M26 is a gorgeous tank. Right next to the T34 as most beautiful tank of the war.
I too would love to see it in the game, definitely as a perk ride though. The story of the M26 is a fascinating one although I never knew Patton was against deploying it. That shows a real lack of common sense and concern for his soldiers. Patton was a schmuck....I am sure of it. They did not start building the first 20 T26E3s until November of 1944 and even then the Army Ground Forces Board wanted to dick around with deploying the damned things. Then the Battle of the Bulge happened and the American General Staff intervened in the disagreements about M26 configuration/battle testing and finally ordered immediate shipment of the 20 available T26E3s to Europe without further bureaucratic hassling.
They had the basic vehicle (T25 mounting the 90mm cannon) designed and ready to mass produce in April of 43. I dont have any hard data here but it should be safe to that hundreds, if not thousands of M4 crewmen were killed and wounded who otherwise would have remained safe inside a M26 Pershing. It was a tragic affair to have given priority to the M4 series over this weapon.
Yep, it was really a good design and shows how good the U.S. was at incorporating the lessons everyone learned in tank Design from all fighting. The basic design changed very little until the M47.
Power pack in the rear, so no drive shaft running through the hull making the tank taller.
Well sloped cast armor so its well protected and easy to produce.
Good suspension.
Gun stabilizer
Good gun system
Decent power
Reliable
Had the war gone on with the Germans the Pershing and better crews would have much less trouble with German armor. Not to mention the later war M4s like the A1 and A3 were showing up with the HVSS suspension and decent 76MM gun that was enough to handle Panzer 4s with ease(T34 as well).
We would have been able to handle the Russian armor fairly well, as Korea showed. I think the Pershing would have handled the JS 2 fine... maybe not the 3 though, but the 3 wasn't that good of a tank. Had we needed to we would have had super Pershing in the fight that could handle anything with its gun.
