Final day of October, so I've figured I might as well put up one last post before we enter November. The tank for today's post will be the "Other-Löwe"... the Tier X German Heavy Tank; the Panzer Kampfwagen VII, or it's in-game name the Pz.Kpfw. VII.
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| The "Reverse Löwe", another one of it's many nicknames... |
Does this tank look familiar to any of you? Well, that's because it's the VK 72.01 (K)... or as I call it, the "VKK". The only difference is that the VKK is a Clan Wars Reward vehicle, it's pretty rare and hard to get. But the Pz.Kpfw. VII is a "regular" version that has been introduced into the game several months back to be the new Tier X for the VK Heavy Line, as the Maus has it's own lower tiers to create a mini tank branch.
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| The OG before the clone arrived... |
These tanks in the Maus line consists of two new vehicles for Tier VIII and IX. They are the VK 100.01 (P) and the Mäuschen, but we aren't here to talk about those tanks...
But that ain't the only difference between the regular and Clan Wars Reward versions... besides having different names, it also doesn't share the same gun between each other. The Pz.Kpfw. VII uses a gun similar to that the top gun the Jagdtiger uses, albeit with less penetration and a rather long reload time. So one is a mobile E100, and the other is somewhere in between the Maus and E100 as it has armor and a sniper-like gun.
But before we go even further discussing about the tank... some replays! One of the first replays before I've decided to put camouflage on it.
That bit of trouble at the end there... was lucky that an AMX 50B was around to help with those two...
Anyways from the replay above, you can clearly see that it has the same strong turret as the Löwe... probably even better. It's alpha damage is nothing to scoff at as it dishes out 560 average DMG, but suffers the long reload time of around 16-14 seconds depending on what you equipments your tank has and what crew perks you have.
Anyways, next replay...
Helping out a fellow T95 in breaking through enemy lines. Well, not really breaking through as they was barely anyone there...
Armor on this vehicle is reliable, but it still has a rather large cupola and that infamous weak 'fighting compartment'...
What do I mean by this? Well, whenever this tank side-scrapes, it's turret-hull area can still be seen... as it's rounded and rather flat. Not to mention that it doesn't have a lot of armor there, either... which makes side-scraping in the vehicle rather problematic.
But, no matter! I've found a solution to that problem, and the next video shows exactly that.
Have you figured it out yet? No? Well then, let me tell you what the "solution" is...
Simple 'front-angling'. I'm not even joking...
You see, the upper frontal plate is 240mm thick, and the lower frontal plate is 230mm thick... plus the 'middle armor strip' [the flat section between the upper and lower plate] is about 300mm. What you got there is thick armor that can easily be turned into auto-bounce when angled properly.
Imagine playing this tank as if you're driving the AMX M4 49... you can angle in it, but don't overdo it or your sides will be shot.
You see it happen with the multiple E100 HEAT rounds that hit me in the replay above. The only thing you need to worry is when you face enemies with more than 340mm of penetration, be it premium or regular ammo... like for example; a Jagdpanzer E100's HEAT round of 420mm penetration.
Like a freaking laser cannon when it uses the 420 round...
But as I've stated, there's only so much you can angle in it before your sides can be seen. Either that, or they'll just shoot you in your tracks... and that might do damage and track you at the same time.
Funny how a tank that's designed to be a natural side-scraper can't side-scrape as it's turret hull compartment is a weakspot when you try to do that... There was the FV215b that has the same problem as this tank, but it's no longer obtainable.
Also another funny thing is how this tank looks. Those boxes at the sides make the tank look like some sort of elephant... but to be fair, they needed to differentiate the way the two tank looks anyway, otherwise it gets tricky.
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| To be fair, the only way it looks different from the VKK is the gun... |
I prefer how it looks like when it first entered the game. Much better... and if you ask me, they could just place those boxes at the hull sides instead... effectively covering the weak turret hull compartment like what they did with the FV215b 183.
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| Another side-scraper that can't side-scrape. *sigh* |
But whatever... what's done is done.
So, to sum it all up; it's a VK 72.01 (K) with a different gun. Almost every other stat is the same and it's a regular tank, so you can research and buy it instead of earning it in Clan Wars. No E100 gun for the regular version, but I sorta prefer it that way as it reloads faster and has higher penetration for the normal ammo... so it's kinda like the Löwe, but at Tier X and tank designs got changed slightly.
Pros of the vehicle is that it has superb armor at the front of the hull and turret and a rather good gun in terms of regular ammo penetration and chunky damage it can deal per shot. Moves slightly faster than the E100, so that's a mention too. The cons? Well, it's bad at side-scraping due to obvious reasons. There's the usual cupola weakspot and the gun takes quite some time to reload and aim. Oh, and being a rear-mounted tank, you can get flanked pretty easily at the worst possible outcome; getting tracked with no way of shooting back.
So like I said, it's like the Löwe. Except in addition to usual sniper tactics, the tank trades side-scraping for frontal angling. A fair trade, I guess.
At first I sorta regretted getting this tank 'cause y'know... can't side-scrape and all that. But after noticing that the frontal armor is almost the same for the upper and lower plate, it became a monster. Gun reload and aim time is still bad, but hey... better penetration and DMG! Plus, now I effectively have two Löwe's!
And that's all for this post. The next one will most likely be on the Halloween event... should be about 4 of them to gather and everything's good to go. So until then, I'll be taking my leave. So stay tuned.
-Panzer Fist-
