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If you are brand new to Hell Let Loose in general, I would recommend that you check out my other guide on the game first: HLL Boot Camp - The Basics. That will be a good overall guide to set up your expectations for how Hell Let Loose is played before jumping in to tanking. However, if you already have these basics down, please do proceed with Tanking 101.

Tanking 101 is a manual meant to be a learning resource for individuals who would like to learn the ins and outs of operating a tank in Hell Let Loose. It is geared towards those who have never used a tank, and if you are in this category, it will be a useful resource for you. The main focus will be on tank mechanics and overall tactics and strategy. However, there are also some more subtle nuances to tank operation that this guide will cover.

Overall, Tanking 101 will be split into multiple sections:

• Introduction and Table of Contents: You are here.
  
  
• What Is a Tank? - An Abstraction: This is a basic rundown of what a tank is, what a tank does, a brief and incomplete history of tanks, and how the overall concepts of tanks play into Hell Let Loose.
  
  
• Engineering a Solution - Tank Mechanics: Everything from the bare minimum mechanics to the subtle technicalities. We get started with jumping in the tank, starting the engine, switching seats, loading ammunition, and hitting the road.
  
  
• The Crew - Positions and Roles: The different roles that each crew member can fill in a tank. This part is split up into three sections for each role - the driver, the gunner, and the spotter.
  
  
• Tanker Terminology - Orders & Actions: Communication with other crew members inside your tank is critical. This will show you how to most efficiently issue orders as tank commander, and how to best understand them as driver and gunner, as well as provide a glossary of terms to use for brevity.
  
  
• Tanker Etiquette - DOs and DON'Ts: There are some considerations you should have for the other people on your team when crewing a tank. Refer to this section for a few simple unspoken rules that will improve the quality of life for everyone involved.
  
  
• Friend, or Foe? - Identifying Vehicles: A complete reference on American, German, and Russian vehicles and tanks, and how to identify them, and some relevant stats for each of them. This section will be very helpful even if you are an infantryman with no intent of setting foot inside a tank, since it will help you identify vehicles for your team. Split into multiple sections due to character restraints.
  
  
• Anti-Tank Warfare and You: A guide on all of the tools your enemy has available to deal with tanks, how their weapons are a threat to you, and what you can do to avoid and counter pesky AT infantry and AT gun emplacements. Split into multiple sections due to character restraints.
  
  
• What Just Hit Us?! - Damage Tables: A complete table on the exact percentage of damage dealt from all sources against all tank targets. Knowing how much damage you have taken to which system is vital for determining what you have been attacked by.
  
  
• Strategy & Tactics: Here you will learn how to effectively engage in tank-on-tank combat as well as against AT weapons, and when discretion is the better part of valor.
  
  
• Supporting Your Team: Utilizing the rest of the info in this guide to make the most of your tank, namely by rolling with your team.
  
  
• Tanker Trivia - Fun Facts: A brief list of some trivia points on the tanks and other vehicles in Hell Let Loose, such as historical inaccuracies, bizarre or counter-intuitive things that seemingly defy logic, vehicle availability and scarcity, differences between ammunition, and even little details about specific tanks or capabilities that are not directly modeled in-game. For true history buffs and/or tank nerds only. Split into multiple sections due to character restraints.
  
  
• Advanced Tanking: A quick word on where to look if you want more detailed information.
  
  
• Conclusion & Afterword: A brief synopsis and my personal thoughts on tanking overall.

Without further ado...

We can all be fairly certain of what a tank is: a self-propelled weapon of war. A steel-on-wheels monstrosity with machine guns that can mow down infantry, a main cannon which can destroy heavy fortifications, armor making it a veritable rolling fortress, and treads that distribute the weight, tear up the dirt, and allow a steady forward advance. When the "land ships" were first introduced in WWI, they were a game changer. How would you even begin to fight something like that, when the technology at the time was so cutting edge that the only counter to a tank was having a bigger gun?

Perhaps the question should not necessarily be "What is a tank?", but rather "What does a tank do?" - this will give us a better idea of what a tank really is, and the role it plays. To answer this question, in short: a tank is a vehicle meant to break through enemy lines, support infantry, and destroy strategic targets or hold strategic positions. It accomplishes this through being a mobile gun platform that also serves as a bunker for the crew. Pretty simple, right?


Tanks are extremely powerful, and if utilized fully, act as a "force multiplier" that can turn the tide of a battle or even a war. From the early days of WWII, tanks saw a boom in development of design due to the insane strategic demands of a global conflict. What started as relics of The Great War saw drastic improvements in their design from the start of WWII, which brought them from being clunky, slow, ineffective tin cans to some of the most efficient fighting machines over the course of nearly a decade. Even now, tanks are seen as integral to modern day conflict, and countries from all over the world innovate and improve designs continuously, shaping them into the tools of destruction they are today.

However, despite the power and capability that tanks have, they are not without weaknesses. As the development of tanks took off, so too did methods of destroying them. Bigger and better guns, cannons designed for destroying tanks, hand weapons such as the panzerfaust, panzerschreck, and bazooka, other tanks with superior armament and armor, and even repurposed anti-aircraft weapons such as Germany's infamous 8,8 cm Flak guns. What this means is that tanks are not the magic solution to everything. Furthermore, in a war, the main workhorse of any fighting force is not tanks, but infantry. Thus, typically one of two schools of thought were deliberated upon during the design of tanks. There were the slower "infantry tanks" which were designed to supplement and support infantry, whereas "cavalry tanks" were designed to move quickly and act on their own. However, this way of thinking was eventually phased out since late war tanks were typically capable of filling both roles at once.

Among the many weaknesses of tanks are poor optics, and this is a painful reality in HLL - the gunner can only see what is being directly aimed at, the driver can only see through a narrow view port to the front of the tank's hull, and the spotter while having the best visibility can only directly view one angle of the tank at a time. Woe betide the driver of a T-34 or IS-1 who has but a very small view port to look through.


Having infantry around to help spot enemies and imminent threats is critical. Moreover, the tanks and the infantry must trust each other for support - their lives depend on each other. The key point to understand here is the idea that tanks are very powerful, but on their own without support, they are weak. Playing as a tank crew in Hell Let Loose is tantamount to this concept. In a war, it takes many people working together to accomplish a common goal - not the actions of the few - and this is no exception. Sure, you can be a "Tiger Ace" and run around scrapping enemy tanks, and that might be useful to an extent; but the minute you find yourself isolated and hunted down, you're finished.

Another way to look at this is that no matter what your current objective is, everything boils down to the infantryman and his rifle. The ultimate goal is to advance and support infantry, and help them reach their objective safely and effectively, in exchange for their protection. HLL is no stranger to this concept and it is the optimal strategy for gameplay.


So how should you approach utilizing your tank to its fullest potential? Just remember what a tank does, and apply teamwork and due diligence with communication. If you do this one simple thing, it will give you a leg up on the enemy, and with some added skill and finesse may turn the tide of the battle in your favor. Just remember that there is no "I" in "team".

Your first time inside a tank will be daunting, if not confusing. There are a lot of things to look at in your HUD.


Naturally, when entering an empty tank, you will find yourself in the driver's seat. Here is how to read your HUD when in the driver's seat:
1. Turret Rotation Indicator: This shows you which direction your turret is facing relative to the hull, with the notch at the top middle indicating the front of the tank's hull. The rotation of this indicator stays fixed regardless of how you aim your camera while inside the tank. You can think of the turret as a minute hand on a clock and the notches as positions 1-12. 12 o'clock is always representative of the direct front of your tank's hull regardless of its current bearing.

2. Health Pools: These show you how much integrity each of your tank's 4 health pools (3 pre-U10) have remaining. From left to right: Hull (reduction to 0% means your tank is destroyed), turret (reduction will limit turret traverse speed depending on percent remaining - 0% disables the coaxial machine gun), engine (reduction to 0% stops your engine, halting your tank, and it must be repaired to 100% before it can be started again), and tracks (reduction to 0% throws your tracks, popping your tank into 1st gear and preventing you from shifting up past 1st gear - although note that you can still move and turn the tank in 1st and reverse gear if this happens).

3. Compass: The compass is universal to the game and will always appear on your screen no matter what. However, it is especially important in a tank, because your crew will always have the same POV with the compass. This is most often used in conjunction with the commander ordering you to either traverse the hull or turret towards a specific direction, or to indicate where potential enemies are located or attacking from. You can call the number readout the "bearing" or "azimuth".

4. Tachometer: This displays both your current RPM and the gear your tank is in (P = Park, N = Neutral, 1-5 = Forward, R = Reverse). Shift will shift gear up and Control will shift gear down.

5. Accelerometer: Shows your tank's current speed in kilometers per hour (km/h). The needle as well as the digital display represent the same thing.

6. Bow MG: Shows what weapon you are using (if applicable). This will always be an M1919 machine gun in American tanks and an MG34 machine gun in German tanks. The numbers to the left are the number of rounds you have in your magazine over how many reloads you have available.

7. Bow MG Reticule: The rectangle shows the limit in angle that you can aim the hull machine gun at, and the dot in the middle represents where the gun is currently aimed (if applicable). The hull machine gun is aimed by moving the mouse and fired using the left mouse button. This can be useful sometimes, but note that usually, it is much easier to simply watch where your tracers are going downrange instead of trying to watch the reticule and correcting aim that way.

8. Seats: Shows who is inside your tank. If there is nobody in a seat, it will display "EMPTY" instead of a username. F1 is the driver's seat, F2 is the gunner's seat, and F3 is the spotter's seat. You can hold the corresponding function key of an empty seat to switch to that seat. If your tank is full, one of you will have to exit the tank if you want to swap seats. Note that it takes 4 to 8 seconds to swap seats in a tank, depending on the class of the tank. Bigger and heavier tanks take longer to swap seats in.

To get rolling, start the engine by holding down E. Once the engine is started, you can release E. Shift up to gear 1 from Park using your Shift key, and use W to hit the gas. A and D steer left and right. You can use Control to shift back down to Park, and hit Control again to drop your tank into Reverse. Note that you still have to use W while in reverse to move the tank.

