Enough time has passed since spall liners were added that I can safely say, they are an incredibly frustrating mechanic. Well aimed shots turn into 75mm APCR. You can peek a corner at 90° and get away with it. Light tanks like the Strf 9040 tank shot after shot. They force you to shoot the breech, allowing other players to get the kill or the enemy to run away. It’s another mechanic that takes skill out of the equation. They are also another buff to the already best tanks in the game, the Strv 122s. People here have complained incessantly about the spalling on russian MBTs. Now more and more tanks will be just like that.
Additionally, the way they were implemented is absolutely baffling. The hurdles to get spall liners added to a tank are way too high, requiring information that is classified for most modern vehicles. Thereby, giving a huge advantage to the tanks that did receive spall liners.
In my opinion, spall liners were a mistake and need to be removed.
Do you agree that spall liners should be removed from the game?
And how we gonna do that for Abrams? if you want “everything” to have spall liners. (considering on Gaijin is on their way to making the game as much as “realism” as possible), they even rejected western documents about proving something in that that it’s wrong despite it’s the offcial reports/documents, using an older documents from the Swedish to “prove” that 2A7V armor is worse then 122B+ despite 2A7V came out years later
While I agree that the current state of spall liners should be undone, I do feel they have a future in the game. But it should be implemented in another way. Perhaps for vehicles rank 6 and up, spall liners are a modification for all ground vehicles, which acts like the Flak Jackets modification for bombers, increasing crew survivability by a small amount, and reducing damage to crew compartment systems a marginal amount.
There are too many problems with trying to do vehicle-accurate spall shielding, with the major factor again being classified information. But also, not all spall liners are equal in thickness, material, or performance, and these variables heavily affect how they operate. Furthermore, it is an unbalance of vehicle capability in game. Vehicles which have the spall liner are line vehicles which have the ability to install additional track armor. All vehicles should be able to do that, or none. Handpicking a few vehicles which get an increase in protection with little validation is a poor ethic and under-sold capability.
TLDR:
Spall Liners in their current state should be removed until a more-balanced system is in place, such as the Flak Jacket modification for bomber crews.
Historically-accurate spall liners are too limited by IRL classifications and research.
Not all spall liners are the same thickness, material, or effectiveness, which further overcomplicates them.
But for now I can gurantee all spall liners is the same ingame right now, and it’s just stupidly frustrating when you are not either playing Germany or Sweden, 122’s itself is already tanky (I been facing it and also using it) and the survivability is just stupid and making it immune to HE shells into TC hatch/sight, except for loader hatch, we can definitely remove spall liners from the game for now untill all mbts have a certain amount of armor or at least historical armor value, and doesn’t even change anything if we removed the spall liners. (played 6 games with a german friend we won all 6 easily within like 10 min of the game
They slow down top tier, which is good. They’re also not that hard to work around.
The T-90M is an easy target and I’d rather fight it compared to the BVM because of how easy it is to deal with.
The Leopards have always been iffy to consistently kill in one hit and their spall liners hardly change that. If you use your brain and play more deliberately, you can take out their gunner and commander then finish the job. You can also take out their engine and get behind them.
For tanks like the STRV 122B series, they can be a pain to deal with. They’ve always been the best Leopards in the game. Removing Spall Liners won’t change that. All you can do is hit their weak points and take them out like you would to any other strong tank throughout this game.
I seriously do not understand people complaining about Spall Liners keeping you from one shotting every tank in the game. Did you not play every BR below 10.3? This entire game is based on deliberate action to grind down an opponent through precise shell placement and good positioning. It shouldn’t be only reaction-based gameplay.
Top tier needs to change and slow down its pace. Everyone here knows Top Tier is a broken mess that needs fixed.
Spall Liners are a start to fixing that issue. Yes, it has teething issues, but it takes time to implement a feature that diverse.
Leo A7 and STRVs have amazing protection without spall liner anyway, the thing is you cant kill it from the side.
Its like BVM but much better and without typical soviet limitations like gun depresion or reverse gear
Rediculous. Let’s also remove era and composite they also make it harder to kill tanks that are suppose to be harder to kill. I swear to God if the player base from this forum had their way everyone would be in light tanks and Germans would have a tiger 1 as a reserve tank.
There’s a difference between making tanks harder to kill and enabling yolo rushing without conseqeuences. This is a game, not a simulator. Where’s the fun in shooting someone in the side and getting the fuel tank + loader?
For tanks like the STRV 122B series, they can be a pain to deal with. They’ve always been the best Leopards in the game. Removing Spall Liners won’t change that. All you can do is hit their weak points and take them out like you would to any other strong tank throughout this game.
Shoot a angled 122B in the side and then shoot a 2a6 in the side. 2a6 gets one shot every single time. the 122s also used to be like that, but now with spall liners shooting an angled 122 rarely disables his gun. Yes, spall liners dont change frontal engagements. But it makes side shots/angled shots very inconsistent. Yes, the 122 will still be the best tank in the game if spall liners were removed. But it will make other tanks be able to oneshot it consistently from the side or at an angle. A side shot/angled shot is a kill on every single top mbt in the game, but does minimal damage to 122 or 2a7v.
Ammo is protected by blowout panels on western MBTs and crew isn’t an option because of spall liners. Chances are high you’ll take out one turret crew and then the enemy turns around to shoot you.
Could make the same argument about composite or spaced armour. Your playing modern main battle tanks. If you don’t like the technology play a lower br before it is used.
If you simply aim and know your opponent’s vehicle, it isn’t an issue. This is Top Tier. If you don’t know enemy weak points or vulnerabilities, you shouldn’t be there.
People voting Yes probably spend more time whining about the game than playing it. I play WZ1001(E) LCT or ZTZ99A primarily as my MBT at top-tier. That means I’m going against 2A7 and 122 more often than not. I have never once whined about spall liners. Most of the issues facing 2A7 and 122 are from the subpar team I’ve been put on (mainly USA or USSR teammates) who quickly die and leave. Heck, if all else fails, I can reliably one-shot the 2A7 and 122 with the AFT09, and even if they survive, they have 3 more ATGM coming at them*.
Here’s an example (I uploaded to Reddit the other week) of what the AFT09 can do to 2A7 and other MBTs when used at top-tier: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1aimgx1/yes_the_aft09_still_works_at_toptier_no_spall/. Now, obviously, that was a spawn camp situation, but it doesn’t take much to do the same in a battle that is actually in the balance. So not only can the top-tier MBTs reliably deal with 2A7 and 122 if you know where to aim, but you also have a bunch of other vehicles that can do the job, some even from much lower BR (AFT09 is 9.0), for both USSR and China. The problem is - many of the whiners will use one MBT… die… and then leave. Not even making the most of their line-up.
