War Thunder: American ground forces Rank I - Review and Analysis

hello everyone welcome to the channel so it's peanut wild apologies for that things have been very busy over here but finally now we can start the next series which of course is the us tank tree also what when did this happen hello briefly i'm really really thankful for this and i'll probably talk about it a bit more at the end as a lot of you probably just want to get into the video as quickly as possible so let's get into it thanks for being here for another series and as always i really hope you enjoy [Music] so as some of you may be new i'll briefly outline what this series is in these videos we cover every single tank in the tech tree tier if it's here looking at their strengths weaknesses and other gameplay quirks in order to work out how to make the vehicle perform at its best every vehicle will finish with a set of pros and cons and conclude with a verdict on whether to get it consider it or avoid it for use in your lineups in my opinion of course these videos are also chiefly geared towards rb mode with most of the stats we'll be using relevant to rb specifically but a lot of the other play style aspects won't really change much if you are someone who prefers a b at the end we'll also cover the standout cass aircraft for the tier and the best lineups you can make too so let's kick it off starting off we have our first reserve tank the m2a4 we'll be seeing this design a lot this episode and thankfully it's a pretty good one so let's begin with the firepower and on the surface it's not immensely impressive the m2a4 is equipped with the early m5 37 millimeter cannon that can only fire solid ap rounds no aphe here so the damage it deals isn't incredible especially when compared to the russian 45 millimeter gun for example but it does have a lot going for it in other areas firstly the reload is very quick 3.7 seconds on a stock crew and the penetration isn't bad either this gun can carry two types of ap ammunition m74 shot and m51 shot m51 is the unlockable type and it's the objectively better shell just having more penetration nothing else is really different here however the most important aspect this tank has is the short stabilizer that's what this stab text means in the bottom left don't worry it's not an instruction this just lets you know that the tank has a stabilizer active and this thing is very very useful essentially this stabilizer is a shoulder stock for the gunner that lets him steady the gun at low speeds if you're traveling below 11 kph the gun will remain perfectly stable which means most importantly if you're on the move and come to a stop your gun will stabilize and level off very quickly so if you were to meet an enemy on the move you'll likely be able to steady your gun before they will letting you get an accurate shot off first which neatly leads us into the next aspect of this tank the mobility the m2a4 is very quick it can cruise at around 50 kph off-road and is very fast to accelerate as well this tied with the stabilizer lets it get away with being fairly aggressive in the right situations the mobility in no way holds it back armor isn't as usable though although still being decent enough for what it is the m2a4 is protected by 25 millimeters of armor all over on the harlem turret which isn't really enough to protect against anything reliable but it does have a lot of angles you can manipulate to increase the armor thickness if you angle you can increase the front and side armor to around 40 millimeters which isn't bad this does create a normalization zone between the two sections but even so the machine gun here can help absorb some incoming shots in any case this is the best way to get the most effectiveness out of your armor so remember to angle similarly to this when possible this by no means will make you invulnerable but it can potentially protect you against some incoming fire which for an early light tank is really the best you can hope for this thing also has some potential for fighting hull down the turret face and mantlet stack their armor so most of the turret face is 50 millimeters thick this combined with the angular shape of the turret makes it fairly strong for defensive positions but there is a negative here these positions are usually the strongest at range and sure you'll be hard to knock out but the 37 millimeter gun isn't the most accurate the shots deviate a fair bit which hurts this thing as it doesn't do a lot of damage in the first place so you'll need to be as accurate as you can to disable your enemy thankfully though the m2a4 can really play anywhere its only limiting factor here is the gun depression at only -6 degrees which is a little poor it's actually the same as a lot of the russian tanks of this tier most other vehicles around this br can manage -10 so ridge lines and hills won't always be ideal for this thing ultimately though because it is so versatile outlining a perfect playstyle isn't really possible for a tank like this it has very little hard limitations on what it can do it can be aggressive defensive and everything in between most of your success will rely on how you engage your enemy as getting the hang of this thing's gun will be the most important factor here as it isn't very forgiving if you just point and click an enemy and don't take into account your aim or the tank you're fighting you'll be relying too much on luck and of course that's rarely a good way to play from the front ideally you're going to want to aim to disable the enemy's driver and gunner in a single shot this isn't possible on all tanks down to how their interior is arranged but it is a good habit to get into with a cannon like this as if you can take out these two crew members you're free to pick off the rest of the crew the driver and gunner are the only two active crew members in a tank these are the crew that need to be alive for the player to control their vehicle the loader commander and radio operator are passive crew members they perform their actions without the player needing to do anything so if you can disable the gunner and driver the tank is helpless effectively if you're starting out this is a good line of thinking to adapt to and generally it's the fastest way to a tank so you can secure the kill i could stay here for hours and describe the best way to do this for every vehicle you may fight but it would probably be more boring than helpful but plus i always think it's better to learn these things directly through gameplay anyway in general for most tanks try and hit the front of the hull through the driver's port this will hopefully disable the driver and send fragments into the turret hopefully knocking out the gunner too this is a gross generalization and won't work for everything but it is the way to go for most vehicles the playstyle i like to go for for this thing is a bit like the bt5 in the russian guide using the mobility to push into the map and watch the line the enemies take from the spawn to their cap this line will naturally change on every map but if you can get into the habit of drawing a line in your head from the spawn to the cap and adjust for the lanes the enemies may take you have a semi-decent way of predicting where enemies will be if you're a newer player unfamiliar with the maps the initial aim should be to catch enemies on this line using the mobility to get to a good spot and using the short stabilizer to speed up your ability to engage them hopefully by this stage you'll be able to engage enemies while they're on the move as this will let you fire off a few shots safely before the enemy can react to you it is a bit more risky but you can play this thing quite aggressively around the caps as well try to stick around some form of hard cover if you do this and pop out of cover to fire if you engage in this way hopefully you won't be breaking the 11kph mark too much which will keep your gun nice and stable for engaging enemies this is how i like to play it anyway but like we mentioned earlier it's nicely versatile so if you find yourself outside of the ideal environment to fight it will still be able to work pros good mobility decent firepower and versatile and the cons unreliable armor and poor accuracy now as i mentioned earlier there would usually be our verdict here but as this tank is reserved and available by default there's not really much scope here to