Loading...Source: Taugrim
I review the M103, a tier 9 American heavy tank in World of Tanks (WoT), with a replay of a tier 9 Westfield battle.
Stat line: ace tanker, 4.9k damage, 4 kills
Strengths and Weaknesses:
+ tier 10 penetration (258)
+ excellent max gun depression (-8)
+ excellent aim time (2.3 sec)
+ solid accuracy
+ solid turret armor
+ solid upper front hull armor
– obvious weak spots (cupola, lower front glacis, side hull armor)
– turret loses effective armor quickly when it's not pointed directly at incoming fire
– slow reverse speed
The M103 has excellent gun handling for a heavy tank but possesses obvious weak spots, so managing these two characteristics is key for effective M103 gameplay.
Comments:
1. recommended upgrade order: 2nd gun (T112) → 2nd turret → top gun (M58) → 2nd engine. Skip the tracks and radio unless you plan on keeping the tank
2. the M58 gun is a meaningful upgrade from the T112: 0.3 sec faster aim time, 0.37 vs 0.40 accuracy, and 16 extra penetration. These 3 things combined make the upgrade definitely worth it
3. as with most tanks, you want to run with VStab and Rammer as equipment. The 3rd equipment piece depends on which gun you have mounted. When using the 2nd gun (T122), I recommend using GLD to help bring down the 2.6 sec aim time. When using the top gun (M58), I run with Coated Optics to strengthen the good 390m view range
Errata:
a. in the garage my Commander has Recon as his 3rd skill, but I accidentally selected that over Situational Awareness, which is slightly better (+3% view range versus +2%)
I talk through how I'm reading the battle as it unfolds and discuss key decisions and mistakes. My hope is that these videos meaningfully help other players improve their gameplay.
FAQs for the “Road to Unicum” series:
http://taugrim.com/2015/02/19/taugrims-road-to-unicum-guide-videos-for-world-of-tanks/#faqs
Next episode: t32 Review, 5k Damage Blocked
Previous episode: M103 Review, Creating Isolations When Outnumbered
If you want to support my WoT habit (thanks that's generous of you), you can send me gold in-game, or you can donate via PayPal or by shopping on Amazon:
Cheers,
Taugrim
+Ivan Otac Good point! Arty is the pain of my existence. And since I don’t
actually play arty (I have 1 tier V) I don’t learn where the artys are and
where they can shoot.
I’m just waiting for Wargaming to get off their ass and actually fix arty
like Armored Warfare did 😀
+Mirza Ajanovic I think it speaks greatly of Taugrim that he only fires
silver ammo and still has unicum stats. It sets a really good example,
shows that you don’t need to spam gold, and says a lot about his skill and
knowledge in the game.
+Lucas Pintilie Yes, ofc, but there are many times I get penned in the
viewports(?) on my turret. If raising the gun/turret works that’d be nice 🙂
+Taugrim Won’t that expose weak armour under the turret/turret-ring though?
I’ve never used that tactic, but might try it in my T54E1 now.
+Taugrim I believe what you mentioned there can only be done in autoloaders
with those turrets. Also congratulations on unicum status.
+DEANOGTO ok, that is true, you can try to hide the cupola behind the gun
barrel. If your gun gets hit it’s broken though.
For some tanks (notably French autoloaders) you can aim the gun up to get
the turret to dip back. It’s an old trick for bouncing shells during the
long reload.
+Taugrim You might be able to do it in the future though! Maybe even just
as “spare time”. Like if you can get 1 day of your job each week you could
push out more content, then get more subscribers and just keep it rolling.
Eventually it might end up full time 🙂
+freeride114 depends what one does for a living!
I tried a few years back to see what kind of income I could bring in from
streaming/YouTubing/hosting shows and it wasn’t competitive to what I make
as a professional in software / product development.
By YouTubing as a hobby, I scratch the itch of providing content to the
community, learning about social media, and sharing insights, but I can
lean on my day job to both continue to grow professionally and pay for the
bills.
+Taugrim ok thanks! Now this road to unicum thing is making more sense.
+Matrix7041
Unicum is a term coined by the WoT community to denote players who are
rated in the top 1% in terms of measurable performance (i.e. stats).
The most widely-used and credible rating system is known as WN8. No rating
system is perfect, but WN8 addressed many of the flaws from earlier rating
systems and leverages the data that is publicly available through the WoT
API and privately through community stat sites (e.g. VBAddict and
Noobmeter).
+Matrix7041 Its basically the all purple people in terms of wn8