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1[[quoteright:255:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/2f236fbf6d98ef89dda722b7379192ae.jpg]]
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3-> [[AC:Roll Out!]]
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5''[[http://www.worldoftanks.com/ World of Tanks]]'' is a MMO VehicularCombat game based around... well, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin what do you think?!]] It features hundreds of [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets Soviet]], [[UsefulNotes/NazisWithGnarlyWeapons German]], [[UsefulNotes/YanksWithTanks American]], [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades French]], [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships British]], [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun Japanese]], [[UsefulNotes/ChineseWithChopperSupport Chinese]], [[UsefulNotes/BohemiansWithBombers Czecho]][[UsefulNotes/SlovaksWithSappers slovakian]] and [[UsefulNotes/SwedesWithCoolPlanes Swedish]] tanks.
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7Essentially, this game is TankGoodness incarnate.
8
9You start the game with ''very'' basic tank designs [[TheAllegedCar barely worthy of the name]] and proceed to work your way up the tech trees. The tech trees themselves consist of a mixture of vehicles that saw service in their respective armies and vehicles that only made it to the prototype stage or never made it off paper. [[note]]The vehicles that did see service often have upgrades available to them that were never adopted in real life, in some cases because they simply couldn't make it fit.[[/note]] All the vehicles featured have been extensively researched and their in-game characteristics are based on their real-world counterparts. Despite that, the controls are relatively simple, and it is most definitely not even anywhere close to being a hardcore sim. The range of tanks available stretches from the 1920s (with a single tank from ''[[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI 1917]]''[[note]] The Renault FT, the first tank available in the French line [[/note]], and its [[UndergroundMonkey many derivatives]]) to the [[UsefulNotes/ColdWar 1960s and 1970s]][[note]]The later Swedish Tank Destroyers are 70's models[[/note]].
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11Vehicles are spread across three categories: tanks, tank destroyers and self-propelled guns. Tanks are the mainstay of each force, with tank destroyers serving sniping and ambush purposes while Self Propelled Guns ([=SPG=]) provide artillery support. Tanks are further split into three more categories: light tanks with amazing speed, medium tanks balancing speed, firepower and armour, and heavy tanks focusing on heavy armour and massive firepower.
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13A mobile version, ''[[http://wotblitz.com/ World of Tanks Blitz]]'', was released in May 2014, for iOS and Android. A card-based MMORTS {{Spinoff}}, ''[[http://wotgenerals.com/ World of Tanks Generals]]'', was [[http://www.strategyinformer.com/news/19399/world-of-tanks-generals-announced-by-wargamingnet announced]] by Wargaming.net. There also are spinoffs ''[[http://worldofwarplanes.com/ World of]] [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarplanes Warplanes]]'' and ''[[http://www.worldofwarships.com/ World of]] [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarships Warships]]'' which is the same idea, [[JustForFun/RecycledInSPACE but with warplanes and warships instead]]. In 2020, World of Tanks partnered with TabletopGames publisher Gale Force Nine to release the [[https://www.gf9games.com/worldoftanks/ World of Tanks Miniatures Game]], a [[WarGaming tabletop model wargame]] based on the ruleset of ''Tanks'' (it self, a small-scale tank skirmish focused game spun off from ''TabletopGame/FlamesOfWar'') with World of Tanks themed changes to gameplay, and with 20 vehicle models released in its first year of sale.
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15The ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' anime by Studio Actas [[SpiritualAdaptation is often considered to be]] TheAnimeOfTheGame. In a move that [[HilariousInHindsight surprised no one]], [[http://gs.inside-games.jp/news/423/42302.html the makers of the game and Studio Actas will cooperate in creating in-game exclusive content related to the anime]] in celebration of the creation of a Japanese server cluster for the game. The game is also getting an official ComicbookAdaptation, "Roll Out", written by Creator/GarthEnnis and drawn by [[Comicbook/JudgeDredd Carlos Ezquerra]] (both already veterans of tank warfare stories from ''Comicbook/{{Battle}}'' and Ennis's ''Battlefields'' stories), and starring Cromwells in the Battle of Normandy. Wargaming also has a collaboration with Swedish PowerMetal band Music/{{Sabaton}}, who are [[PromotedFanboy fans of the game]]: they have provided CGI for several music videos and loaned them a filming studio for a number of episodes of their ''WebVideo/SabatonHistory'' Website/YouTube series, and two special editions of the Swedish Centurion with Sabaton-related livery are available in-game.
16
17----
18!!This game provides examples of:
19
20[[foldercontrol]]
21
22[[folder: Tropes A-C]]
23* AcceptableBreaksFromReality:
24** There are no actively participating infantry, aircraft, anti-tank guns or other vehicles (halftracks, armored cars, and so on) in the game. The sole exception is the Lanchester Armoured Car, which was implemented and made playable specifically for a "100 Years of the Tank" commemorative special event in September of 2016.
25** Some tanks have rather outlandish equipment available for use; for example, the KV-1 can mount the fictional 57mm "project 413" gun, which is virtually identical to the historical [=ZiS=]-4 available to other Russian tanks. This is especially apparent with tanks that mount guns ''as long as the tank itself'' in forward hull positions.
26** Because the game's matchmaker does not consider the tanks' nationalities as it forms teams, you can see German tanks fighting alongside American tanks against British and Chinese tanks, along with other unlikely combinations.[[note]]The game did offer a "historical" mode with allied vs axis battles but they failed to catch on due to balancing issues. Likewise the "confrontation" mode (each team was comprised of just one nation's tanks e.g. USA vs Germany) was also removed due to serious balance problems.[[/note]]
27** A number of the early German [=SPGs=] are actually uncasemated assault guns intended to provide support for advancing tanks against infantry and fortifications. They were never meant to be used for indirect fire: along with a number of tank destroyers, they belong to a class of armoured vehicles known as assault guns, which were designed to provide mobile fire support for infantry.
28** In actual combat, a shot that manages to punch a hole into a tank will almost certainly guarantee a knock-out, if not outright destruction. Most armoured fighting vehicles are not very spacious: chances are that something, or someone will get hit. Even without an explosive filler, any projectile that manages to penetrate will generate spalling, causing fragments of the armour to break off and turn into shrapnel.
29*** On the flipside, shooting a tank anywhere on its hitbox that is not a module will deal hitpoint damage and eventually destroy the tank. Even if every shot is placed on the tiny little commander's cupola on the top of the turret. Even though the entire point of such cupolas in real life is to place the commander's vision ports in a place where a hit ''won't'' damage the tank itself.
30** The maximum sighting range for a tank is 445m, which can be extended to 564m if a friendly spots a target for you. In World War 2, most tank combat took place at ranges from 400m (for tanks with small caliber weapons) to 800m (for late-war machines), and some guns could effectively engage at 2 km ranges, although these super long-distance engagements were a very small fraction of the total.
31** Many of the guns had to be watered down to avoid one-sided battles. For example, the Tiger I with the 8.8cm L/56 can knock out an M4 Sherman at 2,000 yards/1,828.8m from the side and 800m from the front (and it indeed could accurately hit targets at that range, as could most guns as mechanical accuracy varied very little), whereas the M4 had to catch the Tiger I on the flank at around 700m. In-game, the accuracy of the Tiger I's 8.8cm L/56 and the Tiger II's 8.8cm L/71, and especially the Russian D-25T 122mm L/44 gun have been reduced tremendously over their real-life counterparts for gameplay's sake.
32** Though most tanks approximate their historical counterparts' specifications, other stats are often fudged. For instance, many tanks can fire their guns much faster than they would have been able to in real life: a fully-trained crew in a T-62A, for example, can fire 10 rounds a minute when in actuality, the practical rate of fire was recorded as being much lower. Soft stats such as weak spots, weight, and gun depression/elevation are also fudged: the T-28 for example, weighs nearly ten tons less than production models, and is closer to the prototypes (which were not as heavily equipped and were made out of much weaker steel).
33** Some tanks are sometimes inferior to their real life counterparts - the IS-7 is a notable example[[note]]it had a higher top speed, among other things[[/note]] - for the sake of balancing the game.
34** The guns themselves have no collision model for when dealing with terrain and other vehicles, and as far are the game engine goes, shots are fired from the base of the gun mount. This means that tanks can freely swing their guns through trees, buildings, other tanks and such, and they are not worried about plowing into the ground when coming down steep slopes. A result of this is that tanks can literally be touch each other, and their gun models poking out the other side, but still fire on each other, something small tanks can take advantage of when dealing with much larger ones who can't depress their guns that low.
35* AccidentalAimingSkills: Happens often, especially due to RNG. Among the most common reasons are -
36** Tanks sitting behind friendlies who get spotted and deliberately or inadvertently use their stealthed allies as invisible cover.
37** Sometimes tanks (with poor accuracy) will [[DoNotRunWithAGun shoot on the move]] on the off chance a hit will land.
38** Inevitable with artillery, of which most have very poor accuracy. It's not uncommon to aim at one tank, fire, miss, and [[ExactlyWhatIAimedAt hit his friend nearby]] (who might have not even been spotted).
39** There have been numerous videos of tanks missing their intended target, only to kill an unspotted tank on the other side of the map. The most absurd has to be [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6BDWJBwjh0 this one.]]
40** A more recent patch added the ability for shells that ricochet to still strike another tank. Your disappointment becomes joy if you manage to hit another tank with that bounced shell. Bonus points for hitting a tank that was unspotted. However each shell only stays "live" for a single ricochet. If it hits another target and ''also'' richocets of it, the shell cannot hit a third target. Players verified this by testing it out in training rooms.[[note]]Which makes sense; a shell that ricochets off armor twice is going to lose a lot of velocity in the process even in the unlikely event that it's still intact after both bounces.[[/note]] It's also possible in certain cases (where the shape of the tank creates a "shot trap") for a shell to ricochet off the armor and then penetrate another part of ''the same tank''.[[note]]This is also [[TruthInTelevision realistic]]; such things really happened to some tanks in World War II and there were even design changes in some cases (such as the German Schmalturm turrets) meant in part to prevent it. As in the game, these events in real combat were accidental. "Sniping weak points" wasn't really a thing that happened in reality; gunners would simply aim at ''the tank'', especially since they were usually shooting from longer ranges than in-game.[[/note]]
41** There are two skills that generally try to avert this trope; Snap Shot (decreases the accuracy penalty from moving the gun/turret) and Smooth Ride (decreases the accuracy penalty while moving the tank).
42* AchillesHeel: Many German tanks have frontal transmissions or engines, meaning that crippling engine damage and module-destroying fires are possible from frontal hits, though the fire issue was eliminated in the 9.3 patch (which changed it so that transmission hits can't set fire to the tank). A few tanks, such as the British Centurion, German Indien-Panzer and Soviet IS-3, one-up this by having frontal '''ammo racks''', meaning a big enough hit in the right spot can OneHitKill these tanks. Training ''Preventive Maintenance'' or ''Safe Stowage'' is important for these tanks to reduce the chance of catastrophe.
43* {{Acrofatic}}:
44** The Soviet T-28 is very fast despite being bigger than some heavy tanks. [[FragileSpeedster However, it does not have the health to match its size.]]
45** The German VK 30.01 (P) is a Tiger prototype with a 60 km/h speed limit. Only qualifies when upgraded however, and acceleration remains somewhat poor, meaning that it won't always manage to reach its top speed. [[CarFu Don't get in the way of one going downhill, though]]. The VK 30.01 (P) is additionally classified as a medium tank in ''Blitz'' despite being the size of a heavy tank.
46** The Tiger I tank itself is one of the largest, boxiest tanks in the game, and can hit a very good 40+ km/h. The patch that improved its power-to-weight ratio made it even nippier.
47** The KV-1S, KV-85 and IS series heavy tanks are surprisingly fast and nimble for their size, almost edging into medium tank territory at times.
48** Higher tier French heavies can be faster and more maneuverable than some ''medium'' tanks in similar tiers.
49** The T1 and M6 Heavies aren't much better protected than the M4 Sherman (apart from the excellent, well-angled frontal armour), but they're pretty fast and agile for their size and weight.
50** The mostly-speculative tier 5 Japanese heavy tank, the OI-experimental is so huge it dwarfs even other heavy tanks of the same tier. However, it will somehow do 40 km/h despite weighing 100 tons.
51* ActionGirl: One of the rewards for completing missions are female crew members. Interestingly, the female crew are actually ''superior'' to their male counterparts, since they get an exclusive skill, Sisterhood of Steel, for free. This increases all of their skills by 5% when you have an all female crew, and it does not count towards the perk limit for experience.
52** As of patch 9.19, Sisterhood of Steel and Brothers in Arms are now equivalent. You no longer need an all-female crew to achieve a skill bonus, as long as the male crew members have the Brothers in Arms perk.
53* ActuallyADoombot: In the Last Waffenträger event, when the Waffenträger auf E 110 is defeated, one of Max von Krieger's lines mentions that he's not actually piloting it.
54* AIIsACrapshoot:
55** The matchmaker occasionally produces teams with the results being obvious from the start, such as several nigh-impenetrable hard hitters a la Jagdtiger against a bunch of medium-light tanks on an urban map with low maneuver potential. While it's not impossible to beat, depending on the skills of the players involved, it still favors one team over the other.
56** The matchmaker will create 7-vs-7 games outside of the "Team Battles" game mode when it thinks that there aren't enough players in queue.
57** One of the most irritating scourges of the game are players who use a bot program to play hundreds of games in a day and thus avoid LevelGrinding. Bot tanks usually follow the nearest tank and fire at anything that is spotted, which can lead to bots pushing you out of cover and pinging uselessly off the front of tanks they have no hope of penetrating. Some bots are even worse, simply sitting stationary in the cap circle all game and firing at the nearest enemy tank spotted.
58* [[TheAllegedCar The Alleged Tank]]:
59** The starter tanks are barely worthy of being called tanks. Small guns, very thin armor and speed issues on certain types of terrain... thankfully, you generally only face other starter tanks in these, so everyone else is just as weak as you.
60** Special mention to the Light [=VIc=] gift tank. No armor, armed only with a machine gun, and had a horribly underpowered 88hp engine, making its top speed a lie. Worse, the better T7 Combat Car was given out a few months prior. All the [=VIc=] had over it was penetration and gun handling, but the T7 was subsequently patched to have the same penetration and was even given a speed increase. It's not surprising that many people sold it immediately after getting to free up the garage slot it came with; its only worth now is as a collector's item.
61* AlphaStrike: The USSR double-barreled tanks (such as the IS-2-II and ST-II) can fire their guns sequentially, essentially acting as a two-shot auto-reloader. However, by holding down the fire button, players can fire both barrels at once at a target, at the cost of increased reload time and a chance for one or both rounds to miss or bounce off.
62* AntiFrustrationFeature: Scout tanks, which easily tend to die early on, have the same Crew XP rate as a regular tank that survives a battle. This is due to the spotting mechanic, which rewards tanks that spot enemies for their allies.
63* AprilFoolsDay:
64** A long-running April Fools' joke is that Wargaming will add the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landkreuzer_P._1000_Ratte Landkreuzer P.1000 Ratte]] to the game. They even made a video about it.
65** For their April Fools' Day joke 2014, Wargaming added in a new tank, the Tier 1 Karl SPG (a miniaturized version of the Karl-Gerät super-heavy siege mortar), which is put on its own map against other Karls only. The map itself is a ShoutOut to ''VideoGame/BattleCity'', with all the rules and obstacle behavior. It's as hilarious as it sounds.
66** April 2015 introduces underwater fights on the seafloor with submersible tanks and a One-use Artillery Radio that calls in Rainbow Suitcases which can reach anywhere.
67** The UsefulNotes/XBox360 version got tanks on the moon, featuring a version of the M24 Chafee firing lasers as seen here: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=88gbqRdAzC0
68** April 2016 adds ''literal'' balls of steel in the form of the [[http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/17/moon-mayhem/ IS-8 Ball]]. Amusingly enough, these were [[http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/08/19/stalins-balls-of-steel/ actually designed]] by Russian engineers in [=WW2=], though they never made it to prototype stage. They were not, however, designed to fire laser beams or roll around on the moon like in the April Fools map.
69*** The console versions' 2016 April Fools' gives us [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=795I9UNlfXo [=HMS TOG II=]]].
70* ArbitraryWeaponRange:
71** Mixed on the PC version. Autocannons of 40mm calibre and below that have automatic fire (more then one shot fired on a single click) have their shots disappear at 400 meters distance post 9.8, 350 meters pre 9.8. This is true of the 7.92mm MG of the Panzer IC all the way up to the big British 40mm Pom Poms. Shots fired by single shot guns will travel until they reach the edge of the map or hit something. This extends even past the 1000x1000 meter draw distance box, and if an enemy is outside your draw distance, spotted by a teammate, and you manage to hit him, the crew will actually call out the hit. Penetration drops with distance, however, so you might not be able to cause any damage even if you manage to hit.
72*** This also applies to low-caliber single shot weapons, as well. An example would be the French 25 mm Canon Raccourci mle. 1934. It has decent penetration for its tier, but is let down by the fact that it can't damage anything further than 400 meters away.
73** Played straight on the Xbox 360 version, where any shell fired from anything but artillery will vanish after 700 meters.
74* ArmorIsUseless: Averted, even premium ammo shots from large guns can sometimes bounce off tanks with relatively thin armor. Also, thick armor can [[NoSell completely neutralize]] shells with low enough penetration.
75** Most low tier French tanks are regularly reported to survive taking up to ''80'' hits when facing tanks around their tier.
76** Taken to absurd heights with high tier American tank destroyers, especially the T95, which can take '''artillery''' shells to the face and [[NoSell not be hurt]].
77** However, this is increasingly played straight. The current game meta favors high-penetration guns and players can purchase premium ammo with in-game currency instead of real money. Subsequently, tanks relying solely on armor thickness at the expense of mobility and firepower tend to lose out.
78* ArtisticLicenseHistory:
79** Most of the tanks in-game were operational vehicles (T-34, M4 Sherman), prototypes (T95, Maus, IS-7), blueprints (most of the E-series, KV-5), or at the very least ''conceived of'' (Jagdpanzer E-100). However, some are invented wholesale by Wargaming. Despite this, the small in-game histories of these vehicles give the impression that they existed - the Waffentrager auf E-100's reads: "A proposal to mount a large-caliber antiaircraft gun on the chassis of the E-100 tank." While both the E-100 chassis and the autoloading gun were created, no proposal for an E-100 ''Waffentrager'' was ever made, because such a thing would be contrary to the design principles of both projects[[note]]The E-100 (and the Maus) was to be escorted itself by a bunch of smaller dedicated anti-aircraft tanks, not be an anti-aircraft unit itself[[/note]].
80*** Many of the vehicles in the game also can equip guns that they never did in real life, or at least weren't very effective with them. An example would be the British Cromwell, which can equip the potent 75 mm Vickers HV cannon. In real life however, attempts to mount the gun on the tank were unsuccessful due to the turret being too small.
81** [[ActionGirl Female tank crews]] being used by ''every'' nation. Only the Soviets were really into it.
82* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
83** Early versions of the game lacked anything approaching real physics. The edges of cliffs and water were simply impossible to enter leading to tanks hanging off the edge of cliffs to make impossible shots. Destroyed tanks used to be immobile making suicide blocking a viable tactic. Upgrades to the engine have removed these deficiencies for the most part.
84** Jumping on top of a heavier tank [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2HTBbNhLaA&t=5m23s will cause your tank to explode]] due to the weight difference.
85** Sideswiping a heavier tank at high speed [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2HTBbNhLaA&t=2m14s can cause instant death]] to your tank.
86** The 9.14 physics patch radically overhauled the physics engine. Tanks are able to drift and execute handbrake turns and even flip themselves over with poor driving ([[DrivesLikeCrazy which is sadly common]], especially at low tiers). Terrain effects are also a bit more nuanced than the previous hard/medium/soft ground mechanics, but the basics still hold true in a primary sense. Even then, it's stated by the developers that it's much harder to flip a tank in-game compared to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wl0DDoP5bo real life]] for gameplay reasons. Additionally, SPG's and Tank Destroyers are unable to pull off these handbrake turns.
