I think most seasoned players are aware that WW2-era US-built tanks (both in the US tech tree and US built tanks in other tech trees) lost their stock APHE round on most vehicles sometime around a year ago. This means that most 75mm, 76mm, and 90mm armed tanks are stock-grinding with either uncapped solid shot, or APCR. The only exception I found was the M6A1/T1E1 heavy tanks that had stock APHE.
What I found interesting is that the situation was almost the exact opposite for Russian tanks, BR 1.0-6.7. Most Russian tanks, using the 45mm, 57mm, 76mm, 85mm and 100mm are given APHE - capped APHE, at that - stock! No grinding required. But interestingly, the solid shot round is an unlockable for these vehicles, just like it used to be for American tanks. But now most US tanks have solid shot as the stock round. The only exception I could find was the ASU-57 which, like most US tanks, has solid shot as the stock round.
Why does this double standard exist? Why not give back the APHE shell to US tanks? I know that, in typical Gaijin fashion, you will instead do the “monkey paw” response and take away stock APHE from Russian tanks, but really, at these low BRs, APHE should be the stock shell for all nations that can equip it. It makes no sense to give one nation preferential treatment like this.
Most other countries either don’t have a solid shot shell (Japan, Germany) on most tanks, or don’t have APHE available (Germany, France), you clown.
It’s a double standard when one country has to research APHE and one doesn’t, both historically having used solid shot, but one country has their APHE taken away (US) and one doesn’t (Russia).
Probably because Sweden and Britain both don’t have HEAT rounds they could be forced to use as a stock round?
THAT is my point. Russia and the US BOTH HAVE A HISTORICAL SOLID SHOT SHELL BUT ONLY ONE HAS TO GRIND WITH IT WHEN STOCK.
The situation sucks for Britain and France, but most of their historical shells were solid shot, you can’t go back in time and change that. What we need is a substantial buff to solid shot for those nations.
It may have to do with the fact that american tankers weren’t supplied with APHE shells until later in the war, but i could be wrong aswell. i have no idea on russias part
I will guess you don’t know that either, but you have just pre-emptively blamed it all on evil russian bias.
OK, so what is the explanation?
Seriously, if someone can explain it coherently instead of blindly defending the devs I will gladly accept it. Why do almost all Russian tanks in the WW2 brackets have stock APHE, but most American tanks, whether they’re in the US tech tree or in other tech trees, don’t have APHE stock, and have to grind with solid shot?
Messing with which things are stock or not is just another balancing tool instead of purely using BR. The thing that needs to be balanced at the end of the day is match results, and the fact of the matter is, most people drive not-fully-spaded tanks. So spading flow is relevant to balance either way, and you can use it to balance just like BR.
I don’t really see much of a pro OR a con to using one or the other, frankly, for the average player.
For tryhards who hang out on the forums and have thousands of battles, like us, nerfing something by nerfing the stock round is probably actually BETTER for us than doing it by BR, because we are the sort of people who will spade and actually keep using a tank a bunch later, so the nerf stops applying to us, unlike BR nerfs instead.
But aren’t BRs based on the tank’s performance when spaded?
I don’t recall them ever stating that.
If they are, they SHOULDN’T be, because that would lead to a bad, imbalanced game. When real life matches are full of tons of un-spaded vehicles, if your matchmaker is trying to balance on fantasy data that assumes everyone is spaded, then it will fail to balance correctly in real life.
In case you haven’t noticed, the majority of researchable rounds have a higher penetration. Could this be the case? As in, the starter shell for the T-34 F-34 has 87mm penetration, 150g tnt equivalent, the unlockable shell is 96mm penetration, 100g tnt, I know what one I’d rather have, and it isn’t the stock shell.
That’s not even remotely true for RU tanks which already have a good stock APHE shell. You go from a good shell to a great one there; with most US tanks it’s going from a terrible solid shot round to a great APHE shell.
Please actually look at the shells russian tanks have on the 45mm, 76mm etc. The stock shells are already 90% of the way there.
You realize that you go from a good shell to a great one, ok, so you agree you have to unlock the better shell?
Yes, they are good, look at the Firefly, that get’s a great shell, then you upgrade to an amazing shell. Look at the Tiger, you go from a great shell, to an amazing shell. America isn’t getting worse treatment than other countries, the devs aren’t biased towards Russia, deal with it.
I’m starting to think the people who automatically go to “stop accusing them of bias” are trying to hide something. I’m just asking for the tanks that have APHE as an unlock-able option to get it stock, the SAME as Russian tanks. That’s it. That’s all I’m asking for. I’m not asking for anything to be taken away from anyone.
You’re the one who wants American tanks to have their best round stock, AMERICAN TANK STOCK GRIND IS PERFECTLY FINE. There is nothing wrong about it. You don’t need APHE to do well