Around the time Equipment 2.0 and Field Mods came out I started experimenting with running 2 repair kits on my turretless TDs just to see if the meme had any practical usefulness. And my goodness does running 2 repair kits make a huge difference when you need it most, given dropping a fire extinguisher in most turretless TDs is a worthwhile sacrifice to prevent people getting your rear in the first place. However, with my successful experience of running double repair kits in mind, a thought popped up, which was this: what if I didn't run a repair kit? The idea has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while.
With Equipment 2.0 being well understood by now and the meta of the new equipment being mostly settled upon, I figured I would try to do something outside of that box.
Enter the Modified Config equipment; to me it seems to be a perfect answer to all those tanks in the past that were infamous for weak ammo racks, engines, and other internal modules. But with the meta being adjusted to the new equipment, I find it weird that so few people run it on their tanks, which made me want to make it work very badly.
I took this equipment into consideration in conjunction with Improved Hardening to see if it was possible to bring to life my old idea of running no repairs.
RESULT:
It's hilariously viable! My track repair speed is down to a whopping 3.7 seconds, with plenty of room to drop that lower. However 3.7 seconds is so fast you will not be gaining much by lowering it further.
I tried it with the IS-4 since it has great armour and HP to begin with, and if a stupidly good track repair speed was going to be useful on any tank I figured it would be on a sidescraping brawler. Also given I did alright in Ranked, I decided to buy the bond version of the modified config equipment for this test just to give it the best chance of being effective.
Needed elements here are as follows:
BIA, Repairs trained to 100% on the crew, Improved Hardening (in slot bonus if you're not running bond Config), and Modified Config (in slot bonus if you're running the standard version).
Optional:
Food if you have the spare credits, Vents if you want to absolutely max the repair speed, and any other piece of equipment as the third equipment slot isn't crucial for this build to work. In mine I run a Bond Rammer so I have some firepower to backup my crazy survivability.
In practice, this build is actually great! I was surprised at how good I managed to do with it because I was expecting to be rushed a lot and to not have adequate firepower to defend myself, but those things were not the case. You don't want to go poking your front around street corners too freely because the lack of repair kit will leave you dead if the enemies are focusing the corner, so sidescraping is super important to not die. Also important when playing is to be especially careful of what tank you use and what its weakspots are; the IS-4 and Object 705A are my recommendations for this build as they are almost impenetrable when sidescraping, but others may be good too.
TL;DR: No repair kits works great with the ideal setup and when you play the tank carefully.
Example Replay Link in the comments.
