Supertest: Type 63, Tier VIII Premium Japanese Heavy Tank [31 Jul ’23]

Along with the official unveiling of the second Japanese branch of heavy tanks, the first tier 8 premium Japanese heavy tank has appeared on Supertest, featuring a brand-new gun cooling mechanic along with hydropneumatic suspension:

VIII 🇯🇵Type 63

Features of the new vehicle:

• Double aiming mechanics
• Hydropneumatic suspension
• Excellent gun depression
• Strong oscillating turret

The Type 63’s gun heats up when firing. After it’s fully cooled down, its accuracy improves until the next shot.

The gun’s cooling down time is longer than its reload time. This means when the gun is loaded but has not cooled down, then the improved accuracy isn’t activated.. When the improved accuracy activates, the player sees a second aiming circle, which is smaller, brighter, and more noticeable. This is the circle that will determine the shooting accuracy. After the second circle appears, it will still take some time for the gun to fully aim to its maximum available accuracy. 

You can shoot immediately after reloading and not wait for improved aiming if you need to cause damage quickly, for example, at close range. But if you want to deliver a more precise shot at medium or long range, it’s better to wait.

The thickness of the frontal turret armor plates reaches 175 mm. The hull is protected more modestly: 80 mm in the front. Its total durability is 1,400 HP. The top speed is 35 km/h with a specific power of 15.4 hp/t.

The tank is armed with a 105 mm gun causing 360 HP of damage per shot. Its standard shell penetrates 230 mm of armor, while its special shell penetrates 290 mm. The dispersion is 0.28 m, and the aiming time is 2.5 s. The reload time is 10.5 s. Its view range is 380 m.

The tank’s hydropneumatic suspension, excellent gun depression, and strong oscillating turret make it a very dangerous opponent when it plays from hull-down positions. Additionally, the double aiming system offers a choice between high damage per minute and low dispersion depending on the combat situation.

While there seems to be very little surrounding this vehicle (let alone the system of tubes on the gun, which seems to represent the cooling system?), the turret design – which seems the most bizarre for a Japanese vehicle – does, surprisingly, have some basis in reality:

This turret design was found in a patent filing from Mitsubishi in the late 1970s, which appears to represent what the Type 63 uses in-game. The rest of the vehicle’s design appears to be separate (likely an artist’s interpretation by Wargaming, if not a completely-separate design) — only the turret was present in this filing.

Anyway, as far as the vehicle in-game is concerned, Wargaming has provided some official renders of it:

Additionally, WoT Express has published some early in-game previews of the vehicle (shown with SD textures):

This vehicle can likely be expected to make an initial appearance at the end of the year in Large Holiday Ops Boxes, though it is possible it may show up earlier, as its accompanying branch is slated to start arriving on Supertest a bit early this year (as early as September, rather than Oct/Nov). Stay tuned for more info!

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