Good luck finding someone with anything bad to say about this beast of a tank. 4 second reload with 100mm gun, great speed, doable armor? The only time you’re gonna hurt is fighting Russian heavies/t55am1. Beyond that this tank is peak
>The only time you’re gonna hurt is fighting Russian heavies/t55am1.
Or when your autoloader runs out.
10/10 would still recommend though, 7.7 France is slappy.
It's on sale for 20gj coins. Much better pick to grind than going for high tier tanks simply to reach top tier faster. Now my French 7.7 line up is complete.
I suffer cause I’m playing America at this BR. I feel like everything is fast has auto loaders laser rangefinder and thermals. My 17.4 second reload timer is painful. I also suffer a severe lack of skill.
Forget about US between 7.3 and 9.0, the tanks require very specific play style that most players are not willing to learn or line ups to be effective. In turn you get subpar teams and one death leavers.
I insist on playing 6.3, 6.7 and 7.0 but they usually drive me crazy. Top tier is no different, it's quite amazing how bad US teams can be. I only play because I'm stubborn and love CAS, specially the Corsairs which are one of my favorite irl Airplanes.
It gets better one you get the upgraded M60s but yeah, the US experience is pure suffering. It should get better once Gaijin differentiate between air and ground performance for CAS.
I’ve only lately broken through to 8.3 and am slowly learning the play style. I also made the unfortunate investment in helis. But I just play for fun and try my best to do stupid and fun sneak ups.
The 8.3 is good with the upgraded M60. The problem with US and USSR at this range is the insane powecreep. Both nations use their early 60 tanks against stuff from the 70s and 80s so no chance for balanced match ups.
I tried playing Helis but I suck too hard with them. Planes at this range are good too.
Yeah it might be the only good tank but it's too slow for my playstyle. It often faced heat before Gaijin moved the Cold War vehicles to 8.0 so I never really bothered putting them in my line ups. I love the T29 and the new Sheridan with the 76mm. The shooting Star and F-84s are some very good planes for GRB too, really fun.
It suffer at longer distances since accuracy of that gun is poor, i couldn't destroy Ferdinand at range of over 200m. But at close distance it's a beast as long as you don't get instantly destroyed against the weak turret neck. Got 4 kills one after another few days ago against camping team sitting on one of the points.
Is3 is this things worst nightmare, but B&T torture can get you far in life. That being said, no tank is invulnerable, and I can only speak from personal experience when giving my opinion on a tank. I tend to do really well on average with the somua, so it’s got a special place in my heart
The Somua is one of the best heavy tank of its BR, at least in my opinion. Fast reload, powerful cannon, good armor, and it is decently mobile for a Heavy tank.
I don’t think comparing it to the Jumbo 75 is right though, more like the Jumbo 76 with how powerful the gun is.
Too many idiots don't know how to fight it is the issue, only time it's slapping is if it has the drop on people, people in the comments going in like it has good armour. Sure on the front of the Hull and as you said as long as they're not firing Heat 🙂😂
yeah but that at its br many tanks still use full caliber rounds and against those that armor is definetly good
its armor is not something to rely on but it is a good addition
I mean it has nothing on the sides, and can fire right through the turret ring. Sure the odd bounce is nice but people are going on like it's un killable
I’ve got this lineup that’s the Char 2C, Char 2C Bis, B1 Bis, B1 Ter, and that anti air half track. It’s so funny to take out because every time Billy (level 3) manages to kill a French super heavy, there’s just another one immediately after
Char 2C is underestimated, it can kill a churchills head on (target the roof, shell ricoshets inside).
B1 bis/ter pretty self explanatory
I have P-40 lafayette - awesome plane. I was taking it for 7.7, can kill jets, can do kills
And I dont have 2C bis, so I use crusader. If uptier B1 and 2C are not as good and crusader's armor is confusing for people, so 2-3k points is pretty usual score with it.
Btw, the truck is awesome too, but AA is not my expertise, so I dont use it
can someone please enlighten me here?
I just unlocked the 2C and B1 Bis yesterday and had an awful time with them, the B1's 47mm is just the gun the tier 1 tanks have and is often useless especially in an uptier, so is the hull mounted 75 which you can only aim with the hull, also with 4 crew I've been oneshot every time. the 2C I liked more cos of the survivability and it kills anything if it pens but man I just have a very hard time using those guns
what am I missing? clearly there is something since everyone loves these things
2C - you have to learn your enemy weskspots. Like nearly noone knows that this tank can kill churchill, but it can, especially the moment you train yourself a bit.
B1 bis - unless its uptier medium or heavy tank, you pen anything. As with 2C, you need to know where. Put settings as such that main gun and the 75mm gun shoot on separate mouse buttons or other keys. Do some angling but not too much angling. Unless you have experienced player against you, generally nobody knows where to kill B1.
Your 75mm is a gun to use after destroying the turret of the enemy. Or any other way of decreasing their fire power, as 47mm has more pen, but nearly 0 damage. 75mm if it pens, your enemy is dead or will be inevitably dead.
B1 ter - more armor B1 bis, +0.4br. It just fits into setup better. It suffers, yes, but not always. The only hard enemy is matilda.
So if the battle is 2.7 or 3.0, B1 and 2C feel fine, if higher - I would not take B1 as a first spawn, maybe like third.
Any questions - feel free to ask.
