2014: Type 59 versus T-34-3

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Hello everyone,

recently, one old discussion came up in the Czech section – Type 59 versus T-34-3 (can’t find the link though). A Wargaming employee was basically saying these tanks are about the same while a player was arguing the Type 59 is clearly superior. But how is it really? Type 59 has the reputation of being an awesome vehicle, while T-34-3 has… well, not much of a reputation and I haven’t seen so many of those driving around.

Well, let’s have a look then. I took the press account I still have and took both for a spin. I tested both under similiar circumstances (100 percent crews, full similiar equipment – both had the rammer, stabilizer and gun laying drive, regular consumables). Furthermore, I don’t own either of these vehicles, but I am very familiar with the T-54, which the Type 59 closely resembles, so it’s not like I haven’t played with a “T-54 clone” before.

T-34-3

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Now, I am sure you all are familiar with the basic T-54 clone layout. Agile, heavily sloped frontal armor, very thick frontal turret, decent gun, but usually poor depression and meh mobility. I am pleased to say, this has not changed for the T-34-3. It’s still a T-54 clone (and I obviously mean that in game terms, not historical terms), but there is one significant difference: the 122mm gun.

Balance-wise, the vehicle is actually not bad. When you look at the winrate comparison (“new method of evaluating tanks”) on wot-news for the T-34-3, you will see that its winrate curve matches the player winrate curve almost perfectly, which means it’s neither overpowered nor underpowered in general terms. That is good. As next step, we can compare it to the other tier 8 premium Chinese tank, the Type 59. The linked data is a bit obsolete, the Chinese 122mm HEAT for example got nerfed from 300 to 250 penetration, but it’s enough for you to get the idea.

I played a few battles in the T-34-3 (that part where you need tons of battles to understand whether the tank sits with you or not is mostly not true, at least not when you know what you played the same type of vehicle before and know some of the “T-54 tricks”). And how good is it? Well… it’s actually not as bad as I expected it to be. Both the Type 59 and T-34-3 have limited MM, so they don’t get to see tier 10 vehicles, which is good, but as you can imagine, in battles where most of the vehicles are tier 9, they are badly outclassed.

The main problem with the T-34-3 is its gun and its properties. It’s the classic 122mm D-25 gun (just renamed and… you know, a bit tweaked) and as such, it has extremely poor accuracy (0,46) and aim time (3,4s). Its regular penetration (175) however is quite sufficient for this vehicle. Its biggest flaw however is its poor depression (-3). I wrote about the T-34-3 even before and noticed this issue even back then on the test server. In regular battles on live server, the issue is not as prevalent (given the fact that it was tested in “real” conditions and not on test server sandbox versus 15 other T-34-3 tanks), but it is there. And how bad is it? It’s bad. Very bad. Take for example the Sand River defense. You practically can’t use the dunes to your advantage as cover, because in order to bring its gun to bear, the vehicle has to practically cross the dune to the other side. The elevation is not as bad, but the problem is, this tank also doesn’t have very thick frontal armor and relies heavily on its slope. When you cross the dune and “park” on the enemy side facing your opponent, in order to aim your gun, you have to position your hull slightly down the slope, which largely negates the upper frontal plate slope (the UFP is already weaker than on the Type 59 – 90mm compared to 100mm), making the tank more prone to damage. Furthermore, the gun is problematic even on regular maps, where every bump can send the gun aiming towards the sky. This is especially a problem on maps with a lot of bumps, for example the new Japanese map I had this issue several times. “Oh, look, a Hellcat, easy target for my 122mm! And close too – should be easy. Ready, aim and… sorry mister bird, I didn’t see you up there”.

The aim time is atrocious even with equipment and forget accurate fire with this gun, it’s a short-medium range brawler. Here however comes another flaw of this vehicle. While it is about as nimble (in terms of hull rotation) as the Type 59, it accelerates somewhat slower and you most likely will not be able to “circle” your opponent like this, because the vehicle is simply sluggish. The accuracy on the movie is terrible as you can imagine and I really wouldn’t want to be driving this tank without full equipment and 100 percent crew.

