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Russia:
T-28: even though I played it back when it had the 85mm gun, it still felt too big and too fragile. With the removal of the 85mm, the tank's one advantage, firepower, seems to have vanished.
KV-3: great tank when fully upgraded, but stock it was painful even at tier VI. At tier VII, I really don't see how people make it through without medication.
BT-7: great fun with its speed, but the lack of a firepower upgrade over the BT-2 made this tank a bit of a letdown for me.
Germany:
Pz II: I hate autocannons. They don't pen well enough with French tanks around, and their accuracy is terrible with their shots going rapidly in all directions except where I want them to hit. Although the Pz. II was a decent tank in most other respects, its lack of proper tank armament made it a tough grind.
VK 3001 (H): I don't know quite what makes this tank not work for me. It's decently mobile, has two decent gun options and at least gains some turret armor when upgraded. However, even with all this factored in I too often found myself unable to accomplish anything due to a lack of armor, accuracy, or gun depression. Usually all three.
Pz. VI Tiger: I included this tank for its terrible stock configuration. While it is very powerful when upgraded, the Tiger is merely a fat VK 3601 (H) when it starts out. Coupled with this is that the Tiger P is a much better heavy alternative; the Tiger H, while still powerful, feels like a medium with a chopped top speed a lot of the time.
Sturmpanzer II: compared to the Bison, this feels like scarcely an upgrade. It's also rather big for a tier III arty, making it all the more vulnerable to getting hit by a counter battery.
USA:
M2 LT: my abiding memory of the M2 LT is of a tank that drove in a straight line and only in a straight line. While this was partially due to poor crew training, I still feel that the traverse speed isn't good enough for the acceleration of the tank. The .50 cal machine gun was fun for the first two matches, but then I realized that all that "ping ping ping ping" was the sound of bullets simply bouncing off everything I shot at.
M5 Stuart: Having played all the tier IV light tanks, this is by far my least favorite. The AMX 40 has armor, the T-50 and A-20 are fast, the Leopard has a bit of armor and looks sweet... Compared to these tanks the M5 feels either too slow, too vulnerable, or very undergunned. The 75 mm gun still doesn't seem to cut it on the damage front. While it may be useful in a tier IV match, the M5 doesn't feel like a good scout tank at all. Unfortunately, its matchmaking often leaves it with few options.
M2 MT: Six crew members? Really? Unfortunately, even with six crew on board the M2 MT still felt distinctly unimpressive for me. The only real weapon it can carry is the same 75 derp that leaves the M5 sorely undergunned; at tier III it is a little better, but this is little consolation when you're still firing it at KV-1s every other game. Couple that with a severe lack of armor and an ungainly appearance, and the M2 MT makes very little sense.
M6: not a bad tank, but I'm including it for sheer lack of imagination on Wargaming's part. When purchased, the M6 is nothing more than a T1 HT with a little extra armor up front and a few more hitpoints. When fully upgraded, the only tangible difference is the 90mm gun. While it is a capable tank at its tier, I still feel that the M6 is too much of a rehashed T1 HT to have its own slot in the tech tree.
T40: The world's best artillery target. Granted, the T40 carries some powerful weaponry, but the huge open fighting compartment makes it a great snack for the many artillery pieces it will encounter. It's armor isn't impressive either, although its gun arc is impressive. What it comes down to is that the T40 is a great gun on a terrible platform; not fun to play in my opinion.
France:
D1: low tier battles are fast-paced, and therefore fast tanks thrive. The D1, however, struggles to reach 10 km/h, relegating it to base defense only. This isn't its most glaring flaw, though; the real killer is that right next to the D1 in the tech tree is the Hotchkiss H35, an altogether better vehicle which leaves the D1 with no purpose in life.
Batchat 25t: I love playing this tank, and after 550 matches in it I should know how to play it. However, I feel I need to include the batmobile on this list because when it was moved to tier X, Wargaming buffed the wrong things. It never needed the 105mm gun; for the flanking and exploitation maneuvers the Batchat was intended to perform its 100mm was more than adequate. In return for its armament upgrade, the Batchat had so sacrifice its oh so precious maneuverability. Originally intended as the "tier X light tank", it now turns like a freight liner even with 100% clutch braking skill. While it is still fast in a straight line and I do enjoy playing it, the Batchat just doesn't feel like the tank that it's appearance suggests, which is a huge letdown.