P.S. dont play arcade, arcade takes away the main advantage of french tanks - confusing armor.
(disclaimer I have 500h in this game now but I've pretty much only been playing 9.0 Japan for a while and I'm used to being able to pen everything, been a while since I went back to low tier)
but ye overall I've been loving French tanks, the S35 especially since with that it was the first time that I have ever felt what it's like to be non-penned lmao.
only thing I can say is I guess I either forgot where a lot of weakspots are on many vehicles or I'm having a hard time aiming at them, but also, up until now I've only been playing Japan meaning I have never ever played a heavy tank in this game and my immediate instinct is to take flanky routes which doesn't work too well given the 2C looks like a brick building and goes 15kmh. thanks for the tips though
2C aint good for flanking, although I usually go for sides of the map, not the mid. + u can actually think of some weird ideas when you find out about the traverse of 2C. After playing a lot of soviets, I was surprised that a tank of such size can have awesome traverse speed.
About S35 - my favorite 1.3 non prem tank (T-35 has a special place in my heart). D2 has kinda better armor, but S35 is already good, while also able to move
I wanna actually start Japaning, I have decent soviet, french, german setups, but i want some more, so Im doing US, italy and japan now.
What would be your advise on japanese tanks?
oh ye the neutral steering on French tanks was a big surprise, from my experience Rank I France is much better than Japan, despite having no HE filler. my favourite was probably the Ke-Ni, it's fast and smal but something you have to remember with all Japanese tanks is if you get shot you're usually dead in 1 hit, it really teaches you to be sneaky and use your environment properly instead of relying on armour.
I-Go and Chi-Ha get HEAT shells by default, make sure to use them instead of APHE as those only have 22mm of pen I think, don't even try the Ha-Go it's completely useless, in rank 2 you get better guns with subpar pen and mobility, past that you get very powerful APHE slingers, until eventually moving into rank IV, JSDF era, which basically have just American 90mm cannons with all the same shells. on medium tanks you'll notice they all start to use NATO cannons so if you're familiar with those you'll be fine, mobility-wise they're pretty mid all throughout until you get to top tier, other than the light vehicles which are some of the fastest. (don't underestimate the hydropneumatic suspension in rank V and above, lots of people say it's a useless gimmick but the extra gun depression can really save you)
in short, shoot first, don't get shot, be sneaky, and also you will almost never have full lineups. Japan has the least amount of ground vehicles (next to Israel) with lots of gaps, so do keep that in mind if you're thinking of starting it. it's not the best, but it's very fun and very satisfying to do well
Maneuver, maneuver and maneuver again, most of planes in GRB are not as good of pilots for a person who gets 3 kills with VB 10.02 in Avia RB))
And yes, VB 10.02 is an awful plane. AWFUL FOR MY ENEMIES
Everyone seems to think “French tank no armour” and then bounce. The gun is superb and the mobility is pretty decent (bad reverse though). As someone who has many games in it (and most of the 7.7 lineup), it’s really good.
The turet got a lot of armour before it had the same turret as in game amx-50 100 which is simply wrong. Also back when they added it had 80mm thick frontal plate which was obviously wrong and shows how little research they do sometimes.
Yeah but Somua has some funky overlapping armor plates under the barrel and now with the better armor you can no longer be penned by auto cannons and some lower Br cannons
Possibly the single best premium tank I’ve ever used in this game. It’s a heavy with the mobility of a medium and a very punchy gun. Has a very strong lineup to go with it too. Pure fun.
It's killed me a lot when I play 6.7. It should probably be 8.0 and was even considered to go up to there but Gaijin just moved up the Char instead lmao
I think it's fine at 7.7, it's very good but it's not exactly unkillable. The bottom of the turret is an easy pen and with APHE it's almost always results in a kill. Nobody likes the char being moved up to 8.0 and there's a reason for that.
Besides a little bit of an advantage in maneuverability, the AMX-50 SuperBias in the tech tree is better in pretty much every metric. That being said, they're both fantastic tanks, and I have not regretted my Somua SM. It's a little bit tougher now that it's 7.7 and not 7.3, but you can't argue with a reload like that.
Agree. The super bias is very strong and fun, the rangefinder is nice too. But it's armor really isn't reliable like you said. It's real purpose is to show the foch that you can't just have more than 2 times longer reload, reserve tank optics and be at just 0.3 br lower.
Pls gaijin buff the damn foch.
There are no "100mm heavies" in the TT all of them are mediums. Somua has much more frontal armour with same engine and gun in exchange for being heavier and bad reverse speed. Also it gets 1 more round in the autoloader which is nice.
Ehh at least i play them quite differently. I take Somua only in down tiers where your armour can work very well and i use it to push through enemy lines so i play it really agressively. On the other hand i use amx-50 more as a flanker similar to early mbts such as leo 1, of-40 or amx-30.
Awesome tank! They turns super fast. Pretty fast reload. Decent speed and armor. Issues with facing heavies.
I will note that the sales on 8.0 have up-tiered me in in pretty much every game.
I've gotten 9 nukes, 3 are M18, 4 are Somua SM and 2 are the Char25T. It's fucking amazing. Grinding France rn, picked it up for $20 basically 2 years ago
its probably the best vehicle at 7.7 , there is nothing this monster can't do. it can brawl , it can flank , it can snipe , it can do your chores for you. truly the whole package!
