What he said at the end sums up the M103 perfectly. "It has too good of armor for conventional rounds to penetrate, so you put it at a BR where things can penetrate it thus it be not a heavy tank."
Dont forget it gets heat itself, this really makes them hard to balance as they kinda counter all conventional heavy tanks themselves. (Don't forget Leo 1 is undertiered!)
yea I dont miss running into is-4's perfectly spawn camping you in a spot you couldnt dream of digging them out with conventional ammo. I dont Miss invincible IS-6's. The m46 getting heatfs was the ultimate equalizer for that period. Things were busted back then
Whether it be this, the Tortoise, or the big frenchies, there's something about using full calibre solid AP that truly feels like taking a sledgehammer to someone's teeth.
There’s still one final holdout for the Heavy tanks… The Object 279. At its BR, it can bounce an insane amount of shots if people don’t know where to shoot it
With all the light tanks about I sometimes even main HE on the M103 since the 120mm gun still packs quite a punch. Even managed to get a nuke with it as well!
About that threshold idea phly, I thought of basically the same thing but splitting trees into WWII and before, and post war. It would go 1.0-7.0(ish) then break and start at 1.0 again. Or maybe just keep counting it doesn’t really matter. This way you could balance vehicles like the R3 much easier(they would just be low tier in the second tree) and all the superheavies could brawl it out at high tier in the first tree. I doubt anything like this will happen but it fun to think about.
Ur a pure genius, do u know how sick I am of facing things like the s-tank while playing a ww2 heavy (no hate to the strv 103, its a great tank)? ITS CALLED A HEAVY FOR A REASON. All I want is to play a heavy were armor is actually relevant
I completely agree with the heavy tank issue in War Thunder. What's the point of having the slowest tank with the thickest armor, when there's a freaking cardboard box on wheels that fires ABHEDEPHE-TNT-C4-HEATFS with 400mm of penetration at you. It is pointless to play Ferdinand or Jagdtiger when you face post war ammunition.
I didnt know how much I needed you until you were gone. For years I could always expect a video every day. Then, no more. I was lost. I was a shell of a man without a daily dose of Phly. I'm glad you're back Steve.
Heya Phly, phor my phiphth vehicle request, I ask that you take out the Phrench AMX-50 Surbaissé, but there is a catch! You must *only* use HE. It should be an easy challenge, seeing as there is a 6 second reload, and the HE penetrates 39 Millimeters of Armour. Good luck, and have Phun! (Day 19)
@@Masonjar94 Most games don’t let me fit in the extra “E” in “CheesE” so I just remove the E on things like TH-cam as well, so people can recognize me from other platforms (And they Do!)
There is an M103 at a museum near me and they are freaking massive. You really can't get a feel for how big they are in games, but they way bigger than like M48s or M60s which themselves are extremely larger vehicles in their own right.
the m103 surprisingly actually still has some armour meta when hull down 400mm heat can only go through right next to the mantlet just it’s repair cost makes me sad and the reason the range finder is so fast is that it got buffed recently. the regular range finder that all tanks have stock became more inaccurate and the rangefinder mod got more accurate range values, more range and i believe faster range finding
honestly a 1 br gap between top heavy tanks and the things at 8.0 and 8.7 would be nice. then you won't have to fight anything like that and you are essentially the top of the tech tree. maybe centurion 10 or something could be slipped into that 1 br gap, along with a few other early post war tanks like the t-54 and such. only heavy tank i really found reliable past 7.0 is the maus and the t32 (thanks to the t32's insane mantlet). cause heavy tanks really are just slow, big targets for heat slingers to spam at.
I put a talisman on this when the first Abrams was released. I grinded 2.5 million rp in two weeks with it. Not sure how it performs these days but back then I averaged about 6 kills a match over the course of those 15 days.
Even though heavies are in a lot of ways in a disadvantage, I somehow do really well in them since they force me to play more reserved and the long reloads make me think more carefully about my shots, I often have 3+ kills in my heavies because of this
I think it would be better to go a step further and implement semi-historical matchmaking for Cold War vehicles. This would allow heavy tanks to do better (or at least bring it back to the pre-Rank VI meta) and eliminate other issues, like Tiger IIs fighting HEATFS and F-86s fighting R-60 armed Su-25s
I remember when the M103 was added to the game, even then it was paper to mostly anything that set sights on it, I know because I grinded out, hoping it would have armor, nah... that was the last time I played the game, up until now... now it's a completely different game, way too many new stuff, feels like I have to go to college to understand all that. I remember that I liked the T-44, I couldn't penetrate almost anything from the front, so I always had to take out the gun first and park by the enemy tank's side to blow it's ammo rack, fun times...
There's this m103 in Radcliff, KY, kinda rare, and you can also get inside. The drivers escape hatch is open, allowing you to crawl in. Though, I am a little to chubby to get past the drivers seat due to some rusted metal in the fighting compartment
Fun fact, you can completely submerge your hull in water and wouldn’t drown, this is simply because the turret is so gigantic that even if the hull is completely submerged, it won’t count as drowning. So some extent, you can even go a little deep to the point that you won’t be able to use your cannon at all due to the Mantlet being in the water, hell you cannot even go into gunner sight.
I could get on board with a tier match system like this. IMHO the things that made many of the vehicles in WT unique IRL are pretty much negated or make even having the vehicle in the game pointless by them up tiering them against tech they never had to face. All of these vehicles had a weakness during their service hence why they are no longer used. Requiring a bit of skill to exploit them I do not see as a bad thing.
You say up-tiering, but the gasoline powered M103 we have existed as T43 and M103 in the early 50's, to later M103A1, and even did a further decade as the diesel A2, leaving service before a lot of stuff below it even existed. This is a postmodern mess. No sense of time and upgrades. To fix this, it requires the huge problem of recognizing a vehicle for what it is. Most players can't identify themselves. So we will keep getting PT-76mon[E]y 2006 facing things that were replaced several times over before whatever missile abomination even existed, and everyone will remain absolutely hopelessly indignantly clueless and increasingly miserable.
