STB-1, Japanese tier 10 medium tank

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Author: Soukoudragon, Daigensui

Hello everyone, today we have another article from Soukoudragon, (revised by Daigensui) this time about (sort of confirmed) Japanese tier 10 tank. Enjoy!

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After the culmination of many tested core components, the STB-1 was completed in 1969. The STB-1 was the first of two development phases in the development of the Type 74. Despite its technical and rather unimposing name, the first phase was an ambitious and successful creation while the second phase was largely about taking a katana to the cost of the tank while improving endurance and reliability. The STB-1 is indeed an imposing tank and would be a very competitive tier 10 tank in World of Tanks.

Historical Background

In the early 1960s, in the mists of the cold war, European, American, and Soviet tanks were progressing from the M48, T-55, and Centurion 3 class of tanks to the M60, Leopard 1, T-62 class of tanks. The incapability of Japan’s Type 61 tank to match these newer tanks prompted a heated debate. They debated over either improving the Type 61 (Type 61 Kai) or designing an entirely new tank. Whichever the decision was going to be, the key feature would be a 105mm cannon. Japanese tank engineer Kondo pointed out that not only a 105mm cannon but also mobility, target acquisition, and rate of fire must all be good for the sake of combined arms operations. In 1965, the decision was made to design an entirely new tank which launched the STB program.

Naming Convention

In the code name STB, the ST represents tank. And the B represents the Type 74 development program. So in the case of the Type 61, its code was STA. The developers actually wrote it by separating it with a hyphen like ST-A and ST-B. “Tank A” and “Tank B” if you will. But when the tank entered the hands of the testers, they removed the hyphen for whatever reason, making just STA and STB. The number that comes after is the cordial number for the prototype vehicle. So the 1 in STB-1 indicates the first prototype vehicle. The STB-2 was virtually identical to the STB-1. Both were tested at the same time. After their success, the second phase began and consisted of the STB-3, STB-4, STB-5, and STB-6 prototypes.

Development History

Prior to the 1965 decision to design an entirely new tank, some technologies which would later be used in the STB-1 were already in development independently in Japan. These were a new and stronger engine, a hydro pneumatic suspension, and a coaxial gear steering device which would improve the transfer of engine power. By March 1965, an air cooled 700 horse power class engine has been developed. Research on the hydro pneumatic suspension began as soon as the Type 61 tank was completed in 1961. Actual testing of it using a Type 60 APC prototype called the SU began in 1962.
For fire power, they opted for a license on the NATO standard Royal Ordnance 105mm cannon. The part that Japan imported for license production was only the barrel. They built their own breech, recoil system and mantlet around the cannon. The full length of the cannon, including all parts just mentioned, was 5,592mm long and the total weight was 2,800kg. The Japanese final version resembled the US M68 105mm version the most. From 1966 until 1967, firing tests were carried out. In the picture below, the end part is the breech and the segment between that and mantlet is the recoil system.

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A prototype turret was completed when the 105mm cannon was mounted on it in 1966. In 1967 and 1968, aiming and turret rotation tests were carried out. A load assisting device was also introduced into the turret. This device maneuvered the rounds close to the breech of the cannon to enable the loader to reload faster.

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The coaxial gear steering, hydro pneumatic suspension and the 700 horsepower class engine have started testing together on a test bed called the ST-T in March 1966. The ST-T alone weighed 21 tons but fully rigged, it weighed 35 tons. Length was 6.64m, width was 3.06m, and height was 1.95m. Top speed on roads was 51km/h. In August 1967, the 10ZF engine replaced the prototype engine. The 105mm cannon was later loaded onto the ST-T hull and conducted firing test. Finally, the prototype turret was mounted on top of the ST-T and again conducted firing test. The ST-T finished its testing by April 1969. Having run about 5,500 km, it has contributed tremendously to the STB program.

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During the ST-T period, a mock-up was completed finally giving the first true look of the completed tank.

