The premium T55AM1 is at 8.7 currently and after seeing the TAM be moved from 8.7 to 9.0 I think the T55 thould too. Compared to the leopard A1A1 which is a current 9.0 the T55 has better armour, LRF, a strong sabot round and better machine guns and at 8.7 being downtiered to 7.7 the T55 is too Op and needs to be moved to 9.0 or 9.3
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nah just have to hit the LFP with anything that has like 150mm+ of pen
T-55AM-1 and Chieftain Mk5 are among the worse 8.7s, T-55AM-1 firing the worst APFSDS around at 8.7, worse than Chieftain’s APDS round.
TAM is superior to both firing a superior round to both while being faster.
Other slightly superior 8.7s include T-55M, Shot Kal Gimel, AMX-30B2…
Leopard A1A1 fires a superior round while being far faster.
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“The (insert vehicle) should be moved to (BR), because I died to it.” If this is your entire argument of a specific vehicle over performing, I really suggest you elaborate a better one.
Although having extra armor, the post-pen damage on the 3BM25 is terrible. It’s not good for a 100mm cannon.
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I’ll agree with the Mk 5 (And I don’t nessesarily think the AM needs to move up), but the AM is in no way one of the weakest 8.7s.
Really, it’s down to the armor. Nothing else at 8.7 comes close to that level of survivability. Being able to eat every APDS and HEAT round you face makes it pretty dangerous in a downtier. While it has weakspots, the LFP is easily hidden and the turret front areas are deceptively small. It’s vulnerable to darts, of course, but that doesn’t make it weak in a downtier.
On top of that, unlike the Chieftains who pay for their much weaker armor, the AM doesn’t really sacrifice much. It’s still decently mobile, it has a LRF, and the round, while certainly weak for 8.7, is still entirely sufficient for anything you’re likely to be seeing if you have decent aim. It’s only hard limitations are the gun depression and turret traverse, both of which can be played around to some extent.
Again, I don’t think it needs to move up to 9.0 nessesarily. But compared to the actual weakest 8.7s (Chieftain Mk3/5, T-62/Object 435, M60 RISE), it’s pretty strong at 8.7. IMO, as always, decompression is needed.
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It might be not the best 8.7(I refuse to believe that it is weak), but the T-55AM-1 is very powerful against 7.7/8.0 tanks.
Basically, we just need decompression. 7.7-9.0 is quite compressed.
M60 RISE has the “3rd worst” round, with Chieftain having the 2nd worst, and T-55AM-1 having the worst; M735’s future is a buff though, the other two are not.
And yeah, T-55AM-1’s HEAT protection is the primary thing going for it. Its round has difficulties penning M60s [I am the M60s they have difficulties penning].
If they choose the ATGM they lose out on hill use.
If they choose HEAT they still can’t frag Magachs/RISE easier whose ERA performs far better than Kontakt 1.
At 8.7 armor starts to matter less, especially when over half of 8.7s [and a number lower] already lolpen T-55AM-1.
T-55AM-1 can’t pen itself on the add-on portions, but M735 can.
And yes, I’ve made these shots against T-55s dozens of times in XM-1, my primary M735 user.
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If they can’t aim, maybe, but 3BM25 can punch right through the UFP at up to 1km. The turret is stronger, but only if they aren’t aiming for the turret ring or large portions of the mantlet. They can also go through the flattened part of the turret below the gunner’s sight, and take out the commander and gunner consistently. I’d consider all of these easier to hit than the AM’s weakspots.
Not doubting that darts trivialize the AM’s armor, but despite how it may feel, not every game is an uptier. And when the AM gets to fight 8.3s and below, it can be a nightmare to deal with. A lot of common tanks at those tiers rely on APDS only, none of which can consistently punch through the AM’s armor. Go down to 8.0, and suddenly most tanks are unstabilized too. Get a full downtier to 7.7, and now many are relying on HEAT or solid AP.