Once you are in gear 1, you will have to watch your tachometer, and accelerate in a straight line to build up RPM. Once your RPM reaches around 20k, you will notice the drive train "catch" as the needle jumps up past 20k RPM to about 25k RPM. 25k+ RPM is the optimal value, where you want to be most of the time while driving. It gives the best speed, power, and mobility in any gear - until reaching this RPM, going up an incline or turning the tank can stall it out. From here you can shift up to gear 2, then build up your RPM again, then shift up to gear 3, and so on. Gear 4 is the maximum for all tanks that have a manual transmission. This behavior is universal between all tanks that have a manual transmission.

Note that while shifting gears and the clutch is in neutral during the transition, you will still maintain forward momentum, but will NOT be able to turn the tank. Try to plan around this by only gearing up or down on straightaways, or else you will risk running into objects during turns.

There are times that as driver, you will need to stop abruptly. When driving a tank, the fastest way to bring it to a halt is by holding the S button to engage your hand brake and simultaneously down-shifting once with Control.


Like the driver's seat, there are a few HUD elements when entering the tank that you should get a grips with. Since the driver section of this guide covered most of the HUD, the redundant elements are not covered here.
1. Main Gun: This will tell you everything you need to know about your main gun. Your gun has 3 states: "EMPTY", "LOADING", and "READY", which are fairly self-explanatory. The highlighted ammunition type will show what type of ammo is loaded in the breech, or the next ammo type that will be loaded when pressing R.

2. Coaxial Machine Gun: Much like the driver's hull machine gun, your turret has a coaxial machine gun installed. The main difference is that the co-ax is fixed and will always fire in the direction your main gun is aimed at.

Rather than aiming the turret with the mouse, you will need to traverse the turret using A and D, and pitch the gun up and down using W and S. You can fire your main gun with the left mouse button and fire the coaxial machine gun with the right mouse button.

Select an ammunition type with 1, 2, or sometimes 3 for AP, HE, and Smoke, respectively. Note this does not apply to the Luchs. Once the desired ammunition type is highlighted, press R to load a shell. During the loading phase, you will see a progress bar going from left to right just below the gun's name. Once it completes, your shell will be locked in the breech and ready to fire. Note that once your shell is loaded, it cannot be manually unloaded. This means that you have to fire a shell to clear the breech so that you can load a different ammo type. You must manually reload after every shot, and you can only change your ammo type when the breech is empty.

When engaging enemy tanks, load AP. When engaging infantry, load HE. Your tank commander will usually try to predict what types of enemies you will encounter and advise you on what ammunition to load, but you should always be ready to dump your ammo and reload a different ammunition type on the fly.

So now that you are fully aware of what a tank is, what it does, and have a general understanding of the role of tanks in Hell Let Loose, you're finally ready to put the pedal to the metal. If this is your first time as a tanker, don't be afraid to join an armor squad and let your tank commander know. Most of the time people will tolerate you if you're new and do their best to help get you up to speed as quickly as possible. The following section will help you with that. If you're a kinesthetic learner, this section will likely only get you so far, and to truly learn you'll have to do it yourself and commit the actions to muscle memory. In this case, feel free to load up the game and jump into an empty server to play along, or test driving tanks around, spotting, and operating the weapons.

The magic number with tanks in HLL is 3. There are 3 seats in a tank, 3 crew to a squad, and 3 separate roles for the crew. Technically there is only 1 tank commander and 0-2 crew, but in a good tank squad, each person will know how to perform each role. Running only 2 people on a tank crew is not advised but can work well if it's coordinated properly. Solo tanking is bad unless you really know what you're doing, and on many community servers, having a locked tank squad for the express purpose of solo tanking is not allowed anyway. It's also proper etiquette to limit yourself to one tank per squad, even though a full squad can technically solo up to 3 tanks at a time.

The 3 seats in a tank correspond to each role. There are 3 roles in a tank, and this is universal to all tanks throughout each of the factions in the game. These will be split up into their own sections ahead due to character limit constraints.

Although many consider it to be dull and boring, perhaps the most important role inside a tank that can make or break the entire crew is the driver.

As a driver, you should be constantly in motion. The minute you stop, you have made yourself a target. Bear in mind that if you ever stall or otherwise come to a stop, you will have to shift all the way back down to gear 1 and then do the process all over again to get up to speed. This means that typically you want to be always in motion as a tank.

However, there are some situations where stopping is the best course of action - hitting a landmine can destroy your tank, and if you get caught on terrain, your tank will most likely spin out and you will waste time putting it in reverse to get unstuck.

There are a couple of key differences between the mechanics for driving tanks vs. driving trucks and scout cars. The first thing to note is that the engine turns on much faster in trucks and scout cars.

The second thing is that you also cannot manually shift gears - all trucks and scout cars are "automatic" transmission (in quotes because technically in a truck, you see your character shift gears manually... but it happens automatically). You simply have to use W to drive forward and S to go in reverse. This can be a minor inconvenience at first if you've already built up your muscle memory.

The final difference is that trucks and scout cars have 5 gears, and can gear up the fastest. This gives them an overall advantage over tanks in terms of top speed and acceleration.

When driving, it is critical that you communicate your movements to the tank commander, relaying information like what gear you are in, your current action, and where you plan to move next while driving. If you are stopped, you should not move until the tank commander gives orders. Your frontal armor is the strongest and should face the enemy.

You must coordinate with the gunner at all times. You can traverse the hull much faster than the gunner can traverse the turret, meaning as driver, you are in charge of the quick, broad strokes while the gunner utilizes precision to put rounds on the target. In the same vein, understand that the pitch of the tank's hull relative to the turret may be at an angle where the gunner cannot line up the target. In cases where the target is below the gun, but the gunner cannot pitch the main gun down further, this is known as having not enough gun depression. To fix this, try to back up the tank and get off any ridge that might be pitching your hull into the air, or roll backwards into a ridge that pitches the hull forwards and allows the gunner to aim down instead.

As your tank's gunner, your job may seem simple: shoot things. However, there is more nuance to that. It's important to understand the different ammo types you have available, which ammo types you should use for different situations, the positioning of your turret relative to your tank, and where to aim when shooting to maximize your effectiveness.

The co-ax MG is useful for suppressing infantry between loading HE shells, or tagging out enemy vehicles and tanks, or simply mowing down infantry if your aim is good enough. Just keep an eye on your ammo and try to fire in short, controlled bursts to conserve it.

An adage of tank engagements goes, "the first side to fire a shot usually wins". This is very true in HLL - speed is essential, and in an equally matched fight, your odds are better if you are quick on the draw. You also must know the weak points of an enemy tank and understand how that plays into your tactics. Tanks have weak armor on the sides, even weaker armor on the rear, and the weakest armor is on the top and bottom of the tank (though note that in HLL, the top and bottom armor is not modeled realistically and is nearly impervious to attacks, meaning your best bet is aiming at the front, sides or rear of a tank). In most cases, turret armor is much stronger than the hull armor. More details on this can be found in the "Friend, or Foe?" section below.

Shooting an enemy tank and penetrating its hull, or hitting its tracks or main gun will create an "thunk" noise audible to your entire crew, and cause several sparks to spray out over the course of a couple seconds. After this the sparks will dissipate and you will see fire and smoke coming from the place you hit. This means you have successfully penetrated the hull or otherwise caused system damage, depending on where you hit. On the contrary, if your shot fails to cause any damage, the noise made will make a very distinctive ricochet sound followed by the rippling noise of the shell careening off harmlessly into the distance. This produces a much more short-lived spray of sparks, and there will be a black scorch mark where the tank was hit rather than fire and smoke. On the plus side, this is by far the most awesome sound effect in the entire game, and fully captures how badass tanks are when shrugging off ordinance that is designed to kill them.


Getting the kill shot on an enemy tank will cause it to explode and erupt in a pillar of flames which is visible from behind cover from a long distance away. This is a universal sign that a vehicle just got knocked out, and show others on the map where the action is happening. This may also draw from you the unwanted attention of other tanks and pesky AT infantry.


When up against infantry, always load HE. AP will only deal damage if it's a near direct hit since the explosion radius is much smaller than that of HE. When aiming at infantry behind cover or in buildings with HE, try to shoot at nearby objects directly behind them so that the explosion hits them from the rear. If infantry are out in the open, aim for the ground directly at their feet, so that accuracy is less of a concern. Firing your hull MG and/or co-ax will suppress infantry and often make them go prone, pinning them down and making it easier to line up subsequent HE shots.

Your role as a spotter is important in many ways. The task at hand is to stay vigilant of your surroundings and advise your driver and gunner on the best course of action to take in any given situation. You have a 360 degree view which can be utilized by scrolling with the mouse wheel and moving it to aim. Since the gunner can only see in a small field of view where he is aiming, and the driver can only see what is directly in front of the tank, it is often up to you to watch the sides and rear since your visibility vastly outclasses both the gunner and driver combined. Note that the viewing portion is essentially a periscope on the top of the commander hatch, and you are still safe inside the battened-down hatches of the tank while looking around.


In addition to watching for potential hazards, you also must assess the battlefield situation at any given time, mark targets for your gunner and advise what ammunition type to use, assist with your gunner's target acquisition, give concise movement instructions to the driver, and if you are the tank commander, communicate what you see to the commander and other squad leads.


The spotter seat is the only place from inside the tank that you can tag targets using the middle mouse button. Tapping the middle mouse button will issue a temporary ping only visible to your squad, useful for pointing out targets for your gunner or indicating which way the driver should turn. Anyone in the spotter seat can do this, even if they are not a tank commander. However, the tank commander has a big advantage in the spotter seat. He can hold down the middle mouse button and select a tag from the context wheel for the whole team to see. This is most useful when tagging out potential enemy garrison locations, calling the position of tanks, and spotting infantry movement for the rest of the team.


Overall, as spotter, you must have a thorough understanding of tanks, their strengths and weaknesses, the limitations of gunning and driving, and also know how to coordinate your squad to maximize your battlefield potential.

When inside a tank, it is critical that you can communicate with your crew in a clear and concise manner. As a tank commander, you must give orders to your crew, and as crewmembers, you must follow the orders. The best way to give orders is by being as brief and informative as possible. Also, if you are listening for orders, you should understand what they mean. Below is a list of orders that may be given to tank crews and how they apply to tanking.

