8.9 impressions – part 3

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Hello everyone,

in part 1 and part 2, I did put down my opinion on the new German branch. Now it’s time for the last part, featuring premium tanks.

Chi-Nu Kai

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So, the time has finally come: the Japanese tanks are here with their first pre-tree medium, the Chi-Nu Kai (a Chi-Nu with Chi-To turret and gun). It’s a tier 5 premium vehicle though.

My first impression of Chi-Nu Kai was sort of the same as with the T-25, minus the speed. Chi-Nu Kai (furthermore only CNK) is not a one-trick pony relying on one trait (such as speed, firepower or armor), it is a fairly well balanced tier 5 vehicle. It has one flaw, but we’ll get to that later. First, the armor:

chinu

As you can see, it’s nothing absolutely outstanding, but also nothing to be ashamed of. Compared to T-25′s sloped 50mm and 60mm turret, it’s somewhat worse (50mm hull plates under mediocre slope, with very thin 12mm parts under heavy slope – autobounce guaranteed), but it’s not bad. Turret front as you can see is actually pretty tough (aiming at turret is pointless): thick mantlet, set in a very thick (95 to 150mm!) frame, with the rest of the frontal turret place being respectable 75mm thick. The hull sides are of course paper, so you will want to keep that thick turret between you and the enemy, otherwise you will get overmatch-oneshotted before you manage to say “Banzai!” – only 25mm (compared to T-25′s 45mm). Turret sides are thick enough (50mm), but again, compared to T-25, they are worse.

T-25 however more hitpoints (610 to 470). With the exception of turret front, T-25 wins here, so you might want to keep your hull down with the CNK.

If there is however something that this tank excels in, it’s the firepower. 124 penetration and 125 damage with 12 ROF is not as good as T-25′s DPM (1500 vs T-25′s 1670), but it is still very good. T-25 gun has also less penetration, but the 8mm difference isn’t too much. The depression and elevation is okay, but it is not stellar (-6,5/+20). The CNK gun can be brought to bear by a quite a fast-rotating turret (30 degrees/sec, compared to T-25′s 22 deg/sec), but in a straight up duel (unless the CNK is hulldown), T-25 will outshoot it. CNK gun is also quite accurate (0,37) so you can keep your distance and let ‘em have it. For this, the CNK has one significant advantage: 350 viewrange, compared to T-25′s 320.

And now we come to the third part of the “holy trinity”, the mobility. Here, T-25 wins definitely I am afraid. CNK is quite a sluggish tank. While it can go as fast as 40km/h downhill, its weak 240hp engine just won’t push it fast enough even on levelled ground. What is even worse: the acceleration is quite terrible, this is NOT a fast medium tank. What a potential buyer should also beware is its sluggish traverse on soft surfaces. While it has good traverse on paper (38 deg/s compared to 32 deg/s of Panzer IV for example) and potentially good terrain resistance, the weak engine lets it down terribly. While not fatal in most circumstances, this definitely is a problem on soft terrain and when trying to out-turn a tank destroyer. Don’t also expect to outrun anyone.

With that being said, I think there is another sort of “hidden” issue with CNK: it loves to explode from ammoracks for some reason. I am not sure where the ammo is located, but I noticed many more explosions than I normally do. Could be bad luck, could be a flaw, can’t say.

Of course, there are two more factors in the decision whether to buy the Chi-Nu Kai or not. First (an argument for buying) is that this will allow you to train your Japanese crew in advance. That’s right, no placeholder crews, even the camo and iscriptions are there. Everything’s ready for the Japanese tree. Second argument(against buying) however is that this vehicle will appear only in gift shop in 0.8.9 (you won’t be able to buy it for gold, only for cash) – and it’s possible (not guaranteed) that the Japanese branch will come as early as 0.9.0, so you won’t have the crew prepared, if you wait for it to appear in the ingame gold shop.

Personally, I am undecided, but I think I’ll wait for it to appear in the ingame shop. There is no need to feed WG money (I still have a part of that Superpershing gold) when you can get it for gold later (well, if you have it). Overall, it’s a nice tank, but it is neither stunning or a must have. At long distances, it will outperform the T-25, but on medium to short distances, the T-25 is somewhat better. It leans towards sniper role, definitely not a brawler.

SS Rating: 7/10

T-44-85

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This is finally the tier 7 Soviet premium vehicle. Now, as some of you probably know, I am not that fond of Soviet tanks. When I started playing WoT, I did want the T-54 because of how cool it looked, so I unlocked it after months of grind, but the truth is, it didn’t sit well with me, just like its predecessor, the T-44. Therefore, I was a bit skeptical about this new vehicle, especially with a 126 pen gun on tier 7. But overall, it’s actually pretty good.

