The Radkampfwagen 90 is a Rank 7 German wheeled light tanks, sitting at a battle rating of 10.0. Yes I have tried it myself, and I have to say it is excellent but when compared to other peers, it looks rather mediocre.
As you can see these wheeled vehicles all perform similarly in terms of speed and firepower. The major difference is in FCS. ALL of the vehicles EXCEPT the Radkampfwagen 90 have thermals, with the Type 16 FPS and VRCC receiving generation 3 thermals; with high definition, allowing the user to designate a target much quicker, and the MTTD; receiving generation 1 thermals.
Another advantage the other wheeled vehicles mentioned, have over the Radkampfwagen 90, is that they receive smoke shells. Although they are rarely used, the are useful at temporarily shutting down strong enemy sniping positions.
The Radkampfwagen 90 uses the Leopard 2K turret, meaning it’s quite resilient against APFSDS rounds. Compared to the listed vehicles, the Radkampfwagen 90 does perform better in a hull-down position.
Yes the Radkampfwagen 90 performs excellent at 10.0, but when compared to it’s peers, commonly found at the BR, it’s outright worse. I still don’t think the higher effectiveness of hill fighting (given by the Leopard 2K turret) justifies a BR of 10.0 when compared to vehicles that can spot targets much easier, at a lower BR. In the near-future, I would like to see a BR change of the Radkampfwagen 90 to either 9.3 or 9.7.
It isnt outright worse, they are trading off the thermals and penetration by the better protection and survivality of the rad 90, while also having better mobility than its peers due to its incredible 27hp/ton, it has one of if not the best mobility at this br
You have to keep in mind that while the Centauro 105, VRCC, Type 16 and Rooikat MTTD are constantly downtiered to much slower and disadvantaged 8.3 tanks. The Radkampfwagen 90 at 10.0 constantly meet highly mobile MBT’s such as the M1A1 Abrams and Leopard 2A4’s that easily negate the speed advantage. If you’re using the mentioned light tanks, you’re almost alwayas fighting uptiered 8.3 tanks which are at a huge disadvantage when you have thermals, much better optics and mobility. In uptiers, the worst you face is 10.3/7, which is much more duable than meeting 11.0. In the incredibly rare occasion of downtiers for the Radkampfwagen 90, you’re facing 9.0-9.3 vehicles which more or less, possess equal fighting capabilities as you if not worse. Mobility-wise, there isn’t much of a gap between 9.3 vehicles and the Radkampfwagen 90 compared to the Type 16 or Centauro and 8.3 vehicles.
I’m not saying the Radkampfwagen 90 is a bad vehicle at all - in fact it’s excellent, however it’s current BR of 10.0 means it gets constant uptiers to 11.0, where it can’t shine as much as say at a BR of 9.3 or 9.7.
You still see down tier with 10.0, br are based on tanks performance not from what they see, neither the leopard 2a4 or abrams are 10.0, the rad is pretty comparable to the vextra which is also 10.0, also the rad is still faster than the leopard 2a4 and abrams so it still have and advantage
Youre not. 10.3 is just as much of a sinkhole as 10.7 due to the soviet 10.3 vehicles so you keeps seeing a lot of uptiers
The rad 90 gets over 5hp/ton over the type 16 and 9 over the vrcc thats a lot for a wheeled vehicle
Keep in mind that the rad peers are The vextra, m1118 and 2s25m, and it has several advantages over each of those, and perform similar that those aswell
I’ve played 9.3 and I can say that the majority of games will be 8.3 downtiers. Even if you face 10.3, it’s definitely not nearly as harsh as 10.0-11.0, with USSR being extremely competetive: T72AV TURMS-T (10.3) T80UD (10.7) 2S38 (10.7) and so on. Like I said, at least at 9.3, the 10.3 tanks aren’t nearly as competetive.
Although the hp/t of the Radkampfwagen 90 is significantly better, thus resulting in better acceleration, the top speed and cruising speed are still rather similar. Even if they are different, it’s still much faster than 9.3 MBT’s which gives a good oppurtunity to flank them and get in position.
Yes but the listed wheeled gun platforms take while to reach that top speed and god forbid theres a turn they need to make.
Radek will always compare worse to them in role of sniper because its kit isnt meant for sniping.
The sole purpose of its HpT is to rush power position early and edge those corners/ridges and/or aggresively manuever in restricted terrain.
Similiarly, if you were to play any if the listed wheeled gun platforms like radek, they would do poorly due to worse acceleration (and often having turret at the back of the chassis)
Imo, you shouldn’t be using wheeled vehicles (unless small like the Fox) for close quaters fights, that’s for MBT’s bc they can move around much more freely. My understanding of wheeled vehicles is that they should be used at 400 or 500m+ range, as the silhouette of the vehicle tends to be large. They should also mainly be used to quickly get to effective positions that oversee common enemy traffic routes. The speed advantage over MBT’s allows you to be able to catch more tanks in the expected route before a large portion pass through.
Never said radek is the meta vehicle for this kind of play, more like this is the intended gameplay i get from its kit.
Ye its orignally czech name that evolved from names like Radoslav or Radomír, and quite fitting when you dont want to type out radkampfwagen everytime you mention it.
There are alot of problems that come up, trying to use the Rad 90 in close quarter city maps:
-The vehicle is tall and large, meaning it can be difficult to not expose certain parts of the vehicle to the enemy
-Like any wheeled vehicle (except the AMX-10RC’s neutral steer system), you need to accelerate first to steer which is already horrible when paired with a large turn radius
Wheeled vehicles like the ZA35 work in close quarters bc they can send it, flank and kill multiple vehicles, w/o the need to reload, while the Rad 90 has a cannon, needing to reload before re-engaging.
Tbh I think the Rad 90 is more suited for medium to long range engagements as it doesn’t have much going for it as a city-fighter. Sure it has decent resilience, given by it’s spaced armour, but it’s only consistently effective against low-calliber autocannons. Also the Rad 90 has a RAWD layout (Rear engine, All Wheel Drive) while the other mentioned cars have the engine section at the front meaning that spall generated by low-calliber APFSDS/APDS rounds can be partially mitigated.