87* AscendedMeme: The term "Stronk Tenk" as used by most players to describe Russian Heavy tanks in the game. [[http://i.imgur.com/8jK0AsM.png Wargaming is now using it.]]
88** The French AMX 40 and his "Rubber Duck" nickname were acknowledged by Wargaming when they posted some fanart about it.
89** The "Duck" now even has a Nature Documentary about it! [[https://youtu.be/Tsr9mLbg7FA]]
90* ATeamFiring:
91** Machine guns are often the best weapon choice for a lot of low-tier tanks. [[{{Noob}} Inexperienced players]], who might assume they are as effective as regular cannons at range, then proceed to spray the battlefield around their target with useless, useless tracers.
92** It's also common among teams coming against a well-driven scout early in the match. A target, the only visible enemy tank (and [[FragileSpeedster a light]], to boot) appears on the map, and everyone takes aim. As the scout comes zipping through the team's starting area, there are dozens of rounds flying around, in a frantic attempt to knock out the scout before the whole team's tank positions are reported. Bonus points if it comes to the trope's logical conclusion-- with a bunch of spent rounds harmlessly striking the dirt and rocks around the long-gone enemy scout's tracks, the team having not advanced their position on the map, and the enemy artillery taking their pick of the juiciest targets.
93*** ''Extra'' bonus points if the ordeal resulted in [[TrialByFriendlyFire accidental team damage]], and teammates are now [[HatePlague shouting at each other]] in chat.
94* AttackItsWeakpoint: Damage caused to the tanks' modules is calculated separately from damage to their health. Stopping the enemy by [[TechnicalPacifist shooting their tracks]] is possible even if your weapon can't pierce their armor, the same goes for most other modules. Nothing is as satisfying as [[KillItWithFire setting a enemy's engine on fire]], aside from [[OneHitKill destroying their ammo rack]]. Some tanks also have weakpoints that are easy to score critical hits on. Knowing where to aim for the modules and crew members can help even the odds against higher tier tanks.
95** The German tanks in general had glaring weakspots in their gun mantlets (allowing lower-tier tanks to penetrate and score damage). These were fixed in patch 0.6.5.
96** Before patch 0.6.4, the Tier 9 [=VK4502=] Ausf. B heavy tank had a frontal weakspot that could cause the tank to catch on fire [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDvxVDJ8oEE&feature=player_embedded from a starter tank's shot.]]
97** Soviet tanks usually have a vulnerable driver's hatch [[note]]He's usually [[RedShirt the first and only casualty among the crew.]][[/note]] and triplex periscopes [[note]] Hitting these renders the crew blind for a while.[[/note]].
98** The otherwise hyper-armored on all sides KV-5 has a big weak housing for a radioman, routinely referred to as "R2-D2" by fans. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOWg9sEJirE Said radioman's sad life]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxESL_K2xgU is also a recurring theme.]] On the upside, that radioman has bought so many farms, he now owns several small countries outright.
99** US heavy tanks from Tier 7 onwards have well-protected frontal armor, especially on the turret, but their flanks can be penetrated relatively easily.
100** In the case of tracks, it's also subject to an inversion: it's possible to get hits on an enemy which will damage their tracks but not their tank, even when you ''can'' damage their tank, in effect making the tracks some of the best armored parts of a vehicle.
101*** Some tanks in real life had tracks that were ''designed'' to be an additional layer of armour.
102* AwesomeButImpractical:
103** Premium ammo in random battles, especially for guns that have high damage and low penetration with normal ammo, like the American and German 105mm and Soviet 122mm tank mounted howitzers that appear relatively early on. The extra penetration makes them absolutely devastating, but the price (in both Gold and Credits) skyrockets the higher up the tech tree you go. They can still miss or bounce off armor as well.
104** Tier 9-10 vehicles tend to be unprofitable with without a premium account and a win rate of at least 55%. So it's either playing with a platoon to rely less on the mercy of the autobalancer - or grinding repair and ammo money with other tanks.
105*** Special mention goes to the T95 American tank destroyer, which boasts almost impenetrably thick frontal armor and a monstrous gun, it can hold down entire choke points alone. But it is ''so'' slow, that the game is often either won or lost before the T95 can even shoot anything. The mid-tier British heavies and especially the [=TDs=] can also suffer from this.
106*** The Maus is rather uncompetitive because of how PowerCreep nullified its heavy armor. When the game launched, it was the only Tier 10 alongside the IS-7. With its thick armor and the absence of equal-tiered counters besides the IS-7, it was almost invincible with many players easily soloing matches in the Maus. However, with the introduction of Tier X mediums, tank destroyers, and artillery, Maus's armor became less effective as these newer tanks have the firepower and penetration to penetrate its armor and deplete it HP. Furthermore, as higher-penetrating premium ammo becomes purchasable with in-game credits instead of real-world money, tanks as low as tier 8 can easily punch through its armor. Nowadays, the Maus is treated more as a novelty than a genuinely useful tank since its heavy, unsloped, spaceless armor only weighs it down while other Tier 10 vehicles have better advantages like sloped armor and the ability to use higher-penetrating HEAT rounds.
107** No matter how cool it may be to drive with a historically accurate module configuration, they tend to not be the best choice, with a few exceptions.
108** One of the two German Tier V tank destroyers, the Pz.Sfl. [=IVc=] (better known as the Flakbus), was designed as an AA gun; as a result, it has ''eighty-five degrees'' of gun elevation, meaning it can effectively shoot straight up. However, anyone driving this thing will be hard-pressed to find a situation where this feature can actually be used to any significant effect, especially with its nonexistent armor and enormous profile.
109* BadassAdorable:
110** Popular fan consensus is that the hulking, deadly T29 heavy tank's 'ears' (the pair of coincidence rangefinders on the sides of its turret) make it one of the cutest tanks in the game.
111** The [[https://tagn.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/amx40.jpg AMX 40's shape]] has earned it the nickname of [[http://slayerjesse.deviantart.com/art/Amx-40-The-Duck-452762378 Rubber Duck.]] The affection come from its exceptional armour that would be good for a heavy tank the next tier up.
112** The Panzer II Luchs with its stubby proportions and blistering mobility is occasionally likened to a puppy. The M24 Chaffee is considered cute for similar reasons.
113* BattleInTheRain: Maps in the Xbox 360 version generally have several reskins taking place at different times of day and in different weather conditions. Rain is common, ranging from a light drizzle to an apocalyptic thunderstorm. It doesn't have a significant effect on gameplay, but it looks very cool.
114* BattleRoyaleGame: The Steel Hunter mode pits players against each other. The tanks can be upgraded during the match, and players can loot dead tanks. The area of play slowly shrinks, and players have to watch out for Danger Zones.
115* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: Some players deliberately drown their tank, hit themselves with HE splash damage or drive off tall cliffs when the battle has been lost to deny the enemy an easy kill, which means less XP and credits for the winning team. As of 9.3, repeated suicides will be punished. In '''most''' cases, this is less about denying XP and credits to the enemy team and more about getting back to the garage faster once the battle is clearly lost, so that another battle can be loaded into faster. But regardless of the reason, it's considered to be a rather dickish thing to do.
116* BiggerStick:
117** More often than not, players jump to conclusions about the battle results just from seeing the tank line-ups, and players rallied by a top-tier tank will usually give their all to support it.
118** Generally, the largest calibre or highest tier weapon available for your tank is the most preferable option, unless it's an HE-only howitzer or has exceptionally poor handling.
119*** Averted with high-penetration, low-damage guns like the Soviet 57mm [=ZiS-2=] and variants, which are often smaller calibre than the biggest gun on any given chassis.
120*** Averted with the S-35 CA's ''stock'' 17pdr, which has the highest rate of fire and second highest penetration of any gun that can be mounted on the chassis, making selection of one of the other guns more of a playstyle choice than them necessarily being "better".
121*** In some cases, it can be averted as the bigger gun may have bad enough "soft stats" such as reload and accuracy that a smaller gun may be preferable, such as on the KV-85 and T-34-2.
122*** Mid-tier British tanks often avert this due to the frequent inclusion of some variant of the 6pdr gun. While stats slightly vary, these guns are typically light with decent penetration and absolutely excellent rates of fire (often firing twice or thrice in a slugging match with other tanks). In the hands of a player with a good sense for hitting modules, these guns are often infuriatingly strong despite their ostensibly weaker power.
123* BoringButPractical: Typically, even when there's a wide selection of guns to unlock, the gun with the most penetration (which is nearly always the "top"/last gun to unlock) is generally the best gun to pick in most situations.
124* BottomlessMagazines: Averted, since you need to spend the Credits you earn in battle on refilling your magazine. You can also spend some Gold or lots of Credits for better shells like High Explosive Anti-Tank ([=HEAT=]) rounds for better armour penetration.
125** It also causes serious problems for players who equip high-caliber weapons on smaller tanks. The most extreme cases are the [=SPGs=]: e.g. the Russian SU-5 can only hold 14 rounds for its biggest cannon.
126** Amusingly played straight in a few cases. It's physically impossible to fire off the KV-2's 152mm howitzer's full load of shells within the confines of a 15-minute match, since it reloads ''very'' slowly. Similarly, the M37 carries 126 rounds. Over the course of a 15-minute match, it can only fire, at most, 76 of them.
127* {{Bowdlerise}}: To comply with local laws, the mainland Chinese version of the game replaced the real countries and their flags with [[NoCommunitiesWereHarmed stand-ins]], with the first letter of their Chinese name. For instance USA became M (Meiguo), UK became Y (Yingguo), Germany became D (Deguo), USSR became S (Sulian), and so on.
128* BribingYourWayToVictory: Gold and real money-based purchases are a mixed bag.
129** Premium ammunition (which can also be purchased for an account draining sum of Credits post-0.8.1) are either AP rounds with higher penetration ([=APCR/HEAT=]) or HE rounds with a bigger bang. They can still bounce off armor if the shooter is unlucky, and a miss with these is still a miss.
130*** In general, most Artillery will not be able to inflict the full amount of damage their gun is potentially capable of; this is especially true with American and Soviet pieces which have the highest shell damage. With HE having such low penetration value, targets which can actually be penetrated are usually one shotted without getting to see the full potential damage, most tanks which aren't penetrated (especially heavies) take only a fraction of the potential damage because armor will reduce the damage from non-penetrating splash shots. Load HEAT rounds however, and you can suddenly knock off half the health of even high tier heavy tanks... but you have to land a shot directly on them.
131** Tier 9 and 10 tanks tend to lose Credits in most battles, even victories and often even with exceptional performance on the winning team. Purchasing a Premium Account is one way to counter this, as it increases XP and Credits earned per match by 50%. Another method is premium tanks, tanks bought with real currency which produce far more Credits than normal tanks. The most profitable of these cost upwards of $50 (though they can, on occasion, be won in in-game events). However, Premium tanks generally do not outclass their regular counterparts and are, in most cases, less dangerous than a moderately/fully upgraded regular tank of the same tier. Some of the best are:
132*** The German Lowe is a Tier 8 heavy that has a potent gun for its tier, though it's balanced out by somewhat fragile armor. It's competitive at any level, and absolutely murderous against lower tier vehicles. New players use it as a way to skip the work required to get a regular high tier vehicle and even experienced players use it, since it is the absolute best Credit maker in the game. It proved so effective (and popular), its real world cost was increased.
133*** The 0.7.2 patch saw the American Tier 9 T34 heavy converted into a Tier 8 premium tank. It has weak hull armor, but has very strong turret armor and a powerful 120mm main gun, and it gives the Lowe some serious competition as the game's premier Credit farmer.
134*** The 0.6.7 patch saw the introduction of the Type 59, a one-off [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct Chinese knockoff]] of the [[DemonicSpider T-54]]. It is Tier 8 (one tier lower than the original) and its acceleration and firepower are inferior even to the T-44, but it retains most of the original's armour and can still be quite a potent threat in the right hands. Being easy to play, it ended up appearing in such amounts that it skewed game balance, so now it is no longer being sold except for rare special events.
135*** The French Tier 8 [=FCM=] 50 t heavy tank improves upon the best qualities of late-tier French tanks while mitigating several of their weaknesses. The end result is a heavy tank that has excellent firepower, superior maneuverability to most ''medium tanks'', and the best armour layout of any French tank in the game. On top of all that, it also has preferential matchmaking. Played correctly, this tank is easily one of the best Credit farmers in the game, which is evidenced by its high cost in real world money.
136*** The Soviet Tier 7 SU-122-44 tank destroyer boasts extremely high DPM, has well-sloped armor that no gun under 175mm penetration will go through, excellent mobility and speed, and great ammo capacity. The only downside it has is a terrible view range for a Tier 7 tank destroyer. It is agreed upon among fans that the SU-122-44 ''outmatches'' almost every other tier 7 TD in the game despite its premium status for these reasons.
137*** The British Tier 6 TOG II* heavy tank. It's one of the longest tanks in the game, does a whopping 14kph (for reference, the Tier 10 Maus does 20kph), has poor armor for its tier, and will get shredded to bits if fighting alone (especially if it meets tanks with high-caliber [as in upwards of 120mm] "Derp Guns"). It's often bought just for sheer comedy value. However, it has the HP pool of a Tier 8 and the gun of a Tier 7, has preferential matchmaking (It will ONLY see Tier 6 or 7 battles, not 8 like other tanks of its tier) and is so heavy it can't be moved if killed. A lone TOG has been described as a pinata that dispenses credits and experience when you hit it, but a platoon of 3 becomes a [[LethalJokeCharacter Lethal Joke Platoon.]]
138** A tank crew can be instantly trained to 100% competence with Gold. A 100% crew greatly outstrips a 50% starter crew and has access to secondary skills.
139* CameraAbuse: The camera will rock and shake as the tank receives hits. Getting hit with HE rounds will also create a smoke cloud in your field of vision. This can affect gameplay, as all the bouncing around can throw off the player's aim. The 0.6.4 patch added an option to turn this off in sniper mode.
140* CannonFodder: The lower tier tanks in the match often become this in the most brutal way; often their job is to go first and locate the enemy by being the first ones to get shot. However, [[WeakButSkilled if the players driving them are skilled...]]
141* CastFromHitPoints[=/=]ExplosiveOverclocking: The Russian/Chinese-exclusive ''Removed Speed Governor'' consumable[[note]]While it takes a consumable slot, the item itself is permanent.[[/note]] boosts engine power by 10%, but will slowly damage the engine. The ''Cyclone Filter'' equipment can mitigate this to an extent, as it increases the engine's durability.
142* Catch22Dilemma: Often when you get a new tank it has a weak gun, so you need to earn experience to research a better gun. However, you can't earn experience easily because you have a weak gun, you need a better gun to earn experience...
143* CharacterSelectForcing:
144** "On-Track" events encourage players to grind a specific tank line by giving credit multipliers, tank discounts, and missions to let players earn free consumables, equipment, and even premium tanks.
145** Occasionally, weekend events will call for a specific tier or nation of tanks, such as a "British vs German" event requiring British tanks to kill German tanks and vice versa or a "mid-tier battle" calling for only tier 4 through 6. The same is true of the various Skirmishes that pit small teams of specific tiers or tank types against one another.
146** Some tanks can be reached from multiple precursor tanks. However, this can lead to vastly different "stock" options and crew skill for the new tank to the point of this trope. For example, the [=T29=] Heavy Tank can be reached from either the [=M4A3E2=] or the M6. However, coming from the medium line leaves you with the (at this point insufficient) 75mm as your only gun and a slightly less trained crew due to the extra penalty from retraining a medium crew to a heavy crew. Unless you first proceed to the tier 7 [=T20=] and unlock it there, you would much rather want to come through the M6 in order to be able to mount the 90mm from the start.
147* CherryTapping[=/=]DeathOfAThousandCuts:
148** Light tanks (usually) have piddly guns, but if they can avoid getting shot and hit the right area several times (like the rear), they can take down much heavier tanks. It will take time, however.
149** Low tier tanks have access to autocannons, which can allow them to fire multiple rounds with one burst. Some can even fire multiple bursts before needing to reload. However, their penetration and damage tends to be rather lacking compared to single-shot guns of a similar caliber.
150*** The Germans have 2cm flak cannons on the Pz.Kpfw. I and Pz.Kpfw. II, and a 3cm aircraft cannon (the [=MK103=]) on the Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. G.
151*** The Soviets have an autocannon as well. It's a 37mm that packs a decent punch but doesn't quite have the penetration to suit the tanks its mounted on - the T-46, the T-50 and the A-20.
152** Tanks armed with just machineguns are this up to eleven. Each individual round deals damage in the single digits, but they can [[MoreDakka spew out lots of them]].
153*** The American M2 Browning HMG that comes stock on the M2 Light and premium T7 Combat Car is powerful for a machinegun, but it's ''not'' made for taking out tanks.
154*** The French Renault FT-17 (along with its Chinese counterpart, the NC-31) and D1 can equip the 13.2mm Hotchkiss mle. 1930. It's not much better in power, but it shoots ''even faster''.
155*** The British get in on the action as well with the slightly stronger but slower-firing 15mm BESA machine gun, available for the Medium Mk.I, Cruiser Mk. III and premium Light Mk. VIC.
156*** The most extreme example to date is the German Pz.Kpfw. I Ausf. C with the Mauser 7.92mm Automatic, which will take around 50 to 100 hits to kill a same-tier opponent. Against a heavier tier, it takes hundreds of rounds... or it will just simply bounce every shot, giving the enemy an easy laugh before they blow you away. However, it is extremely effective against thinly-armored opponents, should the player properly use the Pz.Kpfw. I Ausf. C's speed and agility. A properly executed Pz.IC attack goes something like this: Zoom. Stop. '''BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!''' Boom. Scratch one enemy tank after just a few seconds.
157** The Soviet 57 mm [=ZiS-4=] and 413 guns deal rather low damage per shot, but can send shells out every 2 seconds, and can penetrate almost any tank from Tier 4 to Tier 7 from the sides and rear, if not frontally.
158** The [=StuG=] III's 7.5cm L/70, along with a highly-skilled crew, can fire once approximately every 3 seconds with full accuracy restored by the time the next shell loads. Its excellent penetration coupled with a high rate of fire means that its fairly meager AP damage rating quickly adds up even against higher-tier opponents. Your only problems will be running out of ammo mid-fight and the [[GlassCannon enemy returning fire]].
159*** The E 25. The same gun, except now it reloads in ''two seconds''.
160** The 7.5cm L/100 for the Panther and Panther II has great penetration, nearly unrivaled accuracy, and fires every 4 seconds. Of course, it deals small amounts of damage for its tier. It is possible for some tanks to withstand, on average, 20 hits or more.
161** The American 76mm guns in general also follow this -- they have similar stats to the two German guns listed above (slightly weaker per shot than their counterparts at similar tiers, but MoreDakka to make up for it).
162** The British 2-pdr and 6-pdr guns fall into this category, sending rounds out every 2 seconds, but with low damage. The 2-pdr Mark IX-B on the Matilda has the best penetration of all Tier 4 and Tier 5 guns, but at the price of piddling damage.
163** HE shells deal damage based on the enemy's armor thickness and will deal a small amount of damage to armor your gun can't penetrate with AP rounds. This allows weaker vehicles to finish off badly injured higher tier vehicles or to cripple them through module damage, especially with fast-firing guns.
164** [[CarFu Ramming]] usually causes a small amount of damage. Oftentimes, a heavier tank will ram a lighter vehicle that is at low health, rather than wasting expensive ammunition. As this tends to reset track repairs, sometimes you can inflict a DeathOfAThousandCuts by ramming, backing up, and ramming over and over until you slowly take down the other tank.
165** Occasionally, matches where ''both'' sides are incapable of damaging each other with AP rounds happen. With the advent of French tanks, it is possible to get into standoffs at around Tiers 2 to 5 where even HE rounds won't be doing any damage.
166** Japanese guns in general tend to have superior rate of fire, quicker aim times, and better recoil control then other nation's guns, but tend to lack penetration and damage-per-shot.
167* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: French tanks get a lot of flak from the fandom because they [[UnexpectedGameplayChange behave differently from others]], their alleged irrelevance to armored warfare, or simply because they're French. However, high-tier French tanks like the Batchat have garnered a lot of respect from the player base.
