A lot of good players say that the Chieftain is hard to play. In today's video, Skill4LTU said that "in order to play well with chieftain, you must know what you are doing" and that if the Chieftain was a tech tree tank, then it would probably have lower expectation values than the Super Conqueror. Why is this? I do not have a Chieftain, and I do not understand.
Firstly, let us compare how they typically perform on the battlefield. Looking at overall win rates or MoE values isn't too valuable for this: you have to play clan wars to get the Chieftain, while anyone can get the Super Conqueror (yes, some people presumably paid people to get their Chieftains or got carried to one by a good clan or played a few battles and bought one in a bond auction, but the average Chieftain player is probably better than the average WOT player). Because of this, we will look at tank curves to see how players of various skill levels tend to perform in both tanks.
Here is the win rate curve for the Super Conqueror in January:
The blue line shows the "expected values", with a player who wins 50% of their games overall winning 50% of their games in the particular tank. The black line shows how often players of each skill level win games in the super conqueror, overall. The purple line is the same, but only for the month of January.
As you can see, the Super Conqueror tends to slightly lower win rates for players with win rates less than 52% (maybe bad at positioning?) and for players with win rates greater than 60% (slow speed holds them back?). It raises win rates slightly for players between those skill levels. Overall, it seems fairly balanced.
Here is the win rate curve for the Chieftain in January:
As you can see, the T95 FV4201/Chieftain tends to raise the win rates of all players who play it, by 2-4%. On average, no matter how good or bad you are, playing the chieftain will probably make you win more games. I'm sure there are cases where the tank does not fit someone's play style or causes people to be overconfident, but in general, it seems to be extremely powerful.
Now moving on to an analysis of the stats of the tanks.
The Super Conqueror has a better UFP. However, neither is going to bounce much on flat ground, both have basically impenetrable UFPs when using all their gun depression, and neither is really a flat ground brawler.
The Chieftain is way faster. With food, BIA, the first field mod, and the off-road driving skill, the Chieftain with no turbo has an effective top speed on medium terrain (the most common type) of 46. The Super Conqueror with the same stuff and a turbo has an effective top speed of just 39.3. In the hands of a good player, the Chieftain's superior speed will enable flexing, falling back, flanking, chasing endgame damage, etc. In the hands of someone who just drives to the heavy flank and sits hull down, the speed will increase your chances of getting into position before a Kranvagn arrives and clips you while you are not yet in cover. Being decently fast is basically a benefit to players of all skill levels, and 46 kph really isn't enough speed to get into that much trouble.
The Super Conqueror has slightly better gun handling, but because it has worse speed, it basically has to take a turbocharger, and so the Chieftain effectively has an extra equipment slot compared to it. The Chieftain can take a turbo as well (and be even faster), or sacrifice it to take, say, VStabs, in which case the gun handling will be comparable, and it will remain faster.
The Super Conqueror has slightly better DPM (about 9.7% better), and the Chieftain has 10% better alpha. For most players, the alpha will be better (maybe DPM is better for good players).
The Chieftain has better HE shells. Both have above-average HE pen, but the Chieftain has 140mm instead of 120mm, which improves the reliability somewhat (allows you to do huge damage to soft targets more reliably).
Finally, the Chieftain has a stronger turret.
Both the Super Conqueror and Chieftain have a cupola which is visible on flat ground and hidden when using gun depression. The Chieftain's cupola is weaker (can be penetrated with standard rounds) while the Super Conqueror's cupola requires HEAT. However, most people are shooting gold in cupola sniping hulldown fights at tier 10, and the Super Conqueror's cupola is much bigger (I think 3 times wider and 2 times taller). Also, it is centrally mounted, so it does not move around as much when you turn the turret and is easier to hit. So, in a flat ground hull down fight, the Chieftain is vastly superior. Kranvagns and whatever other tanks with HEAT can often bully a Super Conqueror which is hull down behind rubble by spamming HEAT at its large cupola while it has a hard time hitting their smaller cupolas, but they will have a much harder time dealing with a Chieftain on flat ground.
The Super Conqueror's turret also has other weak spots. Here is a super conqueror on flat ground to 340 HEAT (fairly common at tier 10).
Not even counting the Cupola, you can penetrate the tank in the area between the mantlet and the shield, and in the turret ring (I hear that the mantlet is also pennable, but I have not personally noticed anyone other than tier 10 TDs firing gold penetrating me there).
Here is the Chieftain on flat ground against 340 HEAT:
As you can see, the turret is much stronger. There are patches of yellow, but they are smaller, and there is no green outside the cupola.
Now, here is the Super Conqueror using all of its gun depression:
The cupola is now hidden, but the area around the mantlet and the turret ring are still pennable.
Now, here is the Chieftain using all of its gun depression:
The area under the gun becomes a weak spot, but it is smaller than the corresponding area for the Super Conqueror, and the gun blocks a lot of shots headed in that direction.
Now, let us look at both turrets at an angle. You cannot always keep all enemies directly in front of you, so this is also somewhat important.
First, the Sconq:
The spaced armor makes it difficult to see, but against 340 HEAT, the turret side is pretty much all 290–310 mm thick. It may block standard rounds, but it is not reliable against gold.
Second, the Chieftain:
Parts of the side are penable with gold rounds, but much of the turret remains red. Even if someone catches your turret at an angle for a second, going through is not going to be trivial.
I'm not saying that the SConq turret is weak. If you don't sit still in one place and let people fully aim at you, it is fairly hard to penetrate, even with gold. But in pretty much every situation, the Chieftain's turret looks tougher.
One thing people say about the Chieftain is that it gets focused. People will yolo you, and artillery will click on you whenever possible. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Getting people to throw away their whole tank to shoot you a few times might increase your chances of winning the game. With the artillery nerfs, they do less damage and are less common, so artillery focus isn't as horrible as it used to be (though it still isn't fun). And if you aren't an amazing player, getting the enemies to focus you instead of, say, an anonymous unicum in a less threatening tank could be very beneficial.
So, all in all, why is the Chieftain hard to play? It seems like a Super Conqueror with the biggest weakness (poor speed) removed and its greatest strength (hull-down capability) improved. The win rate curves bear this out, with the Super Conqueror hurting or minimally helping most players' win rates and the Chieftain massively raising most people's win rates. Sure, the Chieftain is harder to mark, and using it to its full potential is difficult. But it seems to be both more forgiving and more able to benefit from increased skill. Even if you just brainlessly go to the heavy flank and fight hull down, the Chieftain is fairly good, and if you use the speed to relocate as needed and make all sorts of brilliant plays, it will be amazing.
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