World of Tanks

[Marko Dash]

YAY! two more gigs of nice, tasty RAM. hopefully this will alleviate my horrendous map loading times.

[xthetenth]

Victory!
Battle: Ensk Thursday, January 19, 2012 8:56:19 PM
Vehicle: VK 4502 (P) Ausf. A
Experience received: 2,115
Credits received: 59,712
Battle Achievements: Steel Wall, Top Gun, Defender

The only proper way to say goodbye to the best tank in the game. Oh, and one of my clanmates got three in his 50 100 and was very charitable in letting me say goodbye properly.

[The Vortex Empire]

The 4502 is that good, huh? Well, that's a new target for me then.

[xthetenth]

I think it is. It's nimble enough to be a kind of dancy target, got a gun with good pen, great aim time and solid damage. It's got good enough armor to bounce mediums and the speed to run medium routes.

[Simon_Jester]

Woo! Iron Ducky triumphs!

Seven kills, two more damaged, Steel Wall/Top Gun/Sharpshooter/Master Gunner all in one match.

I like my AMX-40. It's official.

[Vejut]

You manhandled my valentine with it well enough last week, I'd hope you liked it

I do find I like heavy armored slow stuff like the H35 and Valentine. The armor gives me enough time to line up a shot with my slow computer. Haven't gotten to the AMX38/40 yet.

[Simon_Jester]

Huh? That was Simon_EZ8? I'm sorry; I've forgotten.

And yes, that does help- I have a similar fondness for the Matilda, which is my main premium tank and the only one I didn't get as part of a promotion.

[Vejut]

It was. It was pretty minor, I sucked and you'd just capped anyways, plus you don't know me from adam.

[Simon_Jester]

Eh, just remarking on it because of the "ships passing in the night" factor.

[xthetenth]

Heavy slow tanks usually annoy me. However I've recently came into some that I really like. The AMX 40 is worth its difficulties with higher tiers for being able to tangle with tier fives and ruin tier fours and lower. Actually the ones that really annoy me are the ones like the King Tiger, where they drive decently but the armor isn't worth a lot because of huge weak points. I just can't help but want more or less armor. The other heavily armored tank I'm really liking is the 4502 B, that wallowing pigbeast is quite bouncy from the front and that rear turret is really interesting to use. I haven't had to back down from any tier nine yet. I've been damaged and face to face with a pair of IS-4s and an IS-3 and taken out both 4s because that thing's front is reinforced bouncitanium.

[Broken]

You manhandled my valentine with it well enough last week, I'd hope you liked it

I do find I like heavy armored slow stuff like the H35 and Valentine. The armor gives me enough time to line up a shot with my slow computer. Haven't gotten to the AMX38/40 yet.

If you like the heavy, slow stuff; go for the ultimate expression: the KV-3. Heavy armor, slow as hell, and can pack the 107 or 122 depending on how much per shell you want to spend. Whenever you are top tier, you get to basically solo the entire lower half of the enemy team since they likely can't hurt you at all. If they are dumb enough to come near you anyway (you are surely not chasing anyone down in the KV-3).

[Simon_Jester]

The 122 strikes me as a very poor choice because of that ammunition cost. The 107 and 122 are almost interchangeable in terms of accuracy and penetration. The 122 does 400 damage instead of 300 (roughly, for AP), but the shells cost 1000 credits instead of 250.

It's hard for me to imagine a situation where shooting once with the 122 is more cost-effective than shooting twice with the 107. Am I missing something? I can live with the long reload time, it's the ludicrous cost of the rounds that makes the weapon seem pointless to me, at least on the KV-3.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

How bouncy is the AMX-40 supposed to be? Shermans and Panzer IVs seem consistently able to penetrate me through the front; is that normal or am I playing it wrong?

[The Vortex Empire]

Tier Vs can often penetrate it, but you'll tend to bounce a couple of their shots. Tier IV and below can barely hurt it. Though once in my KV an AMX 40 bounced three 107mms in a row.

[Simon_Jester]

It depends heavily on angle, Jogurt. All your surfaces are curved, so rounds that will drill clean through the plate on a square hit will roll right off it if they hit a meter to the left or right. You don't have enough armor to reliably deflect something with ~100mm armor penetration (a typical benchmark for Tier 5 guns), but you do have enough armor to do it if they don't hit squarely and/or you luck out on the penetration roll.

