5 Tips for Tanks

When the Walker gets the ability to aim to -10 degrees (like the main gun), I might even ditch the Kobalt (my gunners will probably be against this though, they seem to enjoy disassembling infantry formations).

For now the Kobalt does scare fighters away (although it takes a full 2 mags to shoot one down and only a handful were blown up that way).
Anything it doesn't damage is my target, hence the AP cannon.

At this point, I consider myself qualified to post here.

I drive a Prowler, and while this point is exemplified in it and the Lightning, I'd wager that it applies somewhat to all MBTs:

Know when to be Gallant Sir Galahad, and when to be Brave Sir Robin. Hint: You should usually be Brave Sir Robin.

Which is to say, run away before you're even in danger. I would say this is the single most important skill for a tanker to have, and also the most difficult to acquire and tune. Knowing the smell of danger before you're doomed is really hard, and learned by dying. Repeatedly.

Every time I die in a tank, I stop, before spawning a new tank and heading back to that great infantry farming spot, and think about why I just died. How in the hell did that Vanguard get up there? Is he vulnerable while climbing, is there a place I can sit and monitor the routes up so I'm not so vulnerable to flanking? Eventually, you begin to climb a hill, or race around a mountain, only for some little voice to tell you Bad idea!, and stop before the rocketpodder ever gets to line up a shot.

The reason cowardice prudence is so important is how very, very easily tanks die to rear shots, and how it's impossible to run away at more than a snail's pace while not showing that juicy rear to all the world. It's extremely easy to overextend and be surely dead before you've even taken damage, but conversely, the right flank at the right time can wreak impossible amounts of havoc. This is the other side of the coin, though arguably less important, as you can never do anything when you're dead: Knowing when to be aggressive.

Hitting the other guy where he doesn't expect it is a cliche purely because it's so effective, and it's even moreso in PS2 armored combat. A 2/2 Vanguard with an Enforcer or Halberd has a TTK of 0 against rear MBT armor. If you and your gunner hit, the tank dies instantly. Ditto for a Magrider who runs AP, and the Prowler is a few scant tenths of a second behind with a Vulcan or Halberd. Being ballsy can net incredible rewards. "But," I hear you say, "how do I know when to be ballsy and when to be a coward discreet?" Go try it. If you fail, figure out why. This is, unfortunately, another situation where analyzing the battlefield without having real experience is almost useless.

Engaging any enemy armor from the front is fraught with peril. Engaging any enemy armor from the rear is fraught with certs. This is all geared mainly towards the Medium/Light tanks (Prowler and Lightning, respectively,) but the Magrider has (or had, I'm unsure as to how bugged Mags are currently) incredible mobility, if not raw speed, allowing it to flank rather well, and the Vanguard is not terribly slow if you invest in Racer (and can actually specialize in front-on combat with front armor, though a well-played prowler can still beat you, if that's your thing.)

In essence, flank, and don't get flanked.

With Racer 3 the Vanguard outclimbs Sundies and Lightnings and even keeps up with Flashes over a variety of terrains that do not involve going downhill or over a flat desert.
Top speed 66 km/h, up from 55. That's a 20% increase.

A good way to stay alive is also to:
-Keep a distance, this requires some knowledge of the rare and mysterious science called "aiming";
-Be really close to cover, such as a hill to dive behind and go turret down or even a building if it's in a friendly base.
-Get frontal armor upgraded, the turret has the same damage resistance as the hull front and also benefits from this upgrade.
-Get that second crew member, especially a buddy/outfit member. They can watch so many more things than the person busy driving, estimating how much a threat they are and reacting accordingly, that it boggles the mind. I've already had engagements where my MG gunner saved the tank a few times within a single shootout due to noticing a flanker and reporting, or noticing a sneaky infantry dude and putting the Kobalt to good use.
-Then there's adding a second (and maybe third) tank, a Sundy with 'nade launchers and a few infantry dudes, as well as a fighter or two. Zergs will have serious trouble getting a combined arms unit that communicates and coordinates, even if it just has half a dozen infantry and a handful of vehicles.
Teamwork = fun.

So, we, the Rednecks, did some testing.

This is how the damage system works in PS 2, red lines indicate hits that count as rear hits, yellow marks side hits, and green means frontal hits.



As such, only the direction of the hull dictates if a shot is frontal/side/rear. The side which the turret gets hit has nothing to do with armor protection.

Thus do not park your tank behind a barrier, in a hull down position with the hull facing sideways- the turret will take damage as side hits, even though it gets hit in the front.

It's also possible to drive in reverse and seeing where the tank is going without worrying that a turret rear hit will count as 120% of a projectile's nominal damage- the turret rear is just as strong as the hull front in such a situation.

To me SOE dropped the ball here and oversimplified tanks, but I'm just the messenger here.
Don't shoot.

Love this!

Very useful Post, I will have my Outfit guys check this out.

Thanks, I'll be updating this from time to time when I run into something new, but everything has been more/less described in enough detail already.

