The Bat Chat mini branch is a line of two French, autoloading mediums branching off from the Batchat 12T. The line focuses on high mobility and clip damage behaving like a cross between a light, a medium, and maybe even a little TD. Their low survivability can be punishing for new players, but shouldn’t be much of an issue for more experienced ones.

General Loadout

The following is the suggested loadout for the line unless stated otherwise in the vehicle section

Consumables
Med Kit,Repair Kit, Fire Extinguisher/food
Premium consumables to taste. I personally favor fire extinguishers over food for these tanks due to the frontal engines (almost mandatory on tier IX). A large rep kit on the tier IX is also almost mandatory for the same reason.

Equipment
IRM, V-stab, optics/vents/GLD/IAU/maybe turbo
Both tanks in this branch have pretty poor gun handling/aim time and large clips. Something to help them aim in faster is critical to making the most out of them. Personally, I like running optics on the 3rd slot because the Bats have always been pretty good pseudo-scouts, but enhancing mobility or aim further is not a terrible choice either.

Directives
Camo/fire fighting/gun handling
I’d say only run these if you have a lot, are 3 marking, and or just really feel like maxing out your tank performance.

Crew

• Commander: 6th Sense, BIA, situational awareness, recon, camo
• Gunner: Snap Shot, BIA, camo, safe stowage
• Driver: Smooth ride, BIA, camo, off road driving

The commander on this line is burdened with a lot of important skills requiring 5 just to cover the essentials.

Tier IX: Bat.-Châtillon 25 t AP

A friendlier Batman, a Bat Chap, if you will

Pros
– High clip damage (1800)
– Large clip (6 shells)
– High top speed (65kph)
– Good camo (16.25)

Cons
– Long interclip reload (44sec)
– Long intraclip reload (2.73sec, 13.64sec for full clip)
– Low alpha (300)
– Low pen (232 AP/263 APCR)
– Low ammo capacity (42)
– Poor camo when firing?? (1.62)
– Poor gun elevation (13°), especially over rear (8°)
– Poor gun handling
– Low view range (380m)
– Negligible armor
– Abysmal engine health (160) and a frontal engine means your engine will be destroyed in one shot a lot.
– High fire chance (20%)
– Low health (1600)

Compare to similar vehicles

Playstyle
This tank is all about speed and burst damage. Flex around the battlefield to find opportunities to unload a full clip into someone, ideally someone distracted by something else. If you can land two full clips, you’ve already had a pretty decent game. You have camo, but not great view range, so you can pretend to be a scout, but only in a pinch. Your weak frontal engine is a huge liability and you can sometimes lose both engine and tracks in one shot (bring a large kit).

Things to avoid are heavily armored tanks where your low pen will become apparent and HE guns. You have next to no armor and will be an irresistible target for ARTY, T49s, HESH slingers, and just about anything with an HE shell. Your long reload means if anything gets close to you, you need to be able to kill it or run away.

Try to keep enemies at mostly medium range. You don’t have the accuracy for long range fights and you’re quite squishy if you get trapped in a brawl. This is a tank with large strengths but also large weaknesses.

Ammo
24/18(min)/0 AP/APCR/HE
You do not have the ammo to waste any on HE. Bring no less than 18 APCR shells so you can have two full APCR clips even if you have to force a reload midway through one. Be mindful that your large clip and low ammo count means you will more easily run into issues with not being able to load a full clip of one ammo type. You may want to consider running all APCR for this reason (5%, right?).

Rating: 5/10

Tier X: Bat.-Châtillon 25 t

Swear to me!

Pros
– Best in class clip damage (1950)
– Large clip (5 shells)
– Decent penetration (259 AP/ 330 HEAT)
– Decent alpha (390)
– High top speed (65kph)
– High P/W ratio (28.48)
– Good camo (16.87)
– Good view range (400m)
– Low fire chance (10%)

Cons
– Long interclip reload (39.16sec)
– Long intraclip reload (2.73sec, 10.91sec for full clip)
– Poor gun handling
– Poor gun elevation (11°), especially over rear (8°)
– Low ammo count (30)
– Low health (1800)
– Poor armor (but much better than tier IX)

Compare to similar vehicles

Playstyle
The Bat Chat corrects the worst of its predecessor’s deficiencies. It gets good alpha and pen, a quicker to unload magazine, a lower fire chance, a stronger engine, and good view range. This lets it become an agile assassin. It has the speed and view range of a scout with the burst potential of a TD. Almost 2k clip damage lets you out trade anything save a Foch B. Your mobility still gives you tons of flexibility with when, where, and how you engage the enemy. Its armor, although still quite weak, is now at least not an autopen for HE shells and can even pull off a few miracle bounces.

However, it’s not all good: you have worse gun handling, elevation angles, and ammo capacity. You still have to make sure you can kill or run away from anything you engage up close. You have to be even more judicious with when you fire because it is quite easy to lose a close game from running out of shells. Watch out for HESH slingers and ARTY who can and will ruin your day.

This tank may be a bit past its prime where it was the CW scout of choice, but it’s still a capable and fearsome machine in the right situation.

Ammo
20/10/0 APCR/HEAT/HE
The Bat Chat suffers even more so than its predecessor in the ammo department. With only 6 clips worth of shells, you will often run into ammo problems, and unlike the Bat ChAP, your premium round has an actual downside. The HEAT is wonderful for high pen, but almost halves your shell velocity and struggles with space armor. I do not recommend full HEAT spam in this tank. The APCR has good shell velocity and pen in its own right, but sometimes HEAT is required to deal with superheavies. Choose your split wisely.

Important Note: Unlike most tier Xs, you have to grind out the top gun on the Bat Chat!

Rating: 7/10

The Bat Chat is an elegant weapon for a more civilized age. It is not the best tier X scout it once was, but its combination of firepower and mobility is still potent. The tier IX, unfortunately, struggles to live up to the playstyle of the tier X owing to several crippling weaknesses.

If I could make a change to this line, I’d buff the gun handling and accuracy a bit on both and give the tier IX reasonable engine health, view range, and a better premium round. I’d also love to see the option to mount autoloaders of varying size (e.g. a 3 shot autoloader version or something like that).

What do you think about the Bats?
Would you make any changes to the line?
Do you have any particularly fond memories in a Bat Chat?

Previous Tech Tree Tuesdays