8.9 Feedback – Pz.Sfl.IVc

Hello everyone,

today, we are going to have a look at the new tier 5 tank destroyer that came with 8.9 – the Pz.Sfl.IVc.

T51

Since 8.9 came out, this strange vehicle has earned several names: Flaktoaster, Bangbus, Flakbus or just “the Toaster”. Nevertheless, this vehicle continues this German TD line trend of very fragile yet open-topped vehicles. If you think about it, the trend is actually clear: T4 to T7 vehicle move from very comfortable to very uncomfortable traverse-wise (the higher the tier, the worse the traverse), this is changed only by the T8 vehicle, that has a turret.

Back to the Sfl. The first thing you notice when you buy it is the fact it’s HUGE. And I mean really big. This does cause some issues when you are trying to hide behind a bush: remember that one virtual spotting check point is located on the vehicle roof – so if the bush is too small and a part of the “roof” (open-topped) is sticking out, the vehicle WILL be spotted. In other words, you have to pick your bushes carefully and go for the big ones. Always make sure the bush or tree is high enough. Furthermore, the size causes the camouflage to be somewhat poor: I was running it with a camo net and full camo crew (crew is another issue, we’ll get to that) and I still got spotted much more often than in the StuG III. You absolutely HAVE to stay behind (not relying on stealthy approach), otherwise you will get spotted. This is partially offset by comfortable viewrange (380m), that allows you to snipe

However, make no mistake: despite being so big, this vehicle is a race car. It’s fast as hell and despite its paper stats, its agility is amazing. You will outturn pretty much anything short of light tanks and on flat land you can easily reach 50-55 km/h. This is due to the fact that the vehicle is relatively light (cca 23 tons), but has a very powerful (for its tier) 400hp engine. There is a price to pay for that however. This vehicle has no armor – on some spots literally. The hull is only like 20mm thick (14mm on the sides), but the superstructure on it is 6-10mm thick. That means one thing: everything will penetrate you and pretty much every HE shell will do MASSIVE damage. This vehicle only has 350 health and can be easily oneshotted by any howitzer above 75mm – even regular 75mm guns with HE shells will do outrageous damage to you. You literally cannot afford to take any hits. True, you are fast, but unless you react quick or are lucky, the first shot you recieve will be your last. This makes the vehicle NOT being good for beginners and it somewhat causes its bad reputation. Fragility is the hallmark of the entire branch, but it is on this vehicle you will begin to really feel it as a problem. One thing you have to beware especially are the light tanks. While other tank destroyers such as StuG III can deal with scouts to some extent (by facing them with frontal armor, that can stand some punishment and is resistant to lowtier autocannons), it is the autocannons that prove to be a moral danger to the Sfl – especially the spamming Panzer IC, its machinegun will tear you to pieces in seconds, or at least crippling you.

This aspect also makes the Sfl mobility largely a strategic thing and not tactical: you won’t outrun light tanks or lighter meds, it merely allows you to get very fast to where you want to be, much like the Hellcat, that – however – compensates this drawback with a turret. The armor and low health pool is also connected to the fact that once you get spotted, EVERYONE will see you as free XP pinata and they will start shooting at you immediately. With its fragile reputation, this vehicle attracts possibly the most fire in the game I’ve ever seen. Other tanks have this “one of the many” factor, but this one makes the enemies instantly focus on it, which also is the effect of the gun.

There is one more quite serious issue with it: the crew. Unlike the Marder 38T with a standard 5-man setup (commander, loader, gunner, radioman, driver), this beast needs a crew of 6 with two loaders and two gunners (dropping the radioman), while the vehicle after it (Nashorn) returns to the 38T crew scheme, so does the tier 7 Sturer Emil. Tier 8 has only 4 crewmen (dropping the radioman again), tier 9 needs two loaders and so does tier 10. In other words, the loader you will need for this tank won’t be used until tier 9 and the secondary gunner won’t be used ever again. This is quite annoying when it comes to proper crewmen training, because at tier 9 you will suddenly end up with an untrained crewman from the Sfl. Not very comfortable.

