So I played the tank for a few games, and it seems like the crew member are super vulnerable in this thing, it feels like almost every time I get shot its a dead crew member. Arty splash? Loader and driver buys a farm. Shot in the turret? Dead commander and gunner. Unless I play uber safe and feel almost useless, I can't get by without a dead dude in my tank.
I'm seriously thinking about running a spall liner on it so they don't buy too many farms, it's ridiculous, and super frustrating having some dead dude in my tank half the game. I'd go broke with all the farms they're buying.
So far I like the tank, it's a little slow but the decent gun handling and great accuracy makes up for it.
ARMOR: Don't rely on the turret armor too much, even though it looks good on paper and on tanks.gg, it's not gonna bounce any rounds from any higher tiers. I've had some lucky shots from some tier 9 opponents that bounced but I just considered that luck and probably distance. I'm really not going to cover the hull armor because it hasn't saved me at all, and it's lower plate is pretty big and only around 100mm effective. Roof armor is overmatchable by 95.4mm guns and engine deck by 76.2mm guns.
GUN: Decent gun handling, it absolutely NEEDS stabs, otherwise your reticle on the move is as big as the screen. But it has pretty quick aim time and good accuracy at 0.32, so when at a stand-still, It snipes pretty good, especially with the 10 degrees of depression. On the subject of sniping, its standard rounds unfortunately are pretty bad with crappy velocity and pen (190 pen, 814m/s). On the other hand it has excellent premium rounds with just over 1400m/s and good pen at 268. (Its almost as though they want to make you use premium as standard)
MOBILTY: Something to be desired, if you've ever played the Eagle7 or Thunderbolt, it's something like that but slightly better because it's a tier 8. It's faster than the Super Pershing and rotates much faster. I personally like to use turbos on almost all my mediums and mobile heavies, so it helps a bunch when going uphill. For instance going up hill on Himmelsdorf I was able to go 20km/h and down at 64km/h. It honestly has pretty bad resistances compared to other mediums of the same tier. It's weird but helpful, it feels like it accelerates faster in reverse than it does going forward, just a little tid-bit I noticed.
MISC: It's ammo rack is pretty weak, stronger than the T44, but my rack has been damaged quite a bit in most of my battles in it. Its probably because of its small size, so it's easy to get racked in it when shot in the side. Engine health is alright but its not the strongest vs other tier 8 premiums, and it suffers from the same issue as the ammo rack where its small size makes it easy to damage.
WORTH: As far as worth I think WG did a pretty good job for the amount of stuff you get for the value. You get a total of 8 crew members all with "zero-skill" BiA. (you can convert the other members to other US tank positions) and one 3D skin and two other 2D skins that you can apply on any tank. That's a lot for $35 considering buying a standard tier 8 premium from the shop costs around $30-$40.
TL;DR: It's alright tank, nothing game breaking or super interesting about it. Decent gun handling for sniping (with gold) and alright turret armor vs long distances. It's worth it if you have some extra cash in your pocket and in need an American medium tank crew trainer. (However the the radio operator job is on the commander unlike the Patton where it's the loader.)
