[Review] Caliban

The final, and undoubtedly the most quirky, offering of Premium Tier VIII vehicles in the Holiday Ops 2021 Large Boxes is Caliban, a British Support Heavy Tank. By the time of publication of this article, Holiday Ops 2021 will be live and the associated sale of World of Tanks lootboxes will have made their biannual return to World of Tanks. This article outlines my first impressions of this most unusual vehicle as I endeavour to determine whether Caliban is a frustrating gimmick, a gratuitously violent meme, or something in between.

What's in the box?

For now, Caliban is only available by purchasing Large Boxes as part of the Holiday Ops 2021 event. In the interests of full disclosure, WarGaming have confirmed the following drops chances from each box, which will contain:

• 100% Chance of yielding a Non-Duplicate Holiday Ops Decoration and 250G, plus:

• 85.94% Chance of yielding one of the following:

◦ Premium Time (1 day, 3 days or 7 days)

◦ Gold (250G, 500G or 1000G)

◦ Credits (100,000 Credits or 500,000 Credits)

• 11.66% Chance of yielding one of the following Premium Tier II-V Vehicles:

◦ Pz.Kpfw. 35 R (new) - Premium Tier II German Light Tank

◦ Pz.Kpfw. M15 (new) - Premium Tier III German Light Tank

◦ Matilda LVT (new) - Premium Tier IV British Medium Tank

◦ M4-85 (new) - Premium Tier V Soviet Medium Tank

• 5.00% Chance of yielding one of the following Tier X 3D skins:

◦ Vz.55 "Hurricane" (new)

◦ Object 268 Version 4 "Fair Trade" (new)

◦ XM551 Sheridan "Salamander" (new)

◦ FV4005 Stage II "Thunder Child" (new)

◦ ST-II "Saiga" (new)

◦ Rinoceronte "Fortuna" (new) ◦ Conqueror Gun Carriage "Little Bart"

◦ Maus "Landkreuzer"

◦ 60TP Lewandowskiego "40:1"

◦ STB-1 "Winter Lotus"

◦ WZ-111 model 5A "The Last Dragon"

• 2.40% Chance of yielding one of the following Premium Tier VIII Vehicles:

◦ Bofors Tornvagn (new) - Swedish Assault Heavy Tank

◦ M-IV-Y (new) - USA Versatile Heavy Tank

◦ Caliban (new) - British Support Heavy Tank

◦ 122 TM - Chinese Assault Medium Tank

◦ Skoda T 56 - Czechslovakian Breakthrough Heavy Tank

If your luck turns out to be positively atrocious and you haven't received a Premium Tier VIII vehicle after opening 49 boxes, the Premium Vehicle Guarantee ensures that you will receive a random Premium Tier VIII vehicle from the above list that you don't already own!

How does Caliban compare?

Caliban is a vehicle without real equal at Tier in World of Tanks, so we are somewhat stretched to try to find a real point of reference to compare its performance. This means we're going to have to substantially assess the vehicle purely on its own merits...

Pros:

• HOLY SNAPPING DUCKSH*T IT HAS AN AUTORELOADING 6-INCH GUN!!!

• Exceedingly high penetration for a HE shell at 180mm, dealing an average of 850HP

• Excellent penetration for tier with Premium AP punching through 292mm for 600HP

• 2-round autoreloading clip has potential to take 1200-1700HP into an opponent in 3.75 sec

• 10° Gun Depression

• Decent frontal armour, requiring 300mm+ penetration to reliably penetrate when depressed

Cons:

• 4.10sec aim time dispersing 0.58m/100m, moving/hull/turret bloom of 0.38/0.38/0.20

(KV-2 by comparison is 3.64sec aim, 0.58m/100m dispersion and 0.26/0.26/0.15 dynamic)

• 23.97sec base reload is not far off KV-2's 23.01sec, but takes 62.32sec to fill an empty mag

• SPG's generally have superior muzzle velocity with HE and AP flying at 354m/s and 500m/s

• 35mm side armour make side-scraping unreliable against anything with >105mm calibre

• Hull down play compromised by 80mm cupola armour and 240mm in upper turret facing

Russia's answer to Caliban perhaps? Image credit u/ThePhoenix2005 https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldofTanks/comments/evnc89/kv2ii/

Firepower

The 180mm penetration of the Standard HE shell has no comparison at Tier VIII other than the Premium HESH of Charioteer, which generates 480HP damage with 210mm penetration. Caliban's Premium AP shells with 292mm penetration join a growing population of Tier VIII tanks with significant penetrating capability that can keep them relevant at Tier X while at the same time invalidating armour as the sole redeeming feature of many other Tier VIII's. In the case of Caliban with its wide dispersion and slow aim time, it can be reasonably argued that the relatively higher penetration values on either shell are to compensate for the fact that they'll be lucky to hit the enemy tank, much less target a weakspot.

Taking the right shell for the task requires planning due to the full minute that it takes to refill a magazine from empty. The Premium AP exhibits a high confidence level of penetration, but compared to the Standard HE could leave 500HP of enemy tank still on the table and around 38 seconds to fire back at you for no risk of harm. Consider the gameplay video below where we have anticipated a requirement for confidence of penetration over confidence of kill.

Utility of this firepower is best realised when playing from second-line support, and like most autoloaders/autoreloaders waiting for opportunities to punish enemy vehicles who have just fired at your comrades before retreating to reload. On the defensive, Caliban presents a difficult conundrum for enemy vehicles as they reconcile the mental arithmetic that says brawling with Caliban will cost them at least 1,200HP. Due to the time required to restore a full magazine following a clip dump, the taking the second shot should be limited to where opportunities to kill are available. This temporary lapse in Team DPM can therefore be offset by a permanent lapse to that of the enemy.

Armour

While the armour profile of Caliban seems decent, engaging enemies at even medium ranges from its optimal hull-down fighting position is not without its risks. Dialing your shot in efficiently requires time (remember 4.10sec base aiming time) and a static position, at which point the 80mm thick Commanders cupola becomes a tempting target. Failing that, the 30mm thick turret roof or 20mm thick engine deck can become easy damage for SPG's. Weapons with penetration exceeding 250mm might also find purchase at the joint between the upper and lower turrets.

Caliban is otherwise capable of baiting shots when fighting on the flat, but this is not necessarily playing to the role of the vehicle and should only be done as an act of desperation with an abundance of caution. Sidescraping is not a reliable tactic as its 35mm thick sides allows calibres in excess of 105mm to overmatch and penetrate. There is also very little of the tanks rear that can be comfortably exposed since the engine deck steps up behind the turret, protected by just 35mm of plate. This means reversing too far can leave Caliban tracked with a glaring weakspot aft of the gun. Forward pokes are likely to be more forgiving, and capable of shrugging off most guns they find at tier.

Crew / Equipment Selection

With a relatively short evaluation period, the assessment of multiple equipment combinations was not possible and massive investments in crew skills were likely not representative of many players experiencing their first 25 battles in this tank. For the purposes of testing, improvements to gun handling were prioritised over all aspects of vehicle behaviour. Accordingly we mounted Improved Ventilation, Improved Aiming and a Vertical Stabiliser.

In combination with a Brothers in Arms crew and various other skills such as Smooth Ride, this adjusts values as follows:

• Base - 4.10sec aim time dispersing 0.58m/100m, with dynamic bloom of 0.38/0.38/0.20

• Current - 3.91sec aim time dispersing 0.53m/100m, with dynamic bloom of 0.29/0.30/0.16

Further testing may reveal benefits for other equipment such as a Turbocharger or Enhanced Gun Laying Drive.

Gameplay

See Also:

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