I’ll assume most of you are familiar with the current top tier ground meta, currently dominated by the Leopard 2A7 and STRV-122, however I don’t think people have entirely figured out why these tanks are so strong.
On paper, the STRV-122 doesn’t have protection too far in excess of the T-90M or M1A2SEPV2, nor it it’s ammo or reload any better, and in fact it’s optics are a fair bit worse, having only gen 1 thermals.
My argument is that the reason why it performs so well really has little to do with those factors, it simply comes down to the time to kill (TTK) issue these upgraded Leopards cause in a team setting. A well placed shot on a T-90M to the drivers viewport will typically kill it instantly, as that area is not covered by a spall liner, and the tank only has 3 crew tightly packed together. The LFP also makes for a fairly consistent ammo rack, which is also a one-shot.
The Abrams has a similar one-shot weakspot in the form of it’s turret ring, though admittedly I’ve found it harder to land that one-shot kill consistently as you have three crew to kill instead of two, and they’re spaced further apart.
The STRV-122 also has weakspots of course, the issue is that essentially none of them will lead to a consistent one shot kill. In a pure 1v1 scenario this isn’t an issue, as you can choose to disarm, then immobilize, and then kill the tank as you would deal with a Tiger in a Sherman as an example. But in the top tier team setting, being unable to quickly kill a tank leads to your team being further and further behind on kills as pretty much everyone is being engaged (and engaging) multiple targets simultaneously. This leads to the team with the higher time to kill building up a substantial manpower advantage over time until they just entirely overwhelm the other side. On top of this, a tank that is shot repeatedly will build up score simply for being hit, and even if it dies the player should have enough SP from the encounter to be able to respawn, in the case of Sweden there are three excellent MBTs and a great light tank to respawn as. On the flipside, if you get one-shot, you don’t receive any score for the encounter, Get one-shot twice early in a match, and you’ll be down to SPAA if not out of the match entirely.
This is essentially the reason why top tier Sweden and Germany are doing so well. The snowball effect from simply eating more rounds is as important if not moreso than any armour or firepower advantage. To be clear, I’m not complaining, someone has to be top dog in any given patch, I just think it’s interesting to examine why these vehicles are the way they are.
Well stated argument, good explination. I agree with the complaints about fighting these in all top mbts, bar the type 10 due to its great reload, though it suffers in other aspects
Yep, this has been my finding of late. Currently on the Challenger 2s, so Im still using L27A1. I take a round anywhere close to my mantlet, and im one shotted. But Ive been having a hard time against the Leopards because even a great hit, might barely slow them down. I’ve even had a few shells fail to actually disable the gun breach with a direct hit.
Especially as it also appears to have a well armoured ammo wrack in the turret, something most tanks dont have.
sure and russian tanks should explode if 1 charge of powder is hit
or the “non existant” spall liner on t80bvm should be removed etc
if we are at it why not fix ru ufp’s that overperform by about 100mm ? :)
I have zero love for high tier tanks and we can also remove the L2A7 altogether for what i care about, but I find it interesting how you’re basically saying: its reload rate is sub par (the slowest actually), it has a comparable projectile and worse optics compared to other top tier tanks, but it’s OP because it has a single strong point.
no its exactly the same except with russian tanks ru mains went the usual “skill issue” “ru tanks have higher skill ceiling” bla bla bla
and here its oh no you can’t aim for ufp and kill them
Also leopards still got there shoot here for a 1shot kill but interestingly people forgot where to aim i guess
Driver viewport on leopard 2a7v is still a 1shot kill
yes on the strv122 its not as easy because (no big suprise here) it got working armor lul
This is just theoretical. It’s not easy to hit this position, and it’s difficult to determine these positions after being covered by grass. But what really affected me was that it was difficult to deal damage by ambushing A7 and 122 from the side. My shell was completely blocked by the fuel tank and anti stripping lining, and it was difficult to kill three crew members at once. Then they will turn around and shoot at me.
On the contrary, if I ambush Soviet tanks from the side, usually 90% of the time they will explode immediately
Spall liner can only catch spall, it wont stop the sabot itself (unlike relikt).
Shot to the turret ring from the side will leave the tank cripled, shot to the side of the Leo2 to the area where the gun breech is will leave him unable to return fire.
Difficult to deal damage? I mean, yes, there are times when they won’t die from a single hit, but majority of the time, if my aim isn’t completely botched, the entire turret crew is taken out. Possibly DM33 is just some super shell, but I think people really overestimate how good the survivability is.
Heads up - the mantlet doesn’t have ANY spall liners, so if you can’t take the turret crew out by hitting their gun area, that is on you. That place has been the most consistent spot to shoot at if you want to disable or outright kill any Leopard 2A5+ variant since 2019 (in fact, the cannon area has an additional spall modifier, just to make it easier for people to OHK them from the front).
If you have a shell with more than ~560mm of penetration, this is how (for example) 2A7Vs armour profile presents itself:
A very small strip of the hull will stop your shell, the rest is pretty much unarmoured by comparison. Gaijin also gave y’all more spots to shoot at by creating artificial weakpoints. They’re hard to hit if the tank is covered by bushes, yes, but how is that any different to the T-80BVM in that case?
My issue is that since BVM was added, any complaint made was met by “skill issue, just aim, the armor isnt that good! Russian mains are simply better”
Then 2A7V gets added, which just combines (nerfed) armor package that was in game for three sears already with gun that was in the game for thee years already, adds gunner thermals that are better than 1st gen and spall liner and suddenly the whole game becomes unbalanced.
It has the same weakspots as Strv that has been in the game for three years already.
The spall liner still doesnt cover significant areas from the front arc (drivers area), and the spall liner cant stop the sabot itself (unlike relikt), side shots are still possible.
Currently Leo2A7V has more artificial weaknesses than Strv.122, which is known to have been in WT for more than 3 years.
So Leo2, which needs to be aimed at to destroy, has led to another disaster?
I think it’s a huge skills issues, I’ve recently destroyed a lot of Leo2s on the T80UK/UM2(use 3BM42)
As the commander of the Leo2,
I know where Leo2s will appear , and how to destroy them.
I really don’t like how the Leo2A7V behaves now, the acceleration is too slow, the turret gap that fails,
I prefer to drive the Leo2PSO, except in foggy days.
M8 he presented a well stated argument, not on a skill level difference, but on a gameplay feature imbalance. Simply saying “Git Gud” adds nothing to the discussion, and makes your later arguments if you choose to continue less convincing.
