I played in this tank a lot last night.
It owns the Panzer IV. Hands down.
The only weak spot is that the T34/85 turret can easily be popped by the Panzer, but the Panzer's turret will go out too from the 85mm gun on the T34. And the T34, at ranges in the 1500ish area where I got a lot of kills last night, will kill the Panzer far more often per hit than the Panzer will kill the T34.
My experiences last night include:
Killed a Tiger at 150 yards or so from the side as he passed a gap in a hedge. Killed another Tiger from the front left quarter from 100 yards. Hit a Tiger turret smack in the face from 25 yards and did nothing. This is not a Sherman gun, it is not a silver bullet against the Tiger, but it is capable, particularly if you can hit the side armor, and from longer ranges than the T34/76 would do it.
I killed a bunch of M4s. I recall killing at least two at 800-1000 yards with hvap rounds into the front glacis of the M4. Try killing a Sherman that way in a T34/76 from *any* range and you'll die. Side armor shots into the M4 from 800-1200 yards were one-shot kills probably 90% of the time. You could kill Shermans in the side with the old T34, but you wanted to be much closer before you fired, just to improve your odds. Now you take the shot if you can hit with it, and the M4 is vulnerable.
My expectations of the gun power are actually surpassed. I thought it would be about as effective as the Panzer gun, but I think it's actually a little more powerful than that. It's not as powerful as the Tiger gun or the Sherman gun, but it shouldn't be.
My big complaint is that the T34/85 turret is made of wet toilet paper. Almost anything will pop it, easily. Was it *really* that easy to pop in WWII? I would laugh my butt off, but wouldn't be shocked, if a guy could bail out of his fighter, pop his chute, land near a T34/85 and cap it with his Colt 1911 and smoke the turret.
I did also notice that the hill-climbing ability was very much lessened compared to the old T34, even on very shallow grades. I consistently had to drop a whole gear or so lower than I'd been used to using in that tank.
In short, in a pure tank vs. tank battle, the Sherman will still dominate everything (but the Tiger, which it will be close to be still behind in kill ratio, and for much fewer perks). The T34/85 will come next, followed by the Panzer, then the T34/76 a very distant last. But I drove around the T34/76 in hundreds of missions in recent months, and I'm going to really enjoy using the T34/85. If you can hold onto your turret, you can have a great time in this tank.
