You must be playing an entirely different game than I am, because the VK 4502 A and the King Tiger are competing hard for the title of "worst Tier 8 Heavies" with a gusto not seen anywhere else in the game. The King Tiger's armor is some of the most easily penetrated armor in the entire tier, and the VK A is similarly competing. The biggest difference is that the VK A trades a gun approaching decent for a higher top speed and better engine. It's the fastest German Heavy, yes, but it's also got worse or equivalent guns than any other German Heavy, including the ones below it, and the armor isn't that great, either. Saying it's similar to the KT isn't doing it any favors.
Nah. The KT has really reliably armor and easily the best gun all around at tier 8. When I was top tier, I had no issues deflecting shots off of my front with proper angling and cover usage.
The VK4501 is basically a German IS-3 with less pen and alpha damage on that gun, but its gun has better soft and hard stats otherwise. It's definitely more versatile than the IS-3, same as the KT, and can roll with mediums like an IS-3 can.
The E-75 is stellar, to be sure, but the VK P is a slug, and the rear mounted turret means that actually getting a decent position with it is significantly more difficult than it needs to be. The armor is worse than the E-75, the gun is the same as the E-75, the E-75 gets a 50% more powerful engine, and they have the same top speed but the E-75 is still more maneuverable. And, again, the rear mounted turret, which just makes it harder to use effectively. The VK P is not a good tank, and if you can somehow find a way to call it that, you're somehow managing to ignore how it's worse in every single way except health, which it only wins by 20 out of almost 2000, compared to the other Tier 9 Heavy tank in the same tech tree.
The VK4501P is a fine tank, it's just different. It isn't used to round corners like most other heavies are, you have to play it in a certain way. You can't expect one tank to play like another in World of Tanks, to use each tank, and to use it well, you need to adapt to it! It's called reverse angling. Hiding your front and showing a steep angle of your side that is basically autobounce, which the turret location allows for and makes easy. You just can't reverse angle in the E-75 like you can the VK.
The Tigers are alright, to be sure, but I still wouldn't call them one of the better Tier 7 Heavies. The T29 outguns the Tiger significantly with a much better turret and only slightly lesser maneuverability, and the KV-3 is the best Tier 7 in the game, although the IS still sucks (but is faster with a better gun than the Tigers) and the M4 45 isn't much better. The Tiger H and Tiger P are middle of the pack. They win the health battle, but the regular Tiger loses the armor battle to everything but the French, including the IS (which is sad), and the Tiger P loses the maneuverability battle to everything but the KV-3. Honestly, the loss of maneuverability between the Tiger H and Tiger P isn't that much, but it's noticeable. The higher top speed helps balance it out on longer trips, because it's actually possible to hit the top speed on level ground with a good crew, but in short sprints the Tiger H wins. Against other T7 heavies, the Long 88s aren't really much better, and are in some cases significantly worse than opposing Tier 7 armaments, most notably the 122 mm deathsticks on the IS and KV-3, which can pump out nearly 60% more alpha, which is not insignificant in most heavy tank fights.
Actually, the turret on the T29 has more frontal armor, similarly weak side and rear armor on its turret, but it has a bigger turret weakspot from the front and a much larger turret in general. The gun has more alpha, but similar DPM due to the RoF difference, the gun is also less accurate, has less penetration, but similar soft stats (being accuracy on the move and such). The Tiger's gun wins out on being cheap to reammo as well.
The KV-3 is awful bro. Similar armor to the IS-2, worse maneuverability, worse speed, and a horrible gun! The IS is already awful, with low health, low accuracy, low pen, and no armor (everything at tier 7 pens everything else at tier 7 other than the Tiger P). The KV-3 may have more health, but it certainly doesn't justify having the same gun on a similarly (un)armored chassis, with less speed and maneuverability, and more fire problems (shoot a KV-3 on the rear-side and it catches on fire, bro)
Trust me, the maneuverability difference between the Tiger H and P can mean the difference between life or death. The Tiger is almost unable to be circled by a smaller tank, the Tiger P is too slow to keep up.
About the guns, let's have a look at the stats.
