So, the chieftain mk3 and mk5. As it stands, these tanks are a miserable experience.
I feel like the chieftains are horribly over the BR they should be, specifically the mk3 and mk5.
The mk3 and mk5 have Apds, no laser range finder, no thermals etc, all at 8.7.
This is a BR where they very, very frequently encounter vehicles which thermals, laser range finders and darts.
I can deal with the speed, that’s fine however these tanks don’t seem to do anything well. They don’t have composite armour and are at a huge disadvantage against tanks with laser range finders.
Now, what can be done about this? There are 2 obvious solutions. The first is just give the dammed things their laser range finders, which all chieftains had during their service lives, or drop them in BR to something like 8.3.
Personally, I’d go for the laser range finder on the mk5 and drop the mk3 to 8.3
If you can find a source that proves that the Cheif Mk3 and 5 had lrf’s, and you bug reported it, it might get changed. was it added as part of a mid life upgrade or from introduction?
Also i believe the Mk5 could fire L23 APFSDS, which is another potential change they could make, or they could buff the reload for the first stage, so it gets a competative reload like the challengers after it. Personally, i would give the MK5 L23, move the MK3 down to 8.3, and if they could actually have LRF’s, give it to them both. Or, keep them both at 8.7, dont give the MK5 L23, but buff the reload to the same as the challengers, and if they could actually have LRF’s, give it to them both still.
They were added dad upgrades during the chieftain service life.
Pretty much all the later chieftains are upgrades of existing hulls.
I’d be fine with the mk3 being an early chieftain, the mk5 becoming the mk with a lrf but no stillbrew armour, and the mk10 remaining how it is, unless the mk10 becomes the mk11 and gets 1st generation thermals.
I mean its still a great tank but the tanks you fight against mostly have
A: Apfsds
B: Laser range finder
C: Both
D: or even atgms with what 800 mm penetration(mouse guided) not taking about the shitty wasd ones
which makes the only thing you have (armor) useless
and i have to say took the mk3 and mk5 for a spin and the dmg from the apds is sad, just so sad
just with the new maps it got even worse ( never thought i would say that about uk tanks lol )
just the usual power creep you can see in any br with all those new undertiered tanks that got added.
Like the T-62s; they should never have moved, the Mk.10 should have been an 8.7 for the past 3 years or smthin and the Mk.5 never warranted it but minor nation tax.
Laser Range Finders were mid-life upgrades, Mk.5 with APFSDS and LRF was Chieftain Mk.5/4 iirc. The stowage needed to be adjusted to house APFSDS.
Honestly, the Chieftains for me are personally the worst tanks in the entire game. I gave up on grinding the British tank tree because of how much of a miserable experience they are, especially since I doubt the Challengers are worth it anyway.
They seem to have nothing going for them. They’re slow as molasses, which would be okay if it was a tradeoff in exchange for something strong elsewhere, but it isn’t. People say the armour is great and it’s a hulldown beast, but everything seems to pen you anyway. And to top it off, APDS damage is anemic, when there’s tanks even at a lower BR than you running around with APFSDS.
The Legacy Challengers are utterly fantastic to play, at least it feels like it after the chieftains. Worth getting to them, and stopping there, you get a taste of top tier having thermals, lrf, you can get LGB’s in there too.
yep agreed i hated them, but i also hated the centurions.
Given more BR decompression this tank will be left behind and eventually became a more balanced vehicle. Personally i find this vehicle requires you to play passively and defensively, it that role its very effective imo. I enjoy playing it. However it does require an expert crew to get that reload reduced. One way to improve the vehicle would be for gaijin to knock 1 second off the reload.
Yeh i wouldn’t move them down, I’d just improved them so they are competitive, however there’s alot of tanks that need to go up, the top BR also needs to increase
The Chieftains are cracked though. Excellent armour especially on the turret and the 120 APDS is on par with early 105 darts. They’re pretty perfect for 8.7. The coincidence rangefinder is extremely capable as well, providing equal performance to LRF at most ranges you’ll be fighting at. Now look at the 9.0 A1A1 and 8.7 T-62: the Chieftains are not alone in lacking LRF and TV. They struggle in uptiers, for sure, but that is simply a result of the insane compression of 8.3-9.3 from recent BR changes. Every nation at that BR range is struggling.
The chieftains simply cannot go down in BR. What are 7.3s supposed to do against them? An IS-3 or T32 can do nothing against a hull-down chieftain.
They aren’t alone in lacking LRF and thermals. They are alone in lacking a dart, LRF and thermals.
You said the coincidence range finder is extremely capable, and that may be so, but it’s far below laser range finders which are incredibly common at this BR giving it a horrifying disadvantage. Don’t forget of course, that LRF’s put the sight down to the meter, making it very easy to hit weak spots while the chieftain’s goes in some weird stepping of ranges making it much harder to hit weak spots.
I literally leave long range maps when I have the cheiftain, because there is almost zero chance of me getting the first shot off and hitting.
I have yet to see a convincing argument for the chieftains to not have their LRF. The T-55AM-1 and the T-55AMD-1 both sit at the same BR and have better mobilty, excellent armour (on the AM-1), laser range finders, darts etc.
There are zero excuses for at the very least, the mk5 to get it one.
But it’s also rather unique in its large calibre.
L15A3 penetrates 151mm @ 1km @ 60 degrees
3BM25 penetrates 112mm @ 1km @ 60 degrees
3BM4 penetrates 138mm @ 1km @ 60 degrees
M735 penetrates 159mm @ 1km @ 60 degrees
M111/DM23/slpprj m80 is the only common dart at 8.7 with a definitive penetration advantage over L15A3 at 186mm @ 1km @ 60 degrees, but it is found on vehicles with disadvantages over the Chieftain in other ways, especially armour.
