as they are.

  19. I dont mean to starm any shitstorms, but would it really be that bad for t29?

    T29 has great gun, great gun depression, good sidescraping ability due to huge tracks, impenetrable turret and decent hull armor for its tier (yeah I know, but well sloped 102mm is still better than most other tier 7s). It IS the best tier 7 heavy, no questions asked.
    But even with mantlet nerfed like this it would still be VERY tough to pen while hulldown – “cheeks” are well armored and sloped, theres still some turret armor behind that mantlet so it would be impenetrable there + the 254 armor around the gun. It would be kind of Tiger “random bounces on mantlet” kind of armor, only the “weak” points on t29s turret would equal the “strong” points on tigers turret. It just wouldnt be so fucking annoying to meet hulldown t29 shooting gold while hulldown in your tier 9 tanks.

    • That’s the problem right there, though; there ISN’T any armor behind the mantle where people would be shooting (more in towards the gun). That 203mm is as good as you get.

      To be perfectly honest, I don’t see an issue with it when normal AP is flying around. Tier 7 tanks will still have issues, tier 8s will need solid hits at closer ranges (mantle wriggling can help, and at midrange will make it just as tough as before), tier 9s will laugh at it, but that seems to be what WG wants with the whole tier +2 MM thing that they love so much; every now and then, you’ll be in a game where you’re extra-screwed, especially in a tank that relies on armor.

      But then you factor gold ammo into the equation, and…yea. Rarely do people bother trying to use skill of any sort when dealing with someone positioned correctly, it’s far easier to just load gold, go through their strongest armor, move on. Loading gold against same-tier tanks is pretty pathetic, but many people simply don’t care and want to win; this seems particularly true with members of certain big clans. With this change, the T29 becomes another victim of credit premium that so many people were bitching up a storm wanting (until it was actually done and everyone realized how stupidly terrible it was for game balance).

      So in summary, under normal circumstances it would be fine. As soon as you factor in premium ammo, as with nearly everywhere else, it kind of falls apart. My condolences in advance, T29 drivers.

      • > there ISN’T any armor behind the mantle

        Thats what people keep saying, no armor behind mantlet, but im pretty sure on the gif above i see that only the middle part of the mantlet isnt further strenghened by turret armor, making the “only” 203mm armor quite small, like maybe half of the whole mantlet. It would still be tough, with turret wiggling VERY tough, just not “I IS STRONK I KIL NOOBS” tough.

        Your argument about gold ammo stands, obviously, but then again I think even mauses armor is pretty useless versus gold, WG just chose to not balance that.

  20. Good, this tank was borderline OP, especially given all the nature maps with their abundance of hills. Even the BL-10, a tier X gun, rarely it from the front. Hopefully the next step will be to nerf the aimtime of the autoloaders after each shot to end their physics-defying machine-sniping BS.

      • I have far less of a problem with the French then I do with the Americans since at least the French have no gun depression and paper armor.

        The American autoloaders, though, have good depression and fair mantlet armor that pwns everything at or below their tier. You fire on their hull-down form once, bounce, and they dump a full clip on you from a distance then run away to reload. It doesn’t matter if THEY bounce once or twice since they’ve got four+ shots off in the time you’ve got one, so you’re the loser in every case unless you just so happen to come upon them when they’re reloading, which never happens unless their team does absolutely nothing to cover them as they run.

    • So this is me guessing you’ve only ever been on the receiving end of the things. Because there’s kind of a reason the standard equipement and crewskill setup for all autoloaders is “anything that helps aimtime”…
      Mind, the WTF100 can presumably make do without but it’s a very “extreme”, Jeune École design anyway.

      • yeah i see the aimtime is already kinda bad, and it should be made permanently so. Pretty sure those tanks already can’t mount rammers (thank god), stabilizers and GLDs should be out too.

        I haven’t played the American autoloaders but I tried the AMX 50 100 and even when I did badly I still did like 3x more damage than an average game in a German tank.

  21. The KV-3 is a better tank IMHO. There is no armor behind the mantle of the T29, and TBH, nerfing the hull down tanks to 203mm isn’t really needed. The T29 is slightly over performing, but remember, it is an arty magnet, it has pretty poor accuracy, its hull armor is pretty good in a tier 7 game but nothing more, its gun is solid in everything except accuracy, and you get your gun knocked out a lot. Nerf the gun mantle, and you’re almost better off having a faster, just as well armored, and much more maneuverable M26 Pershing. I find the T29 very easy to kill in my KV-3, except when he is in a hull down position. However, the cupola is still very much penetrable, and the cheeks are penetrable, and smacking HE shots into his gun mantlet will more than likely knock his gun out.

  22. I just thought of something, since the Chieftain managed to quickly visit the Fort Benning base, would we be not wrong to hope for a under the Chieftain’s hatch on one of those tanks because the T95 lives there :)

    But back on the Topic, it really can go both ways, they may change it or not, it all depends on if they want to or not

  23. Guess that I will park my M6 after researching the 90mm. May has well wait to see what WG does.

  24. The Chief says he got inside a T30 turret soon after, he found out there seems to be an internal mantlet as well.
    Chief :
    “As to T29, there is an epilogue. I was able to climb into a T30 today, and it turns out there’s an internal mantlet.

    The ‘tube’ through which the sky is showing is the 8″ of mantlet. Then you can see that there is a gap of a couple of inches, and another circle in metal. That’s about a half inch thick, probably 3/8. But you can also see that that’s just the thin bit, there are bracings of steel up to a couple inches thick on the inside as well.
    I also re-evaluate my statement on the rigid-mount mantlet on T34. Looking at the curve on the top of the T30 I was on today, I think it actually is a standard 29/30/34 mantlet.”

  25. Perhaps people will learn to not be brainlessly sitting there with turret sticking out of cover after firing?

    The mantlet didn’t really make much difference to Bl-10.