Russian Teams Steamrolling NATO - Top Tier is Broken Again?

_Renzo · April 12, 2026, 10:37am

Sorry that the truth hurts.

False, armor is one of the first advantages to disappear in a fight between 2 skilled players, since skilled players should have weakness knowledge and crosshair placement. So that leaves the Abrams with all the advantages.

If you would have done the same comparison with 2 unskilled players you would hsve a point.

Yeah of course I’m not talking about those, because we were talking about a direct comparison between Russian and NATO MBTs.

Moving the goalpost seems to be a clear indicator that you are losing no?

TailplugFanboi · April 12, 2026, 10:38am

The issue is that tanks basically never shoot at the same time. They shoot at different times due to the time it takes them to get into a position, their maneuverability, their gun handling, their reload, their sights…

MotorolaCRO · April 12, 2026, 10:40am

People still have no idea how spalling is determined…

Ghost_of_TelAviv · April 12, 2026, 10:41am

People are thinking about this stuff way to much instead of just learning where to shoot.

I have no idea how spalling is calculated and im doing fine.

Kievskiy_Minipig · April 12, 2026, 10:43am

Nothing new considering this is thread where people think t80bvm is good in hulldown

Kievskiy_Minipig · April 12, 2026, 10:48am

Prob because its easier to “oh its n nation tank hence why spall didnt spawn”

SadRIPer · April 12, 2026, 11:06am

I must have missed that nato is exclusively using the Bushmaster.
You as French main should now how amazing the Jaguar is for example.

Ok so beside the Jaguar + sweedish IFVs (which don’t have IRST, so they have useless proxy he shells btw), VBCI 1 + that italian rapid fire rate IFV, which NATO IFVs have a good autocannon ? None. Again, not even talking about the spikes/MMPs which are crap, and add an unecessary +1 BR to all NATO IFVs which have them. Not even talking about the fact that some russian IFVs have 2 CANNONS (1 main, 1 autocannon. Or even 2 autocannons with BMPT).

Not having a tank destroyer is Bias now ?

Yes ? It’s called shadow buffing ?

Like NATO MBTs have baskets and fcs modeled, while russian MBTs don’t ? It’s called shadow buffing. You add a nerf for NATO, so it’s a buff for Russia, and the opposit.

You should be glad about it, since it doesn’t get the scouting ability this way.

Nobody gives a f about scouting. Big time, you can scout, meaning you can exactly see where the completely op russian biased vehicle is, when it’s coming for you.

I don’t care about scouting, what I want for NATO is proper competitive vehicles against Russia.

And (almost) every one else get’s their f&f missile carrier with even more missiles, so what.

And again, AH-64E JAGMs are so bad you need 2-4 missiles to destroy russian MBTs/SPAAs/BMPTs, so it’s basically as it had, IN FACT, 8 working missiles (even less, if it takes you all the time 3 or 4 missiles to destroy those vehicles).

Also, once again :

french tiger helicopters have only 8 spike missiles, with only 8km range. The EC-665 Tiger HAC doesn’t even have a 20-30mm main cannon. Tiger helicopters climb less than Mis and AHs. They’re now all at 12.7, which isn’t enough because you still face Mi-28nm at this BR due to the poor matchmaking process ;
german tiger helicopter only got 4 additionnal PARS very recently, with ONLY 7km range for this ones. Also doesn’t have a main 20-30mm cannon.
italian AH-129D helicopter also has only 8 spikes missiles
Sweeden doesn’t even have 12.7-13.0 helicopter (shadow buff for Russia with this one)
chinese Z-10ME has 25 KM RANGE IR missiles (yes as I stated before, the bias is not only russian, but eastern generally speaking) vs 16km for AH-64E JAGMs.

ALSO, very important : Mi-28nm LMURs TNT explosive mass : 19.2 kg. Z-10ME missile TNT explosive mass : 7.7kg/6.3kg. AH-64E JAGMs TNT explosive mass : 4.8 kg. Tiger helicopters Spike TNT explosive mass : 3.3kg. German PARS TNT explosive mass : 3.7kg. => russian and chinese helicopters advantaged once again.