But of course, this vehicle has good sides too – apart from the mobility. Its good side is called the GUN. Sfl can mount three guns. The lackluster (but doable) stock 75mm, the 88mm L/56 Flak equivalent and the 88mm L/71 equivalent. And all that on a tier 5 vehicle! The last gun however is unique to Sfl and optional – you don’t have to research it in order to progress to the Nashorn. So, here and now, let me tell you two of the perhaps not-so-obvious things that turn this vehicle from “meh” to “holy crap”.

First:  You do NOT need the top gun

First gun: 88mm FlaK 37 L/56: 132 PEN, 220 DAM, 8,82 ROF, 0,35 ACC (1940 DPM)
Second gun: 88mm FlaK 41 L/74: 194 PEN, 240 DAM, 8 ROF, 0,32 ACC (1920 DPM)
And now compare it to the top StuG III DPM: 1799

The top gun L/74 has better penetration, but for tier 5 vehicles that meet usually T5-T6 opponents, 194 penetration is overkill. You don’t need that. It also has slightly better accuracy (not that much of a difference), but it has two MAJOR disadvantages. First, you have to research it and it is not cheap. It costs 16500 XP to research, which is more than a half of what you pay in XP to unlock the Nashorn (26500 XP). Note again that you do NOT have to research the top gun, so you have to choose whether you leave that 16500 XP for the Nashorn. I suggest you do. Second argument against the top gun is its terrible traverse.

This needs a bit of an explanation. You see, the traverse is not the same for all guns. The stock and the L/56 offer very comfortable traverse (24 degrees to each side), while the top gun traverse is very poor (5 degrees to each side). This is EXTREMELY important. Why? Because in order to aim properly with the top gun, you have to move your hull. A lot. And moving hull instantly causes you to lose 40 percent of your camo. This is very problematic for a vehicle that already is huge and has bad camo as it is.

The 88mm L/56 is perfectly adequate and sufficient for tier 5 and I never had that feeling “crap, underpowered gun, gotta load gold” – no. Apart from lowtier battles that turn into a massacre if you don’t get spotted (you oneshot stuff left and right), you will mostly meet tier 5 and 6 vehicles, that – apart from certain problematic individual tanks such as the KV-1S, KV-1 in general – are very vulnerable to the 132mm pen shells. With the crazy DPM and good viewrange, if you play it right, you will get the approaching enemy long before it spots you. This is very important for maps with lot of cover for you (Murovanka forest for example) or maps with a LOT of open ground (El Halluf). The accuracy is okay too, the shells fly relatively fast and straight – sniping definitely works with the second gun. This brings us to the second not-so-obvious thing.

Second: Use your elevation

This vehicle has sort of bad depression (-5) for all guns – combined with its huge boxed size, you can forget about hulldown. However: who needs hulldown with such elevation? Basically, the idea is, you are huge anyway and you have no armor, so your saving grace is not a hulldown position, but cover (bushes) and distance. What you therefore need to do is not to hide your hull behind a hill, but to do this (excuse my low photoshop skills):

rofl

The key part is to do this at huge distance from the enemy vehicles. There is no point in hiding behind a small hill (you won’t be able to shoot due to bad depression, but you will be spotted anyway because you are too big), the key is not to get spotted because you are simply far away. This works extremely well on El Halluf and Sand River – in El Halluf encounter mode, you can simply stay at the point where the hill starts to slope down to the valley, overlooking the circle down there. Unless a scout makes it to the base of your part of the valley, you will not get spotted, you also don’t have to worry about armor angling (you have no armor to angle), so you can use full traverse potential of the second gun.

To demonstrate: this is a draft of El Halluf encounter mode. If you park your vehicle (with camo net and full camo crew) at the green point, you will be able to cover the entire green triangle area with your traverse and if you don’t move the hull, you will be spotted only when a tank makes it to the red point.

elhal

Naturally, this works only for the second gun because of the top gun traverse limits. This worked very well for me.