I completely agree. Heavy tanks should not be at the BRs that they're currently at. And too many tanks have very high penetration chemical rounds at lower BR as well. For anyone complaining about killing a heavy tank, go on the sides and aim for a weak spot. If that's too hard, I don't know what to tell you.
The best part is, Armor meta wouldn't even difficult to bring back, all we'd have to do is split the tech trees between old and modern tanks, and give them both separate matchmakers. Gaijin has already done this before with the two Naval lines, so it's not even that much of a stretch.
Current armour meta seems to be: - uptier your armour does nothing. - downtier you are a god (when played well, with some luck mixed in). Side note: Something I have noticed is that I enjoy playing the nations that aren't from the big 3 (British and French mostly, which is solid shot galore). I will admit that I often have little to no sympathy for the "struggles" of the big 3, because the counter arguments usually involve "but this other vehicle from the big 3 has this".
Yep, there are plenty of trash vehicles in the big 3's lineups but you are not allowed to suggest anything about them, not a single legitimate criticism or even just vent about it, cause otherwise you'll just be flooded with "eh, but you guys get this, or that, so shut up". The US at 6.7, for example, gets a very solid lineup with the T34, the super Pershing, the Ontos, Corsairs in the sky, right? So don't you dare talking about how trash the T92 light tank is, or how the german M41 walker bulldog is far far better than the original the US gets despite only being like .3 higher. Same goes for US vs german M48s, or even the kpz70, which is supposed to be the exact same tank, yet the german one is superior to the US, go figure. "yes but you have that other thing, so shut up".
Maybe a change to the matchmaker: Heavy tanks are assigned first and the usual suspects then top-up the match if a reasonable minimum hasn't been achieved. If minimum is achieved the matchmaker then returns to normal operation to finish so there's a little vehicle variety. Once heavy tank match(es) are assigned the matchmaker then proceeds as it always did for subsequent allocations..
The heavy tank meta back in the day was kinda broken though Phly, maybe you've just forgotten. Germans had nothing viable pre-Leo and the Leopards got stomped after being added, T-54's absolutely dominated the meta even pre-HFT ammo. Maus was often unkillable outside of CAS albeit slow; but wouldn't be much use when all the leopard teammates around it died in 10 seconds. British tanks should have been good but the ammo was broken so didn't pen the frontal armour of T-54s properly. IS-3 and IS-4 were actually a joke. They were unreal indestructible wrecking balls. Russia in general was the dominant nation comfortably. American tanks were a meme outside of the M-103; and it had a slow reload vs faster T-54's with short reload times. If they somehow ironed out those old issues (factoring in all the newer vehicles of that era added since) then it would be fun to try for sure.
Gaijin has the ability to BR lock vehicles, we've seen this with the first addition of the F-104s, they couldn't be uptiered at all. If they did this with all of the legacy heavy tanks at 7.0-7.7 I think it would be fine that they couldn't see tanks above ~8.0. They could also easily buff their reload speeds. Right now the M103 sits at ~15.3 seconds with an expert crew, they could definitely bring that down to 14 seconds expert, 12 seconds aced, same with the Conqueror. It would allow them to be slightly more aggressive and able to play around the reloads of other earlier heavies and mediums as well. The IS-3 and 4 could easily get the same treatment, their armor is good for the BR, but their over 20 second reload doesn't allow them to be a frontline heavy tank anymore with all of the current 7.0-7.7 (light) tanks with HEAT-FS and ATGMs. I'm sure there are better suggestions but this was my take on the legacy heavies.
I've always wanted Gaijin to make light tanks the most expensive tank because they are even according to Gaijin the best performing vehicle in the game, scouting to reduce SP makes sense that way aswell. Heavy tanks the cheapest because, slow, awful reload rate and usually die to light tanks early. Light tanks made the most expensive tank would help curb early CAS spam aswell.
Majority of players don't know how to take out tanks, they're some WOT kids who think you have to shoot centre of mass everytime.. Then the results come in: oh this tank can't get penned so it has to go up in BR. no its fine where it was, people just have to know where to shoot
@@alphahill2586 and that still would be fucked, because there's more than just ammo to account for, armour, speed, effectiveness etc, you can't base it off just the bloody ammo because then the EBR 1954 would go back down to 4.7 and that thing dominated there
finally a youtuber admits it. heavy tanks are irrelevant in war thunder. the amount of flack i get in comments because i say stuff like "the tiger 2 sucks in war thunder" is so damn frustrating. "lul germany main cant play best tank in the game" cause all those smooth brains think its armor is good and that it has "good mobility for a heavy tank" and just because its gun can pen stuff (assuming you dont get gaijinned and the tiger2 always gets gaijined). but all of those points are rendered moot by speedy boi light tank with heatfs killing you before you even get into a position
I agree,it is really annoying when you have a heavy tank from WWII era and some 60s technology 10tons armored vehicle with HEATFS destroys you. I think it would make more sense to put the tanks into their own era and let them fight like that but that would require such a reconfig that it might screw the game up more. For example I had such a great battle in a Jagdtiger against an IS-3,we were shooting each other,hurting this and that,but nothing major,like tracks and turret. But when you are facing a BMP there is no fun.
It would make sense to have a BR cutoff at the 1945/46 sorta period. You can duke it out with the super heavies like the T34, Maus, IS7 etc without them being useless.
I think what would produce the battle style you are looking for Phly would be generational battles. Game modes locked out to certain generations or time periods of tanks. Tank development throughout histroy has very much so been develop new protection and defeat the new enemy, and then repeat, each generation from each power was made as a direct response to that of the opposing sides. I think this could work to some degree, yeah there will definitely be some tanks better than others but if you play the strengths of any particular tank it will still be a LOT of fun.
