AMX Defender

AMX Defender is a French tier 8 light tank. Its essentially an AMX 13 57, but with a 4 shell 75mm gun. It sports good DPM, and has better armour and mobility than other AMX 13s.

Armour

Drag slider right -> to view 220mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 53mm HE

Armour when flat & facing head-on:
Upper plate 115mm
Lower plate 60-70mm
Turret 75-90mm

Armour vs all tier 7-9 tanks:
Against any enemy it faces, the AMX Defender’s armour will perform roughly the same.

Its easily penetrable to all standard ammo, however its quite difficult to HE. The only HE that will penetrate the front of the tank are shells from 150mm guns, which usually have 84-90mm of HE penetration. Even then, they have to aim carefully for the lower plate of the tank, or hit right under the gun on the turret.

HE-ing the AMX Defender is challenging due to the small size of the tank, but also due to good frontal armour thickness, and its sides and rear are covered in 15-25mm spaced armour plates.

Gun

The AMX Defender mounts a 75mm gun

-It has 160 alpha damage with 4 shells in a clip. Intra-clip reload is 1.67s, so in 5s it can deal 640 damage.
-Reload time is 12.7s, giving it 2170 DPM
-Penetration is 205mm on AP, 259mm on APCR, and 38mm on HE
-Aim time is 3.1s/3.4s
-Dispersion is 0.319/0.287
–Gun handling is 0.13/0.13/0.1, and it can be improved to 0.11/0.11/0.07 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is a -6 degrees.

For an autoloader, this tank has quite good DPM; and for a light tank, this tank has amazing penetration.
Its clip reload is short, which makes the tank flexible; so even if you only fire 2 or 3 shells, you can reload your whole clip again quite quickly.
Overall the gun is good, and quite different to the other AMX 13 tanks.

Mobility

-Top speed is 65km/h, and -23km/h in reverse
-Acceleration is 34.7hp/t on hard terrain, and 30.84hp/t on medium terrain.
-Traverse speed is 70.8 deg/s on hard terrain, and 62.9 deg/s on medium terrain.
–Ground resistances are 0.8/0.9/1.2

The mobility of the AMX Defender isn’t anything too special, its quite average for a light tank, but overall its still very fast which is what you want in a light tank.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

AMX Defender has no special provisions/consumables.

Improved Ventilation:
Since the AMX Defender has some of the best pen for a light tank (tier-for-tier out of all tanks in game), being equivalent to a medium tank with good penetration, calibrated shells are not needed.

Calibrated shells do provide a great improvement to penetration, especially on HE, however as an autoloading light tank, the benefits that vents provide are much more useful, especially considering that the AMX Defender already has high penetration.

Vents improve both reload time & DPM, aim time, accuracy, traverse speed, and terrain resistances are also improved slightly. However, the most important improvement is the view range, which is increased by 9.6m, from 293m up to 302.6m, one of the highest in tier 8. This greatly improves the scouting ability of the tank.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Similarly to the Defender Mk.I, the AMX Defender busts out all of its damage very quickly, in just 5s. Vertical stabilizer will improve the after-shot-bloom of the gun, making it much easier to be accurate while you shoot each of the 4 shells in the magazine.
It will also improve the dispersion while moving, which is always important on a light tank, as sometimes you do need to shoot on the move.

Gameplay advice

As the AMX Defender is also an autoloader (just like every other AMX 13), just play it in the same way that you would play an AMX 13 90, AMX 13 75, or AMX 13 57.
It has the same strengths of those tanks, quite good magazine damage and a fast clip reload, and a small profile with great mobility. The Defender has the added strength of great penetration and better HE protection.

If you have played an AMX 13 before, you should do well in this.

Is it worth getting?

The AMX Defender itself is a good tank. If there were no other AMX 13s in the game it would probably be considered one of the best light tanks in tier 8.
Though, the tech tree AMX 13 tanks are arguably just as good, if not better than the AMX Defender.

Overall the AMX Defender is good, but if you just want it for autoloader light tank gameplay, play the tech tree AMX 13 tanks.
The Defender is only worth it if you love the way the tank looks, or just want something quite different for grinding credits in. After all, it is the only tier 8 autoloader light tank that can grind premium rate credits.

AMX Defender is worth around 7,500 gold, even if the tank has many competitors, the tank itself is definitely not bad.

Most recently sold for:

8,500 gold (Tank only) – September 2022
7,500 gold (Tank & equipment) – July 2024

AMX Defender has a permanent camo which can’t be adjusted

The AMX Defender is not based on the AMX 13 90 or AMX 13 75; its actually an AMX 13 57 hull and turret.
The AMX 13 57 and the Defender have the same hull and turret sizes, which are notably different to the tech tree AMX 13 tanks.