Why is Germany doing so bad - quick overview of WW2 BR range

[Loofah]

First, some info on me, regarding “skill issue”: I’ve been playing Germany for quite some time, but also greatly enjoying USSR and USA, played Britain for some time (IMO it suffers).
I’m very good with planes (Ta-152H my beloved) and rather bad with tanks.

I’ve been hearing about horrible German teams quite a lot. And there’s some truth to it, not gonna lie. But the game is definitely not helping.
My favourite BRs are 3.3, 3.7, 6.0 and 6.7
At 3.3 you get roflstomped by Shermans, it’s not even close.
M10 is vastly superior to Pz IV and Stug. And M4A1 is vastly superior to everything.
Sweden destroys German tanks with goddamn Flak truck.
We move to 3.7 - same story, now US have M4 and Chaffee.
Vs UK in this range it’s kinda fun, they have armor, we have guns, though I loved playing vs Germany as UK, because finally I could penetrate hull instead of playing whack-a-mole with Soviet tank crew in the turret.
Soviet tanks at 3.3 are solid, they can laugh at 5cm Pak, 7.5cm kills them, but it’s surprisingly unreliable.
And again - there’s no contest at all.
What Germany has is tons of penetration vs enemies that 1-shot you at any distance, that have superior mobility and stabilised guns.
Puma is super mobile, but 5cm gun is horrible damage-wise and it takes repeated clobbering to do anything. Meanwhile Chaffe 1-shots enemies left and right and is stabilised.
Pz IV is a goddamn glass cannon, and it generally will lose vs enemies with superior mobility and gun handling.
Ostwind at 3.3 is damn fun, as a TD, because it takes several hits with Mine-shell to down a plane for whatever reason.

OK, lets move onto 6.0 - Tiger is damn solid. But everything else is Panther. Panther which will lose 1 v 1 vs 76mm Sherman, which will fire first. Panther which will lose transmission each time turret front is penetrated.
Panther which will be late in the race to good positions vs hordes of M18s that will be firing at your side before you get anywhere. The map is LOCKED DOWN, before German team get anywhere, now you’re basically playing the long grind towards your spawn, where enemy has total map control and each time you try to advance, you get whacked.
You know, what people learn from it?
Don’t go to the front, because you can’t turn, you can’t reverse and turret shot will end you.
So they stay back.
Staying back which makes locking down the map even easier.
Especially when Soviet CAS will destroy entire team. US with several 250+kg bombs will do the same.
Zerstorer is a nice SPAA, but it can and will get strafed by anything with long-reaching guns.
It has small mags and if there is more than 1 enemy plane - they will end you.
Tiger is VERY competitive. But it’s essentialy a medium-heavy at this point. It has to carry entire lineup, while it’s losing sniper duels vs 5.0 Su-85M which has a ton more mobility and armor, so it has to rely on teammates and gun depression. And it also has inferior mobility to wide array of vehicles that can kill it easily at relatively long range. Still, I consider Tiger to be the best 6.0 tank Germany has.
non pay2win 5.7 Tiger H1 is pure fail on the other hand.
Now, did I mention your teammates are playing Panthers and have learned by playing, well, Panthers and Pz IV, and then maybe the failure of a Tiger H1, that going forward means death.
So yeah, go forward in your Tiger E - you’re on your own.

