The bane of Top Tier Ground Arcade: autoloader tanks

Yeah i know,the title is a little bit exaggerated,but follow me here.

Days ago i had a conversation about how strong the Raketenautomat is in AB,and a RB player was speechless when he discovered that in AB the stats regarding engine HP and turret rotation are very gimped. This result on a tank having two completely different behaviours in game: it can be bad in RB but absurdly strong in AB or vice versa (this will be related to another post in the future).

Now,i want to share to every other RB player out there another thing that it’s gimped in AB to the point of being a menace: autoloader tanks

THE LIST
So,first of all,which are the autoloaded tanks in question? I’m talking about all of the Top Tier/ near Top Tier tanks,so every T-series tank from the T-64 onwards,all of the Leclers,the Type-90 and the Type-10 (with its variants) and every chinese tank from the ZTZ-96 onwards. Plus i might add the M1128, the 2S25/M, the CV90105/120 and finally the Obj 292.

Now,what are the 2 things in common every tank here has? Namely having a crew of 3 people (Driver,gunner,commander) and having a fixed reload speed (due to the lack of a human loader) ranging from 4 seconds of the Japanese tanks to the 10 seconds of the Obj. 292.

P.S.:i know there are more autoloaded tanks,but let’s stick to the point

SURVIVABILITY AND THE CREW REPLENISHMENT
We all know that both the Russian and Chinese tanks and all of the light tanks mentioned are very easy to kill, from basically any direction,due to having an easy ammo-rack to hit. By removing all of them,the only tanks remaining are the French Leclercs and the Japanese Type-90/10. They sport “less” armor than their Russian/Chinese counterparts, but they are NATO tanks,meaning their first-order ammorack is not sitting under the crew,but is located behind the turret,covered by a blowout panel

Now,RB players will say “they are easy to OHK,just hit the pilot and most of the times either the gunner or the commander also dies” and they would be absolutely right, but let me introduce you to the gimped AB mechanic of Crew Replenishment

See,in RB Crew Replenishment can only be activated onto a cap and can’t save you if a shell drops your crew count from X to 1. In Arcade, however, Crew Replenishment is activated without limitations,meaning that not only you can activate it “on the move”,but that you also have a proper “Last-man standing”.

Now,for most of the tanks this is pretty much futile,but for the NATO tanks mentioned earlier? If you shoot one of them like we have said,and either the gunner or the commander are killed with the driver, the gun is still operational and can fire at you every 4 to 5 seconds. Killing both the gunner and commander is extremely difficult from the front,and from the sides you need to be lucky that the breech doesn’t absorb the spall. Couple this with the aforementioned gimped turret rotation speed,and you’ll have in your hands a tank that performs extremely well even when the game punish you for your lack of attention.

“So how do you kill them?”. Fun question,in my experience killing a fresh NATO autoloaded MBT is almost impossible,the only tactic i have achieved is shooting at the floor of the Leclercs,they have fuel tanks there and they’ll blow up 100% of the time. For Japanese tanks, shooting at the frontal ammorack is not always the answer because many experienced players tend to have that rack almost empty,making the spall generation even more hard to achieve.
If you kill 2 of the 3 crew members of one of those tanks and the gun is still operational,my advice is to just leave the area and wait for the enemy to advance again, don’t waste any shot on them because the moment you peak up again, they’re gonna maul you.

For a final note for my curious RB players: go see the stats of someone who uses those aforementioned NATO tanks in AB,the minimum K/D ratio they have is 2.5 with most of them having a ratio of over 3. One day i even met someone with a 8 K/D ratio in AB and only a 2 K/D ratio in RB, it’s insane.

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Mostly agree, having said that.

the Hp and turret traverse has always been there, about 40% more in AB.
A bit disappointed that you single out NATO tanks, GFAB 9.0-11.0 has been ruined for ages by TURMS and ZTZ-96(p). I find T72 in all variants very survivable, having spaded multiple in different trees.
Currently on the T-72B in USSR, having also played and spaded the Bhishma T-90A in the GBR tree.

You also do know after the recent buff all 120mm USA MBT’s have a 5.3 expert to 5.0 aced RoF.

Having played the Type 90, type 90B, Type 10 (p), sure they can wreck very fast when able to remain undetected, this however in GFAB is not easy. these tanks can’t take a hit.
Deal with them as with any other go for the gun if you are uncertain of a kill shot.

On Crew replenishment, sure this is always available if unlocked, but i can also work against you.
It will always activated if all but 1 crewmember survives, last week i had such a situation, where i was exposed and when looking at the crew icons in the lower left of the screen, my driver was the last man standing. So instead of being able to drive into cover and then activate it, i sat there exposed in the open waiting to be picked of, since everybody knows where i am.

In so many situations it activates, when i thought to myself, ok here’s another 1000sl wasted. If i remember correctly this is the cost at top tiers for a crew resupply.

Also keep in mind that from my experience with USSR autoloaders (T-64 to Bhishma) they replenish there ready rack rather fast, not so much on the JPN Type 90’s & type 10(p), same goes for the lower tiered French autoloaders, haven’t reached the Leclercs yet.