116 F3 (Lesta)

Last updated 23 June, 2024.

The 116 F3 is a Chinese tier 10 heavy tank. It features strong armour with good mobility & speed. Its gun is a unique 130mm with 480 alpha and extremely high DPM, though with slow aim time & mediocre accuracy.

1. Armour
2. Gun
3. Mobility
4. Equipment, consumables, & provisions
5. Gameplay advice
6. Tank gameplay:
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

When facing head on:
Upper plate 340-350mm
Flat mid bar 155mm
Lower plate 220-540mm+

Turret front 380-1200mm+ (weakest point 330mm)
Cupola 200-600mm+

Side armour:
116 F3 has 120mm base side armour, with 25mm side skirts. This is very strong side armour considering the type of tank that this is (a “standard heavy”, not a superheavy), and its very effective at sidescraping.

The only weakpoint is the turret ring bulge, which is fairly large and not too hard to hit.

Armour vs all tier 9-10 tanks:
The 116 F3’s armour performs roughly the same to all tier 9-10 tanks it faces.

The upper plate and turret front are too strong for any enemy to penetrate with standard or premium ammo. Enemy heavy tanks with calibrated shells (and HEAT), or enemy tank destroyers will be able to penetrate the upper plate and weakest part of the turret if using premium ammo combined with calibrated shells.

The lower plate is relatively strong, but won’t bounce most enemies. Tanks with low standard penetration, such as tier 10 light tanks, or tier 9 medium/light tanks may struggle to penetrate the lower plate (especially if you use enhanced armour).
The bottom area of the lower plate is impenetrable to all enemies due to its angle.

The mid plate (thin flat bar) is only 155mm thick, so will be penetrated by every enemy, and even from HESH on tanks like the FV215b.

Gun

The 116 F3 mounts a 130mm gun.

-Alpha damage is 480 on AP, 410 on HEAT, and 660 on HE
-It has a 8.4s reload giving it 3420 DPM
-Penetration on AP is 260mm, HEAT is 303mm, and HE is 65mm.
–Estimated aim time is is 4.6/5.0s
–Base aim time is 2.9s, but it can get down to 2.36s
-Dispersion is 0.362/0.326
–Gun handling is 0.2/0.2/0.08, or 0.17/0.17/0.07 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -7 degrees.

Overall this is a good gun. Its aim time, accuracy, and gun handling aren’t impressive. In fact the aim time of the gun is very noticeable, and often causes shots to miss. The premium penetration is also quite poor.

However, this is all compensated for by an insanely high level of DPM, with a quick reload for its high alpha damage of 480. Standard penetration is very good, the 2nd best in tier 10 after VK 90, and gun depression is comfortable for its armour use.
One other aspect to mention is great HE damage of 660, with good penetration.

Mobility

-Top speed is 45km/h forwards, and -15km/h in reverse
-Traverse speed is 33 deg/s on hard terrain, and 26.4 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 16.6 hp/t, it has a strong 983hp engine for its 59 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 13.8 hp/t on hard terrain, and 11.1 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are 1.2/1.5/1.85

Overall this is good mobility, especially when considering the armour of the tank. Engine power is high, with good acceleration rate and high top speed. Poor terrain resistances make it hard to reach the tank’s top speed, it generally goes at around 38-40km/h, however its effective acceleration is still good. Traverse speed is slow but not terrible.

Equipment, consumables, & provisions

The 116 F3 has no special consumables/provisions.

Gun Rammer/Calibrated Shells:
Due to how this gun is balanced, both equipment choices can be very effective on this tank.

Use gun rammer if you min-max the strength of the 116 F3, which is its high DPM & alpha damage combination. Gun rammer would reduce the reload time from 9.1s to 8.4s, and increase DPM from 3181 to 3420.

Use calibrated shells if you just want to balance out the stats, reducing the crazy high DPM to increase the low HEAT penetration and make more use of HE. Using calibrated shells would increase penetration on AP from 260mm to 273mm, on HEAT from 303mm to 333mm, and on HE from 65mm to 72mm; however it would lower DPM to 3181 with a 9.1s reload.