Poor gun depression along with mediocre mobility and a bit weaker armor means you actually have to know what you are doing when driving this tank. It is not a vehicle for beginners and it requires some good planning and tactic changes. For example, during the abovementioned Sand River defense, there is this exactly one spot where the tank is well positioned and when driving out of cover, you get to quickly peek out, fire a round (with a lot of luck you might even hit something) and retreat.

As for its durability, it’s a bit of a problem. I got ammo-racked a lot (I mean, to yellow – not as in explosion ammorack) and the driver also got killed fairly easily. You can avoid it by not sticking out your hull that much, but again, poor depression. But despite all these flaws, the tank actually worked somewhat for me and I had three kills for example in first battle alone. The gun has a potential to do MASSIVE damage (if the tank is not killed fast) and it’s very dangerous if left unchecked (for example you and your teammates focus on someone else). This tank in capable hands should definitely not be underestimated.

Type 59

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Well… what can I say, the legendary Type 59. We all know it and those players veteran enough probably remember the “Type 59 flood”, the nightmares of which probably haunt Wargaming to this day. It’s probably pointless to describe the vehicle (if you are interested, you can check the comparison yet again). It’s basically a T-54 one tier lower and those who can play the T-54 will feel right at home in the Type 59. Even though it’s no longer sold, there are still tons of them around and we’ll be seeing plenty of Type 59 for very long time.

Just to make sure everyone understands what the problem with this tank is. It’s probably not technically OP for tier 8 as such, but it’s at least as good as for example the elite T-44 and that’s wrong for a premium tank. It was said many times and the developers admit that the tank is just too good for its premium role. Even if we count that out, when you look at the tank evaluation on wot-news, you will see that this tank is above the line and that means it might be somewhat OP even in general terms. It’s a nice blend of decent firepower, mobility (it accelerates faster than the T-34-3) and armor (nicely sloped 100mm hull) without any significant drawbacks.

And that’s the ultimate argument by the way. Type 59 was pulled out as overpowered and replaced by the T-34-3. It’s completely obvious T-34-3 IS inferior to Type 59, there is no question about it. When you check the VBAddict stats (that however are only indicative, don’t take them for granted), the T-34-3 has the worst winrate of all tier 8 tanks (46,6), while the Type 59 has 7th best out of 44 (51,13). Wot-news confirm this trend: Type 59 has 51,58 winrate, while T-34-3 has 48,07 winrate.

Using data for EU server, there are roughly 6880 T-34-3′s out there, but there are 78500 Type 59′s on EU server. Furthermore, according to VBAddict, Type 59 is the best moneymaker out of all the tanks in the game – but out of all tier 8 premiums, the T-34-3 is the worst, only the Chinese 112 is worse apparently.

Based on this data, the answer is absolutely clear: Type 59 is superior. However – that doesn’t mean you can’t make the T-34-3 work. It’s not that bad. Its problem is that you have to get used to its playstyle. If you expect to simply “buy another Type 59 with a different name”, you will be badly disappointed (I assume that’s where all the negrep is coming from), but if you get used to playing hightier Chinese vehicles with bad gun depression, you will be able to make it work quite well I think.

The problem of course is that few people do. China is possibly the least popular tree of all, partially probably because of the general trait that is bad depression of later vehicles, that make them very uncomfortable to play. If you overcome this flaw and develop tactics to compensate, you will be successful with the T-34-3, but I have a bad feeling a lot of people actually bought it just because they wanted a “Type 59″. Again, if you want to do that – don’t. Only buy this tank if you really know what you are doing.