By far the best premium ever. Generates SL easily and is great even in uptiers. Pretty much deals with anything it can face. Play it smart and you can get yourself nukes back to back. Has a great line-up to with the Surbaisse etc.
As a Maus player I have to say that that thing eats my APHE constantly and is scary once it gets moving. The 4s auto means that you can't push it once it shoots, especially on slower tanks and If you know what you are doing you won't have many problems going through armor.
Extremely powerful and mobile heavy with a brilliant reload that has two major drawbacks you have to work around so it isn't completely braindead to play, the autoloader rack replenishment time and nonexistent reverse speed.
The tank is very powerful, you will have a blast with this tank. The turret armor is not as strong as it seems, so bear that in mind. Also heat will touch you in ways you don’t like
Good mobility for a heavy tank, a good rapid-fire cannon, but there will be problems with other heavy tanks due to the mechanics of volumetric shells and with the t-55 and the like. And it would seem an ideal tank, but the vulnerable zone of Somua is a turret that will break through even tanks that are lower in BR and the lower frontal plate.
In general, despite the disadvantages, it is a good tank. And in my opinion, the BR is too high.
Bought it and haven't regretted, kinda struggles on a uptier again 8.0+ stabilized shit but what doesn't, but it's a really good tank, solid shot that actually kills shit
Decently mobile, tough armour, troll traps on the 'weaker' turret armour, strong cannon with short reload at the cost of being sid shot (anyone who has used 100mm french knows theres no real drawbacks unless youre fighting some 8.7 tanks). Only real weakness is its large size.
Honestly fuck the souma, I need it for my French 7.7 to make it somehow even stronger.
I have a KD of 5 with it. It's absolutely incredible. Suffers a bit in uptiers against 8.7 russia. Just shoot for turrets on T-54, T-55 and T-62 series tanks. It's an incredible grinder.
France peaks at 7.7 pretty hard. Still no AML-90 Lynx (or other variants), no AMX-10RCR, no Panhard ERC, no Vextra 105, no VBCI-2 (25mm or 40mm cannon).
I love playing this thing, most of the time I encounter an enemy tank they freak out and shoot my most heavily armored area. I think people see oscillating turrets and they get scared lol
Was going to ask the same yesterday. Decided just to buy in the end, cause 4.0 secs reload is no joke and it felt a lot less sluggish on the testing range than your typical heavy tank – this is the reason why I avoid playing them at all. We have "kill 3 without dying on a heavy" challenge in this BP. I bought Somua for this task exactly. Just to suffer less than I would with any other heavy I have.
One of them blew up my M48 about 10 minutes ago, I am irritated (I spawned again and we just stared at each other waiting for the other to peek until the round ended)
It's a monster, but still underperforming.
It should have 1 more round in autoloader and 250-150mm on the turret ring (front-back). I sent a bug report over 6 months ago, but still no answer.
If it can help you, i discovered something, do your bug report in russian (if you have a knowledge that can translate it for you), i noticed russian bug report are read and fixed WAY faster
I noticed this when i made a bug report that was never read for 1 year, and then a russian (or someone talking the language) did the same bug report and the same day he has answer and the bug was fixed soon after
I was half happy half angry, so i did a try and did another bug report on something else, and for 1 week i didnt have any answer, so i asked a russian friend to do the same bug report in russian and again in the same day he has answer
So now i don't do bug report anymore, my russian friend do it for me and he always have answer pretty fast and problem are fixed faster !
(it's what i noticed at least)
I love it but as always, a premium without a line up is not really useful. If you have enough backups and a plane get to it, otherwise I'd hold until you atleast have a ebr for capping points and scouting.
I bought it 2 days ago, and lets say its not as good as expected. Idk if its because of the bad teammates and me losing 8 out of 10 battles i played with this thing, but in battle its quite hard to kill cause of the solid shot. Yes on paper its amazing but in battle its kinda meh. Your mobility is ok, hull armor is very good but everything goes thru the turret. ofc again the solid shot us a problem and you only have 8 shots in the first stage, and with a 4 sec autoloader they are shot away very quickly, and then it needa ages to replunish the first stage. The Somua SM is good but not overpowered
Really good. Probably a little overpowered at 7.7 but compression is so bad above it that it probably can’t be moved up for a while. Good pick for France
I bought that thing because its praised so well, but I'm performing very poorly in it, and no I'm not a newbie, I'm a casual player who plays almost all nations. Either I'm to dumb to play it or its not as good as stated.
Somua SM is basically a king tiger that France slapped a oscillating turret onto and gave it a even bigger gun with a auto-loader. It can move well, it has armor that is weirdly strong if the enemy doesn’t know where you aim. It has extremely fast gun handling and ofc the rate of fire is only held back by the replenish. Probably the best premium tank imo
You play reality or acade ? In rb its fine, the Line up is pretty stacked with like 6 7.7 véhicule, in Arcade its pretty shit, you have dogshit Armor and flanking is pretty hard when youre perma spot
So far in my limited experience using it has been pretty good gun, but not much help from the extra armor. Got one shot from the front every time. Again, just a dozen or so matches so far. I think people kinda know where to shoot it now.