German CAS is horrible.
Do-335B2 costs a ton of real money. it’s a goddamn boat, that is in every way inferior to Yak-9UT, other than straight speed. Bombs are very difficult to use as you can’t dive too steeply (it will compress, you die). Cannons require a ton of clobbering sometimes, they are solid, but nothign close to Soviet 45mm.
Problem?
You have to go straight, you’re gigantic, you bleed speed like crazy.
Ta-152H is extremely good at killing enemy planes, though, so there’s that.
It’s “not-so-great” as CAS.
But OK, lets imagine we kill enemy planes and try to kill enemy open-tops.
BTR-ZD, or even BTR-152D have so much range they will end you the very second you get too close.
I have killed plenty of these. But only if they are distracted. They have insane ballistics while best MG151/20 can do is 900m. See the problem?
And despite being open top, both vehicles can take tons of shots (way more than f.e. M18 or M36) before going down. US .50 cals are also a danger.
So at 6.0 - German tanks are OK, but don’t really work as expected, but there’s no synergy between them and German CAS is sad.
6.7 is where it gets super frustrating.
Tanks are the most versatile they’ll ever be - there’s no mediums, but at least there’s M41, finally a mobile tank! Lacks damage, but can shoot and scoot.
However, EVERY GAME IS AN UPTIER.
Now, what’s the problem with that?
Let me elaborate - 7.3 uptier vs 2S19M2.
I spawn in Me-262 with 50mm.
I shoot one guy, I line up another pass, I see soemthing big on the ground, I fire, fire, fire (remember, 50mm requires like 4-5 hits to kill anything, as opposed to Soviet 45mm), I die. He dies too, turns out it was 2S19M2 firing proxy shells.
I spawn in Kugel, score some kills, die.
Spawn Ta-152H, kill russian jet, I turn at 1800m alttitude, boom, I’m dead, dude spawned 2S19M.
I respawn in King Tiger, I see the big barn 900m away, I fire, he… dodges, because that thing just jumps all over the place, then 1-shots me, because why not.
I respawn in Jpz 4-5, I surprise the barn with side shot with HEAT. He survives. Shoot him again? He starts burning and runs away.
I manage to sneak up on him, shoot his roof, it does nothing, then he 1-shots me.
What a balanced gameplay.
Artillery has so many drawbacks like…
…well, it’s big, it’s something right?

Facing EXTREMELY mobile vehicles that are also EXTREMELY effective SPAA that are also beating your tanks in 1 v 1 because they can and will survive multiple HEAT shells vs your mobile vehicles and will out-maneuver your heavy tanks is not fun at all.
Generally, tons of very mobile SPGs even at 6.7 remove any fun from playing heavy tank.
And German 6.7 mobile tanks have extreme trouble killing enemies reliably.
And yes, German teams at 6.7 mostly lose because of skill issue (including my own), but god damn, the game is just not fun to play. Not at all.
King Tiger is simply food for HEAT slingers and SPGs. You have armor which works vs a lot of guns, but not vs the biggest problems. They have mobility, gun handling, scouting, ability to shoot you anywhere and take superior positions, and on case of SPGs - also stomp your planes even if you’re just playing CAP.

Of course teams suck too, don’t get me wrong. But the core of the problem is the game design, endless additions of SPGs, and lightweight heat slingers + cramped maps vs vehicles that are just not-that-good.
Have I mentioned how I hate fast-firing highly mobile SPG spam? Yeah.

Edit: Flagged by trolls

[Normandy_Corsair]

@Loofah

At 3.3 you get roflstomped by Shermans, it’s not even close.

Skill issue

@Loofah

M10 is vastly superior to Pz IV and Stug.

Definitely not

@Loofah

And M4A1 is vastly superior to everything.

Definitely not

@Loofah

Panther which will lose 1 v 1 vs 76mm Sherman

Skill issue

@Loofah

Panther which will be late in the race to good positions vs hordes of M18s that will be firing at your side before you get anywhere.

Still a skill issue

I’m not going to keep quoting, whole post is a skill issue. I fundamentally disagree with all of it.

There is no conversation to be had when your whole post is just an opinion piece that I disagree with.

[Loofah]

@Normandy Corsair

Skill issue

Yeah, even though when playing M4A1 myself I love fighting Germany as I know it’s 1 shot 1 kill and I’m the one firing first thx to stabiliser and gun handling.

Welcome to ignore list as you clearly came here to spew vitriol and to troll.

[Normandy_Corsair]

This post was flagged by the community and is temporarily hidden.

