But the poll is asking you about one specific MBT that you think is the worst, it’s not about the whole experience of a tech tree, so i’d say Italians having the 2A7 is irrelevant. I could argue Israel has the worst MBT because the entire tech tree top tier experience is so bad, but again, thats irrelevant. Ariete AMV is hands down, the WORST MBT in the game as of now.
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sadly gaijin doesn’t take any actual recorded account as proof, because well, its gaijin.
It’s not a criticism, but the implementation of the current AMV was based on a specific suggestion. Now, it wouldn’t have taken much to realize that a ariete without additional armor and a machine gun wasn’t a great deal in exchange for just more horsepower.
Gaijin probably sat down and looked at how to improve the Ariete - put it in the ‘too hard’ basket and just added the Leopard 2A7 to the tree, instead. I wouldn’t be surprised if it isn’t even on their to-do list now.
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I play Italy and I voted for Chally 2, both have paper armour for top tier, but at least Ariete has the mobility to be actually useful and 18 rounds ready-rack instead of the miserable 4 round ready rack of the Chally 2.
I finally played recently the Leo2A7HU, and I achieved pretty much the same K/D as in the Ariete AMV, so that kinda shows the Ariete AMVisnt as bad as it would seem at first glance.
So I would say the AMV after its 5sec reload buff and high HP/ton ratio is a underrated vehicle since now its more comparable to a Type90 or Leclerc with DM53 in terms of gameplay instead of being a Leopard with IFV armour back when it had 6sec reload
Now IF Ariete PSO or vanilla Ariete where in this pool, I would had voted for them, since they dont have the engine upgrade, making them almost as sluggish as the Chally 2
Gaijin simply does not use enough common sense when it comes to modeling post cold-war era vehicles, IMO.
When the VT-4A1 first came out, the protection of it was 100% identical to the MBT-2000 before backlash on the Chinese forums made Gaijin “fix” it, but even now it is still underperforming to irl.
MBT-2000 is a 90s era design while VT-4 began development in the late 2000s. I would expect VT-4 to use better composite materials.
Also, things like the 2A7 having worse hull armor than the Strv 122s, which frankly doesn’t really make sense.
The latest Abrams having the same LFP protection as the earliest M1, and so much more.
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Fun fact all the abram’s after the first variant should have DU, like the M1A1 had DU in the gulf war and it was confirmed by the government. air only varies slightly in thickness and placement between the later variants.
My thinking is that they won’t add it because it would make the abram’s “too strong”. Which is fair I guess, but right now with their turret ring they are very weak frontally.
Also the upper front plate should deform shells not deflect them into the turret ring.
It wouldn’t be too strong imo, at least for M1A2s.
The maximum protection estimate I’ve seen is 600mm KE for the LFP with DU, so top tier rounds we currently have can still penetrate it.
The abrams LFP is a black hole anyway, I always aim for turret neck and breach, regardless of the tank or shell i am using against an abrams
The main problem with the Abrams is the neck tbh.
It’s way too weak, even autocannons can penetrate it.
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The AMV is 100% better than a challenger 2 but yeah the base ariete is easily the saddest MBT at top tier, could lose DM53 and go down to 11.3 tbh
But if the neck is made invulnerable then the abrams becomes virtually unkillable, i am all for it being improved but not totally impenetrable
At the very least it should be like around 200mm versus kinetic projectiles, which would make it immune to autocannon fire.
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It wouldn’t make it invincible, it would make it realistic and fair.
Edit:Sorry I mean if it was made accurate not if they made it unpenable
If fixed to about 200-350 KE then it would be fine, any higher and it becomes a volumetric shot-trap, any lower and it’s comedically bad
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While the document is a good indicator Iraq didn’t have any threat that would penetrate an M1 tank. 3VBK7 seems to be the most common round used and supplied to export customers who cheaped out on their T-72s. The round was perfectly serviceable against 2nd generation Western MBTs
They didn’t have access to any of the Soviet full tungsten or DU rounds.
Yes however the point of those was more of proof of the abram’s DU armor than the capability of it
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M1A1HAs have DU armour (which were deployed in the Gulf War), the standard M1A1 does not.
Honestly the VT-4A at least has decent protection (its still pretty bad protection for top tier but not as bad as something like the Challenger 2 or the Ariete) and an APS but an extreme lacking in the offense department (7.1 second autoloader with one of the worst rounds at top tier). I know the Chinese community has been very upset about the UFP and the ERA on it and honestly I don’t blame them. With something like the Leclerc’s at least you have a 5 second autoloaded reload with pretty decent rounds, but despite this the ariete is just sad.
The Ariete has a 5 second reload ONLY if you have an aced crew and unlike the leclercs and the type 10/TKX where sometimes you can take a shot to the turret without it penning miraculously, the Ariete can be penned in the turret cheek by something like a leo 2a4. It was so bad instead of Gaijin fixing it they instead added a 2a7 to Italy so they could just forget about all the issues with the Ariete (they also didn’t move it down after moving the Chally 3 down which shocked me). So with the 2a7 Italy certainly has a good top tier experience alongside the AH-129D and your choice between the Gripen, Eurofighter, F16ADF and the AV-8B for CAS, which is really good. Overall Italy’s top tier is no where near as bad with the Hungarian subtree as it was like a year ago.
China does definitely have the worst top tier though as much as some people hate to hear it. China was one of my first top tier nations and let me tell you it is not a lot of fun. For ground you get a pitiful 7.1 second reload on all your options, alongside a very outdated APFSDS that doesn’t really make up for the lack of reload. One benefit is that they’re really fast and good at flanking but this is heavily outweighed by the long reload and you’d be much better off in something like a TKX or Type 10. The armor is also just sad, with a massive LFP that pretty much results in a one shot every time you don’t have much going for you there. And with only -5 degrees of gun depression, staying hull down is not very realistic on most maps. The HQ-17 was a nice addition to China’s top tier but came in about 2 years too late and is still significantly worse than the pantsir. For heli’s you get the Z-19 and Z-10, both of which are not bad whatsoever but also not too special and are definitely outclassed by every other nations top tier helis (besides maybe Japan and Sweden). And for CAS you are the worst off for any nation by a pretty large margin, having no 12.7 besides the J-11a which does not have any guided weaponry.
Overall the top tier China experience is much worse off than something like Italy or France now that they have leopards (and France has the Rafale which absolutely destroys GRB). For the most part I don’t think there is a “bad” top tier nation right now, however there are ones that aren’t as good as the others like China and Israel. But MBT wise China is definitely the worst off currently out of any nation.
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