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Building of the STB-1 started in April 1968 and finished in June 1969 with its twin, the STB-2 being finished in September of the same year. During the STB-1s testing period the engine it mounted, the 2200kg 750 horse power 10ZF-21WT had some reliability issues. It would later be replaced in the Type 74 with the 2220kg 720 horse power 10ZF-22WT engine. By May 1971 Engineer Kondo stated that the “STB-1/2 passed all qualifications including top speed, acceleration, and shown excellent mobility. That it had good results in accuracy, stabilization, secondary armaments, and protection. To further improve its endurance and reliability, the STB program is ready to move to the second phase.”

With phase 2 of the program, several systems have either been simplified or cut in order to increase reliability and/or to cut cost. The tank was actually very expensive so cost cutting was important. One feature cut was the remote controlled 12.7 machine gun at the top of the turret and replaced with a typical manual MG. The skinny stick poking up from the middle of the turret was a remote controlled periscope for the remote controlled MG. Before the STB-1 was built, Kondo preferred a manual MG because he argued that aiming at fast moving targets like aircraft would be impractical. However the remote controlled MG was installed in the STB-1 anyway only to be removed in the second phase.

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Stats

In this section, some of the stats are actually coming from Type 74 sources however, those stats would very much happen to have been the same or extremely similar for the STB-1 otherwise they would not be listed here.

Data

Crew: 4
Full length: 9.423m
Hull length: 6.7m
Width: 3.18
Height: 2.25m
Ground Clearance (±hydro pneumatic suspension) 400mm±200mm
Track width: 550mm
Ground Pressure: 0.86kg/cm2

Weight: 38 tons
Engine: 750 HP/2200rpm Mitsubishi 10ZF-21WT
Top Speed: 53km/h
Transmission: Mitsubishi MT-57T (6 forward 1 reverse)
Horse Power per Ton: 18.95
Turret Traverse speed: 24°/sec (historically the same as Leopard 1 and M48)

Armor

Technically speaking, the armor is still classified. But there are estimations deduced from weight, dimensions, and on studies of numerous photos of shots under panels, welding points, and so on. The turret armor is the most speculative in nature.

Mantlet: Average thickness 195mm. There is no armor behind the mantlet.

Turret Front: 120mm
Turret side: 110mm
Turret rear: 60mm
Turret top: 40mm

For the side and rear turret, 100mm and 100mm is also a possibility but less realistic than the above estimation.

Front upper hull: 40 at 75° LOS 155
Front mid hull: 80mm at 65° LOS 189
Front lower hull: 80mm at 55° LOS 139
Side hull: 35mm
Rear hull: 25mm

Firepower

Primary Armament: Japanese modified Royal Ordnance 105mm L7 cannon.

APDS: British L28A1, not American M392 (all imported)
APFSDS: M735 (Starting from 1984)
HEAT: Type 91 (similar to M456)
HE: Type 75 HEP-T (Licensed M393 HEP)

The British L7A1 could penetrate 250 mm from 1,000 meters using L28A1, while the Japanese 105mm gun could only penetrate 240 mm. This means that 105mm Gun Rifled would have around 257 penetration in terms of WoT.

Ammo load and the Load Assisting Device (Type 74)

50 rounds. 28 in the front hull, 7 below the turret basket floor, 9 in the turret rear, 6 besides the load assisting device. 4 rounds can be placed into the load assisting device (LAD). With the device and the FCS, 1 shot every 4 seconds was possible. Now I am not absolutely certain if the characteristics described here are the same as what was installed in the STB-1 but chances are very high that they were in my opinion. So with that, it is a little hard to decide what to do with it in WoT. The ideal setup would be to have a rate of fire of about 15 rounds per minute for only the first four shots and then afterwards, have the option for the loader in the tank to either continue loading the main cannon the regular way which would be the typical RoF or to have him refill the LAD which would take whatever amount of time that would take. Also, during idle time, the loader should be able to refill the LAD.