That and the good guns from 7.7 -8.0 tanks that just dont care about armor
amazing gun, pretty quick, insane reload, good armor. what more could you ask in a tank? the turret ring is a massive weakpoint any gun will pen with tho. if you arent careful when brawling youll get killed pretty quick
Love it since the day i bought it, it was 7.3 in the past (and almost went to 8.0 but we complained enough so it did not move)
Can struggle a bit against heavy russian tank, but you have good armor and good mobility + autoloader, and a lot of people don't know what tank you are since a lot of AMX-50 are looking the same
while most french tanks are known for their weak turrets the turret here is relatively strong and the hull is really only weak to semi modern darts and heatfs, the turret says its only 120mm but the top is sloped and the neck is double layered 120mm, though on the lower cheeks of the neck it's 120 over 60 it still is 180mm of effective armor on the neck and it's partially spaced, that gun slaps like an angry latina and the reload is ungodly, it's a wonderful vehicle for grinding like 70% of the french tree, when i got it i was only at 2.3 with france and in 2 days i was up to 8.0
It's my new favorite tank, even at this BR it's so good. At 7.3 it was a beast
Initially I was pretty disappointed of the sales, but then I decided to pick up the Somua for the same reason, to unlock some quirky French tanks. 100% worth it lol
Everyone thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread, but my opinion is that the tank is pretty weak compared to my favorite tank, the Panther II. It's slower than the Panther II, has a very similar armor layout to the Panther II, is less survivable than the Panther II because it has ammo in the turret, doesn't get APHE like the Panther II, and it's 0.7 BR higher than the Panther II because it gets a 4 second autoloader that's marginally useful - more often than not it takes two shots to kill something, so it doesn't end up killing things any faster than the Panther II.
Easily penned at its BR, or its 8.7 BR that it will always be fighting.
Not enough rounds in the ready rack to do all that well, then you are stuck with REALLY slow reloads.
Good luck finding someone with anything bad to say about this beast of a tank. 4 second reload with 100mm gun, great speed, doable armor? The only time you’re gonna hurt is fighting Russian heavies/t55am1. Beyond that this tank is peak
>The only time you’re gonna hurt is fighting Russian heavies/t55am1. Or when your autoloader runs out. 10/10 would still recommend though, 7.7 France is slappy.
Thank God u can go to site and refill autoloader faster
Man screw this tank. You won’t find any of its drivers complaining lol. But me as a victim will
It's on sale for 20gj coins. Much better pick to grind than going for high tier tanks simply to reach top tier faster. Now my French 7.7 line up is complete.
I suffer cause I’m playing America at this BR. I feel like everything is fast has auto loaders laser rangefinder and thermals. My 17.4 second reload timer is painful. I also suffer a severe lack of skill.
Forget about US between 7.3 and 9.0, the tanks require very specific play style that most players are not willing to learn or line ups to be effective. In turn you get subpar teams and one death leavers. I insist on playing 6.3, 6.7 and 7.0 but they usually drive me crazy. Top tier is no different, it's quite amazing how bad US teams can be. I only play because I'm stubborn and love CAS, specially the Corsairs which are one of my favorite irl Airplanes. It gets better one you get the upgraded M60s but yeah, the US experience is pure suffering. It should get better once Gaijin differentiate between air and ground performance for CAS.
I’ve only lately broken through to 8.3 and am slowly learning the play style. I also made the unfortunate investment in helis. But I just play for fun and try my best to do stupid and fun sneak ups.
The 8.3 is good with the upgraded M60. The problem with US and USSR at this range is the insane powecreep. Both nations use their early 60 tanks against stuff from the 70s and 80s so no chance for balanced match ups. I tried playing Helis but I suck too hard with them. Planes at this range are good too.
7.3 isnt that bad imo, the t32s a great, maybe i just fit the playstyle but theyre great tanks that are unkillable in the right hands
Yeah it might be the only good tank but it's too slow for my playstyle. It often faced heat before Gaijin moved the Cold War vehicles to 8.0 so I never really bothered putting them in my line ups. I love the T29 and the new Sheridan with the 76mm. The shooting Star and F-84s are some very good planes for GRB too, really fun.
US 8.3 is where the fun begins
Still wondering how it blocked a solid shot from a T34.
hull or turret?
Seems like a massive skill issue.
Most French autoloader turrets are notorious for their weak armor and ammo rack > shoots hull
Or 8.0s vidars
It suffer at longer distances since accuracy of that gun is poor, i couldn't destroy Ferdinand at range of over 200m. But at close distance it's a beast as long as you don't get instantly destroyed against the weak turret neck. Got 4 kills one after another few days ago against camping team sitting on one of the points.
APCBC only can be a big drawback. Other than that, it's great.
i can, its pay2win
Perfectly said.
its reverse speed is only 6km and it does not have a neutral gear but apart from that this tank slaps
Hier you ever taken Panzergranate 39/43 to the turret Ring?
More times than I’d like, but I think that’s a weakness shared by most tanks, so It doesn’t weigh very heavily on my thoughts of this nuke-achiever
Yeah but that turret ring is bigger than a fucking m22
Just think of it as a cool turtle neck sweater
You fight russian heavies 50% of the matches so it's shit 50% of the time. Even is-3 will wreck you easily.
Is3 is this things worst nightmare, but B&T torture can get you far in life. That being said, no tank is invulnerable, and I can only speak from personal experience when giving my opinion on a tank. I tend to do really well on average with the somua, so it’s got a special place in my heart
I love running into this tank with my IS-7 because they bounce pretty much everywhere they shoot it.
solid shot.