Now if the Mk 5 has L23 with its 188mm @ 1km @ 60 degrees it would have the best shell of any fully stabilized MBT as well as arguably the best armour. This is not balanced by its supposedly poor mobility, which in reality is pretty identical to M60s and only slightly lagging behind T-55s while substantially ahead of the many Centurions at the BR. For the sake of historical accuracy I could see L23 added and the Mk 5 moved up to 9.0, but that would probably hurt the vehicle overall.
You want the mk5 to move up to 10.0, where it faces turms, with no laser range finder or thermals? That cannot happen as it would face turms with lrf, 2nd gen thermals etc. Not to mention it woudl sit next to the challenger mk2, so yeah, no.
You are also failing to take into account the god awful spalling from APDS.
It makes me giggle that you think the mk5 is slightly less mobile than the t-55, it’s such a ridiculous statement, plus you completely ignore the mk3 which is at the same br as the mk5.
LIke I said before, I can deal with the mobility, that’s fine and it is what it is but the tanks need something, and the only thing they can get is a laser range finder.
I’d want to moved to 9.0, where it’d still have excellent armour and one of the best shells. Yes, it’d fight 10.0s, but so does the T-62M1, A1A1, M60A3 TTS, all of which fare no better. Such is simply the state of compression at the BR. You, meanwhile, would have IS-4s, T-32E1s, M48s, T-54 (47)s, and Centurion Mk 3s fighting a Chieftain with a laser rangefinder and IS-3s and M47s fighting one without.
On the topic of spalling
spalling is overrated. 2 shot knockout is only slightly slower than 1 shot.
the spalling is sufficient. I almost always get 1 shots. It’s APDS, sure, but a really honking big APDS.
The vast majority of tanks around the BR will have all but 1 crew situated in a perfectly straight line. Aim for the right side of the UFP of NATO vehicles and left side of the UFP for Russian/Chinese vehicles and the APDS core itself will go through each crew member, no additional spalling required. Most notable exception is the M60 family, where the commander is situated high enough to avoid the shot. However, this only helps on full crew and the M60s have a very large, very volatile first-stage ammo rack that can be hit by a shot to the left side UFP.
Glad I made you laugh, though I am dead serious.
49km/h and 13.8hp/tonne is not far from 51km/h and 16.1hp/tonne. It is noticable, yes, but the Chieftain is no Churchill.
The Chieftains are very strong vehicles that don’t require any buffs, just a bit more patience and better aim to play.
T-62M1 - Dart and Laser range finder
A1A1 - Dart
M60A3 TTS - Dart and laser range finder.
I’m just going to point out, that you have centiruion mk3’s fighting t-55am-1’s with laser range finders and composite already, all with shatter happy APDS, made even worse by the dodgy shatter mechanic causing the 2 plates welded together on the front of the T-55AM-1 to make the shells shatter.
“Spalling is overrated”. lol. Come on dude. I am intimately familiar with how critical spalling is, I played through the entire 6pdr, 17pdr, 20pdr range which hardly generate spalling and it is miserable. Noone can seriously say with a straight face that spalling is overrated.
“the spalling is sufficient” but it’s not the same as APFSDS spalling, this cannot be denied.
“49km/h and 13.8hp/tonne is not far from 51km/h and 16.1hp/tonne.”
Ok, so first of all, the chieftain mk5 goes 48kph, the mk3 about 42. Secondly, you clearly haven’t played the cheiftains much, 31 battles in the mk5 isn’t exactly a huge sample size.
There is far, far, far more to it than just comparing the hp/tonne. Inertia plays a huge role as well as other factors.
Look, I’m not asking for artificial buffs here. I’m ok with keeping the APDS, I’m fine with the mobility - that’s how the tank is and that’s fine, but giving the chieftain the equipment it had in order for it to compete with all the disadvantages does have doesn’t feel like a large ask.
You’ve never used an M60 or a Leopard, so I’ll cut you some slack in your incorrect assumptions about their performance. But the Chieftain is at a lower BR than all the vehicles you mentioned. You keep refusing to compare it to vehicles at its own BR.
I say with a straight face that spalling is overrated. I’ve used everything on the spalling spectrum from APCR to HE-FRAG. You have not. Your issue with spalling is a skill one, I’m afraid. As I previously described, all tanks around that BR are reliably destroyed in 1 or 2 penetrating shots with even the worst of spalling so long as you know how to shoot. Not to mention the layout of the Chieftain makes it one of the most survivable vehicles on a penetration, so long as you use a reasonable ammo load.
This is a perfect demonstration of what I am talking about. I’ve used all these vehicles as well and never had any issues with spalling for these cannons, even 17 pounder APDS. So the shell is not the problem, the gunner is. Again, I recommend aiming for the location of crew members on an enemy vehicle instead of simply aiming at the vehicle in general. Aim small, miss small, you know? Disable the vehicle with the first shot by taking out some combination of
A) gunner, breech, horizontal drive
B) driver, engine, transmission, track
then the enemy will be completely helpless as you reload and knock them out. Or just right side of NATO tanks and left side of Russian ones.
The Chieftain’s many advantages over vehicles at its BR outweigh disadvantages vs vehicles at a higher BR. Any buffs to the vehicle would make it entirely dominant at 8.7 and completely unstoppable for 7.7. So yes, that is a big ask.
The Chieftain struggles against 9.0s and 9.3s. That we agree on. However, this is not because it is a struggling, handicapped vehicle, but because gaijin fucked over every country’s 8.0-8.7 two months ago. Remember, the Chieftain Mk 5 essentially got a BR decrease when every other country’s 8.7s moved up but it stayed. So it is better than ever.