Separating it would also help compression a lot, beyond 7 it's just stupid how tanks at BR 8 have to fight 1940s tanks in a downtier but also be competitive against tanks from 50 years later at BR 9. Then we can just have a different tree that is roughly the cold war era, decompress it so we don't put 70 years of technology in a few BRs, the choice for players to start a WW2 grind or a cold war to modern era grind and everybody wins. Or of course we can do none of that and outsource more vehicle models which then get sold for $70 and don't improve anything ever.
The M103’s 120mm cannon had so much power in it, if it didn’t pen a target, the target’s armor would be shattered to the point the next round would end the target. I wish they added proper armor degrading after each hit. Still though the M103 had the most powerful AP round even by today’s standards.
Fun trick to do when playing BR's without radar AA's Against SPAA, flying in a straight line while inverted either gives you two outcomes: 1: you get shot down 2: the SPAA's brain self-destructs and their shells never connect
I really wish there was a way to have armor meta at higher BRs-or just a variety of effective playstyles-but the more I try to think of a solution the more I understand why Gaijin uses statistics for BRs; it's objective. Balancing a game like this is incredibly difficult. I like the idea of having non-conventional rounds only above a certain BR or rank, but that would require acceptance within the player base that we're playing an asymmetric game that's balanced by a team's nation variety and teamwork. Based on experience, where any advantage another vehicle has is instantly cancer or bias, that feels unlikely.
Armor for heavy tanks should actually matter in an engagement. Its the reason I fell in love with tanks was about the armor, not the size of the cannon
I have been saying that for a long time, heavys need a barrier that protects them to meet modern ammunitions that make them useless in terms of armor. Wish Gaijin hears you. I enjoy playing heavy tanks, but I also enjoy fighting against them, not just shoot and click, you need to think how to kill It, and that's the fun of fighting against them.
Someone needs to contact Gaijin and point out the U.S. had APDS for the gun that the m103 uses. They had both HVAP and APDS. The APDS could penetrate up to 12 inches of armor at 1000 yards....
Yeah heat spam soured the fun, you'd expect that Heavy tanks being replaced by MBTs would be where the heat spam comes into play naturally but instead it's artificially forced into even ww2 stuff.
I couldn't agree with you more man. I hate it when I'm in a big, slow, heavy tank and get killed from across the map by an ATGM. Or have my armor cut clean through by HEATFS, APDS, or APFSDS.
9:00 Yeah, TAM 2IP is ridiculously over powered. Compared to the normal TAM that is at the exact same BR of 8.7 the 2IP gets DM33, is completely plastered in composite screens that almost make it immune to HEAT rounds entirely, and for whatever reason the composite screens add absolutely no weight whatsoever so its just as fast as the normal TAM. It doesn't get thermals, in fact it doesn't even get commanders or gunners NVD, but it's not like the normal TAM has that either. You also get a laser rangefinder on both making the DM33 that much more lethal. IMO it's the most OP premium Germany has access to.
Yeah... BR decompresson would solve that but since Gaijin won't here is another idea they won't implement: Keep them at a BR where they are in their historical period (late WWII, early Cold War), but don't allow them to be a first spawn into a game and increase the spawn points cost to something rediculuso. You would need to accomplish enough in the start of the game before you could get into a heavy. This would mimic how they were used IRL. Speaking of IRL, I've been inside a real M-103 and huge doesn't even do it justice. Its cavernous inside (without any ammo anyway). Makes an M-60 seem compact by comparison.
I think a vehicles br should be affected by the modules equipped to some degree. Some vehicles are borderline useless until you research a particular round or missiles etc.
I think there should be an option to split que's and the game between during-WW2 and post-WW2. Always feels crap using a king-tiger being hit by a BMP missile
@thomasscottish6601 you said thanks for watching and commenting on “my” vid, I never watched anything from your channel. Your making no sense. I watched phly and your posing as him for “giveaways” every TH-camr has people posing as them doing this, this isn’t my first rodeo pal.
I have to say I appreciate you streamers who use max settings because these others are using old gpu and they act like they got skill when in fact they don't.
Im with you Mate! I also miss the old the days when there was only a BR from 1 2 3...10 instead of 1.3 1.7 and so on. This totaly ruined the Game for me when they introduced it and i stoped playing it for almost 3 years. It would be nice to See If gaijin would at least Split the Tech trees to WW2 korean war Vietnam cold war or Something Like that. I realy Loved to Play the Jumbo but since its Up to 6.3 and youre facing marders leopards and stuff its useless. Why has a WW2 era Tank to face cold war Tanks. There are more than 20 years of Technology between these. In my opinion there re many Tanks through all the Tech trees which belong to another BR. Otherwise it would be cool If they would Change the MM mechanis. When the system only Matches you between a BR + or - 0.3 instead of 1.0 I even would Take a longer waiting time to find a Match as Long as it becomes more even than. So thats it... I guess! Sry for my english and greetings from Germany! Keep Up the good Work PAL and i already Wish you a Happy New year!
playing heavy tank is like being a really jacked dude in a fight, you look like arnold back in the day, and the guy your fighting is a small normal size dude, but then he just comes in with a polaris ranger and just runs you over
When I'm in a heavy tank mood I just go down to 6.7 Germany, I have quite a ball with the Tiger II H and 10,5cm and it scratches that itch. I do wish there was more of a heavy tank meta, because it takes a lot of coordination to take them down without conventional rounds.
You could have a generational barrier. Where tanks that were out of service wouldn't fight the tanks that obsoleted them. So it would be inter-war, ww2, cold-war, late cold-war and modern.
I have always thought so as well. Plus 300 round penetration should not be allowed in heavy tank play. It is a rare case now when you can actually do anything with a heavy tank. It has no scouting ability it cannot call an artillery or airstrikes. It would be truly amazing and very much fun fun fun to have heavy tanks go after each other without the bother for chemical rounds being thrown at them.
