probably gonna get flammed by saying this but the Ferdinand was fine at br4 now before you jump in and say ‘‘NoTHİnG CaN PeN iT itS tO oP’’ lemme point out some facts why i think that way:
Lemme start with the most important one: the armor. I mean, that’s the whole point of why people complained and got it to BR 5 in the first place, right? It almost can’t get penetrated frontally by the corresponding enemy tanks like the IS-1 or the 76 Sherman. Well, that’s the reason the Ferdinand and other tank destroyers were made in the first place. It’s a tank destroyer an armored fighting vehicle specifically designed to find and hunt enemy tanks.
Having an advantage in tank to tank combat is the one and only thing that the Ferdinand is superior at, and that’s about it. Literally every other scenario is a huge disadvantage for the tank, like flanking, AT gunners, or CAS. The roof armor is only 10 mm thick; all it takes is just one C4/dynamite/bazooka to bring it down. Hell, you can even bring it down with a BR 1 Seagull or Yak-1 with their 100 lb bombs if you manage to land a direct hit.
The lack of a cupola MG and a rotating turret makes this even harder to fight against those roles, and let’s not forget how low the mobility is. At this point, the weaknesses the tank has far surpass the only advantage it has which is fine for a tank destroyer, but having it at BR 5 just makes it obsolete.
I mean, why should I use the Ferdinand when I have the Tiger II (H)? It does everything better than the Ferdinand. It’s more mobile, has an cupola MG, can rotate its turret to counter flankers… The only difference is having 50 mm less armor, but you get compensated for that by having sloped armor. It just makes much more sense to play the Tiger II over the Ferdinand; it just does its job better because it’s a heavy tank.
That’s the thing, though: if this was like War Thunder and we only had tank vs tank combat, then I would absolutely favor the tank being moved to BR 5. But the fact that we have other elements like infantry and CAS to deal with doesn’t justify its placement at BR 5.
By your logic, the Tiger H1 should get to BR 5 as well. But guess what? It’s at BR 4. Why? Because of the factors I wrote earlier above. The same applies to the Ferdinand.
Did you read my post at all? Enlisted is just not about tank vs tank combat. If that was the case, like I said, I would be supporting the idea of moving it to BR 5. You just can’t compare some balance adjustments from another game lol. War Thunder is vehicle vs vehicle only.
You have the infantry/CAS factor to deal with, which makes the Ferdinand poor to fight with. The Tiger II (H) has far more survivability against those elements. Why should I use the Ferdinand if I have a better tank to use against those odds?
M10 is open, and its M2HB performs worse in Enlisted, so not sure how that makes it better against inf.
T-34 has an MG and is closed, so there goes that, I guess.
Plus if we go full Enlisted, only morons get flanked.
That is why most tanks camp in greyzones, so the biggest issues in terms of infantry are Guerrillas.
And even there, Ferdinand is the second-best option since it is closed, only topped by the T34-57.
So does the M10.
Why should I use Tiger E if Tiger II exists? Why should I use M26 Pershing if T26 exists? Why should I use IS2 if IS2 (1944) exists?
Why should I use anything but the best-performing gear in respective BR/ faction?
you have cas for that i’ve seen a fair share of good pilots not letting those type of players even breathe let alone position themselfs for infantry/tank suppression
All tanks face this danger, but tank destroyers especially struggle against it. Look at the Ho-Ri don’t even have a cupola to pop out of to fend off infantry, neither an MG nor anything else. The M10 at least has both a commander .50 cal and a turret-mounted 7.62 to defend itself against infantry.
The Ferdinand, on the other hand, only has a hull MG which doesn’t work at the moment.
Because I want to increase my survivability with the best equipment available to me—to, you know, win the game?
Nah the ferdinand shouldn’t be added on first place and instead give germans a rocket spam planes like the ME262 with 24 RM4 rockets (number sounds scary but these are anti tank rockets not like HVAR)