I want to have a quick disclaimer on the fact that I am not a good GRB player, I have somewhere around 1500 games of experience, but in T80UD for Ground RB I suffer particularly hard, and here’s my thoughts:
T80UD dies in one hit most of the time if it gets penned. I think this is pretty trivial to anyone who played up until this rank, its a common pain for russian MBTs.
T80UD has terrible reverse and subpar mobility overall. Also pretty self explanatory, its one of the most clumsy tanks in the tier.
T80UD has no thermals. While for some of you professional players may spot enemies from a few kilometers away by purely using sight, lacking it still takes away some potential for an average player like me.
T80UD has unreliable armor that is quite heavily dependent on luck. Yes the Kontakt-5 sometimes save me from a shot, but I have experienced a lot of games where people snipe me from a long range at almost 0 degrees onto my upper glacis and penetrate me anyways without the Kontakt-5 saving me. The turret also has bugged armor (or maybe its intended) so that a massive hole around the cannon breech is easily penned by any shell from my experience. Overall, even at longer ranges the tank does not offer much advantage over other tanks on avoiding to be penned.
With all those detriments to this tank, I find it very hard to fit in any role for the tank. I cannot be a front line brawler because I have terrible mobility which will limit my ability to move around, unlike other faster tanks. I cannot flank because the tank is quite slow and it won’t get anywhere I want to be on time. I cannot take long range fights on big maps because the lack of thermals makes it hard to spot enemies. I also cannot hide behind cover and shoot someone down by popping out without taking risk, because if another enemy comes out I won’t have as nearly as good reverse to get back to cover before I die. I can’t even cover my weak spot in long range combat because of the nasty weakness around the cannon breech and also just overall not ideal upper glacis that gets penned often. Lastly, with all those in mind, I won’t get an opportunity to make any mistake because if I get penned, there’s no way I can survive a hit and get back to cover to repair.
I don’t know if the top level players can manage to get past all those weaknesses and find a way to play on the tank’s strength (which I can’t find any as of now), but to my current skill level I find it to be the inferior tank of the 10.0 games. I would think this tank is 9.7 material for anyone like me that is not particularly awesome in the game, and I wonder if top level players would also feel the tank the same way. If there is a way to properly utilize the tank other than “get good and destroy noobs that didn’t get good yet”, I’d like to know.
And finally as a comparison to some other non-tech tree tanks in the Russian line-up. Overall, I think Russian tanks aren’t that bad. For 10.0 tanks, I’ve had much more success with the 2S38 and the BMP2M which has strengths I can play around with, and the T72AV is a decent sniper with great thermals and a somehow more reliable upper glacis and turret to tank some shots when the lower glacis is covered. I don’t own the T80UE1, but I have heard from my friends that it is a lot better and a much more consistent grinder than the T80UD. It confuses me why this vehicle exists at 10.0 being a premium, I can only consider it as a money waster.
Imo from playing against it, it’s probably undertiered if anything. I can see it going to 10.3 in the future.
All of the issues you’ve raised are the exact same issues all the other T series tanks have bar the T-80’s with their improved reverse and the T-72AV with it’s Gen 2 thermals. Also the AV can be UFP’d by DM23 IIRC whilst the UD is immune bar the drivers hatch (common Soviet weakness).
Well from what I know “T series have ban T-80s and T-72AV” is basically all under 10.0. Also T-72s actually have a sturdier upper glacis compared to T80UD from my experience, its only the Kontakt-5’s sometimes being lucky to make it seem that T80UD’s upper glacis is good. Despite your claims, I still don’t see how T-80UD can fit any role in a GRB game properly.
The T-72B’s have a better UFP than the UD but they’re all functionally immune from their contemporaries, however the T-72AV isn’t, M774 in it’s nerfed state can pen the UFP of the AV.
The UD is just another Soviet T tank to bolster the 10.0 line-up with better K5 coverage on the turret. It brings all the same advantages and disadvantages as the other Soviet 10.0’s so I’m not sure how ‘it doesn’t fit any role’.
I often get penetrated by DM23 and DM33 on the upper front glacis of T80UD even when kilometers away from enemy, to the point that I think without Kontakt-5 its always going to be penetrated. T72AV does fit a sniper role for me due to its thermals, but T80UD has no advantage to really do anything is the claim. I already explained my experience and reasoning on why T80UD doesnt fit any role, so maybe don’t ask me how, but if you succeed in any role you can speak it out loud.
-Better engine than other 10.0 Russian MBTs, good mobility overall. Overshadowed by NATO MBTs but still pretty mobile, especially compared to other Russian stuff.
-Better optics than pretty much any 10.0 tank. Same sight as T-90A, just without thermals.
-Better armor than most 10.0 tanks
-Better reload than any other 10.0 Russian MBT. 6.5 seconds still beats a low level Leopard 2 crew/any manually loaded 105mm armed tank.
Only thing it lacks compared to other tanks is thermals, but neither T-72B has them either.
Your only competitors in terms of your lineup at or around this BR are the T-90A and T-80B which are both higher BR than it.
All Russian mbt are effectively the same experience. Same weak spots, no gun depression low crew count etc. Personally I hate playing Russian top tier so so very much
T-72B is far more armored and overall a better tank than T-80UD while being tech tree.
“But muh engine. But much 8x optioc. But muh 7.1 second reload.”
The 2nd one is 100% preference.
The engine has to cope with the transmission that holds it back.
And the 7.1 second reload doesn’t really matter when you one shot everything.
Skill issue my guy, suffering with one of the best tanks in the game is something else lol.
I think this says it all, you want to be able to play around being the best in the game firepower-wise. Either the missiles or the fast reload. The reason I see why you’re performing so poorly with the T80UD, is that you can’t cope with not being able to rush in, get four kills in one second and die. Now you have to take your finger of the W button.
