Hey Reno, thank you so much for all this information I really appreciate it. It seems you're really passionate about the game! I can relate, I actually got 3 friends into it since I started playing. I'm mostly a planes player currently as tanks has been frustrating to me, tanks feels like it has such a big learning curve as far as positioning and where to hit enemy tanks, etc.

So, beginning with 1898 USA-Spain war until modern wars like nowadays ones.
A big game.

Some last words : welcome & be ready to fall in some kind of addictive game & you will go from highly motivation to anger & frustration, then other time pleasure & overpressure, etc.

But it is really a huge big good game, with a lot of crying babies.
Personnally, I have now 11 500 hours. I am preparing on real paper an history of REAL battles from finals of 19th century to 21th century : I write the battle names, the context, the materials used in them (naval, air, ground) & I make some "board with boxes" I will "check" for each battle played. So in my mind, I will play lot of battles but using nearly all the tech trees & with a "in my mind context", like a big journey in the Wold War History from all the 20th century.

Soluce n°3 (yes yes) : during those Christmas sales, you can also see for the Premium Abrams tank called "Click Bait".
Advantage : you will have directly the Abrams, it is a Premium stuff so the bonus in term of Research Points & Silver Lions earned per battle will still remain (with or without Premium subscription) & even higher if you are also Premium Subscription (the bonus will addition themselves).
Disadvantage : you will still have to learn the game & the maps, versus players that are highy experimented, in battles highly deadliers than in the lower Battle Ratings.....

Premium doesn't bring more luck or cheated things or extra brain bonus.
If you play good, learn good, etc, you will have a huge advantage during one year to go through your USA Tech Tree.
Personnally, it's what I do & because I am a very "addicted" player, it took me some months to unlock as a Prem nearly MOST OF ALL the Tech Tree nearly to the Battle Rating 9.0-10.0 (Abrams will be at this BR if I am no wrong). So imagine if I would only focus on ONE Tech Tree......

Soluce n°2 : wait the final days of december & go ahead when their sales are beginning : at the Christmas sales, they usually have a good promotion for their SUBSCRIPTION that will be at -50% for the ONE YEAR SUBSCRIPTION.
Ok, it will cost you like +- 60 euros / dollars if I remember well.
But ingame you will have a full whole year to play with then the Premium status.
Advantages : you will earn more Silver Lions & more Research Points for each Battles, so you will grind "faster" IF & ONLY IF you are also efficient.