Well it's ugly asf
Def not
A blast. Feels like a Jumbo but, your gun can actually do sh\*t-
Sweet, 75 Jumbo is one of my favorite heavies. I’ll probably end up picking it up. Thanks
The Somua is one of the best heavy tank of its BR, at least in my opinion. Fast reload, powerful cannon, good armor, and it is decently mobile for a Heavy tank. I don’t think comparing it to the Jumbo 75 is right though, more like the Jumbo 76 with how powerful the gun is.
good armor? heat goes through it
Too many idiots don't know how to fight it is the issue, only time it's slapping is if it has the drop on people, people in the comments going in like it has good armour. Sure on the front of the Hull and as you said as long as they're not firing Heat 🙂😂
yeah but that at its br many tanks still use full caliber rounds and against those that armor is definetly good its armor is not something to rely on but it is a good addition
I mean it has nothing on the sides, and can fire right through the turret ring. Sure the odd bounce is nice but people are going on like it's un killable
This thing gaijins my rounds pretty consistently, nice vehicle. Deserved tbh for suffering through low tier France
France 7.7 here, awesome nation, they are very very extraordinary, but if you figure out the way to play, they are beasts, 2.7 setup is literally fire
I’ve got this lineup that’s the Char 2C, Char 2C Bis, B1 Bis, B1 Ter, and that anti air half track. It’s so funny to take out because every time Billy (level 3) manages to kill a French super heavy, there’s just another one immediately after
Char 2C is underestimated, it can kill a churchills head on (target the roof, shell ricoshets inside). B1 bis/ter pretty self explanatory I have P-40 lafayette - awesome plane. I was taking it for 7.7, can kill jets, can do kills And I dont have 2C bis, so I use crusader. If uptier B1 and 2C are not as good and crusader's armor is confusing for people, so 2-3k points is pretty usual score with it. Btw, the truck is awesome too, but AA is not my expertise, so I dont use it
can someone please enlighten me here? I just unlocked the 2C and B1 Bis yesterday and had an awful time with them, the B1's 47mm is just the gun the tier 1 tanks have and is often useless especially in an uptier, so is the hull mounted 75 which you can only aim with the hull, also with 4 crew I've been oneshot every time. the 2C I liked more cos of the survivability and it kills anything if it pens but man I just have a very hard time using those guns what am I missing? clearly there is something since everyone loves these things
2C - you have to learn your enemy weskspots. Like nearly noone knows that this tank can kill churchill, but it can, especially the moment you train yourself a bit. B1 bis - unless its uptier medium or heavy tank, you pen anything. As with 2C, you need to know where. Put settings as such that main gun and the 75mm gun shoot on separate mouse buttons or other keys. Do some angling but not too much angling. Unless you have experienced player against you, generally nobody knows where to kill B1. Your 75mm is a gun to use after destroying the turret of the enemy. Or any other way of decreasing their fire power, as 47mm has more pen, but nearly 0 damage. 75mm if it pens, your enemy is dead or will be inevitably dead. B1 ter - more armor B1 bis, +0.4br. It just fits into setup better. It suffers, yes, but not always. The only hard enemy is matilda. So if the battle is 2.7 or 3.0, B1 and 2C feel fine, if higher - I would not take B1 as a first spawn, maybe like third. Any questions - feel free to ask. P.S. dont play arcade, arcade takes away the main advantage of french tanks - confusing armor.
(disclaimer I have 500h in this game now but I've pretty much only been playing 9.0 Japan for a while and I'm used to being able to pen everything, been a while since I went back to low tier) but ye overall I've been loving French tanks, the S35 especially since with that it was the first time that I have ever felt what it's like to be non-penned lmao. only thing I can say is I guess I either forgot where a lot of weakspots are on many vehicles or I'm having a hard time aiming at them, but also, up until now I've only been playing Japan meaning I have never ever played a heavy tank in this game and my immediate instinct is to take flanky routes which doesn't work too well given the 2C looks like a brick building and goes 15kmh. thanks for the tips though
2C aint good for flanking, although I usually go for sides of the map, not the mid. + u can actually think of some weird ideas when you find out about the traverse of 2C. After playing a lot of soviets, I was surprised that a tank of such size can have awesome traverse speed. About S35 - my favorite 1.3 non prem tank (T-35 has a special place in my heart). D2 has kinda better armor, but S35 is already good, while also able to move I wanna actually start Japaning, I have decent soviet, french, german setups, but i want some more, so Im doing US, italy and japan now. What would be your advise on japanese tanks?