There some tips for tanks ( I played World of tanks a lot and owned my trusty T95 and loved the T29 ) :

• Shooting on move - If you practice well hitting tank while on move, then you can dodge even more enemy projectiles, also you can have speed to be able escape somewhere. Lightning is great at this, in right setup ( Vehicle Stealth witch prevents of showing on radar making flanking move very effective, also racer chassis for shooting on move, Proximity Radar is useful if you need watch out for HA behind you or Smoke Screen could be useful to hide your back while escaping )
• Sideways hull down is very effective and nasty one, show your turret to enemies with your hull is parallel to hill bump, shooting to tank or infantry then you can move anytime as you want like you wanted to dodge missiles.
• I am not sure about camouflage with bushes to hide your tank so you can move forward a little to shoot enemy tanks at distance and back in bush might work in ps2.
• Position, position, position, you BETTER get good place to have your tank here, a cliff overlooking a valley or a base is awesome because you can get a lot top turret hits or some hovering planes. Beware some planes lurking behind you but you can shoot them too.
• You can place your front to a wall of any corners and back a little and aim your turret to something you want kill while making sure your side must be smallest target to enemies.
• Teamwork is good, having a damaged tank taking cover while other friends undamaged provide support to enemy tank to support the damaged tank for his cover.

This is all tips i could give you for this awesome topic. Well, the armour system for tanks is derp ( it only check the orientation of hull to the shooter for witch side is hit witch is oversimplified, this is much easy to have better armour system with 5 sides ( front, sides, back , top and bottom ) where it can take in account the position where the projectile hits and check for the closed armour hit and give the right amount of damage ) Also, i would love to have tank controls fixed when backing on a hill because it suddenly inverse when backing witch is not like World of Tanks's controls.

Another trick you can do with the lightning is ram it UNDER the magmower if you hit them head on. This usually causes the driver to freak out, and you can get a free kill.

Great tip! =D

So, we all know how to get that better position, how to use tanks alone, with a team, and even how to shoot on the move.

OK, but what if the enemy is 500 meters away? Can it just sit there and laugh as we need 4-5 ranging shots to score a hit?

Or maybe there is a way?

Rangefinding

In this game, there's 2 ways, a quick one and an accurate one.

1. The accurate way is to stop, look at the map and put the personal WP on top of the spotted enemy, giving a very accurate reading, such as the enemy is 850 meters away.

2. The quick way is to use Stadiametric rangefinding.

The basic idea is that as distance increases, the target appears smaller. Judging by how large it is, it's possible to gauge how far away it is, as both its size and the gun optics remain constant.

Demonstrated in game:


At 250 meters, the Mosquito is about 5/8 of a notch tall (I measure with big notches = whole, and small notches = half, so a bit above half is about 5/8).

Thus if one ever has the same vertical field of view, gun and optics I did, the Mossy that's 5/8 of a notch tall is definitely 250 meters away.



At about 450 meters, the plane fills up a whole half notch. thus if I ever see a Mossy that fills up a whole 1/2 notch, including the lines on the gunsight, it's 450 meters away.

Due to no calibration in the sights, everyone will have to go to VR, zoom in with whatever zoom they use, and see how large the target is from what distance (I'll give a hint- fighters and MBTs are similar size vertically, so checking one allows to estimate the range of both).

The next step is to see how high the gun has to be aimed at what distance and either noting it down or memorizing.

As such if I see a Magrider fitting in perfectly between notch 1 and 1.5, I know it's about 500 meters away, and if I put notch 1 on it, I'll score a hit.

If I see a Magrider very far away, mark it with my personal WP and the reading is 850 meters, I'll have to aim at notch 2,5 to hit it. It'll be barely over 1/4 notch tall, so only the accurate method of rangefinding will give the best results.
Since it's such a hard target I may have to fire at notch 2 1/4, then at 2 3/8 and then at 2,5 just to be sure I don't overshoot, but I know more/less where to start.

SaronHRB is basically a turret you can't shoot back at mounted high above the main tank. Enjoy the use of it.

Great post! Really useful!

I have one more thing to add (NECRO, BACK FROM THE DEAD)
If you're not shooting, you are in third person and you are looking around you. In third person, you're not limited by the rotational speed of the turret, and since the last game update, you can now seem more than your tank's backside, since they pulled the camera out a bit. Use this to your advantage. The added situational awareness of third person can save your tank.

Turn it off in the general options.

Boy, I sure get to use this one a lot.

There's a lot of information in here that is somewhat out of date

You should probably recompile it into a new thread to keep it current since it's been about 6 months now.

I could do that. Since the game updates increasing armor, and whatnot, all of the tanks have improved a lot.

Funny, although this thread has been Necro'ed it has some very valid points that apply to today's issue.

1) To the people saying C4 is OP, see tip #1. You'll find it's EASY not to be killed by C4.

2) Mag Rider can't go hull down. The Saron was a good solution to this, until they nerfed it in May & again in June.

As of GU10, it absolutely can.

disturbingly false. Prowler AP is not a joke.

However it is harder to aim with the prowler than the other two MBTs.