By Redditor foxy_mountain:
Hi,
So I had the opportunity to play some games in the Centurion AX on 0.10.0 CT1 last night, and here are some of my first impressions. As a precursor, I all ready have some 3600 games in the Centurion 7/1 with 3 Marks of Excellence, 73% wins and 2640 average damage per game. I feel like I know the Centurion 7/1 well at this point, and so I was pretty excited to finally get to test drive the AX on CT1. Is the Centurion AX my much awaited upgrade from my all ready beloved Centurion 7/1? And how does it compare to the other tier 10 mediums?
Armor: Me and my friends decided to do some armor testing in a training room. We had a T110E5 shooting AP and a E-100 shooting HEAT at the new turret. From our testing, it appears that the upper sloped part above the gun, and the really sloped cheeks, will reliably bounce both AP and HEAT from the aforementioned tanks if you are at, or close to, the limit of your gun depression. However, the flatter parts (or rather the lesser-angled part) underneath the gun is butter. The same is true if you cannot tilt the turret far enough back, shots in the upper sloped part from T110E5 and E-100 will penetrate. But our testing was conducted at no more than 100m range, so at longer ranges it might prove better against AP and APCR as these types of shells will lose penetration over distance.
Against lower tier tanks that do not fire high penetration rounds as standard (e.g L7 carriers), I think the Centurion AX is going to be just as brutal as the ruski mediums, now that you have got functional turret armor. And now you got excellent gun depression to help you brutalize them.
Mobility: This is perhaps the most surprising feature with the Centurion AX, and perhaps the reason I would want to drive it on the live server; It. Is. Awesome.
I mean, I pulled away from a Object 140 in a race on flat, grassy ground. Up hill even more so. And reversing down slopes at -50 km/h. It is like a Leopard 1, but without the top speed. But it is still pretty fast, 55 53 km/h top speed.
I really, really hope that WG does not nerf the mobility of it, just because it’s more agile than the ruski mediums while still have a bit more armor than Leopard 1 and AMX 30. Pleeease, WG.
Gun handling: It’s Royal Ordinance. It’s good. Snap shots well, and I did not have any issues with blooming while moving, traversing hull or traversing turret. And I found it very good considering the mobility and agility of the Centurion AX. The premium 210mm penetration HESH have been replaced with 330mm penetration HEAT, but it still got 105mm penetration HESH instead of HE.
Edit: Reload time is 6.98 seconds, which is 0.03 seconds longer than the FV4202’s 6.95 seconds. But with my crew and load-out I get the actual reload time down to 6.81 seconds, or 8.81 rounds per minute. That is 3430 DPM with APCR and HEAT, and 4230 DPM with HESH.
My verdict is that the Centurion AX in its current form on 0.10.0 CT1 is a proper upgrade from the Centurion 7/1 on all accounts. It addresses most, if not all, problems I had with the FV4202 and it improves a lot of the downsides with the Centurion 7/1, namely mobility and DPM. If the Centurion AX stays as it is, I think mine will be seeing a lot of action once it reaches the live server. I can dream, can’t I?
How does it compare to the other tier 10 mediums? It’s like a Leopard 1 with more armor and slower top speed, albeit similar acceleration. The turret cannot compete with the ruski mediums, but it’s a definitely improvement over the Leopard 1 and FV4202 for sure, and probably AMX 30 since you do not have any large turret tumors (have only driven the AMX 30 proto up until now). The hull is.. yeah, good enough to not get raped by those pesky light tanks at least, like you do in the Leopard and AMX.
Edit: The website tanks.gg displays, among other things, bloom values for gun handling. The higher the value, the more the gun will bloom when a) moving forward and backwards, b) traversing/rotating the hull and c) traversing/rotating the turret. For instance, the bloom values for the FV4202 can be seen here: http://tanks.gg/en/wot/fv4202#tab:details
/u/Grimslei have provided me with bloom values from Tank Inspector, which I have corrected for commander bonus on the gunner. The values tanks.gg would display for gun handling are as follows:
- Moving: 0.14
- Tank traverse: 0.14
- Turret traverse: 0.12
These bloom values are not great, but neither bad (like BC25t bad). They are identical to the bloom values on the Object 430, but the Centurion AX have faster aim time and much better overall accuracy. But after the global accuracy nerf in patch 0.9.6, Wargaming changed the shot distribution model from a purely statistical method, to a sector-based model: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2015/02/06/9-6-accuracy-change-explained/
So I’m not entirely sure that the bloom values alone tell the full story when it comes to perceived gun handling. However, if we use the bloom values as-is, the Centurion AX should have improved gun handling over the FV4202.
