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A few of you might have seen situations like this: A single tank, his wounds serious, all modules damaged, half the crew dead, even a loud cough might finish him
off, but he pulls out a victory by destroying the last remaining enemy tank.
A famous World of Tanks guru once said, "The only reason not to destroy an enemy tank is if there is an ally that will definitely destroy him, and you have a shell to
use on a more powerful enemy. In all other cases, destroy an enemy as soon as possible, to reduce the amount of enemy cannons. Two damaged enemy tanks
are a much higher threat than one destroyed and one at full health."
In the previous episode of Tank Academy, we went over why focusing the enemy tanks is so important. It's all about eliminating the enemy guns as fast as possible.
In today's episode we'll be learning how to keep your team's tanks alive as long as possible in platoon, Clan wars, and even in random battles. Remember, a
living tank is a dangerous tank, and a dead tank can't win battles.
Going into this lesson we will keep this phrase in mind, "the outcome of the battle is determined by the surviving tanks." Lets learn to save our tanks from complete destruction.
In principle, this isn't going to be very hard to learn, but it's another one of those skills that you should take the time to drill with your troops because it requires a
great deal of coordination.
Eventually, you'll be able to hide all of your wounded tanks from being finished off, thereby prolonging your team's damage potential and hopefully winning the game.
We've divided the training into three steps.
Step one: Paired exercise
Organize a training room, and once on the map, split your teams into pairs. Each team will sit one in front of the other making a short column.
Have each pair practice swapping positions. One moves to the front, the other to the back. Try to make it a speedy transition.
Rule 1: The time to swap positions needs to be less than the reload time of the fastest firing tier 10 tank: T110 (we are not talking the French tanks) which is about 7.5 seconds
Let the tank in front decide which way he's going to back up and the rear tank should respond accordingly. It's easier for the tank in back to react.
The idea is to be able to swap positions with a team mate faster than an enemy tank can reload. Your ally takes a shot and then gets hit, and now needs
protection, so they back up and you move forward to defend them.
Rule 2: The silhouette of the covering tank needs to fully cover the ally. To do this the covering tank needs to turn its hull to fully cover the ally.
Make sure that the tank in front is now completely covering the wounded tank. Don't expose your sides, but do slightly angle your tank to create a broader area of protection.
Rule 3: If you are the covered tank, under no circumstances move back, this is very important. The optimal distance will be about half the length of your hull.
If you're the person moving to the rear, don't back up too much, stay in close to your shield, the farther back you are, the more exposed you are.
Drill this maneuver over and over until it is second nature. Swap partners, and keep at it.
Just to spell it out, here's a review of common mistakes.
Not angling your tank when taking the front position:
If you don't angle your frontal armor you're an easier target to penetrate and you aren't offering as much cover for your wounded ally behind you.
Reversing too far: If you go too far backward you're actually making it easier for the enemy to hit you in most cases.
It's a good idea to dedicate one command for this maneuver. "Cover me!"
It'll make it easier to convey your meaning with this hot button than it is to type it out or potentially spam the voice chat.
As soon as you've sufficiently trained this tactic in pairs, it's time to start the group exercise.
Step Two: Group training
Open up a training room with teams like before, but use a place that has a little bit of a confined space, such as the courtyard in Himmelsdorf.
This time you'll be making two battle lines facing each other (one for each team), as many tanks across as necessary and two tanks deep. Leave
a little space between each pair, but not too much. You're trying to simulate the limited space you'll have in real engagements.
Again, you'll simply be asking the soldiers to swap positions with the person in front of them, only this time there will be people to their left and
right trying to do the same thing. It's going to cause some problems. They'll all have to work together to make room.
Try to stay on top of people who are having a hard time doing this exercise. Keep in mind that the tank in front dictates which direction they
swap positions, so they need to watch what's happening to their left and right.
Now you're going to up the difficulty a bit, you're going to divide the tanks into 2 waves, having the front wave advance for a few seconds, while
rear wave takes aim at the enemy team, but don't shoot yet. Then have the rear wave advance to take the position at the front, offering your
allies cover. Note that for best results use 3 tanks per wave, leaving enough room to maneuver.
Step Three: Group training with live fire
Once you're comfortable with these maneuvers, then it's time to start advancing and shooting. Effectively combining all the skills we've
covered in the Tank Academy so far. Focus fire, cover your wounded tanks, and repeat until one side or the other is victorious. You'll only have
room to advance one time, and then you'll just be swapping positions.
It's going to be a mess the first few times. The players will understand the basics, but probably won't be able to pull any of this off very
smoothly. That's okay, keep drilling.
Once you're confident that they are ready for a real test then make a new game either on Himmelsdorf or Lakeville. Make one team a bit
stronger than the other, the weaker team is going to be assaulting the stronger team. This should help emphasize the effectiveness of focusing your fire.
Set the teams up in the city with the weaker team only using each other as cover. They should be using all their skills, focusing fire and blocking
wounded allies while the stronger team should just be stationary and not performing any of the tactics we've covered so far.
As you can see, the weaker team was able to beat the stronger team simply because of their coordination.
It's not easy to do, but it is possible, and can turn the tide of a seemingly impossible situation.
The whole point of the exercise is to share damage among all the team mates. Do not let the enemy focus fire your tanks to zero HP.
difficulty while gaining some more practice time.
Our lesson here is over, but your work has just begun. It's going to take many practice sessions to be sure that your entire team ready for
combat. When you enter battle, either in a Tank Company Battle or on the Clan Wars map, keep these lessons in mind. Try to repeat the
material, even if your team mates are having trouble with it.
The only way to improve the coordination of these tactics is to keep practicing them.
Our next lesson is going to cover group formations and moving as a group in different situations.
Until then, good luck on the battlefield!