So this 4 round “burst” (for lack of a better word) it is still nothing like the burst from a Batchat or a T57. It is a slow burst. To have a slow burst and then make the STB-1 reload the LAD as if it were a drum seems unfair since he should have the option to just reach behind or below for a new round if reloading the LAD was undesirable. One option if it works out balanced is to just ignore the fact that there is a LAD and have the RoF comparable to the Leopard or M48. Another option could be to take the LAD’s existence and average its effect over the RoF by bumping up the regular RoF a little bit, to like 7.5 or 8 rpm.

Gun elevation and Gun depression

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Here is another riddle for WoT implementation. The gun elevation is + 9 and the gun depression is -6…in the turret alone. That does not take the hydro pneumatic suspension into account which adds another ± 6. Thus the full potential is + 15 and – 12. Again one option would be just to entirely ignore the problem if the end result is still a balanced tank. I think I can be ok with that decision in the case of the LAD but Japan specifically designed and utilized the hydro pneumatic suspension for their needs in the Japanese mountain and rice paddie filled terrain. It is very much a characteristic of the STB-1. So in short of actually adding support for a hydro pneumatic suspension (which by the way, the S-Tank will require if added) I would suggest cutting a half way deal. Naturally STB-1 would not usually run at high speeds looking down -12 degrees so it would be silly to add the full potential of the hydro pneumatic suspension to the gun arc in WoT. So make it half way. Half of 6 is 3. So I would suggest +12 and -9 for WoT.

In World of Tanks

Compared to the other tier 10 medium tanks in the game, the STB-1 would seem like it would feature very good maneuverability and acceleration. The leopard would still maintain its top speed advantage. The 105mm cannon combined with potentially a slightly higher RoF may give the STB-1 the highest DPS out of all tier 10 mediums. The hull armor would probably have some bounce potential at certain angles. The turret is also well angled including the thick mantlet. I would expect the turret to have some bounce potential too however the T-62a would still maintain its advantage in turret armor. One more advantage to the STB-1 is its small size, slightly smaller than the T-62a overall. The STB-1 seems like it would be a very well-rounded and competitive medium tank.

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Sources:

1.戦後日本の戦車開発史　林磐男 “Post-War Japanese Tank Development History” Iwa Hayashi
2. グランドパワー “Ground Power” June 2007
3. グランドパワー “Ground Power” August 2007
4. 戦後の日本戦車 特別冊　“Postwar Japanese Tanks” Special edition September 2009
5. パンツアー “Panzer” February 2004

109 thoughts on “STB-1, Japanese tier 10 medium tank”

  2. Well….After they added Leo 1 it was obviously that in a beauty contest the Leo 1 will win….but now with this thing around….Leo will get the second place.

    This thing is gorgeous!

  3. The idea of incorporating a little extra depression and elevation into the normal one looks fine as it looks like the barrel wont clip the tank anyway. I don’t think the S-tank solution will work though as it will most likely be treated as a large oscilating turret.

    • That I was thinking about. With the S tank, they could just incorporate the entire hull as an oscilating turret of sorts, with the pivot point in between the roadwheels. Even the idler and the drive sprocket could be mounted on the “turret”, beause the track mechanism works by adjusting the length and texture of the model… so the S tank could be easily implemented even without it’s mechanism. It would, however, look ridicolous driving around and just flailing it’s whole hull ^^

  4. I didn’t realise the STB-1 was an independent Japanese tank. I thought it was a licensed and modified Leopard design.

    • Well, the post-war allied designs were for the most part using the same playbook (mobility, low front profile, crew survival with heavy sloping on forward faces), which is why the Leo-1, AMX-30, etc have a lot of similarities in shape and design.

    • Japan definitely has an interesting history in tank development.

      Post WWI – Imported British and French tanks (Whippet, FT-17, etc)
      WWII – Developed indigenous tanks (Ha-go, Type 89, Chi-ha, etc)
      Post WWII – Received American hand-me-downs (Sherman, Chaffee, Bulldog)
      Modern – Developed indigenous tanks (Type 61, Type 74, Type 90, and Type 10)

  8. Excuse me, but what’s the difference between T-55 and T-62? Not looking at the game, IRL T-55 seems much more capable in it’s late variants… So, that “progressing” is actually regressing.

