Tank Review: AMX M4 mle. 49

I've had the AMX M4 mle 49 (Tier 8, premium, French heavy) in World of Tanks for a while but I only recently started playing it a bit more often. I started playing it for a couple of reasons - I'm grinding credits, I've started playing heavies more often, and I wanted to train up my French HT crews.


Worth noting that there are three variants of the AMX M4 49, most notably the Liberte. All of them are basically the same, except for a skin. Since this is a premium tank there's no researching for equipment. You get what comes on it. Fortunately, what comes on it is pretty decent.

For additional equipment I run Vents, Rammer, and V-Stabs on mine. And I currently have my 2nd or 3rd French HT crew in it, and they're not very good yet.

Guns and Turrets

The gun on this tank is surprisingly good at tier 8. 232 standard pen is very serviceable against same tier, and certainly lower tier, tanks. You only get 263 pen on the APCR so I don't bother carrying any.

Accuracy is officially .34 on mine but it feels better than that to me in battle. In fact I was pleasantly surprised with how comfortable the gun felt. DPM isn't amazing - base DPM is just over 1800. 

You get 300 alpha, which is fine, but your reload is almost 10 seconds. So a good crew, vents, and a gun rammer, are very helpful here.

The turret is quite good. 250mm armor on the front and 10 degrees of gun depression mean this is an excellent hull down, ridge warrior. 

Base view range is a competent 370m and my crew isn't great so I barely get 400m total. On a light tank that would be awful. On a heavy...well, it's a heavy.

Engines and Tracks

This is a heavy tank, and at 70K kg it's quite heavy, so it's not fast. But 40km/h is faster than a lot of its peers and mobility felt pretty comfortable to me, overall (for a heavy). Putting Off-road Driving on your driver can help reduce the terrain resistance. 

Armor & Survivability

The armor on this tank is actually pretty decent on the front. 250 on the turret, 120 on the hull. The hull is big though, and you'll want to hide it as much as possible. It also has a weakspot on the cupola on the right side of the turret; so again you'll want to hide that if you can.

The lower plate has some sweet angling to it, making it hard to hit, so frontally it's really the cupola that you've got to watch out for.

One thing you really CAN'T do in this tank is sidescrape. The side hull armor is paper, and to make it worse the tank has big "shoulders" on the hull that isn't too hard to pen.

Video

What did Skill think?


Frequently asked questions

Q: Is it worth the money?
A: Well, that's hard to say. It's a good tank. If you need a French heavy crew trainer then it's a good choice. But whether it's worth the money depends on a lot of factors, most notably whether the price is a lot of money for you. and how much you enjoy playing heavy tanks. I'm glad I bought it, but your mileage may vary.

Q: It's it better than the Somua?
A: The answer to that question is...sort of. The Somua is an autoloader and if you like autoloaders then you'll probably enjoy the Somua. The AMX M4 49 is a better French heavy crew trainer (the Somua only has a 4 person crew) and it has better armor. The Somua is probably a bit more exciting to play (even though it's slower)

Q: Can I use it in Frontline?
A: Can you? Yes. Should you? Well...I'm not a fan of slow tanks on a giant map like that but if it best suits your playstyle and you can handle trundling around a big map like that in a slow tank then go for it.

More info

Do you have thoughts on the AMX M4 49? Share them in the comments below!

GLHF!



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