do that in any case though it's a great introduction to the american tree and well worth using from the offset so next up we have a bit of an upgrade this is the m3 stewart visually very similar and functionally very similar too the main difference here is in the armor protection the front plate and turret face have been increased to 38 millimeters for the turret that includes the mantlet as well so turret protection especially is pretty good some rounds will really struggle to get through this thing frontally so this is a pretty effective upgrade the m3 does take a tiny hit to mobility though its top speed is reduced but overall you'd hardly notice the difference between the m3 and the m2 mobility wise so it is still really good there are a couple of additional firepower advantages as well gun depression is increased to -10 degrees so you can utilize cover behind ridge lines a bit more effectively now and the second is actually something i wasn't aware of this thing has an improved stabilizer instead of being active below 11 kph this thing works up to 24 which is the same stabilization the shermans get i don't think it was always like this and may have actually been changed accidentally i'm not really sure but in any case right now it does add a lot of extra potential for this vehicle playstyle though doesn't change too much the m3 can effectively do everything the m2 could just slightly better due to the more reliable armor and the buff to the stabilizer again armor is objectively more reliable but it's still far from immune most guns especially enough tears can still get through it but for a 1.7 light tank it really isn't bad at all one thing it is especially good at is shrugging off autocannons at distance at around 500 meters this thing is close to immune from the german and italian 20 millimeter guns which are really common with this br so if you can get the hang of the gun engaging at these ranges can really improve your survivability the m3 has the potential to control a lot of areas of the map and all in all it's effectively just a more forgiving variant of the previous version that plays to exactly the same strengths there isn't really much else extra to keep in mind with this one you can now use ridgelines for cover more effectively due to the extra gun depression and engage enemies at a higher speed on the move with the stabilizer as long as you play into the same tactics as the previous stuart you should still have a pretty good time pros good mobility decent firepower and versatile and the cons unreliable armor and poor accuracy verdict get it it's an all-around improvement and vastly more forgiving and as you can make a line up for 1.7 it's even better and still it works the backup in the height is too if you need it although there are a fair few upcoming tanks in this line that will give it some stiff competition next up we have the m3a1 stewart which offers a few upgrades first of all it looks a bit different the turret has been redesigned and rounded with the size of the turret now being increased to just under 32 millimeters the turret neck as well does have some additional protection making it a bit harder for auto cannons and similar weaker shells to get through the hull protection remains largely the same though mobility is a tiny bit worse in practice it features a higher top speed on the stack card but this is only really relative to the absolute top speed it can reach which is only attainable on paved ground or roads off-road is a little slower to accelerate and cruises at a slightly slower speed but this is hardly detrimental it's still a very fast vehicle firepower has also been improved it loses the advanced stabilization of the previous version but the stabilizer it has is still pretty good it's effective up to around 15 kph which is quite nice as this is the speed it cruises out if you drive in cruise control 1. but the gun itself is also improved this uses the upgraded m6 version of the canon which can fire some better rounds much like the previous guns there's a capped and uncapped ap round stock is the m71b1 and the unlockable version is the m51b1 b2 the stock ap round is more powerful than the upgraded capped round on the previous stuart so it is a nice upgrade the second shell has a max penetration of 87 millimeters at point blank and holds decent pen against angles too so similarly the upgraded shell is the one you want to use once you do unlock it much like the previous stewart this one again is just an overall improvement while retaining the core playstyle not a huge amount of changes but at 2.0 you will start meeting some tougher enemies in the up tiers tanks like the three-inch gun carrier and matilda for the uk the panzer 3l and m and the 242 for germany and the french b1s can also be trouble too so in uptiers this thing can't quite play the jack of all trades like the previous versions it's of course largely an overall improvement but as it has the potential to fight much tougher enemies now it's still a vehicle you need to be careful in at least while playing in 2.7 and 3.0 games if you're playing above 2.3 it's a good idea to focus on the speed and go for the flanks there are some tougher enemies you'll really struggle to deal with head on so using the ability to catch them from the side is really the way to go here as the gun fires so quickly it's a good idea to shoot for the engine or driver first if you catch a tank at the side this way they can't turn their stronger frontal armor towards you and while they're stuck you can pretty comfortably pick out their crew you can definitely one-shot some tanks from the side by hitting the crew compartment first but if you're not quite as confident or don't know much about the tanks are engaging these engine shots can be the way to get some easy safe kills apart from this the tank largely plays the same as the previous two in 2.0 games this thing can be really really strong if positioned well and even in the high vrs the improved gun will still do some decent work you just have to keep using mobility to get around your enemies you can still penetrate most of what you'll fight from the front and the stabilizer again will definitely help with this but if the map allows you to flank this is what i'd aim to do a lot of the early tanks you'll fight aren't very reactive the german tanks especially usually have a very slow turret traverse in the early tiers so engaging them from the side will absolutely give you the best advantage this line of thinking goes for pretty much every vehicle in the game of course but it's still a good playstyle to practice all the same pros good mobility decent firepower and versatile and the cons unreliable armor and poor accuracy verdict i get it it's folded with the previous to it so it isn't really necessary to play it but you can somewhat make a 2.0 lineup with it if you want the chance to fight 1.0 enemies which is a bit mean but nevertheless effective the m3 is immediately outclassed by the next vehicle in the line though which we'll cover in the next episode so its advantages have very little longevity beyond its own vr but regardless it can still be used for a while in the higher tiers anyway and will still be a functional backup you probably won't need to use it for long though next up something fairly different this is the m2 a competitor for the tank with the most boring name this is a medium tank that really does leave a lot to be desired its design on the surface is kind of interesting it features nine machine guns although only seven are controllable and a pretty interesting crew layout made up of six members but sadly surface level intrigue is all this tank really has going for it firstly firepower has some drawbacks when compared to the previous tanks its penetration is identical to the other early 37 millimeter guns but it doesn't have the short stabilizer and as well only has a manual turret drive stock this thing traverses at 3.3 degrees a second which is almost three times slower than the stuart's so out of all of the tanks so far this thing's gun handling is by far the weakest i'd say it's probably the worst this tier despite being heavier mobility though isn't that bad it has a more powerful engine than the stuarts and can just about match them in off-road speed although acceleration is much slower but it can't really use its mobility offensively though as the turret traverse is so