Conclusion

It might seem at first that I don’t like the vehicle much, but I do. A lot. Apart from its fragility, it’s superior (especially in firepower) to StuG III and if you are careful, you can massacre everything with that gun. The vehicle has enough ammo for you to fire even occasional blind shots (unlike Marder 38T) and the comfortable traverse makes it work very well. I daresay it’s one of the best tier 5 tank destroyers out there, but it gets even better. Next time we’ll talk about the Nashorn, the REAL monster of this branch.

109 thoughts on “8.9 Feedback – Pz.Sfl.IVc

  1. Yes, accurate description for this TD. I fully agree with it that this TD is very fast and agile and the gun traverse is also good. The aim time is also nice.

    The crew selection is very unfortunate, I couldn’t use my Marder crew…

  2. “Next time we’ll talk about the Nashorn, the REAL monster of this branch.”
    Real monster is Sturer Emil – Nashorn is just standart tank, nothing special.

      • Slowish, turns good, horizontal traverse makes you pick your spot, DEPRESSION is epic.
        Armor is not an argument at all.
        Stock is enough – I have a lot of experience on KV-5, you see :D

        • Depression is good ye, but it only works if you are bush hull down, otherwise the weak open top means a very quick HE death :P

            • I don’t know why you’re not receiving the attention of the opfor artillery. I drive a FV304. When I see one of these td’s on the mini-map, I have the same reaction as a shark sniffing blood in the water. This td is one of the few vehicles that the FV304 can one shot. At range, my aiming circle will almost fit entirely inside the td’s crew compartment.

          • i have no liveserver experience on the Sturer Emil but i didnt like it at all on testserver mainly because of its poor speed and the horrible ammorcount. You can not afford to take blindshots at all because 15 rounds of ammo wont last very long if you do

            • The Nashorn is a real beast!!

              but in my opinion, the Sturer Emil is just like a D.Max on steroids!

              its just a lot of fun to shoot at other T7s with 500 ore more damage!!

              and the depression is some kind of the best ingame, beside of its poor stockgun the elite state of this thing just kicks a hell of a punch

              EVERY enemy you will face(aside from T95) will get hurt from your gun!

              500DMG at 11,5seconds of reload is a really good Thing.

              enemys know if you hin them, it will hurt, A LOT

      • sturer emil is one of the most armoured new german tds learn to use the gun depression and u will be alright.

      • Gotta go with ss on this one. That dps at tier six is crazy awesome. 3k dmg rounds are not uncommon

        The tier 7 is worse in almost every way: camo ( most importantly ), mobility, gun traverse, dps. The only thing the tier 7 seems to have going for it is depression. in the world of squishy tds, that means nothing.

        • you mean DPM!! DPS is better in the T7! DPS= Damage Per Shot

          DPM=Damage Per Minute!

          and i love the T7 more than nashorn!

          despite of his lack in mobility, it has a better camo than nashorn does(maybe its just the camoskill of the crew) and the gun is awesome in combination with the epic depression,

          you can use the terrain better than every other tank! and every little bush is enough tu hide it when you are hulldown!

            • Per-second is kinda irrelevant in a game where some guns reload for twenty-plus secs though. No reason to risk confusion by using “DPS” instead of “alpha” tho.

    • Sturer Emil is quite likely the weakest link in this branch….it’s horrible to play due to shitty agility and speed combined with huge size and no armor….only good think about it is gun damage…

  3. This tank, as much as its ugly, worked really well for me. Yesterday I unlocked the Nashorn and i love it :D :D The tier 5 was really fast, and I used only bino. and cammo net on it, and sniping from a bush worked well. I didn’t unlock the top gun because of the traverse, but I stayed on the stock gun actually, because of the better pen and really fast shooting(under 4 seconds). :)

  4. Something wrong with the site? I just got the “banned” message a couple of times when clicking on this topic. It worked once I hit the comments link of the topic.

  5. Glad you included the bit about the gun selection and the gun arc. I’ve also found the L/56 to be the best option, as you don’t really need the extra accuracy and penetration offered by the top gun, but you dearly need the extra gun traverse and shorter aim time.