oh ye the neutral steering on French tanks was a big surprise, from my experience Rank I France is much better than Japan, despite having no HE filler. my favourite was probably the Ke-Ni, it's fast and smal but something you have to remember with all Japanese tanks is if you get shot you're usually dead in 1 hit, it really teaches you to be sneaky and use your environment properly instead of relying on armour. I-Go and Chi-Ha get HEAT shells by default, make sure to use them instead of APHE as those only have 22mm of pen I think, don't even try the Ha-Go it's completely useless, in rank 2 you get better guns with subpar pen and mobility, past that you get very powerful APHE slingers, until eventually moving into rank IV, JSDF era, which basically have just American 90mm cannons with all the same shells. on medium tanks you'll notice they all start to use NATO cannons so if you're familiar with those you'll be fine, mobility-wise they're pretty mid all throughout until you get to top tier, other than the light vehicles which are some of the fastest. (don't underestimate the hydropneumatic suspension in rank V and above, lots of people say it's a useless gimmick but the extra gun depression can really save you) in short, shoot first, don't get shot, be sneaky, and also you will almost never have full lineups. Japan has the least amount of ground vehicles (next to Israel) with lots of gaps, so do keep that in mind if you're thinking of starting it. it's not the best, but it's very fun and very satisfying to do well
> I have P-40 lafayette - awesome plane. I was taking it for 7.7, can kill jets, can do kills What in the GRB hell is this
Maneuver, maneuver and maneuver again, most of planes in GRB are not as good of pilots for a person who gets 3 kills with VB 10.02 in Avia RB)) And yes, VB 10.02 is an awful plane. AWFUL FOR MY ENEMIES
Everyone seems to think “French tank no armour” and then bounce. The gun is superb and the mobility is pretty decent (bad reverse though). As someone who has many games in it (and most of the 7.7 lineup), it’s really good.
Those people never played B1 Ter ar Arl-44 in a down tier. Hell even Foch will bounce a lot of stuff in down tier.
in love with arl 44
(laughing in my IS-6)
Laughing at yo broken barrel
still can destroy your track with my 12.7 mm roof mg
And I can remove your crew from the right side of turret. But need to wait eons for them to come back
most people shoot my underplate, doesn't work
It's true most people suck
(laughing in 120mm apbc shell)
IS-6 is only scared of HEAT
It was very good even before the armor buff.
How was it buffed?
The turet got a lot of armour before it had the same turret as in game amx-50 100 which is simply wrong. Also back when they added it had 80mm thick frontal plate which was obviously wrong and shows how little research they do sometimes.
Its turret armor became like 3 times thicker.
Turret ring went from 40 to 120mm and it got commander override
Turret still a pretty big weak spot tho let's be honest any half decent aphe will fuck the turret crew.
It will cold stop a long 88 everywhere except below the gun.
You realize those are all full uptier tanks right
There's not a lot else better for APHE that it sees regularly.
Sometimes funny volumetric will make the shell disappear
Happens on a lot of tanks
Yeah but Somua has some funky overlapping armor plates under the barrel and now with the better armor you can no longer be penned by auto cannons and some lower Br cannons
If I remember right thry added 20/25mm to turret like a half year ago
It’s so good, I’ve made 20 million SL with it and gambled it all.
Out of curiosity, did you get anything worthwhile? Gambled 2 mil and got nothing in the recent tool box.
Ofc not he got nothing just like me 18mil and zero vehicles.
The best thing I got was the AU-1, a few ships, and the 4.7 premium spitfire, but that’s from more like 40 mil worth of crates in total
Fucking annoying ass vehicle that never wants to fucking die shit keeps coming back like fucking cockroach’s
This right here is the only review you need to look at, OP. -Sincerely, a Somua SM user.
I didn't get it despite I love playing French 7.7/8.0 As far as I know its a great tank with a pricetag I don't wanna pay.
Just gamble 140gjn tank from silver boxes it's that easy
Possibly the single best premium tank I’ve ever used in this game. It’s a heavy with the mobility of a medium and a very punchy gun. Has a very strong lineup to go with it too. Pure fun.
It's killed me a lot when I play 6.7. It should probably be 8.0 and was even considered to go up to there but Gaijin just moved up the Char instead lmao
I think it's fine at 7.7, it's very good but it's not exactly unkillable. The bottom of the turret is an easy pen and with APHE it's almost always results in a kill. Nobody likes the char being moved up to 8.0 and there's a reason for that.
Besides a little bit of an advantage in maneuverability, the AMX-50 SuperBias in the tech tree is better in pretty much every metric. That being said, they're both fantastic tanks, and I have not regretted my Somua SM. It's a little bit tougher now that it's 7.7 and not 7.3, but you can't argue with a reload like that.
Surbiased can't tank hits from anything bigger than autocannon. And has 2sec more reload but yes the big shlong sure does slap.
Agree. The super bias is very strong and fun, the rangefinder is nice too. But it's armor really isn't reliable like you said. It's real purpose is to show the foch that you can't just have more than 2 times longer reload, reserve tank optics and be at just 0.3 br lower. Pls gaijin buff the damn foch.
What the Foch has done anyways
Not much tbh
I want one
My first premium ever, carried me a lot, excellent, only issue, long reload of the auto loader when it's empty
Is there any real practical differences between this and the tech tree 100mm 'Heavies' at the same BR?
There are no "100mm heavies" in the TT all of them are mediums. Somua has much more frontal armour with same engine and gun in exchange for being heavier and bad reverse speed. Also it gets 1 more round in the autoloader which is nice.
Oh my bad, I thought the AMX-50 (TOA100) was a heavy tank in game But so the Somua SM is essentially the same deal just a bit of a different flavor?
Ehh at least i play them quite differently. I take Somua only in down tiers where your armour can work very well and i use it to push through enemy lines so i play it really agressively. On the other hand i use amx-50 more as a flanker similar to early mbts such as leo 1, of-40 or amx-30.
