There are nine tier VII tank destroyers in World of tanks (by patch 9.13):
SU-100M1
SU-152
Jagdpanther
Sturer Emil
T25 AT
T25/2
AMX AC mle. 46
AT 7
Challenger
I have played all of these, except the AT 7. It plays in a similar way to all the heavy british TD’s, so I have a pretty good idea what it’s like. When you look at at the characteristics of these tanks, they are quite different. The AT 7 is slow with very thick armor, the SU-152 has got a derp gun capable of killing tier VI tanks with a single shot, the SU-100M1 has got a ridiculous high rate of fire, while the T25/2 and Challenger has got turrets. The Jagdpanther, T25 AT and AMX AC are more “middle of the road”. Continue reading →
Premium tanks are tanks you can buy for gold or for real money on the World of tanks website. They only have one standard set of modules, so you cannot unlock better modules than the ones they have when you buy it. The generate a lot of in game credits per victory, the increase in crew experience is higher, and you can put a crew from a different tank in it, as I explain below.
In my opinion, they are in some ways worse then their closest “sibling”. Take the Russian heavy tank IS-6 at tier VIII. It is in many ways similar to the one of the other standard Russian heavy tanks at tier VIII, the IS-3. However, there are several differences:
The gun on the IS-6 only has far worse penetration, at 175 mm, versus 225 mm on the best gun on the IS-3
The rate of fire is better, at 5,13 shots per minute, against 4,51 at the IS-3
The IS-6 has a lower top speed, at 35 kph, versus 38 kph with the IS-3
The armor is weaker, at least on paper, but in reality the difference is negligible
To make a long story short: The premium tanks have distinct weaknesses and strengths and have to be played accordingly. Take the “Dicker Max” as an example: It is slow, has a long reload time, but the gun depression is great, and the gun is quite good. A very popular premium tank is the german E25. It is very fast and has an excellent camo rating (is difficult to spot behind bushes). The gun has decent penetration and high rate of fire, but it has a low alpha damage (the number of health points the enemy loses per hit).
However: The point of using premium tanks is – besides getting more in game credits per battle – to increase crew skills on the crew from another tank. If you buy the IS-6 and also have the IS-3, both Russian heavy tanks, you can play a match in the IS-3 and get the “daily double” for the first win of the day. Then you can move the crew to the IS-6 and get the daily double on that tank as well.
You must NEVER put a designated crew in premium tanks. ALWAYS use a crew from one of your non premium tanks of the same type and nationality. You can mix crew from different tanks and put them in your premium tank, as long as they are of the same type and nationality.
Remember that playing in higher tiers is very different from playing in lower tiers. If you are new to the game, and have reached tier 3 or 4, buying a tier VIII heavy like the IS-6 or the German “Löwe”, you have to play in a completely different way than you do in a tier 3 medium tank. If you do not know what “sidescraping” is, for instance, you should probably not buy the IS-6 or the Löwe.
The way I use premium tanks is as I have described above. In addition, I often use premium tanks directly after buying a new tank. I recently bought the SU-152, a standard tier VII Russian tank destroyer. The crew was moved over from the tier VI SU-100. When you start playing a new tank, it is most often stock, unless one or more of the modules used on it has been unlocked in a different tank. Therefore, the tank is not as good as it “should” be, and performs significantly worse then when all modules are unlocked. I had a couple of matches in it to see what it was like, and decided I needed to increase the basic crew skills from 90% to 100% to decrease loading time, aiming time and so on. So I put the crew in my premium tier V Russian tank destroyer, the SU-85i, and played a number of matches until the crew had reached 100% basic skills. Then I put them back in the SU-152 and started to grind this tank.
Another way of using premium tanks to increase crew skills, is what I did with the Sturer Emil and the Jagdpanther, both tier VII German tank destroyers. Both of these two tanks have a crew of 5 (commander, gunner, radio operator, driver, loader), and this is also the type of crew that fits in the Dicker Max, premium tier VI German tank destroyer. On days where I wanted to grind one or both of these two tanks, I first played a match in the Dicker Max and got the daily double. I always put the worst crew member, position by position, from both the Emil and the JPanther in my Dicker Max: The worst of the two drivers, the worst of the two gunners, and so on. Soon I had very decent crews in both tanks, long before I had unlocked then next tanks.
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