I have tried repeatedly to enjoy the Challenger 2. Game after game, it’s just a terrible agonizing mess. At 11.7, this tank has no ground or benefit whatsoever.
Usually, an MBT has some quirk or feature that makes it viable at its BR. The M1A2 has M829A2 , arguably one of the best darts in the game, and armor rivaling the Leopard 2 series for the most part. The Type 90, sitting at a lower BR, has a 4-second reload with a reliable shell for its fire rate, and excellent mobility with moderate armor to boot. The T-80U is fast, has a usable dart with great mass and a much better spall performance than British shells, and trolley armor.
What does the Challenger have? Nothing.
Despite being the heaviest MBT series in the game, it comes with only a 1200 horsepower engine.
Despite having the weakest high-tier dart in the game, it has the same rate of fire as the Abrams.
Despite being slow, its armor is barely existent, and any penetration to the hull is a near-guaranteed death from its lack of Blowout protection.
What’s worse is that the Challenger’s modifications are spitting in your face. Not only do you have to start with L23, a shell that struggles with most 10.3-7 opponents, but you don’t even get your best shell after. The game forces you to get and use L26, a terrible shell for 11.7, up until you unlock Rank IV in your Modifications. Even when you unlock L27, it’s still the worst shell at that BR. Despite having more penetration than 3BM46, it’s noticeably worse in spall performance and just overall feels worse in most aspects.
The Challenger 2 series at 11.7 desperately needs its BR lowered to 11.3, and for L27 to be a Rank 1 or 2 modification. L26 should be stock.
They need to fix all bugs this tank have and that’s enough. I played only premium OES but found it decent, 95 battles and 290 kills speak for itself. And yes L26 should be stock, all MBTs at top tier uses DM33/M829/BM42 that has a lot more flat and a lot more angled Penetration
OES is different from the standard CR2.
The same as the BN and the 2E are different.
Overall what the OP says is pretty spot on. CR2 used to have the fastest joint fastest rate of fire making it possible to brawl with now it doesnt with 75% of tanks having a higher rate of fire or equal. The gun handling is also considerably worse than it’s rivals.
The armour used to have a chance to bounce now any shot to the front even the armoured angled sections guarantees a one hit kill or at the very best a bounce and the round ricochets into your breach. 2S38s can pen and one shot a CR2 with it’s dart from the front! And overpressure the turret with it’s HE.
Mobility ah one day we will have regen steering and hydrogas suspension modelled…maybe.
Fire rate having the weakest round and a ready rack of 4 rounds means your combat efficacy even when sniping drops off a cliff. As your rate of fire and time to kill goes up couple that with the slowest round at top tier worst post pen damage and spalling. And losing 1-2 crew members everytime your breach inevitably gets shot out and it soon becomes pure pain.
I would like to say the CR2 does anything well…It looks cool and has good thermals and thats about it.
Im sure it was weight, velocity and length was the penetration calculation.
Spall is just modified from those core details and on every level CR2 round is lighter as it’s shorter and is slower as Gaijin wont model the increased barrel/breach pressure the L27A1 is shot at.
It’s also one of the worst at sniping which always makes me laugh! Terrible acceleration to peek, massive TOGS system and breach and any Leopard 2, M1 or T-80 will beat you.
Those factors are already accounted for when calculating the amount of penetration in mm the shell has. For long rod darts only the residual penetration matters for spalling.
L27A1 has more penetration than 3BM46 so it will spall more, which is why I replied to you in the first place. These spall myths have been going on for too long honestly and are being fueled by confirmation bias.
The spaded experience isn’t better. The ERA is useless, the shell has nearly 100mm less penetration than M829A2, and the Abrams has a better firerate because its ammunition rack isn’t 4 shells. The Abrams also has blowout panels, similar turret protection, and way more mobility.
It pretty much does matter when you pulled out the spall card to add yet another con of CR2.
L27A1 isn’t great, but 11.7 can still see worse performing shells.
CR2 is basically a downgraded Click-Bait (except thermals) at the same BR, which makes little sense.
Obviously decompression is the only solution to this, as otherwise it’s impossible to separate high performing 12.0 tanks with 11.7 strugglers like CR2s, Arietes and 80U.
3BM46 is on better armored and faster tanks. The T-80U is one of the best MBT at 11.7. The platform a shell is on matters more than the Shell itself most of the time. That is why having both a poor shell and poor vehicle performance kills the CR2.
That downgrade is a LOT. Your hull armor is worse, your mobility is worse, your shell is worse, your targeting is worse, and so much more.
The CR2 and Ariete are actual strugglers. The T-80U is not one of them. Russian Heavy ERA deletes darts and the vehicle is extremely mobile. Bouncing around at high speed and making your small weak spots hard to hit carries all T-80U and up tanks of its family.
I regularly used to bring the T-80UM2 to top tier and it ate darts constantly.
