T32 heavy tank

T32 Heavy Tank
Type	Heavy tank
Place of origin	United States
Service history
Used by	United States
Wars	none
Production history
Produced	1945-1946
Number built	4
Variants	T32 T32E1
Specifications
Weight	53.6 tonnes (59.08 short tons)
Length	7.07 meters
Width	3.51 m (11 ft 6 in)
Height	2.80 m (9 ft 2 in)
Crew	5
Armour	Front: 203 mm Sides: 76 mm Rear: 51 mm
Main armament	T15E2 90mm gun with 54 rounds
Secondary armament	T32: 1x Browning 12.7 mm HMG, 2x Browning 7.62 mm LMG T32E1: 1x Browning 12.7 mm HMG, 1x Browning 7.62 LMG
Engine	Ford GAC V12, 770 HP
Power/weight	14.36 HP/T
Transmission	Cross Drive Transmission
Suspension	torsion-bar
Operational range	unknown
Speed	36 km/h (22 mph)

The T32 Heavy Tank was a heavy tank project started by the United States Army to create an appropriate successor to the M4A3E2 Sherman Jumbo. The U.S. Ordnance board managed the production of four prototypes, the main goal being to have the new tank share many common parts with the M26 Pershing.

History and Development

Despite its promising performance during the final stages of World War II, the M26 Pershing was too lightly armored to do battle with most German heavy tanks and tank destroyers, such as the Tiger II. Even though its gun was able to penetrate armor satisfactorily, its own armor was too thin to stop enemy shells. Work began in early 1945 to develop a significantly heavier variant of the M26 Pershing. Using data collected from the T29 Heavy Tank project and incorporating an experimental 90mm main gun firing armor-piercing, composite rigid ammunition as well as a more advanced transmission, the first T32 tank was produced. The T15E2 gun mounted on this tank was much more powerful than the gun mounted on the Pershing, and similar to the T26E4 Super Pershing which utilized a similar experimental 90mm, the counterweight at the back of the turret was enlarged substantially to offset the long gun's weight. The T32E1 variant eliminated weak spots in the frontal armor, including removing the hull mounted machine gun. As a result of all the changes, the M26 chassis had to be expanded, with an extra road wheel was added on each side, bringing the total to seven, to reduce the ground pressure due to the tank's increased weight. After the end of WWII, the project was cancelled and the vehicles were scrapped.