The T-80UD is incredibly strong at 10.0. Currently, its levels of protection and mobility are practically equal to the T-90A, a 10.7 tank. It even has a better reload which substantially increases your ability to brawl with NATO MBTs because most players don’t have aced or even expert crews on their vehicles. However, T-90A has two advantages over the T-80UD, those being thermals as well as having 3BM60.
However, according to this suggestion, it could receive a thermal sight. Since T-80UDs were taken out of service in the Russian army sometime in the late 90s/2000s, it would stand to reason that it could receive 3BM46 which was introduced in 1991.
Thus, I believe the T-80UD should receive the 3BM46 and a thermal sight, which at 10.7 would practically equalize their firepower. 3BM46 is slightly weaker than 3BM60, however the T-80UD has the better reload and at this tier, the pen difference won’t matter much.
Benefits of moving the T-80UD up would include breaking up the most dominant lineup in the entire game, and expanding the 10.7 matchmaker (which is incredibly small currently) as currently both 10.0 and 11.7 are black holes and a 10.7 premium would both help 11.0s and 11.3s get more downtiers as well as help 9.0/9.3 get less uptiers.
Compared to other Russian tanks at its BR, it is much stronger. For example, it is better in essentially every way compared to the T-72B and T-72B obr. 1989 (though the level of protection on the latter is around the same). Even the T-72AV (TURMS-T) has only one advantage over the T-80UD, that being thermal imaging, when the T-80UD has better firepower, better mobility, and better armor.
Finally, if moving it to 10.7 and giving it 3BM46 + thermals is too much, then I think it could go to 10.3 but not receive 3BM46 or thermals as well. It is objectively much better than the T-72Bs and the TURMS-T really only has one advantage compared to the several advantages the T-80UD has.
I’ve never had an issue with the T-90As mobility outside of what you’d expect from Russian MBTs, and I have 200+ games in the thing
I ran an experiment to see if one had a better acceleration speed than the other, and so I drove both tanks in a straight line down the road in the test drive (both are fully spaded).
After 20 seconds, the T-90A had reached about 34 mph. After 20 seconds, the T-80UD had reached about 37 mph. If anything, the UD has a very slightly better mobility, probably because the UD weighs half a ton less.
Reverse speed is crap which is admittedly the biggest downside of the vehicle but forward speed is fine, not as fast as NATO MBTs but like I said that’s kind of what you expect. It’s still enough to motor around the map and get to where you want without exposing yourself or getting flanked.
I learned the hard way through trial and error that you just have to play smarter than the NATO vehicles about where you go and when to push forward.
All that being said, if the T-90A is at 10.7 with practically identical mobility, wouldn’t it make sense to give the UD 3BM46 as well as thermals to “equalize” their effectiveness, and then to bring the UD up to 10.7? I believe as it sits, the UD is at too low of a BR compared to its capabilities.
T-80UD has:
Better mobility (1000hp engine)
Better firepower (6.5s reload)
Better armor (better composite as well as more ERA side skirts)
Better optics
How about we just drop all the western 10.3 MBTs to 10.0 where they belong?
It’s unfathomable how a weaksauce tank like the Abrams with it’s gigantic bullseye under the gun and pitiful penetration has to face 11.3, while the OP Russian 10.0 line can just happily murder anything it meets.
And it’s just gonna get worse now that every major faction has a Click-Bait. Before the patch 10.3 got fully uptiered 85% of the time, now it’s probably 95%. I actually did count over 100 games before I stopped playing 10.3 entirely.
T-80UD is just a straight upgrade over the T-72B '89.
There’s also the base T-72B at 10.0 which is significantly worse.
Sure, if the T-80B goes 9.7 as well, with the T-64B to 9.0 and the T-72A to 8.7.
But that’s not exactly helping the BR compression in this game, is it?
The M1 Abrams is the most META and most effective overall MBT at 10.3.
It’s got the best mobility of any MBT at this BR, shared best gun handling together with the Leopard 2A4, strongest hull armour of any MBT at this BR, best survivability and the quickest sustained reload rate together with decent enough ammunition.
Spoiler
You’re on a 38% winrate with that line-up with deeply negative K/D ratios.
The global statistics for this line-up are also very poor with negative winrates for over 4 years now.
If you want to argue that this line-up ‘‘Murders anything it meets’’, I wish you the best of luck.
