US Tech Tree 8.3-9.3 (And others)

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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Introduction

The US ground tech tree is a mix of good and bad. In the earlier tiers, it is decent, featuring tanks like the Shermans and Pershings with relatively balanced mix of firepower and armor and OK mobility. Moving on into mid-high tier, there starts to arise an issue: facing tanks, specifically Russian (but also other nations with copy-paste vehicles or their own), which are better. Don’t get me wrong, there are some gems like the Bradley, but this is pretty much the best for the 8.3-9.3 BR in US tree.

8.3 Analysis

I’m not going to be one of those people who are going to just say that America suffers/sucks because it doesn’t. I just feel like it could need some improvement with BRs and vehicles. First, let’s compare a US 8.3 with one of it’s counterparts. Here we have the M60a1 (AOS) vs. the T55A:

Armor

  • Similar, both with about 100mm of armor at 60 degrees on UFP and around 200mm on the turret cheeks. Big difference is the silhouette as the M60 stands at 10ft 9in (3.27m) tall while the T55 stands at 7ft 10in (2.40m) tall.

Firepower

  • Both stabilized, one 105mm and the other 100mm.
  • M60 gets 265mm, 231mm, and 144mm pen APDS at 0, 30, and 60 degrees respectively at a distance of 10m.
  • T55 gets a a boost over this with an APFSDS round that has 335mm, 275mm, and 129mm pen again at 0, 30, and 60 degrees respectively at a distance of 10m.

Mobility
As for mobility, the T55 has one advantage. Turning speed (I measured about 11.3 seconds to turn stationary (neutral steering) in the M60 while the T55 took about 8.5 seconds (non-neutral steering). Steering while moving is much faster in the T55 but I didn’t know how to accurately measure that).

  • M60 as a power to weight ratio of 14.25 hp/t and forward/reverse speeds of 48 and 8 km/h
  • T55 has a power to weight ratio of 14.25 hp/t and forward/reverse speeds of 50 and 7.5 km/h.

Analysis Overview
Similar armor, but T55 has a lower silhouette, way better flat pen APFSDS while M60A1 doesn’t even get APFSDS (which APFSDS does more spall and shatters less that APDS), and finally similar mobility, but T55 is better because of it’s turning. US vehicles higher in the 8.3-9.3 BR range also see worse stats compared to their counterparts from other nations.

9.0 & 9.3 Analysis
US 9.0/9.3 also lacks. I’m not going to go through this BR with the same specificity as before, but I’ll do a summary. M60A3 TTS is even more chunky and slower than the AOS, has same armor but add-on ERA which doesn’t do anything to AP rounds which most other tanks at the BR will be using, and decent firepower with the M774 round. XM803 and MBT-70 aren’t the best either. They get spaced armor which pretty much offers no protection compared to composite, uses the US 152mm which IMO sucks with it’s velocity, penetration, and post-pen. Has decent mobility and the 20mm on the MBT-70 is nice. Some of the TTS’ and XM803/MBT-70’s counterparts include: T72A/M1, M48 Super, and KPz-70. The T72 is outright OP being fast, having loads of composite armor (at 9.3!!) and better ammunition + faster autoloader than MBT-70 & XM803. Germany also has the M48 Super which is comparable to M60 in armor but has upgraded mobility and firepower. KPz-70 is also pretty annoying that it is the same as the MBT-70 and is at the same BR, but has a 25% faster autoloader taking 6 seconds compared to the 7.5 seconds of the MBT-70.

SPAA
America is known to lack in SPAA in War Thunder, but at 8.3 it is missing out on stuff other countries have that the US tree should have a similar vehicle to. Most importantly is the lack of a vehicle similar to to Flakpanzer Gepard and it’s counterparts. Pretty much every other nation (Germany[obviously], UK, Japan, China, France[not 35mm, but similar to Gepard], and Sweden [honorable mention: UK - Falcon]) gets a Gepard-type vehicle which has decent armor for an SPAA, high speed, good radar, high rate of fire, and amazing lethality. Each one of these SPAAs have 68mm pen APHE which will tear apart vehicle’s sides and the M60 commander turret plus an additional 40 rounds of APDS with 127mm pen for self defense. The US gets the M247 at 9.0 with 2 40mm cannons. The vehicle itself has good hull armor (which does nothing because it’s huge turret is paper thin), horrible mobility, and good HE-VT (only can carry half of it’s ammo as HE-VT for some reason). It is lacking in self-defense as it pretty much cannot pen anything it had a [now removed] AP shell sitting at 9.0 with 38mm pen SAP-HE. Also has the Improved Chaparral which is ok as all it has going is an IR missile with 16.5 G’s overload with 3.6 km all-aspect and 6.0 km launch range.