81 thoughts on “2014: Type 59 versus T-34-3”

    • The Type still gives me a cold sweat when I face it in battle, I just haven’t managed to learn how to take it down effectively. This is why it is the one tank that I get the most enjoyment from when I kill it. Just love to beat it to death with an SU-14-1. IF it stays stationary long enough, which a good Type driver won’t do.

  2. 77% Winrate in mine, solo play only. Though 27 games only so will more than likely drop :P, but really loving the IS-6, 200 battles 65% WR

  3. 1 type per battle cant change anything, but if you make platoon with 2 more, you win rate will be about 75-80%, and its nothing hard to do… I like it , but after more of 2k battle on him im little sick to play with it.. now i won is6 and one i can say , it is really bad..Good that i havnt problem with earning silver on rest tanks :)

      • Lol, and what you just show me? One lucky guy vs idiots enemys? Dont get me wrong, but is6 has worst gun, and quit good armor mixed with poor mobility…it makes that its trully hard to be usefull in 9 tiers battles.

    • I have to agree, the IS-6 is quite poor. The gun is nearly useless at T8, 175mm of pen COULD work especially with pref mm but not with that kind of accuracy and aim time. It’s completely useless vs T8+.

      The armor is also nothing to write home about in my opinion, everything with 200+ mm of pen goes trough it easily and the weak turret doesn’t help with side scrapping and hull down positions.

      The Type 59 just destroys all other premium tanks and I doubt we will ever get anything that will come even close to it’s awesomeness.

    • Jupp, me too, there are still players out there who don’t now its weakspots.
      My T34 is a little bit better in terms of money making, though.

      I disagree with SS’s T54-clone-statement … I love T43/T44/Type59, but for some reason I disliked the T54 and I won’t go for Type62A/Object140 because of that.

      • Did you try to play the T-54 using premium ammo. 330 mm avg. pen plus great accuracy and RoF with the D-10T2C gun make the T-54 a *killer* medium tank. With the Object 140 you will not need premium ammo anymore: 268mm avg. pen with AP – WHAMMO! Imo the Obj.140 is the best medium tank in the game currently.

        • -”Did you try to play the T-54 using premium ammo. 330 mm avg. pen plus great accuracy and RoF with the D-10T2C gun make the T-54 a *killer* medium tank.”

          I’ve never needed premium shells with 100 mm D-54. Nor should anyone driving T-54 tbh.

  5. Considering that Type is Not for Sale Since quite some Time, it’s Not surprising that Type is a better moneymaker than 34-3 because on average the player should be much more expirienced

    • I think this proposition can be easily looked into be ‘only’ looking at what unica did with both these tanks, if ever I have some free time, I’ll look into it

      • I think the Type 59 also has some statistics from before gold-ammo-for-silver, giving it higher net profit, since I bet many people with the T-34-3 shoot decent amounts of HEAT (especially before the nerf).

        • i have T-34-3 and i shot 1 or 2 bullets of APCR on battle that is all, and over 13 AP bullets on battle, some people know where are weak spots :)

          im doing well with T-34-3 (63%) win rartio and over 1.5 kills on battle

    • If i play carefully i can gain 250k credit in just 5 matches with T-34-3. But it’s so hard playing with it…

  6. I own a t-34-3 and let me say this: It’s a VERY good training vehicle, not for your crew but for yourself. Because of its limitations, you’ll be forced to adopt new strategies, which in my view work for other tanks as well (especially the Chinese naturally). The question is, is this what you want with a premium vehicle? Well not per se, but I actually enjoy driving this tank, so it has a high funfactor. Most of the time I know I’m convinced I won’t win, so it relieves me from pressure, which often results in unbelievable outcomes!

      • If i compare T-34-3 with a Type 59 ! Type 59 deservers a win!

        I will share my experience with u guys, how i feel driving T-34-3

        So many times my driver dies, u need to know this that the frontal right side is the position of your driver and u need to cover him

        Next u need to cover your ass, when they shot u in ass u willl probably burn, or your engine will gone

        U need to prepare that your gun will be damaged many times.

