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| The Premium tier VII Hybrid Heavy Tank, Lupus |
Now then, here's another one of WarGaming's Premium Tanks. Its the Tier VII Heavy Tank, the Lupus. First impressions do matter, and as far as the Lupus goes, it sure does leave a good one. Almost every single Armour plate is angled back at a decent degree. The tracks are gigantic, and the gun barrel is long. Appearances aside, lets see how this fantasy tank really performs on paper.
Firstly, the hull of the tank. Seeing as this is a Heavy Tank, you'd be expecting, and needing, some thick Armour to break through the enemy lines. I'm happy to conclude that, for once, your expectations have actually been exceeded! This tank has got 100/80/80 mm of Armour. The 100mm up front definitely doesn't seem like much, though coupled with the Armour angling you're looking at something of the likes of 140-155 mm for the lower glaces Armour and a range of 180-195 mm for the upper glaces Armour. At its Tier, having that kind of protection at the front means you are Soviet-proof as what i like to call it, seeing as a big majority of Tier VI & VII Soviet tanks run the 122mm Gun that only carries 175mm of penetration. You're also practically immune to all Tier VI fire, excluding HE spam and the occasional Tank Destroyer. Against Tier VIII's however, tanking shots out in the open is too much for the Lupus to chew. With many tanks at Tier VIII sporting 210mm and above penetration, you'll see many going right through your tank.
Moving on to the side Armour, it really can't be taken lightly like how you would for a majority of other tanks, the Lupus comes armed with 80mm of side Armour, that's only 20 lesser than your front. What this means is that side-scraping is the way to go when working down a corner. According to the Calibre Rule, a shell would have to be fired from a gun of calibre that is three times the base thickness of the Armour plating that is angled 30 degrees and lower. In Layman terms, you'd have to have a 240mm calibre gun in order to over-match a side-scraped Lupus. The highest calibre gun that exists in WoTB is 183mm which belongs to the British Tier X TD the Fv 215B(183). Yup, not even close to whats needed to render the Lupus' side Armour obsolete. Even if you make the rookie mistake of over-angling your tank, you'd still stand a fair chance of bouncing a shell or two thanks to your tracks. The Lupus has tracks that are comparably similar to that of the T110E5, Tier X American Heavy Tank! They're huge!
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| As seen from a 175mm Penetration Gun on a angled Lupus |
Moving on to the other segment of Armour, the Turret. Now, this is where the Lupus seems to drop off a bit. I use the word 'Seem' as it can be seen from different perspectives. One could say that the massive 'coaxial machine gun' above the gun is the deciding factor. Then again one could argue that the gun mantlet occupies practically the entirety of the frontal turret, allowing for the gun to soak up the damage rather than your tank. In essence, both are true, but I'll just deliver the stats and let you pick a side. For this turret its a 130/45/45 mm arrangement. meaning there's an atrociously big gap in thickness between the front and sides. This however is helped by the fact that the sides have the same shape as that of an IS-3's Turret. Decently curved though not curved enough to protect it from Tier VI fire. Yes, the sides when approached angled is an easy target for anything with more than 90mm of Penetration, essentially all Tier VI tanks and above. The same can't be said for the front however. As you can see from the picture above the frontal turret Armour is relatively thick all with the exception of the turret cheeks which pose as a frontal weakness for this tank. Do also take note that the machine gun is part of the hit box and will kill your gunner if shot at. The tank also has a third weakness that being the cupola at the back of the turret that poses as a minor issue when compared to the massive, inviting target that the machine gun is.
The rest of the tank is fairly standard for Heavy Tanks of this meta. Starting off with the gun, the Lupus is armed with a 120mm calibre gun which dishes out 4.04 rounds per minute and packs 175mm penetration, 400hp dmg AP rounds along with 217mm, 340hp dmg APCR rounds. Coupled with the 0.43m dispersion values the gun does seem very much of Soviet blood. It does also come with 10 degree depression which doesn't really enable this tank to fight hill crests as it will get pummelled by shots going into its weak turret. The mobile aspect of this tank is actually relatively well sculpted. With a 720HP engine and weighing only 52.44 tonnes the Lupus can cough up some decent engine power, put this together with the 23.99s traverse speed of the tracks, you'll amount with a pretty standard Heavy Tank. Camo values? I really don't know why people even consider this when evaluating a Heavy Tank. All you need to know is that its not good enough for you to kemp busch. No Heavy Tank is ever going to be fit for that role.
In conclusion, the tank's not too good and it definitely isn't too bad. Sure you may see success in it for a month after its release but players will grow and soon you'll realise that the tank becomes much like any other Heavy Tank, with its weak spots exploited. And now to address the million dollar question: "Is it worth the $25USD?" Well, seeing as you've probably spent more than that on the game, $25 can't really get you much in WoTB, so i'd rather you spent it on a slightly above standard Tier VII Premium Tank than on a few thousand Free XP. Who knows, WarGaming may just give it a buff.