Lert's favorite tank, the KV-2; a guide

Lert: "Every 20 seconds something has to die. Sometimes, it's me."   This is my KV-2:     So named because it's the 2nd design in the series of WWII era russian tanks named after famed military officer and politician Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov. The KV-2 was built alongside the KV-1 as a heavy assault tank to destroy bunkers and fortifications. Being much taller and heavier than the KV-2 meant it was also slower and less agile than the already slow and cumbersome KV-1. One of the game's epic medals was named after a famous battle where a single KV-2 held off the whole of germany's 6th panzer division, blorping them with its howitzer for a day until the germans could bring in a towed 88mm gun. After finally killing the KV-2, the germans buried the russian crew with military honors. This was the battle of Raseiniai, and the in-game medal for killing 14 tanks in a single battle was named after it. In 40k games I've never gotten this medal even once.   Only a few hundred KV-2's were made, and AFAIK only one still exists to this day:   KV-2 in the Moscow Museum of the Armed Forces. Note how he doesn't even have any marks of excellence on his barrel, the skreb.   In-game, the KV-2 is a tier 6 heavy tank for the russian, boasting the following stats:     Let's look at these one by one, shall we?   Hitpoints: 860. Not bad. On par with the other tier 6 heavies in the game. Weight: 53.7 tons. Yeah she's a big, chunky girl. Quite a solid slab of steel rolling around there, you're not going to get pushed aside any time soon ... Engine power: 600 hp. ... but you're not going to do much pushing aside either. 600 hp for a 53 ton tank isn't very good, and that shows in its mobility. Top speed: 35 kph. Actually not terrible. In a straight line over pavement the KV-2 isn't actually that slow. But that speed melts like snow in an oven when you do anything else than drive in a straight line over pavement. Traverse speed: 18 d/s. The hull traverse is terrible. No other way to describe it. She turns like a fat drunken girl with a broken leg. Hull armor: 75/75/70. Same armor as the tier 5 KV-1, but a tier higher. It's not very good and will only bounce shots from lower tier tanks or when RNG smiles upon you. Turret armor: 75/75/70. Same armor as the hull, but worse because it's so flat. Shell damage: 700/700/910. Now we're talking! This is tier 10 E-100 level of damage output! Shell penetration: 110/136/86 (AP/AP+/HE) ... without the pen to go with it. ROF: 2.5 rpm. ... Or the rate of fire. Reload time: 19.81 seconds. That's with a mighty crew, vents and gun rammer. When you just buy KV-2 for the first time and slap a fresh crew in, expect 25+ seconds. Turret traverse: 16 d/s.Terrible. View range: 330 meters. Yeah, you're not going to spot anything with your eyes. Signal range: 440 meters. Wait, does anyone actually care about this?   What about my equipment and ammunition loadout?     Vents, rammer and gun laying drive. There is IMO no alternate build for this tank. You want to maximize your crew performance and gun handling as much as possible, since the tank is all about the gun and the gun depends entirely on the crew.   In my KV-2 I carry 0 normal AP rounds, 10 AP+ premium rounds and 26 HE rounds.   The normal AP rounds I don't even bother with. 110 pen is just not good for a gun as inaccurate as KV-2's, with a .6 dispersion and 4 second aim time.   You might think that if 110 isn't good enough then 136 on the premium AP+ wouldn't be either, but you'd actually be surprised at how much of a difference it makes.   But the mainstay of my loadout is the 26 HE shells. The AP+ is very situational and I will explain below, but the HE very reliably does a very unreliable amount of damage, based on the mechanics discussed here.   Finally small repair, small medkit and small fire extinguisher. That's basically my standard loadout for any tank outside of clan wars. One might argue food instead of fire extinguisher to maximize crew performance, but personally I just keep it like this.   What about my crew?     Brothers in arms: Get that crew performing the best they can, just short of using food consumable. Repairs: You're a slow, fat heavy. You need repairs. This is non-negotiable. Camouflage: Wait, what? Yeah. Camouflage. Don't knock it. It doesn't help a fatty like KV-2 much, but it does help, and there's nothing funnier than popping a tank that didn't even know you were there. In hindsight though, were I to respec my crew I'd take the individual skills before camouflage. Sixth sense: Useful on any tank. In KV-2 I use this to scout with. Slowly rolling up a flank until I get lit, then I know someone is there. Mentor: ... Eh, why not. Bonus XP to the rest of the crew. Not a priority TBH. Snap shot: Again, maximizing gun performance. I would pick this before camo were I to respec my crew. Off-road driving: I took this one over smooth ride to try and eke a little bit of additional mobility out of the fat girl. One might argue smooth ride is an equally viable choice though. Signal boosting: 440m radiorange is just atrocious at the tier. Situational awareness: ... as is 330m viewrange. Safe stowage: Eh, why not. Getting racked is very rare on a KV-2, but better safe than sorry, right? Firefighting: Burning is pretty rare too, so this is not really a priority skill to have.   Many tanks even at tier 6 you can get away with dropping a fresh 75% crew in and still get reasonable performance. Not so with KV-2. It's too slow, has too much ground resistance, is too blind and has too terrible gun handling to really be viable with anything less than a 100%+ crew. I'd even go so far as saying that you need at least 6th sense on top of your 100%+ crew to make the KV-2 playable to any standard.   "To any standard"? And what standard is that, Lert? Why should we listen to what you have to say about KV-2? You're just an average player, nothing special.     