        U can still sidescraping with this tank, so your crew need to have 100% Repairs skills to repair your track in 3 seconds when u are sidecraping

        Ammo damage some times but not so often as type 59 ammo rack

  7. The reason why tyoe has such awesome global stats, is that the people that have it are more experienced. My type has a 6 skill crew and is played by me, a person with many battles, of coarse I will come out on top in most brawls.
    With that said WG should buff 34-3 ground resistance and credit making.

  8. The T-34-3 is well balanced for it’s role imho and a great trainer for the chinese hightier meds, not only for the crews but also for your playstyle, since it shares the bad gun depression from the 121 and the WZ-120 (with 122mm). So if you can handle the T-34-3 you can handle the 121 and vice versa.
    The comparison with the Type 59 is just stupid, but boiled up by WG themselves with their wrong advertising: “It is really similar to the famous Type 59 medium tank and will most likely be a great purchase for any medium tank lovers.” (compare: http://worldoftanks.eu/en/news/premium/premium-shop-january3-8/ )
    It is a hard hitting medium tank and quite unique in that role on Tier 8, although T-34-2 and T-44 can also mount 122mm guns, but especially the latter having that abysmal DPM and even worse accuracy than the T-34-3 are not really a suitable option.

    • Oh please, T-54 and Type 59 playstyles are almost identical.

      1. Use your speed to reach favored position.
      2. Engage isolated rushers in close-combat side-by-side.
      3. ???!
      4. Profit

      You can also snipe with both if you’re facing more powerful enemies since both have reasonably accurate guns but strong points on both are the same – agility and that turret.

      T-34-3 is completely other story, it’s just tank who is sold to people who think it’s as good as Type 59/T-54. It’s just not anything similar apart from reasonably strong (or stronk) turret.

  14. I’ve solopubbed the t-34-3 to 69%wr/3.5k WN8 across 81 battles, I quite like the tank, but two main issues are the generally poor acceleration/speed for a medium and the poor DPM. Long reload + general derpiness of the gun can lead to some rage. The poor depression can be decently mitigated through creative use of terrain to angle the whole tank downwards towards the enemy tank, though at times tiny slopes will make it near impossible to get your gun onto enemy tanks. Ammo rack damage is less of an issue unless being shot often in the side, if you’re keeping your front to the enemy its more likely to get fuel tank damage, which can sometimes lead to frontal hit fires. The tank is extremely similar in playstyle to the other chinese mediums though, and the type/t-34-3 tend to be more of t-44 clones than t-54.

  15. Remember that in a month or so 112 and T-34-3 will get the silver income buff, and as now they are at the very bottom of the farming table, then this buff will probably mean about twice the money earned in single game with them. That’s good news for owners of these tanks.

  16. HI!

    ss

    I buyed T-34-3 cuse i wan’t a type 59 to drive in platun with my clan mates, so i decided to buy it, i put rammer, ventilation, stabilizator on this tank, i’m doing well with this tank :)

    I have T-54 tank i make over 450 battles and i have 60% win ratio

    I have T-34-3 too, i make over 240 battles with it and i have 63% i’m quiet good with it ^^ as u say in right hands it can be hell on the wheels, i have only 6 APCR bullets in fill and i shot only 1 or 2 on tha battle, i’m doing well with AP

    but yes its WORSE MONEY MAKER then Type 59, my mate make 1,5k damage with type and he earns 70 k without premium, but i make 2,4 in same battle but i get 59k

    ITS REALLY bad in money making

    But with my skills i make every battle around 40-45k profit

    I hope on better days TO BUFF T-34-3….

    Remger it’s my nickname in Wot, u can check stats of T-34-3

    GOOD Day ^^

    • If i compare T-34-3 with a Type 59 ! Type 59 deservers a win!