      • Why not? T-55 gun was as capable (or even more) with modern amunition and any inprovements from T-62 could be applied (not that there were many). T-62 was only good as primary export product to third world arab countries :) .
        Now, T-64, that one was an inprovement :) .

    • Somewhat increased NBC protection, larger smoothbore gun (and against variants that upgraded to larger smoothbores, internals actually designed around the system and ammo storage), but on the whole, yes, the T-62 wasn’t a very good design until improved as the T-72 to T-90 versions.

    • T62 is a lost child.. considering the t 64 came a mere 2 years later … (and since you asked the 115 mm of the t62 had much better perfomance at long ranges than any of the 100mm guns on the t 55 even with the 60s era hvap rounds for them . mobility , firecontrol .. recoil mechanism .. yea those sucked)

      • T-64 isn’t really comparable, as it represented the “quality” line of Soviet tanks whereas the 62 was of the bulk-issue “quantity” branch.

  9. >> coaxial gear steering device

    FFS, what is that?!? Like, you mean gearbox with epicyclic gears?

  11. MOTHERFUCKING AMX-30 ALL UP IN THIS BITCH

    No, srsly, neat tank but AMX-30 is the Sweet Prince here.

  12. So basically.. better armor than leopard but the same gun? Damn that’s awesome.. and it looks good too ^^

  13. This, with the Centurion 7/1 (until WG gives us the Chieftain, I will never fully commit to the FV4202) and Leopard 1, I think I’ve reached my end-game. I’m already chasing after the Leo 1, and if this shows up with close to stats as the one discussed here. I’m set. Done for me.

    • FV4202 is terrible, agreed. It just doesn’t shine at anything in comparison to the Leopard 1. I think you might enjoy the AMX-30… whenever WG get around to finally implementing it in the game.

        • You’ll have to change a bit that play-style when you reach Leopard PT A(if you haven’t yet) because it lacks gun depression.
          But at Leopard 1 you can return to that play-style.

            • Anyway, if you find it’s playstyle it’s a great tank.
              My problem with it wasn’t the gun depression but the ammo-rack hit points.
              In 300 battles was never blown up but in 90% of them it was damaged, and in 50-60% of those matches the ammo-rack was damaged twice( if I had any repair kits available to repair it when it was damaged first).
              Hope you know what i mean.

      • Hence why WG is looking into changing the tech tree, since the FV4202, from their own words, is at BEST tier IX material (a pretty GOOD tier IX, but tier IX nonetheless) but is at tier X. It’s almost the opposite of the IS-4; it was WAY too good for tier IX, but it’s not really good ENOUGH for tier X unless you’re just doing random battles.

        From my understanding it’ll be replaced with an early Cheiftain 1 prototype.

  15. Do not worry, comrades! The patriotic WG team will be sure to make this decadent bourgeois capitalist implement disappointing in-game!

    Won’t be surprised to see 6 degrees effective depression, lower accuracy, higher aim time than Leopard 1 but higher RoF. Fast firing, semi-armoured, slower version of Leopard PTA.

  17. Whelp…it looks like the STB-1′s driver is going to be serving as spaced armor.

    You might as well hang a “SHOOT-ME-HERE” sign in place of those driver’s periscopes.

    It’s one hell of a beautiful tank though.

  18. -RoF by bumping up the regular RoF a little bit, to like 7.5 or 8 rpm.

    Such a RoF compined with somthing around 9° gundepression + speed + bounce potential would be totaly insane and OP.
    It is nice to see you tried to take the historical values into account but this wont work in WoT. The dpm would be too good. M48 got his RoF nerfed after one patch cause it was just ridiculous.
    T62a just has its high RoF because it does just 320dmg per shot not 390 like 105mm guns do.