It’s not great when uptiered (Outside the Chieftains and the LRF lacking tanks, it’s probably the worst tank at the 8.7 when uptiered), but that’s why it need decompression. It can be overly strong in a downtier and overly weak in an uptier. The only solution is to spread things out.
Also I will say that “among the worse” of an already scarce amount of 8.7s sounds “worse” than it is.
There are few 8.7s left, as all the amazing 8.7s so far superior to every other 8.7 in the game are 9.0 now.
T-55AM-1 is like Maus/IS-4M/Conqueror [not a 1:1 comparison] but the 7.7s have guns with a higher chance than the 6.7s have against Maus/IS-4M.
Though some 6.7s [T26E5] can take on IS-4 and Maus and win if the T26 is used by an APCR appreciator.
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Except you can also fire beam-riding missles with almost guaranteed one shot potential.
Seems to me there are quite a few left. Though I’ll be including some light tanks that effectively fill the MBT role like the TAM did. I admit it’s arguable, but the playstyles kinda merge at this tier anyways.
US:
- RISE P - Pretty bad, overreliance on poor armor, weak shell, poor mobility, no LRF.
Germany:
- None, thank god the TAMs are all moving up finally.
USSR:
- AM-1 - Topic of conversation
- AMD - An AM trading turret armor for an APS. Mostly worse, occasionally way better, depends what you’re fighting.
- T-62 - Worse. No LRF, long reload, pretty similar mobility, worse armor.
- Object 435 - Effectively a T-62 with a KPVT 14.5mm. Still worse overall.
- Object 685 - Same firepower but autoloaded (6 seconds is still too long to be useful). Decently faster, but no armor at all. I’d consider it worse.
UK:
- Chieftains (3 and 5) - Considerably worse. Much weaker armor, to the point that it won’t even consistently protect against APDS. HEAT, even 90mm, can punch through even the strongest armor with ease. Shell is a bit better, but not by much. No LRF. Infinitely worse mobility, especially the Mk 3. Only real advantage is gun depression.
Japan:
- None.
China:
- None. Thank god the Type 88s moved up finally.
Italy:
- None
France:
- AMX 30 B2 - A weird comparison all up. The AMX crushes the AM-1 in firepower and mobility, plus it has thermals. However, the lack of a stabilizer makes it really weird to play. You’re much less flexible as a result, having to rely on sniping and attacking unaware enemies. This comparision relies entirely on the prefered playstyle of the player, so I can’t really rank it.
- AMX 30 B2 BRENUS - Same tank, just slightly heavier, covered in ERA that won’t protect you from anything outside BMP-1 HEAT, and a soft kill APS that will sometimes help. Again, too different to rank.
Sweden:
- Ikv-91-105: Better firepower and mobility, much worse armor and surviability. Better in uptiers, worse in downtiers.
- Strv 104: Better firepower, worse mobility, worse armor. Pretty close, again dependant on the matchmaker.
- T-55M: Better firepower, similar mobility, much worse armor. Depends on matchmaking.
Israel:
- Magach 6 (B and R) - Haven’t played it, looks identical to the RISE P, so I’m assuming it’s the same verdict.
- Magach 6 Hydra - Haven’t played it. Looks like a RISE, minus the pointless ERA, plus Hydra pods. Seems good.
- Shot Kal Gimel - Haven’t played it, looks identical to the Strv 104, so I’m assuming it’s the same verdict.
- Tiran 6: Haven’t played it, looks identical to the T-62, so I’m assuming it’s the same verdict.
All up, that’s 18 tanks, all broadly the same role at 8.7. There seems to be a pretty clear split between the better ones and the worse ones to me, and the AM-1 is pretty comfortably in the better ones.
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AM-1 has the worst ammo of all of them, and at that BR when its ammo struggles against itself, which means it struggles against M60, it’s going to be more difficult to use than the rest.
There’s a reason T-55M is my best performing 8.7 so far.