8,8 cm KwK 43 L/71
240 average damage
203 average penetration
.34 accuracy
7 rounds per minute2.9 second aimtime
-6/+17 gun depression (downwards/upwards)
105 mm Gun T5E1
320 average damage
198 average penetration
.42 accuracy
5.25 rounds per minute
2.3 aimtime
-10/+25 gun depression122 mm D-25T
390 average damage175 penetration
.46 average accuracy
4.86 rounds per minute
3.43 aimtime
-6/+25 gun depression
The IS' gun, whille having the most alpha, pays for it in absolutely
awful aimtime, penetration, shell cost (over 1000, couldn't find the numbers for this tank specifically, but it should be the same as my IS-3) and accuracy, as well as a slower reload time than the others. The Tiger has low alpha damage, but the highest rate of fire, penetration, accuracy, cheapest ammo, and middle ground aimtime. The T29's gun is a good inbetween, it is balanced between alpha and rate of fire. None are really inherently better, while I prefer the long 88 as I prefer faster-firing weapons which makes a bounce or miss less painful, and the accuracy etc, it all depends on your playstyle.
I'd agree that 240 damage would be insignificant if it didn't have the high rate of fire to counterbalance that, which it
does.
Looking at the Tier 10s, the Maus is the slowest tank in the higher tiers, bar none. It's also very nearly out-armored by half of the other Tier 10 Heavies. Both the IS-4 and IS-7 have better turret armor, and the T-110E5 has higher hull armor. The E-100 even wins the front turret and hull contest. The only places the Maus really wins are in the side and rear turret categories, and those are 210 mm of light slope (about 220 mm effective), so just about anything Tier 8 or higher can go right through it. The actual sides and rear are damn near flat, and anything Tier 7 or higher can go through those. The Maus also has this little hatch on the back of the turret that you can actually pen with a Pz IV easily. And then there's the part where it's, you know, the single slowest high tier tank in the game in every way except rate of fire. Fun fact: if you use the E-100, you get a higher rate of fire with the Maus's gun than the Maus does, so it doesn't even have that. It does have the highest health going for it though, can't deny that.
The E-100 gets a bigger gun with a higher alpha in exchange for much weaker side and rear armor, but is also faster and more maneuverable. And 500 health weaker. If the Maus manages to compare favorably with it, then there's not much more I think I need to say.
tl;dr No, German heavies suck and need some loving.
The Maus is slow because it, actually yes, has armor. You have to angle it carefully, including the turret between shots, at around a 25-30 degree angle, and you can do the before-mentioned reverse angling trick with it. When it does this, though, it is a nearly impenetrable beast. It also has better turret roof armor (but not in the other directions aside from rear turret compared to the IS-4/7) so that stuff like a S-51 hitting an IS-7's turret roof doesn't take off 2000 damage (which WILL happen) on a Maus like it will the IS-7/4. The T110's hull armor isn't better other than the hull nose, the lower plate is weaker, and there's also the large cupola on the T110's turret. The T110's weak side armor, being around 50 mm thick, makes it so it cannot angle either.
About the side and rear turret effectiveness for the Maus;, due to the height, most tanks have to shoot up at the turret, which means that side and rear turret get more of an angle due to the angle of impact from the enemy's shell from looking up at it, increasing the effectiveness. The Maus has some spaced armor on bits of the sides, so there's only a few bits that the Tiger and maybe T29 can go through. Same as every tier 10 heavy bro, especially things like the IS-4, T110, and IS-7. Also the Maus may be slow, but it has better acceleration than even the IS-7. That's a funfact.
The E-100 also has spaced armor on it side. The IS-4 doesn't, it has that one, slightly sloped 160mm thick strip of armor above the tracks, and the armor behind the tracks is a whopping
120mm thick. The IS-4's frontal armor layout makes angling extremely difficult, and the ammoracks are in vulnerable locations. The IS-7 has some good frontal armor plates and turret armor. And a strip of spaced armor on the side (the flat bit is the only bit of spaced armor). That's it. The side armor behind the tracks is 110mm thick. The rear is only 90 mm thick at a slope unable to bounce anything at that tier, the side and rear turret armor is weak, and the rear turret can be shot to ammorack it easily. The front's armor layout makes angling the tank IMPOSSIBLE unless hiding behind cover. If you angle the tank out of cover, the upper plate facing them becomes absurdly weak, and the ammoracks on the IS-7 are located behind the front armor's headlights.
The lower plate on the IS-7 can be penetrated by tier 8 guns (it's around 212 mm effective), and due to the shape, is roughly one half of the front.
tl;dr, you're silly and saying that German tanks suck because you haven't done your homework/can't adjust to the playstyle/etc.
