From the side yeah, and the IS-3’s turret has the same issues
The IS-3’s MG can’t go through most of the tank destroyers I listed basically only the PT-76 from China
No no, from the front. I think that even the IS-3 can pen it.
Again, if only 5 or 6 tanks that the IS-3 encounters are a real threat, then there is a balance issue.
You’re talking in a full downtier, and you’re discounting flanking. You also ignore the ability to disable its tracks / barrel.
Add on the bad reload and the tank’s slow turret traverse it’s not a super tank.
We’ve come back at the begining of the conversation again.
When the only way to destroy a tank is relying on the few HEAT slingers that might come across its way or an unreliable flanking tactic, there is room for concern.
Even though the IS-3 didn’t move yet, I was happy when i saw that the IS-6 did. Funny thing is that it’s easier to destroy than the IS-3.
When the only way to destroy a heavy tank is to use a tank destroyer or flank it then the heavy tank is working as intended.
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I totally agree, but then let other heavies work in the same way.
Which is like no metric to judge a tanks performance.
RoF and mobility make the IS-6 much more capable.
It’s not like they can’t die and they will be taken out at one point, but one will be able to deal a lot more damage.
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That’s complete non-sense. No tanks are equal, no light, no medium, no heavy and no TD.
Each has strenghts and weaknesses. Some may rely on super strong armor, others on mobility and firepower.
The IS-3 has practically the same firepower as the IS-2 in terms of penetration since the APC round is generally not worth using over the APBC.
It even has worse traverse speed so the firepower is even somewhat worse.
It makes up for it with very strong armor but that doesn’t protect it from getting disabled before it even has a chance to shoot.
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The role of a heavy tank is to be able to assault a position to allow other vehicles / infantry to move forward to assist it.
If a heavy tank can not do this job then its only value is that of its gun. Most heavy tanks don’t have the strongest available guns due to the weight of their armor. If the heavy tank’s armor is ineffective then it is an overweight medium tank at best.
And? That’s just how it is.
At any BR you’ll find that heavy tanks can be taken out by mediums in their BR range from the front. There are only a few heavy tanks that actually have armor that stops nearly anything, which usesually means they are very slow or have bad guns.
TDs often make it easier to penetrate their armor and some light tanks can just position themself to hit them in the sides.
In some cases they slaped some armor on medium tanks, or just built the medium tanks with more armor to turn it into a heavy. More armor for lower mobility, firepower rarely incrased.
At the time, the Tiger I, Tiger II, IS-2, T29, T34, T32 all had more potent guns than the medium tank that was currently employed. There’s also ridiculous stuff like the IS-7 or Object 279.
Weight is certainly not the limiting factor when it comes the the armament of a heavy tank.
Unless you have some weight constraint to consider, like on Russian tanks.
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Your reasoning for commenting is offtopic to the thread and flawed. I don’t say otherwise and I’m simply making the point that the IS-3 is one of the few heavy tanks in the game which succeed in their mission.
And that’s why, except if there’s a good reason for it, the exceptions should go up and join the norm.
IS-3 isn’t an exception to that.
The long 88mm absolutely can pen the IS-3, and one tap it frontally. I’ve done it myself, many times.
Apologies for repeating myself, but…
Really, what else is there to say?
Indeed. In fact, several can frontally pen the right turret cheek, or get the shot trap. And a sufficient elevation difference will nullify the angled protection of the sloped upper glacis.
So does this one. It’s called, “biggest shot trap of any tech tree tank in the game”. And that’s only one of its frontal weak spots.
This. So much this. At least for heavies with horrendous reload times and/or mediocre firepower. Not all heavies are born equal, of course. Tiger IIs have great turret rotation, great reload times, and amazing long range ballistics (that we rarely get to use in WT but that is a different matter). If they were as frontally strong as the IS-3, they would outclass it in all performance parameters, and they’d be at a higher BR.
It’s not easier to destroy. It becomes easy to destroy when you learn its frontal weak spot, and engage it so often that you can one tap it from muscle memory alone. Same as the IS-3.
On the other hand, the IS-6…
The one thing I’ll disagree with you on, Vamilad, is this.
Or rather, this is completely true in the general sense that “if you want to kill a well-armoured heavy you’re gonna need to use a tank destroyer”, and I agree. But in the more specific sense of “using vehicles that are meta, because they have postwar ammo” then yeah, no, that’s definitely Gaijin’s problem.
You yourself basically state that there’s a balance issue, when you say that:
There’s one reason, one reason alone for a vehicle to be in the game: so that players will play it. If you think an entire lineup (and Germany’s 6.7 is one of the biggest in the game) should be skipped outright because it’s not worth playing/is not competitive, you’re saying there’s a huge balance issue to look at.
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This issue exists in other nations besides Germany at multiple BR ranges. Some tanks are simply too strong to fight the tanks they were designed to fight. If you want to make the argument historical accuracy should matter more than actual performance well that opens a really large can of worms.
