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The Tiger 1 is a teir 7 German Heavy tank. A famous tank of WW2, this tank was famed for its excellent armor and a devasating gun. Here in World of Tanks, the armor is the same as the real life tiger, 100 mm, and it gets a very good 8.8cm Kwk L/71 gun. The downside is that armor is terrible. 100mm may have been good against T-34s and M4 shermans, but it most certainly isn't very good at holding up against shells from IS(JS) and other teir 7 Heavy tanks. Even teir 6 tanks can rip through its armor with ease, though if angled, some teir 6s struggle to penetrate it. All in all, in World of Tanks, do not play this tank as a tank that has trollish armor with extreme thickness. The armor, however, is very rectangular, so sidescraping with it is quite effective. This tank's 8.8 cm gun is what makes up for the terrible armor. The real life tiger had a L/56 cannon, this one gets a L/71. In German terms, L/71 meant that the gun length was 71 times longer than the caliber of the shell, And the longer the barrel, the better penetration and higher velocity the shells gets. This means the gun on the Tiger 1 is absolutely devastating against the tanks it goes up against. It gets 203mm of penetration on its top gun, with 240 damage per shot and a very good rate of fire. This means the Tiger 1 gets a outstanding 2150 damage per minute(DPM). While this may not sound much compared to some tanks at its teir, the penetration and famed accuracy of German guns ensure that that DPM is the real deal, as it's less likely to bounce or miss the target, doing no damage. The Tiger 1 gets the largest Healthpool at teir 7, standing at a grand total of 1,500 when fully upgraded. This is comparable to teir 8 Heavy tanks, so when under fire, do not be afraid to use your tank to shield others while retreating. Viewrange is a average 380 meters. Mobility is average. The maneuverability isn't the best but its workable, top speed is pretty good for a heavy, and the engine is decent.

The MS-1 is a Russian(U.S.S.R) teir 1 tank. A basic tank that you get when you first play the game, it's my favorite teir 1 tank, right up next to the T1 Cunningham. The MS-1 is not a very noob friendly tank with its mere 100 hitpoints(HP), the least of any teir 1 tank. It gets decent armor for a teir 1, capable of bounce a few shells sent its way. Though it must be noted to never rely on the armor, the MS-1 doesnt have a lot of HP if the shells penetrate the armor. The actual thickness of the armor is 18 millimeters(mm) at the front, and 16 on the sides and rear . Frontally however, the effective armor thickness because of sloping and rounding to the armor is arond 20mm of armor. The MS-1 stands out from the other teir 1 tanks because of the overkill penetration. With the 45mm cannon, it get 51mm of penetration, easily enough to rip though any teir 1 tanks armor. The damage is also very good, going up to 45 dmg per shot. The accuracy isn't v ery good, expected for a russian tank. neither is the aimtime very good. The maneuverablilty is slightly below average, with a top speed of 32 kp/h and 34(38 on top tracks) degrees of traverse, coupled with a decent horsepower to ton(HP/T) means it will not be very fast, though it will turn very well. The radio, when first played, has a measly 90 meters signal range, when upgraded, it has 265(A lot of maps it gets has a mimimium of 600 meters by 600 meters to 1km by 1km).

In World of Tanks, the objective is to kill all enemies or capture the base. Along the way for killing, there are many techniques for defence and assault. Another defence technique apart from sidescraping is called hulldown. Hulldown tactics are quite selfexplanatory, but the primary use of this technique is to cover up your hull, either to minimized the amount of tank you are showing the the enemy, or to show your strong points. Hull down tactics are used by tanks that have a turret that has thick turret armor, bouncy turret armor(extremely sloped turret armor), and/or a large gun mantlet that can eat up shots(means that the gun mantlet can take shot after shot after shot without having the solid armor being penned, meaning no damage taken) The t29, American Heavy Tank, is a very common user of hulldown tactics. At teir 7, having 160mm of armor is considered excellent. The T29's turret amor laughs at that 160mm armor. Having a whopping 279mm of frontal turret armor, this tank is the undisputed king of hulldown tactics. In addition, a very large gun mantlet covers up most of the frontal turret armor, which can increase the thickness to over 300mm of armor. Hull down tactics usually rely on having good gun depression, a strong turret, and a smallish cupola. The IS-3, T29, and T32 all have 2 of the boxes ticked off. The IS-3(JS-3 is you want) has strong turret armor, no cupola at all, but no gun depression. The T29 has strong turret armor, good gun depression, but a largish cupola, and the same with the T32. However, the main principles of hull down are to cover up your hull and expose your turret only to enemies.

