Equipment for tank destroyers

I have covered equipment for heavy tanks and equipment for arty and light tanks earlier. Here, I will cover equipment for tank destroyers (“TDs”). There are basically to different types of TDs, and equipment choices will vary between the two types. Let’s do the TDs with a turret first.

TDs with a turret

TDs with a turret have less armor than those with a fixed gun (no turret), at least in the mid tier range. (Compare the two tier V British TDs AT 2 and the Archer, or the tier VII american TDs T25 AT and T25/2.) Some, like my favorite tier V TD, the T67, have absolutely no armor, and therefore, they should remain unspotted for as much of the battle as possible. TDs generally have a low view range. These factors have an impact on my recommended equipment choices for low and middle tier TDs with a turret.

1. A camouflage net is a must. Take the T67 as an example: It is very mobile, but the turret traverse speed is very low. You should not use it for close combat, but should keep your enemies on a distance, and remain unspotted. Choose camouflage for your first crew skill, and use a camouflage net. Since you can rotate your turret, you don’t have to move your tank to aim at the enemy tanks, and your camouflage net will remain active until you move your tank.
2. If your TD can fit ventilation, use it, especially on tanks you plan to keep. Ventilation improves almost all of your crews skills by 5 percent, like aiming and loading faster, for instance. Only a few turreted TDs can fit ventilation, however.
3. Binoculars improve your view range by 25 percent, after your tank has been stationary for at least 3 seconds, and is quite useful, obviously. I even use them on my tier 8 TD, the Charioteer, due to it’s almost non-existent armor. If your play style is more aggressive, consider coated optics instead, which gives you 10 percent increased view range at all times, also when you are on the move. You can also use coated optics in combination with binoculars.
4. If you cannot mount ventilation, you should choose between enhanced gun laying drive and a gun rammer. If the rate of fire is high, I would recommend a gun laying drive to decrease your aim time. Again, the T67 is a good example. It fires quite quickly, and aims quite quickly, but since the turret rotation speed is so slow, I think it’s important to decrease aim time. Since it can take a while to get your enemy in sight, I think it’s vital to aim as fast as possible. However, if your gun has a high alpha damage, but low rate of fire, you should consider the gun rammer, to increase your rate of fire. The Hellcat (tier VI american TD), is an example.

TDs without a turret

TDs without a turret have one serious flaw. If the tracks are damaged so they cannot rotate, they are defenseless. Since they (often) have more armor, the consequences of being spotted may be lower than for the turreted TDs. In my opinion, these are the best alternatives:

1. Ventilation is perhaps the best all round equipment to fit. Besides the advantages mentioned above, your crew’s repair skill is increased by 5 percent.
2. Mounting a tool box is actually a valid option, since it increases your repair speed by 25 percent. The longer you can wait before you have to use your repair kit, the better, since it can be the difference between a victory and a defeat in the final phases of the match.
3. Quite a few TDs without a turret have a narrow gun arc. The gun arc is the angle you can turn your gun from left to right without turning the whole tank. The shitty ARL V39 has only 14 degrees, while it’s predecessor, the S35 CA, has a whopping 44 degrees. When you have to rotate your tank, you have to re-aim to hit with your next shot. Therefore: On tanks with a narrow gun arc you should mount an enhanced gun laying drive to increase the accuracy.
4. The Hetzer is a popular German tier IV TD.  The funniest way to play this tank is with the “derp gun”, the 10,5 cm gun. It has a low rate of fire, so you should use a gun rammer to decrease the reload time. This is also a valid choice on all tanks with a low rate of fire, like the Russian tier VI TD SU-100.
5. Depending on your play style, you can also consider using binoculars instead of some of the equipment mentioned above.

A short introduction to some key phrases used in World of tanks

You may have discovered yourself, but there are some phrases in World of tanks that might seem a bit mysterious to a newcomer. I will explain a few of them here.

DPM: Damage per minute. This is a value describing how much damage you will do per minute, if you can fire at an opponent an both hit him AND penetrate his armor. It is a function of the number of shots you can fire per minute and how much damage each shot will do. (See “alpha damage” below.) The higher the number, the more dangerous your gun is to the enemy. However, DPM will often be a theoretical value, as you only rarely are able to shoot at an enemy before he moves, discover you and fire back, or some other enemy discover you and shoot at you. Because effective DPM requires you to penetrate the enemy, the penetration of your gun is very important, of course. Any value higher than 2.000 is good from tier III to tier VIII. At tier IX mediums the value should be 2.200 and above. At tier X medium: Any number higher than 2.400 is good.