Remember to follow the A.B.C.R. STANDARD for ALL communication:

1. ACCURACY - keep your information as accurate and precise as possible
2. BREVITY - convey the critical information in as few words as possible
3. CLARITY - make sure your information is clear and easily understood
4. RELEVANCE - only speak about what is relevant


Orders that are universal to tanking and apply to all crewman as well as the commander:

BAIL <OUT>: "Exit the tank immediately." Most commonly ordered when the tank is inoperable (such as a destroyed engine) or about to be destroyed. Exiting crew should get clear of the tank in case it explodes, and watch out for enemy infantry.

HOLD FIRE (or KNOCK IT OFF): "Stop shooting main gun, coaxial machine gun, and bow machine gun immediately, and do not shoot again unless instructed to do so." Order may also be issued individually to the driver or gunner.

REPAIR: "Exit the tank, equip blowtorch (if applicable), and start repairing the tank from the exterior." Order may also be issued individually to the driver or gunner.


Orders given to the driver. All orders given by the commander should be prefaced with "DRIVER" as not to confuse the gunner:

ADVANCE (or FORWARD) <[1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th] GEAR>: "Move the tank forward and continue moving until ordered to halt. (If specified, advance in 1st / 2nd / 3rd / 4th gear. If not specified, advance at full speed.)"

BUG OUT (or RETREAT): "Disengage immediately and retreat with the tank, leave the area as fast as possible, and break line of sight with the enemy."

FACE [LEFT | RIGHT] <TO [HEADING]>: "Face the front of the tank's hull left or right (to face this compass direction). Continue moving if already in motion or remain in place if already stopped."

HALT (or STOP): "Stop the tank immediately and do not move again until ordered to move."

HULL DOWN: "Move the tank into a 'hull down' position (so the hull of the tank is in cover while the turret can still rotate and shoot freely)."

PIVOT [LEFT | RIGHT] <TO [HEADING]>: "Spin the tank in place left or right (to face this compass direction)."

REVERSE: "Put the tank in reverse gear and start backing it up. Keep alignment straight unless otherwise specified." May be used with "FACE" order to indicate to the driver where the front of the hull should face while reversing.

SHOOT <BOW MG> <AT [TARGET]>: "Shoot at this target with the bow machine gun."

TURN [LEFT | RIGHT] <TO [HEADING]>: "Turn left or right (to face this compass direction), and also continue moving forward if the tank is in motion, or start moving forward."

UNBOG: "If the tank is bogged down or stuck, get it unstuck."


Orders given to the gunner. All orders given by the commander should be prefaced with "GUNNER" as not to confuse the driver:

FIRE <AT [TARGET]> <DISTANCE>: "Shoot at this target with the main gun (at this distance away)."

SHOOT COAXIAL (or SHOOT CO-AX) <AT [TARGET]>: "Shoot at this target with the coaxial machine gun."

LOAD [AP | HE | SMOKE]: "Load the directed ammo type. If you currently have the incorrect ammo type loaded, expend it in a safe direction and load the correct ammo type."

PITCH <GUN> UP (or ELEVATE <GUN>): "Aim the main gun up."

PITCH <GUN> DOWN (or DEPRESS <GUN>): "Aim the main gun down."

TRAVERSE [LEFT | RIGHT] <TO [HEADING | # O'CLOCK]>: "Spin the turret left or right (to aim at this compass direction, or clock position on the turret indicator)."


At times, the crew will need to call out their current action to the tank commander, or the tank commander will need to call out potential threats to the crew. The following are different callouts that can be made by the spotter, driver, and gunner. The tank commander may also make callouts to friendly squads over command net.


CONTACT <UNIT> <DISTANCE> <BEARING>: "We are engaged with the enemy (this unit at this distance and compass direction)."

TARGET <UNIT> <DISTANCE> <BEARING>: "Aim at and shoot at this target (this unit at this distance and compass direction)."

VISUAL <ON UNIT> <DISTANCE> <BEARING>: "We have spotted the enemy (this unit at this distance and compass direction)." Does not necessarily imply direct action against the enemy.


BOGGED DOWN (or STUCK): "The tank is bogged down or stuck and needs to be unbogged or unstuck to continue."

WINCHESTER <BOW MG>: "We are completely out of bow machine gun ammo and need to resupply."


<[AP | HE | SMOKE]> UP: "This ammo type is loaded in the main gun and ready to fire."

<GUN> ON: "The gun is aimed at my current target and I am ready to fire."

NO DEPRESSION <TO TARGET>: "I cannot hit the target, because the gun is pitched all the way down and the target is still below my aim." Requires the driver to reposition the tank for the gunner to shoot.

NO ELEVATION <TO TARGET>: "I cannot hit the target, because the gun is pitched all the way up and the target is still above my aim." Requires the driver to reposition the tank for the gunner to shoot.

NO LINE OF SIGHT <TO TARGET>: "I cannot see what I am shooting at." The gunner may still be able to hit a target marked by the spotter, but there could be an object that blocks the shot.

ON THE WAY: "I am firing the main gun and sending a shell downrange right now."

WINCHESTER <[AP | HE | SMOKE | CO-AX MG]>: "We are completely out of this ammunition type and need to resupply (or out of ALL ammunition types if not specified)."

What is perhaps one of the more underrated aspects of tanking is what you should and should not do while crewing a tank. Although it might seem silly at first, it is important to understand that a baseline level of common sense and manners is expected if you are a tank crew. This section will list a few behaviors that should be obvious, but people still disregard anyway. One of the fastest ways to cause headache for yourself and your team (and possibly get kicked or banned from whatever server you're on) is by not following these unspoken rules of tanking.

DOs:

• DO coordinate with the rest of your team. Remember your role in what a tank does. If your commander is requesting armor support in a particular area of the map, friendly infantry is pinned down and needs help covering their advance, or enemy tanks are loose and causing havoc on the battlefield, prioritize your objectives. Understand that effective use of armor can make or break a game. Try to work with your team and help them out. If you take initiative in your willingness to cooperate, your team will also be more willing to help you with your needs as a result. If you roll into a strong point with the intent to help capture it, and shout on local chat with the infantry around you telling them to get behind your tank for cover while you advance in 2nd gear, you can bet they are going to watch your sides and rear as you push up and do their best to keep AT infantry off your back. In the same vein, if you have friendly tank squads in the mix, try and communicate with them over radio to figure out what the main armor objectives are for your team. If you lose your tank, tell the other tank crews what killed you and where it is, if you have that info. And remember, you have security and strength in numbers. Rolling with a convoy is always better than going it alone.
  
  
• DO coordinate with other tank crews and be a good sport. Often times, there will be a shortage of fuel or tank spawns will be on cooldown. You will have to decide with the rest of your team who can best utilize the assets available. If you only have 2 people in your tank squad and another squad has a full 3, but there is only 1 heavy tank available, cede the heavy tank to the full crew and take a medium or recon tank. If you're a solo tanker and run into a squad with 2 people in it who want to grab a tank, don't even think about jumping in - and in fact, at that point, you should ask them if you can join their squad to have a crew at full strength. A full crew of 3 in a single tank is infinitely more efficient in battle than 3 solo tankers at once.
  
  
• DO try to preserve your tank. Although it's expected that your tank will be destroyed in combat (especially if you're still new and learning how to do it), understand that tanks are costly - when a tank is destroyed, spawning a new one will cost a certain amount of fuel. You can see your team's fuel count by opening the map and checking the Jerrycan icon at the top right. Recon tanks cost 100 fuel, light tanks cost 150 fuel, medium tanks cost 200 fuel, and heavy tanks cost a whopping 500 or 600 fuel. Driver error can cause your tanks to get stuck in a ditch and force your crew to redeploy and grab another tank. Abandoned vehicles will self-destruct after 10 minutes of being abandoned. However, until those 10 minutes pass, an abandoned vehicle will still count towards your team's hard vehicle limit of 10 - that is to say, only 10 vehicles total can be deployed by your team at any given time, including trucks and tanks. Also, even if your team is swimming in fuel, it can take up to 5 minutes for the spawn tank ability to come off of cooldown. This means if there are multiple tank squads vying for tanks, they have to wait 2-5 minutes to get the same type of tank you just rolled off with. Overall, just try to be careful with your tank and realize that they're not free. Think twice before going on suicide missions in the Carentan town square with enemy AT infantry everywhere, driving up that death trap of a main road in Purple Heart Lane approaching that same place where your tank got knocked out the last 3 times in the past 5 minutes, off-roading into the dense wooded areas of Hurtgen Forest, or winging it over those extra wide anti-tank trenches at Kursk.

DON'Ts:

• DO NOT steal someone else's tank. Sometimes, you will find that people have to sit at one of the HQ spawns and patiently wait for the commander to spawn them another tank. Unfortunately there are people who will rush into a tank to try and enter it before another squad can. Don't be that guy. Be reasonable and talk it out with the other tank squad, or wait your turn.
  
  
• DO NOT play in a locked solo tank squad. Solo tanking in general even with your squad unlocked is a bit of a grey area when it comes to rules and etiquette. However, due to solo tankers' tendencies to ignore the team instead of communicating, acting inconsiderate of other tank crews, and wasting battlefield assets, they are universally hated within the HLL community. Unless you have at least 2 people in your tank squad, you are underutilizing the tank's capability. Since U10, it takes up to 8 full seconds to swap from one seat to another inside a tank. This means if you are sitting still in the turret firing at distant targets, or are up in the spotter's seat, and an enemy tank or AT sneaks up behind you and hits your rear, you won't be able to jump to the driver's seat fast enough to even start moving before your engine is disabled or your tank is destroyed. If you lock your solo tank squad, people looking to join a squad will assume that you will reject their join request. Not only is this a bad idea, but locked solo tanking is against the rules in the majority of community servers. If you must lock your squad to wait for your friend to jump on, sit back at HQ spawn, smoke 'em if you got 'em, and don't enter a tank and drive off until at least 2 crew are present.
  
