Canon d’assaut de 105

The AMX CDA 105 is a tier 8 French premium TD, it has extremely impressive mobility, a very accurate and high-penetration gun, and decent and troll armour for its speed; however its DPM is somewhat low.

1. Armour
2. Playing against an AMX CDA 105
3. Gun
4. Mobility
5. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
6. Gameplay advice
7. Tank gameplay:
8. Overall
9. Is it worth getting?
10. Most recently sold for:
11. Historical info:

Armour

(The AMX CDA 105 in the images is using Improved Assembly)

Drag slider right -> to view 225mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 265mm APCR

Upper structure:
Upper half: 193-200mm (from the gun up)
Lower half: 235-240mm (below the gun)
Gun housing structure: 212-225mm
Rangefinder: 175-205mm
Cupola center: 115mm
Cupola edges: 260-300mm auto-ricochet

Lower plates:
Lower plate: 105mm
Lower-lower plate: 350-370mm auto-ricochet

This tank mas many different armour areas with varying thickness, it can make it quite challenging to know where to shoot, and means the tank is very effective in wiggling its armour.

Note that due to the upper plates of the CDA being well angled but not enough for an auto-ricochet, AP and APCR (with around 215-225mm) can easily penetrate due to shell normalization.
 However, as it is almost an autoricochet angle (on the lower part of the upper plate), even a slight change in terrain can cause it to go red.

VS tier 7:
The upper half of the upper plate can be penetrated by tanks with more than 165mm of penetration (this is due to shell normalization). However, the lower half will still show up as red to all enemy tier 7 tanks, even when shooting premium rounds, only tanks like the Type 62 or Smasher with very high penetration HEAT have a chance to penetrate.

The gun housing area can be penetrated by tanks with 170mm, though the lower part of this still shows up as slightly red to tanks with under 190mm of penetration

By far the most reliable weakpoints on for a tier 7 tank to shoot at are the upper half of the upper plate, and the lower plate. Other areas of the tank are quite unpredictable and can be hard to hit.

When using gun depression and hulldown, the best places to shoot are the top and middle part of the hatch; or switch to premium ammo and try to penetrate the gun housing area, though you will need 240mm APCR or 250mm HEAT for this.

VS tier 8:
Facing tier 8 enemies, most tanks still have a high change to bounce off the lower-upper plate, while it doesn’t show up red on the images, it goes red even with a slight amount of angling or gun depression (as its almost at the auto-ricochet angle).

The upper half of the upper plate is a very easy penetrating shot to every enemy tier 8 tank, even the lowest penetration vehicle can easily go though on flat ground. The gun housing area requires about 220mm AP to go through, so there will still be quite a few tier 8 tanks which bounce of this if they are aimed badly.

When using gun depression, tanks with higher penetration HEAT rounds can penetrate the upper half of the upper plate, but this requires at least 280mm HEAT, any HEAT under 280mm won’t go through, and all AP and APCR will bounce as it becomes an auto-ricochet.
The gun housing area and the hatch are the most reliable weakpoints for when this tank is using gun depression, most tanks with over 215mm of penetration can go through these areas without premium ammo.

VS tier 9: 
Tier 9 tanks will see roughly the same as what tier 8 tanks see, but as most have better premium penetration, tanks with HEAT as premium ammo will be able to penetrate the tank more frequently when it uses gun depression.

Playing against an AMX CDA 105

As shown in the image above, the tank’s armour is rather troll with less accurate guns or at longer ranges. The armour analysis in the above section’s super close-up images are only an ideal scenario, it won’t always be sitting still in such close range for you to shoot.

Just because this tank has many weakpoints shown in the images doesn’t necessarily mean its a very weakly armoured tank. Due to its many varying angles and its good gun depression, the AMX CDA can produce many unexpected and troll bounces, especially if it is a good player who is wiggling back and fourth.

Note: This is just general advice so you don’t fall for the traps of this tank, the best way to learn how to deal with this tank is to actually play against it in battle. However, hopefully this can give some insight for those who rarely or have never played against an AMX CDA 105.

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If shooting an AMX CDA, always try to avoid shooting these areas:

Near the gun:
Yes, the gun housing weakpoints are right next to the gun, but its best to avoid shooting this unless the AMX CDA is hulldown. If the AMX CDA makes an unexpected turn or movement and you hit this area, it may bounce off; similarly if the AMX CDA is driving in a zig-zag pattern, the constantly changing angle makes it unreliable. Its also a relatively small target to hit if you are not close up, and you may accidentally hit the gun mantlet or the angled side armour instead.