Alpha damage: The amount of damage each of your shots will do to your enemy. This value is also depending on both hitting your enemy and penetrating his armor. At lower tiers the alpha damage is a lot less than on higher tiers, of course. Alpha damage is not a fixed amount, it varies somewhat from shot to shot, due to RNG (see below).

RNG: Random numbers generator. This is an effect incorporated in World of tanks to make it less “machine like”, I guess. It refers primarily to two aspects: Alpha damage and accuracy. On most (all?) guns in the game, the alpha damage varies from x to y hit points. All your shots that both hit and penetrate your enemy will do damage between x and y, and the “normal” damage will be the average between x and y. Some people claim that a specific gun on a specific tank is always closer to x or y, but I haven’t found any information supporting such a claim. (It is supposed to be random.) RNG also affects accuracy. When fully aimed, each shot should hit within the reticle (the circle you see when you aim). RNG means that the deviation from the center of your reticle will vary randomly.

Nerf: Nerf is a term used when Wargaming changes a tank in the game, due to statistical analysis from a large number of battles. “Nerfing” means they change the tank so it performs slightly worse on some key parameters, because it is considered an “overpowered” (“OP”) tank. Nerf is sometimes done to a single parameter, like alpha damage (see above) or to a number of parameters, like view range, speed or traverse speed, to reduce it’s impact on the battlefield.

Buff: This is the opposite of nerfing, by making a tank slightly better. I claimed a while back that the ARL V39 is the worst tier VI tank destroyer. Since then its gun has been buffed slightly. (It still is garbage, though.)

If there are any phrases you would like me to explain, tell me in the comment section below.

Best and worst tanks by tier and type – worst tier VI tank destroyer – UPDATED

There are ten tier VI tank destroyers in the game (by patch 9.2.2):

• SU-100
• Jagdpanzer IV
• Nashorn
• M18 Hellcat
• M36 Jackson
• ARL V39
• Achilles
• AT 8
• Churchill Gun Carrier
• WZ-131G FT

In my opinion, the ARL V39 is the absolutely worst of these. I’ve postponed my grind on the french TD line, simply because it’s reputation is so bad. It’s slow, has a narrow gun arc, and a low rate of fire. I hated every game I had in it. The tier IX and X french TD’s are good, but the ARL is a big bump in the road to get to the higher tiers. (EDIT: See bottom of this page for a list of changes on the ARL V39 since this post was created.)

Pros:

• Very high penetration with the 90 mm AC DCA 45 gun, with 212 mm penetration. (It works very well even in a tier VIII match.)
• Acceptable alpha damage with the 105 mm AC mle. 1930 S gun: 300 hp

Cons:

• Very narrow gun arc (+/- 7 degrees)
• Low rate of fire on all top guns
• Long aim time on all top guns (EDIT: See bottom of this page for a list of changes on the ARL V39 since this post was created.)
• Actually, everything else than the pros above is bad about this tank

The only way to get this tank to work, is if you have a long straight and flat piece of terrain in front of you, and can fire without being spotted. Good players can make any tank work well, I guess:

14 kills in an ARL V39

See all best/worst tanks here.

EDIT (January 2016):

Since this review was posted, the ARL V39 has been improved (it got a “buff”) not once, but twice!

In patch 9.8, by May 2015:

• In-motion dispersion of the ARL V39 suspension decreased by 8%
• Hull-traverse dispersion of the ARL V39 bis suspension decreased by 8%
• Aiming time of the 90mm AC DCA 45 gun for the ARL V39 turret decreased from 2.9sec. to 2.6sec.
• Dispersion on gun traverse of the 105mm AC mle. 1930 S gun decreased by 12%

In patch 9.13, by December 2015:

Suspension changes:

• Base suspension:
  • Terrain resistance – hard terrain: new 1.5, old 1.6, difference -0.1
  • Terrain resistance – medium terrain: new 1.7, old 1.8, difference -0.1
  • Terrain resistance – soft terrain: new 2.8, old 3, difference -0.2
• ARL V39 bis suspension:
  • Terrain resistance – hard terrain: new 1.4, old 1.5, difference -0.1
  • Terrain resistance – medium terrain: new 1.5, old 1.7, difference -0.2
  • Terrain resistance – soft terrain: new 2.5, old 2.7, difference -0.2

Gun changes:

• Aiming time of the 90mm AC DCA 45 gun for the ARL V39 turret decreased from 2.6sec. to 2.1sec.