One of the first things that need to be said is that this tank has limited MM as far as I know. I think it was even confirmed by SerB or Storm or whoever, but I don’t think it’ll see tier 9′s. Keep that in mind when considering the rest, please.

This tank has really good frontal armor for its tier. Sloped 75mm can bounce with proper angling 150 pen shots from 75mm L/70 and sometimes even more penetrating stuff. The turret is well armored as well.

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The gun is its weakspot however: 85mm ZIS S-53 126 pen, 160 damage and 0,42 accuracy won’t make anyone shake with fear. Depression is also mediocre (-6/+20). Luckily, there is the rate of fire: 12,5 ROF (2000 DPM) is not bad! The penetration is… well, not good, but sufficient to attack anything from behind. You’ll have to work for your kills a bit, no “lolbushsniping” for you! With that accuracy however, you won’t be sniping anyone, this vehicle is a brawler thru and thru. And for brawling, you need two things: accuracy on the move and mobility.

The first part is ensured by the fact this vehicle can in fact mount vertical stabilizer, which actually helps. As second equipment I used the rammer, third I leave at your discretion, but I used vents.

The second part is provided by the 520hp engine. This vehicle is actually very mobile: it accelerates well beyond what you would expect from a premium. Granted, it’s not a race car, but it’s high traverse rate (56 deg/s!) combined with good speed limit (51,6) and high horsepower engine make it very nimble indeed. On flat surface, you’ll be able to circle around an E-25.

It’s a very typical Soviet tank: good front armor, good mobility, poor accuracy, not much else to it. I actually liked it, but I definitely won’t be buying it – this style doesn’t suit me. If it does suit you, you will find it satisfactory I’d say.

SS rating: 7,5/10

Type 64

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Well, here I have a bit of a problem. You see, I am not by far an expert on light tanks. I played a few, liked the Chaffee well enough, but I somehow can’t grasp how to play this vehicle.

On paper, this new Chinese tier 6 light tank (sorry, Taiwanese :P) does have everything a light tank should have: a decent rapid fire gun (76mm M1A2), good engine (500hp) and decent viewrange (390), but it also has terrible armor (or rather, no armor at all, despite the fact the mantlet is somewhat bouncy and manages to resist a shell every blue moon). What I disliked about it the most however is the poor acceleration on middle and soft surfaces. In other words: you lose speed (by crashing, turning etc.) in the open, you are dead. It turns fairly well though.

Not much else I can say about it. I suspect this vehicle has ammo rack trouble (there were some explosions), but by the time your ammo rack gets hit, you are dead anyway, cause everyone’s shooting at this paper pinata. I tried to play as a passive scout, but either I was doing it wrong, or this tank has pretty bad camo, because (granted, without a 100 percent camo skill crew) I got spotted fairly often.

I am sure this tank will find its customers (notably from Taiwan :)), but I can’t recommend it to anyone.

SS rating: 3/10

83 thoughts on “8.9 impressions – part 3”

  3. “12mm parts under heavy slope – autobounce guaranteed”
    Everything can triple overmatch it.

        • Yes it does. Unless your gun is extremely derpy (pens less than its own caliber), it will penetrate from literally any angle with decent RNG (because normalisation is massively boosted).

        • It can if the armour itself is no better then paper in the first place. 12mm sloped at 80 degrees (and by the looks of it the armour isn’t even sloped back that far) gives an effective armour of only ~70mm.
          Though to be honest the overmatch weakspot doesn’t matter, the entire hull on the thing is worthless anyway, just stay hull down or be riddled with holes. Depression is my main concern – 6.5 will make life difficult for hulling down.

    • Except that T21 has superior acceleration, well, as I love driving T21, maybe I’ll a bit disappointed

    • I liked it.It has nice acceleration(sorry to disagree with you SS), the rapid fire 76mm, high speed, and great view range. The only problems it has are the same as anyother light tank: armor, low damage and/or pen, low health, though the Type 64 is also abit large for a light as well.

      • The main problem is, it has a crew of 5, while the chinese light tanks at level 7 and 8 have crew’s of 4. So it kinda sucks for crewtraining

          • Actually, it is somehow bad, because that 5th member will most likely “eat” all that accelerated crew training.

            • Only if you use a pre-existing, already highly trained crew. And only until the Radioman catches up. For fresh crews, not much wrong with it.

        • It can train the full Chinese light crew. You just need a 75% radioman, not much of a loss.

  6. Will you be able to buy the 112 and t-34-3 be buyable with gold through the tech tree in 8.9?

  7. t-44-85 has one bug – driver cant open his hatch. Turret should be placed a little backward, IMO.

