T30

Description

The Heavy Tank T30 is a premium gift rank American heavy tank with a battle rating of (AB), (RB), and (SB). It was introduced in Update 1.85 "Supersonic" in the 2018 "Festive Quest" that took place between 21 December 2018 to 14 January 2019. It was obtainable via completing 10 Christmas Toys for tankers. It could also be purchased on the Gaijin market after the event was over.

The T30 was a World War II American tank project developed to counter new German tanks, such as Tiger I, Tiger II, and tank destroyers, such as the Jagdtiger, or Soviet heavy tanks, such as IS-1 or IS-2. The T30 was designed at the same time as the T29 Heavy Tank. However, it had a 155 mm gun mounted on the same hull and turret as the T29 and T34 heavy tanks.

General info

Survivability and armour

Armour type:

• Rolled homogeneous armour (hull roof, sides & rear - engine bay, hull bottom)
• Cast homogeneous armour (hull front, sides & roof - fighting compartment, turret, gun mantlet, cupola)

Notes:

• Suspension wheels are 20 mm thick while tracks are 30 mm thick.
• Mudguards are 4 mm thick.
• Frontally, the MG housing (around the MG port) as well as the lower glacis are weak spots on the T30.
• The bottom of the hull is only 25.4 mm thick, making it vulnerable to powerful HE shells shot under the belly.

Mobility

The T30's mobility is good for the role it fulfils. Its acceleration and maximum speed are good for a heavy tank. While the reverse speed is average, it isn't a handicap. And the T30 can brake quickly in spite of its weight. Neutral steering allows you to turn your hull towards flanking enemies relatively quickly on the spot. The offroad mobility is good: the T30 can reach 15 km/h when climbing uphill from idling and 21 km/h when fording. Due to its weight, the tank's mobility is unhindered by obstacles.

Modifications and economy

Armaments

Main armament

Ammunition

The available choice of ammunition focuses on heavily armoured targets:

• M112B1: APBC; an armour-piercing ballistic capped shell with high explosive mass and good penetration power that will knock out any tank in one hit.
• T29E1: APCBC; an armour-piercing capped shell with a ballistic cap offering an increased penetration compared to the M112B1.
• M107: HE; a powerful high-explosive shell useful to destroy all enemy vehicles and even open and lightly armoured vehicles indirectly with the blast.
• M110: Smoke; useful to blind enemy vehicles that are too remote for you to disable so that you can progress towards objectives.

Ammo racks

Ammo racks of the T30

Notes:

• The T30 uses two-piece ammunition, composed of projectiles (yellow) and propellant bags (orange). Both have separate racks.
• Racks 3 and 4 are first stage ammo racks. They total 7 shells for projectiles and 6 shells for propellant bags.
• These racks get filled first when loading up the tank and are also emptied early: the rack depletion order at full capacity is: 4 - 3 - 1 - 2.

Machine guns

These heavy machine guns can be extremely useful for gauging distance measurements (coaxial), engaging lightly armoured vehicles or shooting down enemy aircraft (pintle).

Usage in battles

Despite its labeling as a heavy tank, the T30 is better used as a tank destroyer and being more of a supportive role than a breakthrough role that most heavy tanks were designed to do. With its long reload for the 155 mm makes its gameplay a bit similar to the KV-2 than tanks like T29 or T34. The T30 can handle itself on its own if in a one on one encounter but will be at a disadvantage if it is facing more than one due to the long reload time. So to fully utilize that heavy gun, it might be best to be a supportive role tank for the medium tanks or the MBTs that have a faster reload but not the same destructive power as the T30's 155 mm has.

The T30 share similarities with the armour as the T29 and T34, having a thick heavily armoured turret has its advantages. Since its most heavily armoured part is the front turret it can be a key factor on how to make plans where to best utilize the tank, keep in mind even if having the turret only exposed it's not a 100% guaranteed safety from shells like APDS that will with ease be able to penetrate turret. But shells like HEATFS will mostly not do same amount of damage but can take out the gunner or in worst case scenario the gun's breech.