Sidescraping is one of the most effective defensive techniques you can use early on. It uses the principles of richochet, angling and cover. To do this, you position your tank against a wall in such a way that only your side and turret cheeks are exposed at a heavy angle, preferably at 65-85 degrees. Then you allow the enemy shoot at either your heavily angled sides or even more angled turret side. Chances are, they'll bounce right off. Then you can pop out and take a shot at them, 2 depending if you are sure you have a better reload, enough to reload before they can by 1 second. However, this only works if the claiber of the gun shooting at you does not exceed 2x your side armor. This is why only heavy tanks will use this technique often. But, if your tank can have at least enough armor to withstand the average caliber of your teir, you can sidescrape. Large tracks also help greatly in sidescraping, especially if the tracks cover up the hull. Tracks count as 20mm of spaced armor and therefore is very useful. But this is only effective if you can repair your tracks fast enough, so the repair skill, a toolbox, or a large repair kit is recommended if you like sidescraping often. You WILL get your tracks blown off often when sidescraping when enemies get frustrated at bouncing and start aiming to immobilize you. In addtion, you need to choose your sidescraping position carefully, you dont want to be hammered by artillery.

One of the more important mechanics in WoT, penetration. Without this thing, the game would make no sense because teir 1's would be penning teir 10 heavies. Penetration relies on angles, thickness and raw penetration of the gun. The actual penetration deviates 25% +/- from the listed penetration. So if the average pen lists 100, the actual pen would be 75-125, this also aplies for damage. There is also the chance where the shell penetrates no armor at all, resulting in no penetration no matter the amount of enemy armor, this is why you will sometimes bounce off light tanks that your gun shouldve torn right through. There are 5 type of ammunition: AP(Armor piercing), APCR(Armor piercing composite rigid), HEAT(High explosive anti-tank), HE(High explosive), and HESH(High explosive squash-head), AP is the standard ammo for most, HEAT is a ammo that doesnt suffer loss of pen over distances, but doesnt benefit from normalization rules, APCR is high velocity/pen AP, with less normalization, HE are explosives and will detonate wether it pens or not, HESH wirks more like a high-pen HE. The angle of the point of contact is also a factor of armor penetration. The greater the angle, the thicker the armor. If the angle reaches over 70 degrees, the shell will automatically ricochet, and do no damage. But if the caliber of the shell exceeds the thickness of the armor by 2 times and the penetraion is enough, then you can 'overmatch' the armor and have a chance of penning the armor at extreme angles(Ex: 50mm of armor can be overmatched by 100+mm guns). There is a normalization in AP, the standdard ammunition most tanks use, that helps reduce the angle of the tank by about 3-4 degree. There are 2 types of armor you can be shooting at, Solid Armor, or Spaced Armor. Solid armor is armor that, if penned, will cause the tank to be damaged. Spaced armor, usually tracks or the gun mantlet, can be penetrated but no damage will be taken by the tank. Spaced armor usually has another Solid Armor layer underneath, so its usually very hard to penetrate compared to hitting regular armor.

