World of Tanks

[Slacker]

The upgraded Sherman (the Tier 5 standard Sherman, I mean, just loaded with the good stuff) is actually a decent tank. It's got dogshit and wishes for armor, but it's a bit faster than the T-34, for sure, and the 76mm gun is reasonably accurate, can do damage, and reloads pretty quickly. The armor slope on it is also good, so you've got a chance to bounce a shot once in awhile. The thing gets one shot by anything beyond a KV, though.

I like it. I have the T-1 heavy unlocked but I haven't bought it yet. I also had an unbelievable day in my T-44, 4 and 5 kill games every single match.

[Broken]

So far all I can tell about the American tanks is that they are very brown and very tall. Glancing at the stats though, some of the American heavies have impressive turret armor and decent guns. Go hull down somewhere and ruin someone's day. I have another 60k xp or so to grind out for the T-44 and just started the KV/IS line grind, so I'm not going to be running down any US tank lines very soon. So anyone that is trying the American line, let us know the high points and lows.

[Zinegata]

I'm DLing the update now. I'll be giving the American arty tanks a try (I have about a million creds saved up, and plenty of XP that I can convert to free XP).

[wautd]

The M3 is actually a ridiculous little sniper tank. We had matches tonight where three of us were taking on much bigger shit than ourselves and winning

In one case, our tier three/four tanks carried a tier seven match. They seriously are the little tanks that can.

I hated the Stuart. Right untill I put the howitzer gun on it, now it's a wonderful little death machine.

[Mr. Coffee]

I'm pretty damned unimpressed with the American tanks. Then again, all I've done is the M2 medium through the T1 heavy and I've only got the T1 partially upgraded. I've have some matches where I've faced some of the high tier American tanks like the T29 and T32 in my Tiger and King Tiger, and so far all I can think is the American tanks are basically uparmored and slower versions of the Russian tanks. Against my King Tiger half the shells fired by a T29 bounce (I asked the guy driving it and he says it was fully up graded), meanwhile my 105 is taking massive chunks out of his tank. The T32's I've faced didn't fare much better and so far the only loss I've had to one of the high end American heavies was when a T32 came around a building and shot me in the ass after an IS-4 and a VK-45 had already gotten me down to around 5% health. The guns on the American tanks seem to have slightly better damage over the German guns, but not as much a some of the Russian guns, and less penetration and accuracy than the German gun, but not quite as bad as some of the Russian guns are.

So I'll keep playing my T1 when my real tanks are down and eventually I'll see how the American tanks work first hand. So far though I think people are still better off with either the Russian or German tanks.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I actually found the US heavies to be pretty difficult to take down, but maybe that was just a bad match on my part. The huge, heavily-armoured turrets are usually the only parts I can hit and bounce most of my D10T shells, which can usually penetrate higher-tier German heavies reliably. They aren't that powerful themselves, but my inability to hurt them makes them annoying.

Are their turrets particularly slow? I tend to use my speed to jump from cover to cover and attack at range, but if they're sitting ducks I might go back to circle-strafing as a tactic.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

The Sherman is great. In fact, I'd say it's the best in its class. Both the PzIV and T-34 (I have all three) are good too, but the Sherman wins out in my experience. The Sherman's 76mm is arguably the best gun of the lot - it's almost as powerful as the German L/70, but fires much faster and does not require a retarded turret which moves at the speed of a tortoise drowning in molasses. The T-34's guns seem to struggle against the Sherman's slopes whereas the sheer power of the 76mm has no such trouble with the T-34's. Subjectively, the Sherman seems to maneuver and move a bit better than the other two as well. As long as you're cognizant of your weak armor, the Sherman excels.

[wautd]

The T-34's guns seem to struggle against the Sherman's slopes

Even the 57mm? I hated the 76mm on my T34 but the 57mm was wonderful. Hell, I was thinking of buying an extra depot slot just to have the T34 again but since I keep hearing how much fun the Sherman is, I'm trying that line now (albeit a little bit drunk today).

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I'm not 100% sure. But I have been in several engagements against T-34s in my Sherman now, and the T-34 gets trashed every time. Lots of dings and bounces off the Sherman (front armor).

[wautd]

I'd love to drive the M19 GMC in this game. It would be the ultimate glass cannon against early WW2 tanks.

[Ritterin Sophia]

That thing would be the bane of every lighter medium tank in the game...

[spaceviking]

I'm running stock on my t-34 right now and I would have to agree about the ineffectual fire against the Sherman, I seem to get ricochets pretty often.

The biggest surprise was the Lee though. I ignored it in a battle to take out a better tank first, figuring it could not do much at range to the front armour of my STUG, one shot lose 40%.

Oh and anyone else find their driver keeps dying since the update, I’m starting to think my driver drives from outside the tank.

[Mr. Coffee]

I actually found the US heavies to be pretty difficult to take down, but maybe that was just a bad match on my part. The huge, heavily-armoured turrets are usually the only parts I can hit and bounce most of my D10T shells, which can usually penetrate higher-tier German heavies reliably. They aren't that powerful themselves, but my inability to hurt them makes them annoying.

