116 F3

Page last updated 06 December, 2025.

The 116 F3 is a tier 10 Chinese heavy tank. It features very good armour against standard ammo, but unimpressive against premium. It has a high damage gun with great penetration but poor accuracy, and a great top speed with fairly poor terrain resistance and acceleration.

1. Armour
2. Cyclic 130mm Gun
3. Auto-reloader 130mm Gun
4. Mobility
5. Equipment Loadout
6. Gameplay advice
7. Overall
8. Is it worth getting?
9. Most recently sold for:
10. Camo cost:

Armour

(The 116 F3 in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

Drag slider right -> to view 252mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 330mm HEAT

Armour when flat and facing head-on:
Upper plate 405-460mm
Mid bar upper 315mm
Mid bar lower 420mm
Lower plate 140mm 
Lower-lower plate 285mm

Turret cheek weakpoints 320-350mm
Turret cheek edges 405-940mm+
Gun mantlet 660mm+
Cupola 115-140mm

Side armour:
The 116 F3’s side armour is 116mm, with 12mm spaced sideskirts, and a 40mm bar along the bottom of the hull.

This tank can sidescrape (and even over-angle) given that enemies don’t know about the 40mm bar, and don’t aim for the turret ring bulge which sticks out over the hull side.

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Armour vs all tier 9-10 tanks:
Against standard ammo, the 116 F3’s armour is very strong, other than the lower plate it has essentially no weakpoints, only very high penetration standard ammo from TDs (such as a Ho-Ri III) would be able to penetrate the tank through its turret. The upper plate isn’t penetrable to any standard ammo.

Facing premium ammo, the upper plate is still impenetrable to all ammo except the highest penetration TDs with calibrated shells.
The turret can be penetrated by anything with over 340mm HEAT penetration, or 325mm APCR penetration, just by shooting on the turret cheeks next to the gun.
There are some smaller weakpoints on the turret that are penetrable by 300-320mm penetration

In terms of HE protection its almost perfect, the weakest armour to HE is a flat 72mm plate on the hull rear, and 82mm on the turret rear.
Against HESH ammo, only a thin area of the frontal lower plate is penetrable. The side protection is also decent due to the spaced sideskirts.

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Overall this is good armour for a heavy, as other than the lower plate, it has essentially no frontal weakpoint to standard ammo.
Against premium ammo, the turret has a few weakpoints, but generally they are small and a challenge to hit unless using calibrated shells.

Cyclic 130mm Gun

Firepower:
-Ammo: AP/HEAT/HE.
-Penetration: 262/340/75mm.
-Alpha damage: 490/410/630
-Reload time is 11.6s for 2537 DPM.

Handling:
–Estimated aim time is 4.0/4.3s.
–Base aim time is 2.9s, but it can get down to 2.23s.
-Dispersion is 0.380/0.323
–Gun handling is 0.15/0.15/0.16, or 0.13/0.13/0.14 with Vertical Stabilizer.

Usability:
-Shell velocities are 880/790/760 m/s.
-Gun depression is -6 degrees around the entire tank, except the rear where its -3.

The aim time and accuracy of this gun are both abysmal, both are far worse than average for a 130mm gun. This is somewhat made up for with good gun handling, and also the very good penetration of both standard ammo and premium ammo. HE is also impressive, with 10mm more penetration than average.

DPM is decent, especially for having 490 alpha damage. The DPM level is roughly the same as other heavy tanks which have 450 or 460, but the 116 F3 has the advantage of having an extra 30 alpha damage.

Overall this is a decent gun, it has some very impressive stats but also some equally bad stats. In battle it feels like quite a decent gun, as bad as the accuracy and aim time seem, they are workable, and feel well compensated by good penetration. The high damage makes trading damage quite easy, and you don’t need too many shots for damage to stack up.

