T86 First Impressions - "Normandy '44" Event Prize! - War Thunder - video Dailymotion

Toreno

Today we take our first look at the T86 Amphibious Tank that is the main prize of the Normandy 1944 event in War Thunder!  So join me as we take a look at this unique tank, take it for a test drive and give my overall thoughts on it.  Support me at ⬇️ ☕Buy me a Coffee➡️ buymeacoffee.com/Toreno  Social Media ⬇️ 🦋Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/toreno.bsky.social 🌍Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Toreno4 📸Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toreno170 🐘Mastodon: Toreno17@mastodon.social 🧵Threads: https://www.threads.net/@toreno170  🎮 Game: War Thunder  ⬅️  #warthunder #hellcat #t86 #amphibiousvehicle #prototype   T86 Stats: 00:00 Test Drive on Land: 02:37 Test Drive on Water: 04:19 Final Thoughts: 06:00

Transcript

00:00Hello everybody and today we are going to be taking a look at the main prize for the Normandy

00:041944 event, the T-86 amphibious tank. Now I should get one thing out of the way, this was not involved

00:11in Normandy in 1944, indeed this was not involved in any amphibious operation in World War II because

00:18this was a prototype tank. There were two prototypes, the T-86 which moves through water

00:24via its tracks, and the T-86 E1 which uses a propeller or two propellers, but that was not

00:31particularly very successful so Gaijin has gone for the initial T-86 variant. And this is basically

00:37an amphibious tank based on the M18 Hellcat, so obviously that vehicle is very fast and so is

00:45this one, because despite being 2.7 tons heavier it still has a top speed of 45 miles per hour on

00:516 gears going forward, and a reverse speed of 13.4 miles per hour on 2 gears going backwards.

00:56So it is technically slower than the M18, about 5 miles per hour slower in forward and just under

01:023 miles per hour in reverse, but it's still a pretty speedy tank. And you can also see that it is a very

01:08large tank. We'll show that off in the testing round in a minute, but this is an absolutely huge

01:15target, which is not particularly good because it has very bad armor. So if we go to the protection

01:21analysis for a second, and we go to the Kali OP, not for the rockets, not for the guns, but for its

01:27coaxial machine gun. And at 500 meters, there is a chance of penetrating this armor. If we go down to

01:34about 300 meters, and yeah, your bullets are going to go straight through this. Now they aren't going to do

01:40a huge amount of damage because they are ultimately light machine gun bullets, but you can absolutely

01:45penetrate and do damage to the crew and internals of the vehicle. And of course, because they're

01:50machine guns, you can fire a whole bunch of them. And like I say, that's just with a coaxial machine

01:56gun, fire at it with a regular shell. And yeah, you're going to do a whole bunch of damage. Even a

02:03regular HE shell from a 75 millimeter gun is going to do a huge amount of damage to this vehicle,

02:10just knock it out in one hit probably. And as you can see in the internals, the crew is still five,

02:15but they are spaced out a whole bunch more than on the regular M18. And we still have the 76 millimeter

02:20gun. And interestingly, it comes with a vertical gun stabilizer, which I don't think the regular M18

02:27does. So that is obviously going to help when firing on the move and at sea. So we're going to

02:33take this out for a quick test drive, just to show off how it does. So here we are in the testing

02:37ground. And as you can see, it is an absolutely huge tank. And there is the driver view. One

02:43thing you might have noticed pretty quickly, while this does technically have a very good

02:47top speed of 45 miles per hour, it is very sluggish at accelerating to that top speed.

02:53So with the Hellcat, I'd usually be north of 30 miles per hour by the time I hit that bridge.

02:58And I'd be able to get to the top speed of 50 miles per hour long before I reach that hill

03:04over there. With this, it seems like I need the entire run up to that hill to get to our top

03:09speed of 45 miles per hour. You can also see the vertical stabilizer is doing some work.

03:15Obviously, as we get to a higher speed, it is less and less effective, but at lower speeds,

03:21it does seem to do very well. We're just going to drive up to that King Tiger just to show you

03:26the size of this vehicle. Because yeah, it is absolutely huge, which I know I've already said,

03:32but yeah, this is going to be an absolutely huge prominent target in game. We're just

03:39about to reach 40 miles an hour. But yeah, as you can see, like the Hellcat, I would be at 50 miles

03:47per hour by this point. And yeah, if we include the gunner, well, the commander, we are actually

03:53taller than the Tiger II. If we don't include the commander, we're about the same height.

04:00Like I say, this is an absolutely huge target. And as we saw, most of it is not particularly

04:06well armoured. The turret is basically the most armoured bit about it, and that only comes up to

04:10about 20-25 millimetres. So yeah, this is going to be an absolutely ludicrously easy tank to knock

04:17out. So we've just gone back to the beginning, because we're going to quickly test this in the

04:22water. Now, as I mentioned earlier, there was technically a second variant of this, the T86E1,

04:28which uses propellers to get through the water. This just uses its tracks, and that was considered

04:34the better way of doing it, or the propellers just didn't provide enough benefit, because they were

04:38a lot heavier, so they weighed the tank down even more. As you can see, we've got some deployable bits

04:45on the tank here. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be solid, so this should, in theory, prevent us from

04:52firing straight back, but no, we can just put the barrel straight through it. It doesn't block our sights

04:57either. So yeah, that's going to need fixing at some point. You can see the rudders moving about there

05:07as well. There's the driver's view in the water as well. We'll go back to the gunner's view, and as you

05:16can see, it is a remarkably stable gun platform. There's no movement here, and yeah, admittedly,

05:22that is because we are moving quite slowly, but still, we are on water, and if we fire the gun,

05:28yeah, so it makes us wobble about a little bit, but for the most part, it seems to stay generally on

05:33target. So yeah, this is going to be a very effective amphibious tank. I don't think it'll

05:41be quite as effective on land as the regular Hellcat, just because it's got less acceleration,

05:46and its armor is even worse, but I think it will do decent enough. I could easily see it going down

05:53to 5.7, possibly. I mean, we'll have to see how Gaijin feels about that, gameplay stats and the like.

05:59And so that is the T-86, and yeah, this seems to be like it's going to be a very decent amphibious

06:05tank. Hopefully, we can get some more tanks like in the future. Of course, there is the T-87, which

06:10is basically a very similar version of this, with a short hull and a 105mm howitzer.

06:17Pritin also had a very similar looking tank, or very large tank, in the medium tank AT-1,

06:23so hopefully we can get something like that as well in the future, as an event vehicle,

06:26or even as a regular vehicle. And yeah, I could see this being a very popular vehicle for people

06:31to unlock. I might unlock it, it really depends if I've got the time, I just haven't really

06:35had much time to go on War Thunder lately, so I possibly won't be going for it, but I'll

06:40have to see how things pan out in the future. So anyway, I hope you've enjoyed this video,

06:43hopefully you'll join me for future ones. I've been Torino, and I'll see you next time.

T86 First Impressions - "Normandy '44" Event Prize! - War Thunder

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