slow you're really not going to want to engage enemies at close range you can swing the hull around to compensate for this if you find yourself in a close range fight but it isn't really reliable or easy to line up shots this way especially with the lack of stabilizer in terms of armor as a medium tank you'd expect this thing to have a bit more protection and it doesn't really the armor thickness is the same as the m2a4 25 millimeters which is of course better due to the sloping but it's not really enough to make this thing stand out if you angle you can really increase the thickness of some plates but one of them will always normalize so it's never going to be reliable although as the lower tiers are generally populated by newer players the armor will sometimes work against some of the weaker guns if they're aimed poorly but it's really not consistent this thing is a bit of a struggle honestly as it doesn't offer any active advantages over the reserve steward the armor can be more reliable in certain situations but armor is always a passive advantage its effectiveness is relative to the enemy's skill how you angle and position yourself will affect this but it's partially out of your hands so there's nothing you can really do to make this thing work better than the stuart potentially could the m2 is just a much less usable platform in any case for playstyle range is where you'll be safest at close range it's easier to aim and hit enemies but the lack of traverse will really put you at a disadvantage getting the gun on target is much harder if your enemy is on the move and enemies will quite literally be able to drive circles around you this thing can work a bit better hull down in the defensive position though as it does have the minus 10 degrees of gun depression so it's a bit better than the reserve steward and as the turret is only manned by one person with five others in the hull it's quite hard to whittle down the crew of this thing if you only have the turret to shoot at it's a difficult shot to hit anyway and with ap it will really take a long time but this is a really niche advantage that won't always come into play some maps just won't allow for this sort of positioning if possible this is where i'd aim to be though and especially avoiding the front lines a range you can effectively cover more ground by moving your turret less which does almost negate this thing's disadvantages but it does mean that you're relegated to a very specific location to play in although if you can find one that fits the m2 will be in its element even if the element itself is a bit naf pros decent mobility and the cons poor weapon handling slow traverse speed and low versatility verdicts i'd honestly avoid this one it's hardly unusable but it isn't really worth using this thing ultimately brings more tedium than it's worth and i wouldn't really play it unless it got moved down to 1.0 all in all it offers nothing meaningful over the m2a4 next up our second reserve vehicle this tier the lvt a1 another pretty unique machine and one that looks fairly unconventional for tank combat on the surface the lvt is amphibious so it can float on water not a massive advantage though as most maps have very little if any water and most of the time the water itself isn't exactly the most tactical spot to be in but nevertheless you can cruise along the rivers and coasts on some maps and the short stabilizer will keep the gun nice and steady on the water so it can be a fun gimmick from time to time firepower wise the lvt is equipped with the m6 37 millimeter cannon same one found on the m3a1 so it has the increased penetration all at 1.0 pretty good mobility as well is actually better than you might expect this thing is massive it's an absolute house but it is very light it's actually lighter than the previous tank by a couple of tons once spaded this thing can reach its top speed of 40 kph off-road fairly quickly and can swing the hull around pretty fast as well reverse speed is a bit of a drawback though at only 4kph so getting yourself out of trouble is a bit tricky especially down to this thing's size the lvt is taller and longer than pretty much every tank around this br and it's very lightly armoured as well with only six millimeters of armor protecting most of the hull with the front driver's plate and turret being 12.7 millimeters the lbt is weaked everything above light machine guns basically so you'd probably assume that the combination of weak armor and huge size makes this thing a pretty poor tank but these two aspects combined actually help to create an advantage which is something that i like to describe as artificial survivability in the traditional sense the lvt isn't survivable if it gets hit it will be penetrated but as it's so large this thing is filled with negative space there's so much empty air in this thing to the point where an enemy can fire a shot straight through and cause very little critical damage of course this likely won't always be the case if the round passes near a crew member they're likely getting knocked out but overall it's a pretty big advantage for just how spaced out the crew are you have six crew in total positioned out quite widely around the interior which makes one-shotting this thing incredibly difficult another benefit of the thin armor is against enemy aphe basically every aphe round has a few sensitivity this means that the fuse will only detonate the round if it passes through a set amount of armor so let's take the aphu round on the panzer 4c as an example this has a fuse that only triggers if the round passes through 14 millimeters of armor as the side of the lvt is only six millimeters thick if the round hits you it's not going to go off and therefore not really cause much damage either a downside of the thin armor though is hull break or over pressure now if you get hit with a high caliber hg or heat round you'll likely go up in one hit so keep this in mind and try to avoid engagements where you might end up trading shots with a vehicle that fires these rounds of course that's never something you can absolutely guarantee but just keep it in mind you are very weak to this in addition as well keep an eye out for artillery 2. as you're such a big target artillery has a much higher chance of hitting you so if you see the warning pop up try to reposition as quickly as you can if the situation allows it as for playstyle there's a lot you can do potentially at close range you can really get away with being aggressive you can trade shots with a lot of enemies and mostly come out on top although as always not something to absolutely rely on but it is still something you can do which makes this thing not too bad as a beginner vehicle it is really forgiving so if you don't know the maps and don't really know where to position yourself yet the lvt will keep you alive longer than most other tanks would which is a definite plus the main disadvantage of playing at the closer ranges is actually where the turret is positioned it's right in the middle of the hull which means if you're engaging in urban combat and you drive around a corner the enemy can hit you before you even have a chance to fire at them from this position they can disable your transmission and knock out your driver over and over so you'll really want to avoid pushing enemies waiting behind cover like this your third person camera is a hugely important tool in ground forces so if you have the second to spare swing it around any corners to see if there's an enemy waiting for you doing this is a really good habit to get into and will greatly contribute to keeping you alive at the longer ranges you have advantages and disadvantages the gun is hard to aim accurately and as you're so large you're a comparatively easy target for an enemy to hit but it will still be hard for an enemy to hit you accurately and quickly disable your critical crew also it may sound counter-intuitive but angling this thing's side on can improve your survivability further as your crew are in three lines effectively this makes it close to impossible for an enemy to disable your gunner and driver in a single shot which means if you're hit in either of these spots you have the potential to either drive away if your gunner is disabled or fire back if your driver is disabled in any case try angling a little bit as this will break up the lines of your crew members and may