  
• DO NOT fight over tanks with other crew. This is just bad form. Arguing over who should get what tank or teamkilling someone to deny them entry so you can get in yourself is about the worst thing you can do. Just don't do this. Intentional teamkilling is strictly prohibited on almost every public HLL server, and most communities will ban players who do this. If you get teamkilled by another tank crew, you can typically type !admin in chat followed by the username of the people who killed you and why, and if the server is well moderated, it will be dealt with by an admin.
  
  
• DO NOT drive a tank into the enemy HQ areas to destroy empty vehicles and spawnkill infantry. It's unsporting behavior that sucks the fun out of the game for the players on the opposing team, and it will leave you feeling shallow for being a cheapshot. Just use vehicles for their intended purpose instead and everyone will have more fun that way. There's a case to be made for using a vehicle to kill the enemy artillery crew and deny them use of their artillery, but even then, that's not really your job as tank crew. You should be up at the front lines and let recon teams lock down the enemy artillery instead.
  
  
• DO NOT steal a tank just to use it as a taxi and abandon it afterwards. This should go without saying, but it still happens. If you jump out of your tank and get killed when it is still intact, don't get in a recon vehicle just to drive back up to it. Deploy on the nearest garrison instead and get there on foot. If you get in a light tank because no other tanks are available, drive halfway across the map, and then see a medium or heavy spawn that you'd rather use instead, don't just ditch the vehicle and redeploy. Drive it back to the HQ next to a repair station and then jump in the vehicle you want.

One of the most important aspects of tanking is being able to differentiate between them. It is critical to identify a tank for 4 reasons:

1. Determine if it is one of yours or not, a.k.a. "Identify: Friend or Foe" (IFF).
2. Know intuitively if a spotted tank is an immediate threat to you, and - if there are multiple enemy tanks - knowing what your target priority is.
3. Know what targets you must engage to best support your team and achieve your objectives. This is distinctly different than reason 2, because reason 2 is about survivability whereas this reason is about combat effectiveness.
4. Know when to avoid conflict or disengage if you are outnumbered, out-armored, or outgunned.

Here, I will show each armored vehicle that exists in the game, help show you how to identify with visual aide, and briefly go over the stats of each. Note that when calling out tanks to your team, you should ALWAYS tell them what kind of tank it is (if you can confirm a positive ID with visual on it). For this, I recommend using the short version of the tank's name which I will capture with quotations; e.g. a Sherman "Jumbo 76" would just be called out to your team as a "Jumbo 76" for brevity, and a PzKpfw. V "Panther" would just be called out as a "Panther".

When in doubt, you can always aim down sights at a tank if it has crew in it, and if the crew are friendly, the tank will have a popup showing a list of your teammates inside it. Failing this you can also check your map and see if the tank shows up on your map. If it isn't on your map, it's obviously an enemy tank.

It is worth noting that the Americans' M1919 and Soviets' DT machine guns sport red/orange tracer rounds, while the Germans' MG34 machine guns fire green/teal tracer rounds. Watching the direction tracer rounds are flying in from and determining their color can help you quickly identify where a given tank is and whose side it's on. The tracer color also applies to main cannon shells, but they travel at a much higher velocity and as such can be hard to spot.

Due to character limits, the content of this section is split up into different segments below.

Description: The Willys MB Jeep is an iconic military vehicle that is the trope codifier for nearly all vehicles of its type and class. It is a classic pattern that is instantly recognizable as a jeep by anyone who can see it, and even today, the design has not changed much from the original and many similar civilian jeeps are often seen on US roads. It is a small green vehicle characterized by a flat windshield, open top and sides, and a spare tire on the back.


Overview: The Willys MB is an iconic design. During WWII, it was often used as a command vehicle. In Hell Let Loose, it can seat 1 driver and 3 passengers, and is capable of dropping up to 2 ammo boxes behind it much in the same way that a supply truck drops supply crates. Being small, fast, and nimble lends it great maneuverability and can make it a tough target to hit when at full speed. The Willys MB has a niche role in the meta of being a means of transport for a recon team, commander, or small infantry squad. However, it is unarmored, and its open top means a skilled player can snipe the occupants or kill them with a frag grenade.

Description: The American GMC CCKW 353 is a green truck with 3 axles, one axle in front and 2 in the rear. The cab and overall shape of the truck is very boxy. Like the German trucks, the troop transport variant features no tarp while the supply variant has a tarp covering it. The tarp is a light tan color.


Overview: Although many vehicles in the US Army during WWII were of similar patterns or the same design with different manufacturers, the variant of truck used in Hell Let Loose is closest to the GMC design CCKW 353. Most trucks in WWII were designated by the weight they could carry. The CCKW 353 was a 2.5 ton truck, which was the maximum weight allowance for the payload. Such trucks were affectionately known as the "deuce-and-a-half". In Hell Let Loose, transport trucks full of troops or supply trucks are high-value targets. Losing a transport truck at the start of the game with a large portion of the team riding it is a major setback and gives the other team a huge tactical advantage, buying them time. Likewise, destroying a supply truck before it can drop supplies can prevent garrisons, nodes, or defensive structures from being built.

Description: The M3 Half-Track is a medium-sized truck-like open top vehicle that features light armor to protect against small arms fire, a single axel pair of wheels in front, and tracks in the rear of the vehicle for propulsion. It features a .50 caliber machine gun mount for the front passenger to use.


Overview: During the days of WWII, a prominent theory for armored personnel carriers or gun carriers at the time was having a vehicle with steerable wheels in the front, while having the drive train propel a set of tracks in the rear. The idea was that the vehicle would have a steering wheel and be simple to operate for drivers who had experience with wheeled vehicles, while also adding the benefits of a tracked vehicle like better ground pressure and more reliable traction. This turned out to work reasonably well and many nations adopted the design, and it was quite efficient in that time period of heavy experimentation. In HLL, the halftrack is primarily used as a mobile spawn point for friendly infantry. Although it is underutilized in the meta, in the hands of a capable commander or squad leader, it can be used to gain good flanking positions or backing up garrisons and potentially turn the tide of battle.

Description: The Greyhound is easily distinguished from the other American vehicles because it has a set of 6 wheels instead of tracks. Other defining characteristics are a rounded, cylindrical turret and an angular wedged front chassis with boxy sides and rear.


Overview: The Greyhound is the Americans' scout car. The armor is paper thin, making it only capable of holding up to small arms fire, and it is vulnerable even to well-placed HE rounds from vehicles such as the Luchs. The 37mm main gun is only effective against infantry and other light vehicles, or the rear armor of medium and heavy tanks. These limiting factors mean the Greyhound's use case is a scouting and support role. Like its German counterpart, the Puma, there are two passenger seats in this vehicle ideal for taxiing a friendly recon squad or the commander around the battlefield. The commander hatch also allows the user to take recon photos which mark enemy locations on the map for the whole team.

Description: The Stuart can be distinguished by sloped, angular front armor with rounded plates over the front of the tracks, and a boxy, flat side and rear with tall, thin, exposed treads. The turret is angular in the front and boxy towards the rear with a curvature along the top from front to back, and the turret mantlet is large and pronounced.


Overview: The M5 Stuart is a light, fast tank that is best suited to hunting enemy light vehicles and supporting infantry. Its main gun is capable of destroying a Panther or even a Tiger from the rear with repeated shots, and can easily dispatch the Luchs or Puma without fearing their main armaments from the front. However, facing a Panther or Tiger head-on is asking for it as they can one-shot the Stuart through its frontal armor the minute their shot is lined up. The Stuart's maneuverability and speed makes a quick getaway easy, and driving circles around enemy tanks is trivial, provided the driver doesn't get stuck on the terrain.

Description: The iconic M4 Sherman is perhaps the most easily recognizable American tank of WWII. It is characterized by sloped frontal hull armor with flat sides that tapers off towards the rear of the tank. The edges and corners of the hull are rounded off, and the tracks are completely exposed with only a modest plating covering the top front. The turret is a slanted cylinder with a protruding back section, about a 10 degree angle across the top, and the turret mantlet is thick and rectangular.


Overview: The Sherman Medium lives up to the M4 line of tanks' reputation of having weak hull armor but strong turret armor. While the Medium enjoys near complete protection from the enemy Puma and is impervious to the Luchs, it is quickly outmatched by the Panther's 75mm gun and the Tiger's 88mm gun, which make short work of the Medium even with shots to the frontal armor. The Medium makes up for this shortcoming with its respectable firepower, and it enjoys good maneuverability and speed for its size, making it easy to reposition on the enemy. The Medium is one of two tanks in the game which carry smoke shells, and it has a great deal of smoke ammunition, allowing it to obscure entire battlefields. A good crew can best utilize the Medium by supporting infantry and occasionally hunting enemy tanks, but it is left vulnerable when it lacks strength or security in numbers, and like most tanks is a sitting duck out in the open fields.

Description: The up-armored M4 Sherman Jumbo is a spitting image of its Sherman Medium counterpart. It boasts much thicker armor all around the tank, most notably the reinforced sloped frontal armor. This heavier armor gives the Sherman Jumbo its boxy appearance and sharp corners and edges. The only noticeable difference with the turret is a more robust turret mantlet, but it retains its rectangular shape from the Sherman Medium.


Overview: The Jumbo 75 is an interesting tank. What really sets the Jumbo 75 apart from all but one other tank in the game is the unique M89 Smoke ammunition type. By loading a smoke shell and firing it, a vast cloud of white phosphorus (Willy-Peter) is kicked up which obscures the vision of anything inside or behind it. This gives the Jumbo 75 a notable tactical advantage when engaging enemy tanks, enabling the crew to nearly instantly render enemy tanks blind. The smoke shell is also very effective for smoking big, open fields to cover an infantry push, making it a fantastic complement to friendly infantry. However, all of this comes with the stipulation that the Jumbo 75 can only hold 6 smoke rounds at a time. Overall, the Jumbo 75 is largely underutilized in the meta due to two shortcomings which render it nearly useless: the 8-second reload time on the main gun, and the inability to penetrate the Panther and Tiger in the frontal armor. It can hold its own during direct engagements against light and medium tanks, but must outmaneuver the German heavy tanks to put rounds in the vulnerable sides, which it struggles to do. Except for very niche cases, it is eclipsed by the Jumbo 76.

