Chef’s kiss
It’s generally considered to be a great success from the initial design standpoint, which was an improved Challenger 1 with lessons from Desert Storm and an aim for cost savings due the end of the cold war.
Unfortunately in warthunder it does not fight the targets it’s intended to (the export T-72s and such equipping much of the non-west aligned middle east), nor has the support assets for the stuff it can’t fight effectively (an effective cas support network of brimstone equipped aircraft for example).
Critical features of the CR2 like ease of maintenance, & the extended ranges of the FCS just don’t matter in game.
It doesn’t do well in competitions simply because the competitions aren’t aligned with the design goals of CR2. Even then it wins gunnery competitions and such here and there, See Iron Spear 2023 for example.
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Challenger 2E was a private venture by Vickers. It had nothing to do with the MOD.
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The only British line worth playing is the Cheiftain mk3/5 and challenger 1s purely because the supporting spaa’s can actually counter cas fairly effectively.
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Honestly i dont bother with SPAAs in lineups past the prop age as its better to just run fighters to intercept CAS players, most of my fun in top tier ground comes from just doing CAP nowadays.
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I’m not grinding another tree just to counter cas, the spaa should be enough imo. But i understand why you do because often it’s either out ranged or overwhelmed.
I mean its far easier to grind air trees than ground by nature of the rewards being actually bareable, you shouldnt have too imo but its just how it goes for higher tiers with CAS often outranging SPAA, god forbid if ever we get actual SEAD, it will be another multipathing situation where the monkey’s paw will curl, sure we have it but was it really the best choice?
I find most SPAA spike in effectiveness around 5.0-6.0 then taper off with a smaller spike at the 8.0-8.7 range, otherwise as you said, cap is much better. I’m going to enjoy using the Shar for that when I get the 120s
I’ve put enough hours into the game, I’m not grinding another vehicle tree, it’s ridiculous the spaa we have has become less and less effective with every update at high tier. I just don’t see how it’s fair on the player to be forced into grinding air vehicles for multiple nations to deal with a common problem. There definitely needs to be alot more options imo.
Thats fine, if we didnt have other vehicles with systems and weapons they didnt have for “balance/gameplay reasons”
XM8 and VFM5. XM8 has thermals has the systems it would have had if it was produced. VFM5 has been refused on grounds it never had them
YAK 141, never flew with a Radar or fired a missile gets both of what it would have had.
Object 252…shoots a dart refered to as 152mm APFSDS (care to share the sources for that?)
You take liberites with other nations (CR3 TD) will have a 1500 hp engine when it is put into production.
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No that smug guy who does the Russian dev stream laughed when someone asked in the comments with all this extra armour will the CR2 TES now be the best armoured tank in the game?
They are very aware of what they are doing with the CR2
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When was this, the original TES release?
why would they? only reason we got spall liners is cause the russians got their first tank with it in the same update, so we either wait till they get a tank with regenerative steering, or accept it wont happen
remember kids, they will keep any non-russian vehicle/weapon nerfed until they have a russian version in the game.
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I can name many third generation tanks which are worse than the Chally 2 (irl and ingame)
- Ariete, T80, M84, TTD, T90, PT91, Arjun, Type 96 etc…
Theres more, but those are the ones produced at around the same time as the Challenger 2 (the 1990s)
Also, yes not all of those are western, but I think its better to look at the grand scheme of things and realise the Chally 2 was still a good tank globally when it was made. The Chally 2 was not made to fight western armour as it often does in WT.
People also forget one thing which the Challenger excels in and that is crew comfort and ergonomics, its a spacious tank which according to Ukrainian crews is a preferred over the Abrams or Leopard (i dont even need to mention Soviet tanks) to actually spend time inside of and live in. Your tank can be as good on paper as you want, but if they crew’s morale is low they’ll perform badly.
The Challenger has mostly suffered from a lack of meaningful upgrades over the years, which the Abrams and Leopard have had, not nescessarily from the fact the tank is bad at its core.
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The reason for the lack of upgrades is due to our government being a load of penny pinchers, just without the backing of the american economy so its alot more pronounced. Just try and get them to add new upholstery to the challenger and youll get them complaining about the cost.
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Honestly I suspect I might never get round to finish researching it (reasons) but if I do it’ll sat unbought. I can’t justify 1.3 mil SL on it.
The problem isn’t even about the 1200hp engine. It’s the fact they double standard it left right and centre. From my understanding the tank that IRL forms the 3TD did genuinely have a 1500hp engine fitted. There are issues with it, namely the cooling, but it was still fitted iirc.
The problem is for me, that the justification for them nerfing it or “correcting” it is that on the Production version it has been confirmed in a Parliamentary Question that CR3 will have 1200hp engine (questionable decision, but there we are) - this is (understating a bit) a slight issue, as the tank we have in game is the “Technology Demonstrator” - not the actual production tank.
Gaijin’s justification is that they are using the production tank as grounds to nerf it… so Problem Number One it needs a rename.
Problem Number Two is that… if we’re going to use the Production version as grounds for nerfing it needs to be grounds for buffing… which means, we should be getting Spall Liners. It needs uparmouring from the CR2 (since, well, it’s a new type of armour and it’d be pointless to design a brand new turret for it to have less armour) - it also needs an LWS, an APS (since I have no idea if it has them in game and I can’t be bothered to check, I assume it does not)
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Has the LWS, not the APS, and we’d probably not see the APS if CR3 is added at first due to APS installations being ad hoc and mounted as required for operations
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8 months ago i could reliable kill BVMs leo2s etc with it.
now its become unplayable completely.
im trying right now to make it work, cant do a thing, hop in an abrams or T80 and im wracking up kills and assists like no ones business. the chally 2s are in a sorry, sorry state rn
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