disrupt some of the incoming shots if they get caught on the tracks which is pretty much all you can hope for apart from this though you can really play it anywhere it'll be hardly useless in any situation but wherever you do play it be very careful of autocannons as they will rip through this thing incredibly quickly from basically any range so if you see a panzer 2 or any of the various anti-air vehicles try and take them out as quickly as possible as it's quite unlikely also ever burst from one of these guns apart from that it's fairly versatile and forgiving if misplayed so just take it wherever you like and it will do a fair bit of work for you pros decent mobility good firepower versatile and forgiving and the cons horse5 ability and poor accuracy again can't really give a verdict on this one as you do have to play it but it's well worth using when you start out in some situations the m2a4 will be the better choice if you get a map that allows for flanking but if not the lvt will have advantages and disadvantages pretty much everywhere you choose to play it so on that basis it's a great vehicle for pretty much any beginner to take out and try next up an absolute fan favorite this is the m22 locust an absolutely tiny tank that offers among other things fantastic mobility the m22 is hugely agile and can maneuver effortlessly really it's easily faster and more responsive than the stewards and comes equipped with the m6 cannon but doesn't get any form of stabilizer so head-on fights are something to avoid with this one armor is predictably unimpressive with around 25 to 30 millimeters of reliable frontal protection which isn't really enough to stop anything this thing is almost a quintessential light tank in the traditional gameplay sense with the play style mainly focusing on getting the most out of the mobility the m22 is great in this regard as you can use the mobility both aggressively and defensively which makes it very good at reacting to the flow of the match itself and utilizing as much of the map as possible its off-road speed and acceleration is very quick which makes repositioning and pushing very effective but for playstyle itself it's difficult to really outline a universal perfect way to play as a lot of it depends on the maps and what your preferred way to play actually is but a very effective way to use it is a strong initial push into the map to catch the enemies pushing off guard the locust like its namesake is a pest and works best in locations where the enemy really doesn't want you to be pushing far through the flanks and behind them this is the case of pretty much every tank if you think about it but the difference is that the locust can actually quite reliably get itself into these spots the mobility lets it work it doesn't have a stabilizer so it can't quite be played to the strength of the stewards which means you really need to be in a location where you get the drop on the enemy first ideally you'll want to engage the enemy from the side from a static position so the gun of course is more stable from the side you'll have no issues punching through any enemy with the m6 cannon but like the stewarts again know when to go for the engines to take out tougher tanks like the t28 and the stew 42 etc a strong push into the map from the start is ideal for this i can't really give you an exact approximation of the best location to be in as all the maps are different but try to put yourself in an area that lets you react to multiple different sight lines an area where you can remain in cover but poke out at different spots to put the pressure on different enemies if you're quite new though finding spots like this isn't going to be too easy but if in doubt try and watch over a cat point or even better the route the enemy will take to the cat point this will really let you get the most out of the mobility and the rapid fire rate of the cannon late game you can drive out of cover and go for caps or just run around looking for enemies but this thing does take a while to come to a complete stop and on the move the gun is very unstable so you really can't let an enemy catch you out of cover like this if you do get caught out either try to drive into cover as quickly as possible or actually try to dog fight your enemy getting close and drive around the gun i wouldn't recommend you always do this as it'll probably get you knocked out a lot but it can be pretty fun and the acceleration of this thing tied with the slow turret reverses of enemy tanks around this vr means you can sometimes just run circles around the enemy you can as well also use this thing as a bit of an ambush tank waiting behind corners or in alleyways to catch enemies off guard the locust is really tiny for a tank which means it can get away with hiding behind low cover and just in places where enemies largely won't be expecting you the locust is much better than the stewarts in this regard as those tanks have a 30 cal machine gun sticking out over the turret which increases the size of their profile quite a bit and makes them much less stealthy so if you like the sneaky flank and ambush type playstyle you'll probably like this thing pros great mobility decent firepower and versatile and the cons poor survivability and poor accuracy verdict i'd get it this thing can be great fun once you get the hang of it a lot of what makes it effective relies a fair bit on map knowledge and without it you can't really get the most out of the locust but hey you've got to find out which spots are good for this sort of playstyle at some point and the m22 is very much suited to help you find them it doesn't offer much over the stewarts when it's out of its element so it does sort of passively force you to find locations where the m22 works and in that sense it's a great vehicle to play if you want to improve your overall skills in the game so give it a try so next up we have our only anti-air this tier and as rank 1 anti-air vehicles go it's really one of the best this is the m13 mgmc this is the standard m3 half track you might recognize but with dual 50 caliber machine guns on top in a pretty effective mounting armor is not exactly anything special it's very weak from the air and any conventional tank cannon can cut through it on the ground it can mostly protect against small caliber machine guns from the front but that is about it no reliable protection here mobility is pretty decent it can cruise at just under 40 kph off-road and hit 10 in reverse so it is nimble for what it is and can reposition if it needs to in my opinion this is one of the most beginner-friendly introductory anti-air vehicles in the game and almost all of that is down to the firepower itself you might on the surface think it's a little underwhelming when looking at other low-tier analogues like the axis anti-airs with their 20 millimeters but it's never all about the caliber there are always other factors involved and i think there's a good point to be made here maybe the m13 isn't the best vehicle ever to use as an example to cover this topic but hey i think it could be useful here in this game if you're a new player it's very easy to get caught up on the surface level numbers for vehicles gun caliber raw armor values and number of guns on aircraft i actually remember about eight years ago when i first started playing the german air tree in arcade and was taking out the hu-112s this was back when there was a 22 system and progression was a bit different in there was the he-112b0 and the 112a0 the b0 has four guns two wing cannons and two nose mounted machine guns and the a0 only had one single cannon in the nose and on the surface i remember thinking it was a massive downgrade why would i ever play it it only has one single gun when the other version has four what i'm getting at with this tiny story is that one i'm stupid and two there's always other factors to consider one vehicle very well might seem weak compared to another if you just compare one dominant aspect but there's always way more factors at play so if you are new and playing or at least planning on playing this game always look further than the shiniest surface level numbers and stats that you'll see for the vehicles you unlock just because the most interesting number is bigger doesn't mean that vehicle is better and it's what made me focus on the 112b0 and miss out on the a0 which as it turned out was way more