Configuring Your Tank

Equipping Your Tank

For tanks and tank destroyers, upgrading the engine and suspension probably receives the highest priority on my list. These improve maneuverability and along with it, your survivability and combat ability. For artillery, I seldom play as arty anyway, but I’d prefer the gun upgrade over engine and suspension.

Upgrading the gun gets the next priority along with the necessary turret. When choosing which gun to equip your tank, important factors are the gun tier, caliber (mm) and rate of fire. Generally I’d choose a higher tier gun, with bigger caliber, higher penetration and damage properties, but if the rate of fire is too slow, I might just opt for a smaller, faster, quick firing gun. But generally, always choose a gun with a higher tier.

If you’re wondering what do those numbers mean on your gun configuration, then here’s a quick explanation.

Average damage: 125/125/185
Average penetration: 118/158/39mm

The three numbers correspond to the damage and penetration properties based on the type of ammunition used. The first number corresponds to AP ammo - the second is APCR, and the third is HE.

The figure is shown as an average. Click on the ammunition to display the minimum and maximum values.

The damage value is between 94-156. And penetration capability is between 89-148 mm. The average is simply the average of the minimum and maximum values (94+156/2 = 125) and (89+148/2 = 118).

There’s also a gun tier shown in Roman numerals. Though I’m not exactly sure how the gun tier works, but I use it as a rough guide to mean the gun’s effectiveness against tanks of the same tier.

For example, the Leopard armed with a 5cm KwK 39 L/60 is a tier III gun, and hence effective against Tier III tanks. And the Marder II with 76mm Pak 35 is a tier V gun, and I use it to estimate that it can effectively penetrate a tier V tank’s armor. This applies only to tanks in the main center tree because light tanks, TDs and artillery have much thinner armor, and I use it only as a rough guide.

My radio gets the lowest priority, unless the range is extremely short (below 350 meters). Radio however is very important if you want to play a scouting role.

Ammunition

Unless playing as artillery, armor piercing (AP) is going to be the main ammunition. Besides that I load up on HE ammo, usually in an 80:20 (AP:HE) ratio.

HE shells can be used against Heavy tanks when AP shells just won't penetrate. HE effectivess is also not modified by distance, so they're pretty good when firing from long distance. Accurately speaking, HE shells don't need to penetrate, but they do damage by the shockwave (spalling) effect of the explosion on the armor. This shockwave travels to the inside of the tank, causing damage to equipment and injury to crew.

In some ways, I also feel HE has been overrated. Although the doctrine says light tanks should use HE when shooting at heavies, but through experience, I've found HE to be almost just as useless. And funnily too, my gunner tells me the shot caused critical damage, but the health percentage stayed the same. "Critical damage" as explained by the developer means damage to component or injury to crew. But shouldn't that also reduce the hit points? I notice that you can also break a vehicle's track, but it'd still lose no hit points. Maybe the devs will fix this later.

Although I’ve tried premium ammunition (APCR), but somehow have found the results quite disappointing. It claims to be able to penetrate between 98 to 163 mm of armor, but when I hit a T-43 (level VII) and IS (level VII) at point blank range, technically it should penetrate, but it did squat instead. After a few tries, I gave up on premium ammo.

Optional Modules

The next six slots are for optional equipment. The first three slots are for modules mounted on the tank and the next three are for consumables.

The price for optional modules can be quite steep, and some modules once mounted, cannot be transferred to another tank. You’d simply lose the module if you remove it, or sell the tank. These un-mountable modules also don’t carry any resale value.

However my overall favorite would be the camo net, and binoculars. The camo net reduces your visibility to enemies by 25% and the binocular increases your sight by 25%. These attributes take effect only if you’re stationary, and you need to give it some time for the effect to kick in.

Although the bino gives you a 25% increase sight range, it does not mean that you can see through rocks or underneath hills. You’d still need a line of sight to detect the enemy.

The camo and bino goes very well with artillery and TD, and best of all, they can be transferred to another tank. On light and medium tanks that tend to move around a lot, I’d use the glass optics (+10% sight increase) and repair toolbox instead.

Besides that I also like the spall liner. Its non unmountable, and if not for the high price, I’d put this on every tank I own. The spall liner is very important because it provides 15% more resistance against HE shells. Now how many times have you been shelled by artillery? Annoying, I know. I certainly had my fair share, so the spall liner comes in handy there.

Among the consumables, as the name suggests, they are “use once” items. The mini repair kit is cheap (3000 credits) and very handy, especially on heavy tanks. It allows you to repair a damaged module for 2 minutes during a battle. Its especially useful for repairing a damaged engine which would otherwise slow you down a lot.

I’ve not tried with the rest, but surely they have their uses too.