168* ConservationOfNinjutsu: There's an [[CosmeticAward Epic Medal]], "Kolobanov's Medal", for playing this straight by winning a match as the last tank on your team against five or more enemies.
169* CosmeticAward: Several:
170** Step Achievement Medals: Kill X enemies, survive and win X matches, and so on. These are all named after famous tank commanders (Leclerc, Abrams, Carius, etc.).
171** Mastery Badges: Awarded for being among the top 50/20/5/1% (3rd Class, 2nd Class, 1st Class and Ace Tanker, respectively) players on a certain tank, determined by the average XP gain on that tank.
172** Marks of Distinction, Kill marks on the barrel of your gun for doing more average damage in that tank than most players.
173** Titles of Honor, which can be divided into:
174*** {{Kill Streak}}s: OneHitKill 3 or more enemies in a row, hit enemies X times in a row, penetrate enemy armor X times in a row... These awards show the highest (or current) streak.
175*** Special Achievements: Capture the enemy base without being seen by any of the enemy team, kill a higher tier enemy by [[CarFu ramming it]], [[OneHitPolykill kill two enemies with one shot]]...
176*** Tank Master Badges: Not to be confused with the Mastery Badges, they are awarded for either researching an entire tree or killing one of every tank in a tree. Originally just a single badge for all the trees, it's been expanded to have separate badges for each nation's tree as well.
177* CountingBullets: Common tactic when facing autoloader tanks, which are nearly helpless while reloading. American autoloaders (with the sole exception of the M41 Walker Bulldog light tank) generally have smaller magazines and faster reloads than French ones.
178* CrewOfOne: ZigZagged. All tanks have a certain number of crew (minimum of 2, maximum of 7) that operate the tank. However, it is still possible for all the tank's systems to keep working even if only 1 crew member is still alive; however, the tank will be essentially crippled at that point, as all other roles will function at half efficiency.
179* CriticalHit: Not quite a standard example, since it simply means that you've hit a [[SubsystemDamage subsystem or crew member]], rather than increasing the amount of damage done. [[TechnicalPacifist 0 HP hits]] on the tracks of a vehicle are probably the most common critical hits in the game. Other forms of non-damaging critical are also possible against guns and some sighting systems, while any amount of damage that makes it through armor has a chance to damage a subsystem or kill a crewmember in addition to HP damage. Also, hitting the ammo rack has the potential to OneHitKill ''any'' tank, while hitting the engine and/or fuel tanks can cause the tank to catch fire, dealing additional DamageOverTime.
180* CripplingOverspecialization:
181** Most tank destroyers sacrifice their turrets for the ability to mount powerful and accurate guns, and increased camouflage.
182** [=SPGs=] can fire shells beyond standard view range and over limited cover; at the cost of rate of fire, accuracy, and [[GlassCannon endurance]]. Ammunition for their cannons is also very expensive and they cannot carry many into battle.
183*** HEAT rounds for Artillery are also this, as you can get enough penetration to do full damage with your shells against better armored targets, but lose splash damage, so near misses or ricochets do nothing.
184** Most light tanks are [[FragileSpeedster fast but lack the armor]] to take on anything but other light tanks and artillery with reliability.
185** Most heavy tanks have heavy armor [[MightyGlacier and]]/[[StoneWall or]] large and powerful guns. They are also slow moving, large and easy to hit, have turrets that turn slowly and long reload times. If caught in the open, they can be picked apart by constant bombardment.
186* CriticalExistenceFailure: Played with. Damage to subsystems and wounded tank crewmen will hinder your tank's performance. However, as long as you have at least one hit point and crew member remaining, your tank is still combat effective. However, in the (extremely) rare case of ALL of your crew members getting wounded, your tank is considered "knocked out", even if it still has health remaining.
187** "Combat effective" is a relative term; it's possible (though very unlikely) for your tank to be crippled by {{Critical Hit}}s - immobilized, vision reduced, gun disabled - without taking even a ''single'' point of HP damage. While the crippling effects can be repaired with time, they still won't work as well as they normally do.
188** Averted in the cancelled hardcore mode, where there were no hit points and SubsystemDamage determined whether the tank was knocked out. This resulted in 15 minute camping spree, as any penetration could easily knock out any tank.
189* {{Crossover}}:
190** The Swedish PowerMetal band Music/{{Sabaton}} are huge fans of the game, which led to a cross-promotion with the band filming a music video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPVm-QkWbBQ "Primo Victoria"]] that basically consisted of a ''World of Tanks'' LARP session. And the AceCustom Swedish Army Centurion tank they drive in the video is available in the game.
191** ''Blitz'' got crossover events with Music/{{Korn}} and Music/OliverTree.
192* ColorCodedArmies:
193** Color Coded Indicators; enemies get red icons above them, friendlies get green icons.
194** Full Color Coding; the vehicles of each faction have unique color schemes: German tanks are gray, Soviet tanks are light green/olive, American tanks are olive drab/dark tan, French tanks are navy blue/cyan, British tanks are khaki, Chinese tanks are green, Japanese tanks are dark green, Czechoslovakian tanks are brown and Swedish tanks are dark turquoise. There's also some color variation to allow easier recognition of very similar vehicles in the same faction. For example, the Soviet T-34 is given a brownish color to distinguish it from the later T-34-85 and the American M6 Heavy is painted tan in contrast to the olive drab T1 Heavy.
195* CycleOfHurting: Being shot in an already destroyed track will reset the repair attempt on it. If the enemy can also damage you during this, usually by attacking from the side and firing through the drive wheels, you could be whittled to death while being stuck with a track repair that will never finish. While most of the time the cycle can be ended by returning fire, getting stuck with an obstacle between you and the opponent[[note]]common with rear-turreted tanks if you do not properly round a corner[[/note]] or lacking the gun depression to properly aim at the target means you can only hope your team helps. This alone is why training your entire crew in ''Repairs'' is never a bad idea.
196[[/folder]]
197
198[[folder: Tropes D-I]]
199* DamnYouMuscleMemory: Using the Crusader SP is complicated by the fact that the vehicle goes faster driving backwards than it does driving forward. This is because in real life, the vehicle was designed so that the gun is facing towards the rear of the vehicle, but for gameplay reasons it is set up with the gun forward. The British Alecto is the same way (as can be seen by the driver's compartment), but the difference in speed is not as noticeable. Learning how to drive backwards is also essential for driving the Archer TD from 9.5 as it was specifically designed for hit-and-run ambushes.
200* DavidVsGoliath: Any low-tier tank going up against a higher tier one. The winner depends on the skill of the players involved and more than a little luck. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-AS5a3Hbk0 An example]].
201* DeathFromAbove:
202** You will quickly learn to hate enemy [=SPGs=]. Also the reason why they are usually the primary targets during an attack.
203** One can fall from a cliff and land on a careless tank, causing a lot of damage or even killing it outright. Firing from that cliff instead is also pretty effective, as the top armor is the weakest point on a tank and returning fire would be quite difficult.
204* DeathOrGloryAttack:
205** If an SPG sees a light or medium tank charging towards it, the safest thing to do is to flee towards allies or find cover and hope your team kills it before it gets to you. However, if you stand your ground and try to zero in on it, you've got a chance to make a one shot kill gamble. Miss and it's pretty much assured they will kill you before you even reload.
206** Ramming with low health can be pretty risky too.
207* DevelopersForesight:
208** While the controls and movement physics are simple, the damage model is highly advanced.
209*** Every hatch, window, periscope, gun mantlet, armor plate, radio antenna or suspension roller will have its own armor thickness in addition to projectile impact angle. Any mechanism or crew member near the impact point may be damaged.
210*** Every tank has hitboxes for radios, engines, gas tanks, ammo racks, crew members, etc. The locations are different for each tank, and are all based on their real life locations.
211*** If you look closely at the T-34, you can even see the firing ports for the tank crew's sidearms. Look for a small circle below the side viewing slits.
212*** Ricocheting projectiles are given one more chance to hit anything, causing shot traps[[note]]Areas where a round can strike and deflect into a vulnerable section of the tank.[[/note]] to work, and even occasionally deflect into tanks that weren't the target.
213** Not using the crew members' actions like turning the turret, moving the tank, or firing the gun will result in faster repairs and fire extinguishing.
214** Diesel engines have a lower chance of catching fire than gasoline engines.
215** Tank drive systems are faithfully reproduced; some can only turn by running their tracks at different speeds forward, some can run their tracks in opposite directions and turn in place, some have to stop one track. This can have major effects in how they handle at speed.
216** Spaced armor, present on some recently-added tanks, nullifies HE or HEAT rounds [[NoSell completely]]. As this happens to include a lot of the premium ammo rounds, it can be an immensely unpleasant surprise to someone who expected to get out of trouble with some high-damage ammunition.
217** Getting your ammorack destroyed causes your ammo to explode, [[OneHitKill taking you with it]]. Unless there's no ammo left to blow up.
218* DifficultButAwesome:
219** Heavy tanks in general require far more knowledge than medium or light tanks, both strategy and stats wise, as they rarely have the speed to go anywhere but the one or two places on each map where the serious fighting will be, are particularly vulnerable to artillery, and must make the most of angling their armor rather than rely on the more luck- or speed-based dodging of lighter vehicles. They are however the anchor the rest of the team can rally around.
220*** In addition to the above, Tank Destroyers ''also'' need a complete understanding of camouflage as they usually don't have good armour, but a particularly good [=TD=] player can ruin an enemy charge without ever being seen.
221** The US Tier 5 T67 tank destroyer. Low HP, no armor to speak of, and a high speed means that more often than not, in the hands of an average player, it gets used as a proxy scout, which just results in it getting destroyed early in a match. In the hands of a decent player, however -- who knows about its ''excellent'' camo value and view range, plus its fast-firing 76mm gun -- it becomes a killing machine capable of carrying even up to ''tier 7 matches''. It's these combination of traits that make it the Tier 5 vehicle of choice for so-called blue and purple "unicum" players.
222* DressingAsTheEnemy: The German Panther/M10 is a Panther disguised as an American M10 Wolverine, to the point where it uses American inscriptions, insignia, camouflage and color scheme instead of German ones.
223* DieselPunk: While many of the more famous tanks of the period are present, there's no denying that a large percentage of the vehicles in-game never made it either off the drawing board or past the prototype stage. On top of that, the vast majority of the vehicles are from the era which inspired the genre.
224* DodgeTheBullet:
225** If you are at sufficient range, have good reflexes, have a fast enough connection, and see the tank that fired the shot, you can easily back off enough that the shot misses its mark. It's extremely difficult to do, but survival in some tanks depend on your ability to do this.
226** It should also go without saying that smaller light tanks, such as the French ELC AMX, can pull this off just with their speed, maneuverability, and small size. It's not uncommon to see an ELC driver zipping around in the opposing team's base, [[ATeamFiring annoying the heck out of everyone present]] as they zig zag around, taking out the artillery, and lighting up everyone to be sniped from the tanks on your team.
227* DoNotRunWithAGun: No, seriously, don't. Very few weapons are able to fire accurately on the move, which is period-appropriate, and even then, it's more of a "slow crawl" than anything else. Most players will stop to shoot and having a gun which has a dispersion that drops down quickly when you stop can be a major advantage.
228** Light tanks are an exception: stopping is death for them, so they usually close to knife-fighting range when fighting and circle-strafe.
229** The lowest cruise control setting offers your tank reasonable, but still reduced accuracy on the move. Even if you don't want to fire while moving at this speed, dispersion drops more quickly once you do stop, including reduced rocking forward and backwards after hitting the brakes.
230** The ''Vertical Stabilizer'' equipment increases accuracy on the move, but is expensive and is usually only available at high tiers. US tanks can get them as early as Tiers 5 to 7 (depending on which branch the player takes), but are still rather expensive.
231** The US tanks in general tend to be more accurate on the move, but it's still recommended to stop to shoot.
232* DownToTheLastPlay: Two versions:
233** The game has a set 15 minute time limit that, when reached, will ''immediately'' end the game, even if you were a split second away from killing the last tank on the enemy team. This is especially important in Assault map mode, where only one team has a cap circle and the timer is reduced to only 10 minutes; meaning the defending team need only wait out the clock to win.
234** When a base is captured, there is a small delay until the game ends. It is possible for the other team to finish capping as well for a draw. It is also possible to lose even if the base is successfully capped, if all of the team dies before the match actually ends.
235* DumpStat: On reaching 100% in their major qualification, crew members can train additional skills and perks (skills start to take effect immediately, perks only come into effect at 100%). Some are pretty useless outside specific circumstances, are more effective in certain tanks, are made redundant by equipment or just have too little effect to begin with. For shared skills, Firefighting is made redundant by fire extinguishers while Camouflage is more useful for scout and sniper tanks that rely on stealth (these skills are also averaged across the entire crew, so the whole crew must be trained to 100% to get the full benefit).
236** For the commander, Mentor, Eagle Eye and Jack of All Trades. Mentor increases training for the rest of the crew and does nothing for the commander's performance. Eagle Eye will, after four seconds, if the enemy tank was spotted by your own crew, allow you to see which models are damaged if you're aiming at them. Jack of All Trades allows the commander to replace a knocked out crewman at 50% training, which is better than nothing, but a medkit is better still.
237** For the gunner, Armorer, Deadeye and Designated Target. Armorer improves accuracy on a damaged gun by 20%, a rare event which is solved by a repair kit. Deadeye offers an extra 3% chance of hitting something vital, pretty low for a perk. Designated Target keeps a tank spotted for an extra two seconds while firing at them, useful for light tanks and tank destroyers but not much else.
238** For the driver, Controlled Impact and Preventative Maintenance. Controlled Impact increases ramming effect by 15% while decreasing damage to your tank by 15%, but only if the other tank is stationary. Preventative Maintenance lowers the chance of fire by 25%, but it doesn't effect transmissions (where German tanks catch fire the most); a fire extinguisher is more useful and frees up the slot for better skills. Smooth Ride improves gun dispersion while moving, which is very useful for almost all tanks but doesn't effect stationary turning, so tank destroyers and self-propelled guns don't gain any benefit from it.
239** For the loader, Intuition and Adrenaline Rush. Intuition gives a 17% chance (or 34% if you have two loaders with this perk) of a shell being automatically loaded while switching between ammo types, too much of a gamble since you should only completely switch ammo (as opposed to selecting the next shell to load in sequence) in a safe location instead of betting on a 17% chance; it can also reportedly accidentally load the wrong type. Adrenaline Rush loads 9% faster with less than 10% health, very specific conditions for it to come into effect.
240** For the radio operator, Signal Boosting, Relaying and Call for Vengeance. Signal Boosting increases your tank's radio range by 20% while Relaying increases the range of allied tanks by 10%, useful, but somewhat redundant after very powerful radios become available. Call for Vengeance keeps tanks you've spotted visible to allies after you die, pretty useless since you have to die for it to have any effect and only works if the radio operator wasn't killed before destruction.
241** This also comes up in vehicles that call for two Gunners, two Radio Operators, or two Loaders. Since for Gunners and Radio Operators none of their skills/perks stack with themselves it's completely useless to give each of them the same one, effectively giving them six skills instead of eight. While Loaders do have a perk that stacks with itself (Intuition), the other two do not, so they also effectively only have six skills when there's two of them.
242* DyingAlone: The most likely fate for [=SPGs=] if the team loses: they usually remain at base and survive until the very end, to be mocked by the dead players for being useless. However, it is possible, if unlikely, for them to turn around the situation, particularly if the enemy team is incredibly stupid and [[MookChivalry comes at the surviving [=SPGs=] at a rate just slow enough that the [=SPGs=] have time to reload between enemy attacks, as opposed to swarming in all at once]].
243** With the 9.14 physics patch, this is also a common fate for tanks who turn over and don't get help in righting back onto their tracks-- especially now that the lightly-armored underside of the tank is wide open. However, they should be approached with caution... [[NotQuiteDead the gun obviously still works]].
244* EliteTweak:
245** For most tanks, the upgrades are pretty much straightforward: equip the parts with the highest level, and you've got yourself an awesome battle machine. Some tanks have powerful alternatives:
246*** The Pz.Kpfw III can pack a short 7.5cm cannon with awful armor penetration and reload time, which seems rather undesirable, until you notice that its HE round has penetration that's almost as good as its AP[[note]]Penetration for HE rounds is how much armor they ignore and since HE does damage based on armor thickness...[[/note]]. This inverts the usual German "snipe and run" tactics, making the Pz.Kpfw III a powerful close combat vehicle.
247*** The old KV (which could be the KV-1 or 2, depending on the turret used) took the cake, being a radically different tank with the turret upgrade. Also, ''all'' of its weapons (except the starting one) were useful to differing degrees. Even after the split, you'll still never know [[ConfusionFu which KV you will encounter]].
248*** The Tier 5 KV-1 can equip the 57mm, which deals [[CherryTapping little damage per shot]], but has a great rate of fire, penetration and accuracy, an all-rounder 85mm cannon or a powerful 122mm howitzer.
249*** The Tier 6 KV-2 (which also gets even more HP ''and'' an increase to reload speeds) gets the famed 152mm howitzer that gives it its LethalJokeCharacter status, and the relatively accurate, high penetration 107mm turns it into an exceptional tank destroyer. There's also the same 122mm howitzer as the KV-1, which still packs quite a punch and reloads much more quickly than the 152mm.
250*** The Luchs has a Leopard-style turret that allows the use of more powerful guns instead of [[MoreDakka rapid fire autocannons]]. The downside is that it's [[ShedArmorgainSpeed heavy enough to hinder the tank's agility]] somewhat. The same-tier [=Pz. 38 n.A.=] runs into the same issue.
251*** The M4 Sherman has a 105mm howitzer upgrade that, at first glance, seems to be a poor tradeoff against the 76mm cannon that's also available. However, the 105, while slow loading, allows the Sherman to [[OneHitKill one-shot]] most light and some medium tanks, and will still deal effective damage against heavies.
252*** Before 0.8.0, installing the Schmalturm and the 7.5cm L/70 on the Pz.Kpfw IV pretty much turned it into a tank destroyer, though its mobility suffered.
253*** The infamous Hetzer can mount either a 7.5cm L/48 cannon which has moderate penetration and damage values but reloads quickly ''or'' a 10.5cm howitzer with an extremely slow reload time and mediocre accuracy, which can [[OneHitKill one-shot]] most light tanks and cause quite a bit of damage to even heavy tanks.
254*** The SU-152 gets its name from the 152mm howitzer it uses for the stock gun, which is an effective gun with HE or HEAT ammunition. Also available is a 122mm cannon that, while lacking in penetration for a TD at this tier, fires a bit over 8 rounds a minute before adding on gun rammers, vents, BiA, or a combination of the three.
255*** The German VK 36.01 (H) has what is probably the most varied and flexible selection of guns of any tank. It can mount the rapid-fire 7.5cm L/58 Konisch, the JackOfAllStats mid-range 8.8cm L/56, the sniping oriented 7.5cm L/70, or the close range heavy hitting 10.5cm L/28.
256*** Until it was removed in 9.9, the Aufklärungspanzer Panther light tank[[note]]Essentially a Panther with a VK 16.01 Leopard turret and enhanced engine.[[/note]] offered a reliable and accurate 75mm conical gun and a somewhat random, but powerful 105mm HE gun. Whether you chose the ability to provide long range support or the ability to one-shot light tanks and excellent DPM at close ranges [[note]]While it requires gold ammunition to reliably damage heavy tanks, the fairly good damage per shot meant that it didn't cost too much.[[/note]] was up to you.
257*** Tier 6 French tanks generally get two options for guns: A high damage/medium pen 105mm gun or a long barreled 90mm with very good penetration but much less damage.
258** Skills and Perks, when mastered, can turn an ordinary crew into an extraordinary threat for the enemy.
259* '''EpicTankOnTankAction''': '''[[TheMovie The Game]].'''
260* EveryBulletIsATracer: Played with. They're always tracers if it's you or a friendly firing, but enemy shots are only tracers if they're within your view range. Expert tankers can return fire by following these tracers even if they can't actually see the tank shooting them.
261* EverythingFades: Averted. Tank carcasses stay on the battlefield and often serve as impromptu cover for other tanks. With the 0.6.4. patch, these can even be moved, albeit slowly, so you got yourself some mobile cover.
