T34 Guide

Hello and welcome to the T34, a tier 8 premium US heavy tank. Looks like a bigger T29 and acts a lot like one, but comes with a better gun and is one tier higher.

Tank specs:


Tech tree:


Overview:
The T34 is basically a T29 with a slightly better turret and a 120mm gun. Good gun depression allows this vehicle to use its big gun really well. Unfortunately, said weapon is very demanding on your nerves. Its very slow to reload (slower than BL-9) and aims as if its crew have spent the last 2 days on a diet of whiskey and cola. Fortunately its penetration and damage are the best in its tier.
The armor of the T34 is exactly the same as the T29. It might bounce a not that well aimed shot from a not very powerful gun, but nothing more. Side and rear can be penetrated by some tier 4 tanks, which means you cant even slope yourself too much or else you might expose them. Only the turret can bounce shells from its front and rear. I suggest playing this thing like a turreted TD with good depression, or teaming up with a smaller (in size) tank that can cover your vulnerable hull.
*IMPORTANT: The T34 can act as an excellent training vehicle for US heavy drivers. Just take the crew from your heavy and put it into the T34 when you need cash without retraining them. As long as it is a heavy tank.
Price: 12 000 gold
Camouflage: Not good
Gun Depression: -10°/+15°

Pros:
- Gun does a lot of damage.
- Very high penetration.
- Makes a lot of credits.
- Turret can be incredibly hard to penetrate at long distances.
- Good gun depression.

Cons:
- Hull armor leaves a lot to be desired.
- Gun aims VERY slowly.
- Reloads VERY slowly too.
- Prone to various critical hits and can be set on fire.

Designation:
1.Warrior  2.Heavy Support 3.Sniper 4.Heavy Armour Hunter

Crew:
1. Commander (also a radioman)

2. Gunner

3. Driver

4. Radioman

5. Loader

6. Loader

Modules:

Hull:
Armor scheme currently in use:

Spoiler:

102/76/51
The hull is sloped at the front and gives protection against 144 penetration guns. Its weak spot is the small MG on the left of the hull (when you look at it from the front) and the lower hull. Side and rear are pretty much useless. Maybe the tracks may absorb a shot, but otherwise, they are easy to penetrate. Because of them, you cant angle yourself a lot, else you might get penetrated in them by someone with more than 150mm of penetration.

Suspension:
T80E3 / Max.capacity 71.85 / Turn speed 22 deg per sec.
Nothing to research here and thankfully this suspension is more than enough to carry all modules + equipment you might want to take. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a lot of health points, so its relatively easy to track.

Engine:
Continental AV 1790-3A1 – 810 h.p. – 20% chance of fire
Very surprisingly, despite the relatively high amount of power, this engine is not that good. It is also prone to fires. Still, you are faster than the Lowe thanks to it.

Radio:
SCR 528A1 – range 745 meters
The radio is perfect.

Turrets:
T34T7
Armor: 279/126/203
Rotation: 18 degrees/second
View range: 360m
The very formidable mantlet can deflect or just absorb almost any gun in the game. Good thing for you is that most of the frontal turret plate is taken by this mantlet. The part that is not though... might as well be made of cupcake. Tall tanks can at close range damage you through your commander's cupola on the top. I suggest wiggling the turret slightly in order to make that target harder to hit.
Sides of the turret are weak and may lead to your ammo rack getting damaged, however the rear is actually quite tough even at this tier.

Guns:
120mm T53A1
RoF: 4
Penetration: 248/297/60
Average damage: 400/400/515
Accuracy (100m): 0,35
Aim time: 3,4 sec
Great penetration and damage. The best of all tier 8 heavies. Gold ammo can go right through a Maus or an IS-7. Unfortunately for you, despite all that and the quite decent accuracy, its also incredibly slow at aiming and its overall DPM is not that great thanks to the bad reload speed.  It really does act as if the gunner is drunk. This makes the cannon a real pain to those that are not concentrated enough or never used such guns before.  
All tier 8 tanks can easily be penetrated from the front with this thing, even the King Tiger. Practically all tier 9 tanks can be penetrated too, though I suggest hitting the weak spots just to make sure. Tier 10 will require hitting them in the weak spots if you want to penetrate all the time, but all are fair game.

Comparison with its peers:

T34 vs M6A2E1
T34 comes with a gun with better penetration, accuracy and damage. M6 accelerates faster and is generally slightly more mobile.

T34 vs Lowe
Lowe has better hull armor. Its turret is almost as impenetrable as the T34 turret at long range. T34 is slightly faster and more maneuverable, its gun penetrates more and deals more damage but reloads and aims much slower than the Lowe. Both have easy to penetrate side and rear armor, but T34 is the easier one.  T34 can depress its gun more.
In short:
Both have great guns. T34 penetrates more and does more damage. Lowe aims much faster and has laser-like accuracy.
Lowe has more reliable hull armor. Its turret is not much worse than the T34 at least in the front.
Both have similar mobility, though T34 is superior here.
Both make similar amounts of money.

T34 vs KV-5
T34 has a much better gun in every single category except RoF and aim time. Its true that KV-5 has places where its armor is much better than the T34, however its weak spot is easier to hit. It can still be hidden though. KV-5 gets lower matchmaking than the T34.
In short:
T34 has a much better gun.
T34 can fight high tier tanks much more effectively.
KV-5 can fight smaller tanks more effectively.
Both make similar amounts of money.

Historical T34


By the middle of 1944, combat reports from Europe describing the use of heavy tanks by the Germans stimulated new interest in the development of an equivalent American vehicle. The Pershing medium tank provided an answer to the early model of the German PzKpfw VI Tiger. However, although the latter was still in front line service, it had first been encountered by the US Army during 1943. By 1944, the Germans were introducing even more heavily armed and armored vehicles, like the PzKpfw VIB Tiger II. Although the M26 Pershing was temporarily redesignated as a heavy tank for morale purposes, it clearly did not provide an answer to the problem. On 14 September 1944, US forces recommended development and manufacture of four prototypes for a new heavy tank. Two of these were designated as the heavy tank T29 and were to be armed with the 105mm T5E1 gun. The remaining two were designated as the heavy tank T30 and were to be armed with the 155mm T7 gun.


Originally written by Charcharo

Very nice guide I learned new things that I didn't know about T34, even though I've played over 1k battles with it. Haha