Light Vehicles
The US only has the M551 Sheridan and the M3 Bradley. M551 is decent with it’s speed and M3 Bradley is great, like I said. Honestly kind of lacking for light vehicles. TAM and Begleitpanzer are OP being fast, having good ammo, and weirdly being survivable. Rooikat and Type 16 are pretty good and annoying being fast and having good firepower. I don’t have much else to say.

Fixes
I honestly think 8.3-9.3 and other BRs really need some reworking. Decompression is the easiest and first step to fixing problems. The change from low-mid tier to mid tier, mid tier to mid-high tier, and mid-high to top tier needs a bit of a fix which decompression could help with. I also think the changing of BRs, which happens nearly every update, is necessary and should be judged more on statistics besides the general player usage of each vehicle. Several factors need to be included like player k/d ratio, player level, and time playing the game.

Understanding & Views
I really don’t believe that America or 8.3-9.3 are the only parts of the game that lack. Even some of the stronger nations like German or the Soviet Union lack in attention in some parts. I also am acknowledging that my view on this is not parallel in comparison to some other people’s views. Please let me know if you agree or disagree and if any of y’all think the same about other parts of the game. Thanks if you read my long ass essay of my opinion/complaint.

What do you think?

TLDR: 8.3-9.3 US is lacking. From the M60A1 to MBT-70 as well as light vehicles and SPAA, I feel that some changed are needed. I don’t think that other nations should really be punished or greatly altered and I understand America and 8.3-9.3 isn’t the only nation or BR range where there are issues. However, I think this BR range and some others severely need decompression and fair BR placement.

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USA 9.0 - 9.3 is a great lineup.
M60A3 TTS is a great tank, alongside the XM-803 and MBT-70 being okay tanks.
Then you have XM-1 as a permanent option.
And Merkavas for those of us that ground that event.

And of course USA 8.3 is wicked good.

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I just wanted to note that I wasn’t trying to say the TTS is a bad tank, rather inferior to it’s counterparts. I also don’t take in account premiums and event vehicles because they cost money (not part of tech tree by RP) and event vehicles take a buttload of playing to unlock. Also, 8.3 is good, but gets whooped by the Soviets.

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Since this is the M60 AOS it’s APDS is M728, this is a much, much, much better round than the statcard flat pen implies, it has way better modifiers against sloped and composite armours than 3BM25.

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Ye, it still however has the problem that less pen means less spalling. The M60A1 (AOS) is by no means a bad tank, but it’s not amazing either. The best way I’ve heard it described is the most average tank.

Its HESH is pretty nice tho

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M60 AOS also has 400 pen HEATFS, dunno why you didnt mention that.

while I havent played anything russian at that sort of tier, I definitely found the M60 AOS to be a fairly good tank. I didn’t have too many complaints about it while spading it

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First of all,the M60A1 AOS’ M728 is probably the best APDS shell in the game,since it has the post-pen damage profile of basically a DU APFSDS,you can nuke entire tanks with a single hit and this is a great point.

Then,the M60A3 TTS is very strong: the ERA is still useful against ATGMs (which you’ll encounter) and only few tanks have either tandem ATGMs or ATGMs that pen more than what the ERA allows to protect.
More importantly,9.0/9.3 is the part of the game where many tanks have stock HEAT-FS for a while,so having that kind of protection is helpful.
Finally,having a gunner thermal sight is so useful considering that at 9.0/9.3 many tanks lacks thermals.

The XM-803 is superior to the MBT-70 simply because the things it lacks compared to the 70 (worse engine,worse suspensions,worse armour and no 20mm) are barely noticeable and you still have a fantastic tank that sits at 9.0 instead of 9.3

The M247 is absurd: dual 40mm rapid firing that can shred anything at 4km and below with HE-VT shells and has a somewhat good anti-light tank belt with the SAPHEI. No tracers on any belt meaning enemies in the air can’t see you firing and finally you have a BVR radar with nice refresh rate,a strong lock and IFF in a BR bracket where planes/helis either don’t have RWR or have a rudimentary RWR that can’t discriminate the source of the radar or the precise azimuth

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This is a decent analysis but you forgot to mention some pretty important things. T-55A has better optics (3.5x - 7x vs 8x) but has worse gun handling, gun depression and reload.
This being said, I think T-55A and AOS are pretty evenly matched all things considered, they are trading blows so I doubt anyone has an edge there objectively, but personally I would take AOS over T-55A.

It gets thermals which is not a really common thing to have at 9.0 if you’re a medium tank. ERA definitely helps against stuff like HEAT and ATGMs from tanks/helis.

This tank has good mobility and gun handling for it’s BR. It’s reload of 7.5s would still beat non-Expert reloads (7.7s) of many tanks at that BR.

In my opinion current vehicles are more than fine, it’s just that US needs another SPAA between M163 and M247 and a light vehicle around 9.0 BR.