Ive always thought going up half a br made alot more sense than an entire br higher. The current system make everything about a vehicle that is good irrelevant besides speed and reloading
the +1 -1 br system is good till br 7.0 I think that at 7.3 the br range should be reduced to .5 because at this br the development of weapons and tank Amor/mobility is to great
Its become a race to (add cap here) . Get the cap, die then jump into a plane. No use for a heavy tank, maybe people need that instant reward. So, I have high BR armor but would rather play low tier and have fun. Think of it as the NFL and the rules to make it a faster higher scoring game, the same with baseball and basketball.
I've mentioned many times that all they need to do is implement a filter that either restricts post ww2 (hfs vehicles etc) or allows all (basically as it is now) So at least people have a choice.
I would use this in br 9-10-11 as the gun is really good the engine isnt as loud as the high tier tanks see how many kills i can get, an organised Heavy Tank brawl would be good
Took me so long to grind and max out the M103 without a premium account. It took me like a month of daily playing, granted i didnt go in every single match starting out with it. But i did there for awhile but still the grind is ayyyyyyyyyyyyyy
i dont think ill ever understand phlys video format, like he makes a video about a single vehicle but half the vid is gameplay from a totally different vehicle
The fact that plane has a crater in it and continues to fly fine while others fall out of the sky from a single 7.92 round shows how broken the flight/damage models are for aircraft in this game. A total rng luckfest, why the more accurate ground models led to ground rb being so much more popular that air
I think tanks should be timeline dependent. Then maybe B.R. within that. If that tank belongs then it goes. You can bring lower up but only if you have a B.R. that matches in the lineup but you cant downtier.
idk about your method but id say we just need a good BR decompression first, like make top tier 20.0 and spread out and adjust everything below accordingly, since rn the BRs are so compressed that theres constantly tanks that should never fight eachother fighting (like you sometimes have to fight IS6s and IS3s with your 76 jumbo)
I full heartedly agree, heavy tanks are pointless above a certain threshhold, i'd even argue anything above 6.3 with armour is pointless because of nations like italy and sweden which 300-400mm HEAT for no reason like what. Japan could easily join the armour meta if Gaijin introduced the prototype Japanese SUPER heavies like the O-I which aren't invincible and have weak spots but introduce armour meta to another country instead of mario kart: HEAT-FS edition
I believe the very reason japan heavy tanks haven't been added is because they are experimental. Gaijin has a thing where there can only have actual irl tanks ingame
@@smokiebacon7521 the maus did actually have the turret put in, but that was it. The ingame E100 has maus turret, so its not too much experimental with that. Still, it is vastly different to japanese heavies by them having actual worked out and built dimensions and armor values then being drawn on a piece of paper. Thats why gaijin hasn't done it
Remember when this thing first came out, and it was unbeatable? Like... just drive straight towards the enemy, everything you faced your gun would just blast right thru, and their guns would just plink off like a joke 🤣
I haven't played 7.7 in a while (Been having too much fun at 5.3 with my Sherman 76, P47D-28, and B-17 with 8000lbs of bombs), but I remember having one match in which I faced off against a Maus at close range, and the Maus's shot bounced right off my turret like it was nothing. I was rather surprised and didn't fire for a moment just because I couldn't believe I was still alive.
What he said at the end sums up the M103 perfectly. "It has too good of armor for conventional rounds to penetrate, so you put it at a BR where things can penetrate it thus it be not a heavy tank."
Yes it then still is a heavy tank. It then just is not one that fulfills expectations of survivability to the fullest. While its drawbacks stay.
Dont forget it gets heat itself, this really makes them hard to balance as they kinda counter all conventional heavy tanks themselves. (Don't forget Leo 1 is undertiered!)
@@drphibes4665 Long reload, underperforming post pen dmg and broken AP round which can bounce off 10mm plate at 60° cuz War Thunder.
@@unclesam5733 if its 10 mm of armor at almost any angle, a 90 mm cannon with ap will overmatch. You must've just been gaijined
@@Gracefulwarrior2124 Idk what Gaijin did to big AP rounds but they bounce alot. Another Volumetric bullshitery i guess.
I miss the days when everything was so simple in warthunder and the fun when it comes to heavy vs heavy pure brawl
this game was never fun there was always something actually that’s not true I remember 2014 period before americans ground forces
@@skittlesbutwithchocolatein2274 damn bro who stepped on your dog? War thunder is suffering but…. Fun suffering
I remeber the kv1-zis5 vs jumbo being a fun brawl everytime
yea I dont miss running into is-4's perfectly spawn camping you in a spot you couldnt dream of digging them out with conventional ammo. I dont Miss invincible IS-6's. The m46 getting heatfs was the ultimate equalizer for that period. Things were busted back then
I remember when top tier was IS3 assplowing tiger 2
Whether it be this, the Tortoise, or the big frenchies, there's something about using full calibre solid AP that truly feels like taking a sledgehammer to someone's teeth.
especially when you're hitting heavy targets as well. I love ripping through the mantlet of the T34 and T29 using the amx Foch.
*British tanks in nutshell
@@eventidessoul1963 we love you too lil bro
Phly. Sir.
It warms my parts to see you posting videos regularly again.
amen to that
Heated groin.
Sweaty balls.
What parts lmao
fr. haven't felt like this in FOREVER.
Gone are the days of Heavyweight brawls. IS-4, Maus, M103, and Conqueror ect.. slugging it out were a sight to behold.
There’s still one final holdout for the Heavy tanks… The Object 279. At its BR, it can bounce an insane amount of shots if people don’t know where to shoot it
With all the light tanks about I sometimes even main HE on the M103 since the 120mm gun still packs quite a punch. Even managed to get a nuke with it as well!
About that threshold idea phly, I thought of basically the same thing but splitting trees into WWII and before, and post war. It would go 1.0-7.0(ish) then break and start at 1.0 again. Or maybe just keep counting it doesn’t really matter. This way you could balance vehicles like the R3 much easier(they would just be low tier in the second tree) and all the superheavies could brawl it out at high tier in the first tree. I doubt anything like this will happen but it fun to think about.
So like what they did with Naval Coastal and Bluewater fleets then. As great as an idea as this is, like you said we'll likely never get it.
Gaijoob please hire this man.
