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.