maneuverable and had a way more effective nose mounted cannon that was much easier for me to aim so sure the m13 doesn't have 20 mils but it doesn't need them it has a very fast traverse rate over 50 degrees a second on a good crew the 50s also fire very fast and have comparatively little drop off and these aspects make it very user friendly anti-air vehicles when actually used against aircraft aren't easy especially if you haven't played a game like this before all guns work differently for the most part and it will take some time to get your eye in the m13 gives you a lot of room to make mistakes with your aim and lets you correct those errors pretty quickly which does make it a very good introduction to the play style overall so now that i've effectively car salesman my way into hopefully convincing you the m13 is good let's go into more specifics the 50s come with several belts featuring two common rounds ap which is just a solid bullet nothing fancy but it can penetrate 31 millimeters of armor point blank and 26 at 500 meters which is pretty good all things considered secondly we have the apit round which carries an incendiary tracer this causes much more damage against aircraft and ignites fires much faster it does also have armor-piercing properties but they are a tiny bit worse only 24 millimeters of 500 which is still perfectly usable the main belts are common which is your default belt it contains ap rounds and api t rounds so a versatile mix of both a full api t-belt which is the best against aircraft from a damage perspective and the majority ap belt with two solid ap rounds to one api t round still pretty versatile and the best against ground vehicles the api t-belt is the best for aircraft of course and as well as every round is a tracer it will let you see where you're aiming which is great for learning lead and this is what i think you should use predominantly especially if you're quite new to the playstyle if you're playing in the lower tiers though and you do feel confident with your aim i'd personally go with the ap belt as your main it is slightly more reliable against tanks and it's more stealthy at least when compared to the laser beam of apits in the other belt this does make it a bit harder for enemy air to dodge your shots and a bit harder for enemy ground vehicles to pinpoint where exactly you're shooting from although that doesn't come into play too much for play style against aircraft there's not really a lot to describe here since the main aspect that really matters is your aim on the ground just make sure you're surrounded by hard cover to hide from tanks and give yourself enough room to maneuver if you're being strafed so don't back yourself into a corner for aiming aircraft in general there isn't really a lot to say other than practice but one thing that does seem to work for some people is to aim twice as far as you think you need to as it's more common for people to under lead rather than overlead especially if you played a lot of shooters before where bullet drop is not as prevalent it might not work for you but give it a go if you have been struggling a bit as for going after tanks a lot of it is strictly tied to knowing the vehicle that you're fighting you might have seen in the background of this video that there have been some tanks i've seen but not shot at as their armor is just too thick at the lower tiers there are a lot of light vehicles with very weak armor you can just rip through but some you can't scratch realistically a lot of the ground play style for anties is knowing what you can engage and also knowing when to engage low caliber shells like 50 cals struggle a lot with angled armor so you will need to wait until you have a clear shot on a lot of regular tanks in general though you can really only play this thing in the anti-tank role at the lower tiers so we won't go too much into that but in general know your enemy and try to play around some form of hard cover you can hide behind and pop out when you see a target this will offer some safety if you shoot an enemy and find out you can't penetrate them you can just back up into cover and re-engage this is the ideal way to play it against tanks try and stay out of sight and only pop out to fire the mobility will let you do this fairly effectively one other thing to remember is to flush your ammo if you're close to running out this thing has a fairly long reload and you don't want to be caught without ammo if you're being engaged so if the counter at the bottom is running low and you're not in the middle of a fight fire off the rest of your rounds and reload a new set of ammunition pros great anti-air ability good anti-tank ability and good mobility and the cons horse5 ability verdict get it i've gone on about this vehicle probably more than i needed to but hopefully the description and tactics can set the groundwork for how you approach anti-airs down the line if there were a vehicle type you didn't really have much interest in before so yeah sorry if this segment was a bit long but it just means that the later nta vehicles we look at can be covered much faster in general for the m13 great anteater to take out if you want to learn the playstyle with a decent amount of versatility too so next up a pretty unconventional tank this is the m2a2 a very unique light tank as you can see this thing has two turrets one equipped with a 30 cal and one with a 50 cal and that's it so functionally all you really have is one 12.7 millimeter machine gun as the 762 can't really get through any armor but despite this it's not unusable and although it's a very weak vehicle overall it can be pretty good fun the mobility on this thing is actually pretty good it uses the same engine as the stuart but weighs around three to four tons less so it's much faster being able to cruise at just over 50 kph off-road and over 70 on-roads so pretty nippy despite having a visually similar hull though armor-wise it's worse than the stewart's with only 15.8 millimeters of armor frontally and 12.7 millimeters on the sides so this thing is weak to even heavy machine guns but a bulk of enemy vehicles are as well which works in your favor as you just so happen to be equipped with one usefully the 50 cal the m2a2 uses is exactly the same as the m13 it uses exactly the same ammunition as well so i won't waste your time going over that again so only armed with a 50 cal how well does this thing fare and actually all things considered it can knock out a fair few tanks and for example the m2a2 can frontally penetrate every russian tank below 2.0 apart from the t70 so it can actually do a fair bit of work but one of the most important skills to have when using this thing is tank recognition you need to be able to know your enemy be able to identify them and from that know if you should engage as there are some vehicles you just can't really scratch but a lot of them look alike you can for example knock out the panzer 38t a model but not the f model you can take out the panzer 3b but not the e etc so brushing up on your recognition skills really helps a vehicle like this actually maybe at some point i could make some guides on tank recognition like going over some tips on how to identify different types of panzer iv or sherman would any of you guys like to see that let me know in the comments that could be quite fun anyway back on track just a little tank joke for you there the m2a2 overall is a hard tank to define a playstyle for as it's entirely possible to encounter a tank that you can't reasonably penetrate even with decent positioning overall german italian and french tanks will be much harder to get through frontally with russian british japanese and swedish tanks on the whole being a bit easier i can't really generalize it any further without covering basically every tank you can't penetrate which isn't really worth the time but if you're really new one thing you can try which won't always be reliable is to look at the base camo of the tank you're fighting for example all russian tanks have a green base camo you can penetrate almost all of them so if you see green you can probably take your enemy out but ultimately this mostly will just be trial and error overall you'll want to get as close to your enemy as possible the 50 does retain decent penetration over range but you'll want all the power you can get like the locust this thing is good at rushing into