I’ll admit it’s an apples to oranges comparison, but I’d hold the 57 is overall a better tank. The Firefly’s one sizable advantage is penetration. The 57 beats it in every other catagory. Speed, armor, size, reload, even post pen damage and gun depression (ironically).
If you can get the Firefly into a sniping position where you can engage well armored targets at range (And don’t need gun depression to do it), it’ll do better than the 57. But in every other situation, the 57 will do better than the Firefly. And given how Gaijin designs maps these days, with the glut of close quarters urban maps where there is no sniping allowed, I’ll take the 57 almost all of the time.
I like to define early tier British as a monkey’s paw-esque quest for a good solid shot gun.
Player: I’m tired of these little pew pew guns, when do I get something decent?
Gaijin: Here’s the 17 pounder, it’s large caliber and absurdly high pen should solve that issue.
P: Great!
G: We’ve strapped it to a paper armored tank with no turret. Also, the gun points backwards, and it can only reverse at 4 kph.
P:…
G: Don’t worry. At the next tier up, there’s a better option. It even has a turret.
P: Great.
G: Of course, it’s an M10, and thanks to the gun being even heavier it’s actually the slowest turret in the game.
P:…
G: Tough crowd. Ok, here’s a 17 pounder on a Sherman.
P: What’s the catch now?
G: Well, in order to make it fit, the Brits had to remove the stabilizer. Also it only has 3 degrees of gun depression.
P:…
G: Oh stop being dramatic. Here’s another one on a Cromwell chassis.
P: Let me guess. No reverse gear?
G: Correct. Also, it’s so cramped, they couldn’t even put in a coax or any smoke grenades. So you’re even more screwed if something pushes you.
P: Seriously?
G: Fine. Here’s a better Cromwell based one. The turret’s bigger, so you get a faster reload. Also APDS.
P: What the hell is this? The APDS shatters on everything, the turret’s big enough to be seen from orbit, and I still have no reverse gear.
G: Fine, you crybaby. Here.
P: Oh? What’s this? A good chassis, with reliable armor, good gun handling, and even a reverse gear? Finally!
G: Of course, at this tier, the gun’s back to being a pew pew gun. Don’t worry though, we’ve got a new gun, the 20 pounder. And here you go, we’ve put it on a Cromwell chassis…
Cromwell’s are goated, and when i played low tier Britain yes AP was very very bad, but it wasn’t suffering. but yes gaijin fix AP its unusable so may times it pens and leaves no damage , or just disappears
All Fireflies have the smoke grenades and HMG. The IC and the British VC are both 4.7 since they don’t get APDS, while the Italian VC does.
Since both Italian Fireflies are post-war, they should both have APDS and be at 5.0.
The British TT should get their own IC at 5.0 with APDS while the current VC stays as is at 4.7 without APDS.
Yes, but neither are particularly huge advantages at the tier.
The .50 is nice as always for tracking people, but there are precious few tanks at the tier that can be consisentely penned by it (It’s pretty much just the PT-76 and it’s Chinese clones), and this particular mount has extremely restricted elevation so it’s not even useful against aircraft.
The smoke grenades are also nice, but the fact that it’s a smoke mortar limits them. They’re slow to deploy, they only cover one small area and requires your turret to move to cover your entire frontal arc, meaning that if you’re disabled (IE the one time you most need smoke cover), they’re usually far too slow to save you. It’s fine if you take a hit that’s only mildly disabling, but, well, you’re a Firefly. If you can take a hit without immediately being oneshot, you’re already extremely lucky.
Though as someone who mostly prefers smaller maps and CQC, I actually don’t dislike Pradesh all that much (Apart from the horrid spawn locations). If they made more maps like that for the higher tiers, I wouldn’t mind. I’d actually probably agree and enjoy myself.
Edit: there are some tanks that would basically become instant “never spawning this one” if larger maps become the standard. Stuff like the Maus, T95, or TOG II would just never reach the battlefield ever.
Sure it would take them longer to get into useful position. But they might perform better, in having longer ranges to use their powerful guns with less chance of being flanked. Their armor would also be more effective in most cases.
Drop the Centurion 1 to 5.3. You should not be able to see Tiger IIs in this thing. Optional nerf: make the ammo layout objectively trash like in every other Centurion. The ONLY thing the Centurion has justifying it at 6.0 is a better chassis for the 17 pounder than anything else before it, and I don’t think that’s remotely enough to justify letting an unstabilized solid shot shooter see heavy tanks where the gameplay dynamic boils down to ‘I have to be extremely precise against this thing that barely has to aim against me’. Cry skill issue all you want, but when the map pool is so heavily favored towards the APHE slingers (genuinely why on earth is Sinai still in the game) it’s kind of insane to ask the nation that is pretty much known for sniping to be infinitely more precise than the APHE boys.
Pradesh is fine, except for the fact that you can see it while queuing for 7.7 or 8.0. Like the map is kinda ass but it’s way less bad when you have laser rangefinders (or even rangefinders in general). If I’m first spawning the Conqueror in an 8.0 game there’s a problem.
Also I personally think 7.7 would be immensely improved if the Maus just disappeared instantly. Such an annoying tank to deal with.
yeah so we’re not moving the literal MBT to 5.3 when it can pen tiger 2s frontally, yeah? sound good? This tank is in no way comparable to any 5.3s in game and is just better
I’m sorry but “penning frontally” implies that you can shoot more than just part of the turret. I’d never say that I can pen a Panther frontally with a 17 pounder because I just can’t. It’s just the mantlet. I can very easily pen a Tiger 1 frontally, I can only pen a Tiger 2 via the mantlet. The 6 pounder can pen standard KV-1s frontally and needs to turret ring or mantlet a t-34. In everything listed except the Tiger 1 and KV-1, the british player has to be infinitely more precise than the Soviet or German player. The centurion 1 is also unstabilized and is relatively slow compared to the other options available to Britain at 5.3. The Centurion 1’s armor is decent but also the turret is fucking cast in the front so easy breech shot to anyone with a braincell. And if you think it’s still overpowered? Neuter its ammo layout and give it the frontal ammo rack that literally every other centurion has.