262* [[EveryCarIsAPinto Every Tank Is A Ronson]]: While the results of a small tank meeting a giant HE shell [[ExplosiveInstrumentation may]] [[ImpressivePyrotechnics look]] [[StuffBlowingUp impressive]] but realistic to a degree, heavy tank parts flying several meters away from a low-caliber AP round that didn't hit anything critical, and only [[CriticalExistenceFailure exhausted the tank's HP]]...
263* ExactlyWhatIAimedAt:
264** Artillery sometimes runs into this when they miss their intended target, and hit the elusive little bugger that was hanging out near the target that wouldn't stand still long enough for the arty to fully aim in.
265** Other vehicles can join in the fun as well, since now shots that ricochet off of tanks can keep going in the new direction and still punch through other tanks that are close by. This is especially helpful when dealing with side-scraping tanks. While you might not be able to get through him, you will most certainly get through his reloading auto-loader buddy that's in cover...
266* ExperiencePenalty: Platoons are penalized if there is more than one tier difference between the tanks in the platoon to a maximum of 50% for Tier I tanks platooned up with Tier X tanks. This is to discourage "fail platoons".
267* ExperiencePoints: They're used to research modules and to unlock the next tank. Crew members also have a separate experience stat, which increases their percentage of competence. Both are obtained through fighting battles.
268* ExtremeMeleeRevenge: It's surprisingly common to see light tanks who are harassing [=SPGs=] and [=TDs=] getting rammed, all the more appropriate since light tanks tend to destroy at least one of these assets before another tank comes to the rescue.
269* FakeNationality:
270** The premium German-captured French tanks (Pz.Kpfws 38H, S35 and B2), all slightly different (and [[EvilTwin EVILLY GERMAN]]) to their normally-researched French counterparts.
271** Some units do not have their true nation equivalent or name -- the [=FCM36 Pak40=] is a ''French'' premium TD despite technically being a German Marder I, and the Soviet Tetrarch has no British tree equivalent, though it is a British tank. The Lend-Lease Matilda and Churchill were this for a while, if only because the British tree didn't exist yet.
272* FluffyTheTerrible:
273** The [[MightyGlacier Maus]].
274** By extension, the game also has a KillerRabbit: the German Tier IV light tank, the Luchs. It has a rather cute name, is small, stubby, and very quick, but fully upgraded, and in the hands of an experienced player, in a Tier III-IV match, it is a formidable enemy.
275* FollowTheLeader:
276** Some of the French postwar designs show quite a lot of German and some Soviet influence, and nearly all of them use German engines directly and German guns with serial numbers filed off.
277*** Interestingly inverted at lower tiers, since many WWII designs were based on the successes of the [[TropeCodifier Modern Tank Codifer]] Renault FT. The Japanese Otsu, Chinese NC-31, and Soviet MS-1 are all based directly on the design of the FT.
278** Chinese tanks from Tier 5 onwards tend to be either direct copies of Soviet designs or modified copies of Soviet designs. On the other hand, their Tier 1 to 4 tanks are a hodgepodge collection of tanks from 4 different countries with modified equipment.
279** After the success of World of Tanks, several other tank-driving multiplayer action games had been announced, such as ''VideoGame/ArmoredWarfare''.
280* FragileSpeedster:
281** Most light tanks. Can be extremely annoying due to their high speed, but are incredibly fragile -- it's quite easy for heavier tanks to take them out and if they throw a track, they're practically always doomed. Artillery can also readily kill the light tank in a single hit or blow off their tracks, making them more vulnerable to follow-up shots from other artillery or tanks.
282** The M18 Hellcat tank destroyer set records as one of the fastest large [=AFVs=] of all time, easily reaching speeds of around 60 mph on good terrain, but only has 25mm armor at most on the front of the turret[[note]]Everywhere else is ''13mm'', which is lighter than most ''starter tanks''![[/note]] in stock configuration, though its upgraded turret has much better armor. In-game, it's as fast as the ''[[DemonicSpider T-50-2]]'' and is capable of mounting a 90mm main gun.
283** The post-war period UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades (from Tier 5 onwards) take this trope and make sweet, sweet love to it. Their AMX 50 series heavies can outmaneuver large portions of the medium tanks of other nations, their light and medium tanks from the ELC AMX onward are blazing fast and all of them have autoloaders for their gun, letting them get off a lot of rounds before the enemy can return fire. However, if the enemy does manage to shoot back, they aren't going to last long.
284** The Panzer III medium tank is faster and more agile than some light tanks, but its armor is mediocre (aside from the 70mm-thick frontal hull armor).
285* FriendlyFireproof: Averted ''before 2019'' -- misaimed shells, poorly aimed/timed artillery, sheer stupidity (driving into an ally's firing line) and plain bad luck are all possible ways to get shot by a team-mate. Deliberate [[TeamKiller team killing]] is discouraged by penalties and having too many incidents of friendly fire will cause you to be flagged as a team killer -- which means you're a target for anyone in the battle.
286** Mostly played straight in the Xbox 360 edition. For the time being, only artillery can directly harm friendly tanks... but it's not like that will stop the occasional jackass ramming a teammate off a cliff, into a lake, or out of cover.
287** 2019 Update: Wargaming completely gave up on reviewing and punishing cases of friendly fire and removed team damage from the game. While this has stopped the chronic issue of teamkilling, trolls and griefers are now intentionally sabotaging the game with passive-aggression ([=do NOTHING=]).
288* GameMod: For an online game, ''World of Tanks'' is surprisingly mod-friendly. Some of the mods are purely aesthetic, like tank skins, but a good number also supplement or enhance gameplay, like changing the default aiming reticule, improving zoom-out, giving a better sniper mode, or pinpointing the last-known position of an enemy tank. A rather infamous mod, XVM, tracks individual player performance, which it uses to predict the win chances of a team.
289* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The various "Epic" medals awarded to players for accomplishing difficult feats of skill are all named after real famous tank crewmen. Each medal has a brief history detailing the feat which made famous the person the medal is named after. Some of the medal requirements, however, aren't related to this history.
290* GentlemanSnarker: Whomever is the author of the loading screen tips.
291-->'''Game tip''': ''Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. It's not polite!'' (It's worth noting that this particular tip was submitted by a fan for a contest, and was originally said by UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparte.)
292* GivingTheSwordToANoob: Vehicle stats in the game can vary so much that advancing in vehicle tiers can force the player to use totally different tactics.
293** Especially rough with the Soviet heavy tree (the transfer from the [[{{Acrofatic}} T-28]] to the exactly opposite [[MightyGlacier KV-1]]), leading to a joke of "Buying a heavy tank in exchange for brains". Not quite as bad post-0.7.3.
294** Premium tanks in general, and especially the Tier 8 ones. There are no qualifications necessary to use these premium tanks beyond a sufficient amount of paid-for Gold.
295*** Enhanced by the fact that many premium vehicles have [[BribingYourWayToVictory greatly increased chance]] to be top tier present in battle (thanks to favored matchmaking: a tank with favored matchmaking will only face matches with opponents of up to one tier higher, rather than two tiers like most tanks or three tier in the case of most light tanks of tier 4 or higher- this makes up for the fact that premium tanks generally have inferior stats to a fully-upgraded standard tank of the same tier). Therefore, these tanks will often be the top vehicle in a match, which are often far more powerful than those on the bottom. Good playing from the top will often ensure victory, while poor playing usually guarantees a loss, so a high level battle can end up in the hands of a player short on experience, but long on disposable income.
296** Premium ammunition can mean the difference between victory and defeat against a thick-armored enemy... or against a thinly-armored one, if the player is absent-minded enough to forget the 30x more expensive ammunition is loaded before firing. Or if the player has [[BribingYourWayToVictory cash to burn]]. Embarrassment can be exacerbated by the fact that damage caused by premium ammo is usually less than cheaper AP or HE rounds.
297* GlassCannon:
298** [=SPGs=]. God help you if you get hit by an artillery shell, but god help '''them''' if you manage to get close and behind them.
299** Most Soviet Tank Destroyers are this, with the most extreme example being the Tier 8 ISU-152, which has almost no armour to speak of for its tier, but packs an absolutely devastating 152mm BL-10 gun, whose penetration and damage levels are only exceeded by Tier 10 [=TDs=] and high-tier artillery.
300** Before the gun was taken out in 0.7.5, the T-28 with an 85mm gun packed a substantial punch, but only had tissue paper for protection and was also an easy to hit target. There's a joke that T-28 tankers put up as many pictures of their loved ones, relatives, and friends as possible with drawing pins to use as additional armour.
301** The US light tanks and the following M7 Medium have some of the best weapons for their tiers, but very low health and armor.
302** With the release of the French tanks, their Tier 5 to 8 light tanks, Tier 9 and 10 medium tanks, and Tier 8 to 10 heavy tanks are this. Their Tier 6 and 7 light tanks were built around the Panther's 7.5cm L/70, while the Tier 8 one up-guns it to a 90mm gun. Some of their high tier heavies are capable of unleashing a whopping ''1800'' points of damage in about a dozen seconds, which could potentially kill anything but a Tier 10. On the other hand, their armor is ridiculously thin for high tier heavies.
303** The US Tank Destroyers play with this trope frequently. The Tier 3 T82 is GlassCannon incarnate, with nothing in the way of armor and a 105mm howitzer, which is typically a Tier 5 gun. The Tier 5 M10 Wolverine and Tier 6 M36 Slugger pretend to be Glass Cannons unless they're hull-down, at which point the sharply sloped 120mm thick gun mantlet takes over and they start bouncing nearly any round you can throw at them.
304** The British Alecto TD follows the same lines as the T82, with possibly even less armour despite being a tier higher. Only the guns-on-treads ([=UE57=], UC 2pdr) have less.
305** Open-topped vehicles in general rarely have armor equal to their tier. Special mention, however, must go to those with fighting compartments open at the rear, like the Marder II and the SU-76. A single HE round into the open back will usually destroy them or at least wound most of their crew.
306** The 2nd German Tank Destroyer line features Waffenträger type vehicles, essentially artillery re-purposed for destroying tanks. While they carry some terrifying armaments, the entire line is thinly armored, with the only armor in the entire line (the [=WTE100's=] hull) betrayed by the gigantic turret.
307** Semi-literally with the American T110 series. In real life, the armor developed for the T110 [[http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=AD0524050 contained layers of silica]], which is... glass. Surprisingly, it turns out that the glass layer is actually quite effective against HEAT ammunition.
308** The Chinese Tier 10 113 heavy tank has a gun with a fast reload time and high alpha damage and does great damage per minute. It also has good mobility and a high top speed. However, it has very weak armor for a Tier 10 heavy.
309** The premium SU-100Y may claim the TD prize for this, as its outstanding 130mm naval cannon is offset by the vehicle being approximately the size of a house, with armour that can be easily penetrated by just about anything it could face.
310** Many Japanese medium tanks are this. They have excellent rapid fire guns and excel as DPS-Snipers but have rather thin armor.
311** The Tier X British tank destroyer [=FV4005=] Stage II, added in patch 9.5, uses the same gun as the [=FV215b=] (183), but with better mobility, handling characteristics and a fully-rotating turret. The main drawback is that the turret armor is so thin that it can be penetrated by ''tier 1 guns''.
312** The Swedish tech tree is almost completely dominated by this trope. Vast majority of its vehicles can best be described as thin skinned artillery guns slapped onto race-cars. Big guns and high speed is their forte with armor almost slapped on as an afterthought.
313*** Special mention goes to Strv 103B, a Tier X Swedish tank destroyer. Has an incredible DPM and the highest penetration available, but only 40 millimeters of frontal armor (read: none), a high silouette and a lacking sight range. Give this machine a spotter, and it's a terror to behold. A direct hit from an SPG is almost always fatal, though.
314* GoombaStomp: It's possible to jump down from a great height and crush an enemy tank. It's just a matter of having the hitpoints to spare and being heavier than the target.
315* GratuitousForeignLanguage: There's an option to turn on "National Audio" in your tank. This is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, as tank crews will speak their proper language, and in the case of the two English-speaking nations, their respective accents.
316* {{Griefer}}: Unlike Passive Griefers who go AFK when a match starts, Active Griefers will deliberately obstruct and undermine the team by shoving players out of cover, over cliffs, or into water. They will even try to damage and kill as many of them as possible with friendly fire. Being made a victim of friendly fire themselves is a given bonus.
317* GuestFighter: Several tanks in ''Blitz'', such as:
318** [[VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles The Edelweiss, Lupus]], [[VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesIII Nameless]], [[VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles4 Hafen and Vulcan]].
319** [[Literature/{{Dracula}} The Dracula and Helsing]] [[note]]Which are explicitely described as being the ''real'' Dracula and Van Helsing, reincarned into tanks to battle each other once more[[/note]]
320** [[Literature/{{Frankenstein}} The Tankenstein]]
321** [[Anime/GirlsUndPanzer The Firefly Saunders, IS-2 Pravda, Hetzer Kame, Pz IV Ankou, and Tiger Kuromorimine]]
322** [[Franchise/StarWars The Pz IV (-o-)]] with a [=TIE=] Fighter paintjob.
323** [[TabletopGame/Warhammer40000 The Predator and Vindicator]]. The original game got the Valhallan Ragnarok and Mordian Leman Russ.
324** Fury, from the [[Film/Fury2014 movie of the same name]].
325** Rudy, from the Polish series ''[[Series/CzterejPancerniIPies Four Tankers and a Dog]]''.
326** The [=BLTZ9000=], a [[Franchise/{{Terminator}} time travelling tank from the future]]. Later WG released an official tie-in, Cyborg T-800.
327** The Gravedigger and Scavenger, created by Peter Pound, vehicle designer of ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad''.
328** The Smasher, created by Brett Parson, one of the artists behind ''ComicBook/TankGirl''.
329** The O-47, created by Kunio Okawara, mechanical designer of the ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' series, and a ShoutOut to the Zeon Magella tank.
330** The 2024 ''Film/DunePartTwo'' collaboration saw several games getting in-game vehicles, such as Blitz's Groundtank and Harvester skin for the Maus.
331* GuideDangIt: ''World of Tanks'' is notable in that it '''doesn't''' have any kind of in-game guide, which means many of the important mechanics -- like penetration, spotting distance, and camouflage -- are left unexplained, leaving new players clueless on how to play ''smartly'' (which tends to lead to bad playing habits as said players move up the tiers). A patch added a tutorial, [[TutorialFailure though it's been derided as a mediocre effort]], since it only covers the bare basics and gives some [[ManualMisprint sub-optimal advice]] (like hiding inside a bush instead of behind it, as the latter camouflages the tank better).
332** There has been an unofficial manga guide for the game titled ''[[http://worldoftanks.asia/en/media/7/2106/ Hajimete no Sensha-do: WoT for Beginners]]'', one of its cross-promotion contents with ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer''.
333** Each module except radios has at least one stat that is not listed ingame:
334*** Guns do not have their bloom listed. This stat affects the tank's ability to fire while turning the turret and moving the tank. TD guns can also have variable gun arcs, with one of the biggest differences being the Pz.Sfl. [=IVc=], which transitions from a nice, wide gun arc with the short 8,8 cm gun to having almost none with the long 8,8 cm gun.
335*** Turrets do not list how much HP they give or their gun depression. There's also no way to see the shape of the turret beforehand, which can lead to a nasty surprise when you purchase a stock ARL 44 (displayed with the elite turret) and suddenly... barn. Also tied in with guns are the fact that certain turrets will improve the soft stats of some or all of the guns on the tank. The Chi-To in particular is very bad with this, as all you are shown in game is that it weighs a bit more[[labelnote:except...]]in reality, you're gaining ''80'' HP, 3.5° more gun depression, and a buff to all of the soft stats of both guns[[/labelnote]].
336*** Engines are fairly tame in this regard: A better engine tends to grant more HP to the engine module, making it harder to destroy.
337*** Suspensions do not list their terrain resistances. This stat tends to be a big factor in acceleration and maintaining top speed when going offroad, making it very important for lights and even mediums. Not helping is that this stat is the main stat Wargaming goes for when they want to modify a tank's maneuverability.
338* HalfTruth:
339** Several tanks, especially low to mid tier German ones, have listed top speeds they can't reach even using their best engines; they can only reach it by going downhill.
340*** A prime example of this is the French AMX 40, which has a listed top speed of 50km/h, that ''can'' be reached by going downhill. However, it weighs around 30 tons and its best engine only produces 190 h.p., so you're lucky if it can go over 20km/h half the time.
341** The listed tank stats dependent on crew skill, like rate of fire, were for 133% crew skill, not 100% crew skill. This was changed in the 0.7.2 patch.
342** Light tanks suffer from this trope quite a bit, as it so often happens where better modules (especially a new turret) weigh more, leaving you to wonder why your pimped-out Luchs drives like a slug when you expect it to dash like a greyhound.
343** Average Damage only tells you how much damage the selected gun can inflict with an Average Damage Roll. It doesn't tell you what the minimum and maximum damage output is. Once you equip the gun, the damage (and penetration) ranges will be listed in the garage.
344** For many tanks, the given armour thickness for each side is very close to being an outright lie. The cupola (the little dimple sticking out on top of the turret) is almost always less heavily armoured than the turret; in some cases, a non-apparent section of the tank (such as the lower hull) will be more weakly armoured than it appears. Inversely, some areas are actually ''more'' heavily armoured than they appear: gun mantlets are generally better protected than the turret facing they are mounted on, while some tanks boast "spaced armour" that can actually deflect shots and pre-detonate HE rounds before they hit the tank proper.
345*** Many tanks will be listed with large values for their armor... that only apply to a small section of the hull, sometimes to the point that it might as well be BlatantLies. One of the worst offenders is the T28 tank destroyer, with a listed 254 armor. This 254 armor is only in one location, however: Directly behind the gun mantlet, which is NEVER intentionally going to be shot at. Otherwise, the armor is the exact same 203mm as the T28 Prototype.
346* HellIsThatNoise: The alert noise that accompanies detection on the Xbox 360 version.
347* HitAndRunTactics:
348** Most light tanks and the faster medium tanks do this when they aren't scouting.
349** Autoloader tanks do this a lot by necessity: pop out, fire off all the shells in the revolver cylinder within seconds and then hide for about half a minute to reload.
350** Unless the opponent is hopelessly outgunned, it is the most viable tactic for every tank. There is no reason to stay out of cover and take shots while your gun is reloading.
351* HollywoodCuisine: Every nation's version of special rations, is tailored specifically for use only on their vehicles. All of them each play into certain foods and drinks common with their crews rations or at least, delicacies they're known for.
352** '''USA:''' Case of Cola. Also a case of BlandNameProduct as the colors on the case mimics that of Coca-Cola.
353** '''Russia:''' Extra Combat Rations. Basically the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tushonka Tushonka]].
354** '''Germany:''' Chocolate bars.
355** '''U.K.:''' Pudding and Tea. TruthInTelevision, Tea has been brewed by British tank crews using the tank's engine heat, and since 1945 with the Centurion, come equipped with an electric boiler/kettle used to heat up water for a variety of uses, primarily food and drink, including tea. The boiler in question, is shown [[https://youtu.be/Prfuk-Z1-Y4?t=8m25s here]] by Wargamming's tank expert and historian Nicolas "The Chieftain" Moran with the Cold War era Chieftain tank.
356** '''France:''' Strong Coffee (with an accompanying croissant).
357** '''Czechoslovakia:''' "Buchty", also known as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buchteln Buchteln]], a type of sweet roll.
358** '''Italy:''' Spaghetti with Meat Sauce.
359** '''China:''' Improved Combat Rations (what exactly isn't stated, but it definitely resembles basic potstickers).
360** ''' Japan:''' [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onigiri Onigiri]].
361** ''' Sweden:''' Coffee with ''kanelbullar'' (cinnamon buns).
362* HopelessBossFight: The White Tiger (Der Weiße Tiger) events on the Russian Server. The titular Tiger has 14,960 hitpoints, uses the 8.8 cm L/56 which actually fires 15cm shells from the E-100's gun at the L/56's (faster) rate of fire. Its turning rate is a ridiculously high 460. It is only used in special events and is only pitted against fifteen T-34-85s. Head-on attack never works, but it is possible to set up an ambush, damage its tracks and shoot it from a distance using cover.
