Yes yes, I know what you are probably thinking, and you’re right. The challenger tanks and the “urban” up armored tanks.
If I managed to make it to a defensive spot, I might score some kills. But heres the thing.
every time I stayed longer than usual (yes I’m a ODL player) I get bombed by CAS. This happens in all tanks I play but is exceptionally worse for slow tanks
if the team loses, then the defensive tanks will do worse than offensive tanks, to relocate, to ambush, to rush etc
there’s little advantages in “defensive” tanks like challenger 2 compared to “normal” tanks like Abrams which also has good turret cheeks. In fact I find the Abrams to be more survivable in a hulll shot
There really is no MBT reliant on hull-down. There are MBTs that benefit from this: 2A5, T-90M, etc.
However, general mobility matters most. The ability to get up to even 30kph in a fast motion is typically enough to be aggressive, ideally in both forward and reverse.
What tank was I in… Challenger 2 on Euro Province at night, a 3 enemies showed up and I was the sole active tank there. The mobility was more than enough to maneuver around the building I was utilizing as my line of sight obstruction.
It’s not necessarily the top speed or the uber acceleration that matters, but how you use the overall mobility of a platform in the situations you build for yourself in a match.
Is 1200HP 65 tons ideal? No.
Is the short-speed acceleration good enough? Most certainly.
Challenger 2 is a tank I treat rather identically to other top MBTs.
They are not objectively slow, they’re just notably slower than an Abrams.
I must assume that the Challys, Arietes, Merkavas and Abrams series are all SPH then, cause there’s no way in hell they do objectively better at CQB than in hull down, given how Gaijin modelled them.
You’re mentioning probably THE tank with the lowest gun depression in the entire top tier and a slow reverse rate being benefited from hull down LOL.
Look at the turret armor of them. Hull-down requires intense turret armor, which is almost exclusive to Abrams, 2A5, and T-90M.
CQC everyone is more or less equally weak due to idler wheel shots and easier breech shots.
In CQC the less armor a tank has the more benefit it gets from being in CQC than more heavily armored tanks; this is one of the two main reasons the playerbase chooses smaller maps, the other is CAS.
Also your post conflates hull down with sniping, which are two entirely separate things.
Never knew the Ariete was S+ tier at CQB. Must’ve been crazy for believing that Russian tanks had an advantage bc of their trolly armor layouts, giving them an edge in CQB.
Nice gaslight attempt. There’s a reason why Gaijin never made a survey regarding map sizes: they know people doesn’t like them, people just cope with them the best they can.
Sure, there may be freaks that do like them, but its arguably a br-related preference rather than a overall liking, as i barely ever heard of anyone liking 12.0-13.0 GRB CQB.
CQC nullifies frontal armor arrays because in order to go around corners you need to… expose your side armor.
T-80BVM is best at medium range [its turret isn’t good for top BR], and T-90M is best at medium to long range.
CQC cares more about mobility and ammo, with reload being a nice to have.
What does Ariete have? DM53 reloading every 5.3 seconds on a rather mobile chassis.
Is it meta? No.
Is it strong on maps where armor is downplayed? Yes.
As a frequent player of centurions, chieftains and challenger you can play super aggressive still, you just need to be aggressive in a more reserved manner
Some tanks restricted exclusively to defensive playstyles (ie: Challenger 2 vs M1A1 HC) is another way of saying the tank is bad. This isn’t universal, but it does apply to some tanks.
This is more of an issue of the gap between capability of AA systems and capability of CAS getting much wider higher you go.
IIRC challenger 2 armor profile is modeled rather poorly. Slow mobility SHOULD be compensated by good armor which isnt the case, so the fat challys outside BN and 2E suffer.