Mi28nms can carry 16 anti air missiles. AH-64E only 4. Tigers only 4 as well. Italian AH-129D only 8. Chinese Z-10ME can carry 16. => russian and chinese helicopters advantaged once again.

Not even talking about laser guided missiles Mi-28nm has A LOT compared to NATO helicopters.

It is total crap. They artificially buff russian and chinese helicopters, on purpose.

小小格温大受影响 · April 12, 2026, 11:20am

I have much experience in top tir match.
I can tell you BVM and T90M sure>a half of top tank

Kievskiy_Minipig · April 12, 2026, 11:21am

But other half > t80bvm so its mid at best

小小格温大受影响 · April 12, 2026, 11:25am

Yes but you need consider numbers .for example Germany and Italy only have 1 A7
And NATO in fact 2 years do not get any new top MBT, but Russia at 2025 join 3 new top power tank(B3A BMPT BMPT72) BMPT is cannot be ignored factor , many times BMPT is more eff than any MBT

_Renzo · April 12, 2026, 11:28am

No way is the T-72B3A considered a proper top tier MBT, that thing is actually trash.

小小格温大受影响 · April 12, 2026, 11:41am

At least they do, rather than like in Germany, 6 months <45 win rate and only get boxer

kedrigern · April 12, 2026, 12:25pm

tbh the IFVs for top tier on russia are kinda eh. Dont get me wrong, shit like 2S38 and BMP2M are very strong especially for their low BR, but for 12.7-13.0 personally if i want to play a good light tank and not just try to get into a plane as fast as possible (the main use of the russian light tanks for 13.0 for me) id rather be in something else.
That doesnt mean that the 2S38 or BMP2M are bad at top tier, far from it, but they do have some negatives. Coincidentally both have been far overshadowed by BMPT as it is everything BMP2M is but better. Even without scouting it is able to generate SP very fast and easy and has much higher staying power (broken damage model) than regular BMP2M that you are able to overpressure by hitting the grenade launcher ammo on the rooftop.
While BMP2M and 2S38 for 13.0 were generally glass cannons, being able to just style on MBTs if they were able to get the first shot out, the BMPT is just a tungsten cannon.

the best probably not, but in the top 3 after leos and abrams personally yes.
I used to put abrams below the T-tanks previously, but i played a shitton of Sep and SepV2 pre SM SV addition and while it is significantly more fragile than a T-Tank i prefer it over them as they feel a bit more nice to play with the gun handling and transmission.
As for the russian survivability.
Not every engagement is going to be in an isolation where people can say “just shoot the LFP” and added armor can and does make a difference. Russian tanks are at the same time much more forgiving and easier to play (literally had a match with T90M where I got shot by 122, it penned and only damaged autoloader after which i just killed it because my drives were unaffected) and more annoying to play than western tanks. You have good round and armor and dont get cucked by ultra massive basket but lack reverse gear and gun depression.
Personally i like T90M way more than BVM as it has actual turret protection.

crap? no
disadvantaged? yes

Playing type 10/tkx/type90/tkxp especially now with the basket is giving me ultra pain

it doesnt exactly matter if they call it light tank or tank destroyer, hell the thing isnt even categorized as that in reality so thats kinda pointless. Effectively it is an autocannon light tank on a heavy chassis without scouting but with ammo box.
And as for usability, it is infact still way more than usable at 12.7+ than what people think. After the 11.3 uptier change happened i just started to bring it to 13.0 and there have been effectively 0 issues. The fact its still at the BR its at is actually mental.
The ability to be hulldown effectively invincible and even when not hull down outside of LFP hits be a chunk of granite is just stupid.

This was for example a 13.0 match where i only brought BMPT and Mi35P while uptiered due to friend bringing Rafale and that was before SM SV was added to make russia even more protected from CAS which was one of the main things i kept dying to in BMPT

Spoiler

in the current top tier environment, doing CAS with NATO planes that are not Su30MKM is basically CBT adventure. Ive been playing a lot of SM SV

Spoiler

(as the only vehicle in the lineup) and that thing can shut down effectively everything, from my 161 deaths around 5-6 are to CAS (i am not joking*). Which is ridiculous. Unless youre on a very SPAA-hostile map like Sinai or Rhine for example, you can just shut down any and all planes and helicopters. Slow glide bombs and mavericks dont really pose a threat for the new pantsir and for typhoons with brimstones doing close range pop ups you can either kill them super fast thanks to 95Ya6M or just pop smoke.

