Yes, it’s fast, reverse, forwards, it’s fast. Yes it has 4.0 second autoloader. You want to know what it doesn’t have? ARMOR. I don’t get why we are punishing vehicles that require the player to not drive into the enemy to do well. This tank has DM33 at 11.3 which is already weak compared to something like the M1A1 with the M829A1 with only 1 second of reload longer. Even at 11.3 where it currently sits if you are facing against another MBT and they know you’re there, you’re already at a disadvantage and will probably end up dead. If this vehicle performs well it’s due to the people playing it performing well, not the vehicle itself. It’s advantages over other tanks at the BR doesn’t warrant it moving up to face things like the Challenger 3TD, T80U, M1A2, and Ariete every single match which can all pen the turret cheek of this vehicle with ease.
Reasoning:
The Chassis is still only an M60 with upgraded Armor which doesn’t help much against kinetic rounds apart from some autocannons. Mobility is poor with very low top speed and only slightly improved acceleration due to a better engine. The only redeeming feature is the gun with extremely good APFSDS rounds. Overall it is great firepower on a really slow and outdated platform with poor survivability.
Both the T34 and the T26E1 have less effective frontal armor compared to the tiger2, and the t26e1 has awful weakspots, both the turret cheek and the very exposed vertical drive, not to mention the awful reload rate in relation to its pen, twice the time to reload as the tiger2, same pen.
GRB Sd.Kfz.6/2 2.3 → 1.7 or 2.0. It is a sluggish halftrack with almost no armor (only gunshield of 8mm), compared to the 40mm bofors at around and its Br, it has also a lower ap performace.
This vehicle lacks countermeasures, is subsonic, and is not extremely manoeuvrable whilst having IR missiles that are actually fairly lackluster. The Hunter F.6 used to terrorise lobbies due to its thrust at high speeds and general energy management, aswell as the 4 SRAAM, which is why it sits currently at 9.7, but the Hunter has been powercrept to the moon and now doesn’t really make sense at 9.7.
The SRAAMs are funny and can pull off extraordinary shots, but 95% of these will be against players who are unaware of them. The range in these missiles is so limited that they really struggle past 900m, even at altitude. They are also extremely susceptible to flares. They are ostensibly very good, but their actual capability is limited and reliant on enemies not knowing about them. The AIM-9B is nearly a better missile.
Aside from the missiles, it’s a 9.3 plane. We see this with the Dutch Hunter F.6 sitting at this BR now with an identical FM but worse missiles. This plane, while easy to get kills with because of the guns and nose authority, is not actually very great - the MiG-19 is faster, accelerates faster, and is more manoeuvrable than you. The large performance gap between 9.3 and 9.0 means that 9.3 is the right BR for the Dutch hunter, but this doesn’t mean that the British hunter, with a minor upgrade to the missiles shouldnt enjoy this BR too.
Even with DM63 the Armor stays quite meh with the Engine beeing completely useless at stopping anything. Merk 1&2 also suffer from really poor mobility and the L7 with its long reload doesn’t help either.
Reason:
I cannot articulate hard enough that you should not move the Type 81 up. Fundamentally this is a radarless IR missile launcher, yes it’s quite good at killing what it knows is there, the issue is it’s pretty terrible at knowing that something is around to kill.
not even touching on the other issues like leaving the otherwise quite capable 11.3 line up with only the 9.3 Type 9.3 to counter the extremely capable CAS at the BR