Auto-reloader 130mm Gun

Firepower:
-Ammo: AP/HEAT/HE.
-Penetration: 250/315/65mm.
-Alpha damage: 420/360/520
-Shell 1: 12.68s
-Shell 2: 10.86s (+2.73s)
-Shell 3: 9.05s (+2.73s).
-Reload time from empty: 32.59s

Best DPM:
-Shell 3
-Reload: 9.05s + 2.73s = 11.78s
-DPM: 2139

Handling:
–Estimated aim time is 3.6/3.8s.
–Base aim time is 2.6s, but it can get down to 2.00s.
-Dispersion is 0.398/0.339
–Gun handling is 0.15/0.15/0.18, or 0.13/0.13/0.16 with Vertical Stabilizer.

Usability:
-Shell velocities are 750/690/630 m/s.
-Gun depression is -6 degrees around the entire tank, except the rear where its -3.

Mobility

Raw stats:
-Forward speed is 42km/h.
-Reverse speed is -15km/h.
-Raw acceleration rate is 13.9 hp/t.
-Engine power is 880hp for its 63 ton weight.

Hard terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 13.9 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 36.7 deg/s.

Medium terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 9.9 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 26.2 deg/s.

Terrain resistance stats:
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.4/1.8

Overall the mobility of this tank is decent. On hard terrain it has quite good mobility, with a good traverse speed and acceleration rate, enough to be able to utilize the great 42km top speed.

However, most terrain in game is medium terrain, and the 116 F3 has a terrible terrain resistance difference of 1 -> 1.4 on medium terrain. The mobility on medium terrain is quite sluggish, the tank really struggles to even reach its top speed if its not going along flat ground. Reverse speed is good on all terrain types.

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Equipment Loadout

Improved Ventilation – For cyclic gun:
The cyclic gun with 490 alpha has great penetration and doesn’t struggle to penetrate enemies it faces, so there is no need to use calibrated shells. The improvements to aim time, accuracy, hull & turret traverse, and reload time, all make quite a significant different to the overall feel of the tank and gun.

Vents in general make the tank feel a bit more responsive with that better hull & turret traverse, and the gun is more consistent with the better dispersion. Additionally, for 490 alpha the DPM is quite good, being better than most guns with 460 alpha.

Calibrated Shells – For auto-reloader gun:
The auto-reloader gun has much worse penetration on both AP & HEAT, and really doesn’t function well if not using calibrated shells. This gun’s shell reloads are already very slow, so reloading faster is generally less important than making sure all shells penetrate in the first place.

Calibrated shells would increase penetration on AP from 250 -> 283mm, HEAT from 315 -> 356mm, and HE from 60 -> 65mm.

Enhanced Armour:
Enhanced armour is generally the better choice for this tank, as using it makes a large improvement to the effectiveness of the turret front against 325-330mm HEAT, which is the most common HEAT penetration for tier 10 HT.

Enhanced armour increases:
Turret front from 335mm -> 345mm.
Weak bar on hull 310 -> 320mm.
Hull side: 116 -> 119mm.

Vertical Stabilizer/Refined Gun:
Either of these can work, since both the aim time and the accuracy of this tank are poor.

You can choose either to improve the tank’s effective aim time by using vertical stabilizer, which would improve the gun handling and help the tank to aim in faster in close to mid range combat (which is generally where you fight as a heavy tank).

Alternatively, you can choose to worsen the aim time to have improved accuracy with refined gun, which would allow you to snapshot better and be more accuracy once the gun gets fully aimed in.

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Gameplay advice

116 F3 plays a usual heavy role, just with a bit longer reload and higher alpha than most single-shot tanks, and having to aim a bit more with its auto-reloader.

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General gameplay:
This tank should be played on the heavy flank. Keep to hard terrain at the start of the battle and try to utilize this tank’s great top speed and good hard terrain acceleration to reach the frontline, try to avoid using medium terrain while getting into position.

Avoid exposing the tank for longer than you need to, always immediately retreat after firing. The 116 F3 has good armour to standard ammo, but if you expose yourself for longer than needed, then enemies can just use premium ammo to go through the turret cheeks.

