Grinding field mods on the Japanese heavies in World of Tanks

The Type 5 Heavy is On Track this month and as usual I'm taking advantage of the x5 bonus for a second win to grind field mods on the line. One thing grinding these tanks for the last few days has confirmed: Japanese heavies are NOT my playstyle.

They're HUGE and slow, and really their primary attributes are armor and gun (like most heavies). 

The armor

The armor is good and you'll rack up some nice bounce numbers....until the enemy presses 2 and just shoots you in the face with gold without any concern whatsoever. If you're bottom tier they might even be able to pen you with silver.

I do a fair job of angling and I'm always cognizant of trying to angle my armor and not give people clear, flat, shots at my side or lower plate, but...it's huge, it's slow, and even if they can't get to your side they can just press 2.

The mid-tier Japanese heavies have "boobs" in front that present easier shots for enemies.

So for a few minutes, at least, you can enjoy bouncing some shots, but pretty soon people will press 2 and that will be the end of that.

The gun

The gun is pretty good on the Japanese heavies. Good alpha, more accurate than you might expect (which isn't saying a lot). But since the HE nerf, it's not that special. You have a pretty long reload (my amped up Type 4 takes more than 15 seconds to load) and ~2400 DPM at Tier 9 is not that good.

Of course you'll spend a fair amount of the battle stunned, because you're huge and slow and arties feast on you, which just impairs your reload even more.

Arty magnet

Did I mention that arties love you? They do. You're one of the biggest and easiest targets in the game. Fortunately it's rare to see 3 arties in a battle these days, but rest assured that once you get spotted (which will be about 45 seconds into the battle because you're huge) that all the enemy arties will just focus you. Hopefully you can find a mountain or a building big enough to hide behind.

Summary

The armor is nice for a while, and the guns are decent but not extraordinary. If you like driving a very very slow building around and occasionally hitting somebody for 700 alpha then you might like the Japanese HTs. I tend to prefer more mobility, the ability to flex around, faster reloads, and more dynamic gameplay. 

Your mileage may vary.

GLHF!