Today, a new change went into effect that makes absolutely no sense. They claim the Merkava’s 200mm Composite roof armor (and the Strv 122) is less effective at stopping shrapnel than the rest of the tank, made of the same composite material. As a result, the Merkava has received a nerf that has slashed its roof composite effectiveness against HE projectiles by 8 TIMES.
I’m actually at my wits’ end with these changes. To Gaijin, what the hell do you think the composite is for on the Merkava? Is it a decoration? It genuinely feels like I’m playing a Type 10 without the reload advantage.
Not only is the vehicle unable to stop a single APFSDS 9.3 and above, but now it can’t even survive an HE shell scraping its gunner optic or APS.
It seems like they made this change for the vehicle made to sustain such type of ammunition to fit being able to be destroyed by high explosive and high explosive anti-tank overpressure. Glazing on Type 10: it also needs its armor package fixed, though are pretty few information on but it’s believed to be missing a lot on armor, and mobility.
No but you don’t understand, the 20cm thick roof composite ACTUALLY isn’t composite, but a thin layer of matzah, freshly baked for the roof of modern Merkavas, you see Gaijin have exclusive sources that state that the Merkavas actually aren’t covered in thick armour, but bread instead
BTW, they decreased the effectiveness of the composite by 87.5%, regardless of thickness, a 1cm (100mm) chunk of composite only has 11-15mm of protection now (Multiplier went from 1 → 0.125)
Plenty of logic there amiright, it has less protective value than NATO ERA blocks (found on the challengers, arietes, leclercs, etc) but over 5x the density (being a composite of different materials as opposed to ERA)
The obvious conclusion here is that Gaijin wants the only protected NATO/Western tanks to be nerfed in order to continue the LMUR reign of terror, which is depressingly obvious when you look at how much they’ve been pandering to the Mi-28NM
So it’s as weak as all other MBTs are to 155mm HE rounds… okay.
It surviving 2000 pound bombs was not realistic though.
Edit: A few days ago I made a statement similar to this one…
I am skeptical composite armor is weak against 5kg warheads.
I am curious if they’re truly weak against 9kg warheads.
so true i really love the merkava mk4m but gaijin keeps nerfing it to the point i dont even play israel anymore even tho its one of my fav nations in game
The point is that Gaijin went with the “It’s made to stop Chemical rounds, not Kinetic” excuse, and now it can’t stop anything at all. Missiles lolpen it, HE lolpens it, APFSDS lolpens it. Why even have the composite? It’s actually useless.
The main thing I even still used this piece of junk MBT for was its near immortality to Artillery shells compared to other MBTs. That was the ONLY thing it had going for it.
And now it’s gone. The Merkava has some of the worst performance of all top-tier MBTs, has a lower than 50 percent win rate, and they nerfed it TWICE in 3 months.
Is it really okay to make an entire tech tree’s player base want to quit the game? The Merkava is my favorite MBT, and I can’t stand playing it. It’s dogshit at every task you give it and hasn’t functioned properly since it was added 5 years ago.
Use your eyes, please, Wisla. We’re not doing this with you. You can clearly see every other top-tier MBT aside from the Type 10/VT-4 can take an HE hit to their gunner sight. The Merkava, which has the thickest armor in-game, just had its roof made as thin as a Type 10. I cannot see why a 120mm HE shell overpressuring a tank through a 200mm composite plate is acceptable to you.
Can you please just comprehend how fucked it is that the most armored tank in-game has protection equivalent to lightly armored tanks in ALL aspects now?
By MBTs? Occasionally, mostly stock 125mm armed tanks. Rarely will you see a Merkava mirror that uses their HE. However now, the biggest source of high angle HE is the new LMUR missile and KH-38. AGM-65G also counts, but isn’t quite the same with a SAP component to the warhead that can penetrate slightly.
Somehow I’ve seen at least 3 Merkavas eat a LMUR on the dome (before this) and shrug it off. Could’ve been the usual damage model being dumb, but… who knows.
Once again, Israel becomes unusable because the big 3 can’t just click on them with anything anywhere.
We had the LIC’s good armor taken from us, then the Trophy system, then engine spall, and now HE protection.
Also, the LMUR has 64mm of overpressure penetration. The Merkava’s SLERA is 200mm thick on the roof and explosive. It should be capable of stopping it at least once.
@Just_Baron
The Israeli community agrees with me that Merkava armor should be as accurate as possible.
The Israeli community agrees with me that Merkava armor probably should be stopping at least decent APFSDS rounds instead of just early 120mm rounds.
I’ve been arguing for accurate armor on tanks since their introduction to the game. That includes Merkava Mk4s.
Clearly not. I’m the one getting likes from the Israeli community.
You just stated I was attacking the Israeli community for wanting proper HE protection values. I literally AM part of the Israeli community, and they’re upvoting me because I share their anger. Hell, I’m literally in the Israeli tech tree discord.
Please, for the love of god, if this is an act, stop.
