Fan Nickname / World of Tanks

The community is absolutely rife with these.

• Within 24 hours of being released, the LTP, the tank that was gifted for free to all players as part of the celebration of Wargaming.net's 15th anniversary, had received the nickname, "Learn To Play". It's also sometimes referred to as the "Loltraktor Pro", essentially referring to it as simply a refurbished Leichttraktor.
  • Low-tier gift tanks in general (handed out for things like anniversaries and Christmas) are widely referred to as "Garage Slots" because most of them are quite weak, and thus the only value to the player is selling them to open up a a garage slot to put a non-premium tank in. Even good ones are sometimes referred to as such by high-tier players who aren't interested in going back to tiers 2 and 3. The "Garage Slot" name has even been used in some Wargaming official videos.
• Several tanks have abbreviated names to ease communication, but it didn't take long for the German Leichttraktor to gain the affectionate nickname "Loltraktor". It also looks like a Wolfin.
  • The Loltraktor later had a big brother: the Tier X German tank destroyer Waffentrager auf E-100, a surprisingly agile 2,000-hp behemoth with a laser-accurate autoloading 12.8cm naval gun, rapidly became known as the "Waffletraktor"/"WTF E-100"/"Waifutrager/traktor"/"Wafflehouse", mostly poking at it's colossal size, peculiar shape, and devastating gun.
• The SU-14-2 SPG is probably better known to most players as the "(School)bus"^note and based on the nickname or arty players (see below), also the "Scumbus" or the "Finger of God" than by its actual designation. It's also known as "The Fridge" ("Холодильник") among Russian players, due to its boxy silhouette.
• The S-51 shares the "Finger of God" nickname, since they both used to be the heaviest SPGs available. It is also called the "Basilisk", due to its striking resemblance. Also known as the Unicorn due its frontal gun mounting resembling one.
• The Grille Tier V German SPG has no nickname of it's own, but getting killed by it has a nickname: it's called getting Grilled.
• The Japanese heavy tanks, released in patch 9.10, have been nicknamed "Gojiras" (as coined by Fandom VIP RitaGamer), poking fun at their massive size.
  • The Japanese tier VII heavy tank has also been dubbed the Oni or Ogre, as a pun of it's actual name, O-Ni. Also sometimes called Onii-chan/san for the pun.
  • The O-I Tier-6 Japanese Heavy is known as "Big Momma" (as coined by Fandom VIP QuickyBaby) thanks to it's huge size and symmetrical forward mini-turrets which makes the KV-5 jealous. Also coined as the Japanese KV-2 (or "Emperor of Derp", "Derpzilla", etc), due to being able to equip a 152mm Derp gun comparable to that of the infamous KV-2. This has resulted in something of a fandom rivalry between players of the two Tier VI derp heavies.
• The KV-2's turrets and the premium PzIV Schmalturm gained the nickname "bobbleheads" for their disproportionate sizes. The former is also often called "The Portajohn" in China for same reason.
• US heavy tanks from the T29 onwards got nicknamed "Cheburashkas" for the same reason, and for the "flaps" on the sides of their turrets (actually a coincidence rangefiner).
• The VK4502 Ausf B. Heavy tank has been called the "Baby Maus", while Russian fans nicknamed it "Slipper" for its silhouette icon.
  • In a similar vein, the German Pz38H735(f) and French Hotchkiss H35 are often called the "Mini-Maus", as they have incredible armor for their tier, but are very slow-moving. The Pz38H735(f) has also been coined the 'Mobile Oppression Fortress' for its ability to take withering fire and keep enemy heads down.
• The map Malinovka earned the derisive nickname "Campinovka" for its large no-man's land and the usual tactics for the map.^note Namely, TDs and lightly-armored mediums find places to hide ("camp") on opposite sides of the no-man's land and hope a light tank will be able to spot the hiding enemies without getting killed. While heavy tanks and more armored mediums will basically play an entirely different battle by climbing to the top of the hill on the northeast corner...at which point the winner of the hill will come down the other side and have to deal with the T Ds and mediums (and any heavies who survived long enough to retreat) camping in the forest below. The similarly-campy Prokhorovka has been dubbed "Camporovka". Also sometimes applied to Redshire (becoming "Campshire") due to two hills that players loved to camp before the redesign.
  • El Halluf is called "Sniperistan" by some players for much the same reason.
• The Russian 100mm D10T gun for the IS heavy tank is sometimes referred to as the "idiot gun" (spelled as 1D10T), as it's more geared for a medium tank-type play style compared to the heavier cannon that most IS tank users prefer: The 122 D-25T.
• Some tanks can use howitzers; short barreled guns that primarily fire low velocity high-caliber HE shells. These are known as "derp guns". Such guns have poor accuracy and thus in most cases have to be used at short range, which is very dangerous if multiple enemies are nearby because they invariably have slow reload. The value of derp guns (and what makes them beloved by some players and hated by others) is that when they do hit, they inflict a huge amount of damage, sometimes enough for a One-Hit Kill of even full-health tanks. A short-range kill with a derp gun is known as "derping right in their face". On tanks with multiple howitzers available, there may be the distinction of "miniderp" for the smaller variety.
  • The original derp gun is an enormous 152mm howitzer that's an option on the Russian KV-2^* Formerly, the tier 5 KV with an upgraded turret; they were split in a patch that introduced tighter matchmaking tank. It's slow-loading, not very accurate - and able to instantly kill many tanks below the KV-2's tier and deal significant damage to even Tier 10 tanks. Because of this, the KV-2 quickly gained the infamous nickname "King of Derp", so underestimating it is a very bad idea.
• Another notorious 152mm gun is the BL-10 gun on the Tier VIII ISU-152 and Tier IX Object 704, nicknamed the "Trollcannon" by The Mighty Jingles on YouTube. It's an extremely powerful but extraordinarily erratic weapon, with huge alpha damage, very high penetration, poor accuracy, slow load time and a slow aim time. It may cause colossal damage when it hits the target, but it might miss or even bounce off a very lightly armored target (when on paper it should get through a Maus from the front). Depending on what the gun decides to do, the player is left either delighted or furious after firing it. (Or to quote Jingles, "In Soviet Russia, sometimes the Trollcannon trolls you.") Bear in mind, the BL-10 is not a derp gun since its AP is extremely potent and the main focus of its use.