Would be great if that’d happen to planes aswell means we might finally have cold war planes together with coldwar tanks
Ur a pure genius, do u know how sick I am of facing things like the s-tank while playing a ww2 heavy (no hate to the strv 103, its a great tank)? ITS CALLED A HEAVY FOR A REASON. All I want is to play a heavy were armor is actually relevant
@@godofcheese5528 yOu JuSt HaVe A sKiLl IsSuE
I completely agree with the heavy tank issue in War Thunder. What's the point of having the slowest tank with the thickest armor, when there's a freaking cardboard box on wheels that fires ABHEDEPHE-TNT-C4-HEATFS with 400mm of penetration at you. It is pointless to play Ferdinand or Jagdtiger when you face post war ammunition.
I didnt know how much I needed you until you were gone. For years I could always expect a video every day. Then, no more. I was lost. I was a shell of a man without a daily dose of Phly. I'm glad you're back Steve.
Heya Phly, phor my phiphth vehicle request, I ask that you take out the Phrench AMX-50 Surbaissé, but there is a catch! You must *only* use HE. It should be an easy challenge, seeing as there is a 6 second reload, and the HE penetrates 39 Millimeters of Armour. Good luck, and have Phun! (Day 19)
Dew it
The best part is the fact your name is Fillycheese
@@Masonjar94
Most games don’t let me fit in the extra “E” in “CheesE” so I just remove the E on things like TH-cam as well, so people can recognize me from other platforms (And they Do!)
@@permaslaksen7560 thanks :P
Phly should be able to phlip right through this challenge
As a heavy tank main, I agree completely, heavy tanks should be able to take some abuse and only be scared of tank destroyers or getting flanked
There is an M103 at a museum near me and they are freaking massive. You really can't get a feel for how big they are in games, but they way bigger than like M48s or M60s which themselves are extremely larger vehicles in their own right.
the m103 surprisingly actually still has some armour meta when hull down 400mm heat can only go through right next to the mantlet just it’s repair cost makes me sad and the reason the range finder is so fast is that it got buffed recently. the regular range finder that all tanks have stock became more inaccurate and the rangefinder mod got more accurate range values, more range and i believe faster range finding
honestly a 1 br gap between top heavy tanks and the things at 8.0 and 8.7 would be nice. then you won't have to fight anything like that and you are essentially the top of the tech tree. maybe centurion 10 or something could be slipped into that 1 br gap, along with a few other early post war tanks like the t-54 and such. only heavy tank i really found reliable past 7.0 is the maus and the t32 (thanks to the t32's insane mantlet).
cause heavy tanks really are just slow, big targets for heat slingers to spam at.
16:48 "You got a wing in your left hole"
I put a talisman on this when the first Abrams was released. I grinded 2.5 million rp in two weeks with it. Not sure how it performs these days but back then I averaged about 6 kills a match over the course of those 15 days.
Very good
„Watch this Sick maneuver“ still is my favorite phly moment. Damn that vid is probably from 2015… memories
Even though heavies are in a lot of ways in a disadvantage, I somehow do really well in them since they force me to play more reserved and the long reloads make me think more carefully about my shots, I often have 3+ kills in my heavies because of this
Same, a slower play style fits me a lot better then zoomin around
Lets all report the bot so it will be taken out
I have a similar phenomenon in vehicles like the FIAT 6614, absolutely zero armour and a fairly long reload
I think it would be better to go a step further and implement semi-historical matchmaking for Cold War vehicles. This would allow heavy tanks to do better (or at least bring it back to the pre-Rank VI meta) and eliminate other issues, like Tiger IIs fighting HEATFS and F-86s fighting R-60 armed Su-25s
I remember when the M103 was added to the game, even then it was paper to mostly anything that set sights on it, I know because I grinded out, hoping it would have armor, nah... that was the last time I played the game, up until now... now it's a completely different game, way too many new stuff, feels like I have to go to college to understand all that. I remember that I liked the T-44, I couldn't penetrate almost anything from the front, so I always had to take out the gun first and park by the enemy tank's side to blow it's ammo rack, fun times...
There's this m103 in Radcliff, KY, kinda rare, and you can also get inside. The drivers escape hatch is open, allowing you to crawl in. Though, I am a little to chubby to get past the drivers seat due to some rusted metal in the fighting compartment
Fun fact, you can completely submerge your hull in water and wouldn’t drown, this is simply because the turret is so gigantic that even if the hull is completely submerged, it won’t count as drowning. So some extent, you can even go a little deep to the point that you won’t be able to use your cannon at all due to the Mantlet being in the water, hell you cannot even go into gunner sight.
Astronaut 1: wait so the whole universe is pickled inside the M103 turret wish capturing the D point?
Astronaut 2: allways has being
I could get on board with a tier match system like this. IMHO the things that made many of the vehicles in WT unique IRL are pretty much negated or make even having the vehicle in the game pointless by them up tiering them against tech they never had to face. All of these vehicles had a weakness during their service hence why they are no longer used. Requiring a bit of skill to exploit them I do not see as a bad thing.
You say up-tiering, but the gasoline powered M103 we have existed as T43 and M103 in the early 50's, to later M103A1, and even did a further decade as the diesel A2, leaving service before a lot of stuff below it even existed. This is a postmodern mess. No sense of time and upgrades. To fix this, it requires the huge problem of recognizing a vehicle for what it is. Most players can't identify themselves. So we will keep getting PT-76mon[E]y 2006 facing things that were replaced several times over before whatever missile abomination even existed, and everyone will remain absolutely hopelessly indignantly clueless and increasingly miserable.
I completely agree. Heavy tanks should not be at the BRs that they're currently at. And too many tanks have very high penetration chemical rounds at lower BR as well.
For anyone complaining about killing a heavy tank, go on the sides and aim for a weak spot. If that's too hard, I don't know what to tell you.
The engineers and designers were like, "how big of a target to you want it to be"...." yes"
I really hope Phly gets that bicycle he wants for Christmas 🎄
Under-appreciated comment right here.
