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Greetings All,
Its been a while, but I’ve been playing again. I’m continuing my grueling exodus through the quagmire of utter mediocrity that is the Tier IX American autoloader. And whoo boy! It is just utterly...mediocre. It’s not terrible, but it’s not really all that good. Now, I won’t claim to be the best player in the world, and I’ve only had the 105mm for about 20 games thus far. But here’s my breakdown of the Pros and Cons of this vehicle:
Pros:
- Solid HP pool for a Tier IX medium, much less an autoloader. 1750 with the HP upgrade is very very good.
- Trollish armor, especially in the turret front.
- 230mm of AP pen is solid, not amazing, but perfectly serviceable.
- 930 burst damage in 5 secs is pretty ok (below is the * on that)
- Has the durability and armor to bully lower tiered tanks.
Cons:
- Outside of troll bounces (even on Tier X TDs) the armor is poor. The side and rear armor (especially on the turret) gets perforated, and the hull is just about useless due to the massive lower glacis.
- Huge profile and awful camo rating combined with meh view range mean enemies likely get the drop on you 9/10 times.
- 310/260 alpha is just not enough, especially if enemies force you into trading (which almost all will). Without an HE shell, quickly taking out dangerous Borsigs, WTs, and Grilles is simply not possible.
- Turret ring is vulnerable, and is often damaged.
- Speed and mobility are not very good.
- Gun depression and elevation are restrictive.
- Gun is utterly unreliable, often 1-2 shots per magazine will simply bounce or miss completely, even with full equipment.
- Stock grind is appalling, the 90mm basically requires one to fire gold at any Tier IX-X tank to pen reliably. Mobility also painful.
So in conclusion, I feel the cons outweigh the pros for this tank. While it isn’t awful, it simply doesn’t feel competitive at a tier that is largely very balanced and competitive. Personally, a buff to 350 alpha and/or the addition of some even semi-decent HE would make the gun much more powerful offensively.
As of now, the T54E1 plays like a big, sluggish target. Often focused due to being an autoloader, but not really having quite enough firepower to match that status and large and vulnerable body.