  • When the RNG comes up in your favor and a Trollcannon shot improbably hits a target at long range (especially if it's not the one you aimed at), this is said to be the work of the "Hand of Stalin" guiding your shell.
  • Patch 9.20 in 2017 removed the beloved Trollcannon from the ISU-152 and replaced it with the D-4S, another 152mm gun with the same alpha but slightly lower penetration. Since it's pretty much just a nerfed Trollcannon, it's the "Baby Trollcannon" or "Trollcannon Jr."
• The premium Type 59 medium tank has been nicknamed the "Walmart Tank." Because, you know, it's made in China. Others call them "pandas", and for a more racy nickname, there's always the lovable "chink tank". Owing to the tanks remarkable tendency to burst into flame with hits almost anywhere, "rice-cooker" is an often used name by those disdainful of its combat performance. The most readily understandable and commonly used nickname, however, seems to just be "Type" (since it was the only tank with that word in its name for a very long time)
  • The addition of the Type 62 has resulted in the division into "Type" for 59s and "MiniType" for 62s.
  • On the Chinese server, there's the "Thin 59", "Lite 59," "Short 59", "Beefed 59", "Panther 59" and "Shit Camo 59", the last one referring to the locally infamous Type 59 Gold.
  • After being used as the "rare" prize in the Christmas 2017 Loot Boxes, it picked up the nickname "Hype 59". Both because this generated a lot of hype about the tank (because a tank that had last been available for sale in 2012 was being offered up again), and because many players felt the Type 59 had been severely powercreeped over the years and no longer merited the hype.
• The KV-1S "Sport"; it has lighter armor than the KV-1 despite being a tier higher, but has higher speed and agility. It's essentially a stripped-down KV that performs more like a medium tank than a heavy. Some have also named it the "Crutch Tank" for its forgiving matchmaking, insanely powerful gun for its tier, and good power/weight ratio.
  • Some people refer to it as the "KV-IS" since it uses a nearly identical turret (they're impossible to tell apart from behind) and has a very similar hull to the IS. This moniker is now tagged to the KV-85, after the tank split in patch 9.3.
• The KV-4 is sometimes called the KV-4tress due to having thick all-around armor, making it tough to penetrate when properly angled.
  • Because people so often resort to firing premium ammunition at the KV-4 to get through its thick but otherwise flat armor, it is sometimes called the KV-Fort Knox, because it's where people put all their gold.
• The KV-5 premium heavy tank has earned the title of "Battleship" by some; it is exceptionally well armored (even on the sides) and has two additional mini-turrets in front of the main turret, giving it a warship-like appearance. The mini-turrets themselves have been nicknamed "R2-D2" and "The Breast".
• The T82 was a Tier IV American tank destroyer which is basically a M3 Stuart chassis with an open-topped turret and a more powerful selection of guns to choose from, including a 105mm howitzer. Being based on the Stuart's chassis means it can move more quickly than almost any other TD, but has paper thin armor as a drawback. It's no big surprise it's been nicknamed the "Jeep with a TOW missile". Now it's been changed to a traditional artillery.
• The American tier X medium, the M48 Patton, is known as the "Fatton" due to it being very large for a medium, even larger than the American tier X heavy.
• The German GW Panther Tier VI artillery has distinctively up-turned sides (where the crew would normally stand on while operating the gun) earning it the nickname "Dracula" for the popped-collar look.
• The Sturmpanzer II SPG and the French S35 CA Tank Destroyer gets called "Bathtub", with their silhouettes and large open-topped fighting compartments.
• The highly sloped armor of the Russian Object 704 Tier 9 tank destroyer makes it look like the most recent incarnation of the "Batmobile".
• The premium tank IS-3A, a variant of the popular IS-3 tank, is jokingly called the "Canadian IS-3". Think about it for a second.^note IS-3, eh?
  • The IS series of tanks in general have BIAS nicknames ("BIAS-3", "BIAS-6", etc), referencing the accusations of "Russian Bias" against Wargaming.^note These accusations are sometimes meant seriously and sometimes merely memetic. The IS-4 however is almost never called "BIAS-4" because it's generally regarded as terrible.
• The French AMX 40 light tank is already starting to be referred to as the "Rubber Duckie" because it looks like a rubber duck.
  • Has arguably ascended as a part of the Fanart #32 post from Wargaming.
  • As of 2013, there's official merchandise with AMX 40/duck jokes.
  • And in 2018 patch 9.22 is set to bring us the HD duck, including special duck related emblems for players to put on their tanks.
• The tier X French medium tank Batignolles-Châtillon 25T often has its name shortened to "BatChat" or "Bat". Some players have started to affectionately call it the "BatShit" out of respect for its capabilities.
• The German-influenced design of the AMX M4(1945) has lead to some players dubbing it "the Green Tiger" or "the French Tiger" for its strong resemblance to the German Tiger II. "Tigre" is another play on the same concept, for a more French-feeling pronunciation.
• The British tier X medium, the FV4202, gets quite a bit of flak due to its relatively low top speed, but its high P/W ratio, fast turning speed, and low terrain resistance gives it good handling and has led some players to dub it "The Hovercraft".
  • The FV 4202's replacement (as of patch 9.12), the Centurion Action X, has been dubbed the "Axe", since many players abbreviate it as the Centurion AX.
• The M3 Lee gets quite a bit of flak from the playerbase, due to its lack of turret, thin armour and rather inaccurate guns, to the point where - thanks to its high-profile design - people have begun calling it the "Garbage Truck". For the same reason it's called "The Brokeback Mountain" on the Russian server. While it was still named Grant, some players referred to it as the "Galanz", a popular microwave oven brand in Europe and China.
• The French Renault UE 57 tank destroyer has rapidly acquired nicknames based on its diminutive size, which is smaller than the turrets on many high-tier vehicles. Some of the most popular are "The Angry Flea" or "The Lawnmower".