Enhanced Armour/Improved Assembly:
Again due to how the armour on this tank is balanced, either equipment piece can work well.

Enhanced armour would make the upper plate fully impenetrable to even 340-350mm HEAT shells (from tanks such as T110E5, M-VI-Yoh, etc), and make the weakest part of the turret (just above the mantlet to the left/right) much harder to penetrate. It also improves the side armour from 120mm up to 125mm.
It would also improve the lower plate, which makes it more challenging for low penetration tanks (220-235mm penetration) to deal with reliably, especially when angling.

Improved assembly can be used due to the 116 F3 having such strong base armour profile. It would increase the HP from 2300 up to 2438, allowing you to take more hits and trade damage more during battle. The base armour is still strong enough to be very reliable to most tanks you face.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Due to the 116F3 being a frontline and brawling heavy tank, and due to its poor aim time, vertical stabilizer is needed to help improve the tank’s accuracy and consistency.
Refined gun is not needed, as 0.362 dispersion is actually not terrible for the alpha damage that the 116 F3 has.

Use vertical stabilizer, which would improve the tank’s gun handling by 15%, making it quicker to aim in on enemies after moving the tank or when turning, which you will often do as a frontline brawler. This helps to hit more consistently in mid to close range fights.

Gameplay advice

Overall gameplay of the 116 F3 is quite generic. Its just an all-round strong frontline brawling heavy tank. 

General gameplay:
Due to good speed, the 116 F3 can work on the medium flank if it has to. However, its poor aim time will often cause it to miss shots on the faster moving medium & light tanks, and on their often smaller hulldown weakspots. Only use the 116F3 on the medium flank in cases where your entire team decides to go to that side of the map, of you’re the only heavy tank on the team and enemies have multiple strong heavies which you wouldn’t want to face alone.

Take the 116 F3 to the heavy flank, generally the heavy flank is balanced better to the strengths of the 116 F3. Use its great speed to take dominant early positions and catch enemies out. Use the great gun depression & strong turret in hulldown positions, due to basically no weakpoints on the turret, you’ll be very hard to fight against. Use the strong side armour to sidescrape and angle in town environments.

Trading damage:
Most of the time, you can trade in alpha damage, since 480 is higher than all other heavy tanks you face except for the 114 SP2, 60TP, E 100, & VK 72.01(K) (for heavy tanks). For tanks with 350-460 alpha damage, put in one shot for every time the enemies shoot you, and you will always be able to deal more damage than them.
If you want, you can also equal trade with these enemies, since your 480 alpha damage gun reloads as fast as many 400-440 alpha guns. Even if you are fully exposed to the enemy tank, you will still always deal more damage to the enemy due to your super high DPM (as long as you penetrate).

For those higher alpha tanks (114 SP2, E 100, 60TP, VK 72), trade using DPM. These tanks have long reload times but much higher alpha damage than you, so its best to avoid letting them shoot you. Once the enemy has shot, push forward and pressure them with your DPM, put 2 shots in for every one time that they shoot you, this allows you to always win the trade (since 2 shots of 480 is 960 damage)

Facehugging enemy tanks:
The 116 F3 is generally good in a facehug.

It only has 2 weakpoints, one is the 40mm deck in front of the turret, 122mm+ guns can overmatch this, but only if the enemy has a low enough profile and enough gun depression (which most 122mm+ guns don’t).

The other weakpoint is right above the gun mantlet ont he left and right, an area that is mostly 330-350mm thick. Being in a facehug means you’re in close range, and enemies could hit this small area easily if they aim for it. You can try to put your gun in the way to make them miss or bounce, since all heavy tanks would need premium ammo to go through this area, and most use HEAT (which your 40mm thick gun will block).

Other than these 2 weaknesses, the 116 F3 is impenetrable in a facehug scenario.

Go hulldown & use gun depression:
The 116 F3 is essentially impenetrable in a hulldown/gun depression scenario. Due to its lower plate being the only large and reliable weakpoint on the front of the tank, once this is hidden, enemies will be unable to penetrate your upper plate & turret reliably.