  8. t-44-85 is a joke it apparently costs 7200 only a fool would pay that price for something so meh

    yeah the armour and speed are very good but getting that gun to work in tier 8 games is a struggle

    2 years ago i could buy a type 59 for 7500
    currently i can buy a SP for 7200
    both are tier 8

    tier 6 gun on a tier 7 tank with a tier 8 medium price? seriously who’s idea was that?

    there is no justification for this rise in premium tank prices

      • Smaller, therefore much better camo coefficient and harder to hit.
        Tier appropriate 370 m view range, when combined with the good camo, makes a much more effective scout when necessary.
        75 mm side armour much more serviceable for showing your side (sidescrape) than 50 mm.
        Turret front more sloped and slightly thicker.
        Rear transmission.
        Higher DPM.
        Higher acceleration and top speed, much higher agility.
        (Can mount a vertical stabiliser at tier 7, but I won’t claim that this makes it any more accurate on the move than the PzV/M10.)

        After people see the gun they all seem to go full retard. Only a few tanks in tiers 5-8 will have stronk enough flanks to give you trouble, in which case track, shoot in the arse, or load APCR.

      • Just by looking at the stats it seems very weak and in need of firing gold-shells to penetrate some Tier 8 HTs, sort of like I have it now with my T-54 with LB-1 (175 mm penetation and rest stock) and is unable to penetrate E-75s from the side 2-300 meters away.

        Anyone have any idea why it doesn´t recieve the top-gun from the T-34-85, except that it is the top gun for the other russian tier 7 mediums??

        The Panther M10 has topgun from Tier 6 tanks, the Type 59 had equal gun with T-44 when D10T was top-gun, IS-6 has IS top gun, etc. the premium has top guns of one tier lower tank, so in my opinion they should give it a gun worthy a tier 7 vehicle.

        • Premium tanks almost always have the historical guns and engines that they had in real life. In reality the T-44-85 mounted the 85mm S-53 gun so that’s what it mounts in game.

    • They have nothing in common other than being fast and lightly armored.
      The Type 64 has a worse gun, MUCH worse MM, and a much worse turret in exchange for a bit more view range and better traverse speed.
      The Type 64 is a light that has a gun that will be useless versus most tanks it comes across. The Hellcat is an overpowered TD.

      • No, the Type 64 is only for those who liked the T21. If you buy it expecting a T-50 or hellcat you will be dissapointed.

        • Alltough if you load it up with removed speed governor and Quality Oil, it accelerates like a T-50-2.

  10. but it also has terrible armor (or rather, no armor at all, despite the fact the mantlet is somewhat bouncy and manages to resist a shell every blue moon)

    I thought less Armour with a light tank is better, lol…

  13. Im interested in knowing if the 112 will be able to be purchased for ingame gold in 8.9, any news on that?

    also, im glad the “1st” and donkey jokes have toned down :)

  14. >12mm parts under heavy slope – autobounce guaranteed

    Incorrect for any guns of 36mm or greater caliber (practically all guns over T2 minus autoloaders?). The 3-caliber rule is in effect there.

  15. THE CNK has only one advantage compare to t-25. It is Japanese. Who don’t love to start Japanese tech tree with three skill crew? :).
    Anyway t-25 is still the best tier5 prem tank.

  16. T-44-85 is basically a KV-13 with premium matchmaking and the ability to train Soviet medium crews. It has a bit less penetration, accuracy, and aimtime but gets a bit better acceleration.

    • Huh?

      KV-13 has 144/194 pen. 44-85 has 95-158.

      How is a 50 point difference a ‘bit less’? The standard rounds of the KV13 are nearly as good as gold rounds for 44-85. Unless those things are 1000 credits each you’re just wasting cash. KV13 can pen everything t5/t6 without thinking, T7 with some aim, and T8/T9 with gold. 44-85 is going to have to load gold against most T6.

      It’s a crew trainer and that’s it and even there you are probably better off with the Matty IV first IMHO. Unless it gets Valentine LL matchmaking and never sees T8 or if you really can’t stand the Matty fighting style then it’s a waste.

  18. ‘It’s a very typical Soviet tank: [...] poor accuracy’

    This is a common misconception really. At least for medium tanks Soviets are more accurate than the Americans and Chinese and at some tiers competitive with Germans and Brits.

      • Tier 4: T-28 1st equal with the Matilda (0.34)
        Tier 5: T-34 (and Chinese clone) 1st (0.34)
        Tier 6: T-34-85 just below Germans and Brits (0.37) [A-43 not so good]
        Tier 7-10: All guns except the A-44 ZiS-6 and T-54 D-54 (use the D-10T2C…) are <= 0.05 behind their German or British competitor, which is hardly inaccurate.

        Perhaps you mean the dispersion from moving is not great at tier 4-7, except that this affects all 'accurate' tanks besides the VK30.02M and Panther. Soviet medium aim time is almost uniformly good at all tiers.