• The French SAu 40 tank destroyer has terrible armor and speed while being fairly large, and having the only saving grace of being almost a Hetzer with its guns. The players have nicknamed it "the Tumor"^note definitely a reference to the machinegun turret on top with its very thin armor, probably also reference to being a product of the Somua company within days of its release. The "Tumor" nickname has since become a general term for any massive cupolas acting as a weakpoint on an otherwise heavily-armored tank.
  • Another nickname for the SAu is "The Pig", referencing the vehicle's sluggish movement, thin armor and the fact that it means exactly that in German.
• The BDR G1 B (and to a lesser extent the ARL V39) is sometimes known as the "Steel Potato" due to the shape of the hull when viewed from the side. For the high profile, low armor and quite unique gameplay, on Russian sever it's called "BDSM-1". A less well-known nickname for the BDR is "Leman Russ Battle Tank" for the tank's general resemblance to the ubiquitous Warhammer 40,000 Imperial Guard tank. And then the 2018 Warhammer 40K offers a custom skin for the BDR that gives it the markings of the Mordian Iron Guard.
• Speaking of the French Tanks, the previous stock turret of the Tier-6 ARL 44 Heavy Tank has been called "The Barn" due to its shape◊.
• The Germans get a tier 7 premium medium tank, the Panther-M10, which is disguised as an American M10 Wolverine tank destroyer. It's widely known as the "Warcrime Panther", because Dressing as the Enemy like that is, yes, a war crime.
• A rather controversial nickname, usually used to rile up German-line fans deemed worryingly enthusiastic (and occasionally used unironically by very worryingly enthusiastic German-line fans), belongs to the premium 8.8cm version of the Jagdtiger tank destroyer. It's commonly referred to as the "Double Hitler", a reference to the significance of the number eight in white-supremacist numerology.
  • The controversy continues with the premium Panther 88. Even before its release, it's already being called the "Hitler Panther".
• The M6A2E1, a premium variant of the American M6 heavy tank, is nicknamed the 'Mutant 6' or the 'Clownshoe' because of its massive, weirdly-shaped turret. Alien is also sometimes thrown around for its otherworldy looks. Also called the "Breadloaf King" in China.
• The TOG II* is given the name "Landship", "Banana", "Whale", and other such terms due to it's size (It's the longest tank in the game). Despite being a difficult tank to play, their owners are often very enthusiastic about them and will give them affectionate nicknames that always start with "HMS" (such as HMS Epic Maymay). Many jokes involve suggesting the TOG be removed from World of Tanks and migrated to World of Warships. This was acknowledged by Wargaming in the 2016 April Fools Day event, when the console version of World of Tanks had TOGs mounted on tugboat hulls fighting in the ocean. Another one is "train", because that is exactly what "tog" means in Danish.
  • A common term for a platoon of three TOGs is the "Royal Navy", which the platoon itself will declare at times. Also, in maps with small-sized pathways, a common tactic known as "TOG-blocking" is used by parking the said tank sideways, thus denying enemies access. Even if a the TOG gets destroyed, its 80-ton weight means that no tank within its matchmaking spread is capable of pushing it out of the way.
  • Related to the above, some World Of Warships players who also play World of Tanks will call a TOG platoon a Division, the term for a squad in World of Warships. There is also a general understanding that TOG II* rarely get respectable-sounding nicknames, and that it's even better if the nickname is a pun on the name of a Royal Navy vessel. For instance, in lieu of the HMS Redoubtable, HMS Formidable, or HMS Ark Royal, you will come across TOG drivers who lay claim to the HMS Doubtful, HMS Farmable, and HMS Dank Royal, respectively.
• The British Tier 8 heavy tank, the Caernarvon, is basically an up-armored, wider Centurion tank. Naturally, this has given it the moniker "Fat Centurion".
• The Aufklärungspanzer Panther light tank added in Patch 8.5 is called the "Awful Panther". It has a tiny turret on a large and easy to hit Panther chassis with a horrible stock gun (fit for Tier 2/3) that can see Tier 10 tanks. Another one is "AFK Panther", because they're so dreadful you'd rather have an AFK player! (Since at least the AFK player only gives a free kill if the enemy makes it into your spawn area, while an Auf Panther will drive toward the front line.
• In the SEA server, the M4 Sherman and its many variations are often called mantou due to the similar shape. Bonus points if they're using white camo.
• On the Chinese server, the VK 16.02 Leopard is referred to as the "Loli Panther" as it sounds quite similar in Mandarin and looks like a scaled-down version.
• The Japanese Tier-6 Chi-To: it's dangerously cheesy.
• The Soviet tier IX heavy tank the ST-I is sometimes known as the "Swollen Tick" for the extremely bulbous appearance of its turret.
• Introduced in Update 8.9, the Panzer-Selbstfahrlafette IVc is affectionately known as "The Flak Bus" due to its box-like armor scheme. Other nicknames include "The Battle Toaster", "Flak Box", and "Fighting Breadbox".
• The vehicles with the "Pz. Sfl." abbreviation as the start of their name became "Panzer Sniffle" (or, as a result of their ridiculously powerful guns and poor performance in all other areas, the less polite Panzer Syphilis) after the total was brought to three of them with 8.9. "Panzer Soufflé" is a less popular nickname.
• The SU-100Y is known as "Boxtank" thanks to QuickyBabyTV.
  • While not as common, another nickname that can crop up from time to time is "Boom Box". Why Boom Box? Get in front of it and find out.
• The Jagdpanzer E-100 "Kaiju Jaegeru" ("Jaegeru" for short) and FV215b(183) "Death Star" tank destroyers have earned their nicknames by their ability to instantly wreck any tank that is foolish enough to face them head-on.