  19. Though entirely a Japanese independent tank, I see a mantlet that resembles a Chaffee mantet a lot and the hull indeed seems Leopardish it. Not saying the later is true.

    I’m guessing, as the tank production tech was lost after WWII, that they based their tank designs a lot on the imported US tanks like the Chaffee and known Allied tanks across the globe like the Leo, hence why it has those looks.

  20. hm, thought this tank got a 120mm hullo plate :/ would liked him as a “Armor Leo” but ok hope fully the gun plate gets multiplied by 2 becouse of the turrent would be realy realy nice :)

      • An auto-bounce zone is still pretty damn important – look at how much of a headache people get from KV-1′s and KV-1S’s. If the turret armor was any good, you could also go partially hull-down and still bounce things.

    • Actually, for 120 mm guns, that is autopen, regardless of angle. Additionally, it is only truly autobounce for sub-80 mm guns, which are rare in tier 10 battles. Except at extreme angles, almost any tier 8+ gun will go through. This all applies to the turret roof, although it isn’t clear how much of the turret has ‘roof armour’.

      The hull sides are autopen for 105 mm guns, so long as the tracks don’t get in the way.

      This all means that if your hull is exposed, you have to hope the shell hits your mid or lower front at a favourable angle to bounce tier 9 guns — if you show much of any side, you will get penned by good players (again, if your tracks don’t get in the way). You are very unlikely to bounce tier 10 guns on any part of the tank, except for the turret edges.

  22. Great looking tank :)

    If they could implement all of its features it would be extremely fun to play, not to mention completely OP XD

  23. Look like a cool tank, definitely would give me beyond the Chi-Nu to go up the Japanese medium line. Now get the AMX 30 and the Chieftain in game and I REALLY won’t know which med line to go up first. :P

  24. Dai, Soukou, SS, anyone: for JSDF, was M735 only available from 1984 onward?
    How was ammo acquisition progression like? i.e. L28A1 -> M728 -> M735?
    Also, what is the APFSDS round introduced after M735 and when?

      • So a straight jump from APDS to an obsolete APFSDS and nothing more until after the Cold War?

        That… is quite scary.
        I wondered why Soviets gave their Naval Infs only T-55 variants as supporting armor and considered ‘em adequate for the task until 80s. Maybe they had some idea of threat they were against.

          • Thing is, L28A1 was already obsolete by 70s, esp. when main threat comes not from Soviet customer clients such as Egypt (against which the round would’ve been good enough) but from Soviet Naval Inf itself; If Nii Stali comments are to be believed, those BDD appliques for T-55/62s are specifically proofed against 105mm APDS.

            M735 would’ve been adequate against T-55 variants but I’d guess its introduction is more reactive than proactive as that round also was largely obsolete by 84.
            So in similar vein to L28A1 you again have this firepower gap when Soviets began circulating T-72 and later T-80s into Naval infantry inventory during 80s, hence my “rather scary” comment.

            But fortunately, by that time Sovs had not enough wallet power to effect full reequipment, much less stage an invasion so well, it worked out to be good I guess.

  26. it almost seems to good to be true
    having a medium with more mobility than most and having the L7?
    I think it would make the Tier 10 mediums unbalenced in favor for the japanese and we could only expect them to balance it with poor soft stats

    • If you assume they do shoe-horn 9 degrees of depression, consider a transformation from the Leopard 1: moderate speed reduction, moderate armour improvement, moderate pen reduction, moderate RoF improvement (prediction), moderate aiming reduction (prediction).

      It’s unlikely DPM will exceed the M48; maybe same RoF? (M48 has moderately better armour, generally superior soft stats [prediction], larger size, slower, less accurate [prediction]). Like others have said , tier 9/10 100 mm guns get good DPM to compensate for low alpha.