363** This tank has been added as a promotion of the movie ''The White Tiger'' in May of 2012. To the creators' surprise, players started killing it [[LordBritishPostulate before]] they had time to add a description for the medal for destroying it. In the summer of 2012, the White Tiger was removed from the game, even the model was deleted from .pkg file.
364* ICallItVera: External titles can be painted on the outside of any tank, some of which are names.
365* IneffectualLoner: The game is team based, so if you see a lone friendly wander off, it's usually one of the following: [[TheLoad a burden to the team]], [[StupidSacrifice a suicide scout]], or worst of all, [[EntitledBastard your heaviest tank running right into the jaws of the enemy and yelling at you for not joining him in death]]. It rarely ends well for the loner in question.
366** For a really bad time, couple this with SuicidalOverconfidence, where the vast majority of the team overloads one flank. In this case the Ineffectual Loner isn't ineffective by choice; he's the one who's noticed the manpower issue, pointed it out and been ignored. The horde is usually wiped out or bogged down despite numerical superiority, and the Ineffectual Loner prepares for a gruesome end (if it hasn't happened already) and the inevitable onslaught of insults and blame from their team.
367* InstantWinCondition: Maps can be won either by base capture or wiping out the enemy team. Usually, some variation of the latter is required to do the former, but sometimes a brave group can bypass the entire map/battle and simply capture the enemy base while the enemy team has charged ahead without any thought of defence.
368** The Assault game mode makes the bypass method rarely possible as one team is spawned on top of it to defend while the other spawns across the map to [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin assault it]]. The objectives of Assault are also laid out in a way that the defending team can win just by having 1 surviving "defending" tank and the attacking team hasn't completed a capture yet. Even with 99%, [[WeWinBecauseYouDidnt they lose]].
369* InvisibleWall:
370** Before 0.8.0, tanks were glued to the ground and you couldn't fall off a cliff -- your tank just stopped moving and occasionally got stuck. When the physics model came out of development, these disappeared from the maps, producing rude surprises for anyone who forgot and tried to rely on them. Given the attitude of some players, though, this may have just created a new unofficial award for the most creative suicide leap. Speaking of the latter, apparently, a lot people dreamed of falling from the previously blocked bridge on Westfield.
371** There's also a barrier around the map boundaries, marked by a red line.
372* [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy International Tank Gunnery Courses]]:
373** Low-competence crews perform worse than crews with higher competence. This, along with the game-determined gun dispersion, can lead to gunners repeatedly missing shots at any range. Highly skilled crews, on the other hand, can demonstrate ImprobableAimingSkills.
374** The regular "arcade" targeting reticule is notoriously inaccurate at point-blank range from severe camera paralax, which can lead to missing shots when ''your gun is literally touching the enemy tank''. It's even possible to shoot ''over'' the top of a tank that's ''taller'' than yours!
375* InTheBack: Most tanks have their strongest armor on the front and the weakest on the rear and the top. Shooting a tank in the back is also more likely to set it on fire, since the engine and fuel tanks are usually placed there. The rare aversions are usually heavy tanks designed for assaults on fortified positions.
376* {{Invisibility}}: Hiding in the bushes will drastically reduce your visibility range. Well-hidden [=TDs=] can be a pain to spot and a well-geared one in a patch of bushes [[LuckBasedSearchTechnique can only be revealed by almost bumping into it]].
377[[/folder]]
378
379[[folder: Tropes J-M]]
380* JackOfAllStats:
381** Medium tanks in a nutshell, being the most balanced -- some, like the T-34, put an emphasis on speed but are still outpaced by light tanks, while the Panther line concentrates on heavy guns and armor, though not to the same degree as the heavies. Best used as escorts, giving additional firepower to other classes, or as "wolfpacks", groups of mediums that swarm any opposition.
382*** Within the mediums, the American line seem to be the best examples, as they have useful guns and decent armor in addition to being passably fast and maneuverable, as opposed to the more specialized lines of other countries.
383** American tanks in general seem to be an entire nation of Jacks. Their guns are less accurate (unless shooting while moving) but deal more damage than the Germans, and are more accurate but deal less damage than the Russians. They are also faster and more fragile than either of them, but not to the extent of the later-tier French tanks.
384** The Commander of a tank can take the "Jack of All Trades" skill. This lets him mitigate the penalties caused if other crewmen get knocked out, although this ability will weaken in effect if more crew are dead.
385* KillItWithFire: No flamethrower tanks, but being set on fire ranks up there as one of ''the''' worst ways to die, as it slowly erodes your tank's health, damages random modules and more often than not [[OneHitKill cooks off your ammo]]. It can be done by [[ShootTheFuelTank destroying the fuel tank]] or damaging the engine. Even worse, fire damage is percentage-based, meaning that burning a Leichtraktor and a Maus to death takes the same amount of time.
386** The 0.6.4 patch rectified this, as the amount of damage the fire does decreases over time until it is put out and the fire extinguisher consumables put out the fire immediately, instead of just increasing the chance the fire is put out.
387* LastStand: Occurs every now and then because of the victory conditions. Sometimes, as soon as most of the enemies are down, most of the team [[TooDumbToLive rushes towards the enemy HQ one by one]]. Just one defending heavy tank or even SPG can take this to ConservationOfNinjutsu levels impossible in a normal firefight, sometimes making it to a stalemate or even a victory.
388** There is an [[CosmeticAward Epic medal]] called "Kolobanov's Medal" for doing exactly this.
389** The Maus, an ''extremely'' well-protected tank, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnBLe9ZwESM can take]] this trope up to eleven.
390* LeakedExperience: Even without spending Gold to transfer experience, 5% of any experience gained in battle is given as "Free Experience", which can be spent to upgrade any tank, as opposed to being limited to the tank that earned it.
391* LethalJokeCharacter: Or in this case, tanks:
392** The KV-2 exemplifies this trope: It can be armed with the same 122mm gun as the KV-1 or a new 107mm gun, which bites quite hard, but slows the tank down. [[TakeAThirdOption The third option]] KV-2 players can take, however, is the infamous 152mm howitzer - a gun with abysmal accuracy, incredibly lengthy reload time - and truly ridiculous damage with HE shells, dealing noticeable damage to even Tier 10 tanks and described by the game's own wiki as strong enough to send "the tank on the receiving end of the shell ... off the map and hurled into the sun". Absolutely suicidal to venture out alone with and so must be played in a support role, or in a platoon of three. Still, if you want a good laugh and the chance to [[OhCrap put the fear]] of the RandomNumberGod into the enemy team, this is the tank to grab.
393*** And then the Americans got in on the derping with the tier 8 T49 light tank. Because the only thing better than 152mm of high-explosive goodness is 152mm of high-explosive goodness from something that can do 70 kph.
394** The T57 is the first US SPG. Typically, [=SPGs=] are slow, poorly-armored and ineffective at close range. However, the T57's speed, armor and weaponry are on par with Tier 3 [=TDs=] and better than ''any'' tank in its tier, being a nasty surprise for anyone who expected an easy kill.
395** The T18 is the first US TD. It has 51mm of frontal armor, equivalent to or better than many tanks two or three tiers higher, and access to a Tier 4 howitzer, making it the terror of recruit matches.
396** Then there's the [[{{Acrofatic}} T-28]], which is about as big as the Motherland, meaning it's rubbish at hiding, though it's surprisingly fast for its size. Initially, it's armed with a pretty pathetic short barreled 76mm close support cannon. With wafer thin armor, it's not going to last too long against its more well-armored contemporaries, '''but''', once it gets a proper engine and the long barreled [[MoreDakka 57mm ZiS-4]], it quickly becomes a GlassCannon quite capable of punching out higher tier tanks.
397** The M3 Lee, combining the downsides of medium tanks and [=TDs=] and the good sides of neither, is widely mocked, ridiculed and hated by American medium tank drivers because of its massive profile, lack of a rotating turret and tendency to get killed by almost anything. However, it has very strong front armor for its tier and upgrades to a very fast-firing high-penetration gun that is capable of shredding even Tier 6 tanks that aren't paying attention.
398** The AMX 40, a Tier 4 French light tank with acceleration slower than most ''heavy'' tanks, a rather piddly gun... and [[StoneWall armor equivalent to the KV-1 with completely retarded amounts of sloped armor]]. Place it in a Tier 3-4 match and watch as every shot that goes towards your general direction bounce off.
399** The ELC AMX, which has virtually no armor, terrible aiming time, matchmaking that will always pit it against higher tier opponents, and a turret that can't turn more than a few degrees left and right. However, it is among the smallest tanks in the game, with a profile so low that some tanks are incapable of depressing their guns low enough to actually hit it at point blank range. It is also very fast, with a maximum speed limit is 65 km/h and an incredible power-to-weight ratio of 37 hp/t when fully upgraded. In contrast to preceding French tanks, it also has a great selection of guns: though slow to load, its top 90mm gun is easily one of the most powerful weapons available to any light tank. In the right hands, it can be a devilish nuisance if you stop trying to play it like a tank and start playing it more like a "Go-Kart with a Gun" (as it's been affectionately called).
400** The British TOG II* premium heavy tank. It tends to get mocked by everyone on ''both'' teams in a match and has been dubbed "Train", "Boat" or "Whale". It's painfully slow, comically large (longer than the Maus) and its armour is totally inadequate for its tier. However, its 80 ton bulk makes trying to ram it suicidal, 1400 hitpoints--double the Churchill III's health--allows it to absorb ridiculous amounts of damage, and it mounts the deadly OQF 17 Pounder Mk.VII, with very good accuracy, excellent RoF and very good penetration. Late game, it can go on enormous rampages, considering most tanks it will encounter will be injured by the time it reaches them.
401*** Given its immense weight and length, a TOG turned sideways on a bridge or other chokepoint can completely seal off avenues of attack to the enemy by becoming an almost-immobile piece of scenery, a tactic dubbed "TOG-blocking".
402*** A well-coordinated platoon of three TOG II*s is a Lethal Joke Team. Between them, the three could have more hit points than the rest of their team combined, allowing them to shrug off attacks while throwing out enough firepower to practically vapourize anything they meet as they move towards the enemy flag at a [[OminousWalk casual stroll]].
403** The American T40 Tank destroyer is a slower, slightly more durable T82 with a massive gaping hole on top that just screams "KILL ME!" It's also a Tank Destroyer with a gun 2 tiers above its own, naturally faster firing due to being open topped, and happens to have an abnormally large view range and traverse. Combined with its standard TD Camo and competent players, this generally results in an invisible spotter killing your scouts before they can see anything.
404** The humble Cruiser II, a Tier III British light tank. Not too many people play it, as most prefer the [[LightningBruiser Cruiser IV's]] tree. It's slow, its armor isn't very strong, its starting gun is average and it doesn't have a ton of HP. However, it can equip the 3.7 inch Howitzer, a cannon firing tooth-loosening HE rounds that can annihilate almost any other tank of its Tier [[OneHitKill in a single shot]], and even a few up to tier 5! Get one or two kills in a match this way and people will begin to approach you a bit more cautiously or avoid you altogether. Faster tanks might attempt to close the distance and attack, but this usually winds up lethal to [[TakingYouWithMe all parties]] involved. To give an idea of how powerful this gun is at this level, you find it on the Cruiser II's '''Tier VI''' cousins, the [[JackOfAllStats Cromwell]] and the [[MightyGlacier Churchill VII]].
405** The BDR G1 B is not commonly seen on the battlefield, and it's not hard to understand why. Compared to the popular KV-1 and KV-1S tanks, it has much less armour (though still sufficient to bounce some guns, if angled correctly), feels very sluggish compared to the T1 and KV-1S tanks, and also has the least hitpoints of any tier V heavy tank. To top it all off, it also looks incredibly silly, being commonly derided as a "Steel Potato" due to its huge, ungainly shape, which makes it easy to spot. What saves it from being a mediocre tank is its top gun, the 90mm DCA 30, which has high penetration for tier V, deals exceptional damage, and has fairly good accuracy to boot. It will easily destroy any other tier V tank in no more than three shots, and is powerful enough to threaten tier VII tanks as well.
406* LevelGrinding: Mostly limited to unlocking the higher tier tanks, where the XP and credit gain doesn't quite scale to their costs. This also applies to all tiers, as you need to earn experience to upgrade what tanks you do have.
407* LevelScaling: For the most part, you only get matched with tanks around the tier of the tank you're using. The current system has tier 5 and up tanks able to see tanks two tiers higher or lower than them. Tiers 1 and 2 only see see tanks one tier higher or lower, while tier 3 and 4 tanks can face tanks two tiers higher but only one tier lower. For example, a tier 5 tank can only ever face enemies as low as tier 3 or as high as tier 7. Of course, there are some exceptions:
408** Some premium tanks have what is called "Limited" or "Premium" matchmaking, so they won't see tanks two tiers higher than them. This is due to premium tanks generally being slightly worse than their non-premium colleagues in some way.
409** A few premium tanks, such as the B2 tier 4 heavy and the Valentine II tier 4 light tank, take this even further and can never see tanks higher than their own tier. This is due to them having absolutely terrible penetration.
410** The few tier 4 heavies in the game all have rather weak guns, lack the speed to flank and don't have any respectable armor above their own tier. Because of that, they have matchmaking similar to premium tanks and never fight anything higher than tier 5.
411* LightningBruiser:
412** The American T25 AT and German [=JagdPanther=] Tank Destroyers are this at the cost of lacking turrets, being maneuverable and quick, decently armored, and having powerful guns.
413** Don't forget about the American T49 tier 8 light tank which can go 70 km/h and can equip itself with what is essentially the KV-2's derp gun. It also counts as a glass cannon, since it has no armor to speak of.
414** The high-end medium tanks such as the T-54, the E-50 and the M46 Patton, are fast, relatively well-armoured and pack a massive punch.
415** The KV-13 medium tank combines the heavy armor of the KV series and the speed of the T-34 series.
416** The American M3 Stuart light tank is often a player's first introduction to a LightningBruiser; it's one of the fastest and most durable tanks in its tier, and is actually tougher to kill than its larger but same-tier cousin, the M2 Medium. It also packs a respectable punch, though not quite as much as a fully-upgraded M2 Medium.
417** The German E-75 heavy tank is surprisingly agile for its size, packs insane amounts of armor on the front and has a Tier 10 gun that hits quite hard and is rather accurate.
418** The French [=FCM=] 50t premium heavy tank has a top speed of 51 km/h, a 1000 h.p. engine that allows it to accelerate quickly and extremely good steering. It is armed with the potent 90mm [=DCA=] 45 and has a halfway decent armour layout, unlike most other late-tier French tanks.
419** The Japanese O-I Experimental at Tier 5 is slower and less maneuverable than many of the examples here but still qualifies with a top speed of 40 kilometers an hour, an excellent gun and armor only slightly inferior to a KV-1. This is especially evident in comparison with the higher tier Japanese heavies, which fall squarely into the MightyGlacier category.
420** The Skoda T-40, the first Czech Premium Tank to be introduced into the game, looks to be something of one at Tier 6.
421** The A-44, a Tier VII USSR medium tank, is this in spades. It has great frontal armor, a blistering 59 kph speed, and a heavy tank gun that not only has better damage than any other Tier VII medium tank, but better damage than most Tier VII ''heavy'' tanks.
422* TheLoad: People who queue for a match then go AFK simply to get XP and Credits for being in the match. Stock tanks, which are almost universally terrible, are usually this as well even with skilled players, especially at higher tiers. [[ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy Chronically inaccurate artillery]] and [[FailedASpotCheck scouts who don't]] can take it up to levels of TheMillstone. Anyone deliberately trying to pull a [[OneManArmy One Tank Army]] usually isn't going to be much help either.
423* LuckBasedSearchTechnique: Combat is often initiated by frontline (and usually suicide) scouts stumbling upon the enemy, and if the enemy is low-profile and/or a tank destroyer, they're usually discovered at ramming distance.
424* [[MadeOfIron Made of Bouncinium]]: Tanks with sloped armor are more likely to deflect shots, and deflected AP shots do 0 damage, so some tanks seem tougher than their stats would have you believe.
425** There is a considerable {{Hatedom}} for the T-54 and its Chinese knockoff, the Type 59, because of their ridiculously well-sloped frontal armor, which takes this trope up to eleven and makes their survivability more akin to that of a heavy tank a tier higher. Most tanks a of equal or lower tier tanks often switch to HE ammunition and chip away since most of their AP rounds will do anything but deflect off the armor. If only its turret is exposed, its 200mm thick sloped armor makes it almost completely invulnerable to anything but a direct artillery hit. That said, its frontal hull and turret armor can be penetrated with premium rounds, which cost a lot of in-game credits and real world money.
426** The E-75, a Tier 9 German heavy tank, is a nasty surprise for anyone going up against one frontally. Normally, the machine gun mount, the driver's viewport and the lower glacis plate are easily penetrated by most guns. The E-75 lacks all of those weakspots and sports a flat, featureless front. The various viewports and the commander's cupola are hard to hit, the armor is very thick and well-sloped, and even the lower glacis plate and the upgraded turret's frontal armor rivals the US heavy tanks at 252mm-thick armor. A properly-angled E-75 can reliably bounce shots even from Tier 10 guns.
427** The Indien-Panzer, the tier 8 medium on the FragileSpeedster German medium line, boasts 90mm all-around hull armor, with just enough sloping to make it trollbounce incarnate against shots that are poorly aimed or baited into a heavily-angled side.
428** The Tier 4 French "[[NonIndicativeName light]]" tank, the AMX 40, has well-sloped 70-80mm thick armor, which is thicker than its equivalent tier ''heavy tank''. Now factor in that most early guns in the game can only penetrate around 50-60mm thick armor. Some people have already started to refer to the AMX 40 as the Tier 4 Maus.
429*** A little explanation to understand just how well-armored it is: this tank easily gets the "Steel Wall" award for absorbing ''thrice its total health'' in damage and ''surviving''. It often happens without any actual damage to its hitpoints.
430** The infamous Tier 9 T95 American tank destroyer has ''305mm'' of armor, more than even the Maus. However, this still does not explain its unnatural tendency to make '''''ARTILLERY SHELLS''''' go "DING!"
431** The Tier 7 and up American heavy tanks are like this on their turret; more due to their raw thickness rather than their shape. Even AP rounds from ''Tier 10'' guns do nearly nothing. While their hull armor is weak by comparison, putting one of these tanks hull down can and will let them NoSell much of the enemy team.
432** As well, there is a medal for bouncing 10 or more shots in a row (not non-penetrations, but outright ricochets) called Cool-Headed. This is ridiculously easy to achieve when you have, say, Pz.Kpfw. I Ausf. Cs who don't know better engaging any French medium or heavy it encounters, or a British Matilda. As can be imagined, the machinegun spam is virtually harmless even when it hits.
433** The British [=TDs=] from tier 5 onwards (excepting the Tier 10 [=FV215b (183)=], which is [[GlassCannon a whole other story]]) are about the best armored vehicles in their tiers, bar none. The Tier 5 AT-2 alone has '''203mm''' frontal armor, and good side ''and'' rear armor that's at least 100mm thick!
434** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83XK00YUvas The premium gift-only BT SV]] is ridiculous for the fact that it is immune to any tank that can't use a high-power medium caliber gun.
435** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8J2fmmv2pE The Pz.Kpfw. II Ausf. J]] has 80mm frontal armor which allows it to attack other light tanks head on without any worry of penetration. That's right, it's a Tier 3 Premium "[[NonIndicativeName light]]" tank with armor to put Tier 5 and 6 ''heavy'' tanks to shame. No wonder they've kept it so rare.
436** The Matilda II really [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwDzqchod8A lives up to its legendary reputation]] of being immune to any gun that is smaller than a short-barreled 75mm or a long-barreled 57mm.
437* MadeOfExplodium: The T-44, T-54 and Type 59 are infamous for this since their ammo racks are spread throughout the tank, making it much easier to get a OneHitKill should a shot penetrate their armor.
438* MagicTool: Your repair kit can instantly repair any damaged module. [[InstantBandages Medkits]] work the same way.