The round means far more than the armor.
We’re not playing defensive after all, we’re not trying to get 2nd shot off; we’re always trying to be the one that shoots first, and yes armor sometimes helps in 2+ targets, but that round matters more.
There are countless examples of tanks that perform amazing because they have the best round at their BR.
There are obviously examples of armor + round [T26E5].
However, no one’s praising the 75mm Jumbo for anything other than its armor.
Or the Churchill VII.
Worst guns of their BRs, but have far more armor for their BR than T-55AM-1 does for its BR.
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It really doesn’t struggle against M60s. Again, it can go right through the UFP at up to 1 km, no problem. Even the ones with ERA. It can punch through a decent chunk of the turret at the same ranges too.
Furthermore, what armored tanks does it come up against that’ll thwart it’s round? Off the top of my head, you have T-72s in other lineups, the Type 96, the Chieftain Mk 10’s turret, the addon armor of the Oliphant Mk 2, the UFP of the Type 88s, and the Merkavas (Hey, something their armor actually works against).
Outside of those, including some of the most popular tanks at 9.3 (Leo 2K, MBT-70s, XM-1s, wheeled light tanks, etc), almost everything you run into lacks the armor to stop 3BM25. You mostly struggle from a lack of post pen damage, which is problematic to be sure, but not the end of the world. I’ll take slightly trolly post pen damage over a lack of mobility and/or a LRF any day.
Again, I’m not saying the AM-1 is overpowered at 8.7. I’ve already agreed, it’s weaker in uptiers than a lot of the 8.7 roster. But it’s still stronger than some of them, and it’s stronger than pretty much all of them in a downtier, where it’s poor shell isn’t really an issue and it’s overwhelming armor (with no real drawbacks) lets it dominate. It needs decompression.
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You forgot about the Object 122 MC.
Gets slightly better armour than T-62, gets similar penning dart as T-62, but a 9.2s reload instead of a 8s reload. In return, it gets 4x ATGMs, 17.33hp/ton, instead of 15.68hp/ton, and 20 degrees per second turret rotation speed instead of 16 degrees per second.
Alvis is also forgetting that APFSDS is not the only round it can use.
Access to 100m APHE means that it can cupola shot most vehicles, killing them fairly reliably (especialy M60 series tanks).
And the ATGM is fairly good (especially at close range).
If anything, the Object 122 MC should go up in BR, although it has much worse armour against CE rounds than the T-55AM, and slightly worse armour against KE rounds (much worse against KE if we’re talking about only the turret), and it has the 9.2s reload instead of 7.5s.
Fair point, that’s another 8.7 I’d consider quite strong. Dunno quite how it ranks next to the AM-1, since I haven’t played it.
The rounds are… absolutely identical penetration wise compared to the T-62. Despite being 5mm larger. What a bizzare coincidence.
It also gets an LRF, something the T-62 is sorely needing for it’s role as a longer range sniper. The reload is the only real weakness. I’d tend to agree that it doesn’t deserve the same BR as the T-62/Obj 435.
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T-62M1 at 9.0 is interesting though, as I’d say it would outperform anything that gets moved up from 8.7 to 9.0 (other than light tanks, such as the TAM) - at least in most cases.
It’s one of the reasons why I think the T-55AM1 at 8.7 is reasonable. Somewhat similar reason for the Object 122.
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That’s not a tank I’ve played (yet), nor one I see all that often, probably due to it being foldered and how comparably weak the Soviet 9.0 lineup is compared to 8.7 and 9.3. In my experience, 9/10 times if someone is playing that BR, it’s to spawn the 279 twice and then leave.
You’re probably right in that it would outperform any 8.7 handily, so it all comes back to compression at the end of the day.
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Object 279 + BMD-4 is a fairly good combo.
BMD-4 got moved up, although I don’t remember if that’s the one from today or a previous one.
BMD-4 used to 9.0, but it will be 9.3 now.