@Thomas Scottish oh yea.
Phly talking about heavy tanks and what should be done to make them more fun.... Italy not existing(Lacks a single heavy tank in entire tree)
The m103 is definitely one of the Tanks ever!
Hahahaha that “how dare you” in the intro is hilarious
The best part is, Armor meta wouldn't even difficult to bring back, all we'd have to do is split the tech trees between old and modern tanks, and give them both separate matchmakers. Gaijin has already done this before with the two Naval lines, so it's not even that much of a stretch.
Current armour meta seems to be:
- uptier your armour does nothing.
- downtier you are a god (when played well, with some luck mixed in).
Side note: Something I have noticed is that I enjoy playing the nations that aren't from the big 3 (British and French mostly, which is solid shot galore). I will admit that I often have little to no sympathy for the "struggles" of the big 3, because the counter arguments usually involve "but this other vehicle from the big 3 has this".
Yep, there are plenty of trash vehicles in the big 3's lineups but you are not allowed to suggest anything about them, not a single legitimate criticism or even just vent about it, cause otherwise you'll just be flooded with "eh, but you guys get this, or that, so shut up".
The US at 6.7, for example, gets a very solid lineup with the T34, the super Pershing, the Ontos, Corsairs in the sky, right?
So don't you dare talking about how trash the T92 light tank is, or how the german M41 walker bulldog is far far better than the original the US gets despite only being like .3 higher.
Same goes for US vs german M48s, or even the kpz70, which is supposed to be the exact same tank, yet the german one is superior to the US, go figure.
"yes but you have that other thing, so shut up".
0:40 nice insert there mate, really like these little details :D
Maybe a change to the matchmaker:
Heavy tanks are assigned first and the usual suspects then top-up the match if a reasonable minimum hasn't been achieved. If minimum is achieved the matchmaker then returns to normal operation to finish so there's a little vehicle variety. Once heavy tank match(es) are assigned the matchmaker then proceeds as it always did for subsequent allocations..
I like the idea of making heavies fun to play!
Nice video, thank you!
The heavy tank meta back in the day was kinda broken though Phly, maybe you've just forgotten.
Germans had nothing viable pre-Leo and the Leopards got stomped after being added, T-54's absolutely dominated the meta even pre-HFT ammo.
Maus was often unkillable outside of CAS albeit slow; but wouldn't be much use when all the leopard teammates around it died in 10 seconds.
British tanks should have been good but the ammo was broken so didn't pen the frontal armour of T-54s properly.
IS-3 and IS-4 were actually a joke. They were unreal indestructible wrecking balls. Russia in general was the dominant nation comfortably.
American tanks were a meme outside of the M-103; and it had a slow reload vs faster T-54's with short reload times.
If they somehow ironed out those old issues (factoring in all the newer vehicles of that era added since) then it would be fun to try for sure.
Phly, I agree with you on the heavies, totally! And nice to see more videos again from you. Hope family is all fine!
Gaijin has the ability to BR lock vehicles, we've seen this with the first addition of the F-104s, they couldn't be uptiered at all. If they did this with all of the legacy heavy tanks at 7.0-7.7 I think it would be fine that they couldn't see tanks above ~8.0.
They could also easily buff their reload speeds. Right now the M103 sits at ~15.3 seconds with an expert crew, they could definitely bring that down to 14 seconds expert, 12 seconds aced, same with the Conqueror. It would allow them to be slightly more aggressive and able to play around the reloads of other earlier heavies and mediums as well.
The IS-3 and 4 could easily get the same treatment, their armor is good for the BR, but their over 20 second reload doesn't allow them to be a frontline heavy tank anymore with all of the current 7.0-7.7 (light) tanks with HEAT-FS and ATGMs. I'm sure there are better suggestions but this was my take on the legacy heavies.
I've always wanted Gaijin to make light tanks the most expensive tank because they are even according to Gaijin the best performing vehicle in the game, scouting to reduce SP makes sense that way aswell. Heavy tanks the cheapest because, slow, awful reload rate and usually die to light tanks early.
Light tanks made the most expensive tank would help curb early CAS spam aswell.
Majority of players don't know how to take out tanks, they're some WOT kids who think you have to shoot centre of mass everytime..
Then the results come in: oh this tank can't get penned so it has to go up in BR.
no its fine where it was, people just have to know where to shoot
just have BR automatically change depending on what ammo you have installed. that would also help out the grind on a lot of vehicles.
horrible idea, its not just ammo, if we go by just ammo then the system would be even more fucked
@@HighFlyer6969 I think his point is to balance by effectiveness when you click battle, whatever configuration that is
@@alphahill2586 and that still would be fucked, because there's more than just ammo to account for, armour, speed, effectiveness etc, you can't base it off just the bloody ammo because then the EBR 1954 would go back down to 4.7 and that thing dominated there
finally a youtuber admits it. heavy tanks are irrelevant in war thunder. the amount of flack i get in comments because i say stuff like "the tiger 2 sucks in war thunder" is so damn frustrating. "lul germany main cant play best tank in the game" cause all those smooth brains think its armor is good and that it has "good mobility for a heavy tank" and just because its gun can pen stuff (assuming you dont get gaijinned and the tiger2 always gets gaijined). but all of those points are rendered moot by speedy boi light tank with heatfs killing you before you even get into a position
I agree,it is really annoying when you have a heavy tank from WWII era and some 60s technology 10tons armored vehicle with HEATFS destroys you.
I think it would make more sense to put the tanks into their own era and let them fight like that but that would require such a reconfig that it might screw the game up more.
For example I had such a great battle in a Jagdtiger against an IS-3,we were shooting each other,hurting this and that,but nothing major,like tracks and turret. But when you are facing a BMP there is no fun.
It would make sense to have a BR cutoff at the 1945/46 sorta period. You can duke it out with the super heavies like the T34, Maus, IS7 etc without them being useless.
armour meta has been dead ever since M103 got the HEAT-FS round.
