A tank that sacrificed mobility in exchange for superior armor and firepower can be easily penetrated from the front by a POST WAR light tank. If we consider game balance, a Light Tank capable of defeating a Heavy Tank from the front should not exist.
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Has HEAT been buffed in the last 6 months as everything iv watched about them says inconsistant at best?
Iv stayed away from them as they sound like RNG
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Conversely:
A light tank that sacrificed all armor, versatility, survivabliity, post pen damage, shell velocity and more for penetration capabilities is able to frontally penetrate a well armored tank.
Or are you also in uproar about the existence of the Nashorn and Waffentrager, both of which absolutely clown on any heavy tank they can see.
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Good thing this functions much more like a Tank Destroyer, which absolutely should be capable of dealing with heavy armor frontally.
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Light tanks can quickly slip into bases while using their Scout function. This is a capability that should be given precisely because these vehicles have few other merits besides their mobility. Besides, I don’t think HEAT-FS has low damage at all. If you aim correctly, you can kill the gunner and destroy the breech. You understand that a heavy tank which has lost its ability to fight back has no value or presence on the battlefield right?
- Light tanks should not easily penetrate the armor of heavy tanks.
- Medium tanks should not have thicker armor than heavy tanks.
- Heavy tanks should not be faster than medium tanks.
These three are essential power balances for making a tank game viable.
Nashorn and Waffenträger are tank destroyers. They have no advantages other than their firepower. I have absolutely no intention of disputing that tank destroyers can penetrate the frontal armor of heavy tanks.What I’m concerned about is the major disruption to the power balance between vehicle types caused by HEAT-FS.
So does most heat-fs slingers at those brs…
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Got it! That means reconnaissance capabilities aren’t necessary huh?
Most Tanks destroyers cant scut… and many of those are not this hypermobile vehicle that you claim, their only advantage is its fire power.
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PT-76B, Type 63, M41 series, AUBL, Pbv 501, and T92. These are light tanks that you see very frequently even at 6.7–7.0. Please stop pretending they don’t exist by disguising the topic as a discussion about tank destroyers.All of them are light tanks with over 200 mm of penetration that can move around quickly.
This thread is about heat-fs, there are far more vehicles that affects than those that also are tank destroyers…
Also all of those have a low damage heat-fs, so it they are still at a disadvantage over heavy tanks
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I’m sorry, I sent the reply to the wrong person.
This would hold true if that was indeed the only advantage light tanks had, and/or was universal. But it’s not. The Ratels are slower than most mediums outside of flat, straight roads. And both earlier and later light tanks share their firepower with comparable mediums/MBTs at their tiers quite consistently.
It’s also absolutely suicidal to rush into CQB combat in something like a AUBL, Type 60, or any of the other HEAT slingers due to their tissue paper armor and poor gun handling.
And what happens when that heavy tank aims correctly and hits an enemy? They die in one shot. Instead of being able to reverse into cover, repair, recrew potentially, all while relaying your position to his friends.
If you’ve managed to catch a heavily armored target out in such a way that you can disable them slowly over multiple shots, then you’ve outplayed them. Either they’ve mispositioned in such a way that there is no way for them to react to you, or you’ve managed to sneak into a position without them noticing. Either way, you deserve the kill.
There are so many exceptions to the other two rules here that I can list off the top of my head.
- Panthers are more heavily armored than IS-2s and T1/M6s. KV-85 is less well armored than the VK. The AMX-50 is much less well armored than the M48s.
- Later Soviet heavies are much faster than some early MBTs, notably Centurions and Pattons. I can also point to the AMX-50 again.
My point is, vehicle types aren’t some monolithic block that every vehicles follows without exception. You’re going to have occasional vehicles that blur the lines, and that’s OK. We judge vehicles not by how well they fit some arbitarary definition of what they “should” be doing, but on how they actually perform.
I could argue that, especially in the Waffenttrager’s case, it’s tiny size and good gun depression are also advantages that it shares with light tanks, but that’s just pointless quibbling.
Instead, I would focus on the relative strength of their firepower. The long 88 is unquestionable more powerful at 5.3/5.7 than 90mm HEAT slingers are at 6.3/6.7. Post pen damage most obviously (The long 88 will almost always oneshot, especially at this tier), but also in terms of ballistics, the ability to penetrate small obstacles, etc.
You’re right in that they pay a lot of have this advantage. But are you seriously trying to say the firepower of the PT-76 is comparable to them, just because the penetration number is similarly big?