  6. “In other words, you have to pick your bushes carefully and go for the big ones.”
    This made me giggle. :)

  7. Wait, wait, wait… You’re saying the dreaded, god-awful L/56 actually LIVES on this tank?!

    I still have awful memories of the VK3002D (those of the FailPzIV have been wiped out completely, fortunately) attempting to use this gun and trying to aim for the LFP of an IS (a tank that the FlakBus will most definitely meet) and ending up bouncing due to minor angles.
    It will be funny to see to see the FlakBus trying to take on a KV-3 with the L/56, even from the sides.

    Still on the Marder38T, though (maybe I’ll get a damn fine game and end up with some gold via the WG competition for the new TDs), but I think I’ll use the L/71. I’m somewhat used to French TDs level of gun traverse anyhow, and the snap-shot super aim time will help alleviate that problem

    • Dont forget one fact… this gun is a FLAK version… it’s not the PaK version the VKs have. But trust me, gun traverse is more important than pen on this tank.

      • I know it’s the Flak version, though I don’t think that makes much of a difference…

        Maybe the shell travel speed is higher (it should be AFAIK), firing the L/56 with the former Tier 6 Mediums or the FailPzIV felt like throwing potatoes (ridiculously low shell speed)… it’s a really bad sniper gun, especially when compared to its performance IRL

        • The L/56 on this is actually a good gun for sniping. 0.35 accuracy and 1.9 seconds aiming time isn’t bad at all. Shell speed is still a bit on the low side though, so lead your targets well.

          • Hated the L56. Did more damage with the 75L70, and got more kills. Course, I never had the chance to use the L56 on tier 3s either… Maybe this flak bus concept ain’t so bad…

            • Will add one more point tho – y the hate for the Jagdpanzer? Whilst it needed a bigger gun I smote many a tank and turned a ton of wins on that lil bastard…

      • I know, but it’s one of the strongest memories associated with that gun (the other failing to pen the LFP of a VK3001P or VK3001H on 1 HP… but that was with the FailPzIV) and it was with a heavy that you will meet while at Tier 7.

        Of course, I had a very nasty surprise being completely ineffective against a KV-5 with the VK3002D with the 8.8 L/56 (tried to circle it while tracked, even the R2-D2 bounced like crazy) but since then I used the L/70 with 3.3 reload speed with Rammer, Vents & BiA.

        But I didn’t mention that because, obviously, the KV-5 is a Tier 8.

        There is also the video of Jingles making a 2nd attempt of a review on the FailPzIV, and there you can see how completely inadequate the L/56 is against a KV-1! Which was a bit angled, but was being shot at from the sides!
        Even premium ammo on the L/56 didn’t manage to do anything.

    • I have played about 30 games with that tank already and once I’ve ended in tier 7 match. Tier 5s are just so more common to fill lower tier matches.

    • Many people say the L56 is better, but the Flak L74 is a true beast, it is literally a lazer, from max range shots hit the targets almost instantly. With good positioning on the battlefield you can completely destroy the enemy team, nothing can withstand your gun. Even British TDs and tier 7 heavies are no match for your penetration, and with the 0.32 accuracy you never miss. Personally when I know that my enemy will pen me every time I want to know that I will be able to do the same. The 88 L56 makes the Panzer Sfl. IVc. a good tank, the 88 L74 makes it a tank to keep forever, but then the Nashorn brings things to a whole new level of awesome… I have better average damage and kills (but worse winrate) than in any other tanks of the tier using the Pz. Sfl. IV c. and the Nashorn.

      • Yeah, the gun is great, but then you have to constantly turn due to your shit gun traverse, increasing the time per shot.

  8. I call mine the Coffin Tank. Ace tanker in my first battle. First ever Pool’s medal a few days ago (along with a Kolobanov’s). Yes, you must stay back and snipe but due to it’s speed you can go man mode towards the end of the game if you have to. It’s safe to say that I love this tank.

    • Actually liked the long 88, because when i meet a pz.1 c i know im going to be able to one shot him.