the map early it's quicker than almost every enemy so you can beat pretty much everything to the power points in the map from there you can use the same ambush tactics to take your enemy out one major difficulty with fighting at close range though is the dead zone this thing has two turrets so the entire right side of the tank is effectively one big dead zone you can't aim around the 30 cal turret so if an enemy is approaching from that angle you're going to need to adjust your position which will lose you some vital seconds another poor aspect of the firing platform is just how slow the traverse is especially the vertical traverse it's pretty slow which is doubly annoying as on some enemies you need to aim for quite precise weak spots there's just a lot of tedium involved with this thing and ultimately that tedium doesn't really justify the maximum potential you can get out of it but all in all and this might sound a bit weird so bear with me for a bit but to me i don't think this is a vehicle that really needs to be approached in a serious way serious in the sense that playing it to win and getting the most out of it etc it's like the equivalent of the joke characters in fighting games they're not really intended to be meta in any way so you're not really expected to win so when you do get kills with a vehicle like this it makes your brain feel pretty good the kills just feel more satisfying as you're beating the odds in a sense so gameplay-wise the m2a2 and vehicles like it definitely have a place even though functionally they have very little to offer it's a difficult idea to describe as the benefit these vehicles have isn't as tangible as a vehicle let's say meta or objectively good and up tiers their benefit to your play is more subjective and i guess more dependent on you as a person fair warning this is getting pretentious i always find these underdog vehicles are great to unwind with and are refreshing to pick up and play sometimes when you're playing a vehicle you know is good you might beat yourself up about it if you get knocked out when playing it and this negative feeling will stack if you play a lot and after a while it really might stop you having fun and that's why these sorts of vehicles are important as if you're playing a vehicle like the m2a2 and you get knocked out who cares you know you're at a disadvantage from the offset by even choosing to play it so even if you lose you won't really feel bad about it to me at least these vehicles are really important for taking breaks with if you're feeling a bit burnt out with grinding and still want to play the game tanks like the m2a2 offer you that respite as you can play them and have a funny time even if things ultimately don't go your way i can appreciate this is a bit of an out there thing to talk about in regards to a video game about shooting tanks but i still think it's important so keep this little tank in mind for the future if you ever just want to mess around pros great mobility and the cons poor survivability poor firepower and low versatility verdicts all things considered i'd aptly consider it as this more so depends on you and what you want out of the game if you just want to focus on purely effective vehicles then avoid this one but if the sillier playstyle this thing offers seems appealing to you it probably will be quite fun especially if you can rustle up some friends to play with you because it's so fast it can feel quite satisfying to drive around in a way that the m2 for example isn't that thing just feels annoying to play so at the end of the day i'll leave this one up to you next up our final tech tree vehicle for today and the only tank destroyer as well actually this is the m3 gmc a half track like the m13 but housing a 75 millimeter cannon instead armor similarly is extremely poor this time the driver's cabin has the windshield down so there's no protection at all for the driver machine guns can rip right through this thing the gun shield itself is protected by 12.7 millimeters of armor which can stop 30 cals but nothing else mobility is pretty good though it can reach a higher top speed on roads than the m13 but off-road it's slower to accelerate and maneuver due to the increased weight the gun though is easily the most interesting aspect here this thing fires the same rounds as the early 75 millimeter shermans the cannon is different but the performance is nearly identical the m3 just loses a few millimeters of penetration but in practice they'll perform almost exactly the same this thing comes with two main rounds m72 which is a solid ap round and m61 an aph round with better penetration and actually i think this is the only vehicle with aphe in the main tree this tier aphe very simply is around the penetrates and then explodes inside the tank causing more widespread damage this round is really really good and we'll be seeing it a lot in the next episode as well with just over 100 millimeters of penetration and over 60 grams of explosive filler at this tier it's very unlikely that you won't one shot anything you penetrate and also because of overmatch you can get through weak angled side armor easily as well so if your shot connects it's likely going through reload is fairly long though at 7.8 seconds stock most enemies you'll meet can fire at least twice in that time so you're going to need to play this thing quite carefully but thankfully you do have the mobility to do this the first thing to keep in mind is that you get absolutely no hard benefits from playing at close range what i mean by hard benefit is that there's nothing intrinsic about the vehicle itself that makes it perform better at close range whereas a soft benefit of playing at close range would be that the cannon is easier to aim for example you'll want to stick at long range because one your gun carries enough penetration over distance to allow you to play at long range and two you have no armor and no turret so the closer you are to the enemy the easier you are to hit and as well at close range it's entirely possible for an enemy to appear at your side which is something you really want to avoid as it will take some time maneuvering to get the gun on target you can though counter all of these drawbacks by playing as a sniper covering a sight line away from the action as long as the map allows it out of its element this vehicle will definitely struggle you can of course get kills at close range but it isn't easy or reliable to do so and if you do want to play at close range or are playing on a map that doesn't allow for many long range sight lines you'd really be better off playing one of the stuarts instead if possible aim to play behind some form of low cover either a ridgeline or behind some rocks that let you expose your gun but nothing else the m3 has 10 degrees of gun depression so it can use ridgelines quite effectively and as well all the crew behind the gun shield are quite low down so if you're taking low caliber shells into the shield you'll probably survive a good few hits before you're ultimately disabled if you take a shot into the cabin you're likely getting knocked out before too long if not instantly so only keeping the gun shield exposed is a great way to play if the map allows for it if not though just try and stay as far back as possible wherever you choose to play you'll want to set up there as soon as you can once the match starts you have the mobility to do this but you are very vulnerable if caught out of cover so try and take a quiet route into the location you want to play in if you get shot in the side you're pretty much helpless so this first push is really important once you're there though you're pretty much set you just need to keep an eye on where your team are and where your enemy are if you see that your team is feigning it's a good idea to back off and reposition to find another defensive spot this thing can't really be reliably aggressive but if you are forced into a situation like this and quickly need to readjust to fire an enemy from an angle make sure you reverse or accelerate first before turning as this will give you additional momentum to swing the hull around and is a bit faster overall than just turning on the spot pros great firepower decent mobility and good enough tears and the cons poor survivability and low versatility verdicts definitely get it this thing is a bit more of a lineup vehicle as it fills a