Test server is out. Chinese bare-bones techtree, new US Heavy line, some British premiums. The T10 Chinese Medium is very good.
Also, as for the new British premiums, they are hilarious. T6 heavy with 1,400 HP... with no armor, and a T7 TD with 228/152/101mm armor... and 150 alpha
Screenshots of them:
I'm slightly confused by the StugIII. I seem to just plain get next to no xp with it. Last night, I got 5 kills with it and survived. Nearly 6 if that last shot had taken the enemy down just a few more precent. I only ended up with about 1000 xp. Compared to my M4A6E8, which only managed 3 penning hits and no kills before getting taken out, which got 1200 xp.
(Both of those xp totals were with the daily double xp.)
I love playing the stug though, so i guess it's not a huge problem.
Lots of things go into XP, and I'm not going to pretend to know them all, but the fact you're a TD is a big hindrance to XP. TDs tend to shoot targets other people see, meaning you give half the XP/cred income to them, which is annoying. Also, shooting higher tiers gives you more XP, apparently. Also also, some tanks just plain have a low XP mod, and the StuG might be one of them.
I'm willing to bet your Easy8 got a lot of scouting damage, though. 1200xp (I'm guessing that's 800xp before prem) is a lot.
realy, even for the tier7 kv-13 / t-43, the slightly weaker russian he gun makes a good choice.
If you throw gold rounds, sure. With HE, the 105/122 derp really loses almost all of their value after T6, especially considering you have a pretty badass 85mm option instead. Gold rounds make every derp gun overpowered, though, so there's that option.
Eh the 105 on the Shermans isn't actually that bad, its a good solid gun and in the right circumstances works really well. I still use it on my Jumbo, actually. (Because fuck you if you think I'm gonna nerf my turret armour by a 100 for a m1a2)
Eh, I run the M1A2 and have gotten very good results. The upgraded turret is much better in many circumstances, especially considering the sides/rear of your turret should not be taking hits in the first place. There's a couple thin strips of armor in the front with the upgraded turret, but the near-impervious mantlet covers a good 80% of it. A good way to put it is that I spend a lot more time dishing out damage then taking it, so I'm going to pick whatever is best suited to that.
Once every dozen games or so I might take a hit I might have otherwise bounced with the stock turret, but every single game I'm getting the advantages of the M1A2.
...that's all null and void if you run the 105/HEAT, of course.