World Of Tanks Common Test, 9.21 Server

About a week since the last post, but whatever...

I'm not even sure if it's worth it to install and play the World Of Tanks Common Test Server... an extra 25+ GB of space just for a 'test' server, the only servers available are the EU and of course... the RU server.

I get 250ms ping in the EU server and a whopping 380ms for the RU server! I kinda remember now why I don't install CT clients now...

But this is an exception to the rule; as when there's a vehicle [or vehicles] that I adore I will do whatever it takes to try them out as soon as possible. Of course, the lag isn't helping much...

The gold slinging is as bad as ever, but you know it's very bad when the original live server you play in feels about the same as the CT server. sigh...

So the only things I'll be going through are the new upcoming French Heavy Tanks, and that's it. No Badgers, no other shit. I can't stand that mess of a server with horrible ping and even horrible people. [especially a certain group of peeps from a certain country]

Oh, and there won't be any replays... as they don't work for some reason. I definitely won't be going the old route of "record and play" as it will most definitely screw up something. As if the server lag isn't bad enough, I do not need the game to lag on me too.

All that effort and the replays won't work... another reason why I don't use the CT client as often...

Bitching aside, it's time for the sweet new French vehicles. First up's the AMX 65t.

I've only played with the 'stock' turret and 100mm gun for this tank, as I think that's better for the Tier VIII tank. the second turret is bigger and also has a much bigger cupola weakspot. The 120mm gun is good only if you plan to play 'gold skill' mode, as it has 325 penetration for the premium APCR rounds.

The pike-nose armor is awful, only 100mm of armor. Even the 110's armor is better... and the tank has abnormally large track size, too. The tank, when set up like this, will be somewhat similar to the AMX M4 49 but with faster reload. It's gun handling is just a bit lower than the Tier VIII Premium Heavy Tank, but that's just the cost of having slightly better reload time.

Next up, it's the AMX M4 51.

A massive upgrade, but also a massive tank. This is the only vehicle among the three that I allow to switch guns, as the 'derp' addition adds an extra 70 damage without affecting the reload much. Armor is massively better than the AMX 65t, but those frontal hull "shoulders" require careful angling and those rather large cupolas are rather easy to hit...

And I say "cupolas" because there's actually two of them that you can hit, both are lightly armored. The machine-gun port at the front of the tank is not a weakspot, though.

And now, it's time for the AMX M4 54...

This tank is best played with the 120mm gun, no exceptions. The 'derp' addition does add a meaty 160 extra damage, but it's penetration is sub-par... you're better off using the Pz. Kpfw. VII if you want a tank that does chunky damge... and it has better penetration for it's gun, too.

Not to mention it's premium round is AP and only has 30mm of extra penetration only...

As from my older posts, the frontal hull "shoulders" all have 150mm of armor starting from the Premium Tier VIII all the way to Tier X, excluding the AMX 65t.

And here's the different guns they'll have... no AMX 65t in this one, though.

First up, the AMX M4 51.

AMX M4 51 120mm Gun.

AMX M4 51 127mm Gun.

Now, the AMX M4 54.

AMX M4 54 120mm Gun.

AMX M4 54 130mm Gun.

And that's all for the guns. I have plenty of other pictures though... rather than just deleting them, I'll put them up here first before doing so.

First, the front shots of the vehicles, from the Tier VIII Premium Heavy Tank to all the other variants.

Now, the back shot... no AMX M4 49 here.

Now, some frustrating things to talk about...

In one of my posts about these Heavy Tanks, I talked about how the frontal armor plate of the Tier X AMX M4 54 was incorrect... and they even knew about this but didn't bother to at least put it up to the standards! Here's an example below.

Tank Description says 280mm, while in-game shows 220mm...

As what the caption wrote; the tank's Description says that it was a variation of the 'Project 141' tank with reinforced armor plate of up to 280mm, yet the stats on the right shows that the tank has 220mm of frontal hull armor instead. Whuuuuut....

I'm guessing they thought that having 280mm of frontal armor is overkill? Honestly for me; nope... as this tank has plenty of weakspots to choose from to kill it easily: the two cupolas at the top of the turret, the large lower plate, the frontal hull "shoulders"...

...and there's ever a few secret weakspots that I've noticed. The gun mantlet is riddled with holes which Premium and even normal ammunition can penetrate, and then there's those turret "ears"... those little bits sticking out from the sides of the turret. Just like the Emil II, shooting at that area with High-Grade HE ammo will do pretty well.

Then there's the 150mm frontal hull "shoulder" problem. Here's another few screenshots between the Tier XI and X tanks to show the armor differences.

Giant slabs of armor plates welded onto the tank, yet the armor values are all fucked up. Jeez, it's like as if WG wants this bunch of tanks to under-perform or something...

 And I guess I should stop before I go into a rant about it... already done that in the few previous posts, don't need to do it here, too. I guess I'll end things with a few in-battle screenshots before I go.

But be aware that this is just the 1st iteration of the CT 9.21 server, so maybe things will change for the better in the next version... hopefully.

Anyways, the screenshots... here's the AMX 65t.

Now, the AMX M4 51...

And finally, the Tier X monster.

And that's all for this post. Not sure when's the next post going to be made... or what it's gonna be about, but I think I know what to do next. So stay in touch for the next update....

-Panzer Fist-