ah ok, i last played when they were just released and they were a pain to fight in my is-7 and is-4, so i guess they got nerfed a bit? or people know where to attack them from now. perhaps i won't keep the tier 9 then heh.
i'm still grinding the american TD line, about 60k away from the t28 proto.
Don't remember the armor schemes, but the gun was nerfed slightly (ROF).
Also most people know where to shoot the M103 now, its not particularly hard to penetrate the lower glacis. The turret can be bouncy to the uninformed, but the slightest angle will lead to a pen from the front because the sides of the turret seems to be made of toilet paper. I'd say even a 15 degree turn of the turret would make it flat and worthless: I no longer bother shooting the bottom glacis of the M103 if his turret is turned even slightly. I don't even bother shooting the copula: the thing is half miss and half bounce most of the time.
The "cheeks" of the turret is squishy as all hell. I mean it'll bounce tier 7 and some tier 8 guns, but the 88L71 goes through it like butter when I tested it with my friend, and most 122 rounds will go through it. Worst part is the ammo rack is RIGHT behind those squishy cheeks. The giant soft-spots means you can't face hug anything like you could with the T29 and T-32, I've actually racked a few fellow M103s with shots to the face. I get ammo rack damage every other game, and a dead driver almost every game. (he's sitting in the lower glacis)
Don't get me wrong though, it's a powerful tank if you are hulled down at >200m. It's just not a close range tank and even at 200m you'll get random pens on your turret. It's a strange tank to say the least, and when you do good its great. When you do badly you'll hate this stupid tank.