  9. This DeathBox is amazing (view range speaking part) , As I could see, in El Halluf i can easily see enemies from sniper site on the edge up to their flag with binocs ( 690 aprox) . You cant do that even with Patton or WaffenTraktor 100. Bug maybe?.

    Amazing

    • It might be a bug, or (more likely) someone else spotted them for you, because spotting targets yourself beyond 445m distance is impossible.

  10. Nashorn is not the real monster.. if you make it beyond the slow sturer you’ll know ^-^

  11. For me it was absolutely awful without the top gun, but with it I can finally carry the games I’m in.

    • We already know that….they were AA vehicles, but their guns were also effective(theoretically) against tanks also so WG made them as TDs

      • Nothing theoretical about it, the Germans had been using the 88 FlaK to shoot at just about everything under the sun that wasn’t an aircraft almost from the very beginning. Heck, when they went to France they had a few stuck onto heavy half-tracks for bunker-busting – IIRC those ended up pulling a lot of antitank duty when it transpired the B1s and Matilda IIs were kinda immune to almost everything in the German arsenal.

  12. One of the best T5 TDs, all you need to hear. Rubbish. Stats already show it failing, will only get worse.

    • Like SS mentioned, NOT a tank for beginners. But in the hands of a somewhat experienced player or better, an unicum, it will be a real Coffin of Death.

  13. Gun is very nice for tier 5, and gotta agree that second gun has indeed enough pen in matches against tier 5-6 opponents.
    Huge downside for me is the hardness to carry the matches sometimes as your random potato team is the kind that only sits in base and there’s no suecidical potatoes that would provide some visibility momentarily. And yourself getting spotted is BIG no, specially on open maps.

  14. This vehicle is awesome, but depends on team and situation. But I love it. Just made Radley Walters in under 10 games. It’s amazing how easy it is to get a good game. Or a lousy one for that matter.

      • Explaining it for the dimwit.

        Must have camo so you’re not spotted every time something gets closer than 350m, first skill
        sixth sense, because under no circumstances can you allow someone to shoot at you, second skill

        With just a basic 75% crew, this tank is absolutely unplayable, and I think for Tier 5 that’s just too early.

        • Learn2maps.
          Staying hidden is more often than not a matter of good positioning, camo skill rarely comes into play.
          This tank is very annoying because the following TDs don’t use the same crew layout, but in and of itself it’s a great machine with the L/56.

          • learn2belessannoying.

            many maps, this tank doesn’t really hide that well because if has almost no negative elevation and therefore can’t use many of the good hiding spots.

            Some maps, there simply aren’t any of these.

            and because of this, this vehicle can’t spot for itself as well as both the marder and the nashorn. You have to park that thing in the open somewhere and hope someone else spots for you.

  15. Straßenbahn der Tod

    Yeah, two years of German in High School and I have to look everything up via a German-English dictionary and it still probably comes out bad.

    • If you intended to call it “cable car of death” it would rather be “Straßenbahn des Todes”. Almost as nice a name as the Flakbus.

    • huh?
      25 years of living in germany and i still have no clue what the english origin could be.
      mfg eXterminus

  16. The interesting thing about the “bad” camo on the Sfl is that it’s actually pretty good considering the size. Most other vehicles this big get literally NO camo, but this one has some to work with.

    The really strange thing is that according to the testers who have worked on it so far, the Nashorn has even LESS camo. It’s partially offset by being shorter and able to actually use bushes.

  17. I sold the Piece of shit. I decided I’d give it a try considering I had Free EXP’d to the Nash on day one, and yet I absolutely HATE it. The lack of traverse on the top gun absolutely kills it. I tried the L56, but with the constant Tier 7 games, yeah no.

