Just gonna ignore the turret?
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Yes… don’t think that impacts playstyle much (both vehicles can’t tank much in uptier \ same tier, so they are more of a ‘sniping’ \ slow flanking idk what are the proper terms) Yes ultimately Chi-Ri would be better, but not 2.0 better, 1.0 - 1.3 imo
Misremembered Pz4 armor, thought it had 80mm front on turret, or are you talking about 37mm ? I used to use it the same as 75mm on a maus - faking shots, imo “double gun” aiming is funky at best in wt (I would love for them to aim simultaneously at appropriate elevation translated from main gun elevation)
The Pz IV has very poor mobility for it’s BR the Chi-Ri has actually above average mobility.
Coupled with the fastest RoF for a medium tank, this makes it very effective exploiting the enemys flank.
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Chi-Ri is much better than the Pz4G. Let’s not pretend otherwise. The turret alone is much more trolly.
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Yes, i meant the weak turret.
I mean, yeah, the Chi-Ri can get there faster, it’s 3km/h faster than a Sherman and accelerates faster than a T-34, but the difference between a Chi-Ri flanking and a Panzer 4 flanking is “THAT HOUSE IS MOVING, SHOOT IT!” and “I thought I saw that little thing move, but the longer I look at it the more I think I just imagined it.”
The Panzer 4 may not get to that flank as fast, but in all likelihood it’ll stay there a bit longer. And it being at a lower tier, sometimes that being less visible will improve your survivability by quite a bit more than usual because low tier players tend not to be looking for things in unusual places, they’re not quite there yet. But the Chi-Ri? Well, given my uptier to 6.7 rate is roughly 70%, well, people are looking for big ass tanks like Tiger IIs, T34s and IS-2s, the Chi-Ri blends right in size-wise, but might as well be paper in comparison…
And really, the Chi-Ri is not a bad tank in-game by very many means, it’s just that it gets nothing to make it worth it in the land of the uptier, a system which does (sometimes) make queue times faster, but really doesn’t like a lot of vehicles. Until the BRs are decompressed, the Chi-Ri at 5.7 is just going to face things it just doesn’t have good options against (unless your target is on the left of a T26E1-1, then they’re both very dead). Hence, why Chi-Ri should NOT be BR 5.7.
Sometimes. 75mm at a 15 degree constructional slope can do… Something. That gives it an effective thickness of 78mm when facing it head on, and yes, hitting a joint between plates will make just about anything non-pen. Those 50mm turret sides hit a little over 100mm if you shoot them and not the turret face, so yes, the Chi-Ri is better armored than the Panzer 4… If you’re making some of the worst possible shots known to War Thunder. And let’s not forget that some guns can just lolpen those 50mm plates, though of course that’s rare, what guns pen 100+mm at 60 degrees? Oh, yeah… A lot of stuff at 6.7+, any round with a cap has good enough normalization values can punch through that armor. And given how just about every round at that BR has a cap, it’s not hard to see the trouble.
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Does anyone actually know how to play this tank? It seems like a worse M4A1 76 (w) at 5.7
Top Speed, accelaration, reverse speed, TNT equivalent and reload is better, but it’s much larger, has much worse gun handling, has worse angle performance shells, and no stabilizer.
It would be reasonable at 5.3 but at 5.7 it’s not great.
Play it like a somewhat mobile TD with a fast reload if that’s possible.
worse ammo placement, worse armour, reload isn’t much better, like I can use it but it just feels like a Panzer IV H with a better cannon lmao
Well 4.5s instead of 5.9s is pretty decent.
But yes it’s basically a paper Tiger (like the Panzer IVs, but even they have better armour BR-for-BR).
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Mobility is much better however
True, though not by a significant margin… it still feels like a medium tank.
Better over all yes a bit. Better for its br hell no Chi-ri is worst tank at its br rn while 3.3-3.7 br Pz4s are best mediums gun wise and not bad armor wise for its br.
Chi-ris turret? Sure flat 75 mm armor is soooo goood. - aka nothing for 5.7 tank 3x its size
But hull wise even that 3.3 Pz4G has freaking 100 mms of armor in 80% of the front hull
While chi-ri has nearly flat 75-50 mm - it never been tanky even at 5.0 anything could pen it even in full downtier. But 5.7 is absurd. Should just go back to 5.0 where it belongs.
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Bruh… i really put too much sarcasm when comparing them but yeah, also people forget there is ‘hidden’ tiger P without additional frontal plate (100m front) at 5.3 (named VK something) it has early tiger turret (i think same as in h1) and no apcr, other than that same gun as other tiger 1s and electric drive (28 fwd / bkwd) sure it aint great, but it sure is above chi ri (i think it is even somewhat smaller than chi-ri)
tldr: germany has secret tiger at lower br and its much better, german bias or smth idk
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Agreed.
I can see why Gajin felt it was too strong for 5.0 after making the ready-rack larger, but I think it bumping it all the way up to 5.7 was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction. 5.3 would be fine.
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How is it much better? The turret traverse is super slow and the reload is 7.4s compared to 4.5s.
It’s also slower. The armor is better but hardly better than a Sherman.
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No. 5.0 is only acceptable option. As said earlier many times the only real buff to chi-ri is better 37 mm shells that it should have had ages ago. Everything else was nerf or trade off. Lets not also forget nerfts before it was uptiered. When it lost most of its side armor, horsepower etc. did it get moved to 4.7? no. Even now its barely worth 5.0 its again trade off compare to Chi-tos not better. Chi-tos have better sloped armor, are smaller but slower reload. Imo should have kept 3.3 sec reload for the 3 shells and the rest should have been 6.5 sec like Chi-to that doesnt have autoloader. It would be decent 5.0 tank that I would be willing to uptier 4.7 tanks up to and fight tigers and jumbos in full uptier aggainst which its already very unfair. But I am not willing to fight king tigers that it cant do anything about.
It’s not entirely true that it’s only been nerfed before it was uptiered. In the beginning of 2025, it did get a nice mobility buff since the weight was reduced by several tons and the reverse speed was increased.
Tbf, the size of the ready rack is a historical matter that supersedes what we want it to be, though I would agree that the reload should’ve stayed at sub-4 seconds.
It could probably go down to 5.0 regardless and still not be too problematic. There have been plenty of far more egregious balance decisions. If further historical errors are determined and corrected, such as turret traverse rate or engine power, it might end up more suited to 5.3, but until then, as long as it’s lower than 5.7, I’d be content.
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Still find it dubious how a tank as big a Tiger II can weigh less than a Panther.
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Yeah, that’s understandable. I’m not sure exactly where the weight figures come from. I wonder if 37 tons is the empty weight.
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