Happy Cinco De Mayo...the Rinocerante and the STB-1 both went On Track ("Top of the Tree" for our EU friends) today. I already have the STB-1 so I'm finishing up the Rino line now.
I had the Tier IX Progetto 66 unlocked but not bought (waiting for it to go on sale) so first step this morning was to buy it.
The crew
Traditionally I'd just move the crew from the Tier 8 up to the Tier 9, but I've come to realize that I enjoy playing Tier 8 more than Tier 9 so I started training a new crew for the Progetto 66 in my Bisonte C45 a week or two ago. It's not a great crew, but it's good enough to grind with.
The Progetto 66
I have about 600K Free XP but I decided to at least partly grind through the modules so I could get a feel for how the tank plays stock. The stock gun is predictably meh - the biggest problem I had with it was that the 220 average pen seemed optimistic. I was able to hit my shots ok, but a bounced a LOT in the first couple of battles, even off same tier tanks.
By the 3rd battle I spent some free XP to get the rest of the way to the 2nd gun. I only have 1 game with the 2nd gun so far but the 258 standard pen seems more playable.
The other thing I noticed was that with the stock engine the tank feels pretty sluggish. I get that it's a heavy, but the armor is tenuous, it's a low-dpm support heavy so you need to be able to get out of trouble quickly and if pressing W doesn't get you moving very well...
...well, let's just say I got quickly chased down by a pack of enemies on Paris (of all places) after my team melted and I couldn't fall back to cover quickly enough.
So for me, 2nd gun and 2nd engine were welcome upgrades. I think my next upgrade will probably be the turret for better view range and access to the top gun, but the top engine is still tempting.
The tactics
I'm still learning how to play this tank. It's definitely NOT a go in front tank. You don't have the armor or the DPM to just stand toe-to-toe with many people.
Right now my approach is - when I'm top tier I'll be a little more aggressive (but still not way out in front) and may even go to the medium flank depending on the team composition.
When I'm not top tier I'll look to see if we have a good heavy or assault TD and then I'll follow them into battle and try to take up a position where I can support them. In a battle on Siegfried Line, for example, I saw that we had a good player in a T95...so I stayed aware of where he was in the battle and took up positions to cover his flank and make sure he didn't have to worry about people getting behind him. Worked out well, he finished tops by damage. I got about 2K damage and 2 kills myself.
Hold the shot
The Italian heavies are autoreloaders with a 3-shot magazine. Depending on which gun you select the reload time varies depending on which shot in the magazine you're reloading.
Best case, the middle gun, without food or a great crew, it takes 14 seconds to load the first shot into an empty magazine, 13 seconds to load the second, and 12 seconds to load the third. If you fire a shot and don't fire again, it will take 12 seconds to reload that round.
It takes 3 seconds between shots to get to the next round in the magazine - so you can empty the magazine in 6 seconds...but then you'd have about 39 seconds to fully load again.
Because of those long reload times my tactic is to shoot sparingly. I'll fire the first round, then I might wait to reload that to fire the second. If it looks like the enemy might get away I'll often fire the 2nd shot just to get that shot of damage in while I can. But after that I'm back in cover and reloading.
The other time I use the 2nd shot would be for tracking. Sometimes I'll track an enemy in the open with the first shot. If they quickly repair I'll use the second shot to re-track them. Then I'll pull into cover and let my team farm them (hopefully).
The only times I fire the 3rd shot in my magazine are if it's a kill shot, or if I'm nearly dead and it looks like I might not get another shot off before they kill me. In those situations I figure it's worth taking the shot and see what happens in 14 seconds.
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