A while ago I started a discussion on people’s rating of the best top tier MBTs (Your point of view on today's best high-tier and top-tier MBTs?), and the results were pretty much favoring the German Leopard 2A7V, and it’s Swedish weaker but bulkier brother Strv 122B+.
But some people enjoy pre-top tier, when the world’s best modern tanks were at their first primary stages. So I want to hear your opinions, which is the best pre-toptier tank in the game? (BR 10.0-11.3)
Among them I mainly mean those (but not all of them, feel free to tell what you think the best one is):
US: M1 Abrams
DE: Leopard 2A4
SU: T-72B series
GB: Challenger series and TTD (it’s worth adding to the list imo)
FR: AMX 40
IT: Ariete (pre-serie)
JP: Type 90
CN: ZTZ-96A
SE: Strv 121
IL: Merkava Mk.2/3
Maybe someone who played on all of them could make a tierlist (just like in previous top tier discussion)
I think the Challenger Mk3 is definetly an honourable mention for the slot if nothing else.
Half decent mobility
Good protection
Good gun depression
Fairly decent optics
L26 is actually very good for the BR
TVD and LRF
Decent fire rate
Has some flaws. like the micro ready rack and the thermals being modeled as Gen 1 not Gen 2 that they dont seem to want to fix. But is very good overall. Having the Challenger DS alongside it is also very nice. (though again, its a shame the DS doesnt get its extra armour)
Even the Challenger Mk2 at 10.3 is also well worth mentioning. Trading the L26 for L23A1 and a dozer blade isnt too bad at 10.3. Struggles a little in uptiers without the L26, but also avoids uptiers most of the time because its not pulled up to 11.7 premium spam.
not surprising Type 90 is a favorite of many, 11.3 among others and has insane reload and 2nd best mobility in the game among MBTs, felt criminal adding it but even more criminal would be having Type 74s, they are just one generation behind the rest…
Also I remembered that the T 80 U im going for is also 11.3, so I guess I can consider this 11.7 fella without it’s 3BM46, what makes it lower, a pre-toptier tank? Which should perform great in my opinion
The TTD doesn’t have as many destructible modules modelled in the turret and doesn’t have a turret basket. I’ve spaded it and also played the 2A4, I can tell the matchmaking was doing the TTD more favor in terms of downtiers.
if T-80UM2 is on your top 3 of best 11.3s, does T 80 U (the Swede) deserve the same spot? Lacks 3BM46 (a lot of people say as far as you know weakspots even 300mm pen dart is enough) and APS (outdated one), but has thermals for easier spotting… Im going for it, should I expect it to be good among other 11.3s?
The hardkill APS is actually pretty good one, it stops rockets or ATGM even spikes quite reliably as long as you look in their direction. You will survive helicopter rush and only take splash damage making spike launcher wast their very limited ammo on you
Only thing the UM2 lack is the thermals, everything is dialled in and ammo has no trouble killing anything it sees in that br, the one that has useless APS is the T-90A lol it simply doesn’t stop any types of missile in its respective br.