    • if we assume mobility/protection/firepower as the key attributes we can
      affirm that all the other Tier 10 mediums have clear weaknesses in one of those attributes

      judging by this article we can say that the STB-1 doesn’t have any clear weakness, it also doesn’t have any advantage in any of those attributes compared with the other mediums but it is without any doubt the one who has a better balance between them

      we can also add size as a attribute and we also know (it was written above) that the STB-1 would be smaller than any other Tier 10 midium and would get a better camo factor

      with this we can only assume that to balance this tank with the other Tier 10 mediums the soft stats would pay the price, otherwise there would be a “flood” of STB-1 in hight Tier battles because it would be a tank that could do everything the other Tier 10 mediums can do and with the advantage of being smaller

      • It still has the problem of practically having no armour and the MBTs ammo-rack location…front hull.
        This won’t make it that popular, exactly how centurions and leopards are.

    • Japanese has weapon history to announce low-spec performance.
      Captured WWII Japanese weapons testing by United States. As a result of the test, many performance differences.

  28. The tank looks really nice. But knowing how SerB and his patented Russian Bias™ works (e.g. more favor to Russian tanks, less to US and UK, and totally no favor for losers of WWII the Germans and Japanese), they’re going to make this a suck ass tank. I hope not.

  30. Issue on modeling the LAD … its not a problem IMO to model it in game;

    4 round clip… run it as a First-in-First-out [FIFO] queue where the time between rounds in the “clip” are fast and the first-in load time is long… this models a simple compromise that almost perfectly simulates the LAD and the ability to slow-load a round at a time, as well as idle time filling up the LAD.

    Its really quit easy, and simple to program, as well as to have players understand.

    btw AWESOME article, can’t wait for the Japanese tanks, Cheers to your blog SS keep it up, i read it all about 2 to 3 times a week.!!

    • Edit: To care against and possible wrong assumption: When I mean “clip” the ‘first’ round is available to “fire” at any time during the LAD reload. obviously, but just taking care.

      cheers all. man i hope WG reads this blog… this stuff is such a nice read of fun ideas, history, and game info and rumors.

    • I agree this is easy to program, but I think a chimpanzee straight from Africa has better programming skills than these people at WG. Time and again, relative simple and straight forward features are postponed indefinitely, or are broken in the test versions and removed. All the big features (physics, etc.) are probably done in Australia at BigWorld. Ultimately, this means that features that are limited to a few vehicles are unlikely to be implemented.

      I suppose it isn’t a big surprise WoT is maintained on the cheap, to maximise profits, but it remains disappointing.

    • The T-25 and IS-7 have roughly similar systems, and this got modeled by simply giving them a higher RoF than you’d otherwise expect. On the same vein human loaders have no difference between ready racks and more inconvenient storage locations.

      WG seems to prefer a KISS approach to these things.

  31. Could you make it more OP Daigensui? Even birds on trees know you love Japs tanks, but these stats you propose are just absurd.

          • Firstly, pardon me, I didnt know that, and when we are on the internet, does it really matter?
            Secondly, I know how to read. Theese stats are just proposals and are not really real.

            Nothing to get snappy about.

    • Soft stats can balance any hard stats — personally I think WG should model tanks as realistically as possible in terms of dimensions, armour, pen, etc, and only use the (semi-)imaginary stats (hitpoints, damage, camo, aiming, etc) to balance.

      This tank would only be OP, given the above article, with an excessively high RoF, which is largely an imaginary stat that can be tweaked freely, excluding deterministic autoloading mechanisms. Even if they implemented the tilting hull, the Comet has 12 degrees of depression as well, and a troll mantlet on a flat small turret, unlike this unreliable turret with weak mantlet.

  32. Thanks for this!
    Also, I alaways wondering… What’s this thing on the gun? (on the 1st pic for example).

  33. so has this article been added under japan in the history section?
    also shouldnt the S tank article be under “Others” in the history section

  35. I saw 99 comments but mine wasn’t one of them.

    Now more seriously, I think this might be the first tier X I free exp to all the way from tier 1.