Lower part of the upper plate:
This is the area under the gun. If you hit here there’s a chance that your shot bounces, as this armour plate is only 2 degrees of angling away from being an auto-ricochet, meaning that any change in terrain or any movement from the AMX can cause this area to become an auto-ricochet. If the AMX is stationary and starts to move, this plate will go red for moment due to that movement. Its best to try avoid shooting this, even if you see grey, just due to how unpredictable this armour plate is.

Lower-lower plate:
This is the plate under the lower plate. Similar to a Ho-Ri, you have to shoot the plate right under the upper plate, if you aim too low or miss, you will hit this lower-lower plate, which is both an auto-ricochet and over 350mm thick.

Cupola:
You can see in the above armour images that there is a grey area right in the center of the hatch, but the areas to the left and right of it are red.
This armour modelling is correct, meaning if you miss that very center part, you’ll bounce off the angled cupola edges, it makes it quite a hard shot to hit and a fairly unreliable weakpoint.

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Where to shoot an AMX CDA 105:

The upper part of the upper plate:
All tier 8-9 tanks will be able to penetrate this, and most in tier 7 can as well.

Lower/mid plate:
This is the plate directly under the upper plate (lower half of upper plate), its a reliable and very weak plate that’s relatively easy to hit. Though don’t rush your shot, if you miss it then you will either hit tracks, a 350mm thick plate, or an unpredictable upper plate.

Rangefinder:
This is the long bar along the left side roof of the tank, while its weak, its only a reliable weakpoint to tier 8-9 tanks on flat ground. It becomes fairly strong when using gun depression

Gun housing area:
Its best to shoot here only when the tank is using its gun depression, as its the weakest part of the tank in such a scenario, and the easiest to hit when its hulldown. If not hulldown, adjust your aim to the left or right of this to hit the upper-upper plate.

Gun

The AMX CDA 105 mounts a 105mm gun

-Alpha damage is 350 on APCR, 300 on HEAT, and 440 on HE
-It has a 8s reload giving it 2625 DPM, 
-Penetration on APCR is 260mm, HEAT is 310mm, and HE is 53mm.
-Aim time is 2.9s/3.1s
-Dispersion is 0.308/0.277
–Gun handling is 0.18/0.18/0.12, or 0.15/0.15/0.1 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -8 degrees, which is very nice to have, especially with this tank’s armour.
-Gun arc (left/right) is +10/-10, which is good, but also nothing special

Don’t let the low DPM of this gun deter you. The gun is incredible in terms of reliability, high penetration, good handling, great accuracy and aim time, and very nice gun depression. Its reload is just short enough to allow it to take up a support playstyle.
While the DPM is low, the gun is able to hit almost every shot, even after moving at 50km/h. Its aim time and dispersion are both very impressive, and its gun handling is decent. This tank also has the 3rd highest amount of standard penetration in tier 8. Overall a very good gun.

Shell velocity: 
This must be mentioned as its actually a very important statistic for any tank, especially sniping and support TDs.
– AMX CDA 105 has the highest base shell velocity in game (on standard APCR), with 1525m/s on APCR. Its HEAT ammo also has a very respectable 1000m/s, however its HE velocity is disappointing with only 700m/s.
-Along with this, its APCR barely loses any penetration over distance, with only 3.85% penetration lost at 500m, so even if sniping from nearly all the way across a map, the AMX CDA 105 will still have 250mm of penetration.

Mobility

-Top speed is 50km/h forwards, and -20km/h in reverse
-Traverse speed is 51.2 deg/s on hard terrain, and 46.1 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 29.1 hp/t, it has an extremely strong 842.4hp engine for its 29 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 29.1 hp/t on hard terrain, and 26.4 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.1/1.6

The AMX CDA 105 has the most impressive mobility of any tier 8 tank destroyer, its incredibly mobile, with great traverse speed, and has acceleration than can rival even some light tanks. The 50km top speed is decent, and 20km reverse speed is very good.

This tank is able to consistently stay at its top speed for most of the battle just due to its very high acceleration rate. Overall, while this tank may not be the fastest in tier 8 by top speed, its definitely the most mobile and agile tier 8 TD.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

AMX CDA 105 has no special consumables or provisions.

