Technically, all you need to perform well in any ground vehicle is adequate mobility and adequate penetration on your primary armament. You won’t need ultra high pen nor you will need armor when you always hit weakspots/flank shots before you’re hit yourself.
Merks have long and proven reputation of being mediocre tanks put at end of boring copypaste nation with no redeeming traits, so most people just avoid Israel and that was before recent flustercluck. Anyone who bothers playing this nation usually knows what he’s getting into and on average they make functional lemonade out of that lemon.
For extra funny, compare American and Taiwanese Abrams, when you remove US playerbase from the equation this tank becomes biblically accurate Abrams.
I’mma be real with you, I’ve been a Merkava main for about a year now. I consistently play the Merkava Mark 4M. I have around 4,000 kills with it and a 1.58 K/D, and I’ve noticed many inconsistencies and problems with the tank.
In your point, you are indeed correct. The spacing of the crew does help a lot when it comes to survivability and handling shots in general. It can be a strong brawler in some cases, but it is very RNG-based, especially when it comes to the engine and the front hull.
With the introduction of the LMUR the nerf to the top armor and the laser warning system not registering in many cases when it comes to the LMUR. It is clear that this missile was introduced as a direct counter to the Merkava and its APS and other types of APS.
The struggle of the armor is very real, especially in open maps, where your big size, lack of armor, and the between Russian and NATO-standard gun depression make you very exposed. Big maps usually decide the match based on who can play hull-down better, which the Merkava is lacking.
it doesn’t have the capability to be in a hull down position effectively because of its very weak turret cheeks, around 450–600 mm.
Now, why does it have a high win rate? That’s the player, not the tank. The Merkava gives you a lot of information and an amazing advantage over other players with its APS and IRST, making it almost an optional SPAA that can defend itself while fighting back.
However, its big size and weak armor make it a very challenging tank to play in many situations and it is not as forgiving as a Leopard or a T-series tank.
When you get matched with Israel, you might see one to three Merkava players max in a lobby, if you are lucky. That’s because not many players can actually use it effectively, and those who do are probably players who either invested many hours learning how to play it or are simply great players in general who know the maps very well and have a good enough reaction time and game knowledge to effectively use it’s great gun and good mobility for their advantage.
The LMURs shouldn’t trigger the LWS, the problem is that the elevation angle of the APS is around 60º (we’re so nerfed on elevation things, like the SPYDER’s radar haha). Whilst the LMURs do the top-down thingy so you can’t stop it. As a matter of fact, you can very reliably stop Brimstones but not LMURs.
And yeah, whilst Russian MBTs have an unexistent gun depression they’re agile (when it come to going forward) and their armor is also a bit RNG (but more on the good side). The “problem” with Russian tanks and their weak spot is that half the playerbase plays them so it’s basically normal to know where they are. That and starting at one point, all russian tanks have the same weak spot for like 3 ranks or something so… compared to the merkavas, where the weak spot (for the one-shot-kill) isn’t the same as many other tanks and the playerbase is a fraction of any other country… then it might be regarded as too good. Although a shot to the LFP half-cooks it.
It’s because of that that I’ve had someone shoot at me 5 rounds without decrewing me.
Not saying it matters but as far as your stats go, I don’t know how your last game activity is 20515 days ago, which is impossible.
Your name doesn’t show up on the regular stat pages, so there’s no way to verify you did any of the things you stated besides word of mouth so this is either this is a shell from your real account but whatever.
Lastly, the Merkava is more of a Support tank similar to Japan and Italy but doesn’t mean it can’t be deadly in the right hands. Japan is a glass top tier cannon, excellent mobility and best reload rate hands down but no armor however, it has the best win rate in game therefore experienced players make the difference regardless of tanks like T-Series and Leos which are just more forgiving on mistakes but in my opinion are very underwhelming when you become better at war thunder.
This tread is a massive COPE thread where stats and data don’t matter they just want buff cause bad. I’ve seen peoples stats on this thread and it makes sense and it’s okay I already said I’m not going to reply to those people. Merkavas are fine where it’s at, it has LWS, proxy round, good pen at BR 9 up to top tier since I showed them it can pen leos at top tier no problem but they don’t care. Merkavas have all the bell and whistles but lack in some departments and all nations have their pros and cons. Overall, Merkava is an excellent tank for people who play to its strengths for me personally it’s an extremely BORING tank since I love mobility, speed and power therefore Japan and USA top tier are my go to everytime. I have friends who love Russia and Germany only play to their strengths and do well. Apart from all that, the stats and data speaks for itself even if you only see 3-4 at top tier honestly, it’s just a boring tree I got so bored I just stopped completely and that’s not a gajin problem that’s just not my style of playing the game. Most online videos are either Abrams, T80s or Leos but even though Merkavas are fun their not cool and the playstyle if very… whack in my opinion.
the same thing for example with kh38 IR, there is literally no evidence they are even exist, and they’re still on the game. Overpowered for months and gaijin dgaf, so why no buff the merkavas armor.
there are a lot of grounds on internet and from current war the armor is much stronger than in game. They can do smth about it and noone can say its not cannonically cuz its classified