In World of Tanks, camouflage mechanics govern whether you spot a target or not. It determines whether a tank can see another tank. There are several fields of vision mounted on the tank. One on the back, one on the deck of the tank, the commanders hatch, and the gun itself. If a tank touches one of these fields, then its is spotted. Of course, this isnt as simple as that, this is where the said tank's camouflage come into play, the tank's camouflage will cut down the viewrange of the spotter to a certain percentage. The lower the tank is to the ground, the more camo rating it has. This camo rating can be boosted by camouflage paint, a camouflage net, the skill camouflage and bushes. Buildings will completely camouflage you, but you cant return fire to enemies. However, if a tank drives within 50 meters of you, its is automatically spotted by your tanks magical radar, regardless if theres a building.  Your camouflage rating is reduced when you are moving(by 50%) unless you are a light tank. Light tanks retain their camoflage even when moving. When you fire, your camo rating drops drastically, depending on the caliber of the gun.  This makes your tank incredibly easy to spot. But there is a way to avoid this.  Bushes, when you get close to it, are opaque. This means it will provide camouflage and you can see through it, but when you fire your gun, it becomes invisible, allowing enemies to spot you. However, if you back up 15 meters away from the bush, it will be solid. This means you can fired your gun without giving your position. Of course, your own camoflage rating still drops, meaning you can be still spotted, but now it is much much harder to do so. Enemy tanks, when spotted, will stay spotted for a few more seconds even if the spotter dies. The maximium spotting range is 445 meters. This is useful when a enemies camoflage rating is too high to be spotted if your viewrange is 450, but can be spotted if the viewrange is, say, 500. Remember, the camouflage rating is a percentage, not a number. So, say a spotters view range is 400, if a tanks camo rating is 25%, it will prevent the spotter from seeing it until its within 300 meters away from it.(this can also be changed by bushes and other factors). Spotting, is useful to both you and your team because it give your team something to shoot at, and because you can get credits and exp when your ally's shoot the targets you are lighting up(50% exp and credits earned compared to doing the acual damage)this spares you from wasting ammunition(ammo does cost money!)

The basic controls are the standard w,a,s,d keys for traversing and accelerating. W will move the tank and S will reverse the tank. A will make the tank traverse to the left and D will do right. You can also press on two keys(ie:w and d, w and a, s and d, and s and a) to make the tank turn and move in a direction. LMB to fire the main weapon, RMB to autoaim(for people too lazy to aim), scrolling to adjust the view and/or change it into sniper mode. C will reload a magazine clip(if the tank has one), left shift(only for artillery) to change to arty mode(AKA satellite view). 4-6 will select a consumable(med kits repair kits, fire extinguishers). You can also use the 'f' keys to make commands quickly(for example, f5 to say 'Affirmative!', f7 to say 'Help!'), for more you can hold down and z and view the commands(pointing at allies or enemies can give you some more options, pointing at a ally and pressing f4 will say'[name] fall back!'), you can also point at an enemy and press t for requesting fire(most of the time its useless unless thats the only target lighted up). Holding down on Ctrl will give you a mouse and you can move your cursor to the minimap and click to alert your teammates. Pressing the enter key can allow you to chat(simply press enter, type what you want to say, and press enter) you may use tab to toggle around on which chat to chat on(team, all, and sometimes:platoon). All this may sound complicated, but really all you need to know are the wasd keys, and the mouse are the main controls.