Gun Rammer:
As the AMX CDA 105 often needs to take the role of a pseudo-medium tank, it needs to have good DPM and reload time to compete with the quick firing MT. While its DPM for a tier 8 TD isn’t very impressive, its still very  good when compared to same tier heavy and medium tanks.
AMX CDA 105 also has the 3rd highest penetration in tier 8, so using calibrated shells on this tank would just be a complete waste.

Calibrated shells would it would cripple the DPM to a terrible 2442, and make the reload 8.6s, all in exchange for an amount of penetration which is completely overkill in tier 8 (especially since the CDA is a very accurate TD).
With a gun rammer, the DPM of the tank is still respectable 2625, with an decent 8s reload.

Camouflage Net:
The AMX CDA 105 has very low base view range, with only 266.1m of view range with coated optics. Its far more beneficial to the playstyle of this tank to use the camo net, as sometimes it needs to be sneaky to get out of positions, or to snipe at enemies. Using a camo net would increases the stationary camo rating from 63% to 77%, camo on the move from 48% to 55%, and camo when shooting from 13% to 16%. AMX CDA 105 has the 4th highest camo rating in tier 8 when using a camo net.

Enhanced Armour:
Use enhanced armour, it makes a big difference to the armour profile of the AMX CDA 105, as shown below.

The tank does use this armour often in battle, and relies on this troll armour to survive in battle, so it is more important to improve the armour than the hp.

Enhanced armour would improve:
Upper-upper plate from 193mm to 200mm
Lower-upper plate from 235mm to 245mm
Lower plate from 105mm to 110mm
Lower-lower plate from 355mm to 365mm
Gun mount area from 212mm to 218mm
Rangefinder from 205mm to 215mm

Vertical Stabilizer:
As the AMX CDA 105 has to sometimes take an active and aggressive role in battle (where it plays on the frontline or supports allies on HT or MT flanks), it will be constantly moving and turning, and thus would need to have improved dispersion-on-move. The dispersion of the gun at 100m is already a very impressive 0.308, so refined gun would be unnecessary, instead use the vertical stabilizer and improve the gun handling for when the tank is moving and after its moved.

Gameplay advice

The AMX CDA 105 is actually comparable to a less armoured version WZ-120-1G FT, it plays quite similarly to that tank, just with less armour and DPM but with more gun depression accuracy.

Starting the battle:
Just like the most mobile support TD, the AMX CDA 105 should start the battle by staying back from the frontlines, choosing a sniping spot or a spot behind your allies to take long range shots from. The gun is perfectly suited to this with great accuracy and high penetration, while the DPM is low, you are still doing very consistent damage, especially with the insane shell velocity of this tank.

Once you see a flank winning/losing, then reposition. If there’s a flank winning, then there’s an opportunity for you to push up and play as a support TD or pseudo MT. With this you can use the great mobility of the AMX CDA to flank enemies and shoot them from the sides or behind, or just continue to push forward and play the tank like a medium tank.
Alternatively, if your flank is falling and allies are dying, use the mobility to quickly regroup with other allies, or take a sniping location further back. 
Generally, by the end of a winning battle, you should not be sniping in this tank. It can and should play on the frontlines as a pseudo-medium tank, and not just sniping all game. While it is effective at sniping, the gun doesn’t do enough single-shot damage or reload quick enough for sniping-only gameplay to bring in big scores or victories.

Use gun depression. Using gun depression eliminated the upper-upper plate as a weakspot, as it becomes 270mm+ in effective thickness, and the angle makes it an auto-ricochet. While the tank still has other weakpoints like the gun housing structure, hatch, or rangefinder, these are all much smaller weakpoints, and can actually become quite troll to hit if you factor in the movement of the tank. 
Also wiggle the tank if you are using gun depression, the gun mantlet is fairly large and may block shots from enemies trying to hit the gun housing structure.

Use FULL gun depression. if you don’t use all 8 degrees of gun depression, the upper-upper plate will not be at an auto-ricochet angle, and its still easily penetrated by about 215-220mm of AP. The upper-upper glacis is angled at 62 degrees, you need all 8 degrees of gun depression to take this to the 70 degree auto-ricochet angle.

