Hello commanders,

In this post, I will be discussing a possible second choice of gun for the tier 10 Swedish "Heavy" tank, the Kranvagn (also known as the Emil III). It is a rather long post, but I would sincerely appreciate it if you read the entire thing and left your feedback.

I absolutely adore the Kran. It's got a fantastic combination of good flexibility, god-like turret armor, and a very nice autoloading gun. However, my biggest gripe about it is that it doesn't have the historical 15 cm boomstick that was proposed along with the current 12 cm cannon.

To properly balance this tank, we must take into consideration that making the gun characteristics too high will ultimately make this tank behave similar to a pseudo T95/FV4201 Chieftain. The Chieftain is a notoriously over-tuned tank, and the Kranvagn has the potential to "accidentally" become too powerful of a tank due to its well-balanced nature in firepower, flexibility, and armor.

Gun Characteristics

Here are my proposed potential gun parameters for the 15 cm Kranvagn:

• 2-shot autoloader with 750 alpha per shell
• Roughly 28-32 second clip reload, with a 4 second intraclip reload
• 0.38 dispersion at 100 meters with a 2.9 second aim time
• Gun handling will be adjusted appropriately for such a large caliber; I admit that I don't have the knowledge to decide on these parameters
• Due to larger shells, ammo count will be reduced to 30 rounds.

The goal for this to maintain a similar, but still lower DPM than the current 12 cm gun on the Kranvagn. This will enable the Kran to have an incredibly short exposure time, making it a truly dangerous ridge line burst tank. However, with only 2 shells in the clip, you must choose your targets carefully. With a clip potential of 1,500, this gives it high potential, but still less than the other two autoloading heavies, as to not let the alpha overwhelm the T57 and 50B's clip potential. The idea is to increase the peek-a-boom and decrease the return fire.

Ammunition Type

The 15 cm gun was proposed to fire High Explosive and a new, experimental shell that is a mix between HEAT and APDS. To simplify this, we will assume that the shells this gun will use to be solely HEAT and HE.

I believe that this would be a great opportunity to experiment with a new type of ammunition design in the game. One HEAT shell would have higher pen and standard alpha, while the other will have increased alpha for less pen. This will encourage players to consider which shells to fire. Additionally, neither HEAT shell type will cost more than the other, meaning they'll be the same price while still having unique characteristics.

For my unique proposal for this new HEAT shell combination, here's my idea:

• choice 1 HEAT shell will have 290 mm of penetration, with 750 alpha damage
• choice 2 HEAT shell will have 240 mm of penetration, with 880 alpha damage
• high explosive shells will have 70 mm of penetration, with 920 alpha damage

Why 290 mm of pen? I don't want the penetration to be overwhelmingly high, as this would essentially outclass other 15 cm guns and their current premium rounds. However, I want it to be enough penetration to be competitive and still be able to go through the majority of tanks, as long as you aim.

With the 880 alpha shell, the lower penetration means that you must really consider when to load this type, as 240 mm of penetration is very low for a tier 10 tank. However, I see this as a balancing parameter. In order to use this type of HEAT round correctly, you must be certain that you can either outplay or get a guarantee pen on the opposing tank.

With a 920 HE round, the potential HE clip damage is still less than the T57 and 50B. However, since it's a larger caliber, the higher alpha is needed to make the HE semi-viable. The penetration value of 70 mm gives it more than both the T57 and 50B, but that should make sense since this is a high-caliber gun.

What sets the 15 cm apart from the 12 cm?

The 15 cm is much more situational than the 12 cm. With higher alpha and less shells, you'll have to be very careful about who you shoot. While the 15 cm has close to the same DPM as the 12 cm, it's significantly less forgiving than the 12 cm if you miss, even with the higher penetration values. We all know how trollish HEAT can be, especially the large caliber ones (looking at you, Jageroo). The 15 cm would be used more in trading situations, where you want to out-trade your opponent, while with the 12 cm you can cruise with the mediums, as the quick 20 second reload will keep you in the fight, unlike the 30 second reload of the 15 cm. Both would still be uniquely competitive in their own way, while still being very different from each other. TL;DR: 15 cm for memes, 12 cm for regular play.

In Conclusion

The 15 cm gun will further make the Kranvagn a unique tank while still retaining its true intentions: a hull-down, peek-a-boom tank. While you get higher alpha damage and penetration than most autoloaders, you have to make every shot count or else this will just be a 750 DPM Foch 155 with a turret. And while the HEAT shells are unique, this also means they cannot overmatch armor plates and don't have any normalization, giving the higher-than-normal penetration of the "standard" shell some justification. Additionally, HEAT can't go through objects, so careful aim is necessary. Feedback is greatly appreciated, and I'd love to hear what you all think about this proposed idea. Although WG doesn't often listen to the community about these things, this is something that I've always wanted to discuss and hope that maybe one day WG would consider adding the 15 cm gun.