As a general rule, missiles have to do more damage since they have much more penetration than HEAT-FS projectiles, but there are still times where missiles also have tiny damage, when in reality they should do much greater damage.
Keep in mind that a HEAT projectile, when it penetrates with at least 100mm of penetration left, causes enough damage to be lethal. For example, if a 200mm HEAT pierces a 180mm sheet, this HEAT would cause small damage, possibly killing the crew member who in front of him and injuring a nearby crew member. On the other hand, if that same 200mm penetration HEAT pierces a 100mm plate, the damage would be much greater, killing everything in front of him and creating a larger cone of fragments, seriously injuring or killing to nearby crew members. That is why missiles with 700 or 1200mm penetration are enormously damaging against tanks that do not have protection against HEAT.
Can a M-51 pen a Tiger (Either Tiger I and Tiger II) anywhere? Yes
Can a Tiger (Both Tiger I and Tiger II) pen a M-51 anywhere? Also yes
I’m terrible at ground battles and even i know that the M-51 is not overpowered, it is a pure glass cannon. I.e has not enough armour to protect itself from most if not all shells at it’s BR even from autocannons let alone regular cannons but also has just enough armor to set off the fuses of APHE shells
Can a M-51 pen a Tiger (Either Tiger I and Tiger II) anywhere? Yes
Can a Tiger (Both Tiger I and Tiger II) pen a M-51 anywhere? Also yes
But what about anywhere, at any range?
Both yes for both tanks
And out of the two, only the Tiger has a round with enough explosive filler to near-guarantee a OHKO
from what i played M51. Yes, it can pen all tank in 6.0+ but one shot might not destroy the tank. also, one shot from enemy can kill M51 “IF” that round not hit the weird armor angle and bounce.
It’s perfect where it is. Any higher, and it would start to suffer. Any lower it would stomp every other vehicle in the game. I played America up to about 6.3, then started playing Israel, wanting the Merkava, and now I alternate between these trees about every week or so. I have about 400 hours of experience in the US tree over 2 years, the majority being around 4.7 - 5.7. As any experienced ground player can tell you, the most dangerous thing at 5.3 is a Sherman player worth his weight in explosive filler. We know exactly where to shoot everything Germany. Tiger 1? If 76mm upper front plate, if 75mm, cupula, then track and barrel. Panther? Turret cheeks. King Tiger? If facing the Porche turret, turret cheeks. Henchel turret? Barrel, then flank.
There is nothing more lethal than an America 5.3 vet in an M51. We know where all the ammo is, and that if you shoot the right side of the upper front plate the HEAT jet will caterpillar the driver, gunner and commander, and a follow up shot to the left side will result in a kill.
Us America mains have cat-killing down to a science.
M51 is fine at 6 BR. Israel is pretty damn miserable as a line up even up to 7.7. I wonder why anybody bothers with it. M51 is the only good thing about it. Even the awful Magach seemed to get raised to 8.
It seems like somebody at Gaijin who likes Israel suggested the Israeli tech tree and somebody who hates Jews implemented it.
Yeah but that is more due to Gaijin failing to properly support/fill out Tier IV Israel ground TT. I’m not asking to make their TT to be OP, I just want it to be decent enough that it is fun to play
Also when enough Tier IV vehicles are added to the Israeli ground TT, some of them can be moved to Tier V (e.g: AML-90 & ZSU-57-2)
So you are agreeing with me?
Sort of
I don’t think Israel has the worst Ground TT, lineup and gameplay wise in terms of useable vehicles (Japanese Ground exists). I do agree that Israeli vehicles are not particularly fun and it doesn’t help that Israel has very few unique vehicles. The very few unique that Israel does have as of writing this fit a very specific niche/have to be played in a specific playstyle and it does not gel with my playstyle. This may change in the future but as of current, I probably recommend that Israel should be one of the last nations in terms of Ground Battles and the very last in terms of Air Battles (Israel has objectively the worst reserve vehicle by a long shot)
I don’t think Gaijin is doing this out of malice, rather more of neglect since they have to attend to 9 other Nations and their respective lines so a nation or two gets the short end of the stick from time to time, Israel being one of them
I don’t seriously but I can understand why some might think it is true. I see it as neglect really. I also think Gaijin don’t think things through properly and make bad decisions quite often. Why launch the M51 at 6 BR yet give it CAS at 3 BR? SPAA at 4 BR? Then when a stable mate arrives its at 6/7 then 7.7 ? Just rather silly really.
The M-51 should also be utilising a HESH shell that does not exist in game. Credit to notminus for finding this round.
Not that HESH is even worth a damn to use in-game, anyways…
So does the B2 and other 5.7-6.7 Tank Destroyers.
What’s your point?
This point makes no sense because there are vehicles at 5.7 such as the M36B2 with similar penetration, better mobility, and way more stable and easier to use guns.
Why aren’t you complaining about that?
The m51 lacks good mobility stabilizers and it has terrible armor. If you think it should be against leopard 1 tanks then it’s only fair that the maus will face ww2 tanks that have no chance of penetrating its armor