Continuously wiggle and angle. This is the most important part to using the armour of this tank. it can be done anywhere, on flat ground, in hulldown, or using gun depression, and you should be doing this in every position you take up with the tank.
Due to all the varying angles, thicknesses, plate shapes, and their placements, wiggling the tank left/right (and occasionally back/forwards for extra unpredictability) can cause enemies to bounce loads of shots off this tank.
Do this even when driving towards enemy tanks, drive in an S type pattern and zig-zag left and right, and it makes it much harder for enemies to hit where they want, and more likely for you to bounce.

Every single weakpoint on this tank is either right next to, or above/below, an auto-ricochet area:
-Upper-upper plate is next to the angled side shoulders and the gun housing point (when angled away from enemy its an auto-ricochet)
-Lower plate is right below an almost-auto-ricochet plate, and directly above the auto-ricochet lower-lower plate
-Gun housing structure is right next to the 320mm+ thick gun mantlet, and directly under the auto-ricochet roof
-The cupola is surrounded by auto-ricochet angles on its base

While the armour is definitely troll due to all its varying angles, its definitely not something you should be always reliant on, and you should still try to avoid taking shots as your HP is fairly low, and you are never guaranteed to bounce all shots, in any situation. Being careful with the HP will help this tank hugely in its battles, but if it does come to taking hits, the AMX CDA’s armour can bounce, given a little bit of good RNG and some tank wiggling.

Tank gameplay:

Overall

Overall the AMX CDA 105 is a great tank. It can do both sniping and playing an active role very well.
Its gameplay is unique in the fact that its unbelievably agile and accurate, while not being complete paper in its armour. Its a very fun tank, and players who like playing quick TDs should enjoy it.
This tank quite a well-rounded tank for a TD, it has some armour, it can play as a TD, it can play as a pseudo-MT, its got great camo, and a great gun. There isn’t really any statistic on this tank that is actually bad.

Is it worth getting?

In tier 8, the AMX CDA 105 a bit of a mix between what the WZ-120-1G FT offers, and what the Kanonenjagdpanzer offers. While not quite as much of a frontal-assault brute as the WZ, its a lot more sturdy than the Kanonen; it has a good mix of both, with some armour (which Kanonen lacks), but also great accuracy & gun depression (which WZ lacks), all the while being a lot more agile than both these tanks.

The AMX CDA 105 is worth getting for players who like playing quick TDs. If you like sniper TDs, this can work as that, if you like aggressive frontline TDs, this can also work in that situation. Its similar to an Obj.268 in the fact that its quick, has decent armour, and a great gun; it can play both sniper, and support. If that sounds like something you would enjoy, then the AMX CDA will probably be very enjoyable for you.

The AMX CDA 105 is worth 9,500 gold, it’s both a fun and a very good tank, especially if you’re playing it right.
Its value to you as a player will depend on how much you play it, if you think you will completely love this tank, then it may be worth paying more than 9,500 gold for. However, for players who just see it as “just another premium”, you shouldn’t pay more than 9,500 for this tank.

Most recently sold for:

Lockboxes release – November 2021
15,000 gold (Full bundle) or 12,500 gold (Tank only) – January 2022
Legend of the Golden Hare event – January 2023
8,500 gold (Tank only) – September 2023
Main reward of 350k damage grind 10 day event

Historical info:

The AMX CDA is a real tank, there were two versions that were drawn up in 1958: one with a 105mm gun, and one with a 120mm gun. Both were made by the AMX company, and given the same name of “Canon d’assaut de (gun caliber)”.

The 2 designs were very similar, with the same suspension, engine, gun angles, and even the same 65km road speed. The hull layouts were very similar, but where the AMX CDA 105 has a “bulge” in the upper plate housing the gun, the AMX CDA 120 has an extended cabin which tapers to the gun mantlet.

AMX CDA 105 ammunition storage was in both the front left and right of the hull, and in a rack right above the engine (the compartment just behind the crew cabin). AMX CDA 120 ammunition storage was in a box on the right side of the tank (this box jutted out from the streamlined cabin), and on a rack at the rear left of the hull cabin wall.
The AMX CDA 105 was planned to weigh 26,880 kg (26.9t), having lower ammunition weight, less armour weight, and its gun weighing 900kg less than the AMX CDA 120, which was planned to weigh 30,120kg (30.1t).

Both vehicles had blueprints but no mock-ups or prototypes were built.

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