Description: The M4 Sherman Jumbo 76 is nearly identical in looks to the Jumbo 75. The most reliable way to tell them apart aside from the greeble attached to the tank and the darker coloring is the much lengthier and bigger 76mm gun ending in a muzzle brake. In HLL, the Jumbo 76 is the only American tank which has a muzzle brake on the main gun, meaning this single feature can be used to positively identify a Jumbo 76.


Overview: The Jumbo 76 is in many ways the Jumbo 75's meaner, scarier big brother, and the answer to the Tiger tank. Its main cannon is capable of penetrating any tank's frontal armor and knocking out the Tiger or Panther with 2 hits to the hull. This primarily makes the Jumbo 76 a tank hunter, but its large stock of HE ammunition can prove useful against infantry and unarmored vehicles.

Description: The Kübelwagen is a small, fast, unarmored, open-top jeep that features a spare tire on the front hood, no windshield, a lowered canopy, and a very simple and boxy chassis.


Overview: During the German invasion of Poland in 1939, one of the first personnel vehicles to be ever used in WWII was the humble Kübelwagen. Although it went through several design changes to give it different capabilities on the battlefield, the Type 82/0 used in Hell Let Loose is the basic model which simply seats and transports 4 people.

Description: The Opel Blitz 2.5 ton truck is a 2-axle truck with a rounded cab design and boxy rear. Much like the American GMC trucks, the transport variant has no canopy and the supply variant does have a canopy.


Overview: From the outset of WWII, there were many GMC and Ford truck factories in Germany at the time. Those factories were seized by the German state, and their main product was rebranded as the Opel Blitz. For all the credit that the Germans got for "German Engineering", it can't be ignored that the Opel Blitz was for all intents and purposes an American design. That design carried Germany through the end of the war. It was cheap, it was effective, and it formed the backbone of the German supply train.

Description: Like all half-tracks, the Sd.Kfz. 251's defining characteristic is a set of road wheels in front and a set of tracks in the rear. The hull of the vehicle is very angular and has a very shallow slope on the top front armor. At the front of the half-track is an MG42 machine gun mount. Overall, the Sd.Kfz. 251's design is a very distinguished one, and it is very hard to mistake for another vehicle.


Overview: The Sd.Kfz. 251 is an icon of German mechanized infantry divisions in WWII. It is the only vehicle in Hell Let Loose to have a mounted MG 42 machine gun, since all of the German tanks mount MG 34 machine guns instead. Although the MG 34 and the MG 42 are based on the same platform, the latter has a much higher cyclic rate of fire (~1,200 rounds per minute as opposed to ~850) at the cost of accuracy. This gave it the nickname "Hitler's Buzz Saw". The Sd.Kfz. 251 is not without shortcomings, however. It is the one vehicle in the game with the single worst driver viewport. The slit that the driver must look through when driving this half-track is so tiny that it is impossible to see anything directly in front of the vehicle if it is close enough. This is a major blind spot for the driver, and can lead to getting the vehicle stuck in ditches or trenches, or going off bridges into a river if the driver is not careful or otherwise inexperienced. Also, it makes anti-tank infantry harder to spot; therefore, AT infantry can easily exploit this major weakness.

Description: The Puma stands out among the other German tanks by having 8 exposed wheels instead of tracks. The body overall is very angular. The front chassis is sloped and angled while the sides and rear are mostly flat and boxy. Above the wheels on each side is a large, flat chevron type shape. The turret is rounded off on the sides, but flat and angular on the front, top, and rear, while the turret mantlet is a cone shape. Towards the rear of the vehicle are bright red fuel tanks and an antenna that resembles the skeleton of an umbrella turned inside-out.


Overview: The Puma is the choice of scout car for the Germans. Like the American Greyhound, the armor is relatively weak and only holds up to small arms fire, and any anti-armor weapons will make short work of it. The Puma's main gun is powerful enough to engage the Greyhound from the front, or the Stuart from the sides and rear, but the caliber is ill-suited to fighting larger tanks such as any of the Sherman variety. The spotter seat features a camera that can take recon photos to mark enemies on the map. The role of the Puma is therefore primarily to support infantry, scout, and taxi recon squads and the commander around the battlefield.

Description: The Luchs is a very small, boxy tank. Its chassis and turret are made up almost entirely of sharp corners and edges, and there are few angles to speak of. The tracks are completely exposed on the sides and have a skirt across the top. The lower glacis plate is tall and pronounced and nearly perpendicular to the ground. The turret is vaguely wedge-shaped, converging towards the main gun on the front, and the turret mantlet is a horizontal half-cylinder shape. Overall the tank has a low profile which can make it difficult to spot when behind cover, especially in urban areas where it can blend in with buildings.


Overview: The Luchs is a unique tank that has some characteristics which set it apart from other vehicles. The biggest difference is the main gun: a 20mm auto loader with 20-round clips of HE ammunition, making the Luchs the only tank in the game with an auto loader. Even in an intense firefight with explosions of all varieties, the report of the Luchs' main gun is an unmistakable "THONK-THONK-THONK-THONK" followed by the blasts of the projectiles exploding as they hit their target. This makes the tank very easy to pinpoint even if you are a few hundred meters away from it. What's more is that the Luchs lacks a hull machine gun. It also does not carry AP ammunition, making it nearly useless against anything but soft targets like infantry, trucks, halftracks, or recon vehicles. Aside from this there are two ways the Luchs can effectively engage medium and heavy tanks. First, the Luchs can destroy the tracks of any tank. Second, it can suppress tanks by concentrating fire. Although the HE rounds cannot penetrate, the shock of several explosions hitting the outside of the tank will knock the crew around inside, shaking their camera and giving them the suppression tunnel vision, making it difficult for them to aim or look around for a few seconds. Doing so will also prevent the crew from disembarking for repairs, or kill them if they have already exited the tank. This can buy the Luchs enough time to retreat, or distract its target long enough for a friendly to line up the kill shot. The Luchs is very fast which makes for an easy time closing distance, flanking, or retreating. These properties combined create a tank which is largely ineffective against armor, but can decimate swaths of infantry by raining hell on them with the 20mm cannon.

Description: Much like its distant cousin the Panzer II Luchs, the Panzer IV is a very boxy tank. It features flat, rectangular sections of armor, and fully exposed tracks with drive sprockets at the front. The turret features a very prominent commander's cupola, an extension on the back, and a long-barreled main gun with a muzzle brake. The glacis plates on the hull feature spare track links as makeshift armor.


Overview: The Panzer IV was in second place for the most ubiquitous German tank of WWII, surpassed only by the StuG III in sheer numbers. It saw use first as an infantry support tank, then was gradually adapted into multiple fighting roles and expanded into several variants. The variant in Hell Let Loose is the Ausf. G, which lacks the standoff armor skirts of its direct successor the Ausf. H, but features a long-barreled 75mm gun that is formidable against infantry and tanks. The Panzer IV is roughly equivalent to the Sherman Medium in terms of use case, armor effectiveness, and armament. Its armor, speed, and handling is considerably outclassed by the Panther, but the Panzer IV can still hold its own against most threats, and in the hands of a capable crew is easily just as deadly.

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Description: The Panther stands out among other tanks with flat, but sloped upper and lower glacis plates forming a 45 degree offset from the ground. This creates a sharp wedge shape in the front of the tank between the treads. The front and sides of the tank are sloped inward from the base to the top. The back of the tank is at an inverted 45 degree angle to the ground, which gives the hull a rhombus shape from the side. The turret is flat on the front but has a thick, rectangular, quarter-cylinder turret mantlet covering it. The sides of the turret are flat but wrap around, curving to the rear. On the top of the turret is a very tall and pronounced commander's cupola.


Overview: In reality, the Panther tank was a heavy tank in all but name. Although it was technically classified as a medium tank in real life, it is more reasonably classified as heavy in Hell Let Loose. The Panther is the third fastest tank in the game behind the Stuart and Luchs, giving it a big advantage in closing ground with the enemy. Although the frontal armor is thin compared to that of the Tiger, its steep slope drastically increases the effective armor thickness, making it deceptively effective in causing 75mm shells to bounce off harmlessly. However, the Panther's turret cheeks behind the gun mantlet, side, and rear armor are all penetrable by a medium tank's 75mm gun. Additionally, the Panther shares the Tiger's weakness in that it can be dispatched by a mere 37mm Stuart gun from the rear. Contrary to real life, the Panther's 75mm main gun easily penetrates the Sherman Jumbo and IS-1's front armor, and hits as hard as the Tiger's 88mm when it does penetrate. Therefore, its capability on the battlefield should not be underestimated. The Panther is currently the single most powerful tank in the Hell Let Loose meta.

Description: The iconic Panzer Kampfwagen Tiger I is easily recognizable by anyone familiar with WWII tanks. The front, sides, and rear of the chassis are shaped like a flat rectangular prism. The tracks are fully exposed on the sides, but an angled skirt extending from the Tiger's side armor covers them on the top. The turret is a round cylinder shape with a boxy extension on the back, and the turret mantlet is a thick, beveled rectangle shape.


Overview: The Tiger tank is the single most infamous tank of WWII. It is built like a steel brick on treads, and boasts the most powerful gun in the game: the 88mm. It lives up to its terrifying reputation by shrugging off most anti-tank ordnance, and having the capability of destroying any other tank in 1-2 shots to the hull. Contrary to the mythos however, the Tiger is far from impervious. Its armor is weaker on the sides and rear, and a well-placed shot from a Jumbo 76, IS-1, or AT gun aimed perpendicular to the frontal armor will penetrate. The cost of its heavy armor and main gun is speed and maneuverability. As such, the Tiger is best utilized by getting it into a stationary position overlooking an open area such as a road or a large field, going hull down, and picking off medium and heavy tanks. It is inadvisable to use it to advance in a frontal assault unless security in numbers is achieved, since its slow speed and poor maneuverability makes it vulnerable to being flanked or ambushed. In the current meta, the Tiger is eclipsed in capability by the Panther and as such is rarely used.

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Description: The Soviet lend-lease variant of the M3 half-track is identical both in functionality and appearance to the American M3 half-track. The only significant visual difference between the two is the livery.


