There is a consistent debate about what equipment to put on medium tanks. Personally, I think that Vents, Rammers, VStabilizers, and Optics are the only equipment worth considering for medium tanks.
However, there’s four options there and only three can be mounted. I play mostly Russian medium tanks (my favorite is the T-44-100) and I’ve noticed a few things.
First: no amount of crew skill can make up for the lack of coated optics. I can still get my viewrange to about 445m on the higher tier tanks if I have both recon and situational awareness, but if I mount optics my viewrange is noticeably better.
Second: removing the rammer causes a 10% reduction in DPM. Since I play my medium tanks as midrange brawlers, the difference between 6.8 reload and 6.1 is a pretty large difference.
Third: removing vents has a negative impact on dpm, but only by increasing the reload by .2 or .3 tenths of a second on most of my tanks.
I have BiA on all of my Russian medium crews, since I have used female crews and got BiA free male crews from different premium bundles a few years ago (I think it was the IS-2?).
There are several theory points I’m curious to hear opinions on:
Is BiA a Vents replacement (both give +5%) or does it work better when stacked with vents?
Is the +10% view range from optics always worth reducing the other parameters by removing vents or by removing the Vstabilizer, or is it only worth it on the more snipey tanks like the Object 416?
How useful are the improved equipment you can buy for bonds? Which one is the most useful?
Is a slight reduction in DPM balanced by an increase in view range over the course of many games? That is to say, will being able to spot tanks sooner actually translate into the same or better average damage per game as being able to reload faster?
I know these topics have been discussed at length, but I’m curious to hear what the community opinions are. I tend to play my Soviet mediums like mid-range support vehicles, occasionally brawling (T-54, Obj. 140) and occasionally sniping (Object 416). However, I often find myself as one of the last mobile tanks on my team, where having a higher view range is very useful. I play mostly random battles but I also use these tanks in the weekend tournaments when they come around.
