Every time I play these vehicles, I always find them to be slow and lackluster in general.
The Chieftain doesn’t really have much going for it. For starters, it’s slow because of its weight and horsepower. The Chieftain sacrifices mobility for armor in an attempt to be an excellent Hull-Down vehicle, in practice however, this proves to be negated entirely for one reason. The Chieftain fights vehicles with HEAT-FS, APFSDS, and Laser Range Finders. This would be fine if it was an uptier situation, but it’s not. Even in a full down tier, the Chieftain fights HEAT-FS and LRF constantly. Let’s take Sweden’s 8.0 as an example. Sweden gets the IKV-91, Strv 103, Strv 101, U-SH, T-54, and the Pvrbv 551. Apart from the T-54 and Strv 101, which are good MBT vehicles, but not Chieftain level and the Pvrbv 551, which I have not played, every other vehicle in this list does something better than the Chieftain.
The Strv 103 is a better sniper and much harder to spot. It can be a bit shaky at times but is incredibly good at shredding entire groups of enemies quickly. It also handles taking hits better than the Chieftain.
The IKV-91 is a better sniper than the Chieftain and easily outranges it. The mobility is significantly higher allowing the vehicle to exploit positions quickly. Although the vehicle is made of aluminum and lacks a stabilizer, it is typically way more dangerous than a Chieftain.
The U-SH is a cancer that, alongside the Raketenautomat, should be at least 9.0. That vehicle can easily overwhelm groups of 11.7 MBT if given the chance. That’s from experience using it at top tier. My first game in the Raketen was a sleep deprived + fever 3am Nuke, if that helps convince you.
Onto my second point. The Chieftain uses APDS. I think many of us can relate to APDS shattering and being unreliable in general. Vehicles with complex shapes such as the M103 with its turret often completely obliterates the APDS’s chance of doing significant damage (not to mention the M103 can front penetrate the Chieftain anywhere) and even the T-54’s front plate can often shatter the shell if you’re unlucky. At 8.7, many tanks trade their APDS for APFSDS, which is objectively better in so many ways. Many of these vehicles also obtain laser range finders as well. This combination means that other vehicles target the Chieftain faster and have a higher likelihood of doing damage compared to the reverse.
A prime example of this is the TAM at 8.7. The TAM has so much empty space that APDS often passes straight through without doing any damage. Even if you kill one or two crewmembers, they almost always laser you and cut clean through your turret at any range.
My final point is that the Chieftain’s armor is not what it’s cracked up to be. Even against 7.7 APCBC shells like M82 fired from a 90mm gun, the Chieftain capitulates easily without cover. There are so many weak spots and massive armor gaps that you can reliably kill this vehicle. With so many maps being urban in design, this vehicle simply fails to have any significant use. If maps were larger and the BR’s were decompressed, I could see this vehicle staying at 8.7, but until then, it fails to do much.
I know I’m not the best with words, but I’m sure many other people can relate and understand how the Chieftains have it bad. BR Decompression is killing their chances of being anything more than a free kill to other 8.7 vehicles. Decompression is needed desperately to fix this issue.