  • Continuing the Star Wars theme, the FV4005 Stage II tank destroyer gets coined as "Death Star Two." But its extreme fragility and tall turret (resulting in a massive target profile) have given the FV4005 Stage II the much less flattering nickname of "Shitbarn".^note As The Mighty Jingles explains, ""Because it looks like a barn, and it's shit." It's also called the Heshbarn, especially when loaded entirely with premium HESH rounds. Which is widely considered the entire point of the FV4005, since the HESH has the same 1750 alpha damage as HE but with 230mm rather than 92mm penetration (the AP has even better pen at 310mm, but its 1150 alpha is no longer enough to oneshot most tanks).
• The T95 is occasionally called the "Cleanup Crew" due to its tendency to not get to the fight until it's already over.
  • It's other moniker, the "Doom Turtle", also references its slow speed... and impenetrable frontal armor combined with a 155mm cannon (the same caliber as the BL-10).
    • After the T95's speed was buffed from 13km/h to 20 in patch 9.17.1 (making it no longer the slowest tank in the game; that "honor" now goes to the TOG II*) it's jokingly referred to as the "Zoom Turtle".
  • A battle between two opposing T95s is also sometimes described as akin to a turtle mating ritual, as both T95s try to get to each other's side and rear.
• The T110E3, thanks to its high armor, is occasionally referred to as the T-800e3.
• Because of its incredibly small size and unique shape, the French ELC AMX has earned the name 'Pancake Tank'.
  • The Russian Object 416 medium has also inherited the moniker due to having a similar shape. It also sometimes gets called the 'Frying Pan' because of its round turret and long gun barrel looking like an upside-down pan.
• The lumbering, ninety-tonne Lowe superheavy tank is known as the 'Slowe', for obvious reasons.
  • Due to its credit-earning ability as a premium tank, both fans and critics have also nicknamed it "The Bank of Löwe".
  • The special Tier-10 VK 72.01 German Premium heavy tank, which was given out as a reward for being one of the top 3 Clans in a contest has been given the loving moniker 'Failowe' for the fact that it shares a turret with the Löwe, as well as 'Löwetraktor' for its resemblance to the Leichtstraktor.
• The Indien-Panzer, a German prototype design for the Indian market, is known as the "Vindalowe", since it resembles a scaled-down version of the Löwe heavy tank.
• Erlenberg is known as Derpenberg since the top left corner of the map has an uncanny quality of bringing out hilarious tendencies of humiliating stupidity in players, specifically at the northwest corner of the map. Case in Point: This replay compilation. After the map was enlarge so that the action doesn't reach the northwest corner as often, the focus of idiocy shifted to the central bridge, which routinely sees people falling off to drown in the river.
• Similarly, the Mannerheim Line (formerly Arctic) map has the "Corner of Fail" in the southeast that's also notoriously idiocy-inducing.
• The German VK 30.02 (M) medium tank is usually referred to as the MANther, due to being the MAN company's initial design for the Panther and to help differentiate it from the VK 30.02 (D) in the same tier.
• The Rheinmetall-Borsig Waffentrager is abbreviated ingame as "Rhm.-B. WT", but most fans will refer to as the Rhumb. Some, however, shorten it further to just Rhum. The recent Steam release of Valkyria Chronicles has made the name more popular, as has the introduction (on the Asia server only) of actual Valkyria Chronicles premium tanks into the game. A less popular nickname is the 'Rhombus' due to the similar name and angular shape. Russian players just call it "Borsch" after the "Borsig" part. Some NA players call it the "Rhoomba" due to its low profile.
  • Any of the Waffentrager line can be referred to as Waffles or Waffletragers.
• Some players refer to the Durchbruchswagen 2 as the Douche-bag wagon or the shorter name "Douchewagon", mainly because they are unable to pronounce Durchbruchswagen correctly and because even when fully upgraded it has pathetic performance. "Derp Wagon" is also sometimes used because of its top gun, a 7.5cm low velocity cannon.
  • Players in Poland have a different nickname for it, namely "Durszlakwagon", which roughly translates to "Colander-(train)car", sounds quite similiar to original German name and reflects quite well how pathetic it is.
• The German Tier VI tank destroyer, the Jagdpanzer IV, is often called the 'flatpanzer' thanks to its low profile.
• The Churchill family of British tanks (plus the Russian Churchill III) are sometimes called the 'church', the 'chill', or the 'churchy'.
  • The Churchill Gun Carrier (a casemate tank destroyer on a Churchill chassis) is sometimes jokingly called the "Churchill Game Carrier", for the humor value in pretending that one of the tier-for-tier worst tanks in the game is actually overpowered.^note Though Quicky Baby has twice demonstrated (when his viewers trolled him by voting for him to play one of his least favorite tanks during his stream) that if you're good enough and lucky enough, you really can carry a game in it.
• Then there's the nickname most players attach to the FV304 Tier-6 SPG: "Bert the Avenger", as coined by SirCircon.^Note While a lot of people would attribute the nickname to The Mighty Jingles, the latter clarified in one of his `!videos that he was not the guy who made it up.
• The BT-7 Artillery type is a Tier 3 premium light tank that was given to players as part of World of Tank's fifth anniversary event. Players quickly dubbed it the "Bart," to differentiate it from the non-premium BT-7 on which it is based. (No relation to Bert mentioned above—in spite of the name, it isn't actually an artillery).
• The E-25 tier 7 premium TD is called "Hedgehog" on Russian servers. It's small, fast, it hides in the bush all the time and can prick you 25 times in a minute.
  • On the US servers, the E-25 is sometimes call the "Ninja Turtle", due in part because of its insanely small profile^note The real-life design sketch for the E-25 already called for a low-profile tank...but Wargaming made an error in modeling the tank that left it a few meters smaller in all dimensions than it should've been. Since detectability is based on size that left it even stealthier than it should've been. And since Wargaming is extremely reluctant to nerf premiums, that excessive stealth remains intact. (making it a ninja), and because of a Tanktoon video showing one being a Ninja Turtle.
• The Scorpion is an American tier 7 premium tank destroyer, usually called a "Scorp" or "Scorpy," but due to its rather good gun and total lack of armor it's also sometimes called the Glass Cannon.
• Even before its official release, the Czechoslovakian Kolohousenka tier 1 light tank was the butt of more than a couple jokes that earned it the unflattering nickname of "boobtank." This is due to the pair of symmetrical, rounded projections◊ set high on its hull.