I think what would produce the battle style you are looking for Phly would be generational battles. Game modes locked out to certain generations or time periods of tanks. Tank development throughout histroy has very much so been develop new protection and defeat the new enemy, and then repeat, each generation from each power was made as a direct response to that of the opposing sides. I think this could work to some degree, yeah there will definitely be some tanks better than others but if you play the strengths of any particular tank it will still be a LOT of fun.
I agree with you completely about the heavy tanks
The 103 is my favorite tank. So glad to see you playing it again
Separating it would also help compression a lot, beyond 7 it's just stupid how tanks at BR 8 have to fight 1940s tanks in a downtier but also be competitive against tanks from 50 years later at BR 9.
Then we can just have a different tree that is roughly the cold war era, decompress it so we don't put 70 years of technology in a few BRs, the choice for players to start a WW2 grind or a cold war to modern era grind and everybody wins.
Or of course we can do none of that and outsource more vehicle models which then get sold for $70 and don't improve anything ever.
The M103’s 120mm cannon had so much power in it, if it didn’t pen a target, the target’s armor would be shattered to the point the next round would end the target.
I wish they added proper armor degrading after each hit. Still though the M103 had the most powerful AP round even by today’s standards.
Fun trick to do when playing BR's without radar AA's
Against SPAA, flying in a straight line while inverted either gives you two outcomes:
1: you get shot down
2: the SPAA's brain self-destructs and their shells never connect
I really wish there was a way to have armor meta at higher BRs-or just a variety of effective playstyles-but the more I try to think of a solution the more I understand why Gaijin uses statistics for BRs; it's objective. Balancing a game like this is incredibly difficult. I like the idea of having non-conventional rounds only above a certain BR or rank, but that would require acceptance within the player base that we're playing an asymmetric game that's balanced by a team's nation variety and teamwork. Based on experience, where any advantage another vehicle has is instantly cancer or bias, that feels unlikely.
Armor for heavy tanks should actually matter in an engagement. Its the reason I fell in love with tanks was about the armor, not the size of the cannon
14:18 at least it doesn't just happened to me - the vanishing tank
This is the earliest I've ever been on a phlydaily vid
Same 😂
I have been saying that for a long time, heavys need a barrier that protects them to meet modern ammunitions that make them useless in terms of armor. Wish Gaijin hears you.
I enjoy playing heavy tanks, but I also enjoy fighting against them, not just shoot and click, you need to think how to kill It, and that's the fun of fighting against them.
with a hole that BIG in the F3D you would think that thing wouldn't fly that good at all and have a lot of drag from that hole
11:26 nice the most funny thing i ever see in a long time .. daam i miss this videos
8:02 perfect timing from that ATGM
Someone needs to contact Gaijin and point out the U.S. had APDS for the gun that the m103 uses. They had both HVAP and APDS. The APDS could penetrate up to 12 inches of armor at 1000 yards....
Yeah heat spam soured the fun, you'd expect that Heavy tanks being replaced by MBTs would be where the heat spam comes into play naturally but instead it's artificially forced into even ww2 stuff.
I couldn't agree with you more man. I hate it when I'm in a big, slow, heavy tank and get killed from across the map by an ATGM. Or have my armor cut clean through by HEATFS, APDS, or APFSDS.
9:00 Yeah, TAM 2IP is ridiculously over powered. Compared to the normal TAM that is at the exact same BR of 8.7 the 2IP gets DM33, is completely plastered in composite screens that almost make it immune to HEAT rounds entirely, and for whatever reason the composite screens add absolutely no weight whatsoever so its just as fast as the normal TAM. It doesn't get thermals, in fact it doesn't even get commanders or gunners NVD, but it's not like the normal TAM has that either. You also get a laser rangefinder on both making the DM33 that much more lethal. IMO it's the most OP premium Germany has access to.
Yeah...
BR decompresson would solve that but since Gaijin won't here is another idea they won't implement:
Keep them at a BR where they are in their historical period (late WWII, early Cold War), but don't allow them to be a first spawn into a game and increase the spawn points cost to something rediculuso. You would need to accomplish enough in the start of the game before you could get into a heavy. This would mimic how they were used IRL.
Speaking of IRL, I've been inside a real M-103 and huge doesn't even do it justice. Its cavernous inside (without any ammo anyway). Makes an M-60 seem compact by comparison.
Phlys description of how the heavy tank meta should be in warthunder is why I only really play at 4.7
Thats the only time armor really matters
I think a vehicles br should be affected by the modules equipped to some degree. Some vehicles are borderline useless until you research a particular round or missiles etc.
They could make heavy tanks face only conventional rounds if the matchmaking made sure a certain number of players on each team had heavy tanks
@Thomas Scottish 🤡🤡
This thing, along with the M47, was the OG top tier tank.
That would be badass!! Maybe even just a type of game mode for those howbwould want that! I think that's a great idea 💡
Air force pilots call it the itchy belly manouver.
I think there should be an option to split que's and the game between during-WW2 and post-WW2. Always feels crap using a king-tiger being hit by a BMP missile
7:51 CC “It’s because my turd Is so big”
I'll never forget his first m103 video, trap shotting a is6 with a... very special kill Cam and soundtrack :)
@thomasscottish6601 real funny
@thomasscottish6601 obviously this is fake so stop commenting on peoples videos for scams
@thomasscottish6601 pointless shit, why would you pose as Steve
@thomasscottish6601 reporting your accounr
@thomasscottish6601 you said thanks for watching and commenting on “my” vid, I never watched anything from your channel. Your making no sense. I watched phly and your posing as him for “giveaways” every TH-camr has people posing as them doing this, this isn’t my first rodeo pal.
I have to say I appreciate you streamers who use max settings because these others are using old gpu and they act like they got skill when in fact they don't.
Im with you Mate! I also miss the old the days when there was only a BR from 1 2 3...10 instead of 1.3 1.7 and so on. This totaly ruined the Game for me when they introduced it and i stoped playing it for almost 3 years.
