STA-1 +Japanese Tier 8+ medium advice plz

Draschel: play sta-1 as a TD too? It works reasonably well there.I mean, it has 219 AP pen, and a heck tonne of pen in 275mm HEAT. Nice DPM too sta-1 is poorly protected. The armor is amongst worst for tier 8 mediums, so much so that it is extremely vulnerable to even HE shells. su100 and su12244 have a reasonable chance to penetrate sta-1 and 2, frontally with their 60-odd HE pen, nevermind high HE pen users like EB75, excalibur, setter, and senlac. Artillery with alternate HE shells and higher pen, are extremely dangerous too.