Hello.
I would like to suggest reviewing the Battle Rating of the T-80UM2.
At the moment, the T-80UM2 is placed at BR 11.7, which means it is very often matched against 12.0–12.7 vehicles such as Leopard 2A7V, Leopard 2A4M CAN, Strv 122 variants, and modern M1A2 SEP tanks.
In my opinion, the T-80UM2 is not effective enough for BR 11.7 because:
It does not have thermal sights for the gunner.
It uses older ammunition compared to many top-tier vehicles.
The Drozd active protection system is useful against some missiles, but it does not protect the tank from APFSDS rounds, which are the main threat at this BR.
In uptiers to 12.7, the vehicle has difficulty competing with more modern tanks equipped with better optics, better firepower, and better situational awareness.
For comparison, some vehicles at lower BRs have access to more modern equipment and stronger ammunition, while the T-80UM2 still remains at 11.7.
Because of this, I believe the T-80UM2 would be more balanced at BR 11.3, or possibly BR 11.0.
It’s everything in a T-80U and better. Definitely not happening. It has, on practice (considering Drozd hard kill active protection system) better protection than a regular T-80U instead of a 2nd-generation low resolution (500x300px) thermal imaging device. It’s not a terrible trade since you still have access to 3BM46 which is a good penetrator regardless.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you were tasked with playing 10 games with two ‘mystery’ vehicles each, both of them having identical visual models (and thermals), but being coded as an M1A1 AIM and the other a Click-Bait, you’d not be able to tell which was which at the end of those matches.
The thermal sights are the only noticeable difference, but thermal sight quality is overrated in it’s overall importance.
And this is even with the “noob effect” from thousands of noobs buying their way into “top tier” and playing horribly with the Click-Bait and HC. No, the M1A1 AIM is absolutely worse. Your feelings have no bearing on facts and reality.
Completely irrelevant, these vehicles’ characteristics are virtually identical, just because the playerbase of one vehicle is inferior to that of another doesn’t prove the vehicle itself is worse.
I’ve explained to you how the vehicles factual characteristics (firepower, armour, mobility, gun handling, survivability) are 99% identical, that’s got nothing to do with ‘feelings’.
Here are two more virtually identical vehicles, whilst one has notably superior stats to the other.
One is premium, only available to people spending money, the other is a squadron vehicle, instantly available to anyone, regardless of BR even.
Claiming they’re played by the exact same players isn’t true.
Oh boy, would you look at that? The squadron vehicle has lower stats than the premium one does?
The fact remains that the M1A1 AIM and Click-Bait has 99% identical performance, there’s no reason to have them sit at different BR’s for a 1% difference, and that 1% difference might even favour the AIM.
It is only instantly available if you buy it with real money just like how premiums work. The only way to get it for free is to actually play the game. Sure it’s regardless of rank but you have to at least have played the game before.
So explain why the TT M1A1 HC has worse stats vs the Premium HC which are both carbon copies of one another… What you just proved is selective bias because the TT HC disproves your point by showing even identical vehicles have different stats meaning stats are not the defining factor you need to consider.
While technically the AIM has worse stats in terms of KPS/KPD vs the other premiums, its still functionally identical to all the other M1A1’s such as the premiums and HC’s found in game, the only difference is the shell but the shell difference isnt big enough to make the argument one should be higher or lower BR, your still forgetting the KE-W shell pen wise is still better than literally French and British shells and being an M1A1 AIM, has the better mobility and armour.
So stats really are not the be all end all argument here. what is probs happening is, more people (worse players) are buying the AIM because its an outright GE vehicle that costs 7900 GE which in terms of costs in the case for me in the UK, its £60 for either of those premiums but £42 for 10K GE to buy the AIM and have stuff left over. meaning more than likely you have worser players just buying an AIM and being poor with it.
If you left the AIM and now the UK AIM at 12.0 but moved everything else up, your just moving the problem from those vehicles to the AIM’s. Most of the Abrams have been under BR’d for a while so if you move basically the 2 premiums and the HCs then the AIMs need to go up too, hell if we take the UK M1A2 in the TT, they should be able to compromise and give it the KE-W-2 shell if they felt the shell wasnt enough and I dont think people would complain at that
