Maybe a way to fix the Type 5 heavy (T5H)

Type 5 Heavy as we all probably already know is the super heavy tank at Tier 10 in the Japanese techtree. Its… underwhelming to say the least and it was already underwhelming before the HE rework. First i will talk about the weaponry then armour and lastly sum it all up, maybe throw in a TLDR.

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15cm/45 41st year type cannon.

I believe the regular HE should be removed and a regular HEAT, APCR or just like the 14cm gun, have a higher pen AP round instead. The HE is too hard to balance and make it work.

However i will try to make some kind of an idea of the HE slinger.

The Premium round could just be a 320mm pen heat.Or a 300mm pen AP or APCR.

That will make it more in line with the norm.

The HE slinger alternative, but with an actually good premium HE alternative.The premium HE will ignore slopes upto ricochet angles and will have less damage penalty if the armour it hits is too thick for a raw penetration.

1. Regular/primary HE is useless against heavytanks and medium tanks. So just have it removed.
2. AP will be the primary ammo for this gun like E 100 and maus. AP damage will be increased to average 700-710dmg to match other 15cm guns.
3. Premium HE will be used as the regular HE round for this tank.
4. This tank needs a reliable shell against other heavytanks. So because the 14cm gun has prem AP round, just let the 15cm have it aswell. But up the raw penetration to 297-303mm.

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Personally i'd like to see the identity of this tank as a unique HE slinger being kept. So Because of how HE works right now it could have a premium HE that ignores slopes upto ricochet angles. This is largely how HE behaves irl.

Anyway, its just an example to make it work. But honestly it'd just be better to remove HE from this tank as an alternative to regular ammo.

14cm/50 3rd year type.

The bread and butter for this tank, oboy.

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Not much thats wrong with this gun honestly. But it could use a higher penetration of the premium round, so it can be matched with the premium rounds that it face from other heavy tanks (mostly other super heavy tanks).

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E 100 will eat the T5H and not even spit out the commanders helm.Maus will win about every engagement vs the T5H in a 1v1 in any situation aswell, not just as easy as the E 100. T5H will never be able to damage the E 100 unless its out in the open with an exposed lfp. T5H will never win an engagement vs a maus unless T5H uses 14cm gun with only premium ammo and outplays the Maus by a big margin.

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Now for the armour.

Generally, while speaking about heavytanks in T10 that has armour they rely on. T5H is amogst the weakest/awkward heavytanks armourwise.

You can't sidescrape because of the 45 degree angled side panels. You can't hull down because your turret is way too weak. You can't angle your ufp because of the 45 degree angled side panels again. You can't fight in the ridgeline because the massive cupola. And more can be said ofc, but lets move on.

How i believe armour can be fixed.

Times have changed, and average penetration and accuracy values are over the roof, specially with all these consumables and "super" modules.

-The ufp where the drivers hatch is will have the weakpoints removed, and angle the plate at 29.4 degrees instead of 16.8 like it is now. Or increase the thickness from 270 to 306mm.

-Lfp is unchanged.

-Turret gunmantlet will have about 400-500mm effective thickness.-Turret cheeks will either have the angle increased from 14.5 to 25.4. Or have the turret cheeks thickness increased from 280 to 300mm.

-Cupola will be unchanged in thickness and angle, but halved in size. Its not a cuple, its a lighthouse.

-Side armour is increased from 160 to 180mm.

This way it will be similar to the maus and E 100 armourwise. But still be lacking frontally compared to many regular heavy tanks, but have clear weakpoints to aim for. Cupola will allow most regular ammo to penetrate but will garantuee prem ammo to penetrate if its hit.

It will be frontally able to challange tanks and not be a big cardboard box unable to move or even angle to increase the chanses of survival.

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To sum it all up.

Change the 15cm cannon almost completely. Remove primary HE, use AP as the primary round and use some kind of hesh HE as premium, or high pen APCR, HEAT or AP.

Increase armour protection with either raw thickness or angles.Tto have it similar to other heavytanks, but still with weakspots.

I'm probably beating a dead horse. But hey, many players have spent alot of time grinding this large piece of junk. So WG making it fun and playable again seems like a logical customer service thing.

This tank is 1 of the only 2 T10 tanks Japan has.

Thoughts?