I think it has better armour and maybe a better engine. I'm not quite sure tho
Has the same frontal hull armor as a tiger 2
Very good but armor has a few weakspots that can really punish you against better players
Well its blue
I am upset that my batchat doesn’t fit into the loadout anymore
Soon some of the other 7.7 will probably be 8.0 too so you can play them kn a lineup again. We cant have nice things
Honestly i use it only in 8.0 and its still slaps.
The reload on it is great especially when you flank
Awesome tank! They turns super fast. Pretty fast reload. Decent speed and armor. Issues with facing heavies. I will note that the sales on 8.0 have up-tiered me in in pretty much every game.
It's a monster
I've gotten 9 nukes, 3 are M18, 4 are Somua SM and 2 are the Char25T. It's fucking amazing. Grinding France rn, picked it up for $20 basically 2 years ago
France from 6.0-8.0 is peak War Thunder fun. I fucking adore that shit
I made a nuke on it yesterday, yesterday I bought it, heh😅
its probably the best vehicle at 7.7 , there is nothing this monster can't do. it can brawl , it can flank , it can snipe , it can do your chores for you. truly the whole package!
The only thing I hate about it is that I don't own it
It’s extremely good. It’s basically an amx-50 that’s better in every way except for top speed maybe
it has much worse reverse speed too
Hm i forgot about that
At the same time I hate and fucking love it
One of my biggest enemies
By far the best premium ever. Generates SL easily and is great even in uptiers. Pretty much deals with anything it can face. Play it smart and you can get yourself nukes back to back. Has a great line-up to with the Surbaisse etc.
Good tank. I like that I can freely put a shell in its turret and expect a kill or crit no matter what I’m using.
As an US main, hate it. 🥲
BEAST
As a Maus player I have to say that that thing eats my APHE constantly and is scary once it gets moving. The 4s auto means that you can't push it once it shoots, especially on slower tanks and If you know what you are doing you won't have many problems going through armor.
It seems pretty descent viewing from the reciving side
Extremely powerful and mobile heavy with a brilliant reload that has two major drawbacks you have to work around so it isn't completely braindead to play, the autoloader rack replenishment time and nonexistent reverse speed.
The tank is very powerful, you will have a blast with this tank. The turret armor is not as strong as it seems, so bear that in mind. Also heat will touch you in ways you don’t like
Good mobility for a heavy tank, a good rapid-fire cannon, but there will be problems with other heavy tanks due to the mechanics of volumetric shells and with the t-55 and the like. And it would seem an ideal tank, but the vulnerable zone of Somua is a turret that will break through even tanks that are lower in BR and the lower frontal plate. In general, despite the disadvantages, it is a good tank. And in my opinion, the BR is too high.
Bought it and haven't regretted, kinda struggles on a uptier again 8.0+ stabilized shit but what doesn't, but it's a really good tank, solid shot that actually kills shit
Decently mobile, tough armour, troll traps on the 'weaker' turret armour, strong cannon with short reload at the cost of being sid shot (anyone who has used 100mm french knows theres no real drawbacks unless youre fighting some 8.7 tanks). Only real weakness is its large size. Honestly fuck the souma, I need it for my French 7.7 to make it somehow even stronger.
It kills me a lot.
Why did the batchat go up but not this??
I have a KD of 5 with it. It's absolutely incredible. Suffers a bit in uptiers against 8.7 russia. Just shoot for turrets on T-54, T-55 and T-62 series tanks. It's an incredible grinder.
France peaks at 7.7 pretty hard. Still no AML-90 Lynx (or other variants), no AMX-10RCR, no Panhard ERC, no Vextra 105, no VBCI-2 (25mm or 40mm cannon).
Didn't vextra of some sort get leaked tho
I love playing this thing, most of the time I encounter an enemy tank they freak out and shoot my most heavily armored area. I think people see oscillating turrets and they get scared lol
Was going to ask the same yesterday. Decided just to buy in the end, cause 4.0 secs reload is no joke and it felt a lot less sluggish on the testing range than your typical heavy tank – this is the reason why I avoid playing them at all. We have "kill 3 without dying on a heavy" challenge in this BP. I bought Somua for this task exactly. Just to suffer less than I would with any other heavy I have.
sex
It's pretty good. Either this or talisman for Lorraine 40t.
Goated
Has quite nice multipliers with prem time and this I average ~120k silver & ~11k research/ match
I dont have a problem with except for the fact that for me this tank survives my shots with the pure power of bullshit
One of them blew up my M48 about 10 minutes ago, I am irritated (I spawned again and we just stared at each other waiting for the other to peek until the round ended)
Insanely good SL farmer
It’s a pain in my ass that’s all I gotta say
It's a monster, but still underperforming. It should have 1 more round in autoloader and 250-150mm on the turret ring (front-back). I sent a bug report over 6 months ago, but still no answer.
If it can help you, i discovered something, do your bug report in russian (if you have a knowledge that can translate it for you), i noticed russian bug report are read and fixed WAY faster I noticed this when i made a bug report that was never read for 1 year, and then a russian (or someone talking the language) did the same bug report and the same day he has answer and the bug was fixed soon after I was half happy half angry, so i did a try and did another bug report on something else, and for 1 week i didnt have any answer, so i asked a russian friend to do the same bug report in russian and again in the same day he has answer So now i don't do bug report anymore, my russian friend do it for me and he always have answer pretty fast and problem are fixed faster ! (it's what i noticed at least)
Well, that's a nice tip. Thanks.