Overview: WWII saw the sharing of many designs among nations that were fighting on the same side. The Soviet Union was an ally of The United States up until the end of the war and the erection of The Berlin Wall and split between NATO and Warsaw Pact nations. As such, many American designs were given to the Soviets during WWII as part of the US "lend-lease" program. The M3 half-track was one such design. In Hell Let Loose, the M3 half-track is essentially a copy and paste job with the only real difference being the paint job, livery, and greeble.

Description: The BA-10 is the Soviet recon vehicle. It is a small green armored car sporting 6 wheels and 2 spare tires. It features a quirky-looking hull shaped like a truck's cab which tapers off into a cylindrical shape where the round turret attaches to the rear. Its overall profile is very high and easily distinguishable compared to all of the other vehicles.


Overview: Being the Soviets' choice of recon vehicle, the BA-10 is functionally identical to the Greyhound and Puma. Before U13, the Soviets did not have a light tank in the game since the T-70 hadn't been introduced yet, so the BA-10 assumed this role as well. It is best suited to scouting and infantry support due to its paper thin armor and ineptitude against hard targets such as medium and heavy tanks (except when hitting the rear armor).

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Description: The T-34 is a small, angular, green tank sporting a hull that is prominently pyramid-shaped. On the front hull, there is a bow MG on the right side with its own mantlet that protrudes outward. The turret is a slanted hexagon, and the main gun is short and ends with no muzzle brake, and attaches to the turret with a very large and bulbous gun mantlet. The tracks feature large road wheels which extend the full height from the bottom of the tracks to the top, similar to the Tiger I. Towards the back of the tank, there are two large boxes that are attached to either side of the hull above the tracks. Surrounding the hull and turret are handles for use with tank desant tactics.


Overview: When the T-34 tanks were first seen by the German military, General Kleist of the 1st Panzer Army was heard to say it was "the finest tank in the world". In fact, it was a major influence for the similarly-designed Panther tank which would make its debut in the Battle of Kursk just 2 years later. The T-34 was the most mass-produced tank of WWII and had a very good balance of armor, mobility, and firepower - at least on paper. In Hell Let Loose, the T-34 is the variant packing the 76mm main cannon (T-34/76). The T-34 in-game lacks the reliability and crew ergonomics issues it had in real life. As a result, it is quite a threat to the German light and medium tanks, and is nimble enough to potentially outflank and destroy a Tiger. They are best suited to supporting friendly infantry and pushing or holding strategic objectives.

Description: The IS-1 heavy tank is strikingly similar in looks to the T-34, and as such it is easy to mistake one for the other. The main differences are an overall much larger form factor, a rounded plate on the front hull, bigger and smoother turret, and cylindrical fuel tanks near the rear of the hull instead of boxy structures. It sports an 85mm main cannon which does not feature a muzzle brake.


Overview: The IS-1 tank - so named after Stalin himself - was a formidable heavy tank designed to replace the KV tanks. The powerful 85mm gun is capable of knocking out any tank in 1-2 shots to the hull, much like the Tiger's 88 and the Sherman Jumbo's 76. Where the IS-1 shines is in its role of hunting enemy tanks and breaking through fortified positions.

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So far, most of what has been discussed is tank-on-tank combat. However, no tank guide would be complete without covering one of the most reliable means the enemy has for taking you out of action. One of the best ways for an opposing force to counter tanks - even if they have no tanks of their own - is utilizing the poor, bloody infantry for all of the conceivable anti-tank needs.

As a tank, AT infantry are an omnipresent threat. Your big, armored bunker can protect you from small arms fire, but there are a few ways that pesky AT's can quickly reduce your rolling fortress to a burning steel sarcophagus. Here is what you need to look out for when dealing with infantry.

• Anti-Tank Guns: These are stationary gun emplacements with limited traverse speed and aiming angles. In Hell Let Loose, AT guns are balanced to have the same stats for each faction, meaning the differences between them are effectively cosmetic. Update 11 has made these erstwhile underutilized guns very powerful, namely by buffing their penetration and damage capabilities far beyond that of their real-world counterparts. An AT gun is capable of knocking out any medium or heavy tank with 3-5 shots to the hull, and light vehicles with 1-2 shots. Coupled with their comparatively high rate of fire when fully crewed (~15 rounds per minute), this makes anti-tank guns extremely dangerous, and puts them firmly at the top of your target priority list.
  
  
• Hand Weapons: Three anti-tank weapons exist in the game: the bazooka (US), the panzerschreck (Germany), and the PTRS-41 (Soviets). Functionally, the bazooka and panzerschreck are nearly identical and differ only in stats. Both of them are "noob tubes" that launch rockets which can penetrate certain spots on your tank. The panzerschreck has superior penetration to the bazooka and can penetrate any light or medium tank in the frontal armor, or a heavy from the sides and rear. The bazooka can penetrate the Puma anywhere, the Luchs from the sides and rear, and the Panzer IV and Tiger from the rear. The PTRS-41 is an anti-tank rifle with very limited penetration capabilities, but can quickly disable the engine of any tank with repeated shots to the rear armor. Once disabled, the PTRS-41 can be used to score a kill on a tank in 1-2 magazine dumps.
  
  
• Mines: Anti-tank mines are functionally identical regardless of the faction, but have slightly different appearances - they present themselves as round, tall, dark cylinders with handles (US), round, flat, beige pancake-shapes (Germany), and green square-shaped boxes (Soviets). Rolling over an enemy mine with your tracks will cause it to damage or destroy your tracks, but not cause any damage to the hull. Rolling directly over a mine such that it is under the hull of your tank, but in between the tracks will cause it to explode and instantly kill recon vehicles and light tanks, cause 75% hull damage to medium tanks, or cause 67% hull damage to a heavy tank. The best way to avoid AT mines is by staying off of roads and other high-traffic areas, or simply watching for them when on the move and instructing your driver to stop. AT mines can be safely detonated via explosive weapons such as grenades or the main gun on your tank. They cannot be destroyed with small arms or MG fire, however.
  
  
• Satchel Charges: Woe betide the tank commander who sits in one place for too long, and fails to check for the insidious silent-but-deadly of tank killers. Truly, satchels are an all-too-familiar scourge upon less wary tank crews. Satchel charges can possibly be carried by the enemy Level 9 Assault (US/Germany only), Level 6 AT, and Level 3 Engineer classes. A quick way to identify if an enemy may have a satchel loadout equipped is checking to see what kind of primary weapon they're holding - anyone with a Thompson, grease gun, trench gun, MP40, StG 44, or short-barreled Mosin could be packing a satchel. Typically, an assailant with a satchel charge will run up to your tank from behind and attempt to attach it to the hull. Once attached to the hull of your tank, the satchel charge must be manually defused by one of your crew exiting the tank. Satchels have a minimum timer of 30 seconds from being placed and take 10 seconds to defuse, giving you a 20-second window to exit the tank (which itself takes 4 to 8 seconds), kill the offending infantry units, and start defusing. If a satchel explodes while attached to the hull of your tank, or if it is placed directly underneath your tank on the ground, it will destroy the tank instantly and kill any nearby infantry and disembarked crew members. If you are in a tank that suddenly explodes and you have no idea what killed you, it is usually because a satchel was placed without you noticing. The best way to avoid getting satchel'd is to stay vigilant of enemy infantry coming in close to your tank, and be wary of close quarters areas where infantry are hard to spot such as in hedgerows or dense urban areas. Note that satchels are very large and black (or green in the case of the Soviets), and hang freely from an infantry unit's hand. Some infantry may try to trick you by pulling out the much smaller, white bandage which they can wrap their entire hand around, and chase you with it pretending to have a satchel.

All AT guns are identical in stats. Each have a 4-second reload time when fully crewed, and have theoretically unlimited ammo, but each individual shot from them will cost their team 5 munition points. If the enemy team runs completely out of munitions, AT guns will be unable to reload. AT guns can be destroyed by any anti-tank weapon, or from a single HE or AP shell from a tank. The Luchs will need to fire multiple shots at an AT gun to destroy it.

Description: The 57mm AT gun can be distinguished in-game by its olive green color, very short barrel ending in no muzzle brake, and of course the normal features of every other AT gun - the frontal shield, wheels, and trail & spade configuration.

Overview: Although in real life the 57mm AT gun struggled to hit the broad side of a barn at a range of just 100 meters, it is pinpoint accurate in Hell Let Loose. Also uncharacteristic to its real life counterpart, it can penetrate Panther and Tiger tanks in the frontal armor. Watch out for the 57 poking out between bushes or in the middle of a busy road.

Description: The PaK 40 features a long-barreled 75mm gun ending in a muzzle brake. It also features a camouflage pattern similar to that of the German light tanks.

Overview: The PaK 40 was the staple 75mm anti-tank gun of the Wehrmacht during the mid- and late-war, and largely replaced the 45mm PaK 38. In real life, it was usually unable to penetrate the frontal armor of the American Jumbo tanks, but in HLL, it will bore through any armor like butter. Be on the lookout for the PaK 40 when in a tank.

Description: The ZiS-2 has a very long 57mm gun which does not have a muzzle brake. The overall color is an earthy brown, meaning it blends in well with the wooden furnishings and muddy trenches of Kursk and Stalingrad.

Overview: The Soviets initially received the American 57mm AT guns as part of their lend-lease program. However, they learned from its design flaws and extended the barrel length, drastically increasing accuracy and penetration power. The ZiS-2 is deadly to any tank that it can fire at. They are most often found on roads and atop hills where they have a good vantage point on your tank.

When your tank incurs damage from enemy weapons, it is important to quickly identify the source of damage, direction it came from, and the type of weapon used in order to react to it effectively, or give accurate callouts to the rest of your team if your tank is destroyed. Knowing how much damage a single hit has dealt to your tank and remembering what weapon correlates to the percent damage incurred can help you do this.

Below is a complete table of all damage sources and their effectiveness against each type of tank and their individual systems. "OHKO" (one-hit knockout) means that a penetrating hit to that part of the tank (hull or turret) will only take a single shot to destroy your tank even at full hull strength.

