[Review] M-IV-Y

Our next new offering of Premium Tier VIII goodness in the Holiday Ops 2021 Large Boxes is M-IV-Y, an American Versatile Heavy Tank. Kicking off on December 9th, lootboxes are making their biannual return to World of Tanks. This article outlines my first impressions in the statlines and performance in-game for the flagship Premium Tier VIII of the new American Yoh line, with the life-saving double-track mechanic.

What's in the box?

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 M-IV-Y compare?

There are already a number of Premium Tier VIII American Versatile Heavy Tanks in the game, so you're rather spoilt for choice. In general the following pros and cons are noticeable:

Pros: • Decent mobility with best-in-class power-to-weight ratio of 18.09hp/t

• Tied highest forward speed with Renegade at 45km/h, but fastest reverse at 18km/h

• Above-average rate of hull and turret traverse

• Generally dependable turret armour and upper frontal plate

• Double-track mechanic can allow you to effectively bait shots by poking and then follow up

Cons:

• Lower Damage per Minute (DPM) of 1,994HP/min, ~5% less than T26E5 Patriot

• Lower (but adequate for tier) penetration values of 220/250/53 with AP/APCR/HE

• Generally worse Dispersion (0.38m/100m), Aim Time (2.40s) and Dynamic Gun Handling • Large pimple of a cupola with <140mm effective armour. Pennable by Tier VI guns

• Rounded prow forces you to bait shots with tracks rather than armour when poking

• Large turret ring bulges the armour, making for slim margin of error when sidescraping

American Heavy Tanks can generally be divided between the "old" and the "new", where the newer models such as Chrysler K, T77 and M54 Renegade have a 4-member crew layout which is directly compatible with the current Tier X selections of T110E5 and T57 Heavy and presumably the case for M-VI-Yoh when it eventually lands in the game. M-IV-Y also follows this trend of the "new" crew layout. Conversely, the older Tier VIII Premium Heavies such as T26E5 Patriot and T34 have 5-member crews, which can leave the Commander without the full spectrum of skills during reassignment to the Tier X vehicles. The vehicle otherwise lives up to its role specialisation, with the mobility to find places to thrive on most maps in World of Tanks. The key for this vehicle is just managing the large and obvious weakspot of the Commanders cupola.

Protection of the Commanders Cupola should be your utmost consideration, as you are not 100% safe at any tier. Poking / Sidescraping should be done conservatively at all times.

Setting up M-IV-Y

Trying to fight while keeping the papier machete cupola mobile is going to make shots on the move challenging, but the native mobility characteristics of the tank gives you every chance to confound the enemy with a tempting but mobile target. To ensure minimal effect on gunnery we've taken Improved Ventilation and Vertical Stabilisers. Adding in a Brothers in Arms Crew and some progression into skills such as Snap Shot and Smooth Ride, and you're back onto par in terms of gun handling. Despite residual base dispersion of 0.37m/100m we've opted for a gun rammer in order to ensure pressure is maintained on the enemy.

Selecting Repairs as an "if in doubt" or "progress" skill allows you to make the most of the double-track mechanic and get you back to a highly mobile fighting condition as soon as possible. If you're in the habit of running two repair kits like me, consider releasing one of those repair kits for other consumables if you think it'll do you more good.

While M-IV-Y has excellent hull-down credentials, this is best combined with some hard cover concealing the right hand side of the turret lest your biggest weakspot become "axially static" as you work the ridgeline. A favourite tactic for many American-designed vehicles with large cupolas is to use the gun depression over the side of the tank, turning your cupola into a much more mobile target. Once the shot is successfully baited, an equipment setup emphasising on-the-move accuracy will provide greatest confidence of a connection in return.

Graphical representation of an M-IV-Y cupola penetration

Countering M-IV-Y

In combatting M-IV-Y, a penetration value exceeding 250mm is a great place to start, so that it's possible to punch through the upper frontal plate. Studying the weakspots of this vehicle (helpful graphic above) and playing patiently will give you best chance to punish the rash and impetuous Yoh driver, as you can target the very obvious cupola or the normalising bulge of the turret ring should it over-peek. From hull-down it's a matter of either finding the cupola or punching through its osciallating turret house with 300m+ penetration.

Where such firepower is out of your reach, the vehicle is otherwise countered like another other impenetrable hull-down fighter - Try to block the shots as best you can and keep them lit for artillery. So long as you survive, you can hold them in place so they can't influence other areas of the battlefield.

Gameplay

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