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…

Equipment for medium tanks

I have covered equipment for heavy tanks, for tank destroyers and for light tanks and artillery earlier. Now, it’s time for medium tanks. It is kind of difficult to choose one set of equipment for all medium tanks, both because not all tanks can fit all equipment, and because it depends on your play style. But I’ll give it a try.

1. First: If your tank can fit a vertical stabilizer, use it. Your gun will be much more accurate, and your aim time will decrease. However not all medium tanks can fit one.
2. All medium tanks can fit ventilation, and it is a good all round equipment to fit.

These two are easy to choose. But what about the rest? Here, I can only suggest you choose from the following:

• Coated optics, which increase your view range by 10%, to give you an advantage compared to especially heavy tanks.
• Or you could choose binocular telescope. I have mounted them on my Cromwell, and it works quite well, especially in the beginning of a match.
• A gun rammer will come in handy, to reduce your loading time by 10%.
• Last, you can also consider an enhanced gun laying drive, especially on some russian mediums with a long aim time, like the A-44.
• On a lightly armored medium you may actually find that a camo net can be useful, be not very often, since mobility is a strength that medium tanks should take advantage of.

A-44

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.

Equipment for heavy tanks

I recently wrote about the equipment you should use on light tanks and arty. Here, I will describe equipment to use on a heavy tank.  First, you should decide on whether you want to keep the tank or if you want to sell it when the next one is unlocked, because this should affect how you want to equip your tank.

If you want to keep them, you should mount the following:

1. Ventilation (“vents”) – always mount ventilation on tanks that can use this equipment. All heavys can, I believe.
2. Gun rammer – decreases reload time by 10%.
3. Vertical stabilizer – if you mount it, do. This will increase your accuracy and decrease your aiming time.
4. Enhanced gun laying drive – decreases your aiming time by 10%.

Vents

If you do not want to keep the tank, mount the following:

1. Ventilation – always mount ventilation on tanks that can use this equipment. All heavys can, I believe. I would mount this also on tanks I do not want to keep, even if it costs 10 gold to remove it.
2. Tool box – 25% faster repairs. Since heavy tanks get tracked a lot, this one is very useful. And you can move it to a different tank without cost.
3. Binocular telescope – increases your view range by 25% when stationary, when you have stopped for 3 seconds. This is only partially recommended, but you can move it to a different tank for free.  And you should use all three equipment slots. It’s better to use telescope in the third slot than leaving it empty.
4. If you absolutely want to avoid paying 10 gold to remove ventilation, you only have one more type of equipment you can use, and that is camouflage net. On a heavy tank this isn’t very useful, even if it increases the tanks camo value by 5%.