439* MagikarpPower:
440** Amazingly, almost ''every'' vehicle except most Tier 10s and the premium tanks work like this. Except for the few (like the Tier V French S35 CA) that start with decent guns, [[EarnYourFun you need to earn and buy a lot of upgrades]] to make them killing machines. For many tanks, this means a gun upgrade. A vehicle can go from laughing stock to legitimate threat, or even borderline overpowered, just by moving up to the next gun (Which is surprisingly close to TruthInTelevision - a gun upgrade did wonders for T-34, for instance). German tanks and tank destroyers often require engine upgrades as well, since the stock engines tend to be really underpowered.
441** Perks operate this way, usually providing some great benefit (like Sixth Sense revealing if you are spotted) but do so only when 100% complete; having no benefit at anything less than 100%.
442* MasterOfNone: A poorly optimized medium may qualify. It doesn't have either the speed of a light tank, the durability of a heavy, or the firepower of a TD/SPG.
443** The M3 Lee struggles to fulfill a particular role due to its unique armament. Although classified as medium tank with a physical turret, only the hull-mounted gun could be used, giving it the play style of a tank destroyer. However, due to its arrangement, the M3 is ineffective as either a tank destroyer or a medium tank. The positioning of its gun means that the tank must turn its entire body, making it too cumbersome for aggressive flanking attacks suited for mediums. Since it has a highly visible turret that can be shot at, the M3 has a poor camouflage value that prevents it from successfully ambushing foes like a tank destroyer.
444* MetaGame: World of Tanks is interesting in that the variety of servers (and lack of mobility between servers - you can't transfer accounts) means that drastically different gameplay styles have evolved on each.
445** The RU Russian servers are by far the most populated - Players prefer [[ZergRush very aggressive tactics]] along with high caliber 'derp' howitzers.
446** The EU Western European servers are defined by mostly a lack of communication, due to the varying languages (with German and Polish being the most common) - Players prefer lots of heavy tanks and some tank destroyers, since they are generally the least team dependent.
447** The NA North American servers (basically America and Canada) are very lightly populated and thus features a more average player base - NA generally has more light tanks, mediums, and artillery per capita than the other servers, combat is generally very campy.
448** The Asian [[note]]Previously known as the SEA server; serves the South East Asian region, as well as Australia and New Zealand[[/note]] server doesn't really have its own meta - It is decently populated most of the time and primarily features locals who either don't understand much of the game or transferred back from other servers (a couple of one-time events after the server was established) for the reduced ping, and international players who make a separate account for relatively easy battles. Although the battles tend to either go one of two ways, a two pronged flanking manoeuvre depending on luck or a chaotic free for all with all tanks used in some fashion.
449* MetalSlime: The "Rabbit" in the Mirny-13 event, which carries a lot of Mirium but run away from players the moment they're spotted.
450* MightyGlacier: A number of tanks combine slow movement, heavy armour, and powerful guns:
451** Pretty much ''every'' Japanese heavy tank from Tier 6 and above combines colossal size, incredible armor, low speed, poor maneuverability and a powerful gun to devastating effect.
452** The Maus and its cousin, the E-100, have nearly impenetrable armour, big guns with high damage and mediocre penetration, and some of the slowest top speeds in the game.
453** The TOG II* is considered the king of this trope, given that it is ridiculously slow: 14km/h and it will NOT go faster. TOG drivers have to carefully select where to go with their tank, otherwise they risk being miles away from the action. That said, it has a powerful, rapidfire gun.
454** The American Tier 9 tank destroyer, the T95, sports a 155mm main gun that can destroy over half the tanks in the game with a single shot and has a top speed of only 13km/h, which is slower than a ''Maus going in reverse''.
455-->'''Tankmen's Novels''': Guys, you're not actually moving, the tracks are turning the planet beneath you!
456** The Tier 8 British TD, the AT 15, has a highly accurate and quick-aiming gun with a fast rate of fire and good penetration. However, its speed and agility is comparable with the Maus, and the frontal armour, while thick, has a number of weak points [[AttackItsWeakPoint that experienced players will almost always shoot at]].
457* MilitaryMashupMachine:
458** The Maus is one of the few RealLife examples of the Land Battleship version of this trope.
459** The T95 bounced between "Gun Motor Carriage" or a "Superheavy Tank". It fits neither description and actually doesn't fit anywhere in the US Army.
460** The IS-7 and SU-100Y, while not examples, receive honorable mentions because of their B-13 130mm cannon, which was originally for naval use - it's the same gun that served as the main battery for the Gnevny and Leningrad-destroyers in VideoGame/WorldOfWarships.
461** In a similar vein, the Japanese Type 4 and Type 5 heavy tanks use the Japanese 140mm Type 3 naval cannon, which VideoGame/WorldOfWarships players would also recognize as the secondary armament on the Fusou, Nagato, and Amagi-class battleships.
462** The US T29 and T34 heavy tanks and T30 tank destroyer also receive honorable mentions, as they are able to mount naval rangefinders (that need a lot of space) on their already enormous turrets.
463* MoreDakka: As a general rule of thumb, any weapon below 57mm isn't going to rely on damage dealt in a single hit, it's going to rely on damage dealt over time. ''All'' weapons below 37mm (and including one that ''is'') are automatic cannons. Exaggerated by those tanks that mount actual machineguns.
464** Tier 1 to 3 tanks often have an autocannon that fires barrages instead of a single shell as an option. The fastest firing ones are the machine guns available for some tanks, which shoot about ''twice'' as fast as their nearest competitors. Don't expect these popguns to do anything more than annoy Tier 3 or higher tanks, however.
465** The T-34 with a 57mm cannon, the ''Rammer'' equipment and an experienced loader is a goddamn ''buzzsaw''.
466** American mid-tier tanks seem to have been designed around one simple question - "how fast can we make this 76mm gun fire?" The answer is "very."
467** The 6-pdr gun mounted on many British (or British-derived in the case of the Ram-II) and some American tanks, and its smaller 2-pdr cousin, are capable of spewing forth huge numbers of shells in a short time.
468** French tanks take this trope to the ''extreme'' with the autoloading guns on their higher-tier light, medium, and heavy tanks.
469*** Even their Tier 1 tank, the Renault FT-17, can equip itself with the 13.2 mm Hotchkiss mle. 1930, a machine gun that can shoot upwards of ''680'' rounds per minute. That's so fast, it spends almost as much, if not slightly more, time reloading as it does shooting.
470** Japanese guns tend to have very fast rates of fire compared to similar caliber and tiered guns of other nations. Some can out-DPS ''autoloaders''.
471* MookHorrorShow: When the top of one team's list meets the bottom of the other team's list. Averted if the [[NotSoInvincibleAfterAll lower tier tank manages to cripple the high tier one]], or [[TacticalWithdrawal escapes]].
472* MultiTrackDrifting: At high speeds, it's possible to do a power slide. It's possible to power slide around an enemy tank, and fire the kill shot.
473* MutualKill: A possibility, either from both tanks firing simultaneously, both being destroyed when one [[CarFu rammed the other]] or from one tank [[KillItWithFire setting the other on fire]] before it dies. Grants the Eye for an Eye! achievement.
474[[/folder]]
475
476[[folder: Tropes N-R]]
477* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: As noted below, there are various vehicles named after famous figures of the countries from which they originate.
478** Americans have the M4 Sherman, the M3 Lee, the M26 Pershing, and the M46/M47/M48/M60 Patton medium tanks as well as the M24 Chaffee and the M3/M5 Stuart. Notably, a few of these names originated from British soldiers using the tanks.
479** Russians have the [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin IS]] and KV series of heavy tanks.
480** French have the Foch tank destroyers.
481** British have the M3 Grant, though that's just another version of the aforementioned M3 Lee.
482* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Inherited from the RealLife versions.
483** The [[{{NamesToRunAwayFrom/Animal}} animal names]], [[PantheraAwesome generally big cats]][[note]]Tiger, Panther, Leopard, Luchs (Lynx).[[/note]] of German tanks. Also, ''[[NamesToRunAwayFrom/UnpronouncableNames Panzerkampfwagen]]''. Exception: [[FluffyTheTerrible The Maus.]]
484** The Russian [[UsefulNotes/JosefStalin Iosif Stalin]] and [[NamedAfterSomebodyFamous Kliment Voroshilov]] tanks.
485** The Lee, Stuart, Sherman, Pershing and Patton tanks.[[note]][[NamedAfterSomebodyFamous Famous American Generals]] (funnily enough, it was actually the British that started this tradition when they received American tanks and found it confusing that two different tanks could have the same alphanumeric designation - it caught on recursively).[[/note]]
486** Averted quite hard with the French BS self-propelled gun. Whether or not the tank is "BS" because it's good or bad varies heavily, though.
487*** And then played straight with the last two French tank destroyers, named after the French WWI general [[NamedAfterSomebodyFamous Ferdinand Foch]].
488* NeverFoundTheBody: Nothing makes a handful of teammates more nervous than an empty enemy base and still one SPG or TD left to find. Very often leads to [[LetsSplitUpGang teammates frantically searching places of cover keep the last kill for themselves]], and depending on the skill of the tanker in question, [[DwindlingParty teammates getting picked off one by one]].
489* NeverSplitTheParty: Even the heaviest tanks will go down to concentrated fire. Aside from scouts, going lone-wolf will just get you killed very quickly (and even scouts often work in groups and with artillery and/or sniper support).
490* NighInvulnerability:
491** The gimmick of the American T29 and T34 heavy tanks and T30 tank destroyer is that their turret armor is some of the heaviest armor in the game. [[AttackItsWeakPoint Of course, the hull of the tank isn't quite so heavily armored...]]
492** High tier tank destroyers tend to have incredible amounts of armor, including the infamous T95, which is capable of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPKWlkNrN7M taking some truly absurd abuse]].
493*** In that video, the T95, which mind you, has 1700 hit points (The single spongiest tank, the Maus, has 3000) took '''''32830''''' damage, and came out alive simply because its armor bounced most of it off.
494** After the 0.6.4 patch, the armor of the Maus is able to absorb several penetrating, [[MadeOfIron definitely damaging]] hits without any harm.
495* NoOneShouldSurviveThat: Crew members never die, they only get injured and can be brought back into action either by using a medkit or by finishing the battle. The thing is, this means they can survive ammo rack detonations or catching a 152mm AP shell ''with their skull''.
496** Which is weird, considering that in the English version, your crew shouts ''"The gunner is dead, somebody get on the gun!"'' or ''"The loader bought the farm."'' or ''"The commander is dead, we can´t see what´s going on."'' when a crew member is hit. The phrases are purely cosmetic however, some of the defaults only say the crew member is hurt and as you can replace the sound files yourself there's nothing to stop you having "The gunner has a small cut, someone take over for him." Also, if all of your crew members die, the tank is considered to be "knocked out".
497* NoSell: Every shot is governed by a Penetration Roll which is affected by the gun, the ammo type, distance from target, thickness and angle of the armor face. Trying to snipe with a small gun is very much a futile gesture that will only give away your position.
498--> '''Crew Member''': Bounced off!
499* NoSwastikas: The rules on creating tank skins say that no swastikas are allowed, and anytime you see a piece of statuary that would logically have one, the space where it would be is left empty, or uses traditional German colours or logos such as the ''Balkenkreuz''. Even then, the [[{{Bowdlerise}} bowdlerized]] German army symbols often cause an inquiry from the moderators.
500* NotActuallyCosmeticAward: A couple types of {{Cosmetic Award}}s do provide a small bonus, namely players that achieve one in a battle they lose will receive the same amount of XP and Credits for the battle as if they won, for "courageous resistance".
501** Battle Hero Medals: Given to players who performed extraordinarily during the match. Score 6 kills, do most of the capturing of an enemy HQ, spot 9 enemies or show excellent accuracy, and you'll get one.
502** Epic Achievement Medals: Very rare, only given to players who perform incredible feats. [[TheDeterminator Kill at least one enemy while having less than 20% health and 5 critically damaged modules and survive the match]], [[LastStand win against 5 or more enemies as the last man standing]], [[OneBulletLeft kill the last enemy with your last round]] and so on.
503* OffTheChart: Players on the RU server have taken to categorizing the effectiveness of certain tanks based on win rate averages, one of their findings was that a very rare gift tank called the Pz. II Ausf. J, which was commonly decried as OP, was actually far more OP than anyone realized (blue represents player w/r while green represents average tank specific w/r at any given player w/r) [[http://i39.tinypic.com/euowwk.png]].
504* [[OminousWalk Ominous Crawl]]: You often have no hope of survival if you're cornered by a much heavier tank. Since you don't have anywhere to run, they'll move slowly to retain accuracy. High tier [=TDs=] also like doing this, though [[MightyGlacier some]] don't really have a choice.
505* OneBulletLeft:
506** You get an [[CosmeticAward Epic Achievement Medal]] called "Fadin's Medal" for killing the last enemy with your last round.
507** When your gun takes half a minute to reload and costs as much as a low tier tank to shoot - you should assume that this will be your last shot and you should as much damage as possible.
508* OneHitKill:
509** Ammo rack detonations, which cause you to die instantly, regardless of how much health you had beforehand. Several Russian tanks and the Type 59 are quite prone to this, as they normally store their ammo in easy to hit places. Purchasing the ''Wet Ammo Rack'' equipment is almost considered a necessity.
510** Howitzers can cause this when they fully penetrate armor - when they don't penetrate, they do only a percentage of their full damage, but when they do penetrate, '''God help you'''. For example, the infamous 152mm "derp" gun on the KV-2 does ''over 900 damage'', which will flatten same-tier ''heavies'' (that aren't [[DamageSpongeBoss TOGs]]) in one penetrating hit. Needless to say, you really don't want to get hit by it, even if you're higher tier.
511* OneHitPolykill:
512** Possible with HE rounds, though very unlikely, as it requires your targets to be right next to each other. Pulling this off earns you a [[CosmeticAward Title of Honor]], Bombardier.
513** Somewhat more possible with [=SPGs=], as their HE rounds can splash a wide area. Some of the top-tier [=SPGs=] using premium ammo have a 13+ meter blast radius and can deal enough damage to kill Tier 8 and 9 vehicles, especially if they're already wounded. The KV-2 can also manage this with the 152mm howitzer occasionally.
514* OneSteveLimit: Averted and subverted quite often.
515** The Russian T-34 (Tier 5 medium) and American T34 (Tier 8 heavy) are two vastly different tanks that happen to have almost the same name. Similarly, the American T28 (3 different Tier 8 [=TDs=]) and the Russian T-28 (Tier 4 medium), the American M4 Sherman (Tier 5 medium) and the French AMX M4 (Tier 7 heavy) or the American [=T54E1=] and the Russian T-54 (both are Tier 9 mediums).
516** The T-34 and T-34-85; the second one being an upgrade of the vanilla T-34 and has a very similar appearance, while being far more dangerous. The Chinese tree adds the Type T-34, the T-34-1, the T-34-2 and the T-34-3 to the mix, only the first of which is actually related to the Russian one.
517** The early Chinese tree, consisting of mostly lend-lease tanks, is full of this. In addition to the Type T-34 mentioned above and IS-2 mentioned below, there's a Chi-Ha at tier 3 (with the exact same name as the Japanese Chi-Ha) and [=M5A1=] Stuart at tier 4 (with only the A1 keeping it seperate from the American M5 Stuart).
518** The KV family: The KV-1, KV-2, KV-3, KV-4 and KV-5 are known as the slowest tanks in the game (the price for heavy armour) that even [=SPGs=] can outrun. Players with the much faster KV-1S, KV-85 and KV-13 abuse this usual misconception to their advantage.
519** Also the IS series: IS-1/2 (Russian version can be either, Chinese version is -2 only), IS-3, IS-4, IS-5 (an IS-1/2 with a 100mm gun), IS-6, and the IS-7. The IS-8 used to count, but was renamed as the T-10.
520** The Americans have the Tier 2 M2 Light and T2 Light, a Tier 2 T2 Medium and a Tier 3 M2 Medium. There's also a T1 Cunningham and a T1 Heavy, though these are unlikely to be mistaken for each other. Also, the M7 Priest SPG and the M7 Medium, as well as the M3 Stuart light tank and the M3 Lee medium tank.
521*** The Sherman family consists of the M4, [=M4A2E4=], [=M4A3E2=] and [=M4A3E8=].
522*** There are also 2 drastically different tanks with the designation T57: A Tier 2 SPG and a Tier 10 heavy tank with an autoloader.
523*** They also have two tanks named after General Patton, the M46 and [=M48A1=].
524*** Three tier 10 tanks are similar as well: the [=T110E5=] Heavy Tank, the [=T110E4=] (turreted) Tank Destroyer, and the [=T110E3=] (non-turreted) Tank Destroyer
525*** And with 9.3, there are now two M41 tanks: the tier 5 M41 HMC artillery, and the tier 7 M41 Walker Bulldog light tank.
526** Of Germany's six available heavies, three are Tigers. They also have four Pz.Kpfw IV, three [=VK 30.01=] medium tanks, Pz.Kpfw 38 light tanks and [=JagdPanther=] [=TDs=]. Then two of their medium tanks and one of their light tanks are Panthers while two of their medium tanks and one of their light tanks are also Leopards. There is also the E-50 and the E-50 Ausf. M.
527** The French have the [=AMX=]50/100, [=AMX=]50/120 and the [=AMX=]50B. Then they have the [=AMX=]13/75 and the [=AMX=]13/90. There's also an [=AMX=] AC 48 and AC 48.
528** The British have four Cruisers, three Vickers Mediums, three Churchills and three Centurions.
529** The tier 2 through tier 7 Japanese mediums are all Chi-something, which is complicated even further by the tier 5 Chi-Nu and tier 5 premium Chi-Nu Kai. After that, all you have to worry about is getting the STA-1 (tier 8) and STB-1 (tier 10) sorted out correctly.
530* PainfullySlowProjectile: Short-barreled howitzers tend to have lower shell velocity. The British 25 pdr Howitzers (and the artillery's 4.5 inch guns) take the cake for slowness, taking roughly 3 seconds to connect from 500m. Averted by APCR ammo, which travels so fast that it may as well be {{hitscan}} except at extreme ranges.
531* ParabolicPowerCurve: The Credit gain per fight reaches its peak at Tiers 6-8, and later tanks are usually not profitable unless played extremely well. As a result many players who play in the top tiers will maintain a favorite stable of tier 8 tanks for use as cash farmers.
532* PermanentlyMissableContent: A few tanks were [[TemporaryOnlineContent only available for a limited time]], such as ''Blitz'''s Mark I tank, War Duck, and Missile T49. However, if you played these tanks without achieving the Ace Tanker badge, then you're out of luck and can never achieve 100% Ace Tanker.
533* PintsizedPowerhouse:
534** High tier light tanks in general. They may look petty and harmless at first glance, but all of them can ruin someone's day if driven well, even if they're in a high tier heavy.
535** The French Tier 8 light tank, the AMX 13/90, weighs only about 13 tons (hence the name), is almost as fast and maneuverable as the T-50-2 and, thanks to its revolver auto-loader, is capable of unleashing ''1440'' points of damage (average) in less than 12 seconds, which will take down tier 7 heavies, some stock tier ''8'' heavies, and tier 8 mediums in one drum.
536** The Chinese Tier 7 and 8 light tanks, the [=WZ=]-131 and the [=WZ=]-132, have pretty powerful guns (stronger then several equivalent tier medium tanks' guns), strong armor and a decent HP pool for light tanks.
537* PlayEveryDay:
538** The first winning match of the day in each tank gives doubled XP. Some special events increase this, tripling or even ''quintupling'' the XP gained.
539** Wargaming has also added month-long missions, where you have to complete a simple task such as dealing enough damage or gaining so much experience. Doing this for enough days will eventually earn you a small amount of premium time and completing these missions for the whole month tends to net you a garage slot filled with a low- or mid-tier premium tank.
540* PoliticallyCorrectHistory:
541** American tank crews can be of mixed race. While African-Americans did serve in tanks, particularly in the 761st Tank Battalion, there were no mixed-race units and the American military was still segregated during WWII. FridgeLogic suggests, however, since many of the high-tier tanks are post-war designs, the game itself is not meant to strictly restrict itself to the World War II era and therefore doesn't need to worry about segregation.