The frontal turret armor on a couple of them is seriosuly obnoxious, but you can get around that pretty easilly by doing just two things...

1. Stop using the auto-aim and manually aim so you can punch into the hull.

2. Operate with two buddies in similar tanks to your own in capability and use numbers and (hopefully) coordination to work the flanks and read of the tank. Make sure to have one guy who does nothing but aim for their tracks.

I tend to use my speed to jump from cover to cover and attack at range, but if they're sitting ducks I might go back to circle-strafing as a tactic.

Circle strafing isn't such a great idea as you're basically presenting your side armor to the other guy. Another problem with circling is you're going to bleed a lot of speed really damned quick which makes you an easier target. Worse, against any tank that can pivot turn you're double fucked because they can probably keep their frontal armor facing you or at least present their sides at such a shallow angle you've bounce a lot of shots.

[Ritterin Sophia]

The biggest surprise was the Lee though. I ignored it in a battle to take out a better tank first, figuring it could not do much at range to the front armour of my STUG, one shot lose 40%.

Yeah, dude, don't underestimate the Lee. I've soloed Panthers with mine and I know someone who took out a Tiger with his. Think of it less as a medium tank and more as a TD with a medium tank's speed and ability to hit targets with some accuracy on the move.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I found the best part of the Lee was that it had a medium-length 75mm cannon that fires 23rpm and is only tier 4. Playing like a TD without anything resembling a low profile is a bit obnoxious, but if you can find a good firing position you can rain down a surprisingly high amount of firepower for that level of combat.

[Slacker]

I think the only way to do anything with the Lee is to operate it as a TD-a really nasty Tier IV TD, but a TD. They die extremely quickly under fire.

[Mr. Coffee]

Lees work well if you can set them up with a bit of cover as a gun line. On Cliffside me, Coann, and TheTenth set up at the north end of the one/two column low road and managed to hold off half the enemy force while the rest of the team flanked around down the six column and rolled up the opfor's flank. All we did was one Lee pop out/fire/pull back, second pop out/fire/pull back, third pop out/fire/pull back and just kept up a constant volume of fire on anything that stuck itself out from cover.

Worked pretty damned well. Three Lees pretty much carried a team that was mostly two or three tiers above our tanks.

[Coaan]

Yup, many people diss the Lee but you just have to realize that you're driving a TD with far too much height and plan accordingly. Hills and cover are a must when using that thing. It fires relatively fast too, so if you can get yourself in a position to watch much of the map and have an upgraded radio, you can pretty much cover a good portion of the map in cannon shells.

With a little luck, you can even fuck up the big tanks.

Both tenth and I have personally wrecked Tigers days with the m3. Something I'm sure they were aggrivated about.

[Rogue 9]

So far all I can tell about the American tanks is that they are very brown and very tall. Glancing at the stats though, some of the American heavies have impressive turret armor and decent guns. Go hull down somewhere and ruin someone's day. I have another 60k xp or so to grind out for the T-44 and just started the KV/IS line grind, so I'm not going to be running down any US tank lines very soon. So anyone that is trying the American line, let us know the high points and lows.

My clan leader is driving a T32 heavy around right now. He's fucking invulnerable from the front arc; it's ridiculous. People accuse him (one of the game moderators) of hacking. American tanks are getting across-the-board armor cuts in the next patch, I hear.

[Commander 598]

That's interesting considering that most of them have cardboard for armor as it is.

[haard]

Asked for beta key this morning, received it this afternoon. Hooked. Dammit.

[MKSheppard]

Against my King Tiger half the shells fired by a T29 bounce (I asked the guy driving it and he says it was fully up graded),

Ha. Of all the various guns tested on our heavies....all of them pretty much raeped the king tiger in real life in terms of armor penetration.

But hey, the germanoid wankers must have the King Tiger superior to all.

[Mr. Coffee]

Against my King Tiger half the shells fired by a T29 bounce (I asked the guy driving it and he says it was fully up graded),

Ha. Of all the various guns tested on our heavies....all of them pretty much raeped the king tiger in real life in terms of armor penetration.

But hey, the germanoid wankers must have the King Tiger superior to all.

Actually it's not superior to all. An IS-3 has much better sloping on it's turret which means if I aim at it half the time I'll bounce shells off it (never mind the IS-4 or IS-7, both of which I have to land shells on their ass or rearward side armor in order to reliably damage them). Also, if this game was at all realistic like that, Shep, then the German tanks should all have a 50% chance of having random systems break for no goddamn reason every 60 seconds during a match.

Also, do you even play this game?

[Stark]

Ha. Of all the various guns tested on our heavies....all of them pretty much raeped the king tiger in real life in terms of armor penetration.

But hey, the germanoid wankers must have the King Tiger superior to all.

The game's stats are pretty dubious all round; but that's what you get when you have the system just run a spreadsheet on 'penetration' and 'armour thickness'. I don't think they adjust for different armour materials either.

They're clearly not even aiming for realistic WW2 tank warfare, so complaining they didn't achieve it is meaningless.

[Thanas]

Yeah, the German guns are also underpowered in their performance.