Contrary to most American heavy tanks in its series like the T29 and T34, The 155 mm APCBC shells the T30 uses have abysmal penetration for a heavy tank at its BR, and will often struggle to penetrate most foes. However these shells have extremely high post-penetration damage so using it isn't entirely off the table. Due to its 155mm cannon, the T30 gains access to the extremely powerful M107 HE shell also found on howitzers like the VIDAR, and M109. This shell compensates for the tank's abysmal penetration from its APCBC shell via an absurd amount of explosive filler and overpressure potential. Combined with the good armour-layout, this lets you attack more-armored tanks from the front with relative ease.

Enemy tanks to be aware of are mostly MBTs like Leopard 1, M60, Vickers MBT, T-54 (1951), STB-1, OF-40, Strv 101. But that is not the only threat there is also ATGM Vehicles and large calibre tanks that can have enough Power to disable the T30's turret when hull down and out flank the slow T30's position.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Great armour layout
• The M107 HE shell is one of the most powerful high-explosive shells in the game. Great at taking out heavily armoured tanks if the explosion occurs on the turret cheeks, over the turret, or under the hull, thanks to the overpressure damage mechanic
• Both of the APCBC shells have an amazing amount damage potential. Any shot that enters an enemy's crew compartment will almost certainly lead to a knock-out
• Because of the slow shell velocity, this is one of the few tanks in the game that's really good at hitting targets behind cover
• Despite the massive breech, the tank still retains 10 degrees of gun depression
• Has a set of optics that give magnification levels of 4.0x - 8.0x. Excellent for both close and long range target acquisition
• Has two .50 cal machine guns that can easily damage lightly armoured vehicles, tracks, and gun barrels
• Fast reverse speed for a heavy tank at -14 km/h

Cons:

• Very long reload time. Even an ace crew using the 6-rounds first stage ammo rack will take around 30 seconds to reload the gun
• Despite the great armour, the gun's terrible reload rate renders you helpless if 2 or more enemy tanks attack you at the same time
• Despite being armed with a 155 mm gun, even the top APCBC shell has abysmal penetration against angled armour like the Panther's front plate
• The top APCBC shell only has 199 mm of penetration at point blank range
• The advantage of having incredible optics is negated by the bad shell velocity and accuracy of the 155 mm shells. Hitting a moving target is difficult, and hitting anything past 1,000 m is basically impossible
• Despite the 6-man crew, the sheer size of 155 mm shells and cases means that any enemy APHE shell that enters the T30's hull or turret will likely end in an ammo explosion
• Carrying games is difficult due to the horrendous rate of fire, the T30 is heavily reliant and friendly vehicle support

History

In 1944, the Army requested 4 prototypes for heavy tanks, two armed with a 105 mm gun and two armed with a 155 mm gun. The intention was to create vehicles that could face enemy heavy tanks on even terms, or even advantageous terms. The vehicles armed with the 105 mm gun were designated T29, and the two armed with a 155 mm gun were designated T30.

The armament of the T30, a 155 mm T7 L/40 gun, was one of the largest guns ever fitted to an armoured fighting vehicle made in the United States. The gun was carried in a tall, long turret with rounded edges. The height of the turret was quite necessary, as the size of the gun and its ammunition required a standing loader. The hull of the T30 was the same as the T29. It was a lengthened version of the T26E3 chassis. The armour of the T30 was quite thick, and the hull was also well angled, as one of the requirements for the design was protection from the German long 88 mm anti-tank gun. The T30 carried a crew of six men. These were the driver, commander, bow machine gunner, gunner, and two loaders. One loader moved the crane that placed the shell, and the other used the rammer that put the shell into the breech. The gun could only be loaded at certain angles. The T30 saw an upgrade, called the T30E1, which added an automatic loading system, which moved the gun to the correct position, loaded the shell, and moved the gun back to the firing position. A hatch was added to the rear of the turret to allow the ejection of shell casings after firing.

World War 2 ended before the heavy tank designs (T28, T29, T30, T32, T34) could enter service, and the development of these vehicles ended, but the development of these heavy tank designs provided experience that proved useful when designing the M103 heavy tank during the Cold War.

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for the T30 from live.warthunder.com.

Videos

See also

Other tanks sharing the same design

• T29 Heavy Tank (Family)

External links

• [Devblog] T30 Premium heavy tank
• [Wikipedia] T30 Heavy Tank
• Military Factory - T30 (Heavy Tank T30)