“With a few notes on how to kill a T95”
Let me start by saying that the T95 is a monster on the battlefield. It is not overpowered IF you know how to take care of it, especially as a team effort.
Here are the stats:
Upper Frontal: 305mm
Lower Frontal: Less than 225mm
Shoulder Frontal/Sides: Less than 225mm
Sideskirts: 152mm plus several mm of skirt armor
UpperSides: 152mm plus angle
Rear: 51 mm
750 Damage
276 Penetration
3.75 ROF
0.33 Accuracy
Comments pertaining to these stats:
-The parts around the T95’s gun and mantlet are impenetrable to everything, perhaps save some weapon’s gold rounds.
-At long range, aim for the receded lower hull between the tracks. This is a weak spot that is much easier to hit from a distance.
-At medium range, aim for the same lower glacis on the hull, or switch to HE rounds. Make the decision based on how much trouble you are having penetrating that weak spot.
-At short range, aim for the shoulder armor (shoulder armor has been removed from the hitbox - don't shoot it. Ignore references to shoulder armor) or the commander cupola/hatch. If you are in a remotely speedy tank, shoot the tracks and move around to the T95’s side.
-The T95 has a very accurate gun. The aiming reticule loses almost no accuracy when the vehicle is in motion, so do not expect the tank to require a stop and aim maneuver to hit you hard.
-If your allies have a T95 flanked, do not go to their aid unless you have complete control over cover and angles; more on this later.
HOW TO ELIMINATE A T95:
Do not all lemming to the T95, thinking it takes an entire allied barrage to destroy. You will ruin your chances of winning by focusing on this vehicle. The reason is that while you are focusing your attention on the T95, the enemy team will be tearing you and your allies apart. They will be receiving no fire because the attention is all on the T95.
I have had my team win countless battles because of this. In one instance, I had 12 enemies within a small alleyway on Erlenburg. That is no exaggeration. Twelve enemies ALL focused on me. I allowed the weakest tanks to flank me as I pummeled heavy tanks in front of me. They made a steel coffin around me so I could not turn. Meanwhile, my allies picked them off from the hill one by one. It was a feast for them.
I eliminated 1 tank. My allies killed 10 before they had a chance of realizing their mistake. The last one killed me, and was killed an instant later.
So what happened? My team had 14 tanks. The enemy team had killed 1 tank. All they had left were two tier 6 artilleries and a Lowe sitting up by the castle. Dead and Done.
Sometimes, you need to retreat from a T95. Don’t immediately see it and think, “I should rush it and get behind him and ignore the other enemies.” Be smart about it. Judge his support. If one tank gets around behind him, then let that tank do work. If the T95 turns to fight him, then by all means, attack.
If the T95 is smart, he will ignore the tank that has flanked him and keep eyes on the rest of your team. If the T95 has a useless team that will not come to his aid, and he is smart, he will then rush to attack you and continue to ignore the tank that has flanked him.
The reason he will do this is because the super-maneuverable tanks tend to have less penetration power, and less damage. If he turns to engage this flanker, he will give his side and rear armor to the slower and more powerful tanks that will be waiting behind cover for him to do just that.
Finally, artillery is your best bet to eliminate a T95. One direct hit from an artillery tier 6 or above will kill the T95. If the hit is poor, then two shots will be all it takes. Near-misses will do virtually nothing to the T95, especially on the sides (Update: This last point is no longer the case. The tracks do not absorb splash damage as they used to. Now misses from artillery do major damage.)
Now, HOW TO DOMINATE WITH IT:
Point 1: You will find yourself in this situation often. Two heavy tanks and a medium appear in front of you. The medium moves to get behind you. You are unable to kill him before he completes this maneuver.
What do you do?
Ignore him. Let him get behind you. Focus on those heavies. If they are behind cover, hunt them down, all the while letting the medium hit you from behind.
Why? Because the moment you turn to hurt that medium and his weaker gun, those two heavies with big guns will come out and pummel you.
You have a choice. Let a single tank with a weaker gun hit and miss and peel away at your health – all while you kill two big heavies; or let two big heavies take massive chunks of your health off while you turn and POSSIBLY kill the medium.
You’ve done a lot for your team, even if the medium finally kills you. And normally, a remotely competent team will have come to your aid against the medium anyway.
Point 2: Initial position is the second most important piece to the T95 puzzle after the last point. You MUST put yourself in positions that artillery cannot directly hit you. If you don’t, then you are dead. Simple as that. Also put yourself in a spot where tanks cannot completely circle you. A place where you can back your butt up to a wall and stop the flank of a speedster like a Maus - that wants to keep you facing away from him.
Point 3: Try to get where the action's at. Sitting back at base and not taking a shot makes you a liability to your team. If they roll over the enemy, well – you had a good team – but if they don’t, you will find yourself all alone against a ton of enemies. And that means you will accomplish little or nothing.
That being said, unless it is strategically wise or common sense that you need to keep pushing into the enemy base – then don’t go too far from your own cap. You will never be able to come back and stop a cap if you are halfway across the map.