Now that we know the basics of tanking, and can identify the tanks in the game, let's apply this knowledge to our advantage. So far, we have answered the question of "What does a tank do?", demonstrated Hell Let Loose's basic mechanics for tanking, and shown stats for each of the armored vehicles that exist.

One thing that all tanks have in common is that their frontal armor is the toughest. It makes sense if you think about it. Tanks are meant to engage the target head-on and potentially draw a lot of fire from the front. We also know that the side armor is still strong, but much weaker than the frontal armor, and we know that the rear armor is the weakest and most vulnerable spot on a tank. This is excluding the top armor of a tank and the bottom armor, both of which are weaker than the rear armor in most circumstances. In Hell Let Loose however, top and bottom armor are not modeled for penetration. As such, shots on an enemy tank's exposed top or bottom armor, as well as objects sticking up from them like the commander's cupola cannot be penetrated and will always ricochet shots.

However, there is one more aspect to armor we haven't fully covered yet, which is slope and angling. If you were paying attention when reading over the description for the Sherman Jumbo and Panther tanks, you will have noticed that armor becomes more effective when it is at an angle. We measure this improvement with a term called "effective thickness" - even if the armor is only N millimeters thick, any time a slope is introduced rather than keeping the point of impact at 90 degrees, it has an exponentially greater effect in deflecting the incoming rounds. Therefore the shell hitting it may need - for example - twice the power to get through it, effectively doubling the armor.

The exact formula for effective thickness is as follows, where "T" is armor thickness, "A" is armor angle, and "E" is effective thickness: (T/cos(A°)) = E.

As a rule of thumb: At an angle of 60°, effective armor thickness DOUBLES.

One way to apply this concept is with tank design. Such tanks have armor that is sloped, giving them an inherent effective thickness bonus. You see this in the design for the Sherman tanks, the Stuart, the T-34, and the Panther, and to a lesser extent the Greyhound, Puma, and IS-1.

The other way effective thickness can be applied is from you - the driver - by angling your tank. Instead of facing the enemy head-on, approaching from a 10 to 15 degree angle such that your frontal armor is at a 15 degree angle, and your side armor is exposed but at a 165 degree angle, will cause enemy tank shells to bounce more easily.

In Hell Let Loose, the damage and penetration models are all simplified to 45-degree angles. Any shot on an enemy tank using an appropriate gun in a spot that it can penetrate will be effective if the angle is deeper than 45 degrees. Likewise, any gun hitting any tank will ricochet if the angle of impact is shallower than (or equal to) 45 degrees. This means it is possible to angle tanks like the T-34 with the corners directly facing the enemy, such that incoming shots to the hull will bounce off harmlessly.

Knowing this, we can use this to our advantage in a couple of ways. First and foremost, we can angle our armor slightly when engaging enemy tanks. This gives the aforementioned benefit of increased effective armor thickness. We can also watch for when when enemy tanks do this intentionally and predict based on the behavior that they are a knowledgeable tank crew, and prioritize taking them out in a firefight, since they are skilled - and therefore a higher threat. Finally, having the overall game sense that comes with the knowledge of effective thickness can help us intuit if engaging an enemy tank will be successful or not.


Another thing to consider is that tanks generally have much stronger turret armor than hull armor, so shots will bounce more easily. Additonally, in HLL, it usually takes 1 or 2 additional penetrating hits to knock out a tank when shooting at the turret. When engaging enemy tanks, always go for the hull if possible.


The weaker hull and stronger turret can also be exploited by entering a "hull down" position on the battlefield. All this means is that you can drive your tank to an area where there is ample cover for your hull, which goes just high enough to block shots from hitting your tank's hull, but allows free motion and aim of your turret as well as gunner and spotter vision. A hull down position massively increases the survival rate of stationary tanks and can prevent enemy tanks from scoring penetrating hits on your vehicle. These positions can be found just about everywhere on any given map if you look hard enough. The best hull down positions tend to be behind sandbags, piles of logs, inside of trenches, and even behind friendly engineer-built barricades.


The last bit to all of this is the weakest system of any tank: the tracks. A tank's tracks are more often than not exposed, or the armor covering them is insufficient, allowing the tracks to be damaged. By damaging and throwing an enemy's tracks, we can slow them to a crawl and prevent them from retreating or repositioning on us fast enough, allowing us enough time to line up our kill shot.


This system is expanded upon in U10, as there is yet another system added that can be destroyed to render tanks completely immobile. Firing penetrating rounds into an enemy tank's engine block (usually the midsection of the rear 1/3rd of the hull) will cause engine damage. 2 or 3 hits to the engine block (or several plinks with the Soviet PTRS-41) is enough to disable it completely with main gun, AT gun, bazooka, or panzerschreck fire. Disabling a tank's engine will stop the driver completely from turning over the engine, effectively locking the tank in park and making it a sitting duck. With the already low traverse speed of the turret and an inability to rotate the tank's frontal hull armor towards threats, the crew's only option is typically to bail out of the tank, clear threats with hand weapons, and then attempt to repair. With multiple AT infantry swarming a tank, or even a single tank engaging the disabled tank from the rear, this is almost always a death sentence for the tank and crew.

By taking all of this knowledge that we've learned so far, we can be a more powerful tank on the field. Now there is only one thing left to cover before this guide can be concluded.

The final concept that I will introduce and instill upon you with this guide is the underlying imperative to tanking. When we asked ourselves, "What does a tank do?", the goal was to truly understand why tanks exist.

In truth, no matter what weapons are used, every battle comes down to the infantryman and his rifle. Infantry are the backbone and workhorse of every major army. They can do things that cannot be effectively done by tanks. This includes carefully raiding complexes and town centers, building structures and fortifications, weeding out concealed enemies, and occupying key buildings.

As a tank, you exist to complement, support, defend, and advance with friendly infantry. Rifle squads are what make or break a war. This really cannot be overstated. Communication is key - as a tank commander, always be on command net, asking the platoon commander or other SL's where they need the most assistance. Be the tip of the spear when an enemy line needs to be broken. Provide a base of fire for advancing infantry by suppressing enemy defenses. Prepare to put your tank and your crew on the line for the objective, if it means securing victory for your team.

Your efforts as an infantry support tank will be rewarded. By surrounding yourself with infantry, it makes it much more difficult for AT's to crawl up your flanks. They can also be an extension of your senses, seeing enemy tanks that you might have missed and running after you, relying on you to engage and neutralize the threat. This symbiotic relationship between man and machine is what tanking is all about in Hell Let Loose.

As discussed in the introduction, this guide is targeted towards the basics and intermediaries of tanking. If you are looking for something much more methodical and exhaustive, there are individuals who have done extensive testing in many different scenarios of tank-on-tank combat as well as AT vs. tanks. This is outside the scope of this guide and I will instead recommend that you check out "The Tank Bible" by -TL- Koleto[theline.gg], and if you find it as helpful as I did, head over to the Steam guide linking to it and rate it up.

World War II was an absolutely crazy time for the nations of the world. The battlefield, equipment, tactics, and strategy were constantly evolving. Much of modern military theory has been derived from WWII, but at the time, many things were cutting edge, and tanks as well as other armored vehicles were often the driving force behind that (no pun intended).

For all its claims to being "historically accurate", there are some concessions that were made for the sake of fun gameplay, as well as some aspects of tanks and other vehicles that are not modeled in the game. Presumably, this is either because it would change the mechanics too much, shift the meta, be too much work to implement, or make the game TOO realistic and less arcade-y which could turn some people away.

This is NOT a complete list by any means, but to the best of my knowledge, these factoids that ARE listed are indeed accurate. These are just some fun things I've picked up on over the years having talked with a lot of people and also doing personal research.

Split into separate sections below due to character constraints.

• During The Battle of Stalingrad, the Panther tank did not exist yet, and neither did the IS-1. The majority of tanks that participated in the battle were Panzer IV's, StuG III assault guns, and T-34's; however, there were also other assault guns, tank destroyers, and self-propelled guns that were put to use from both sides. HLL does not account for this, nor does it account for vehicles outside the game's current roster.
  
  
• The Allied invasion of Normandy (codenamed "Operation Overlord") was officially executed on June 6th, 1944. That day was known as D-Day. However, Allied forces did not send tanks to land on the beaches on D-Day. Instead, infantry were sent in first to clear the beachheads of fortifications and anti-tank guns, and establish a foothold from which tanks could be deployed. The first Allied tanks hit the beaches on D-Day +1 after they had been effectively secured.
  
  
• The design methods of many tanks during WWII were relatively primitive compared to how materials are made today. Several tank designs had cast iron or cast steel hulls which were very strong, but also potentially very brittle. In extreme cases, even non-penetrating hits from enemy tanks would be enough to damage systems or even kill crew due to a phenomenon known as "spalling" - bits and pieces of armor on the inside of the hull breaking apart and bouncing around inside the tank acting as shrapnel. Generally, this would only happen to cast-iron tanks with lots of metal impurities or poor quality manufacturing methods, such as the T-34. This is not modeled at all in HLL, where a round MUST penetrate the tank in order to deal critical damage. Spalling was less of a concern with the advent of rolled homogeneous armor (abbreviated to "RHA"), but continues to be a problem even still to this day with modern tanks.
  
  
• Many tanks in WWII had vertical gun stabilization. What this means is when traversing rough terrain, instead of the front barrel bouncing up and down wildly, it was balanced on a fulcrum and would remain at an elevation roughly level with the ground even when the tank was moving at a moderate pace. This made firing shots on the move and successfully hitting targets much easier for gunners. Shermans had vertical gun stabilization, as well as some late-war German tanks. This feature does not exist and is not modeled in HLL.
  
  
• Differences between the 75mm shells and 76mm shells may seem insignificant at first in terms of armor penetration. A single millimeter of width is negligible. However, 76mm shells were much longer in length than 75mm shells, and were often shot out of longer barrels which had a much higher muzzle velocity. These two aspects combined gave the 76mm AP (or sometimes HVAP or APCR) shells much better penetration power over 75mm shells.
  
