You don't get to arbitrarily factor in the cost of nades an a ambulance when talking about the fuel cost of the Jackson. The Major tier is only 90 fuel and comes with several good tanks. T4 for Soviets is 120 fuel and comes with an insanely useless unit in the form of the SU-76. Not to mention the fact that you keep ignoring that even if the Jackson only cost 15 fuel more it has a turret, higher damage, moves faster, and is more accurate.
You don't get to have a mobile TD with almost double the damage of the other TD's then on top ask to have just as much armor and health. And by the way, all the things that would normally be shooting at a Jackson have just as much garenteed a pen chance against a SU-85, which is much less mobile and doesn't have a turret.
The JPIV is the most unmaneuverable medium in the game, do you think it has good armor as a joke? No, it has good armor because it is extremely hard to maneuver around the battlefield and it lacks even the ability to traverse it's main gun like the SU-85 can. So what if it's free if you make the BG HQ as your first HQ? Nobody is going to ever make it their first piece of armor because is massively delays your Schwer and the JPIV can't deal with how mobile allied mediums are.
Except a Sturmtiger has a 50 second reload between shots. If it could do it's damage faster everyone would say it is OP as shit. It also doesn't track anymore.
The Jackson is not only better because it has 240 damage a shot, it has great mobility compared to the other medium TD's.
No they are not. the Ostheer and OKW Panther are both 175 fuel. Teching doesn't change the fact your still at a resource disadvantage which means replacing your losses is far more costly. The KT is the most expensive tank in the game despite being only 30 fuel more expensive than the IS2 thanks to teching costs.
I feel this debate is getting a bit out of hand in terms of the theory you guys are using. The fact of the matter is, the Jackson is the pinnacle of what the USF can field in terms of an anti-tank vehicle. If you look at the options they have compared to the Axis factions (OKW is much more guilty of this than OST) then the Jackson needs to be effective. How else are Americans meant to deal with heavy tanks?
They have
1) mines which require a certain amount of luck and can only be placed by the m20
2) Bazookas which are not effective against anything with thicker armour than a panzer 4
3) Sherman which again can not take on heavy tanks unless in numbers and you flank
4) Doctrinal stuff like the M10 wolverine and p47
5) The Jackson
Now OKW have volks with their ubiquitous panzershrek and to be honest that's all they need to back up their vehicles such as the Panther. Until volks get looked at Allied vs. Axis vehicle combat will always be frustrating to the Allies.
I made a thread a while back about the penetration value of shreks and it's quite crazy how reliable they are.
Once again, if the Jackson is meant to be the be all end all of USF anti-tank capability, having basically a coin toss against the Panther to pentrate just leads to a lot of frustration. Can you imagine having a sniper that missed 50% of it's shots? Who's going to use that as it is just not reliable.
Something has to be said in regards to the faction with lower armour values and low penetration anti-tank capabilities going up against higher armour value units with superior penetration capabilities.
As I said earlier, increase the penetration value to 240/220/200 and decrease it's dmg to 160. That way T3 units such as the Panzer 4 can take more shots and the Jackson becomes more reliable against the Panther. Before you start about 240 penetration up close remember that the Jackson has 480hp and poor armour, if it is that close to an enemy tank it is in serious trouble.