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Title is a nice summary. How in hell does one play the B1?
Recently, I've decided to try taking a trek up the French Heavy line. I've groaned through the D1 and his bigger brother D2. Now I've arrived at this horror the B1 bis, and to tell the truth, it is HELL ON TRACKS.

A quick stock analysis:
Gun shoots regurgitated owl pellets. Literally, can't do shit, and can't pen shit.
Slower than if a T95 and a Maus had a baby. Go up a hill? LOLNO. And even if it had speed, which it theoretically gets, it still has NO agility. A Skoda T25 type situation.
Armor may be it's saving grace... oh wait. The MM does a nice job of negating any and all armor this tank has.

I'm strongly considering free xp-ing over this tank. But if there's a way to make it work, tell me, please.

I also fail to see why the B1 sucks so hard, while my B2 is great. :/
Edited by Jodo42, Jun 27 2012 - 16:10.

No, you've pretty much figured it out.

First: Get everything upgraded.
The B1 has an excellent matchmaker so you are often able to kill everything with the max gun. I had my B1 and I loved it. The BDR was a disgrace.
Anyways, don't pretend you are a KV. Take cover and snipe. The B1 with the best tracks and engine has excellent maneuverability so avoiding hits is easy. That's all I know. Just snipe, don't rush into the action.

Also, you should mainly support your teammates, not solo.

I used the Rage-Sell-n-FreeExp tactic. Worked pretty well.

You don't play the B1. You just head straight to the next tank.

Just got this POS, and since the designers don't let you use the hull mounted 75mm gun you're stuck with the turret mounted pop-pop gun which sucks, the armor sucks, the speed sucks and I just got one-shotted by a Stug, fer cryin' out loud. A far cry from WW2 accounts where this trundling beast was quickly seen as a major battlefield threat by German armor units during the invasion of France. Bypass this dog.

...just one-shotted by a Marder...why did they add this tank to WOT?!?

EasyEight, on Apr 10 2012 - 23:48, said:

That thing's armor is amazing for tier 4.
The only way you could have been one-shotted by the Stug is if it was using the derp and it penetrated with HE or ammo racked you.  The marder 2 cannot one-shot you from full health unless by ammo rack detonation.

B0X, on Apr 11 2012 - 00:07, said:

Must have. I have yet to survive contact with the enemy in this thing...

B0X, on Apr 11 2012 - 00:07, said:

Must have. I have yet to survive contact with the enemy in this thing...I think the B1 should be handled like a large, slow moving light tank. It certainly doesn't qualify as a heavy tank.

If it is stock, then like all stock tanks, you have a hard time.  But once upgraded it's quite good for the matches it gets put into.

The gun isn't super powerful but it fires quite quickly and accurately so you have to aim for the sides and weakpoints of your target.

I remember trying to chase a smaller tank round and round a house without success when I suddenly remembered I don't need to go around houses, I can go through them! So I drove straight through the house and got him

But seriously, things get a lot harder with the BDR until it is eleted with the 90mm gun.

How does one play the B1?  That's a good question really.   When it's a slug that fires tennis balls, its really tough!   Some of the things I've managed to do in my 43 battles in it (I always play to 50 battles min in my tanks):

• Move forward slowly (the only speed this thing knows) and keep the front facing incoming tanks.   Odds are pretty decent that light tanks and even some mediums will bounce off your front and you'll be fine.
• As incoming tanks flank you, plug away at their sides.  Your ROF will allow you a fair rate of shots and with 100+ shots ready to go in your tank, don't be afraid to shoot and shoot often!
• Keep behind friendly tanks and let the other side freak out when they see a heavy in the midst of your team mates.   Let them figure out later that you are a heavy only in the way you move.  Meanwhile, unless you are the only heavy, they aren't usually anxious to engage you directly.
• Keep moving - arty sees a heavy on the map and licks its chops.  Then as it bears down and sees it's only a B1, the arty will be upset at passing over jucier targets and make it a point to blast you into oblivion in a hurry.   Use those nice swivel moves the B1 has to swing side to side and make arty cry in frustration at trying to hit so slow a slow and unsightly a target and yet somehow still miss.
• Facing an AMX 40 - very hard to pen the rubber armor with the tennis ball shots the B1 spouts with the "top" gun SA37, but it can be done, particularly near the turrent ring I've found.  But meanwhile the AMX 40 will blast you into oblivion, so not a good idea to trade shots with this tank.   Hunt and peck is your game.
• Facing a KV - I'll be darned if I know.  I've fired scores of shots at KVs and can get some of those "amazing" 0 damage critical hits.  I've even tracked a couple, but that's about it.   Shooting a KV seems to be an effort in fultility and at best, all I can say is to have your gunner jump out of your tank, run up to the KV and knock on their hatch and yell if they have any Grey Poupon.  When the KV's radio operator, having downed much vodka while toasting to his good luck that he's still alive, opens the door, have your gunner pass him a shell with a lit fuse and then run like heck back to the B1 as the shell explodes within the KV, shattering the radio operator's vodka bottle, and not much else.  And then prepare to die violently, because two things you don't do to a KV.  You don't put a banana in his tail pipe or a potato in his cannon...and you don't mess with the KV crew's vodka.

Cheers and best of luck with the B1:  i'm only 7 battles away from using free XP to bailing out of this thing.

B0X, on Apr 11 2012 - 00:07, said:

Yes, it is so amazing that every tier 4 tanks and tier 2,3 TD can pentrate you just aim on you turrent while you can't damage ANY of them even you use HE.

EasyEight, on Apr 12 2012 - 01:35, said:

Really? Because I have about two or three Steel Walls with mine.

Altwar, on Apr 12 2012 - 04:49, said:

OMG Best KV vs B1 situation ever! lmfao so hard. Wish someone could make a flash animation of this in newgrounds. I still love the b1 no matter what.

I played it aggressively and did well in the tank. My best game was 5 kills.   Don't us free xp on the B1. You will need it for the BDR. The BDR is 10 times worse. Bad armor, bad gun, bad speed, with a very high profile.

komondu, on Apr 16 2012 - 17:02, said:

Glad you could chuckle about that one.   That was written thru some pain, having faced KVs several times in a row, shooting in vain and trying my best to hide, and ending up on the KV kill list each time.  Other than that and the AMX 40, I had a pretty decent time in the B1 for my 50 battles.  But again, there's that KV problem.  I mean, what do you do when the B1's guns really don't pen the KV, and it's so slow that even a KV can kind of run you down.  I think my best battle was the one where a KV and I ran circles around a house for a while.   He was trying for his big shot on me, of course, and I was trying to catch up to his rear to pass so I could knock on his hatch door and go in where it was safe.   And this went on for a minute or more before an SU-5 half killed me and of course..the KV put me on his killed list.  *sigh and a laugh*   I'm on to the BDR now where the tank is faster and....wait a sec!   Didn't I have this no pen problem before??   Aw well, at least that's just the stock gun.  Surely an upgraded gun will pen something!

Once upgraded it's quite decent with speed and rips apart light and low tier medium tanks, which tend to be the majority of it's opposition

steelknight987, on Apr 09 2012 - 22:40, said:

Jodo42, on Apr 09 2012 - 22:33, said:

I fail to see why your surprised a stock tank is worse than a premium. Once upgraded the B1's only real weakness is its cannon which only really becomes bad if your not top dog in a match. With its best engine its surprisingly agile for its size and I used this to get the drop on more then a few mediums.

B1 fully upgraded is alright

Most matches are t4 and 5
You're useful in both of these and ur only real enemies in t4 are Amx and Hetzers