True. I'm just an average player who knows more about the game mechanics and less about the meta, except that KV-2 is not a meta tank. However, I have almost 2600 battles in KV-2 as of this post, it is my only tank with two marks of excellence and one of the few in which I average more than my own hitpoints in damage done. Despite its low xTE of 49, it is one of my highest performing tanks, despite being a terrible fit in the mobility-and-viewrange meta. Take this as you will. Take my hints and tips as just that, hints and tips. I am not a great player. Just someone who enjoys blooping people in the face and has nearly 2600 battles worth of experience doing just that.   Still here? Good.   So, what about the tank's playstyle?   Think of yourself as a TD rather than a heavy. An autoloading TD that fires it's entire clip in one glorious shot. You don't have the armor and you don't have the sustained DPM to push or hold flanks on your own. You are not a knife that stabs over and over and over again or a sniper rifle that hits that particular rivet right above the third road wheel from the left at 400 meters. You are a sledgehammer that mauls its target with savage - ... savagery.   You might be tempted to put the 107 on, since it has better gun handling on the KV-2 than on its more workhorse sister, the T-150, but IMO if you want to run the 107, run the T-150 instead. It's just a better all round platform than KV-2 is, despite having slightly worse gun handling on the 107. For KV-2 though, the 152mm M-10 howitzer is the entire raison d'etre. It's that alpha damage, man. It's just - ... addictive.   Any general playstyle tips?   Yeah. People know you have a long reload. Keep that in mind. Make your move when you have hard cover to fall back behind. You are the king of trading shots, but after trading that shot you have to be able to deny your opponent shots at you until you are ready to savagely blap him in the face again. Try to make use of your pubbies so that they can cover your reload. You're a sledgehammer, but you need to do your best to be an opportunistic one.   Play the corners. Especially in city maps. Always pre-aim your gun in the direction the enemy will be; your reticle blooms less from driving in a straight line than it does from turning the turret. Don't pop out at full tilt, but use your 'R' button once - this eases you out, keeping your reticle small, and usually still gives you enough time to get your derp on before the enemy can good and well react. And, as with any flat brick, mind your angles.   In pubs:   If you're top tier, you can be much more aggressive. Especially on city maps, where you are King. Push that flank, lead your team to victory. But always keep in mind that you have a very long reload. See the above general tip. Depending on what you're facing, you might want to start with an AP or AP+ shell loaded. Especially since the current meta seems to favor mobility and vision above all else, so everyone is driving fast and deliciously soft tanks. An AP+ shell is basically a guaranteed pen on a Cromwell, T37, Hellcat and similar, and with the amount of alpha your shells have, they are usually left either severely crippled or a smouldering wreck after your one shot.   When you're not top tier, you have to be a lot more careful. Play second line. Load HE from the start, especially when you're going up against heavies. Be opportunistic, blap people in the face and back up behind your hard cover when they're reloading their own guns. Even when your HE doesn't penetrate, it will ring the crew's collective bells and knock out modules left, right and center. It's more unusual to damage 0 modules with one HE shell than it is to damage 3. KV-2 is the king of farming 'bruiser' medals. But even if you're in a tier 8 match, everyone will still respect you. Not even a KV-4 enjoys being smacked by a shell of great explodulatink carrying 20 pounds of high explosive compound. Because that's how much KV-2's HE shell historically did.   In stronks / tier 6 CW:   Even in the mobility meta, I believe the KV-2 still has a place in stronks and tier 6 CW. Especially on city maps. Bring one and have the rest of the team be Cromwells, Jumbo's, T37's and the like. Since you know you'll only be facing tier 6 tanks and KV-2 does massive amounts of damage with usable AP+ pen, a KV-2 can put serious damage onto any team you might face. Especially if the team deploys so that the KV-2 knows his reload covered, by denying the enemy team access to the KV-2 while he reloads. And then while your team is busy pecking at the enemy team's health, you can just casually round a corner and reliably make that full health enemy Cromwell just - ...     This is how we do it in RELSH, and it's working pretty well so far. We've beaten purple teams with this strat and lost to red and yellow teams with this strat. But whatever the result of the battle, much fun was had and there was much giggling on teamspeak.   Final thoughts:   That last sentence actually really sums it up. KV-2 is not a flexible tank. It's not a carrying tank. It's not a meta tank. It is, perhaps, not even a very good tank. But it is a fun tank. And everyone seems to be in agreement on that. Even your victims.   When someone gets killed by arty, there is usually much screaming and yelling. 'Filthy player, go play a real tank', 'uninstall arty noob', etc. When someone gets killed by a camo'd TD, there is often also much screaming and yelling. 'Noob invisitank bullcrap', 'hacker', etc. But when someone gets blooped by a KV-2, their response is usually a combination of 'I guess this is my life now' and 'Nice shot, you *grumble grumble*'.   So ... KV-2 ...   She might not be a looker, she might be fat, clumsy and dimwitted, but she really does have a great personality once you get to know her and I wouldn't trade her for the world.