  18. So would you guys consider the top gun insanely situational? Considering it makes the tank gun transverse smaller than the ARL V39 with its -7/+7, making only it useful for narrow and straight corridor of fire. I was looking foward in using the top gun in game, but that transverse is ugh. I’m working towards it and wondering if it’s a keeper or not…

    • Yes, IMO it is TOO situational. If the old MM was still in place and this tank met tier 8 heavies regularly, the gun would be awesome (so would the S-35). But as it stands, the long 88 has too many cons compared to very few pros. Its shells are *fast*, the penetration is sick, but the shell speed is easily compensated by some skill at leading (and let’s be honest, the L/56 shells aren’t particularly slow either) and the penetration isn’t needed vs tier 5-7s. The awesome gun traverse on the L/56 helps a lot when flanking unsuspecting heavies or when ambushing tanks near corners.

  19. What I have been playing with this tank, it really is interesting TD to play. The traverse on first two guns is awesome and the truth about the last gun is, meh. You don’t need it. It’s a good tank if you think so, it’s a very bad tank if you don’t know how to hide yourself.

  20. With all respect, the tank is clearly OP at its tier regarding the gun. 194mm pen and 240 alpha and a really good rof is totally idiotic. Some can say the armor is bad, but at tier 5, the armor on tds are useless anyways and shouldnt be counted on. Camo value I dont know since the new 2nd german teedes have amazingly good camo rating, combined with retardedly good view range. Even when I was rolling around in my JP with all camo skill, binos, camo net and paint, I got outspotted by 2nd germans several times.

    As I said before, you cant just keep on adding teedes in the game with paper armor and then give them better guns, view range, camo value and mobilty, with the motivation that the armor is so bad that they need those stuff. I mean, there are some teedes in the game that has nearly as good armor as heavy tenks, yet they get penned by normal AP or gold, like butter, and they dont have those features the 2nd german teedes have, not even fucking close. Thats the problem.

    The glass cannon idea is really bad, I rather have more balanced teedes in the game, that gets a little bit of everything like the current german teedes in the game. Some times, things like superior firepower, viewrange, camo value, turret, can be too much compared to teedes that has better armor and only that.

    What has the stug better III compared to the 2nd german tier 5? Well it has a little better camo value, but thats it. The gun, armor, mobilty and viewrange really is worse. And those things are really important speaking of teedes. These days a teede cant simply rely on camo value (despite some teedes have too good camo value, which in return cause other problems) because they will end up in close battles from now and then anyways where camo will be useless.

    • You are an idiot beyond the scope of idiocy. Go look at the rankings that are available. It is dead last, for a new tank…..

      • what kind of moron are you? this fucking xp pinata already sucks balls … you fucking moron didnt even look french td @ same lvl before write this shit.

        • The french TD at this level can’t carry as hard as the flakbus. You don’t need 200 penetration when you’ll only ever meet a couple tanks that have that much armor. You do need however a lot of mobility if you want to carry a game. And the S-35 isn’t a particularly mobile tank.

      • Well, what I wrote isnt really wrong is it? Compared to the stug III this tank has everything more superior. In deed such a gun is retarded at tier 5 anyways, combined with all other stats.

  21. I guess this is one of those “hate it” or “love it” tanks… and I’m in this first group.
    Even though I managed to get ace tanker in maybe first 3-4 battles, and some medals, I still think it is a shitty tank. Yes, ROF is good, pen also, mobility great, but dude… that non existing armor, that non existing camo. I really love my StugIII and I still keep it in garage, and the only problem with it is that pesky KV1S or KV2 oneshoting me, everything else is not a prob. However in Toaster, even tIV tanks load HE shells and oneshot me easily… All is good up until point you get spoted, and when you do, you can simply hit escape button—> back to garage. Off course this wouldnt be such a problem if I had organized team so I could position myself carefuly and use somebody as a scout, but in random battles you simply cannot count on that and my teammates rush forward and spot enemy tanks that are behind one hill, two houses and car, and in that case all my super pen and damage cant do nothing. Repositioning is out of question because to do that I need to move over line of sight of enemy tanks which means I get instanly spotted and killed.
    In the end i spent about 20k of freeXP to move to Nashorn, and that… omfg… 2nd game top gun. Games against tVIII tanks, no prob: kill KTiger and IS3 and end game with ~3k dmg. Will definitely check review on this one…

  22. My opinion is, that Pz.Sfl.IVc is very very GOOD TD on Tier V!

    I played it with second gun. This gun penetrates all Tier V and VI vehicles and golds to penetrate higher tiers are pretty cheap (thanks to actual weekend action).

