How to improve your tank

This post will cover how to improve your tank. I will use the tier VIII German heavy tank Löwe as an example, since it seem to be a popular premium tank for newcomers. Remember: Tier VIII is very different than tier I to III!

The Löwe isn’t a very easy tank to play, due to it’s low rate of fire, it’s low speed and it’s obvious weak spots.

Löwe, German tier VIII premium heavy tank

Once your crew reaches 100% base skill, the Löwe will fire 5 rounds per minute, which will give an average damage per minute of 1.600. (As long as you both hit and damage your opponent.) This is a very low number, but here is how you can increase it:

• Getting Brothers in arms as a perk on all your crew members. This will give 5% improvement on all qualifications.
• Mounting ventilation. This will give 5% improvement on all qualifications.
• Mounting a Gun Rammer. This will give 10% improvement on reload time, by decreasing reload time.
• Using a consumable. For German vehicles you can use Chocolate. This will give 10% improvement on all qualifications. This is, however, not recommended on a vehicle like the Löwe, where your normal equipment should be a repair kit, a first aid kit and a fire extinguisher (since it has got a 20% chance of being set on fire).

Let’s see how this will affect your DPM. All these values are fetched from tanks.gg:

1. Base DPM: 1.668,57 (this really should be 1.600, but I don’t know how tanks.gg calculates this number)
2. Brothers in arms: 1.706,29 (2,2% improvement compared to line 1.)
3. Ventilation: 1.706,29 (2,2% improvement compared to line 1)
4. Gun rammer: 1.853,97 (10% improvement compared to line 1)
5. Chocolate: 1.744 (4,5% improvement compared to line 1)
6. Brothers in arms + Ventilation: 1.744 (4,5% improvement compared to line 1)
7. Brothers in arms + Ventilation +  Gun rammer: 1.937,78 (16,1% improvement compared to line 1)
8. Brothers in arms + Ventilation +  Gun rammer +  Chocolate: 2.021,59 (21,2% improvement compared to line 1)

These values are estimates, and not correctly calculated. Using Brothers in arms in combination with ventilation gives a cumulative effect, which should be 5% + 5% = 10%. Based on this, the total effect of using all these ways of improving the Löwe, the DPM number in line 8 should be 2.080 (5%+5%+10%+10% =30% improvement), since these values are cumulative. (If they had been additive, it would have been  2.134,44, since 1,05*1.05*1,1*1,1*1.600 = 2.134,44.)

The only one of these improvements that only affects DPM is the gun rammer. All the other elements also improve the Major Qualifications of the entire crew and in any of the common Skills (Repair, Firefighting, and/or Camouflage).

Anyway: The best way to improve the tank is to play according to it’s strengths and weaknesses. The Löwe has got decent turret armor, although there are weak spots. It has a very accurate gun and high penetration, and the side armor of the hull makes it a decent sidescraping tank. So you should hide your hull and you can use it for sniping, but in tier VIII battles you can’t camp in the base…

Understanding secondary skills

Secondary crew skills

Secondary skills
When your basic crew skills reaches 100%, you can add secondary skills. These are specific skills, adapted to the role of the crew member. For instance, you can choose “Off road driving” for the driver. This will increase the speed of the tank on difficult terrain, by reducing the terrain resistance, by up to 10%. Your tank will then go faster in swamps, and accelerate faster on grass, among others.

Some secondary skills are effective from the moment the skill level is increased (more than 0%). Others do need to achieve 100% before they are effective. These last ones are called “perks”. In the picture you can see all crew members having the camouflage skill. This skill is effective from 1%. But do remember that the effect increases with the skill level. 1% camouflage skill has (almost) no effect.

In addition, the skills that can be chosen for all crew members, will increase their effect when all crew members have them. When five crew members have 78% percent camouflage skills, the average camouflage skill level is exactly that; 78%. If one crew member in a five crew tank has 100% camouflage skill, and the four others have no camouflage skill, the overall tank camouflage “level” is (0% + 0% + 0% + 0% + 100%)/5 = 20%

Which skill is the best?
There is not one single best skill. This depends on the type of tank your crew is assigned to, and the role on the battlefield. This topic will be covered later. But to simplify the overall picture, I will recommend the following:

• A heavy tank needs repairing tracks and damaged modules. When you get shot in the tracks, you do not want to remain standing still to long. The basic skills ensure some repairing skills, but adding repair to a heavy tank crew is wise. The heavy tanks should usually be in front of the field, and they are therefore vulnerable to damages where repair skills can speed up the repairing process. A heavy tank crew needs more skills, but repairs is a place to start.
• On a medium (and on a light) tank crew, there are – in my opinion – three types of skills that are useful: 1) Off-road driving (increase speed and acceleration) and clutch braking (increase the speed the tank can turn), 2) Snap shot (how fast you can aim and shoot after rotating your turret)  3) Sixth sense (you will get a warning signal 3 seconds after you have been spotted). These skills (and perks) are useful because medium tanks have a lot less armour than heavy tanks, so they are vulnerable.
• On a tank destroyer, I will recommend camouflage, snap shot and sixth sense. Most tank destroyers are vulnerable, and remaining unspotted (not discovered by enemy tanks) is vital.

Managing secondary skills
When you right click on one of your crew members, you can see what skills and perks can be assigned to the different members of your crew. Take some time to consider what role your tank will have on the battlefield, and chose your secondary skill accordingly.

When you first secondary skill is at 100%, you can add another secondary skill, but this will take even longer to increase. You will need more than 210.000 XP to go from 0% to 100% on your first secondary skill. To go from 0% to 100% on your second secondary skill, you will need twice that amount of XP, namely more than 420.000 XP.

Dropping skills

If you would like to change the skill of a crew member, you can retrain him. If you do not want to spend gold, you will have to use 20.000 ingame credits to retrain, but you lose 10% of the overall skill level. Be aware: 10% of the total skill level does not equal 10%-points of your secondary skill. If you have two secondary skills, and the second secondary skill is at 10%, the new skill level after retraining will be reduced so that all of your second secondary skill disappears. You will need about 40% on your second secondary skill to not have it disappear. When you right click on one of your crew members, you will see a button called “Drop”. When you click on the button, you will then be able to see the new skill level. Remember that perks have to be at 100% skill level to be effective.