• Due to its somewhat unwieldy name, the M4A1 Revalorisé has earned nicknames such as the M4 Reverse and the M4 Ravioli. Also sometimes called the M4 Ratatouille, due to being a French tank (albeit with an American hull). Expect much stumbling with R sounds if trying to use its actual name, at least from the NA players.
• The M46 Patton Korea is often called the Tiger Patton due to its camo pattern, even though its canonical nickname is "Ripper Patton." (No relation to the German Tiger tanks.)
• The rather ridiculous little T49 American tier 8 light has a choice of just two guns. The gigantic 152mm gunlauncher punishes people with anywhere from 700 to 900 damage and is rightly feared as a complete derp gun, but if you decide to not employ the 152 mm, you get a smaller but no less high-explosive happy 90mm cannon, which trades raw power for rate of fire. Fans have taken to calling this gun (and any T49 mounting it) the Baby Derp.
• The introduction of the Australian AC 1 tank into the British tech tree brought with it nicknames like "dicktank" and "dongtank" due to the very distinctively shaped hull-mounted machine gun armor shroud. The later addition of the larger, higher-tier AC 4 Experimental has done little to quell the nicknames, as it retains the machine gun shroud of the AC 1.
• For some reason, the add-on spaced armor for the Tier 8 American premium medium, the Super Pershing, is universally called its riot shield. Other tanks that employ spaced armor sometimes claim to have riot shields, but only the Super Pershing is always regarded as having such in its armor profile.
• The Tier VII Soviet premium tank destroyer SU-122-44 is known as "Stalin's Hammer" for having higher DPM than many Tier X tank destroyers.
• The Tier VIII Soviet premium tank Motherland (a weakened version of the Tier IX T-54 medium tank) quickly gained the nicknames "Yo Mommaland" and "Exploded Mime" ^note  It has a unique paintjob consisting largely of red and white splotches, leading to the observation that it looks like a mime exploded.
• The Tier VIII American Chrysler K is known as the SirFoch special, after the massive shit storm it started.
• The Tier VI Japanese premium Heavy Tank No. VI (a Tiger I purchased by Japan, though never actually delivered in real life) is the "Weeaboo Tiger" or shortened to "Weeb Tiger".
• The Tier X French tank destroyer AMX 50 Foch B, aka Waffentrager auf Foch B or Fochentrager auf B-100 (along with various other Waffentrager auf E-100 derivative names) for having having similar ability to the old WT auf E-100 to deal massive damage with its autoloader magazine. (Though being a casemate TD and having less HP than the WT auf E-100 makes it not as ridiculous overall.)
  • The other Tier X French tank destroyer AMX 50 Foch 155 (turned into a special premium for existing owners when replaced in the tech tree by the Foch B) is called "750 DPM" because its 155mm gun does 750 average damage, the 3-round clip takes almost a minute to reload...and the accuracy is so terrible you'll probably only get 1 penetrating hit per clip.
• The Chinese tank destroyer line all have names ending in "FT", which combined with the fact that none of them had even a single prototype built in real life has led to them being called the "Fake Tank" line.^note The "FT" actually stands for "Fǎn Tǎnkè" (反坦克), meaning "anti-tank". Also, the "WZ" in many of the Chinese vehicles' names is an industrial designation, used for designs that never made it into production to get a military "Type" number. The W stands for Wǔqì (武器) meaning "weapon", and the Z is "Zhuāngjiǎzhànchē" (装甲战车) meaning "armored fighting vehicle".
• Tanks that (regardless of whether they're classed as a Heavy or a Medium Tank in-game) straddle the line between the two in terms of gameplay are referred to as "Heavy Mediums" or "Heaviums".
• Within hours of being announced as going into supertest, the proposed Object 726 Tier X Soviet heavy tank (later renamed Object 279E) was widely dubbed the "Blyatmobile", because its unique appearance (with odd hull sides that angle slightly outward and upward at the top edge to give the impression of fins, and four tracks) makes it like something Batman would drive and because "blyat"^note Apparently it can mean "fuck" or "whore" depending on context. is a profane Russian word that became famous on the Internet via Counter-Strike memes.
• The Tier V French premium self-propelled gun 105 leFH18B2 (one of only two examples in the game of premium arty) has picked up nicknames on the basis of players having no idea how it should be pronounced. It's often called the "Leafblower" and The Mighty Jingles dubbed it "Lefevefevefefefe".
• The Tier X British heavy tank Super Conqueror is known as the "Range Target" because the add-on hull armor comes from a decommissioned Conqueror that was used as a test target for anti-tank missiles.
• The Tier VIII German premium tank destroyer Kanonenjagdpanzer is known as Kanonenfodder, because it's infamously weak. Basically a Fragile Speedster Glass Cannon...except minus the cannon part since its gun (while accurate) has mediocre penetration and does low damage, and despite being only a 90mm gun also has a slower rate of fire and thus lower DPM than other Tier VIII vehicles with small guns.^note For example the other Tier VIII German premium tank destroyer, the Jagdtiger 88, has a similar gun but fires 1.6 seconds faster and also gets preferential matchmaking (never has to face Tier X tanks) to compensate for its poor penetration. And the Jagdtiger 88 is itself considered a subpar tank for its tier.
• The Tier VIII Soviet premium tank destroyer SU-130PM is called the "Skorpianski" and "Skorpian Blyat" because gameplay-wise it's akin to a Soviet version of the Tier VIII German premium tank destroyer Rheinmetall Skorpion G.^note This is not a coincidence. The Skorpion, though not having "Waffentrager" in its name, is a product of that design program. And the SU-130PM is based on the SU-100P and SU-152P, a pair of Soviet designs directly based on the waffentrager concept.
• The Tier X Soviet tank destroyer Object 268 Version 4 (notoriously overpowered when introduced and widely considered to still be overpowered after it was nerfed 6 months later) is for whatever reason known as the "Bobject". Soviet tanks with "Object" names in general are also sometimes called "Bobjects", but the name primarily refers to the Version 4.