542** In an inversion, Wargaming has not added Russian female tank crews - they may have been rare compared to the men, but significant numbers of them still saw combat, and some, like [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandra_Samusenko Alexandra Samusenko]] and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariya_Oktyabrskaya Maria Oktyabrskaya]], showed the men a thing or two about bravery. It may be due to the fact that they would require a completely separate list of names. Eventually fixed, though it goes the other way and makes them available for all nations.
543* PopularHistory: While some maps are based off real battlegrounds and all the vehicles are real, match setups make little to no sense in terms of time periods.
544** However, averted by some enthusiasts playing historical setups in custom matches.
545** There was also an official Historical Battle mode, with its own balancing and restrictions on tanks and modules.
546* PowerfulButInaccurate:
547** Embraced by the HE-flinging howitzers, especially the 105mm howitzers mounted on several tier 4 tank destroyers (and one tier 3 tank destroyer) and tier 5 tanks, as well as the infamous 152mm M-10 gun on the KV-2 and the later 152mm ML-20S on the SU-152 and ISU-152.
548** Additionally, this applies to most [=SPGs=], which are generally armed with the same or similar weapons to the howitzers other vehicles use for direct fire, but exacerbated by the long ranges [=SPGs=] usually fire from and their slow, arching shots.
549** To a slightly lesser extent, this also applies to many non-howitzers that are still large weapons for their tier, such as the Soviet 122mm guns used by tier 6 and 7 vehicles (A-19, D-2-5T, D-2-5S, D-25T, and D-25S), whereas guns of the same caliber at higher tiers, such as the IS-3's 122mm BL-9 gun are no longer saddled with the inaccurate drawback.
550* PowerCreep: This is accused of happening whenever there's a new branch of tanks coming out. A prominent example would be the relatively recently line of Japanese Heavies, especially the tier 5 [[LightningBruiser O-I Experimental]] and its tier 6 cousin the [[MightyGlacier O-I]]. It has since been announced that these two will be nerfed, though.
551** The American tier 7 autoloading light tanks, the T71 and the M41 Bulldog are much, much better in speed and penetration compared to the earlier, same-tiered AMX 13 75.
552* PowerUpFood: All tanks can be given a nation specific "special ration" consumable that boosts all of the crews skills by +10% for one battle, the reasoning being that their morale has improved thanks to it.
553* PromotionalPowerlessPieceOfGarbage: The [=M4A3E8=] "Fury" released alongside of the [[Film/{{Fury2014}} film of the same name]] for a limited time. In game, the tank is simply a normal E8 mounting the 76mm [=M1A2=] gun but with weaker turret armor[[note]]Note that premium tanks being slightly underpowered in some way compared to same-tier counterparts is the norm[[/note]], and the existence of the Ram II and Super Pershing reduces its claim as an American Medium crew trainer. It's not exactly useless, but the main reason to get it was due to all of the promotions running alongside of it, such as Fury-only missions.
554* PVPBalanced:
555** Maps based on real-life locations are modified to make both sides equal.
556** The terrifying Game Breaker of the Recruit battles (Tiers 1 and 2), the AT-1, is a tank killer often delivering {{One Hit Kill}}s to most enemies, and is also very well-armored and agile for its tier; its only major downside being the reload time for its gun. In real life, its 76mm cannon variant was [[MoreDakka semi-automatic]].
557** The T-34-85 had its 100mm gun removed due to this, despite the real one successfully passing tests.
558** There are lots of people who believe that Russian tanks perform better than their American and German counterparts, the T-54 only being part of it, to the point of the game's balance being reduced to a joke at the expense of the development team.
559* RandomizedDamageAttack: A major complaint about the game is the RNG involving nearly all aspects of a shot. For all weapons, the displayed damage and penetration values are averages, with each shot deviating by up to 25%. A string of low damage rolls, especially with a large gun, can greatly reduce a tank's effectiveness. Or the game could decide against that this shot is going to get a minimum penetration roll and thus [[NoSell bounce]] even if a previous shot on the same spot penetrated. This is before getting into the randomized chance to damage internal modules, which includes the OneHitKill of a destroyed ammorack or the PercentDamageAttack of a fire tacking even more damage on (or just having the module/crewman absorb the entire round for no damage to the tank).
560* RammingAlwaysWorks: Sometimes a last-resort tactic for tank drivers when the need to kill an enemy tank is imminent, especially while reloading. A slight bump causes ScratchDamage on both the rammer and the rammee; a hard-enough crash can deal substantial amount of damage, and upon the introduction of updated motion physics in patch 9.14, can even roll over an enemy tank. Who comes out on the worse end of a ram is based on the armour and the weight of both the rammer and the target. But since speed also matters and the heaviest tanks tend to be very slow, super-heavy tank drivers often like to get on top of steep hills in order to set up a ram kill against light tanks. Which is less about practical combat tactics and more about the sheer joy of running over smaller tanks. The Controlled Impact perk for drivers actually increases the damage to the other tank by 15% and decreases damage to your tank by 15%, but only if the other tank is stationary. Spall liners also reduce the amount of damage taken in a ram, with there being 4 versions available: Light (tanks less than 30 tons, 20% damage reduction), Medium (30-50 tons, 25% reduction), Heavy (50-70 tons, 30% reduction) and Superheavy (70+ tons, 50% reduction).
561** The "Kamikaze" medal is given to the player who plays this trope straight to kill an enemy tank that is a tier higher than the one they're using.
562** For a few tanks that have a pretty good combination of mobility, frontal armor and heavy weight, ramming is considered a core part of their playstyle rather than just something fun when the situation presents itself. Such dedicated rammers are widely considered the only tanks where spall liners are considered worthwhile (since with only 3 equipment slots per tank there's usually better choices). The Panther/E-50 line of German medium tanks is particularly known for this, since they're heavier and have better front hull armor than most same-tier mediums and yet still have the speed of a medium tank, especially the Tier X E-50 M. And the Tier V premium medium tank Pz.Kpfw. V/IV is known as the Rampanzer because it's the hull and engine of the Panther (already a good rammer) but 2 tiers lower and thus getting to ram ligher and less armored foes than the Panther can.
563* RandomNumberGod: Every shot is governed by a Penetration Number Roll and a Damage Number Roll. The shot bounces if the Penetration Roll is too low and unlucky players tend to get Low Damage Rolls most of the time. There is also a Critical Damage Roll depending on where the vehicle gets shot.
564** The best indication of a player being mocked by the RNG is when they point-blank a shell into an enemy tank and it only causes Critical Damage. (Example: A 90mm AP shell from a BDR G1 B only injures the commander of an AMX 40 with the Stock Turret which only has 70mm Front Armor.)
565** The [=152mm=] "Trollcannons" seems to be the personal favorite of the RNG, particularly the BL-10 variant on the [=ISU-152=]. When a gun with 286mm of penetration bounces off the front of a vehicle with less than a third of that armor, or misses at very close range despite having been perfectly aimed at the target, you know that the RNG is screwing with you big time. And then [[MemeticMutation Stalin blesses your next shot]] and you put a snapshot from 500m away straight into someone's ammorack, detonating it. The gun is silly like that.
566** Moreso with its Tier-6 half-brother, the infamous KV-2 Heavy. Despite lacking in he penetration department, its ML-20 howitzer deals considerable amount of damage wih its HE shells capable of dishing out 910 points on average. That is if RNG does not screw it over through its pitiable shot dispersion rates.
567** The (old) KV-1S was also adversely affected by the RNG [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp3OB-sPT2E as shown by QuickyBaby]]: The 122mm gun tends to deviate, bounce, and get low Damage Rolls from time to time. Even with Gold Ammo. Made worse with the 122mm on the KV-85, as the accuracy has been further reduced.
568** The accuracy of the M3 Lee [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FIWXAs_QwI was garbage in the early patch versions]] which meant that, even if you aimed all of your shots carefully, you would get less that what you should've gotten and even run out of ammo during the battle. Later patch versions have mercifully improved the reliability of the M3 Lee guns to be more bearable.
569* PremiumCurrency: Silver is used to maintain tanks, buy most mainline tanks, and generally handles the majority of game progression in conjunction with XP. Gold is used to purchase premium tanks specially balanced to make it much easier to grind out Silver, can free up XP from premium and fully researched tanks to use elsewhere, buys Premium time with multiple benefits, buys premium ammo and consumables (also available for silver at decidedly uneconomical rates) and can buy silver directly.
570* RankUp: Crew members recruited at 50% or 75% start at Sergeant ([[UsefulNotes/CommonRanks or national equivalent]]) for Commanders, Corporal for Gunners and Drivers and Private for Loaders and Radio Operators. On reaching 100% of their primary qualification (the tank you have them trained on), they move to the next rank [[note]]If they started at 100%, whether by being trained with gold or [=WarGaming=] providing them for free for certain reasons, they start at the next rank[[/note]] and continue to move up with every 50% in Skills/Perks. Rank never decreases by retraining, similar to Skills/Perks not changing if retrained to less than 100% on another tank. [[note]]However, Skills and Perks become unuseable until qualification on the new tank reaches 100%.[[/note]] Commanders can ultimately reach Major (or equivalent), Gunners and Drivers can reach Captain and Loaders and Radio Operators can reach First Lieutenant.
571* RealityIsUnrealistic: People have complained about SPGs being able to "shotgun" enemy tanks with direct fire. While rare, the book ''Death Traps'' mentions an M7 Priest doing exactly that.
572* RevolversAreJustBetter: Some French tanks have revolver cylinder based reloading systems, allowing for a higher rate of fire, at the cost of a painfully slow (20-30 seconds is fast) reload when empty. The 8.2 patch added an American line of revolver-loader tanks, which tend to have a lower magazine capacity, drastically faster reload times and more armor than their French counterparts.
573* RPGElements: Players are awarded Credits and [[ExperiencePoints XP]] at the end of each battle, with the amounts determined by the player's performance. Additionally, the crew members of a tank gain skill according to experience earned, and on hitting 100% competence can unlock further specializations, including increased repair speed or view range, among other things.
574[[/folder]]
575
576[[folder: Tropes S-Z]]
577* SchmuckBait:
578** No matter how tempting it is to shoot the giant turret of the KV-5 or any US heavy tank, the most harm your shot will do is throw off his aim. Even shots from high-tier guns will have a decent chance of simply bouncing off.
579** Putting all your efforts into shooting a Maus (or another top-tier tank) when other, more vulnerable enemy vehicles are around is also not the brightest idea.
580** Enemy scouts often turn into this when nobody is specifically defending the artillery, since the entire team will waste time chasing them around, getting forced out of position for the enemy's main attack while being lit up for enemy artillery the entire time. Higher-tier scouts occasionally survive as well, adding insult to injury.
581** Any tank can turn into SchmuckBait given enough guns hiding behind him. Especially scouts.
582* ScratchDamage: HE rounds are this if the foe has thick armor. Ricochets with these rounds are a rare occurrence, but the damage will be barely noticeable.
583* TheScunthorpeProblem: Due to the chat filter censoring "dick", the Dicker Max premium tank always shows up in chat as "*** Max"
584* ShoddyKnockoffProduct:
585** The Type 59 (a Chinese copy of the T-54) is a tier lower than the original, but is still considered a good tank - while it has a weaker engine and worse accuracy compared to the equivalent-tier Soviet medium T-44, it makes up for it with its much better armor and higher top speed.
586** There's also the Chinese Type 62, an even lighter Tier 7 light tank also based on the T-54.
587** The Soviet lend-lease version of the Matilda, the Matilda IV, gets bumped up a tier and has its penetration nerfed. As a trade off, it gets higher alpha damage, HP, and other stat improvements over its tier 4 counterpart. In general though, the tier 4 Matilda is considered to be much better for its tier than the Matilda IV.
588* ShootTheFuelTank: A legitimate tactic, especially against heavier opponents. Destroying the fuel tanks will immediately set the tank on fire. Against most tanks this requires getting to the side or rear, but a few select tanks have frontal fuel tanks.
589** TruthInTelevision: This takes a little more doing against tanks that have diesel engines, since unlike gasoline, diesel fuel has to be heated before it can burn.
590* ShootingSuperman: Played straight with less experienced players, who often blast away uselessly at the frontal armor of higher tier tanks. Averted with experienced players, who will shoot weak spots and tracks or [[TacticalWithdrawal retreat]].
591* ShortRangeLongRangeWeapon: All tanks can only engage slightly beyond [[ArbitraryWeaponRange the maximum sight range]] of 500 meters, while their real life counterparts [[RealityIsUnrealistic can do so from much, much further away]]. For example, the Tiger I with the 8.8cm L/56 can knock out an M4 Sherman at 2,000 yards/1,828.8 meters head on, which is about double the length/width (1,000 meters) of the largest maps in-game. The same goes for artillery, the lower tier versions of which are incapable of covering a map that spans 1,000 meters by 1,000 meters at the most, while even the lightest real-life self-propelled artillery could rain shells at ranges well beyond 10 kilometers. The devs have addressed this as an AcceptableBreakFromReality, since maps that big would lead to a lot of driving around with nothing to do.
592* ShoutOut:
593** In one of the ads for the game, ''[[Film/FullMetalJacket "This is my tank, there are many like it but this one is mine."]]''
594** April Fools 2014 and New Years 2015 were brought to you by the NES Game ''VideoGame/BattleCity''.
595** In the garage background on the Wargaming 20th Anniversary, there is a man in a [[MoeAnthropomorphism mecha musume]] costume of a T-34.
596** Version 1.4.1 gave the option to add crew skins--unique versions of crew who could be applied to any crew member. One is Conrad Vitmaer, a German crewman who wears a ''stahlhelm'' and gas mask. The description of him mentions that his comrades "shudder to imagine inhuman thoughts lie behind that mask," a word-for-word lift from ''[[VideoGame/TeamFortress2 Meet The Pyro]].''
597* [[SignatureMove Signature Cannon]]: Some of the cannons are exclusive to a tank - or just mostly used on on it. These weapons are often given nicknames or are just called after that tank.
598** The most renowned is the 152mm howitzer of the KV-2 (see [[LethalJokeCharacter Lethal Joke Tank]] above), better known as the "derpgun".
599** Another renowned 152mm weapon is the BL-10 gun (aka the "Trollcannon") used by the ISU-152 and Object 704. Tends to be associated with the former, though, and it's the reason why an ISU-152 is a thing to fear even in a Tier 10 game.
600** The 17cm weapon on the Jagdpanzer E100 turns it into the mighty "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Kaiju Jaegeru]]". It used to be called the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Death Star]] before the [=FV215b=] (183) came along and introduced the nightmarish 183mm gun with its ultra-high penetration HE shells.
601** The 8.8 cm [=KwK36=] L/56 and [=KwK43=] L/71, while used by many other German tanks, are commonly known as the "Tiger cannon".
602** The Americans have the 105mm SPH [=M4L23=], which is a signature weapon of their entire medium line after the Lee - Every American medium tank from the M4 Sherman onwards (aside from the T69, [=T54E1=] and [=M48A1=] Patton) can mount it. It's [[SubvertedTrope subverted]], though, as most other tanks in the line other than the tier 5 M4 Sherman and the tier 6 [=M4A3E2=] Sherman Jumbo would much rather equip other guns.
603** The VK 36.01 (H) and the now-removed Aufklarerpanzer Panther have the unique [=7.5cm KwK41 L/58=] Konisch gun.
604** French Tier 6-9 heavies are capable of mounting the 90mm DCA 45 (essentially a French version of the German 8.8cm L/71). Average damage, very good penetration, cheap shells, fast rate of fire and completely devastating when coupled with a auto-loader. It is also the gun used on the Tier 8 [=FCM=] 50t premium heavy tank, and an AT equivalent exists for their Tier 5-8 tank destroyers as well.
605*** Similar to the above, the 90mm F3 gun. which is available on just as many tanks and is the signature weapon of the AMX 13/90 light tank. Although less commonly seen due to its considerably lower penetration and similar handling characteristics, it is still a respectable gun at most tiers, and generally reloads faster than the DCA 45.
606** The Alecto, the Tier 4 British TD, gets a unique 25-pounder gun-howitzer that isn't used on any other tank in the British tree, except artillery pieces. It is essentially a fast-firing direct-fire howitzer that can fire armour-piercing shot.
607** The infamous 122mm D-2-5T and D-25T guns are often associated with the KV-85 and IS series heavy tanks.
608** The 100mm [=D10T=] gun used to be the signature weapon of Soviet medium tanks from Tier 6 onwards.
609** Nearly all tier X medium tanks mount some variant of the famous British Royal Ordinance L7 105mm cannon. The only real exceptions are the Russian mediums (which mount faster firing but lower damage 100mm weapons), the French Bat-Chatillon 25t (which has a selection of auto-loaded guns), the German [=E50M=] (which has a slightly more powerful 105mm gun) and the Chinese 121 (which has a powerful 122mm cannon normally found on ''heavy tanks'').
610** The [=FV215b=] (183) has its signature 183mm cannon, which is capable of loading a HESH round with 230mm of penetration and an average damage of '''''1750''''', along with having over 300mm penetration with standard ammo.
611* SinisterGeometry: The giant, grey, harshly regular metal ingots that comprise most of the late-tier German tech tree look exactly as unfriendly as you'd expect tanks driven by ThoseWackyNazis to, and present quite a contrast to the friendlier curves and hodgepodge of irregularities found in most other nations' designs. Their appearance is, however, a nod to keeping a consistent appearance over the entire tree; by mid-war, German vehicles were painted in ''Dunkelgelb'', a dark yellow color, at the factory.
612* SkillGateCharacters: [=SPG=]s or Artillery. By their very nature, all an SPG player needs to do is to go to a predetermined spot on the map and hit the shift key, then proceed to, as the playerbase jokes, play with one hand, not even touching the keyboard for the rest of the game. This allows mediocre to downright awful players to contribute significantly to a battle, and even carry it through sheer dumb luck. On the other hand, the heavy RNG factor of artillery shells, the lack of ability to hold or push a line, and lower damage output compared to an actual tank at the frontline, means that very few, if any skilled players put more than the [[CharacterSelectForcing mandatory]] amount of time in as a clicker.
613* SkillPointReset: Occasionally, when serious changes are introduced to game balance. Ranges from compensating XP and Credits (or providing a replacement) when a tank or module is removed, seriously changed or replaced to actual skill point resets when new crew perks are introduced.
614** Can be done manually on Crew Skills/Perks which refunds a percent of the skill points earned on a crewman so they can be reassigned (80% for free, 90% for some silver credits, and 100% for gold/real money).
615* SkillScoresAndPerks: A big part of the game, tank crews can get both, which are measured from 1-100%. Crew skills can have a major impact on gameplay depending on their configuration, so a tank with all crew of 3 skills/perks is obviously more effective than a tank with none. The amount of skills/perks a crewman acquires is technically not limited, but every consecutive skill requires twice the amount of experience as the previous, making it practically impossible to acquire them all.
616* SoundOfNoDamage: Rounds that do not penetrate your vehicle have a distinct sound- rounds that fail to penetrate clank, while ricochets screech against the plate.
617** Since the [[FriendlyFireproof friendly fire removal]], any attempted friendly fire will result in this. It sounds like a large rubber ball hitting a safe.
618* SpiderSense: "Sixth Sense" alerts you when your tank has been spotted. It is slightly limited as it doesn't tell you what spotted you and it has a [[FiveSecondForeshadowing 3 second delay]], meaning that you could easily be shot before or right as the light bulb appears, however.
619** GameMod: An aspect of the popular [=XVM=] mod is that it allows the player to substitute variously alarming images and sounds to convey the "spotted" alert. Website/YouTube replays show players using everything from [[Franchise/DespicableMe Minions]] to the [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings Eye of Sauron]].
620* SplashDamage: Present with HE rounds. While not being very harmful to the hull, it often breaks the tank's tracks. Also, direct hits with HE will deal damage to several modules more frequently than AP rounds.
621** [=SPGs=] in general and American ones in particular rely heavily on splash damage, as their shells tend to be inaccurate but have a rather large splash radius and high amounts of damage, meaning they can cause heavy damage even if their opponent is in cover.
622* StarterEquipment: The Tier 1 tanks of every nation.
623* StealthRun: Players who manage to successfully perform one of these and cap the enemy base in the process receive the "Raider" medal. Very doable aboard light tanks, but other tank classes can do the same so long as the right circumstances are present.
