I´m quite baffled how to play this tank. Its a one-trick-pony with a HESH that has a 259m/s muzzle velocity but a hard-to-use fixed 8x zoom optics (how does that even work together) where the only help seen on the lower part of my screen is the first 200m range bar at no real ability to quickly adjust your shot which you better not miss with a whopping 28 seconds reload as the range adjustment takes 2 seconds per 50 meters of adjustment.
How do you guys play this tank? I really dont know what to do with it.
You don’t.
The best advice I can give is to go to Warthunder live, grab a sight with ranging reticle, learn how to use it, and go from there.
The muzzle velocity is comparable to a grandma on a mobility scooter, the armor is literally just an M60 but with a FAT breach, good utility with the smoke, no rangefinder/lrf. IRL it was for destroying buildings and stuff (hence Combat Engineering Vehicle). It was never designed to handle tanks, or really to see much combat at all. Its like if Gaijin decided to add in a mine clearing vehicle or an M67.
This and the AVRE would’ve been much better suited as event vehicles rather than premiums, they are not player friendly vehicles and they aren’t even particularly good.
2 Likes
It’s got an atrocious muzzle velocity and long reload, but also great mobility and excellent armour for the BR.
Really you just gotta get in as close range as possible, so you can actually hit stuff. Go for the middle of the map where the fighting will be as close range as possible and you’ll have teammates to hide behind while reloading. Also, with a child-sized HESH shell volumetric is a bitch so aim for the UFP frontally and turret from other angles. The 28kg of TNT will leave the enemy having a very bad day.
I personally find it easier to aim in 3rd person than scoped in just because how much you have to lift your barrel. It may also help to zero your sights to 100m and adjust accordingly.
Overall the M728 and AVRE are highly specialized vehicles that take a while getting used to but once you do they can be extremely effective.
A vehicle with a surprisingly similar playstyle is the M4 (105), if you’ve got experience with that I’d recommend using the 728 similarly.