• The tier VIII German premium light tank leKpz M 41 90 mm GF, due to it being an upgunned M41 Walker Bulldog and originally released with the black-colored Wargaming Grand Finals camouflage (hence the GF in the name), earned the nickname "Blackdog." The nickname extends to the version of the tank without the Grand Finals camouflage.
• The Tier V German premium medium tank Pz.Kpfw. V/IV picked up its nickname on the console version of World of Tanks^note It's only been sold twice on the PC version, as one of the beta test preorder packages way back in 2011 and for 12 hours in May 2019 for the "Black Market" event with only a few thousand available to purchase on each server, making it a very rare tank. But on console it's been sold as a normal premium and thus is quite common: the Rampanzer. This is because as essentially a Panther hull (the Panther being a Tier VII tank) with a Panzer IV turret and gun. Ramming damage in World of Tanks is calculated based on speed, armor values and weight, and thanks to that Panther hull the Panzer V/IV is better than most Tier V tanks in all three of those categories. The console version is even more ridiculous as a rammer because it also has an absurdly large Hit Point pool for a Tier V, allowing it to gleefully sacrifice some health by ramming even targets of comparable weight and armor to its own.
• The Tier VII British light tank GSR 3301 Setter quickly became known as the Shitter, because the British light tank line being infamously underpowered and the Setter being probably the worst of the bunch.
• The French wheeled vehicles, due to their high speed, agility, and small size making them frustratingly hard to hit, have earned the derisive nickname "clown cars." Those with less vitriol refer to them as "wheely boys" or just "wheelies."
• The Tier IV German tank destroyer Pz.Sfl. IC, the free reward for the Holiday Ops 2021 event, is known as the "Baby Skorpion" because it visually resembles the Tier VIII Rheinmetall Skorpion G, except smaller and cuter.^note The resemblance is only skin deep, as the Pz.Sfl. IC doesn't have a fully-rotating turret like the Skorpion and also instead of being a high-alpha sniper, the Pz.Sfl. IC has the smallest gun and lowest alpha of any TD in its tier but instead has an autoloader.
• The Tier X Italian reward medium tank Carro da Combattimento 45 t is nicknamed "Carrot", because its name gets shortened to "Carro 45 t" on the minimap.
• The Tier X German light tank Rheinmetall Panzerwagen is known as the "Flipwagen" for its propensity to flip over when turning at high speed.
• The Tier VIII British premium heavy tank Caliban was immediately dubbed the Taliban as soon as it was announced. This is due to its explosive-focused playstyle but also a bevy of other frustrating factors that makes it hated by those using it (such as its truly horrible gun handling and lacking turning ability) and those playing against it (such as its devastating two-shot autoreloding high explosive cannon and its thick armor). Nobody really likes the Caliban, just as nobody really likes the Taliban. Some have also joked that the "optimal" playstyle for the Caliban is akin to suicide bombing: ram a tank, shoot twice at point-blank range to negate the horrible accuracy and then die.
• Given the extreme proliferation of the Tier X Swedish heavy tank Kranvagn (infamous for its nigh-impenetrable frontal turret and excellent 12° gun depression that make it almost impossible to dig out if it gets into a hulldown position) in the Ranked Battles mode, the mode has become known as "Kranked".
• The Tier VIII premium Czechoslovakian tank destroyer ShPTK-TVP 100 became known as Shrek because its DPM is as brutal as an ogre.
• The Chinese BZ-176 rocket-powered heavy tank (yes really) has gotten the derisive nickname of "Bullshit-176" on account of its combination of heavy hitting power, colossal armor, and the aforementioned booster rockets that help it overcome its otherwise ponderous mobility. This makes it profoundly un-fun to fight against as it rockets to advantageous positions and then goes hull-down. With an extremely tough 320mm of armor (at tier 8, more than many tier 10s!) it then becomes very hard to dislodge, particularly as Wargaming's various high explosive and artillery nerfs have discouraged end-game level artillery play.
• Nicknames aren't limited to the tanks, but the players types who make up the player population as well:
  • Daddies: According to SerB, the primary target demographic of the game, essentially your stereotypical working-class Russian player who wants to play a few casual games after a long day at work. Not really too concerned about winning per se, but just at the chance to unwind. The bulk of pubs are made up of players of this type.
  • Pubs/pubbies: An often derisive term referring to the run-of-the-mill player populating public matches, who never participate in tank companies or clan wars. Ranges from having shockingly-bad (below 45%) to average (48%-50%) to decent and beyond (52%+) with regards to win rate. They are called Alexes on the Russian servers, because most players of this type on the Russian servers have nicknames with some form of "Alex" in them, for some reason.
  • Clickers/Scumbags/Sky Cancer: A derisive term for artillery players, given the generally held view that it takes no skill to play artillery units except pointing on a target and clicking a mouse button. The Clickers themselves tend to protest this, although their own winrates compared to the people calling it out tend to prove the point. 'Scumbag' became a popular nickname for artillery players coined by The Mighty Jingles of YouTube, though the name mostly refers to artillery players who drown themselves at the end of a match in which they're on the receiving end of a 1v6. Or worse, do so at the start of a match just because they're bottom tier. And the 'Sky Cancer' name reflects the views of a vocal segment of players that arty is cancerous because it can drop shells from the sky with little to no risk of retaliation from the tanks it's targeting.
    • In line with the "Clicker" nickname, getting killed by artillery is often referred to by arty-haters as getting clicked.
    • In 2020, prominent World of Tanks Youtube/Twitch streamer skill4ltu started dubbing arty players Jeff for some reason, and that nickname also caught on.
  • Seal Clubbers/Pedobears: Veteran players who use a highly-trained crew (usually at 100% and more than three skills or perks per crewmember), put them in a lower-tiered tank (tiers 5 and below), and use said tank and crew combinations to wreak havoc on the unskilled players that usually populate those starter tiers (the seals in question), padding their total stats in the process due to somewhat easier wins.
    • A memetic derivative of this would be the term Stet Pedder, as coined by an infamous baddie prevoiusly featured by The Mighty Jingles on a couple of his videos (See Memetic Mutation entry on the YMMV Page for details.)