Artillery, or arty/spgs, are the main firepower of the team. These self propelled guns have very large guns, meaning they can do a lot of damage per shot, this is countered by its long reload, horrible aiming times, and bad accuracy. Arty are poorly armored and dont have a lot of mobility with the exception of french arty(the french always focused on mobility, they also have the fastest aiming times, reloads, and best accuracy compared to other nations, but they also have the least damage per shot). I personally am going down the french arty and I can tell you that the french start off really bad, and get better and better(teir 9 and 10 get turrets). Most arty, with the exception of the bat chillion 155 55(teir 9 french), bat chillion 155 58(teir 10 french) and SU-26(teir 3 russian), have no turrets and therefore need to turn their hull to face the target, this makes them have to reaim their gun again. Arty also have to be wary of counter battery. Enemy arty can see the tracer of your gun when you fire and can kill you by shooting the tracer's origin(and kill you if you dont move)to counter this you sould immediately move after you fire, this usually take 10 seconds or so, depending on the mobility of the spg. Spgs have a different mode from other tank's sniper mode which is called artillery mode, this mode allows them to play the traditional artillery role(nuking people from the sky), in this mode there is a line which is colored either green, red or gray, green indicates whether its possible to hit the place you are pointing at(you still need to have the reticle to confirm the place as well), red mean that somthing is blocking the ground you are aiming at(a rock, a tank, a mountain, etc)and grey means you do not have the range to shoot that place.

Today, the heavy tanks will be introduced. Heavy tanks are the main fighting force, able to take lots of hits.
The main characteristics of a heavy tank is its heavy armor and weight coupled up with a decent gun. 

Today, I'm going to talk about the meduim tanks in the game. These tanks are meant to flank the main enemy fighting force, get some flanking shots then pull back. Most mediums are not meant to be frontline fighters. Some, however, like the Matilda, a British teir 4 tank, is a technical heavy but is considered a medium. Most tanks of this class usually fill in the role of a support tank. If they were to be exposed to front line fighting, they would quickly die. A medium tank is average in all three main requirments for a good tank: armor, mobility and firepower. A good example is the M4 Sherman, a American teir 5 tank. This tank is a jack-of-all-trades, master of nothing. Most mediums are usually in the second line of defence. They are used sometimes to mop of the beaten up tanks in the front line and artillery. This class of tanks, if used correctly, can easily decide the outcome of a battle(unless your team are complete failures).

Hi guys, I'm finally back and today I'll be talking about the more recent game I've been playing. Its called World of Tanks, or for short: WOT. This game is quite a fun game and I would reccommend it for anyone who likes tanks, shooting or both. The game involves a lot of strategy and is basically a online multiplayer 3rd person shooter game. The basic controls are simple enough, w, a, s, d, and mouse. The wasd controls move the tank while the mouse moves the camera and the turret of the tank(if it has one). There are hundreds of tanks in the game including premium tanks(bought by money tanks) and ordinary tanks(researched through playing games). These tanks are divided into 10 teirs: 1 - 10. Each tanks is divided into one of those teirs and mas its own matchmaking(because it'd be unfair if a overpower teir 10 fought a teir 1). Teir 1's usually get teir 1 matches but sometimes will get into teir 2 matches. Teir 2's will get into teir's 2, 3, 4 matches where the highest teir yo will face in a teir 4 match will be teir 4's, and so on. Some tanks will however, get scout matchmaking or easier match making. For example, the teir 4 german light tank:PzKpFw 38t na will get scout match making, meaning it can potentially face up against tier 8's. This is because it is a scout and is only supposed to scout out enemy positions and report them for the bigger guns to take them down. Other tanks like the teir 4 French heavy tank the B1 will get into teir's 4 and 5 matches. Teir 10 tanks will only get teir 10 matchs because they are the maximium teir, they can however meet teir 8 tanks that have teir 10 match making. The tanks are based off WWII tanks and only have German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, American, French, and British tanks, each of which have its own unique traits. For example, higher teired German heavy tanks are tall and heavy such as the Maus, The heaviest and tallest tank in the game. Each tank has its own research tree and can basically be upgraded with better parts like upgradeing the engine can increase acceleration and upgrading the gun can increase damage, penetration, rate of fire, accuracy, DPM(damage per minute), and/or aiming time. Remenber that upgrading the gun and turret can reduce some stats, but increase others. The tanks research tree is researched by experience and free experience. These are earned by participating in battles. However, only free experience can be used to research tanks that aren't next in line of the tank you wish to research for the next tank. In addition, free experience is hard to earn, so use it carefully. Well thats it for this week and ill see you guys later.