  36. Pingback: Japanese tree announced | For The Record

  37. Pingback: WG fail, Japanese edition | For The Record

  38. Well, seems I have another X tier I will get. They should slow down, I have 4x 9T and I have no idea how to get money for all these tanks …

  39. I don’t see why they cannot just give this tank its FULL -12 to +15 vertical gun movement, no need to modify anything, no need to GIVE it the suspension that can jack up and down in the front and back as needed – just give the gun -12 to +15 degrees from the turret!

    As I see it, this tank will NEED the extra depression to make up for its complete LACK of armor! Unless they do work a LAD system into it which would be easy enough AND make sense! Just give a dedicated key that turns the LAD on and off, that way a player can decide to load a full LAD at the beginning of a match, and then turn LAD loading off as it starts firing off its longer 4 round burst – after which pint it could reload like most meds with a 105mm gun, a round every 7.5-8.5 seconds! And IF a player then decides to fall back for a little they can again reload the LAD so that the tank can unload another 4 rounds in 12 seconds when it again re-emerges!

    OR

    They could just incorporate the LAD as an always in-use system. Since it takes 4 seconds between each shot, it should load the next 4 rounds in about 16-24 seconds – depending how initial testing shows.

    But there again, I am not sure testing matters AT ALL!

    I mean HOW did the WTF-E-10OP make it into the game WITH a 6 round clip that can do 560 average damage every 2 seconds, unloading 3360 damage EASILY in only 12 seconds! With .29 acc, a full 260 turret with a fast turning speed, good acceleration and maneuverability (better maneuverability than the Foch 155 and nearly the same speed!) AND it aims in 1.5 seonds! Meaning using ALL view and camo equip, coated optics, binocs, and camo net – with camo and view range training – like my E-100 crew had in beta (I switched repairs to camo) – the Waffentrager E-10OP is THE DEFINITION OF OP! With SO much accuracy, 276 AP pen is MORE than enough, BUT it still has 352 APCR PEN! I can, and HAVE penned an E-100′s upper glacis with it! Which means the turret is auto-pen with APCR! Ugh…. It pisses me off that they drop such a blatantly OP tank into this game…. I mean FFS, I did 6111 AVERAGE damage per match in 26 matches, I only lost 4 times, and I Survived ALL but 3 matches! NO TANK SHOULD PWN THAT EASILY AND THAT WELL!

  40. Seriously, can anyone answer WHY WG made a tank that can EASILY kill a Maus from FULL HP in less time than a Maus can even shoot a second round? Hell even the IS7 cannot reload before the WTF-E-10OP kills it!

    We all know it has a weak turret, but it is so damned fast, and it has SUCH AMAZING view-range, that with 100% camo crew, a camo net, binocs and coated optics basically made it so that I could shoot EVERYONE without them EVER seeing me! I mean with that kinda setup, I saw an IS7 around 810 meters away (OFC another teammate T62A was closer and the one who spotted the IS7) And KILLED it before it could do more than 1 shot to the T62A, and the T62A did not even damage it! No one other than me did, AND IT ONLY TOOK 4 APCR ROUNDS TOO!

    That is just too damned OP… That is more than power creep, that is making all previous tanks nearly useless in the face of it! Sure, if you are LUCKY (and the driver is either dumb, or close to the last one left on his team and doesnt have 6th sense or view range enhancements) You could catch one during its minute long reload – but I have NEVER found falling back to reload to be ANY kind of real problem! I mean with the DEVASTATING auto cannon, I , along with 2 or more teammates alone can wipe out 5+ enemy tanks on one flank! As a result, I NEVER traveled without teammates nearby and cover I can make it to in order to reload.

    In other words, the ONLY weaknesses of the WTF-E-10OP are easily offset by driver skill (but not much of that is needed really..) and/or good equipment and crew setup and good reload tactics! Which OFC I know from having owned a BatChat 25t since it was a tier 9 med.

  41. Just so you guys know T54/55, T62, T72, and T90 are Russia’s bulk widely produced tanks where the T64, and T80 are Russia’s “elite” tanks.