    Even I done Master Tanker with basic gun!

    Its really amazing TD, really better TD than Nashorn for me.

  23. I enjoy the toaster. One thing you forgot to mention is the weight of the guns. The top 88 weighs almost 4 kilos more than the stock gun. On a vehicle that only weighs in the low 20s, that is an increase of weight to the vehicle of 16%. Maybe it was just the slower gun traverse but I felt like it slowed the entire vehicle down and for a vehicle that relies on its ability to reposition for firing positions, that can be a significant disadvantage. I personally find the 75 to have sufficient pen, especially with a few gold rounds for harder targets.

  24. According to WOTINFO

    http://www.wotinfo.net/en;jsessionid=B32029BB0055BE8596B52238E9CBA0AC

    both the Nashorn and the Sturer Emil have even LESS camovalue. Only with the Rheinmetal WT there is a TD in the new german line with good camo rating.

    As for the guns:

    Stock gun: Being comparable to the StuGs topgun, it is a rather easy stock grind. Highest DPM of all guns, however you need to every shot to penetrate for it to work and the difference is only marginal.

    Short 8.8cm Flak:

    The much higher alphadamage of 220 is a significant improvement as you now can hit the enemy harder even if he drives into cover. The traverse is still the generous 24 degree from the 7.5cm. You loose penetration compared to the 7.5 cm…. but it is not much. Still…. against farther away targets, especially Tier 6 and 7 you are getting quite some bounces.

    Long 8,8 cm Flak: You should only consider this weapon if you intend to keep the tank, as it is quite expensive. It is however well worth the XP…. not only does it have 240 alphadamage but its tremendous penetration power will make sure NOTHING can stand before you. Tier 7 Heavy only showing frontal armor? 440m distance? Bad angle? It doesnt matter…. Every shot penetrates and deals significant damage with only marginally lower ROF than the short 8.8. Sure.. the limited traverse arc sucks, but you should never forget that this tank is meant to be a extreme range sniper. And at this distance your 5 degrees in either direction are quite enough to hit anything you want without having to turn the hull – which doesnt matter that much… because if you are as far away as you should be, nobody will detect you because of hull movement alone.

    The true purpose of the hefty penetration value is to make extreme range sniping viable. 132mm Pen of the short 8.8 may be sufficient against Tier 7 being less than 100m away, however against heavily armored Tier 7 being several hundred meters away, you will face significant penetration issues. As such the short 8.8 forces you to get closer to the enemy…. which brings up the issues of paper armor and less than stellar camo value.

    You got 380m basic viewrange… use them.
    You got a gun that makes some Tier 7 pale in envy.
    You have up to 90 degree gun ELEVATION. Find a downhill and stay there… you can still fire up, unlike any other tank in this game. This allows for the use of some special sniping spots nobody else can use, due to lack of gun elevation.

    Most Tier 7 tanks consider Tier 5s pesky flies… correct their attitude with a juicy 240 shell right trough their frontal armor.

    Last but not least be warned. The Nashorn is far less agile and its top gun is rather a downgrade compared to the long 8.8cm Flak. It has less camo value, too.

  25. Bought it today, here is my experience so far with every module but the top gun (using the short 88):

    Pros:
    - fast
    - gun traverse really rocks
    - gun elevation combined with no armor makes using the “inverted depression” approach really viable :)
    - good view range

    Cons:
    - short 88 shells fly quite slow for the distance you need to be at
    - penetration on these distances is not sufficient for T6/T7 battles (I even bounced several times on DW2 :D, forget about KV3s)
    - big box (noting strange for germans) with no armor (yikes!)

    I rate it 6/10. Bath tub S35 CA with the 17pdr or 105 mm is far better at being a TD of this type.

    However…I would rather take this TD into any battle in favor of ARL V39…that is a real torture! :)