AMX-40 versus AMX-40 fights are fun; my preferred tactic is to charge head to head with them and shoot through their vision slit.

[Agent Sorchus]

The 122mm on the KV3 is valuable since most people are corner whores. If you hit them hard with one shot they are more wary of coming around again and getting nuked by you or your teammates. The price of shells is rather high, but will usually come out ahead, if only just. I do have to say that I ran with the 100mm on my KV-3 for most of it's battles since the 107 lacks pen compared to the shit you have to fight, and the 122 is hella expensive to run.

Looking back though I really suggest the 122, since if you are used to the firing rate accuracy and aim time it makes the transition to the IS and IS3 easier.

[Simon_Jester]

I can see the advantage of the alpha strike, but I've run into so many cases where being able to just fire the gun without having to pause and gauge whether it was worth spending 2000 credits to shoot twice. I don't really see the advantage.

The penetration on the 107 is almost identical to that on the 122 and 100; does the extra eight millimeters really make much of a difference?

[S.L.Acker]

I hate when you get a team with a ton of Tetrachs on it and they all have a race up the middle to see who can die fastest and do the least.

[Agent Sorchus]

The eight mm's isn't that much, but with so many people knowing that sloping their hulls makes weakpoints much harder to hurt it does help. The other nice part about alpha strike is that you will get some shots on components and modules that, while you can pen with either gun, once hurt the opponent will move to protect and the extra 100 damage can oft be enough to actually destroy the module rather than just be soaked into it's hp.

[Zinegata]

I am annoyed by how in my last match, we lost three people to idiot team killers.

I am gratified however, by how we won anyway after I killed eight tanks (including the TKer )

[Broken]

The 122 strikes me as a very poor choice because of that ammunition cost. The 107 and 122 are almost interchangeable in terms of accuracy and penetration. The 122 does 400 damage instead of 300 (roughly, for AP), but the shells cost 1000 credits instead of 250.

It's hard for me to imagine a situation where shooting once with the 122 is more cost-effective than shooting twice with the 107. Am I missing something? I can live with the long reload time, it's the ludicrous cost of the rounds that makes the weapon seem pointless to me, at least on the KV-3.

The 122's main advantage is, of course, its alpha strike ability. However, unless your running a premium account, I wouldn't bother with it; the shells are expensive and if your going into higher tiers, money is always going to be in demand. It can also be an intimidation factor; the 122 hits hard and some of your enemies will actually look at what your mounting and then decide on tactics (but not many, lots of rambo's still out there) and on city maps especially, an advance will stall when a couple lighter tanks don't want to be the one to eat the 122 shell. Something I did not consider, but Agent Sorchus mentioned is training yourself to get used to higher reload and accuracy of higher tier guns. I would risk snap shots with a 107 that I won't with a 122 because of the inaccuracy and aim time of soviet guns as well as the cost. However, reload time, aim time, and accuracy don't get great in the upper soviet tiers, so get used to making your shots count.

[xthetenth]

I don't really think the KV-3 is the right tank for the 122 even if you want to run that gun. It's a wallowing pigbeast without the tremendous frontal armor the 4502 B (which along with the Maus I consider the ultimate expression of a big slow tank that has huge armor simply because if it's angled well there aren't that many guns that can penetrate its front at all), and having to pull back and wait nearly twice as long hurts, let alone if you get mobbed. The 1S and the IS are just better at dealing with such a long reload because they have a bit of agility to stay back when they pull back and I'd still say the D-25-T is the first viable 122, not the D-2-5-T.

Also, VK 4502 B? Pretty good tank, I've been doing really well with it in platoons, an armor wedge is just what we've needed.

[The Vortex Empire]

Just got my Tiger, and it's sweet. If it's this good with the short 88, I can't imagine how good it will be with the long 88.

[xthetenth]

It's a seriously good tank with the long 88. It's more mobile than the Tiger (P) by a good bit, which is really nice. It has tremendous accuracy at range, and the fire rate is good enough that you're likely to get multiple shots off. The ammo is cheap as chips compared to the 105 and 122 as well. Just remember to stay back when possible, you aren't an IS, T29 or Tiger (P). Your armor is weak but you're a pretty mobile sniper.

[The Vortex Empire]

I wouldn't say the armor is necessarily weak. If you angle the tank you reliably bounce most shots from mediums. No such luck with heavy tanks though. And yeah, after playing the 3601 I'm pretty used to the sniper role.