      I will share my experience with u guys, how i feel driving T-34-3

      So many times my driver dies, u need to know this that the frontal right side is the position of your driver and u need to cover him

      Next u need to cover your ass, when they shot u in ass u willl probably burn, or your engine will gone

      U need to prepare that your gun will be damaged many times.

      U can still sidescraping with this tank, so your crew need to have 100% Repairs skills to repair your track in 3 seconds when u are sidecraping

      Ammo damage some times but not so often as type 59 ammo rack

  17. Where did you find this info : Using data for EU server, there are roughly 6880 T-34-3′s out there, but there are 78500 Type 59′s on EU server.
    Becouse on wotnews data is 3-4 months old

  18. SS I think this is a very interesting question: which tier 8 prem do you prefer? (If you have one afcourse)

  19. I tried type59 and it is just not for me. (It is not like I didnt want to buy it for a long time but then it got discontinued).
    But later I played chinese branch and I played T-34-2 with 122mm.
    And later I bought T-34-3 and I absoluty love it. I dont have much games played, litle less than 100 I think.
    I have around 65% win ratio. And I wouldn’t trade it for Type59, never!

    If you know how to play it it is far better than type59. Get in position, hide, wait, peekaboo, shoot!
    BAM! 2-3 hits and you already have around 1000 dmg!

  20. You forgot to mention one more thing SS: Type59 at it’s introduction cost 7.5k gold, T-34-3 – 11k. So, not only is the T-34-3 overall a worse tank it also is 40% more expensive.

    • That was before WG realized that people buy medium tanks more than heavy tanks for easier pewpew.

  22. I’m from the Vietnamese servers and I don’t think the Type 59 is terrifying. In the Vietnamese servers the Type was sold 15$ each with limited stock (60 vehicles) and it’s restocked once every month. As a result you find Type 59 virtually every single battle with tier 8. There are occasion where you have 12 Type 59s for both sides (each has 6 of that thing). When I was still a newbie to the game, running around with VK3601H, I was very afraid of the thing, but as I got to Tiger, they are not that scary anymore, even when using 3601. They are quite fragile in the hull. I have the thing on my other account and it is far from my favourite credit maker.

  23. Well, it seems i need to get my type out for a spin after 6months of break… prem account ends in 40days, so i’ll have to grind some credits to afford tier X battles ;) because, im not renewing my prem anymore!

  24. All pubbies think Type 59 is the invincible tank with all the good stuffz.
    As I have it, I will not agree. Morons say make a platoon of 3 and steamroll everyone, make a platoon of is6 and still steamroll. If 3 reds drive them, they will still loose, it is just that the good players mostly make those platoons and have a blast killing everyone, but if those 3 players take any other tank, they will still win a lot.
    The aimtime doesn’t seem that bad when you compare it to T-34-3 and other tanks with d-25 casual gun, but for me it is awful, I can’t brawl in a tank which needs to stop and aim, otherwise the shells go all over the place. Maybe it is faster tank the T-34-3, but don’t even dream of circling heavy tanks, if he has any brain, you will die fast.
    Plus yeah it makes credits, but you often have to shoot gold rounds which negates that and that is exactly what those “rape” platoons in Types do.
    Sure I can 1vs1 a Tiger II or smth just sticking to his side, but that sort of opportunities don’t often rise, you have to survive that long to meet and lonely tank. That is why I liked T-44 a lot better, just because of the aimtime advantage of the LB-1. (Still not my fav T8 med, cause that is the Panther II for me, but still good)

  25. I have both tanks too, and yes, Type 59 is better, but I like my T-34-3 because its a hard mode tank, like a challenge, but it took me 12 battles to master it :c ( I am a chinese medium tank player).

    Btw, I dont understand why the T-34-3 and WZ-120 are taller than T-54 or Type 59, the first 2 are bigger, idk why :c

  26. Type 59 is good, but I think it is weaker than T-44, because top T-44 has better dynamics and aimtime (if I’m not mistaken). For me T-44 is easier to play, even considering of its participation in tier 10 battles.