[Loofah]

I have played this game for quite some time.
But I’ve never been good at ground RB.
Recently I got quite a bit better (still FAR from good, just not horrible… I think?) but a lot of my tanks are mix of old and new stats.
Anyway, while I’m not performing great, I’m not doing bad enough to explain my absolutely dog-poop win ratios when playing Germany. I don’t feel like teams are performing that bad.
What I feel when playing Germany is having no map control, getting outmaneuvered and curbstomped by vehicles way better suited for the game design.
The most prolific out of those is “very fast tank with 1-shot highly effective gun”, with most notable examples being SPGs, Su-100P, Hellcat, Chaffee, and M41 (here Germany has one, but since Germany’s main strength is supposed to be King Tiger that gets hard countered by such vehicles…). In all honesty - playing King Tiger while cowering in fear behind something solid is effective. it’s just not fun, so I basically stopped spawning this tank after a few attempts.

Also, Germany has no real counter vs SPG spam at 6.7 - M41 and Jpz can both be shot anywhere and die, while they have to deliver multiple shots to russian wonders in order to eliminate them. They can “flank”, but so can highly mobile SPGs. With no heavily armed mediums with .50 cals - it’s a highly problematic situation. When your only “good” tank at 6.7 is hard countered by 2/3 of enemy lineup, it is NOT fun.

[Miragen]

Lack of variety in vehicles, not having frontline vehicles, completely outclassed in air and CAS, generally lack of mobility to help the flanks.

[Loofah]

Yeah, people act like “but KT is good”.
It’s good, and also hard-countered by half of enemy lineup.
Examples?
Soviets starting from 5.7 have: ISU-122S (this is a vehicle KT can properly fight at least) Su-100P (superior mobility, extremely good gun, superior in penetration vs angled armor, though at over 700m it needs the D shell to go reliably through turret front, so there’s that - not like Su-100P should be firing at the front with its mobility, and even at 12 degrees to the side it penetrates the side of KT turret, lol), Su-100 (yeah, it’s an easy kill for KT, thing is, it’s also a lot more mobile and easy to hide, especially if someone is exploiting pay2win bushes), 2S1, 2S3, Su-122-54, ASU-85, premium: T-44-122, T-34-100, IS-2, Type 62.
At 7.0 we have T-44-100 which is better protected than KT, a lot more mobile than KT, but has lower ROF, so there’s a downside at least, though a slight one and Object 268 which can basically ignore KT cannon, M41’s cannon and can 1-shot you at any distance without much aiming. Jpz 4-5 can fight it, though it’s not easy.
At 7.3 you have 2S19 which will flank you, 1-shot you, kill your plane and basically hard counter every 6.7-7.0 lineup you might have, as you have no medium tank actually capable to match its mobility and 1-shot it while having at least SOME spot where it doesn’t get 1-shot itself.

There’s also IS-2-44. Yes, KT is better, it has better ROF and gun depression, IS-2 has a lot better reverse and is way smaller and more resistant to CAS. But even IS-2 if both tanks have loaded cannons is a fair duel within 500m, basically whoever hits the turret weakspot wins, KT turret weakspot is kinda bigger.

So where’s the advantage of having tons of armor? Armor vs mobility in WT is not even a fair trade, as mobility is generally better. And armor vs things like T-34-85, 76mm Sherman and similar vehicles will only work if you are facing enemies who can’t shoot your barrel and can’t close the distance. This requires quite a bit of “happy factors” for you to actually “have big advantage”. Does it happen? Yeah, sometimes it does.
Does it happen often?
Nah.

[QTip_44]

@Loofah

M10 is vastly superior to Pz IV

This is kind of apples to oranges no?

You play the Pz 4 way differently than the m10, mostly because the m10 has crippling turret rotation. You would rarely fight CQC with m10, but the Pz 4 (G - same BR) can.

[Miragen]

KT is good if your enemy is perfectly in front of you and has a subpar cannon… the KT is more of a medium tank that it has decent mobility, nerfed I guess, and good firepower, but lacks meaningful armor, from every angle but direct front it’s an easy one shot every time.

As does every other German tank, they are good at distance but the game is not played at distance, it’s played around meaningless circles on the ground that force everyone into a point blank engagement and that’s where Germany has nothing, from the side it’s all flat and low armor.

Tigers are good but also easy kills, partially because Gaijin decided to store ammo at the corner for an easy kill because reasons, also to leave an AP launcher on the side because reasons, which kills your depression when angled, although they bothered to remove it for the premium version because reasons but not the tech tree version because reasons.