It would be nice to See If gaijin would at least Split the Tech trees to WW2 korean war Vietnam cold war or Something Like that. I realy Loved to Play the Jumbo but since its Up to 6.3 and youre facing marders leopards and stuff its useless. Why has a WW2 era Tank to face cold war Tanks. There are more than 20 years of Technology between these. In my opinion there re many Tanks through all the Tech trees which belong to another BR. Otherwise it would be cool If they would Change the MM mechanis. When the system only Matches you between a BR + or - 0.3 instead of 1.0
I even would Take a longer waiting time to find a Match as Long as it becomes more even than.
So thats it... I guess!
Sry for my english and greetings from Germany! Keep Up the good Work PAL and i already Wish you a Happy New year!
playing heavy tank is like being a really jacked dude in a fight, you look like arnold back in the day, and the guy your fighting is a small normal size dude, but then he just comes in with a polaris ranger and just runs you over
When I'm in a heavy tank mood I just go down to 6.7 Germany, I have quite a ball with the Tiger II H and 10,5cm and it scratches that itch. I do wish there was more of a heavy tank meta, because it takes a lot of coordination to take them down without conventional rounds.
You could have a generational barrier.
Where tanks that were out of service wouldn't fight the tanks that obsoleted them.
So it would be inter-war, ww2, cold-war, late cold-war and modern.
I have always thought so as well. Plus 300 round penetration should not be allowed in heavy tank play. It is a rare case now when you can actually do anything with a heavy tank. It has no scouting ability it cannot call an artillery or airstrikes. It would be truly amazing and very much fun fun fun to have heavy tanks go after each other without the bother for chemical rounds being thrown at them.
I've thought for a while 8.0 shouldn't be able to down tier or they need to expand the brs or make the br range .5-.7 instead of flat 1.0
Ive always thought going up half a br made alot more sense than an entire br higher. The current system make everything about a vehicle that is good irrelevant besides speed and reloading
the +1 -1 br system is good till br 7.0 I think that at 7.3 the br range should be reduced to .5 because at this br the development of weapons and tank Amor/mobility is to great
Or, you know, instead of reworking the whole matchmaking system, gaijin could just _spread out and decompress the brs_
Its become a race to (add cap here) . Get the cap, die then jump into a plane. No use for a heavy tank, maybe people need that instant reward. So, I have high BR armor but would rather play low tier and have fun. Think of it as the NFL and the rules to make it a faster higher scoring game, the same with baseball and basketball.
I've mentioned many times that all they need to do is implement a filter that either restricts post ww2 (hfs vehicles etc) or allows all (basically as it is now) So at least people have a choice.
I would use this in br 9-10-11 as the gun is really good the engine isnt as loud as the high tier tanks see how many kills i can get, an organised Heavy Tank brawl would be good
4:49 Phly does the harlem shake bass drop.
16:40 that hole out of nowhere lol
1:45
My super Jackson is literally the only tank in my 5.7 line up that can kill tiger 2s and other heavy tanks from the front cause of heat
Took me so long to grind and max out the M103 without a premium account. It took me like a month of daily playing, granted i didnt go in every single match starting out with it. But i did there for awhile but still the grind is ayyyyyyyyyyyyyy
i dont think ill ever understand phlys video format, like he makes a video about a single vehicle but half the vid is gameplay from a totally different vehicle
I do believe that the proposition is a very solid one. I personally would love to see that happen.
The fact that plane has a crater in it and continues to fly fine while others fall out of the sky from a single 7.92 round shows how broken the flight/damage models are for aircraft in this game. A total rng luckfest, why the more accurate ground models led to ground rb being so much more popular that air
Famous last words "famous last words"
0:48 yeah those bombs are way too strong
I think tanks should be timeline dependent. Then maybe B.R. within that. If that tank belongs then it goes. You can bring lower up but only if you have a B.R. that matches in the lineup but you cant downtier.
idk about your method but id say we just need a good BR decompression first, like make top tier 20.0 and spread out and adjust everything below accordingly, since rn the BRs are so compressed that theres constantly tanks that should never fight eachother fighting (like you sometimes have to fight IS6s and IS3s with your 76 jumbo)
I rarely play above 6.3 due to all the things you spoke about.
My favorite tank in the entire game, man! And IRL!
Glad to see you posting again, brother. Hope all is well.
I full heartedly agree, heavy tanks are pointless above a certain threshhold, i'd even argue anything above 6.3 with armour is pointless because of nations like italy and sweden which 300-400mm HEAT for no reason like what.
Japan could easily join the armour meta if Gaijin introduced the prototype Japanese SUPER heavies like the O-I which aren't invincible and have weak spots but introduce armour meta to another country instead of mario kart: HEAT-FS edition
I believe the very reason japan heavy tanks haven't been added is because they are experimental. Gaijin has a thing where there can only have actual irl tanks ingame
@@Gracefulwarrior2124 What about the Maus and the E-100? They were never officially built besides an empty hull
@@smokiebacon7521 the maus did actually have the turret put in, but that was it. The ingame E100 has maus turret, so its not too much experimental with that. Still, it is vastly different to japanese heavies by them having actual worked out and built dimensions and armor values then being drawn on a piece of paper. Thats why gaijin hasn't done it
I mean if it was their navy, especially with the yamato, it would almost outperform all other nations
Remember when this thing first came out, and it was unbeatable? Like... just drive straight towards the enemy, everything you faced your gun would just blast right thru, and their guns would just plink off like a joke 🤣
I haven't played 7.7 in a while (Been having too much fun at 5.3 with my Sherman 76, P47D-28, and B-17 with 8000lbs of bombs), but I remember having one match in which I faced off against a Maus at close range, and the Maus's shot bounced right off my turret like it was nothing. I was rather surprised and didn't fire for a moment just because I couldn't believe I was still alive.
The day I don’t have to fight BMBs with a Tiger II(H) is the day hell freezes over
Watching Phly go in a tank doin stuff and doin CAS is the best :)