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Therefore, I’m not saying that HEAT-FS itself is bad. The problem is that there are simply too many vehicles capable of using it.I did state my personal opinion that HEAT-FS on tank destroyers is not an issue you know?
The difference in role between something like a Jpz 4-5 and an ELC might as well not exist, you realize?
Both are super mobile, super lightly armored tanks with no full turret and 90mm HEAT. The difference being the ELC gets scouting, in exchange for the Jpz being bullet resistance frontally, having more crew and a much faster reload.
You’re also ignoring the decent number of TDs at this tier that also get scouting. The M56, the ASU (for some reason), the Type 60 SPRG, and a few others.
Why are they not a problem, but the AUBL is? Is it literally just down to the arbitrary symbol Gaijin assigned to them?
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Please don’t distort the discussion by omitting the overwhelming advantage of its reconnaissance function.Also, it’s only natural that thinly armored vehicles will end up destroying themselves if they force CQB.
The IS-2 is within an adjustable BR range. I think lowering it to 5.3–5.7 would be fine.As for the KV-85, I personally believe it should be downgraded from a heavy tank to a medium tank.The M6A1/2 and Centurion are difficult to balance, so no comment.
The Waffenträger’s gun depression is 8 degrees, which is a perfectly average value — neither particularly good nor bad. And, it’s only natural for tank destroyers to have excellent firepower.
Unlike HEAT-FS, which can penetrate 200–300 mm, this round suffers from velocity drop-off over distance, so I cannot definitively say it will always win. Additionally, the Waffenträger has extremely poor mobility and is open-topped, so it can be easily one-shot by HEAT-FS. As I’ve written many times before, please stop comparing light tanks and tank destroyers on the same scale.
The Jpz.4-5 should probably be returned to BR 7.7. If that causes any problems, it would be fine to give it the Scout ability like some of the other select vehicles. I believe it has that much potential.
Spotting people is an advantage, but one that can (and is) balanced out by other factors.
If anyone’s distorting the conversation by leaving this out, it’s you, since you’re apparently fine with TDs having HEAT and scouting. Just not light tanks, who perform very similarly.
You need to understand that those “classes” are almost entirely based on history, and very limited gameplay impact. Outside of niche things like the Hellcat becoming a light tank, most tanks are labeled into whatever type they were classified as IRL.
For the most part, this label means nothing. The only exception are the “class abilities”, by which I mostly just mean scouting as artillery and ammo boxes aren’t useful in 90% of cases.
Tanks can be balanced at a tier even if they don’t 100% match what you might think of when you read the arbitary label that was applied to them. The Hellcat was just fine when it was called a TD. The KV-85 works even if it’s called a heavy. The Panthers work even if they’re called mediums.
Only over the front. Over the sides and rear, it’s closer to 10. Hard to measure it objectively, of course. Butg combined with it’s tiny sillhoette when hulldown, it’s more than comparable to many of the LTs you’re complaining about.
It probably would perform OK up there, as anything with 90mm HEAT, decent mobility and no armor is somewhat uptier agnostic due to how it’s strengths and weaknesses don’t change with it’s tier. But the uptiers would be brutal. Playing a sniper tank with HEAT and no LRF against darts and LRFs would be miserable.
The question is, why move it? It’s statisically not a problem at it’s current BR (Well below 1.0 KDR currently), and is one of two options the Germans have for uptiers in the 6.7 lineup.
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APHE often fails to fuse on thin armor. Light tanks and SPGs tank APHE all the time because the round just sails through with zero post pen damage. Tanks like the T32 have reloads that are 3-4 times longer than these light tanks.
If these HEATFS go karts are going to fight WWII heavies, any hit by any gun above a MG should result in a kill.
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The following with Heat-FS are not tank destroyers.
All are more mobile than the T2 and can pen either the UFP or turret front or both.
T92
M46
PT-76
AUBL/74
FIAT 6614
C13 T90
Type 61 family of medium tanks
AMX-13-90
Pbv 501
M-51
Magach 1/2
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M-51 isn’t using HEATFS and it has the same forward gears the KTs with a somewhat noticeable worse reverse gear (5 versus the 9 of the KTs) though it gets 3 more HP/T to balance out the lack of armor.
also you forgot about the AML 90
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If we’re talking about the Tiger II specifically, that 88mm gun is magic that people ignore because they hyperfocus on trying to make the armor work… It’s a sniper heavy with a fast-reloading APHE rifle with good ballistics, not a frontline brawler.
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