Same with Panthers or the TDs… they’re all fine but they are support vehicles, you don’t have breakthrough vehicles, you don’t have anything that can take some shots either due to superior armor or troll armor.

Things like an Ru251 or a 234/4 would have been great additions to the tech tree for mobility but greed was more important than balance.

And then when it comes to CAS you fall short even more which is what dictates the outcome of the game.

The TT has had no meaningful addition at 6.7 in the last 10 years as far as I can tell, and got worse as they removed the Panther ll, KT 105 and Coelian, once added to fill a void, and then decided it didn’t matter and never filled it.

[Loofah]

No, both are a gun with the “tank” being afterthought.
Except M10 can actually bounce quite a few shells, turret is way better than in case of Pz IV, has noticeably better gun (due to much better killing power) and a .50 cal (so it can’t be flanked so easily).
Pz IV has better turret rotation and that’s it. That’s a big advantage, not gonna lie. But for a more laid-back gameplay, I prefer M10. For going to the front I prefer Ostwind and then I play I don’t meet any KV-1s or M4s (outside of M4A1 I can actually frontally pen).

M10 can properly counter everything with less than 28mm of armor thx to HMG.
M10 can’t brawl.
But Pz IV trying to brawl vs US usually ends quickly, as Pz IV can be succesfully tackled by US reserve tanks. M2A4 penetrates your turret front at 1000m and has a stabiliser on top of vastly superior mobility.
Then there are Shermans, Chaffe, LVT Chaffee that all will out-brawl Pz IV with ease.

[Loofah]

@Miragen

The TT has had no meaningful addition at 6.7 in the last 10 years as far as I can tell, and got worse as they removed the Panther ll, KT 105 and Coelian, once added to fill a void, and then decided it didn’t matter and never filled it.

This is painfully true.
KT105 at 7.0 is actually kinda fun, of course till you run into one of your plentiful hard counters.
But slugging it out with US heavies is very exhilarating, because there’s finally some kind of balance involved - they all have some advantages and disadvantages, some weakspots and “hardspots”, so it’s actually enjoyable.

And then you get murked by SPG or HEAT you can’t do anything against.
So your “having armor” gives you the ability to get from cover to shoot a medium tank with confidence. But you better go behind that cover ASAP, cause if the enemy sees you…

But KT 105 is not THAT important.
The fact we lost Panther II, a tank with actual mobility and reverse speed, is the worst part.
A tank that could at least try to fight it at closer range without constantly worrying about enemy hitting your side because you’re not able to turn quick enough.

I would be very happy to see a more “historical” approach to Panther II - give it schmallturm, autoloaded 75mm by Skoda with stabilised gunsight that basically worked like this:
you aim (sight is stabilised, so it’s steady, which isn’t a problem in WT, but way a huge problem IRL), press fire, once gun gets onto target it fires.

So essentialy, it couldn’t fire accurately on the move, but it could omit the whole “stop and wobble” part.
Yeah, at 6.3 or 6.7 this gun would be very underwhelming, but such is life when the nation you’re playing had no tungsten and only developed proper HEAT slingers by the end of the war, none of which were mounted onto tanks (PAW1000 essentialy would fit in Pz IV, now imagine what would fit on Panther, haha)

[Bowman_1]

It really, really is just a skill issue.

Again:

Good tanks = forgiving and easy = people play lazier, perform worse overall.

Bad tanks = difficult to succeed with = people play more attentively, perform better overall

Germany all the way from reserve to 6.7 is a meatball of tanks that have good armour, good mobility and lolpen cannons. I got my first nuke earlier this week using only the Panther II(and coelian for the final 1-2 kills).

They’re primary APHE users and one of the biggest benefactors given their high-pen guns with filler, secondary to Russia.

Their CAS is not the most oppressive compared to other nations but is pretty good with Ju-288/2500kg’s, etc.

Trust me man, it really is just a skill issue. Play your German tanks and 6.7’s less as linebreakers and more as snipers.