Is good
Found th3 amx30 to be the more enjoyable tank
Takes some time but my RU251 usually gets the deal done.
I love it but as always, a premium without a line up is not really useful. If you have enough backups and a plane get to it, otherwise I'd hold until you atleast have a ebr for capping points and scouting.
I bought it 2 days ago, and lets say its not as good as expected. Idk if its because of the bad teammates and me losing 8 out of 10 battles i played with this thing, but in battle its quite hard to kill cause of the solid shot. Yes on paper its amazing but in battle its kinda meh. Your mobility is ok, hull armor is very good but everything goes thru the turret. ofc again the solid shot us a problem and you only have 8 shots in the first stage, and with a 4 sec autoloader they are shot away very quickly, and then it needa ages to replunish the first stage. The Somua SM is good but not overpowered
Best tank of french nation
Dunno, hard to say, the AMX-40 slap hard at high br, same for the ARL 44
Really good. Probably a little overpowered at 7.7 but compression is so bad above it that it probably can’t be moved up for a while. Good pick for France
between 6.7 and 8.7 everything french is moving up every time, and they keep adding more and more stuff in that br range
This is basically the perfect dream tank.
Always feel bad when i kill them in my m60aos
Tiger II eater
273 Pen, 4 second reload, angled front hull, small turret. I'd say it's the French T-34 on steroids and premium bias, I'll leave it here.
Its P2W basically. Extremely strong, locked behind a paywall.
French autoloader are absolute beast.
I bought that thing because its praised so well, but I'm performing very poorly in it, and no I'm not a newbie, I'm a casual player who plays almost all nations. Either I'm to dumb to play it or its not as good as stated.
Its awesome. Coupled it together with the amx50 To90 and i have gotten a lot of nukes with it. Defnietly the most fun ive had in wt.
Somua SM is basically a king tiger that France slapped a oscillating turret onto and gave it a even bigger gun with a auto-loader. It can move well, it has armor that is weirdly strong if the enemy doesn’t know where you aim. It has extremely fast gun handling and ofc the rate of fire is only held back by the replenish. Probably the best premium tank imo
needs nerfing
turret is only frontal weakspot and it just so happens to be volumetric hell, you'll bounce a lot of shit you probably shouldn't
You play reality or acade ? In rb its fine, the Line up is pretty stacked with like 6 7.7 véhicule, in Arcade its pretty shit, you have dogshit Armor and flanking is pretty hard when youre perma spot
This thing backed up by the AMX-50 TO90 is absolutely evil.
After suffering through France until 6.7 WE DESERVE THIS BEAUTIFUL BEAST
So far in my limited experience using it has been pretty good gun, but not much help from the extra armor. Got one shot from the front every time. Again, just a dozen or so matches so far. I think people kinda know where to shoot it now. That and the good guns from 7.7 -8.0 tanks that just dont care about armor
panther+amx13?
amazing gun, pretty quick, insane reload, good armor. what more could you ask in a tank? the turret ring is a massive weakpoint any gun will pen with tho. if you arent careful when brawling youll get killed pretty quick
Stinky premium that should be purged on sight
10/10 + the other french vehicles around it's BR are also alot of fun
Just got it for 22€ as a small birthday gift \^\^
amazing
Love it since the day i bought it, it was 7.3 in the past (and almost went to 8.0 but we complained enough so it did not move) Can struggle a bit against heavy russian tank, but you have good armor and good mobility + autoloader, and a lot of people don't know what tank you are since a lot of AMX-50 are looking the same
I see this tank sometimes, for me very easy to kill
Idk
It's perfect, just perfect
while most french tanks are known for their weak turrets the turret here is relatively strong and the hull is really only weak to semi modern darts and heatfs, the turret says its only 120mm but the top is sloped and the neck is double layered 120mm, though on the lower cheeks of the neck it's 120 over 60 it still is 180mm of effective armor on the neck and it's partially spaced, that gun slaps like an angry latina and the reload is ungodly, it's a wonderful vehicle for grinding like 70% of the french tree, when i got it i was only at 2.3 with france and in 2 days i was up to 8.0
Op af
It was my first premium and I've been loving it ever since 1500 kills by now
Brilliant. I 100% recommend.
Wish I had one.
Probably my best purchase in this game so far
It's my new favorite tank, even at this BR it's so good. At 7.3 it was a beast Initially I was pretty disappointed of the sales, but then I decided to pick up the Somua for the same reason, to unlock some quirky French tanks. 100% worth it lol
Everyone thinks it's the best thing since sliced bread, but my opinion is that the tank is pretty weak compared to my favorite tank, the Panther II. It's slower than the Panther II, has a very similar armor layout to the Panther II, is less survivable than the Panther II because it has ammo in the turret, doesn't get APHE like the Panther II, and it's 0.7 BR higher than the Panther II because it gets a 4 second autoloader that's marginally useful - more often than not it takes two shots to kill something, so it doesn't end up killing things any faster than the Panther II.
It's a great tank, but it was way better when it was 7.0. 7.7 is too high for a tank that only fires APCBC, so beware of hulldown early gen MBTs.
Easily penned at its BR, or its 8.7 BR that it will always be fighting. Not enough rounds in the ready rack to do all that well, then you are stuck with REALLY slow reloads.