I've had the tier 8 M6A2E1 EXP for a quite a while now. It's advantages are front hull armor, penetration, and gun depression and height. It's disadvantages are the super weak armor on the sides and rear, and it's height. It's different from any other tank in the game so you have to play it different.
It's height is a weakness and an advantage. It sticks above a lot of cover, it's the size of a barn, it's HE-able, you need to be real careful about crossing open space. But it's also an advantage, it's height combined with it's gun depression allow it to shoot over cover no other tank could, if someone tried to face hug you can often put a shot right into their back deck. You just need to think about unspotted TD's and firing lines before you try to change position in it.
It's front armor is also a double edged sword. It's strong enough to bounce shots from most equal tier tanks you see, but not all. Tanks with high pen will be able to punch through, you need to watch out for T34's, ISU-152's, and for T49's trying to zoom behind and hit you in the butt. But to counteract that weakness, you are also a high pen tank. You can pen any tank that can pen you. I think the problem people have is that they get a lot of armor and forget that they might still need to use cover too.
Most tanks, when facing you head on, will be able to pen the sides of your turret next to your mantlet. It's a small target to hit, a little bit of turret wiggling will do you good, you'll get more bounces than you deserve there.
And finally, now that we've discussed it's weaknesses, don't worry about them so much. It's a bully tank, everybody knows that if it shoots at you it's likely to pen. Get out there and point your gun at them, even if you don't get the shot off they're gonna try to duck and hide, or reposition, and that's when they make mistakes. This tank can be a threat to any tier 8 and most tier 9's, make those tanks keep thinking about you and reacting to you, you'll end up with more wins than you think.
I love this tank.
Edited by _Cletus, 03 September 2019 - 05:00 PM.