[Loofah]

@Bowman_1

good armour,

Outside of decent TDs like Jp IV and Hetzer, both of which being super easy to strafe or flank, what German tanks have good armor? At 5.0 VK has decent armor, comparable to M4 Sherman with 80mm thick turret weakspots, and 0 traverse, it’s still OK and belongs at 5.3. At 5.3 you have Panther D, now this one is good, but it has no lineup, and is essentialy a TD. Both have weak sides and thin top armor that loves CAS. Also they have no reverse to speak of. Everything else is glass cannon. Toughest German low tier tank, Pz IIIN, gets frontally penetrated by reserve tanks simply by aiming at the middle of the turret.
And guess what - it also takes out goddamn transmission.

You know, who has good armor at 3.3, 3.7, 4.0?
US, UK, Soviet Union and everyone with Shermans or T-34s.
Germany has awkwardly handling glass cannons that tech you one thing - stay back, hide.

Then at 6.0 Germany has armored tanks with actual lineup and turret traverse - but it has 0 mobility, while everyone else has fast moving vehicles with strong guns which means - yeah, you get scouted and shot from multiple directions before you get anywhere.
M18s slow you down, then heavy hitters arrive. Tiger at 6.0 is superior to IS-1 at 5.7, but IS-1 can move freely into position, while Tiger has to hide.

@Bowman_1

Bad tanks = difficult to succeed with = people play more attentively, perform better overall

Then why do I win with US and feel like it’s the EZ mode?

[Normandy_Corsair]

@Loofah

Then why do I win with US and feel like it’s the EZ mode?

Personal anecdote and bias…

[Bowman_1]

@Loofah

, what German tanks have good armor

VK, all panther, T1, KT(even P now), Ferdinand armour is ok but not something you should rely on, Elefant is great, pz.bf.wg, Panther II, Maus, and Pz III-IV have decent armour for their BR’s and great guns.

@Loofah

Both have weak sides and thin top armor that loves CAS.

Welcome to basically every tank that isn’t Russian.

@Loofah

Toughest German low tier tank, Pz IIIN, gets frontally penetrated by reserve tanks simply by aiming at the middle of the turret.

Can you show a recording of this?

@Loofah

And guess what - it also takes out goddamn transmission.

Overperforming APHE but community rejected nerfs

@Loofah

US, UK, Soviet Union and everyone with Shermans or T-34s.

as germany you should have no problem killing any of these tanks, and the only tanks at that tier with decent armour from those nations is the KV-1, churchill and an american one I forget the name of. T-34’s just conveniently benefit the most from volumetric hellholes

@Loofah

Then at 6.0 Germany has armored tanks with actual lineup and turret traverse - but it has 0 mobility, while everyone else has fast moving vehicles with strong guns which means - yeah, you get scouted and shot from multiple directions before you get anywhere.

it’s just not true, KT/jagdtiger engines got nerfed but they don’t have bad mobility at all. you are playing a very heavy tank, with this in mind the mobility is good. you won’t have exceptional speed and this is shared amongst heavy tanks in every nation. only the panthers have good turret traverse but you should be playing back and taking advantage of the trolly mantlet and high velocity gun.

@Loofah

M18s slow you down, then heavy hitters arrive. Tiger at 6.0 is superior to IS-1 at 5.7, but IS-1 can move freely into position, while Tiger has to hide.

again the tiger 1 is an amazing tank but people have the expectation that ‘heavy tank = invincible’ and should be able to hold W into the middle of the map while tanking everything. pretty much only the maus can do that, Tiger 1 should be staying at distance and angling - it has a better gun than the IS-1, IS-1/2’s armour is basically paper.

@Loofah

Then why do I win with US and feel like it’s the EZ mode?

Because U.S. tanks at 6.0-6.7 are some of the most busted in the game

[Loofah]

@Bowman_1

VK, all panther, T1, KT(even P now), Ferdinand armour is ok but not something you should rely on, Elefant is great, pz.bf.wg, Panther II, Maus, and Pz III-IV have decent armour for their BR’s and great guns.

