The Type 71 is a Tier X Japanese heavy tank.
The vehicle features new double aiming mechanics, which allow it to fire in two modes: one with normal accuracy and the other with improved accuracy. Earlier, during the testing of another Japanese heavy tank (Type 63, a Tier VIII vehicle), we revealed this feature.
Double Aiming Mechanics
The vehicle’s gun heats up when firing. After it’s fully cooled down, its accuracy improves until the next shot.
The gun’s cooldown time is longer than its reload time. This means it has already reloaded, but the improved accuracy isn’t activated, as the gun hasn’t cooled down. When the improved accuracy activates, the player sees a second aiming circle. This is the circle that will determine the shooting accuracy.
After the second circle appears, it will still take some time for the gun to fully aim to its maximum available accuracy. However, you can shoot immediately after reloading and not wait for improved aiming if you need to.
Type 71 Gameplay
The vehicle’s hull armor is not outstanding (120/70/40 mm), which cannot be said about its extremely strong turret (270/140/50 mm). The Type 71 is designed to be played from hull-down positions when its tough turret armor can be used to its fullest. The vehicle’s hydropneumatic suspension allows you to enhance its good gun depression/elevation angles (-7/+20) and gain an additional advantage when playing on terrain irregularities.
The tank is armed with a 120 mm gun causing 400 HP of damage per shot. Its standard shell penetrates 260 mm of armor, while its special shell penetrates 320 mm. The gun dispersion is 0.42 m before cooling, and 0.28 m after. The reload time is 8.8 s, and aiming time is 2 s. Its view range is 400 m.
Thanks to double aiming mechanics, the Type 71 can shoot immediately after reloading and not wait for improved aiming if you need to cause damage quickly—for example, at close range. But if you want to deliver a more precise shot at medium or long range, it’s better to wait for the improved accuracy to be activated. However, in this case, the vehicle’s DPM will decrease.
Please share your feedback on the tank here.
Lets break down this sexy tank:
Firepower –
It has the exact same DPM as the E5 with slightly better standard pen but noticeably worse (but still alright) gold pen. One thing to notice is that the heat shell is a lot faster than the AP shell, which is unusual.
The accuracy before cooling is .42 which is pretty bad but it goes to .28 after cooling which is best in class by far. We don’t know how long it will take to cool, which will play a big factor in the gun performance, and its hard to judge if it will be similar to how long it takes the Type 63 to cool because the accuracy goes all the way down from .42 to .28 which is a crazy big jump.
We don’t know the dispersion yet either but I imagine it to be a slight step down from the E5 and S.conq’s dispersion judging by the t8 (which is not a great metric to judge by but whatever). One thing to note is that any lull in the battle will allow this tank to fully cool down, giving it an accurate first shot in pretty mush every engagement.
Armor –
There are some discrepancies between the graphic and the text description but in general this tank has a weak hull, strong turret. We down know exactly how much gun depression this thing will have but in any case, this thing is going to love hull down engagements. Without seeing the amour model its hard to say for sure but I see a cupola on the turret, and if the upper glacis is weak enough to be penetrated with gold, it will provide sufficient counterplay. 2.2k HP is the same as the E5 and is middle of the pack.
Mobility:
35 kph top speed puts it just above the S.conq and below the E5, but with 17.5 hp/t it will feel closer to the E5 than S.conq. We don’t know the terrain resistance but the Type 63 has relatively good terrain resistance so we can infer that this will be somewhat similar.
Overall:
Obviously need some more details like gun cooling time, dispersion, and terrain resistance to get the full picture but on first glance, it looks pretty well balanced. It also looks like it’d be pretty fun and engaging, and will require a decent amount of game knowledge to get the most out of it because of the gun cooling mechanic. But the cooling mechanic also makes the gun very flexible depending on the situation, so while the gun as a whole is likely worse than the E5 and S.conq, its flexibility will make it pretty adaptable. Overall, it looks to be good.
The picture says it has 180mm hull…
But the text says 120mm…
Also 230mm turret in the picture and 270mm turret in the text.
Armor plays a huge role with HTs so we can’t judge anything when it’s still this messy.
There’s one thing we can be sure that this thing will snipe any kind of cupola, even if the cooling-off mechanics takes 10s (1.5 times its reload).
This gun looks like it has whatever it needs at whatever kind of ranges.
So it’s clear that they have to give it average armor and mobility.
S.Conq has this kind of gun, with very good armor and avg mobility, and now is being considered to get nerfed.
Honestly the dynamic between this and the S.Conq reminds me of the dynamic between the Leo PTA and the Kunze Panzer. The Leo has more utility because it has pretty good gun handling and decent dpm. On the other hand, the Kunze can have better dpm, or better gun handling than the Leo but only one at a time. The leo is considered to be generally better than the Kunze, but I think a big difference here between the S.Conq and Type 71 vs the Leo and Kunze is that the Type 71 does things automatically. Where in the Kunze you have to activate siege mode to get gun depression and gun handling, the type 71 will do it automatically, making it more flexible. So while I think the S.Conq gun is generally better at being an all rounder, the flexible nature of type 71’s gun will allow for more skillful play and likely has a higher skill ceiling.
Nice comparison betwen the Type 71/S. Conq pair vs Kunze Panzer/Leo PT A pair. Didn’t think of that, but you are 100% correct!
Looks like a bootleg Super Conqueror but, unlike SC, Type 71 looks balanced (for now).
I mean, we dont know its terrain resistances or dispersion values yet. But the only real drawback it has over the S.conq is DPM, but DPM doesnt allways matter in a hulldown tank since you are often the one setting the pace by choosing when to peak.
And if it’s hydroneumatic suspension adds another 6 degrees of gun depression like on the STB and it ends up having 13 degrees of gun depression it will very likely be much harder to pen in a hulldown situation then the S.conq. And its probably going to be faster aswell unless it has attrocious terrain resistances.
So how exactly is this more balanced? Because it has worse slightly worse DPM and pen? With the added option of shooting super accurately or keep the DPM up if being close range.
As it is right now, the Type 71 trades off a little dpm, a noticeable amount of prem pen (320 HEAT vs 326 APCR), and A LOT of accuracy when using the full extent of the dpm (.42 vs .33). We don’t know the correct numbers for the armor but if the hull is 120mm, that make a big difference too.
On the flip side this thing is a little faster, likely will have more gun depression, and will have a much more accurate gun when cooled. Seems like balanced tradeoffs to me, at least on paper. Further testing is required with a complex tank like this.