  • Bads/Baddies: Aforementioned shockingly-bad players found in random public matches. Generally have no grasp of tactics, and most of the time rush out and get themselves eliminated early on in a match. Usually reacts poorly to advice given by other players. A good lot are suspected to be bot-run accounts as well. Seeing these types of players at higher levels usually leaves many decent players wondering how they'd manage to get to the end-tier content in the first place.^note The answer being, even the most inept and idiotic player can still get some XP from each battle, and if they're willing to go at it long enough they'll eventually fail their way up to the top tiers. When using the XVM stat program, their bad stats (displayed as red, with the slightly better baddies shown in orange and the really bad baddies in black), per tank or total on the account, are usually below the 47% mark, with low numbers of matches to boot. Common nicknames include tomato (owing to being displayed in red in XVM), window-licker, and potato; the last one becoming popular enough to become a verb that essentially means "going full retard". On the Russian servers, these are called Rak ("crayfish") or Oleni ("deers") because of a complex bilingual pun: as they have essentially no skill whatsoever, they are prone to the ridiculously stupid actions like Zerg Rushing through the central field in Malinovka, which are dubbed ololo-rushes — thus the "oleni" nickname. Many Baddies are Griefers who deliberately hinder their own team, but most just really are that bad.^note If a player has black stats in XVM, they're almost certainly a griefer. Merely being individually awful and thus a free kill to the enemy won't sway enough battles to get into the black. For a single player to influence his team's chances that negatively requires things like team killing unicums or (more commonly since excessive team damage can result in an auto-ban) things like blocking friendly players' shots by driving in front of them or pushing them out of cover so they can be shot by the enemy. And in some cases, the griefer will platoon up with fellow uber-baddies to maximize the harm done to their own team.
  • Average: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, your average player of the game, who don't outright suck like baddies, but otherwise can't carry a game on their own. Their win rates usually range in the 49% to 51% range or so, and when their stats are displayed with the XVM mod installed, they show usually colored yellow or green.
  • Decent: Players who've somehow managed to cross that grey area from average to not-quite unicum. These players have done their homework on tank traits, weaknesses, and map tactics, but still lack the preternatural situational awareness of many of the so-called unicum (see below). Their total win rate on accounts usually fall in the 54% to 59% range. When using the XVM stat program, their total win rates are usually displayed as bluish-green or blue.
  • Unicum: Really, really good players, most of the time not only having a huge number of matches under their belt (10k and up), but ungodly total win rates to boot, usually ranging from 61% and up. Multiple players of this type on a team can often tip the battle in its favor, but they're not invincible, and a really bad team (multiple reds) will drag down even the best unicum. Personality-wise can range from helpful to being arrogant and stuck-up jerkasses. The jerkass variant have been given the spicy moniker of Unicunt or the more measured uniscum. When using the XVM stat program, these players will have stats displayed in purple. The best of the best (win rate of over 70%, dark purple on XVM) are known as Super-Unicum.
• Bad players who show up on the opposing team for a Youtube or Twitch streamer to shoot at are called Paid Actors, as many streamers have used the term to jokingly suggest they're paying people to play poorly and thus make the streamer look good by comparison.
  • Which such players seem to be just driving around rather than actually fighting, they are also called Tourists.
• Even team make-ups can have their own nicknames. The most popular of which is a Lasagna team, for a team consisting of mostly yellow and reds with one or two unlucky greens on top.
  • For the greens to pull out a win even in this situation is often described as a "Carry", as in "Carrying the team". A variant is a "hard carry" - when a team particularly sucks. Skilled players relish the opportunity pull off a hard carry, not just for the challenge but because that scenario of having an terrible enemy team combined with awful allies presents the best opportunity for the rarest achievement in the game, the Raseiniai Heroes Medal (killing at least 14 out of 15 enemies).
• Also introduced was the term Lemming Train, describing a team whose majority of members choose to take one path instead of splitting up to cover their side of the map. In reference to the Lemmings.
• Platooning Tier I tanks with Tier X tanks - or some other such unbalanced lineup (most tier I tanks cannot reliably damage anything over tier 3 without gold ammo - and even then it's hard) is known as a Fail Platoon. This is generally seen as unsportsmanlike play (since it disadvantage your own team for your amusement), and can get people reported. Another common fail platoon setup is having three tanks of the same tier... with one being a scout, which effectively gets the next higher tier of matchmaking and thus can drag the other two tanks up.
  • Ironically, while some players consider it an insult to have a Tier I tank in a Tier X game, some of them can still hold up. The T-1 Cunningham for example is actually quite fast, and even though the gun selection is borderline worthless against anything Tier X, the tank can just sit in a bush, spot the enemy tanks that come in range^note Especially if the tank has camouflage applied and has a camo net with with a crew trained to 100% in camo, and just rake in the credits and experience as the rest of the team rips the enemy apart. On top of this, even if the tank is shot at, it's small size makes it a hard target to hit, and if a shot does connect, the shooter has literally wasted credits killing the tank^note  1,100cr shell that does about 450 average damage hitting a tank with barely 150hp, bonus points if the shot fired was a premium round^note Which costs either Gold or anywhere between four and ten times as much credit as the standard ammo. Not to mention the hilarity that ensues if the Cunningham manages to reach arty or catch a Waffentrager E100 reloading. There's a reason why it's the most commonly picked tank for 7/42 Team Battles to fill out the two tier 1 slots.
  • The KV-2 was also a popular choice for Fail Platoons when they were still allowed, because its 152mm derp gun does damage pretty significant even with non-penetrating shots and even against Tier X it can penetrate for full damage when hitting many light tanks, open-top tank destroyers and artillery, along with the engine decks of even most heavy tanks. And of course the ever-popular shooting the ground directly underneath a tank to splash into the usually-flimsy belly armor. It was long said that the mighty King of Derp is too "stronk" to care about tiers.