And which one of these is 3.3 or 3.7 or even 4.7?
VK has OK armor for 5.0, though it’s comparable to M4 Sherman which sits at 4.0
Panthers at 6.0 are essentialy heavy tanks, their armor is nothing special with huge turret weakspot.
Ferdinand is a bad tank overal.

Pz III-IV have decent armour for their BR

Again:

And Pz IV gets lolpenned by Swedish SPAA truck from 500m away.

Pz IV is basically less protected than M5A1 Stuart or M3 Less.
PZ III in its fully armored state is still 1-shot by M4, though at least it can be tricky to pen with US 37mm above 300m. M4 laughs at German 5cm at longer range

Though it is surprisingly resistant to getting lol-penned by T-34 with early APHEBC, so there’s that.
On the other hand, T-34 is very tough to kill using 50mm, so it works both ways.

So yeah, Pz IIIM (because N has huge mantlet weakspot) is OK armored. That’s one tank in a sea of glass cannons. One tank that then meets M4A3 105 and can’t do anything to it.

[Miragen]

KT105 is just a sidegrade KT but a higher BR for some reason, even after the recent massive nerf it still sits at 7.0 even though it lost the one redeeming factor, guess not the right vibes for it to be lowered.

Panther ll sits at a pointless BR, Coelian just got uptiered as well, but at least for the first time since the launch of the game, the Kugelblitz sits at a usable BR with a fixed turret rotation, although the ammo is still nerfed and it still has some fake nerfed filler belt where 2/3 shots in an AP belt is HE, which seems to be a nerf that only exists for German belts.

Ho229 also still only has 2/4 HVAP in it’s HVAP belt, at least the artificial gun spread seems to have been fixed? Also a nerf that I only see on German vehicles.

Soviet M53/59 has no problem getting a full HVAP belt on it’s 30mm cannon, 91mm pen vs 77mm as I guess the Germans were idiots who couldn’t make good ammo or fill an entire belt with AP.

Even it’s stock belt is 50% HVAP opposed to the German dedicated AP belt only 33%.

[Loofah]

@Bowman_1

don’t have bad mobility at all

Yeah, not bad at all. The reference point is what exactly? A dead snail?
Jumbo Pershing has noticeably better power to weight nowadays.

Because U.S. tanks at 6.0-6.7 are some of the most busted in the game

Try US 3.3 or 3.7 or 4.0. Bullying 4.7 Soviet heavies with 4.0 Sherman is hilarious.

as germany you should have no problem killing any of these tanks

Except they have even less of a problem killing you. Shermans kill you while firing on the move aiming center mass, lol. You have to aim at weakspots, especially at range, vs T-34 shooting hull means risk of it being T-34E or hitting hatch or MG port which bounces a lot.
Pz IV at 3.7 has some armor, but if aiming mostly consists of shooting at big flat turret weakspot.
OR glacis weakspot. It’s almost always 1-shot, while T-34 or M4 turret shot is usually only half the job done.

And you can’t angle, while M4 at 1000m start doing weird stuff. And M4 at any kind of uneven terrain will bounce at much lower distance.
Lets add tiniest bit of angle (that will not help Pz IV):

And then lets add - Pz IV has worse mobility than KV-1 L11, which can shoot Pz IV through the turret at any distance and 1-shot it.
Here is a penetrating shot vs KV-1 “weakspot”:

But at low tier the biggest seal-clubber is USA, Soviets are way more balanced, because their guns have super low pen, which makes them OK vs Germany, but pain vs US and A.

@Miragen

KT105 is just a sidegrade KT but a higher BR for some reason, even after the recent massive nerf it still sits at 7.0

It still 1-shots, just a bit less reliably. At least the pen got higher, so it’s not that bad, it got better at lolpenning US heavies, so at least there’s some consolation prize.

[Normandy_Corsair]

@Loofah

VK has OK armor for 5.0, though it’s comparable to M4 Sherman which sits at 4.0

Simply false. It’s clear you will state things that aren’t true, blatantly, to attempt to give your points credit.

[QTip_44]

@Loofah

VK has OK armor for 5.0, though it’s comparable to M4 Sherman which sits at 4.0

M4A1 (76) sits at 5.0 if I’m not mistaken…