more niche role when compared to the stuarts that are ultimately way more versatile but the m3 is a great vehicle to have for up tiers especially as at 2.7 you can start meeting some tough enemies enemies that your other tanks very well may struggle against this cannon can mostly get through everything so a vehicle like this is really important to have as it opens up a lot more options for you it isn't as easy to play as the stewards but nevertheless it easily has a strong place at the vr so next up we have the premium vehicles and we're starting off with a currently unobtainable one the lvt a4 don't be too sad about it being hidden though as it's not very good it's equipped with a 75 millimeter howitzer that fires heat and comes with a 50 cal 2 but the turret traverse is entirely manual at only 4.2 degrees a second on a stock crew which makes it very tedious to react to new threats around you the gun is also quite difficult to aim and these aspects combined make it a fairly difficult tank to use it can't really be as aggressive as the regular lvt this thing was available to unlock for victory day last year in 2020 or completing a couple of tasks these sorts of vehicles usually pop up again either on the marketplace or in follow-up events so it will probably be earnable again in the future at some point but for now you aren't really missing much next up we have the m8 greyhound a pretty unique little armored car it's equipped with the m6 37 millimeter cannon features great mobility and has a 50 cal too this one was available to earn on war thunder's fifth anniversary a few years ago for completing some tasks it was also more recently placed on the marketplace but in very very limited numbers and as such it holds the price of a collectible currently at 160 gaijin coins which is of course not worth paying at all for a rank one premium especially considering that this tank is also one of the reserve vehicles for china so if you do want to give it a go yourself it is available for free immediately in that tree the greyhound is a fun vehicle though so if it does ever come around again for the us tree it is worth unlocking but as an identical version exists for free it's not worth paying a fortune for this one next up we have the m8a1 pretty similar name but a very different vehicle with a pretty high br for the tier 2.7 but this is well deserved this light tank comes equipped with the 75 millimeter m3 cannon which is the same cannon found on the early shermans so firepower is really good we'll get into the gun a bit more on the next episode but for 2.7 it is really powerful the vehicle itself is lightly armoured and very quick but is held back a little bit by the slow turret traverse all in all though it is a great tank this thing was initially released over six years ago now back in january of 2015 for completing a set of tasks it is available right now though or be on the marketplace you can get it randomly from the camo crates although don't try rolling for it it really isn't worth it you can buy it directly but the price of the coupon fluctuates from between around 40 to 50 gaijin coin so it is still priced as a collectible really it's a really fun and functional vehicle but you can buy a high tier premium for this price and it isn't like the us tree doesn't have vehicles that play similarly anyway so even though this thing is great looking at it from the perspective of a product it isn't really worth the money but if you do really have the money to spend on something like this it is still really fun to play next up we have our first premium that's actually obtainable the m2a4 first armor division this is the premium you get for free if you pick us ground forces as your starting nation but simultaneously it is available to buy for 250 ge this tank is functionally identical to the reserve m2a4 just for the different skin and premium status but the premium status it gets isn't really all too great it gets a 225 rp modifier which is pretty low for a premium and in fact if you were to put a talisman on the regular m2a4 it gets bummed up to a 300 modifier with a premium account of course and a talisman on this tank only costs 80 golden eagles so a third of the price effectively of course buying a talisman only affects rp earnings and not silver line earnings so this premium version still earns more lions but it only has the line modifier of a non-premium tier 2 vehicle so even then it's not immensely impressive as a vehicle it works as the m2a4 is still a great tank for 1.0 but even though it's not overpriced for what it is you can get more value for your money here if you want to although progress in rank 1 is very quick so boosting through it isn't really necessary anyway not really too much else to add for this one as the tank is identical if you did choose it as your starter premium it's still a great choice and will work really well at the br but if you don't have it and do want a boost in tier 1 you'd be much better off instead popping a talisman on the regular m2a4 in the tech tree itself so lastly today for the tanks we have the m3a1 usmc again an identical version to the m31 in the tree we really do need to get some obtainable unique premiums for this too anyway though this thing is available currently on the store for five euros which really isn't bad the pack itself comes with another aircraft we'll talk about soon as well as among other things seven days of premium time which all for five euros is actually pretty good it's still not an incredible product as being a tier one it does still have quite limited viability down the line but the tank itself is still really versatile and very strong on its own accord i do think in general though that this pack is worth it the tank will get you a nice boost through tier 1 and 2 and the premium time will be really useful as well i wouldn't say it's necessary to pick up if you are looking to start the us tree but it really isn't a bad deal although if you do want to be hyper careful with your money there are some more functional vehicles down the line that are more expensive but do have more longevity as products so give it some thought but if this pack seems appealing too generally then go for it so next up we have our aircraft and there's a fair few potentials to cover at this vr i will recommend a fair few of them but i wouldn't recommend getting all of them there's no need really you're most likely only going to be putting one or two in your lineups at this stage anyway but we do have a handful of fighters and bombers and a few aircraft that bridge that gap too so let's get into them first off we have the first reserve aircraft for the us the p26a34 m2 by far not the best starting aircraft agility-wise but it is still quite versatile this aircraft actually comes equipped with a 50 cal as well as some small bombs and as we'll cover throughout this series 50 cals from the air are incredibly effective against enemy armor the peashooter uses early belts for the 50 but at 500 meters it can still get through around 20 millimeters of armor which is generally more than enough to rip through the roof of early tanks and from my perspective of this tier 50 cals may be one of the most underrated cass options in the entire game and i do think it's a good idea to practice using them when you can if you're very new try going into the test flight and finding the panzer 3 to the left of the runway try and practice some looping maneuvers and strafe out the crew this will take some time to perfect especially pulling out of the dive but it's a really really useful tactic to learn the p26 is available from the start of the game for you to use it's not the best against enemy air the biplanes you'll usually fight will generally out turn you but you do have the potential to engage both tanks and aircraft this thing is outclassed very very quickly by subsequent aircraft in the tree but you can use it in your first lineup all the same next up we have the f3f2 a naval biplane that improves on the p26 in every way it again comes armed with a 50 cal and some small bombs with ok speed and incredible agility you can almost out turn everything in the game with this plane there is also a premium version which is identical gala's f3f which is the starter aircraft for the us like the m2a4 not a necessity but it is still very good and can perform looping maneuvers effortlessly really it's not the