T-90 still goes 67km/h with the Type 90 going 73 km/h, it’s not like it’s a Maus, it’s perfectly capable to get around the map, it just accelerates a bit slower, the lack of depression and reverse are the only concern for it’s combat effectiveness.
In my test run the Type 90 took 55 seconds and the T-90 took 63 seconds over the same track, so about 15% slower.
Vehicles are limited by their acceleration and maximum speed.
Sure, it’s 15% on perfectly flat terrain, but in combat, it isn’t always about going in a straight line (where their maximum speed caps their separation distance).
T-90A has no neutral steering, nor the reverse speed, meaning that it takes longer to turn around.
No reverse speed means that you must turn the entire hull away from the front, which means that you are exposed to enemy fire.
The T-90A has to go around hills (to be safe) instead of using its gun depression (which the Type 90 can).
Maps may require you to climb hills, get off hills quickly, sidescrape tanks quickly and effectively, take pot shots etc…
The more mobile you are (and the better gun handling you have), the better you can do in all these aspects.
Your armour, with the Type 90, is your mobility, reload, and cover - along with the armour and survivability of pretty much an upgraded 2A4.
If you still don’t think they shouldn’t be the same BR as each other, I suggest 1v1ing with the T-90A, with my friend, who has a Type 90.
It’s not just flat terrain, it’s a straight road follow by a hill climb, 180 turn and a return off road of the same length, you might lose out to a Type 90 on a cap rush but you won’t be far behind.
The game also isn’t a 1v1, that’s an entirely different discipline than how the game is played, a Type 90 can utilize the map freely if there only is one enemy where in an actual match it cannot, it’s a lot more likely to get one shot by a plethora of targets as where the T-90 will be more survivable and more capable of killing targets with the very high pen and the tandem ATGM.
Having armor that is strong enough to stop shells is pretty important, beyond that no armor is best armor as GAijin clearly lacks the competence to make them work in a realistic manner.
Bringing WW2 vehicles into this is not only moving the goalposts and playing whataboutism but showing how much of a nothingburger your argument is.
All the other nation’s MBTs are only marginally slower than the Type 90 - It doesn’t have enough of an advantage to get to a position and post up without being spotted, especially on these increasingly WoT-style garbage maps where every vehicle that relies on flanking is getting shafted.
It’s armor is basically non-existent. You see it and shoot it and in the event your first shot doesn’t kill it that shot will have crippled it, giving you an easy 2nd shot to finish. If that shot failed to kill or cripple, than you either got Gaijin’d or you screwed up royally.
As already stated, that 4 second reload gives less of an advantage with so many other vehicles getting reloading buffs, which is good for them but doesn’t actually fix those other vehicle’s modeling issues. And since it’s autoloaded if the AL gets shot out then you’re SoL and most likely very dead.
I’m proving a point that you don’t need to have the best protection to be competitive. The T-90A sacrifices a lot of things to have the luxury that is a good round and good frontal armour.
Something that the Panther does too, in a similar way. The hellcat is still a very good vehicle, despite this.
The Type 90’s armour is not paper thin. Its cheeks are almost as good as the M1A1’s, its UFP is fairly good, and the LFP can be trolly with its fuel tanks.
The way you play it is not the same as you would with the T-90A. Doing so will obviously make you think it’s a terrible vehicle.
If you do penetrate the T-90A (with a simple LFP shot, drivers port, breech, or a side shot), you will almost always one shot it or severly cripple it. Especially now that the autoloader is almost always destroyed when shooting anywhere. If the T-90A misses his shot, he has nowhere to run, his reload is 7.1 seconds, and is completely at the mercy of your bad aim.
I did read it all.
Last time I checked Gaijin still doesn’t base BR’s to single player performance or even 100 people performance. Of course you might have your own info about this.