The 116 F3 is just like the WZ-111 5A when hulldown, in that it has an extremely reliable turret with good gun depression & standard penetration. Its great alpha damage makes it very strong at damage trading with enemies. Due to the extremely high DPM for its alpha, most enemies won’t even bother trying to fight a 116 F3, as you will out-trade nearly every enemy, and will out-DPM all other heavy tanks.

Sidescrape & angle:
Strong side armour of 120mm (base) or 125mm (using enhanced armour), and 25mm spaced armour on top of that makes the 116F3 very strong in a sidescraping position.
Be aware that you have one weakpoint, which is just below the turret ring. Knowledgeable players will be know to shoot here when you sidescrape, so make sure to account for this when using this tactic against enemies.

Also due to the strong side armour, and the relatively good lower plate, angling & wiggling is very effective in the 116 F3. If stuck in the open with no cover, you can often just wiggle the hull while reversing and bait shots into the tracks or strong areas of the lower plate. Don’t just reverse in a straight line, as it gives enemies an easy and clear shot on the hull weakpoints.

Use HE:
The 116 F3 has very high HE damage, doing an average of 660 alpha per shot. With a good base 65mm of penetration, you can often use this on the rears of most heavy tanks, and even the side armour of some medium tanks. Using this shell will boost your already high DPM from 3420 to an insane 4703 DPM.

If not using calibrated shells, in some cases you may need to use HE to deal splash damage to hulldown enemies (which your 303mm HEAT can’t penetrate). This is still a fairly effective way of dealing damage due to the high alpha of the HE, good penetration ,and the gun’s fast reload. You can still do a lot of splash damage to enemies this way, just make sure you don’t expose your tank too much and lose HP.

Aim:
Due to the poor aim time, mediocre accuracy, and fairly average gun handling, if you want a shot to actually hit, you have to properly stop to take time to aim.

Often the high speed & good mobility of the 116 F3 cause its gun to bloom out quite a lot, combine this with poor aim time, average gun handling, and mediocre dispersion, the 116 F3 is a very inaccurate tank in most cases. If you want your shot to hit, then you need to stop and give the gun time to aim in, rushed shots will just miss.

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The gameplay of the 11 F3 is that of a standard brawler heavy tank. It can use its armour easily in hulldown scenarios and in sidescraping/angling, and has good mobility and speed to be active in the game with repositioning or taking positions. Its gun plays differently depending on your equipment choice, with gun rammer being extremely DPM-focused gameplay, but calibrated shells being more methodical and consistent against stronger enemies.

Tank gameplay:

Overall

Armour – 8/10
Gun – 6.5/10
Mobility – 6/10
Speed – 8/10

116 F3 is overall a great tank.

Armour is solid. Upper plate & turret are very strong, lower plate is good, side armour is strong. Great HE protection, good HESH protection. Easy to use in hulldown & sidescraping.
Gun is good. Low premium penetration, poor aim time, mediocre accuracy, and average gun handling; but with high 480 alpha, very fast reload, high standard penetration, very high DPM, and good -7 gun depression.
Mobility is good. Poor terrain resistances, but with a strong engine which still provides good acceleration, but traverse speed isn’t impressive. Reverse speed average at -15km/h.
Speed is very good with 45km/h.

Is it worth getting?

The 116 F3 is definitely worth getting. It does so much all at once, able to fill multiple heavy tank roles due to its great versatility. It has great speed, strong armour, and superb DPM with its high alpha damage. Players who like versatile & strong tanks like this will be able to really enjoy what the 116 F3 offers.
Even if the low HEAT penetration puts you off, note that you can use calibrated shells to gain 10% HEAT penetration, and still have more DPM than most tier 10 heavy tanks.

If you hate inaccurate or slow aiming guns then the 116 F3 may not suit you, as while it has impressive traits in all other areas, its aim time/accuracy are the most noticeable downsides when playing the tank.

The 116 F3 worth 23,000 gold. Its one of the most versatile and powerful tier 10 heavies, its strong armour, good gun depression, and insane combination of alpha damage & DPM allow it to very easily deal with any situation in battle. Both experienced and new players will be able to perform well in this tank, as it just has solid stats for both types of player.

Most recently sold for:

“Tankopoly” event release (earnable for free) – June 2024

Camo cost:

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