fastest aircraft that does hold it back a bit it will bleed speed a lot in the maneuvers you'll need to pull but for 1.3 it's a pretty user-friendly choice next up we have rasmussen's p-36a this is the aircraft i mentioned earlier that comes with the m3a1 usmc in the pack it isn't a premium though for legacy reasons which is a bit strange but functionally it's like a faster but less agile f3f with the same firepower it does lose the bombs though it's a bit more capable as a fighter and can still maneuver great but it doesn't roll very well which can make lining up your shots more difficult but nevertheless it is still very usable so if you did get the pack this non-premium aircraft comes with it i would still say the f3f is easier to use but the p-36 is still a strong aircraft for the tier in ground forces and one that you could definitely consider using if you did buy the pack next up a bomber this is the b18a pretty sluggish pretty slow and pretty poorly protected as well but this thing can carry a 2 000 pound bomb which is devastating and a pretty beginner friendly bomb to use as you can get away with being really inaccurate this thing can be useful for getting the basics of bombing though as the bomb is very very forgiving this bomb doesn't come stock though so you will need to play a few games before you unlock it next up is the b10b quite the ugly duckling of a vehicle but nevertheless quite effective this is a cheap premium that is basically a more agile version of the b18a that can again carry the 2000 pound bomb similarly it's poorly defended but it is much more maneuverable letting you get your bombs on target much quicker by no means a necessity but it's still an option that works decently well if you like the look of the plane and have the money to spare next up we have the tbd1 a bomber that's fairly weak but does have some applicability here it's quite maneuverable has a frontal 50 cal and a pretty good bomb load 6 100 pound bombs and two 500 pound bombs these drop in pairs so you have a fair few chances to score some kills it is quite fragile and not very fast but it does have a lot of potential if you're confident for your drops and offers an alternative of 1.3 if you're not quite as keen on the fighters next up we have the sb2u3 this one is folded with the sp2u2 but the three here is the one to go for it's pretty slow and unmaneuverable but it does come with four frontal 50 cals and some decent ordnance either one one thousand pound bomb and two two fifties or one single navel mine this mine has double the explosive mass of the one thousand pound bomb and as such is very effective it of course does work on land and basically just works the same as any regular bomb this thing does struggle a lot when it loses speed but it has decent potential against slow enemy aircraft and ground vehicles too next up a pretty legendary plane the sbd3 dauntless this dive bomber is much faster than the previous aircraft can carry bombs the same navel mine and can carry 50 cal gun pods too by default it has two in the nose but these pods add four more guns for a total of six frontal 50 cals which can shred aircraft and tanks alike they do stunt the mobility a fair bit though and i personally go with the mine but the option is there if you do want to play around with the loadouts overall a pretty strong and versatile bomber our final plane for today is the pbm1 mariner a very unconventional aircraft to take into ground forces but it can actually work it's very large and slow but decently maneuverable and well defended with a bunch of 50 cals it can carry up to four one thousand pound bombs that drop separately which is great for 2.0 being so large it's very weak to anti-air vehicles but it can take a beating from common enemy fighters it doesn't really work too well beyond its br as when fighters start being equipped with the higher caliber guns its tankiness does start to waver a bit but for 2.0 the bomb load is very effective and a much more stable platform than the catalina for example don't use that one in tank matches the wings just love to fall off anyway yeah not for everyone but a decent option if you like it heavy so there we are guys that's everything for today on screen now are the best lineups i think you can make using vehicles from this tier there is also a vehicle in here too you could probably include here but annoyingly because of how these videos are structured i can't really talk about that one yet but just using vehicles from tier one this is personally what i think you should go with so yeah i hope you enjoyed i don't know how i managed to talk for this long about vehicles that overall are quite simple i guess especially for lotto vehicles hopefully it was useful or entertaining uh in some form anyway so hopefully um you enjoyed it also yeah the channel got to 50 000 subscribers recently which was very strange i i didn't actually notice i i don't really check my uh sub count or like numbers very much i think it's uh never really like a good thing to focus on that um but anyway like thank all of you who are still here listening to this so much for this i mean i could be really boring here and say it's just an arbitrary number we embellish meaning to but it's still really really appreciated that's a lot of people and when i first started making these videos i never even thought that that was going to be something attainable for the kind of videos i wanted to make so i'm just really thankful for everyone being here and hopefully enjoying the videos that i make with the kind of work that i do for gaijin there are going to be periods where everything is incredibly busy and there's lots of things that need to be done so i still can't really give a concrete schedule on the videos going forward but they will always be prioritized if i have effectively any downtime and i'm in the right mindset to play and record because one thing i think i've noticed i mean if anyone watching this is looking to start their own channel maybe one day one of the most important things for something like this is to not force yourself to play or record if you're not really in the mood to do it because it comes through like in the past when i've done voiceovers and i haven't really been like feeling super great or i've been kind of tired when i've listened to it back i've realized i have to re-record it because i sound like i'm not kind of enjoying what i'm doing and that's really not the case so it's important for me at least to make sure that i'm in like the best mindset that i can be when i do these recordings so all these aspects do kind of make it a bit inconsistent when i can get these videos made but usually it's just whenever i have the time that's when i'll focus on doing it but i still really love making them and hopefully i'll be able to slightly improve the frequency at which i can upload them of course i can't really promise that again but it's something i will definitely try to do in the meantime though you can catch me on the war thunder official stream on thursday and friday with mike and on monday for just me i'm there for a couple of hours and i'll be answering any questions about the game or anything else just to have a little monday chat really so you can catch me there in the meantime if you want to see what's going on or anything like that i'm very bad at keeping these outros quite short i'm uh generally rubbish at concluding things so uh before i take up any more over time i will disappear again for today so uh yeah thank you all for getting this far watching the video i really really appreciate it um you can join my discord in the description if you want to i'm not there very much but i am sort of there i just pretend i'm not there so if you want to sort of catch up or hang out there's a really nice community there and i love them all very much yes i will now wind down for today and start heading home because it's getting dark outside and i'm still at our office where our studio is so i should really be making a move anyway thanks again for watching the video and i hope to see you very very soon for the next one thank you very very much for watching and i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Oxy

Views: 82,174

Rating: 4.9824176 out of 5

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Id: 3G6fGMDbdgE

Length: 62min 14sec (3734 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021