“biggest” not really, Tiger 2 (H) / Ferdinand / Jagdtiger are at 6.7
Germany’s late heavies were just silly in size and were more suited against Post-war tanks. IRL they barely functioned due to mechanical problems and their sheer size making them near useless for maneuvering. Ingame we don’t have mechanical problems and mobility is very forgiving for certain tanks considering what would happen if they were driving through mud etc. IRL.
These tanks aren’t useless at their current BR Germany just has a much stronger 6.3 lineup because of the addition of the leKPz M41 and JPz 4-5. Post war West Germany tanks which offer post-war ammunition and provide effective flanking gameplay. You still have the Tiger 2 (P) to use and the Jagdpanther G1 alongside them if you want more efficient armor.
Germany’s 6.7 lineup can work I just don’t see a point in suffering through mobility issues when you can give yourself a lower BR range that keeps you out of the 7.7 bracket.
I think I didn’t explain myself clearly. I wouldn’t for one minute suggest historical matchmaking. It might work in other games, but not in War Thunder as we know it.
Absolutely yes. The game, its game modes, and its mission types are not built in a way that makes different vehicle classes equally competitive. That is, imho, to the game’s detriment, as it detracts from the depth of its roster. Of course it’s unrealistic to think you could achieve universally perfect balance between thousands of vehicles, but at least all major vehicle types should have their opportunity to shine.
Jagdtiger, Tiger II Sla, Tiger II H, Ferdinand, Elefant, SPz 12 (the battlepass one), and for those lucky enough to have them (sadly not me), Tiger II 105 and Panther II. Plus, JPz 4-5 and LeK while being 6.3, are very competitive in the 6.7 lineup, in fact just to highlight the absurdity of this balance issue, the JPz 4-5 does better in 7.7 games since you meet many more early postwar vehicles that will die in one go to a HEAT-FS round…
Oh, absolutely. And completely stupid, too. The versions we have in game are basically pure fantasy in terms of how well they work. You mentioned their sheer size and mechanical problems but there’s more, one of the best strengths of Tiger II in game is the super fast turret rotation, that could never be achieved with RPMs also going to actually move the vehicle, much less at full speed. And even when sitting still, crews vere advised to only use maximum turret rotation speed if it was a life or death situation, because it could blow up the engine.
Like I said, pure fantasy. But the same could be said for most other tanks in WT, so fair. Gameplay, fun, and balance come first, realism second, imho.
Which is what I meant when I said that there is a balance problem. Mobility, unlike armour, is always an advantage. The game compounds this advantage by having mission types that require mobility, maps where sniping is increasingly taboo, CAS discount attached to highly mobile vehicles, and BRing said very mobile vehicles in a way that they have both great RoF and often greater firepower than the heavies they meet as well.
It should be fixed so that lights, and heavies, and anything in between, are equally effective - not necessarily at the same time, at least depending on map type and mission type. That would be balance.
I do not consider event / premium vehicles when discussing balance. Their rarity is part of their balance.
Mostly this is achieved through map design allowing all types of gameplay so you can choose how you’re going to use your tank.
An area for CQC, an area for sniping, room for flanking, etc.
A lot of the newer maps follow this design philosophy there’s just several older maps that need touch ups. European Province is the best example so far of small changes which balance what used to be an atrocious map if you were slow and lumbering.
That’s fair, but in this case, with the exception of the SPz 12, most of the premium and event vehicles are completely uniform with their tech trees equivalent in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, especially for the Sla. But regardless. I only brought them up in the context of saying that 6.7 is a BR with lots of extremely interesting German vehicles.
Yes and no. A good chunk of it can be done through maps, but only to an extent. At the end of the day, you’ll have to go to the cap eventually, and you’ll still be slugging it out in close quarters with vehicles that aren’t really suited to fight there. Greater variety of mission types would help balance this out further. The third ingredient is that light vehicles are currently somewhat under-BRd, in my opinion.
Some older maps are indeed atrocious, but a lot of the “touch ups” are simply reducing the number of maps where bringing sniping vehicles is viable. The rocks in F row in Jungle are a perfect example, there is simply no room for anything but CQB on that map anymore. 38th Parallel was altered so badly that I legit don’t feel like playing it anymore, and it was one of the best (and few) maps we had left where you could seriously contribute even from long range.
As for the new maps, while it’s true that they try to follow that philosophy, the sniping is still absolutely the neglected part in their design, because players don’t want to be sniped. It’s that simple. Iberian Castle, for example, is really good - but engagements almost anywhere on the map happen at 300m range and below. A is the only exception, you can get up to a whopping (sarcasm) 800m there, but engagements on that side of the map are sparse, and you’re unlikely to have an impact on the match, which is why I always go C instead.
Golden Quarry is meh. Not good, not bad, forgettable. The long range component here is even more minuscule. Aside from the possibility of trading 900m shots while going to A - which really you can only do if you have a fast vehicle - it’s all extreme CQC.
Test Site, not impressed. It’s like Alaska and Seversk had a baby, and that’s not a compliment. A sniping map it certainly ain’t.
I would ask myself when we’re finally going to get a good, new long range map for BRs 5.3 - 6.7, but I think I really shouldn’t hold my breath on that one, should I?
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