BDR G1B: Although powerfully armed, the BDR's large silhouette and utter lack of armor or speed made it a difficult heavy tank to play. It's goofy appearance did little to help; I went through it as quickly as possible and never looked back.
ARL 44: I've heard great things about this tank, but for me it was ruined by its gun. At first glance, the 90mm DCA 45 looks like it will destroy everything at tier VI with a monstrous 212 mm of penetration. However, the gun's long reload results in a terrible DPM value, and the aim time and strange tendency for shots to go missing made it a nightmare for me to use. This rather ruined the tank as a whole; the DCA 45 was simply too powerful of a gun for the ARL to carry, and the penalties it paid for doing so made the tank a distinctly unpleasant grind.
Somua SAu 40: The French have a tendency to build vehicles quite unlike those of any other nation. Sometimes they strike gold, but other times they come up with failures like the SAu 40. Lacking armor, speed, and a proper gun, this tank destroyer often ends up as the destroyed instead. It is ugly to boot. Perhaps the fact that it costs less xp to research the SAu 40 than it takes to research the 6 pounder gun for the UE 57 is a good indication of how much this TD is worth. My advice: buy a Hetzer, it is better in every single way.
ARL V39: the ARL company seems to have a knack for putting good guns on terrible chassis; the ARL 44 already felt unable to handle its 90 mm properly. The V39 takes this a step further, by using the chassis from the BDR G1B. This tank was oversized and underarmored at tier V, at tier VI it is a nightmare to drive. It is too big, too sluggish, and easily penetrated even by tier IVs. The DCA 45 feels little better on this TD than it did on the ARL 44, and to top it off it has such a limited gun arc that it takes incredible prediction skills to be able to score a hit on an opponent before they run out of the gun's traverse. To add insult to injury, the stock ARL V39 has a tier III gun and a terrible engine; it was designed to compete with the Somua SAu-40 historically, and in World of Tanks it does so by competing for the "Worst Tank Destroyer" prize.
Renault BS: I confess that I am not a very good artillery player, but the BS truly lived up to its name. Armed with a weapon about as effective as a slingshot, the BS felt completely unable to damage anything, and I mean anything, at its tier when played as an artillery piece. My greatest success in it was by playing it in TD mode on Himmelsdorf. Better as a TD than as an SPG, I don't see why the BS is pretending to be an SPG at all.
Britain:
Crusader: a strange combination of a Light and a Medium tank, the Crusader feels like it has combined the worst of both worlds. It's non-existant armor made it impossible to play the Crusader like a true medium tank, yet its average mobility made it a difficult light tank at the same time. While I had my moments in the Crusader, I still felt that it was a tank that tried to be two things at the same time, and failed at both.
Vickers Medium Mk. II: "Hang on, I thought I sold the Mk. I!" The Medium Mk. II feels like a tier I tank in tier II, as it is basically a slightly upgraded Mk. I. And what an upgrade: armor is up to a whopping 8 mm thickness, and we get a small engine upgrade which allows the shipping crate-shaped Mk II to accelerate to a speed still well inadequate for its tier. The one redeeming quality of the Mk. II is its powerful gun upgrades, but this wasn't enough to make this tin can a fun grind for me.
There seems to be a general theme here: most of the vehicles on the list fall into the "Great gun, terrible platform" category. For some reason, mere firepower seems to be far from the only factor that makes a successful tank for me. In fact, most of the tanks that I did enjoy don't have the most impressive firepower of their tier; their strength comes either from armor, mobility, or good all-round capabilities. For me, the major criteria for a fun tank to play is a good gun platform, even if the gun itself is average at best for the tier.
So what makes or breaks a tank for you guys? What tanks did you particularly enjoy or hate, and why? Post below.
Good Luck and (sometimes not so) Happy tanking, Scorpion_Strike
Edit: made the post a little more readable by bolding the tank names.
Edited by Scorpion_Strike, Dec 20 2012 - 02:02.
