World Of Tanks: Hands-On with Chinese Tanks

One of the complaints levied at recent updates to World of Tanks has been the lack of distinction between the different nations. When the game was first released there was a good amount of variation between the different tanks available. Each nation’s tech tree offered something unique, from the distant sniping ability of the German tanks to the brute force, short range style of the Russian tanks; the all-round ability of the American tanks to the high movement and reload speeds of the French tanks.

As time has gone on, the tech trees have been expanded and other nations have been introduced. This national variation has all but gone leaving an gap for a new nation to be introduced with a specific specialisation. The question is, does this latest update fill that gap?

Update 8.3 rolls in, bringing with it a whole slew of Chinese tanks. While the new tech tree doesn’t see a return to the days of nations feeling distinct from one another, there are some stand-out tanks that will definitely make their way into competitive rotation. There are a couple of tanks clearly designed to be brilliant scouting tanks for updating the team’s map, a couple of tanks that, while slow, pack an incredible punch and some tanks that are armoured to the teeth, allowing them to act as effective cover for weaker tanks.

The first particularly notable addition is the Tier 3 Type “97 Chi-Ha” Light Tank, which became my go-to scouting tank during my time with the update. It’s a small target, with a brilliant speed and relatively fast turning circle. I took to jumping into matches with it and heading straight for the enemy base, before turning 180° and fleeing once my team mates were aware of the enemies’ locations. While it seemed incapable of damaging much about a Tier 5 tank, I spent the remainder of the match using as a distraction tank to draw fire and open the enemy up for attack for our slower tanks. It’s apparently easy to distract a Tier 10 tank from what they are doing by racing past them at full speed.

One of the most balanced tanks in terms of its balance between speed, armour and damage seemed to be the Tier 7 “T-34-1” Medium Tank. It’s fast enough to out-manoeuvre and out-run the top tier tanks in the tree, making up for its slightly lower damage and armour levels. It was able to damage tanks right up to Tier 10 with the regular ammunition, and easily kept its own against the firepower of the Tier 7 “IS-2” Heavy Tank.

The final stand-outs were the Tier 9 “Type 59 (WZ-120)” Medium tank and the Tier 10 “113” Heavy Tank. The “Type 59” favours speed slightly over the “113”’s power, but these are clearly the top tanks in the tree in terms of damage and armour; these are the tree’s most rounded heavy hitters. While I personally stuck with the “Type 59” when wanting something with a bit of oomph behind it, the “113” was useful as a shield for weaker tanks trapped behind cover. Roll in the “113” and get the lower tier tank behind it and you should be able to roll out to a slightly safer distance.

All in all I struggled to find what made the Chinese tanks unique as a class, with several tanks feeling like they were carbon copy reskins of other tanks already available in the game. There are some stand-out tanks sure, but I feel like we’re going to see less and less unique-feeling tanks as updates roll out in the future.

It’s definitely worth working through the tree and finding the couple of interesting new tanks, but I feel a lot of tanks you’ll probably not be spending time with, just because you’ll have already leveled up a very similar tank.

World of Tanks Update 8.3 doesn’t yet have a date for EU servers but you can find a full list of 8.3 changes here.