New Abrams is literally funcionally the same as previous ones:
-turret cheeks couldn’t be penned previously and they couldn’t be penned on the new one, literally no change unless you want to nerd out about shots at an angle.
-hull became barelly immune to 3BM42, at top tier that is basically means no change at all.
-turret neck is now finally volumetric and is not easily penned by 30mm APDS, the only meaningfull change that doesn’t concern MBT on MBT engagement.
So basically at the core those are functionally the same tanks as any other older Abrams M1A1 HC or newer.
Abrams was always a solid well rounded tank, new versions still has the same weakspots, the same firepower (almost, I wouldn’t call more consistent(!) K5 pen ability a huge game changer), and now actually even slower.
Now please bear with me till the end:
Issue with Russian tanks is not that they themselves overperforming, no, issue is with convoluted volementric, ERA and post pen bullshit survivability. Soviet/Russian tanks at the core are not that good, thats why developers provided them with numerous handycaps, and not only to the tanks themselves - Gaijin uses assymetricall balancing, they compensate low efficiency of Russian tanks by giving Russian TT under-BRed broken SPAAs and strong CAS options. But what we get in the end are tanks that are headeache to deal with becasue of all the survivability handicaps and overcorrected assymetrical balance with SPAAs and CAS. And NOW they started to overreact to their own previous overreaction providing US yet another MBT with similar performance that really was not needed.
US was actually under constant scrutiny by Gaijin in the past, and for a very long time. We are now at the strange point of balance where US has the strongest ground and everyone hates it while simultaneously Russia has the strongest SPAAs and CAS and everyone hates it too.
As for the stats, while it definitely can tell about tank performance, it also reflects the general outcome of the games tank participated in, and outcome of the game is decided by other vehicles too. Russian tanks are still better armoured with smaller weakspots, and as I explained above Abrams is still strong turret and weak hull.
I’m not trying to say minor nation have it easier. US is a major nation, meaning it is often a bulk of a team in any given game, meaning if balance is tilted towards another major nation then it influences the outcome of the game much more compared to minor nation that is ususally represented by few players in the team, that is the reason why minor nations will always have better winrates because the weakness of the tech tree is much less influential than players skill, since bulk of the team is always one of the major nations.
The social behavior of players has nothing to do with hard facts. You need to explain how new Abrams is different in some very significant way.
People grind new staff all the time because thats a game about the grind.
Defeated any missile by just turning other way, mach 2 sustained turn in 9Gs also its missiles had the longest range since their speed started at mach 2
Yes, it doesn’t help with MBT-on-MBT engagements at all. We also have city maps that make CAS less influential. Also consider that it has pretty low vertical limit so CAS has a good chance to strike above it. Even in the original post the stats for Trophy is even slightly worse than Sepv3. It is a good and noticible uprade but it doesn’t make the tank broken or more pwoerfull against other tanks (except BMPT but thats single tank among dozens of other much more prevalent foes)
I literally addressed that in my first comment. Abrams turret was already inpenetrable, volumetric only helped against autocannons. Also all Abrams will receive it.
Yes, and missiles, unlike tank rounds, can be dodged, pretty easily, especially if enemy plane forced to turn away and not help missile with datalink. F-15E on release was just annoying.
The only examples that come to my mind is Abrams on release(which was ages ago) and F-14A/IRAF. Thats it. Meanwhile T-series handicap survivability stretches to this day, Ka-50, Ka-52, Mig-23, Su-27, Su-30MK, S1, SM-SV, BMPT, T-55AM1
Did I say that? If so I didn’t mean it. FOTM is absolutely the primary reason for nations curbstomping, but it doesn’t change the fact that the v3 dumpsters every RU MBT. Not like the SEP didn’t do that already tho…