*1 was to Mi28NM, i remember that because my missile failed to proxy on LMUR, 1 was to Z10ME where i didnt even notice the BA11s it fired after i killed it, one was to a typhoon that dropped paveway 4s on me while i was tunnel visioned on another typhoon. The other 2 or 3 i no longer remember but i kept the count.

G3ntl3man95 · April 12, 2026, 12:39pm

perfect sideshot with dm33 lott os spalling but 0 damage to crew or munition…

kedrigern · April 12, 2026, 12:41pm

SadRIPer · April 12, 2026, 1:17pm

BMDs and ZBD russian/chinese IFVs have 2 cannons (1 main with HE and ATGM shells, 1 autocannon). As you said 2S38 and BMP2M are very strong. Russia has BMPT. They all have very high fire rate. Very high accuracy. High mobility compared to some wheeled NATO IFVs.

In comparaison, NATO has crappy bushmasters , 1 or 2 high fire rate autocannons, otherwise only Sweeden has good competitive IFVs (big deal) (they don’t even have IRST btw, so their proxy HE shells are useless).

It’s so unfair and unbalanced, I don’t even understand why people would want to play something else than Russia or China (I mean I know, if they’re in the same situation than I am, aka grinded a NATO nation for thousand of hours, all that for nothing in the end).

the best probably not

I’m just referring to what the market (player base) play and queue the most. They play and queue Russia and Germany the most, so t-series and Leos are the best out there. Abrams go right after, and then all the crappy nato MBTs as leclercs/challys/arietes/types/merkavas

But russian mbts are biased : eras/side armor/autoloaders eat darts and atgms like if they were nothing, tiny weakspots (gotta go pixel hunting), nearly equal mobility as other nato mbts, good firepower, no basket or fcs, …

Leos get cucked in comparaison

crap? no
disadvantaged? yes

It’s all about relative performance in this game. Why would you play the worse MBTs, when you can play the best, the META ?

That’s the reason why Russia wins big majority of top tier game. Yes types merkavas leclercs arietes chally abrams are not unplayable, but they’re bad compared to t-series and leos

小小格温大受影响 · April 13, 2026, 12:49pm

What crazy Russia bias

zweigelt83 · April 13, 2026, 4:24pm

The issue is not that every Russian vehicle is individually overpowered.

The issue is that at BR >10.3 Russia combines,
1st and 2nd in combination are the most important:

strongest SPAA coverage
strong CAS options
highly survivable MBTs
competitive IFVs
favorable stock grind progression
highly synergistic lineups

As long as one nation can dominate every battlefield layer simultaneously (ground, air, anti-air), the perception of bias will remain.

Balancing individual vehicles is not enough — the ecosystem must be considered.

If balance is the goal, solutions could include:

BR adjustments for Pantsir-S1 and 2S6
equal access to modern SPAA systems for other nations
normalization of stock grind RP requirements
review of spall and ERA interaction mechanics

Until then, the current top tier environment will continue to favor Russia disproportionately.

SadRIPer · April 13, 2026, 7:13pm

Don’t forget about all the russian shadow buffs, and nerfs on purpose in NATO side.

NATO IFVs suck (Spikes/MMPs basically useless, bushmaster autocannon useless). Russian ERAs/side armor in general/autoloaders eat DARTs like they were nothing, for some reason. NATO MBTs armors are too weak, compared to IRL. Their shells are too weak as well (they have 1990’s shells, not shells from todays). Tiger helicopters and italian AH-129D are basically at the same BR than AH-64E/Mi-28NM, but are way, way worse than them. Sweeden doesn’t even have a top tier heli. Russia has that KH-38T missile which doesn’t even exist. And so much more.

It’s all of those nerfs on purpose NATO side, and shadow buffs on purpose Russia side, that makes the difference in battles. Russia largely wins because of these

_Renzo · April 13, 2026, 7:21pm

You gotta complain to the Swedish government for that one, Sweden is already lucky that they even got the Mi-28A and AHS.