  
• On the Hurtgen Forest map, if you stand at the top edge of the map near the bridge at North Pass and look North along the railroad tracks, you will see in the distance a Landkreuzer P. 1000 "Ratte". This was a German tank design that actually existed on paper during WWII. It was one of the Furher's many fantastical "Wunderwaffen" designs. It was never actually built due to the insane material cost and engineering demands, but if it was, its supposed effectiveness on the battlefield would be dubious at best. If anything, as a big, slow, lumbering tank, it would have made excellent target practice for Allied bomber crews.

• In real life, the Greyhound was supposed to be a lightly armored fast wheeled recon vehicle. However, the engine was woefully underpowered for the 7.9 metric tons of armor it sported, and it struggled to reach land speeds faster than 50 mph (~80 km/h) on roads. Its performance was even worse off-road. This makes it one of the only tanks in HLL that has actually realistic in-game top speeds.
  
  
• The Greyhound variant in HLL sports the up-armored skirts that cover the wheels, but does not feature the machine gun ring and mount on top of the turret that some Greyhounds were kitted out with at that time.

• In general, the M4 Sherman was a very capable and well-rounded tank. Like all tanks of its day, it had its issues. But even though the Sherman didn't appear very impressive in terms of cold, hard, numerical statistics such as the main gun penetration and average armor thickness, where it excelled was "soft stats". Generally speaking, the Sherman was a very well-designed and reliable tank - they were quite fast for their weight, featured a gyrostabilizer on the main gun for firing on the move, had above average crew comfort and ergonomics, spring-loaded hatches for easy escape in case of fire, wet ammo stowage to reduce the chances of ammo rack explosion on a penetrating hit from tank shells, and many other things like that going for them. On top of that, they were very easily mass-produced by the industrial giant that was the United States during that time period. Hollywood portrayals tend to go against this philosophy and perpetuate the myth that "it takes 5 Shermans to kill a Tiger", so history often (incorrectly!) remembers the Sherman as an inferior tank. Probably because everyone loves a good underdog story.
  
  
• Standard-issue American 75mm high-explosive shells had twice the fragment count of their counterpart 76mm shells. This made it a much deadlier munition when attacking infantry or other soft targets. Due in part to US tank doctrine in 1944 which dictated that infantry was tasked with destroying tanks and tanks were meant as an anti-infantry force multiplier, most tank crews were comfortable using the 75mm guns instead of the 76mm guns because of their familiarity with the system even though the penetration power of the AP shells were significantly inferior. As such, there were little to no tanks with 76mm guns that landed on the beaches of Normandy in D-Day +1.
  
  
• True M4A3E2 "Jumbo" Shermans were exceedingly rare in real life. The number of tanks of the 75mm variant of the Sherman Jumbo was in the double digits in terms of how many were in Normandy from Operation Overlord through Operation Grapeshot. The 76mm Sherman Jumbo was even more rare than that, totaling in the single digits. The much more common Sherman equivalent variant at the time was the M4A3E8 Sherman, also known as the "Easy Eight", which had better suspension and lighter armor but featured the same 76mm main gun. The Sherman Jumbo is the stand-in American heavy tank in HLL since in real life, the US didn't exactly have heavy tanks, and the Jumbo was simply an up-armored medium tank. The only real design that the US made which was an actual heavy tank was the M26 Pershing. However, by the time Pershings had been developed and deployed in early- to mid-1945, the war was basically already over.

• Every single German vehicle in HLL's current lineup feature a cursive "L" as part of the livery. That means all of these vehicles are part of the 130th Panzer Division, better known as the Panzer Lehr Division. The Panzer Lehr were an elite division of tank veterans who were often tasked with teaching new tank crews (the German word "Lehr" actually means "Learn"). This all implicates that each of the battles in HLL are fought exclusively by the Panzer Lehr, which historically speaking is nonsense.

• In real life, the German 20mm guns including the main auto loading cannon on the Luchs also had AP ammunition in addition to HE. However, this ammunition is not available in HLL. It would likely not be very useful anyway, since in real life it would only be able to penetrate the Sherman tanks on the rear armor and the Stuart and T-70 on the side armor in addition to the capabilities of the HE ammunition.

• The variant of the Panzer IV in HLL is the Panzer IV G. The H variant is the one which features standoff turret and hull armor around the sides and rear of the turret and the sides of the tank. Ironically, some of the concept art in HLL shows the H variant even though it does not exist in the game.

• The Battle of Kursk was the debut of the newly-designed German Panther tank on the battlefield. During the battle of Kursk, the Panther proved its worth as an extreme threat to the T-34 tanks it was designed to encounter. However, it was over-engineered as were most German tanks at the time, and it suffered from breakdowns and other reliability issues. So realistically, only the Panther tanks that made it to the battlefield in the first place were of any use to Germany.
  
  
• The Panther's frontal armor effectiveness in real life is such that even a 76mm shell from a Sherman Jumbo was incapable of penetrating the upper glacis plate from ANY distance. This was because even though the frontal armor on the Panther was relatively thin, the angle of the slope increased the effective thickness such that a front armor hit would always cause the projectile to shatter on impact or ricochet. This is not at all how it works in HLL however, as a 76mm Sherman Jumbo shell will punch right through as long as the angle is shallow enough.

• There were many myths and legends surrounding the Tiger 1 throughout all of WWII, and many of them have persisted long after the war. For its time, the Tiger was a very powerful design. Much like the comparatively modern Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, the Tiger was designed and built entirely around its main cannon. The KwK 43 8,8cm gun, or "88", started life in WWII as a heavy anti-aircraft artillery gun - it would launch explosive shells into the air that would burst into fragments (flak) which would shred aircraft. This was not a new concept, and there were Allied equivalents to this gun. However, someone in the Wehrmacht figured out that in the absence of proper anti-tank guns, turning the 88 downwards and firing it at armored targets was a very effective means of knocking them out. Since the 88 already fired a very accurate, high-velocity projectile with an explosive payload, it absolutely devastated early-war tanks and even retained its effectiveness against light, medium, and some heavy tank designs all the way through the end of the war. The Tiger was built to house and mobilize a very similar 88mm gun. It was powerful, it was accurate, and it intimidated many Allied troops - so much so that there were many reports of Allies misidentifying other German tanks (such as Panzer IV's or even Panzer II's) as Tigers.
  
  
• The Tiger tank was incapable of firing on the move. Attempting to fire its main gun while the tank was not in neutral would grind the gears and strip out parts of the drive train and break off the teeth on the sprockets, immobilizing the tank. Therefore, to safely discharge the main gun, Tigers would need to stop moving and be put in neutral gear. Additionally, Tiger tanks in neutral gear had an internal mechanism which allowed the turret to traverse left and right at a much faster rate if the engine was running. None of this is modeled in HLL as immobilizing your own Tiger tank by firing the gun would obviously not be a very fun or rewarding game mechanic.

• The T-34 was the single most mass-produced tank in the entire world, and the tank still holds that record to this day at over 84,000 T-34 tanks built. As well as being the most mass-produced tank in the world, perhaps unsurprisingly, the T-34 also has the most staggering losses. It is estimated that nearly 45,000 T-34's were destroyed in WWII. Although they were removed from Soviet service in the 60's, some post-Soviet nations still have T-34's in active service to this day.
  
  
• In some ways, the T-34 was the antithesis of the Sherman tank - where it had good "hard stats", it suffered in "soft stats". On paper, it was an excellent tank; but in practice, it was wrought with reliability and ergonomics issues.
  
  
• During WWII, the Germans had a special designation for the T-34 based on whether it had a 76mm gun, or if it was the up-gunned 85mm gun variant. They designated them as "T-34/76" and "T-34/85" respectively. This was an official designation of the Wehrmacht but not the Soviets themselves. The variant used in HLL is the T-34/76, and the 85mm gun is reserved for the IS-1.

If you've gotten this far, you should have a solid understanding of how tanks work in Hell Let Loose. Hopefully, in concept, this manual has deconstructed any erroneous preconceptions you might have had about tanks and rebuilt it within the context of the game, and in real life. Since Hell Let Loose attempts to model and emulate real life with acceptable breaks with reality for gaming purposes, much of our knowledge of tanks in the real world is still applicable here.

This has been Tanking 101 - An Operator's Manual.

You are now weapons free. Go let loose some Hell.

I want to thank each and every one of you who took the time to read this guide. Personally - as you might have guessed - I am really fascinated with tanks. I have a background with World of Tanks, War Thunder, and Armored Warfare, and I have also played Battlefield 3 & 4 as well as Bad Company 2 back in the day. I also play Squad, but for the time being I have a lot more hours in HLL than I do in Squad despite owning it for a shorter amount of time.

I had a lot of fun creating Tanking 101, and hope you had just as much fun reading it. What started as something I thought would just be a brief outline ended up expanding into something bigger and more in-depth, which is exactly what I wanted - I like being thorough. It's a guide I wish I had when I was starting as a tanker, and my goal is to provide that to the newbies. Overall, the first draft of this guide took me just over 24 hours from start to finish, and I have still been putting time into making it better.

Since Update 10 has dropped, many of the tank mechanics have been reworked, as well as the addition of Soviet vehicles. Update 11 has brought in the long-anticipated addition of the German Pz.Kpfw. IV medium tank which has been teased in numerous prior dev briefs. Update 12 brought back the Panther, reclassing it as a heavy and putting it squarely at the top of the tanker food chain. Update 13 has added the Soviet T-70 light tank, as well as flamethrower weapons, which unsurprisingly have not changed the anti-tank dynamic. Update 14 has added British tanks, as well as a fresh coat of paint for all the German vehicles operating in the new El Alamein map with desert camo.

At this point, I am continually updating the guide to reflect any new information I come across, and making tweaks to existing info here and there. It is my full intent to continue updating the guide with relevant info for each update. So long as HLL continues to receive updates, I will have to update my guide, and I will. Thus it is an evergreen project, and it's my baby.

If you truly enjoyed this guide, consider rating it up, and if you believe it might help someone, don't hesitate to share it. If you disliked the guide or disagree with anything I said, I am always open to feedback and constructive criticism. Add your comment below and I will get to it when I can.

Game On,
- Tesserakt

P.S. - If you ever see a player with the username "MrMikeX" in-game, please shoot him in the head. Thanks!