Trade in alpha damage, not with DPM, you have 490 alpha, which will out-trade almost all other heavies except the ones with 600+ alpha damage.

While it essentially has no turret or upper plate weakpoints when fighting mediums, most of the time the 116 F3 won’t be suited to going to the medium flank as its reload is quite slow, the mobility is quite mediocre, and you’re prone to being circled by fast tanks.
The 116 F3 can work on the MT flank in the right situations, but for the majority of battles, play the heavy flank.

Avoid exposing the tank:
Unlike many other heavies, the 116 F3 has weakpoints next to its gun which are penetrable to premium ammo (325mm+ HEAT and similar effective penetration).

The turret has essentially no weakpoint to standard ammo, so you can push out and shoot, but immediately retreat fully into cover after shooting. If you keep the turret exposed, enemies will switch to premium ammo and be able to penetrate next to the gun, so just avoid showing the turret at all until you’ve reloaded.

Trading damage:
The 116 F3 has 490 alpha damage, which means it can out-trade almost any other heavy tank (only the tanks with over 600 alpha damage will out-trade you).

Avoid letting other tanks rush/push you if possible (and avoid rushing other tanks), since the 116’s reload means that it will almost always take 2 shots from the enemy for every one you shoot, resulting in a worse trade.

Try to only trade on-reload, this way you don’t let enemies take advantage of their faster reload, and your higher alpha damage will allow you to win the damage trade.

Stay on hard terrain:
Due to having 1.0 hard terrain resistance, and 1.4 medium terrain resistance, you lose a very noticeable amount of mobility by going on medium terrain. On medium terrain this tank is very sluggish, and can rarely use its good top speed.

Try to stay on hard terrain whenever possible, it gives a massive boost to both your traverse speed and acceleration compared to medium terrain (roughly 40% better). Hard terrain are roads/paths and any concrete or paved areas.

Most terrain on the majority of maps is medium terrain (any off-road area), so for generally this tank is quite slow, which is why trying to stay on hard terrain really helps with mobility.

Sidescraping:
The 116 F3 can sidescrape quite well, though it does have 2 weakpoints.

Its base side armour is 94mm, and the sideskirts are 12mm. One weakpoint is always visible to enemies, which is the bulge right under the turret ring on the hull side.
The other weakpoint is a thin 40mm bar that runs along the bottom of the tank, behind the wheels. This is hard to see and hard to hit without missing since its so low on the hull, and many players won’t know about this weakpoint.

Corner baiting:
The 116 F3 has actually quite a strong lower-lower plate, which allows it to over-angle the hull front and bait it around corners, like shown below.

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Overall the 116 F3 

Overall

Armour – 7/10
Gun – 6/10
Mobility – 4.5/10
Speed – 6.5/10

116 F3 is overall a good tank.

Armour is strong to standard ammo, with only the turret cheeks penetrable to premium ammo. Can sidescrape, can corner bait, difficult to hulldown. HE protection is high, HESH protection is good.
Gun has poor aim time & dispersion. Decent DPM with high 490 alpha, high penetration, & good gun handling. Gun depression is -6 degrees.
Mobility is mediocre. On hard terrain its good, however poor medium terrain resistance mean that mostly acceleration & traverse speed are slow, and struggle to reach top speed. Reverse speed is good at -15km/h.
Speed is great, at 42km/h.

Is it worth getting?

The 116 F3 is fairly unique in what it offers, no other tier 10 heavy has a similarly high alpha damage of 490, or a choice of a 2nd auto-reloader gun. 

The overall reliable armour & choice of 2 different playstyles make the 116 F3 worth having if you enjoy either heavies with good alpha, or auto-reloader guns with reliable armour on botht he hull and the turret.

The 116 F3 is worth 18,000 gold. Its a good tank, but nothing super strong or special.

Most recently sold for:

Black Friday main reward – November 2024

Camo cost:

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