World of Tanks Wiki

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Highest AP penetration in the game excluding artillery AP shells
• The most powerful non artillery gun in game
• Fairly good frontal hull and strong turret armor gives this TD excellent hulldown abilities
• Has a turret (but rear mounted with a 45 degrees turn limit)
• HE and HESH ammunition can do up to 2,188 damage, which is enough to kill the IS-7, AMX 50B and every tier 10 medium tank with one shot (in theory)
• Acceptable accuracy
• Using gold rounds, the 183 has theoretically the highest DPM of any tank

Cons:

• Very high priority target for artillery
• Very easily catches fire
• Weak frontal hull armor and rear-mounted turret
• Thin side and rear hull armor
• Long reload (26~30 sec) results in low DPM (When using AP shells) and vulnerability when reloading
• HESH functions as a HE shell and may explode on spaced armour and tracks, dealing less than half damage
• Same HP pool as in british tier 9 TD Tortoise.
• Unreliable gun, due to poor accuracy
• Easily flanked
• Flanking is an extreme danger, especially when reloading

Performance

This vehicle is very different from its predecessor. The 18.3cm gun is still immensely powerful(as powerful as the 180mm gun on the Object 261) and has a turret as well. Due to these facts, the vehicle is capable to spread fear and unorganized retreat under its opponents on close and middle distances, making it a quite powerful defensive unit. Nevertheless, these advantages are only useful in urban battlefields, where flanking operations are often unavailable for the enemy due to cover from the own team.

On open and plain maps players should strictly avoid to lead a push in the first few minutes of a round if they do not want to get blown up by artillery fire and flanking medium tanks. Furthermore a player should look for good cover, from which he or she is able to open fire while staying undetected. In case of the necessity of a push always stay in the second row and try to get flank cover from other tanks. If your teammates do not react or even refuse to cover you, try to use the landscape even more in order to avoid as much direct enemy fire as possible. When this is not possible, have an eye on the positions of the enemy and those of your team members and go to positions, from which you have natural cover from your team members (because then they will spot the enemy before they are able to spot you).

Finally, if you have HESH loaded, and you have a nice IS-7 in your sights, let the gun crack and see him lose most, if not all of his HP. Also, using gold rounds, the FV can easily turn an astray battle entirely in your favor.

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