624* TheStoic: The National audio for the Russian tank crews sounds fairly unenthused about everything, from getting shot at, tracks being damaged, up to ''their engine being on fire''.
625* [[StoneWall Steel Wall]]:
626** Early French tanks in general and crippled heavy tanks (damage to the main gun is very common for them) are this, and they typically shield less durable tanks while on the attack, or guard the routes to the HQ while on defense. Well-placed destroyed tanks count as well. The extremely rare Pz.kpfw. II Ausf. J premium light tank is another excellent example.
627** Also the name of one of the [[CosmeticAward Hero medals]]. [[MadeOfIron It's awarded if your tank takes more shots than anyone else, which are worth more than 1,000 potential damage in total, without blowing up.]]
628* StupidSacrifice:
629** Suicide scouting usually ends with the scout being destroyed before anyone is ready to fire or actually capable of firing on the targets (due to draw distance or terrain). Some players do it deliberately to earn experience by spotting as many enemies as they can and then going over to another tank once they're dead.
630** Ramming a heavier enemy with better armor will hurt you much more than your opponent even if he is lower tier. Quite a lot of Kamikaze awards[[note]]For destroying an enemy tank that's at least a tier higher via ramming.[[/note]] were actually failed TakingYouWithMe attempts.
631* SubSystemDamage: Played straight, and is one of the game's core mechanics. Generally caused by {{Critical Hit}}s.
632* SuicideAttack:
633** Low tier tanks unable to stand up to enemy fire used to hurry to chokepoints to stand there and die, blocking it with an impassable wreck. The most notorious for this is the T-28, the biggest Tier 4 tank (and one of the biggest ''overall''). This is no longer commonly used, as the wreckage is now movable. Tog II*s still sometimes utilise this as at eighty tons they are pretty much immobile regardless of the power of the tank trying to move the wreck.
634** "Suicide scouting" is probably the most common form of scouting - light tanks, usually due to getting thrown into matches where they can't realistically hope to cause any damage, charge headlong into the enemy spawn area as soon as the match starts.
635** [=SPGs=] in a bad spot will often go into 'tank destroyer' or 'shotgun' mode and attempt to execute one of these before they die. Attacking a shotgunning artillery from the front can be [[TooDumbToLive equally suicidal]].
636** [[CarFu Ramming attacks]] are likely to cause damage to both participants, so a low health tank attempting one is probably going to die in the process.
637* TacticalRockPaperScissors:
638** Light tanks scout and harass the enemy artillery and light tanks. [[FragileSpeedster They can't even dent most other tanks, and are easily destroyed should they be hit]].[[note]]Light tanks are usually capable of hurting most tanks around the same tier as they are. The problem is that they almost always face tanks up to 4 tiers higher.[[/note]]
639** Medium tanks take whatever role on the battlefield that is called for, mostly flanking attacks in packs and supporting heavies. [[JackOfAllStats However, they are not as good as the specialized vehicles at those roles]].
640** Heavy tanks act as the main attacking or defending force. [[MightyGlacier Their slow pace and big size make them easy targets, and they cannot react to changes in the strategic situation quickly]].
641** [=SPGs=] are the bane of anything out of plain sight and/or at great distances, as well as a very good counter to "Pro" Players, given their completely random nature. [[GlassCannon They often can't fend off even one light tank circling them, and are easily destroyed with any weapon]].
642** [=TDs=] have good frontal armor and powerful weapons, [[GlassCannon but are very vulnerable to flanking attacks and faster vehicles]].
643** [[CombinatorialExplosion And let's not get started on the specifics of the different tanks, their equipment variations and the terrain]].
644* TakeThat: The teasers poke fun at fantasy [=MMOs=] [[VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft such as another "World Of" game]], hyper-realistic games, ''VideoGame/EVEOnline'', and racing games.
645* [[CarFu Tank Fu]]: Ramming does damage based on the speed and weight of the tanks involved, and is rather effective against turretless vehicles if they're rammed from the sides, as they can't turn their gun to target the rammer. If the rammer rams a vehicle too heavy, though, the lighter vehicle will be worse off from the collision. There is a [[CosmeticAward Title of Honor]] for destroying a tank that's higher tier than yours by ramming it. Appropriately, it's called "Kamikaze".
646** The E-50 weighs in at around 60 tons but can still reach a top speed of 60kph, making it an amazing rammer. Players have reported knocking 20-35% health off the T-54 just by ramming it once at top speed.
647*** Similarly, the KV-5 weighs in at 100 tons and can reach 40kph. Don't get in the way of one headed downhill.
648*** The O-I Experimental is as heavy and as fast as the KV-5 and a full three tiers lower, where the tanks are on average lighter and far weaker in terms of armor. Getting Kamikaze medals with this monster is a breeze.
649** Low-profile [=TDs=] can sometimes ram a high-tier tank, particularly a late-tier German or a KV-5, and be too small for the tank to get their main gun low enough to shoot them.
650** Players with high tier French heavies have a tendency to ram enemy tanks (since Tier 8 and above French heavies are faster then a lot of mediums and even some ''light tanks'', but still weigh quite a bit) then unload their revolver auto-loaders at point-blank range. Rarely does a tank survive this kind of attack. The tier-10 AMX 50 B is especially good at this, since it now has an impressive 170mm of frontal armor to slam into other tanks.
651** The Controlled Impact skill for drivers was made with this trope in mind: when you ram somebody while using this skill, you do more damage, and take less in return. It's very popular with drivers of the aforementioned E-50 and AMX 50 B.
652** The Aufklärungspanzer Panther is as almost fast as the best light tanks, but is still as heavy and well-armored as a regular Panther. Usually one ram and a shot from its 105mm cannon is enough to finish of any light tank in the game, save for another Aufklärungspanzer Panther or a Chinese WZ-132.
653* [[ZergRush Tank Rush]]: In random matches, teams will have a few coordinated platoons of three tanks each ''at best''. Most of the time, teams will have poor coordination, resulting in an unpredictable swarm of armor in the chokepoints. This is surprisingly common even at high tiers and even the best tanks will be much less effective without coordination.
654* TanksButNoTanks: Amazingly averted. The developers didn't make very many[[note]]A small handful are mostly Wargaming-original designs with a basis in reality, such as the T28 Prototype (extrapolated from a conceptual Army design) and the Waffenträger E100[[/note]] up, almost ''all'' the tanks in-game or planned to be included had at least one example built or had blueprints, and all upgrades were either used in reality, or were planned and tested. However, if you want to be nit picky, tank destroyers and self propelled guns are not, technically, tanks. To add another layer of nitpickiness, many of the "tank destroyers" are technically assault guns, meant for destroying fortified positions and supporting infantry, not designed for (though often used for) fighting other armored vehicles.
655** Though it is played straight with the late-tier Swedish tank destroyers, which despite lacking turrets, were actually main battle tanks.
656* '''TankGoodness''': '''[[TheMovie The Game]]'''
657* TechnicalPacifist: [[InvokedTrope Invoked]]. The scoring system awards you a substantial fraction of experience for damage and kills that may have involved your role as a TargetSpotter or your [[CycleOfHurting disabling the target's track]] (which does not affect the target's hit points, but leaves it immobilized). Combine these facts with points also being awarded for base capture, and it's possible to gain quite a bit of experience without even causing ScratchDamage.
658* TechnicolorNinja: The game allows you to apply camouflage to your vehicle, which gives it a small stealth bonus. The camo bonus still applies even if the camo in question is bright red and gold or a smattering of bright orange and black.
659* TechTree: How one advances through the game. Want to drive around in the IS-4 or King Tiger? You gotta play the tanks before them to unlock them. The tech tree can be bypassed by liberal use of converting regular [[ExperiencePoints XP]] to [[LeakedExperience Free XP]] using real money, though you have to earn the regular XP the old-fashioned way, and Premium tanks which are also bought with real money do not have to be unlocked but also do not unlock anything on the tech tree.
660* TeleFrag: Was possible in the Waffentrager event when the large weapons carrier teleported to certain portions on the game map. If another player is at the exact spot, the WT landed ON TOP of him, making an easy kill.
661* TheGrimReaper: The [[CosmeticAward Title of Honor]] for {{One Hit Kill}}ing at least 3 tanks in a row is called '''"Reaper"'''. In the Russian version, it's called '''"[[SinisterScythe Death's Scythe]]"'''.
662* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill:
663** HE rounds will deal tons of extra damage if they penetrate the armor, critically hitting multiple modules and wounding the crew. This often leaves smaller vehicles in the "Tank destroyed" state with maxed repair costs. Leads to [[LethalJokeCharacter Lethal Joke Tank]] above, when a weapon's damage output exceeds the health of most enemies.
664** There ''[[InvertedTrope is]]'' such a thing as overkill in the case of artillery, especially if they're blasting tanks with only a couple of hitpoints left instead of the completely healthy ones mauling the rest of the team. While this reduces the number of guns shooting at the team, they could easily be left to friendly tanks instead of wasting an artillery shell that takes a very long time to reload.
665* TookALevelInBadass: French tanks until Tier 4 are cumbersome behemoths with poor fire power, and as such many players see them as little more then (slightly) mobile cover and SPG bait. That said, at Tier 5, they go 180 degrees and become fast, lightly armored and armed with deadly cannons, a much more favorable combination, especially with guns in that tier being what they are.
666** Unfortunately, the sudden gameplay shift between slow and heavy and fast with overwhelming firepower can frequently result in [[TookALevelInDumbass the direct opposite]] for the unprepared player, or for players who actually like being slow and ridiculously well armored.
667* TooAwesomeToUse: Premium ammunition, which is either bought with real money or an inflated amount of credits, can give a lot of tanks a leg up when they would otherwise not be competitive (for example a light tank which could hardly even dent a heavy tank with standard ammunition can become a credible threat with premium ammunition). However, the cost of firing it makes it quickly impractical to use as a replacement for standard ammunition. A good strategy is to only keep a few premium rounds in the tank and only switch to it from standard ammunition when a hard, high-value target presents itself.
668* TooDumbToLive:
669** A worrying amount of players seem to have no idea how the ramming mechanic works (in essence, armor + weight will always beat momentum) or assume that a higher tier/health tank can always ram-kill a lower one and so one sees such stupidity as KV-85 (weight: ~43 tons) drivers thinking that their tank will survive ramming a TOG II* (weight: nearly ''85 tons'').
670** Another large amount of the population similarly fails to understand vision mechanics, of which are most are rather apparent when they start [[{{Scrub}} screaming in chat about 'invisitanks']].
671* TreeCover: Knocked down trees will provide concealment, providing they still have leaves on them. Evergreens with leaves going to the ground will provide concealment when standing up too.
672* TutorialFailure: World of Tanks is notorious for having one of the worst tutorials in today's gaming world. About the only thing it tells you is explaining very basic game controls such as how to move your tank or using sniper view, and some basic tactics. It ranks about as high as Minecraft Beta for not telling its new players how to play the game.
673* TwentyBearAsses: Wargaming issues a monthly challenge in which players can get a free tank with garage slot upon completion. Unfortunately, the required tasks are so unreasonably tall that casual gamers will never, ever come close to reaching even the 25% mark within the specified time.
674* UndergroundMonkey: A lot of tanks in-game are similar to each other, often justified by their real-life counterparts. Some modifications of certain tanks are also considered different tanks in-game for balance purposes or to make up for the low diversity of the nation's tanks.
675** The Soviet medium tank branch from the A-20 through to the T-43 are basically the same chassis with different armor and turrets; the KV-1, KV-2, KV-1S and T-150 heavy tanks are the same.
676** The German [=PzKpfw=] III Ausf. A and [=PzKpfw=] III (Ausf. E or M, depending on the chosen equipment) are the same tank with different equipment. Similarly, there's the [=PzKpfw=] IV divided into Ausf. A, D and H models, plus the [=PzKpfw=] IV Hydraulic gift tank and the [=PzKpfw=] IV Schmalturm premium tank, as well as the Panther, Panther II, [=PzKpfw=] V-IV, Aufklärungspanzer Panther and Panther-M10. Also, the main difference between the E-50 and E-50 Ausf.M is that the M has more hitpoints and a rear-mounted transmission.
677** The American T1 Heavy and M6 Heavy are the same tank model with different turrets and camouflage.
678** All American medium tanks from Tier 7 onwards, the T29, T32 and T34 heavy tanks, the T30 tank destroyer and the T21 light tank are basically prototypes or modifications of the M26 Pershing.
679** 6 modifications[[note]]The basic M4, the [=M4A3E8=] "Easy Eight", the [=M4A3E2=] "Jumbo", the [=M4A2E4=] gift tank, and the British Sherman III and Sherman Firefly[[/note]] of the M4 Sherman are also split into separate tanks.
680** There's also the T28 and the T95 tank destroyers, both being based of the real life T28/95 GMT, with the only difference being the 2nd line of tracks being removed.
681** The SU-152 and ISU-152 are the inverse of the above examples, having near-identical upper hulls placed on different lower hulls (the KV-1 and IS-1/2, respectively).
682** The French AMX 50/100, AMX 50/120 and AMX 50B are pretty much the same tank, just with different equipment (the 100 and 120 in the designations refer to the caliber of guns they are designed to mount). The same goes with the AMX 13/75 and the AMX 13/90.
683** The German [=Pz.Kpfw 38H 735 (f)=] is essentially a French Hotchkiss H35 with a German gun and radio.
684** The Japanese Type 5 heavy tank is practically identical to the Type 4 heavy a tier lower - the only difference being very slightly thicker armor.
685** Chinese tanks are, for the most part, slightly modified copies of other nations' tanks. Examples include [=M5A1=] Stuart (American), Renault NC-31 (French), Vickers Mk. E Type B (British) and of course Soviet copies like the IS-2. Also, the [=WZ=]-132 is the [=WZ=]-131 with enhanced firepower and armor protection.
686** The British Centurion Mk. 7/1 is an upgraded version of the Centurion Mk. 1, and the Centurion Action X is the Centurion Mk. 7/1 with an experimental turret. The Churchill VII is the Churchill I with better armor and some minor equipment improvements.
687** The Matilda Black Prince is a Cromwell turret mated to a Matilda chassis.
688** The new Czechoslovakian tanks include the LT vz. 35 and the LT vz. 38, both of which served in the Wehrmacht as the Pz. 35(t) and the Pz. 38(t). A couple modifications are unique to each, but they're basically the same.
689* UnexpectedGameplayChange: A few vehicles don't play like everything else in their line.
690** The M3 Lee medium tank does not have a rotating turret [[note]]While the turret is modeled on the tank, it's not going to be made functional until multi-gun support is implemented.[[/note]], making it play more like a tank destroyer than the medium tank it's classified as. This is a major factor in it being considered [[TheScrappy That One Tank]] by a lot of players going down the American medium and heavy lines.
691** Conversely, there's a whole TD line for the Americans whose whole gimmick is that they're tank destroyers with a turret. Even if you stick purely to the [=T110E3=] line, you'll eventually have to play through the turreted M10 Wolverine and M36 Jackson
692** Light "scout" tank lines only go up to tier 8 before switching onto a medium line, although one could say that this is a minor change at the most. The American scout lines take the cake: They go from scouts into autoloading mediums (although this isn't much of a change if the player comes from the T71) into the T57 Heavy, which is designed as more of a brawler.
693** The American [=M4A3E2=] Sherman "Jumbo" is one if you're playing it to get through the American medium tank line, being a relatively slow StoneWall compared to the other American mediums, which are all generally well rounded, though not especially armored.
694** The Russian SU-26 [=SPG=], British Birch Gun and French [=BatChat=] 155 are the only artillery pieces with a fully-rotating turret, allowing them to fire in any direction without having to stop and reorient. The latter also has a revolver auto-loader, granting it a much higher rate of fire than most other [=SPGs=].
695** Tier 1-4 French tanks tend to focus heavily on [[StoneWall armor at the expense of speed and firepower]]. Once you start to get around Tier 5 or 6, French designs start putting ''much'' more emphasis on [[FragileSpeedster speed]] and [[GlassCannon firepower]] and tend to have [[ShedArmorGainSpeed very weak armor]].
696** The British TD line repeatedly plays to this trope until Tier 5; the UC 2pdr is fast but somewhat unmaneuverable and lightly armoured, while the Valentine TD is slow and unmaneuverable, but slightly better armoured. Then you hit the speedy and maneuverable Alecto -- and then you get to the [[StoneWall AT2]]. And then it happens once again at the very end: All the way up to tier 9 you have guns that focus on DPM over raw alpha damage (to the point where the Tortoise has the best DPM in the game)... and then you get the [=FV215b=] (183) mounting a [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin 183mm cannon]] that can one-shot most of the tanks in the game (including some tier 10 mediums) with its HESH round, which deals an average of 1750 damage per shot.
697** Patch 9.5 introduces the Archer TD which was intentionally designed to pop off 1-2 shots and then run away before the enemy can retaliate which means all that practice on learning how to drive the Alecto and Crusader SP won't go to waste anymore. If you choose to pursue the [=FV4005=] from the other line, it's a transition from medium tanks to tank destroyers.
698* UnskilledButStrong:
699** Soviet tanks have good hard stats (armament, armour, and speed), but lack accuracy, reload speed and radio range.
700** HE-only cannons can qualify. They can deal outrageous amounts of raw damage and easily cripple tanks. However, they have low penetration, which is a problem... [[BoxingLessonsForSuperman unless the player has learned the enemies' weakspots]].
701* VariableMix: The background music will change depending on the action unfolding. Often borderline on MusicalSpoiler when the enemy is unseen for some reason, but the combat music starts playing.
702* VisibleInvisibility: Spotted enemies will always have a red mark over their vehicle and show a red outline if you've got a direct shot at them, even through opaque obstacles.
703* VisualPun: One of the ads for the game features Winston Churchill and Oliver Cromwell riding their respectively named tanks.
704* WeakButSkilled:
705** Many light tanks and low tier mediums (such as the Leopard or the M7) aren't considered a big deal, often dying in the first few seconds of combat. But even one experienced scout past the frontline can raise hell long enough to prevent the enemy from assembling defenses in time.
706** In general, German cannons deal less damage per capita than their American and Russian counterparts, but penetrate better and are accurate from much, much farther out. They also tend to have superior radios earlier, allowing them to know what's going on across the whole battlefield.
707* WeWinBecauseYouDidnt: Possible in the Assault game mode, should at least 1 defender still be alive and the attacking team hasn't completed the capture yet once time runs out. In other modes, running out of time counts as a draw instead.
708* WhatAPieceOfJunk:
709** Soviet heavy tanks are covered in welding seams, peeling paint, dirt and rust. Do not be fooled.
710** The Chinese tree takes it further - their tanks are absurd-looking, bodged-together mashups of second-hand parts from every other country, but that's small comfort when you're staring down the barrels of their viciously powerful guns.
711** The Japanese "Godzilla" heavy tanks have flat armor plates held together with hundreds of rivets, but their armor is some of the thickest in the game and their guns are devastating.
712* [[WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes Why Did It Have To Be Gun Depression/Elevation?]]: Expect to confront the limits of your vehicle's ability to raise or lower its gun a ''lot'', particularly on the more hilly maps like El Halluf, or pretty much any time you want to come up over a ridge and can't fire at anyone before they get free shot at your vulnerable lower front glacis. This is especially bad with the taller heavy tanks who can't depress their guns low enough to shoot smaller tanks that are firing at point-blank range.
713** The French tank destroyer line added in 0.7.4 features an even more frustrating example - the tier III TD, the Renault UE 57, has one of the worst gun depressions of all tank destroyers in the game at 2 degrees. The only other vehicles in the game with worse gun depression are artillery, many of which can't even point their guns down at all, having 0 degrees. It's usually less of an issue for them though, considering they usually will be firing at far away targets anyways.
714** German and Russian tanks in general have poor gun depression, usually having about 6 degrees, give or take 1, in either direction.
715** While American and British tanks almost universally have excellent gun depression of around 8 to 10 degrees (usually closer to the latter on medium and light tanks), even they will encounter slopes too steep to fire over from a hull-down position.
716* YouAllLookFamiliar: When recruiting a new crew member, it's possible for him to get an avatar that is already being used by another existing crew member.
717[[/folder]]

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