Remember that anything can stop you from capping by spamming you with HE rounds, but nothing can stop you from annihilating a capping tank and getting the defender medal.
**Funny and almost random note** I stopped 6 tier 7-10 tanks from capping my base in a T25 AT. Me and a T95 were left to defend a base while a single ally was capping theirs. This guy was a VK 3601 – all that was left alive from our initial push.
So it is three tanks versus 6 high tier enemies already in the cap.
I hit each of those 6 tanks with HE rounds in succession. I kept doing it focusing on the one with the most cap points under his belt. The counter kept getting to 95ish and I kept knocking it down to 50.
The T95 kept taking the hits and died, but the VK3601 finally caught up with the capping and we won. Got defender 5 times over of course. Lol – end random story**
How do you set it up??
1. Get the upgraded suspension. If you can, use free experience to unlock the suspension so that you can mount the 120mm (which you should already have gotten from the T28).
The 105mm on the T95 is a horrible gun and makes this lumbering brute virtually useless as anything but a well-armored bullet sponge. Also, don’t bother wasting free experience to unlock the 155mm. Why? Because the 120mm on the T95 can still be an incredibly fun experience. Before you know it, you will have earned the 155mm anyway.
2. The very first thing that must be on your T95 is a camo net. Why? Because more than half of the maps out there have little or no effective cover for you from artillery. Wonder why lizards like to blend in with their environment? Because the best defense from a predator is NEVER being seen in the first place. That eliminates the need for venom, or huge claws and teeth (in most cases).
3. The second thing I would certainly get is a gun rammer for obvious reasons.
4. Finally, I would get coated optics. Why not binocs, when you are sitting still most of the time anyway? Because I have not seen a noticeable benefit to having the binocs, honestly. Also, there are times where you need to be the aggressor and the enemy is sitting in some bushes – at that time, there is a noticeable benefit to having the coated optics over the binocs (Also, vents are a good choice in place of optics, depending on how agressive you are.)
5. (IGNORE the following information after the parenthesis: Due to updates, this advice has been rendered inaccurate. Get a spall liner now, its a good piece of equipment for a T95) Why no spall liner? Artillery shots to either side will be absorbed by the side skirt armor anyway. As for direct artillery hits – there is no benefit as they will always do major damage. The key is to not get hit by arty in the first place. Also, people spamming HE shells at my front seems to do a lot of damage anyway, and I have not noticed a decrease in damage taken or modules damaged from these shells with or without a spall liner. Finally, a spall liner is heavy. The heavier the tank, the more sluggish you tend to be.
I have no doubt that there is a benefit to having the spall liner. The question you must ask yourself is, "does this benefit outway the benefits of other mountable equipment?" ~ and the answer, for me, seems to be "no".
6. Have a few gold rounds if you can for a sticky situation. I keep a loadout of 22 AP rounds, 4 APCR rounds, and 4 HE rounds. The HE rounds should be saved for a critical situation. When a tank is hull down and showing only its powerful turret armor. Or maybe you are fighting another T95 and having trouble penetrating.
The most important time to use HE is when you are at a critical point in a battle and a certain tank MUST die. If it is low on health, HE is a safe bet. The reason is that this gun is very buggy. Expect to bounce on a BT-7 from time to time for no reason. Also, you will tend to track tanks rather than hurt them, fairly often. With an HE shell, you can guarantee the kill when you can’t afford to let the penetration dice roll you snake eyes.
To judge whether my opinions should be taken for a grain of salt, here are my stats:
252 Battles
168 Wins
Win Percentage: 67%
Top Guns: 11
Most kills: 9
UPDATED STATISTICS:
1100 Battles
713 wins
Win Percentage: 65%
(Update: The following is no longer true. Less that 15% of my total battles to this point have been solo, without platoons, companies, or clan battles padding or affecting my stats) This is one of the few tanks that over 40% of my battles are probably in platoons. At least 50% are solo public, that much I can guarantee. This will certainly skew some of the statistics, but I would think that among my solo public battles, I have a 62% win percentage or thereabouts.
Additional Tip #1: I also like baiting artillery. I will go out in the open to draw their attention. You are a magnet to them. When they could be tearing my team's flank apart, I buy them time to to get across because they have no artillery hitting them and wearing them down. And about 1/3 of direct hits by arty on the T95 bounce or are absorbed for no damage. And 90% of shots that miss do no splash damage to it. Overall, it draws a lot of attention and a lot of fire.
When used as a sacrificial lamb (as above), it can be a silent but powerful tool in a victory for your team. People will assume you just got your butt handed to you when you "lemminged" out into the open, but little to they realize the real impact of the attention that you diverted away from your allies.
ADDITIONAL GUIDES FOR AMERICAN TANK DESTROYERS
T25 AT American Tank Destroyer
T28 American Tank Destroyer
Edited by Asyranok, Aug 14 2012 - 07:03.
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