  • Updated matchmaking and platoon requirements have, for better or worse depending on who you ask, rendered this a thing of the past. All members of a platoon are now forced to play the same tier of vehicle. The closest thing to a Fail Platoon that's still possible is forming a platoon that contains both a preferential matchmaking premium (tanks which can only see 1 tier above their own) with regular tanks of the same tier. This negates the preferential matchmaking and can allow tanks like the TOG II to face higher-tier enemies than would normally be possible.
• Premium ammunition is sarcastically referred to as Skill, and switching to it in battle as "Loading the Skill".^note The Mighty Jingles has also dubbed it "the practical alternative to skill". It's also known as "gold ammo", because in the early years of the game it was purchasable only with Gold (which in turn is purchased with real-world money, rather than being earned each battle like credits). Due to premium ammo being changed to be purchasable for credits and then the option to buy it for gold outright removed, Wargaming has advocated that it instead be called "special ammunition". Players largely rejected this attempted naming, aside from occasionally using the new terminology mockingly, and still mostly call it gold ammo. It's also sometimes called "5% ammo", due to a much-derided claim by Wargaming that only 5% of the shots fired in the game are premium.^note This is widely presumed to be technically true, but highly misleading since thanks to all the small-caliber autocannons, low-tier tanks fire a lot more total shots than higher-tier tanks. Premium ammo is much less common at lower tiers, since fewer players will even be able to afford large amounts of it, which skews the average. As does artillery, which no longer even has premium ammo, having long ago been switched to only HE shells.
• Players that do not move at all or move only so much before idling for the rest of the match, not reacting to battlefield situations is said to have gone AFK (Fun with Acronyms: Away From Keyboard). Going AFK without reason (and sometimes even with) is a reportable offense, since it places your team at a disadvantage (especially when you are top-tier) in terms of numbers, and can in fact cause losses; there are instances where a team could have won if the tank that went AFK (especially when it's the last one left alive on the team) wasn't AFK. Though often the cause of "AFK" is that the player's internet connection dropped or the game client crashed, in which case they're frantically trying to load back in before the battle ends. Which occasionally leads to an AFK tank returning to life just in time to save the day, but more frequently in the player loading back in just in time to die.
• Climbing up to high points on the map that in some cases weren't even actually intended for tanks to reach, using light tanks (or small, fast medium tanks like the Bat-Chat) with good power-to-weight ratio and traction, is known as Mountain Goating. The advantages of course are that this can give an excellent view of large swaths of the map and allow you to look over what would otherwise be concealment. The downside is it can pin down your light tank in a relatively small part of the map and prevents your light tank from engaging in the traditional scouting role if the action goes far from your chosen mountain, along with the fact that you won't always have the gun depression to actually shoot at the targets you spot from so high up. Conversely being at the top of a steep mountain means enemies won't always have enough gun elevation to shoot back at you. And then there's "Extreme Mountain Goating" which involves climbing mountains that absolutely were meant to be non-climbable by having a friendly tank ram you from behind for an extra boost to get up a very steep portion that would be impossible for any tank to climb solo. This resulted in some hills having invisible walls placed to make them impossible to climb no matter how good your traction and power-to-weight ratio are.
• Driving a tank off a steep slope is known as Cliff Diving. This is normally done not specifically to suicide (though dying is a common outcome) but to pull of the highest possible velocity for a ram. It's easy to mess up the timing for a cliff dive and thus end up with the Epic Fail of suiciding right next to an enemy tank instead of landing on top of him, so typically this is done at the end of a battle in an attempt to grab the final kill.
  • Another ramming technique is the Power Assisted Ram, pioneered on the Honest Gaming Youtube channel with the name coined by The Mighty Jingles. It involves taking a tank that's already very well-suited for ramming (such as the KV-5, which is very heavy and well-armored while also having a decent top speed for a heavy tank) and removing its main weakness in ramming (poor acceleration, meaning actually getting to that top speed is difficult) through the hilarious expedient of...brining along two platoon mates driving faster heavy tanks (the FCM 50 t with its high speed, good acceleration but poor armor was chosen for the testing) equipped with the Supercharger equipment and having them get behind the ramming tank and push it up to speed.^note Using the FCM 50 t for the power assist instead of a medium tank (many of which are even faster) was chosen because smaller tanks don't have enough horsepower to actually move the 105 ton KV-5. The KV-5 and FCM 50 t also both have preferential matchmaking, meaning none of them ever have to face Tier X tanks. One variation that was also tested was bringing two KV-5s and having a single FCM 50 t push them up to speed.
• When Wargaming announced their plans to remove preferential matchmaking (ie only being able to face at most 1 tier higher rather than the usual plus/minus 2 tiers for other tanks' matchmaking) from those premium tanks that currently have it (along with buffing the tanks to compensate), they said that owners of those tanks who are unsatisfied with the new version can trade them in for a discount toward another same-tier premium. Meaning that to take advantage, a player would have to pay additional gold to get the replacement. Players were immediately outraged at the idea of having to pay more money on top of what they already spent if they want to replace preferential matchmaking premiums (instead of simply being refunded the money or trading in for another premium for free), and coined the term Russian Refund for this practice. The backlash caused this plan to be scrapped, and instead preferential matchmaking has been retained for the tanks that already have it.
• SPGs that transition out of the top-down view to shoot at enemies that have managed to get close to them (thus putting them in the same view that other tank classes use all the time) are said to have gone into "tank destroyer mode", since when doing this arty are basically a poor man's casemate TD. And since arty tend to have quite poor accuracy when doing this, actually scoring a kill in "TD mode" is known as shotgunning the enemy tank.
• When details were released in early 2021 about "Crew 2.0" (a plan for a complete rework of the crew system), the initial sandbox test showed that essentially every crew would lose skills in the conversion process. This resulted in detractors immediately dubbing it Screw 2.0 and Rubicon 2.0.^note "Rubicon" referring to an infamous 2015 patch (planned to be World of Tanks Version 10.0) which trigged such negative player reaction that not only it was cancelled (replaced with Version 9.12, excluding most of the planned "Rubicon" changes), Wargaming CEO Victor Kislyi even put out a personal statement apologizing for it.