        • Its only good cause the Chinese tanks make it looks better. German and British are allways on top of the accuracy. The americans arent that acurate, bu they make up for it in other ways.

          • Oh, I see, because Chinese accuracy is worse than Soviet accuracy then Soviet tanks have bad accuracy? -_-

            I’ve never claimed that Soviet mediums are super accurate, just not ‘poor’. That title belongs to USA & China. When considering all nations they are ‘average’ for their tier, with a few positive/negative exceptions.

  19. Sorry to say it, but your review of the Type 64 is just so wrong. It’s a Chaffee with easier matchmaking and the speed limit of a T-50-2. It’s too much fun to be legal.

    • Yep, comparing it with Chaffee is much more accurate than Hellcat. You shouldn’t care about ammorack as you should stay stealthy during the 1st half of battle.

  20. I’ll probably pick up the CNK, for some reason it screams tier 5 Panzer IV Schmalturm to me. Sluggish speed, poor armour, but decent gun basically relegates the thing to second line. When top tier and hull down it’s going to be fun trying to hurt as the cupola appears to be a difficult weak spot to reliably hit (unless you hit the top 1/3 it’s not a guaranteed penetration).

    Definitely a tank that appeals to the passive player.

    • The shmallsturm did not have poor armor, 80 frontal hull armor at tier 5 is beast, plus the shmallsturm itself was impenetrable from the front.

  22. “good front armor” T-44-85? dude the test server is full of them and im shooting gold with mine (167mm pen) and it goes through other 44-85′s all the time every time! literally every T7 tank will have no problem penning it. And the tank will see T8 games too.

    • Consider the fact that not everyone in normal server will be spitting gold, and that you will face lots of T6 and stock T7 and 8 also. Test the tank under normal ciscunstances, not with gold and full equipped at the first match. Then you can see if it is worth or not buying the tank.

      • I’ve tested this thing’s frontal plate against regular AP (126mm pen) rounds from it’s own gun. From straight-on with little angling, they have very little trouble getting through most of the time, only a couple bounces.

        The armor on this thing is far from impressive. At tier 7, most guns you’re up against will shoot through your hull like it’s paper. I’d wager a 200mm pen gun will cut through it with ease, even when it’s heavily angled.

  23. Despite many people waiting for a better Russian medium premium than the pseudo-heavy Matilda, I don’t see WG swimming in cash over this one beyond the initial week or two of sales. Premium MM doesn’t mean squat, because it’s a tier 7 and that means it will end up in tier 8 more than 50% of the time. AP pen is useless for that MM, even the Panther/M10 gets better, and hard flanking is problematic at higher tiers due to the accuracy overhaul and TD overlords taking over the game. Unicunts won’t buy it because even gold spam won’t save it in a tier 8 match; ie it’s a terrible tank to try and carry with. Average players won’t buy it because it’s worse than the T-43, which isn’t a particularly loved tier 7 even with the better gun. They should have made it a tier 6 with regular MM, would have been fine there.

  24. About the Type 64:
    SS did you just use the 50% crew? I tried him with a 100% Crew and I don’t think, that the acceleration is bad. (Your screenshot suggest 50%, your TD reviews suggest 100%)
    And well yes he has a fragile ammorack. Just like the Type 62 (and like the Hellcat/Chaffee which’s ammoracks are a bit more durable – in my oppinion).
    But with a good camo-crew, he is quite stealthy.
    Well, since I’ve never played the T21, I would say, that the Type64 is a Chaffee-Hellcat-Crossbreed. Even though I have the Type62, I’m thinking about buying the Type64, when it is on discount – hopefully a 50% discount.

  26. The Chi-Nu-Kai…well, I’ll be honest, I might get it jut to train crews. Plus I have a fair bit of experience with the Germans (including the T-25, which you compared it to), so the mobility issues aren’t a problem (unless it’s like the T-25 and can’t turn at high speed). I could see myself doing fine in it.

    The T-44-85…eh, I might get it if I go up the Soviet medium line, though I’ll probably get the lend-lease Matilda instead, or at least first.

    And the Type 64…well…I don’t like light tanks much anyway (except the AMX light tanks; those were pretty fun). I probably won’t get it (since I refused to go up any higher on the Chinese tree after getting the Type 2957 Chi-Ha for the explicit purpose of Seal-Clubbing).

    • There is no high speed with the chi nu kai. You will do 35 on even road and 45 on downhill.
      Uphill it dies, horrible Power to weight ratio, with 240hp engine at 21 tonns.

  27. T-44-85 aim time is untenable with just vert stabs.
    I recommend GLD rather than the recommended vents, which is sad because I will miss out on the optics.

  28. why does the chinese have 5 people, when everybody in the goddamn tree has 4.

    i bet it’s historical.