  29. T-34-3?
    Played like 20 battles with it then sold in rage…
    Utter piece of cr*p…
    No armor at all, every shot kills driver or sets you on fire. An AMX-13-90 could easily oneclip me from the front whil I was totally angled and moving around… Every single shell pen..
    Type59? Have fun penning that with 175 pen… UFP: no chance… LFP: 1/3 well aimed shot may go through…
    No gun dep…
    After rageselling T34-3 I began the light line from t5….

  30. I’ve been playing the Chinese light line, so if I purchased the the t-34-3, I know I could make the horrible gun depression work for me, but I am very unsure about its aim-time and accuracy paired with it’s worse armor.

    The type 59 has great armor frontally for a medium as well as a better all-around gun.
    The t-34-3 on the other hand is given LESS armor and a gun that limits it to brawling… If the gun MAKES the tank a brawler, yet the tank doesn’t have the armor to do so, where the hell is the synergy? The t-34-3 is the drunken, inbred failure of an uncle to the 121, which actually does its job properly..

    I wouldn’t be too annoyed with the t-34-3 if it had a gun that could somehow compliment it’s speed or armor, but instead the damn thing is a death sentence…

  31. Thanks for that, all those call of WG saying that the 2 tanks are the same, chance of the Type 59 coming back and you had to go and explode thier myth

  34. I’ve got a Type and tbh I hardly ever drive it anymore.

    Feels like “powercreep” has really affected it: used to feel strong in it’s Tier but not anymore :(

  35. Well to sum up differences between Type 69 and T-34-3. Here they are:
    T-34-3 :
    - got weaker armor frontaly and sides (turret and hull)
    - 3 degrees of gun depression vs Type’s 7
    - lower elevation angle too
    - worse DPM
    - somehow a tiny bit slower than Type (just a little bit)
    - maximum speed of 50 km/h comaring to Type’s 56 km/h

    For gun T-34-3 lacks gun depression and you feel it a lot in game. Gun aiming time and “accuracy” does not help it too. But its very derpy. All in all its very hard to perform great with this vehicle. Plus I forgot to mention – T-34-3′s money making ability is more than poor while taking into account it costs 11000 golds.

    Type is allround better and when it comes to moneymaking its the best one while T-34-3 is the worst.
    http://www.vbaddict.net/statistics.php?tier=8&tanktype=0&nation=0&premium=2&team=0&battles=1000&groupby=0&fieldname=creditsb

  36. The type 59 is superior – by a long shot.

    The problem is not the gun depression, or the low pen, or the low aim time – the problem is that accuracy.

    I will gladly use tactics and pick fights, set up shots and aim, flank and aim for weakpoints – but 0.46 accuracy is the one thing that cannot be overcome.

    It needs either a much faster aim time (2.3), or better accuracy (0.4 minimum, o.37 ideal). . .or. . . give us 440 alpha (but that may be a bit OP)

  37. The Type 59′s reputation is inflated because of how it used to perform as well as its rarity, and the fact that the guys who didn’t rig contests to get them typically have played the tank for quite a while and know how to drive it.

    Disregarding player skill, however, in a one vs one engagement I would much rather take on a Type 59 than a T-34-3. The T-34-3 isn’t sluggish to accelerate, or at least not as much as the Type 59, can turn well at high speeds, and while having slightly-less penetration on the gun (for regular ammo – premium penetration is better, but it gets HEAT while the Type 59 gets APCR) and far less accuracy does quite a bit more damage (plus the inaccuracy becomes irrelevant due to how the tank is supposed to be used, as a close-range flanker).

    The only problem that makes the T-34-3 seem underpowered compared to the Type 59 is a combination of a bias in favor of the Type 59 because of its credit-earning ability and its rarity these days, as well as the fact that there aren’t a whole lot of good T-34-3 drivers, partly because players haven’t had the time to rack up massive numbers of battles in it like a lot of Type 59 drivers have.