Aufklärungspanzer Panther

Aufklärungspanzer Panther is a tier 7 German light tank. Its a fast tank with a very strong engine and very high weight for a light tank. Armour is weak, and the gun has high DPM but low alpha damage. Its the best tank for ramming in the game.

(Note this tank is only being released to players with over 10,000 battles as “a reward for dedicated players”. Its unknown what reward, if any, other players get.)

Armour

(The Aufkl. Panther in the images is using Improved Assembly)

Drag slider right -> to view 155mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 53mm HE

When flat and facing head-on:
Upper plate 80-83mm
Lower plate 80-83

Turret face 65mm
Gun mantlet 136mm
Cupola 65-100mm

Side armour:
Aufkl. Panther’s sides are a slightly angled 45mm on the turret and the area above the tracks, and a flat 40mm behind the tracks

vs 53mm HE

Armour vs tier all tier 6-8 tanks:
Against any enemy the entire tank is weak to standard ammo (and to HESH ammo types). The only chance you have to bounce is on the gun mantlet, or if you angle to make an auto-ricochet on the upper plate or side armour.

The tank is fairly HE resistant, but large caliber HE (such as from 150mm+ guns) can still penetrate the front and sides easily. The side armour is fairly resistant against guns which ate 75mm to 105mm in gun caliber, due to its decent thickness.

Gun

The Aufkl. Panther mounts a 75mm gun.

-Alpha damage is 160 on AP, 135 on APCR, and 200 on HE
-It has a 3.6s reload, giving it 2689 DPM
-Penetration on AP is 160mm, premium APCR is 210mm, and HE is 43mm.
–Estimated aim time is 3.2/3.4s
–Base aim time is 2.1s, but it can get down to 1.62s.
-Dispersion is 0.317/0.269
–Gun handling is 0.12/0.12/0.06, or 0.1/0.1/0.05 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -7 degrees.

Overall this is a good gun. Its similar to many 75-76mm light tank guns in tier 7, having very good DPM, pretty good accuracy & gun handling, and low alpha damage. Aim time isn’t the best, and this is noticeable in battle, due to how quick the tank is and the fairly unimpressive aim time, often you have to stop to aim. Penetration is pretty good for a light tank, especially with 210mm on APCR ammo.

-7 gun depression doesn’t seem bad, but note this is a small VK turret on a massive Panther hull, the gun depression feels very awkward due to this.

Mobility

-Top speed is 64km/h forwards, and -24km/h in reverse.
-Traverse speed is 71.4 deg/s on hard terrain, and 59.5 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 34.4 hp/t, it has a very strong 1598 horsepower engine for its 46 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 34.4 hp/t on hard terrain, and 28.66 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.2/1.7

Overall this is fairly average mobility for a light tank. Top speeds are both good, and acceleration/traverse speed is superb on hard terrain. The terrain resistances are quite mediocre for a light tank with 1 on hard terrain and 1.2 on medium, causing its medium terrain mobility to be below-average for a light tank.

HOWEVER: note that the Aufkl. Panther weighs the same as a regular Panther, which is already a very heavy medium tank for tier 6, 7, and 8. The fact that this light tank weighs the same weight, with much higher top speed and acceleration rate, makes it actually an extremely impressive mobility profile (consider what you can do with that weight and speed).

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

The Aufkl. Panther has no special consumables or provisions.

Gun Rammer:
Due to having an AP/APCR/HE ammo loadout, and pretty good penetration for a tier 7 LT, the Aufkl. Panther really doesn’t need calibrated shells. Generally it doesn’t at all struggle to penetrate enemies, and the improved DPM is helpful to quickly deal with enemies after ramming them.

Gun rammer would lower the reload time from 3.8s down to 3.6s, and increase the DPM from 2554 to 2689.

Improved Modules:
Due to the ramming nature of the Aufkl. Panther, improved modules is mandatory. This reduces the damage you take by ramming an enemy by 40%, allowing you to conserve a lot of HP when ramming enemies (which is good since the tank doesn’t have that much HP).

Note that if you don’t take this, you take much more damage from doing rams, resulting in a faster death in battle; and if you don’t ram enemies when there’s a good opportunity, then why even play this tank?

Improved Assembly:
Due to overall weak armour, there is no reason to improve it.

Use improved assembly to increase the base HP of 1050 up to 1196. This helps a lot with ramming enemies, since often you’ll lose HP either from the ram itself or from exposing your tank to enemy guns.

Vertical Stabilizer/Refined Gun:
Either of these can work. This is a tank which is constantly moving and never sitting still, even if you are sat in a position, when you poke out to shoot, you can’t really afford to stop and aim due to having very weak armour.

There are 2 approaches to this, one is to use vertical stabilizer and reduce the gun bloom when you move the tank; the other is to use refined gun to reduce the maximum limit of the gun’s bloom in all situations. Either is a good choice that works well.

Gameplay advice

Aufkl. Panther is essentially just a fast-reloading light tank with good mobility, so its gameplay is similar to tanks such as the M41D or M41 Bulldog. However there’s one massive difference, which is to prioritize rammable targets.

General gameplay:
In its usual gameplay, the Aufkl. Panther plays a regular right tank role. Take it to the medium tank flank with more open terrain where you can use the good mobility to take early positions and scout enemies, but also be able to use ridges and terrain to hide the massive hull of the tank.

Try to avoid exposing the tank as much as possible due to its weak armour, but especially try to hide the hull, since its one of the largest on any light tank. Also be careful of using gun depression due to this large hull size, since the hull often wedges the gun up, and the comparatively low turret profile causes this to be awkward to use.

Like most light tanks the Aufkl. panther thrives on flanking plays and getting around enemies, where it can use its high DPM but not be the main focus of enemy guns. Its essential to use the high speed and good mobility to take advantage of unguarded flanks.

Ram enemies. This should be your main objective to reach in the battle, achieve a good ram. If not trying to ram enemies using this tank, then there’s no reason to play it, since the M41D and M41 Bulldog are just better at doing everything else.

Trade in DPM:
Due to a fast reload but low alpha damage, its best to try and put in multiple shots for every one time the enemy shoots. Trading damage like this ensures that you can do good damage to enemies even though your alpha damage is low and other enemies do more damage in a single shot.

Be aware of your size and gun depression:
The hull of the Aufkl. Panther is very large and tall compared to the small and low profile turret. This causes the gun to be quite awkward to use on uneven terrain, as the hull constantly catches on the terrain and wedges the gun up. The -7 gun depression generally isn’t enough to be able to use in hulldown positions unless its very flat.

Ramming:
This is the most important aspect to the Aufkl. Panther’s gameplay, since it is the main unique trait of this tank. Without its 46 ton weight, the Aufkl. Panther is just a worse version of the M41D and M41 Bulldog, since it would just perform the same role as them.

Ramming lets the Aufkl. Panther to be very different to any other light tank, since in the right situation, you can completely annihilate enemies even with high HP, and if they don’t die on the ram, you have high DPM to finish them off.

Try to ram enemies whenever possible, but do it sensibly. Don’t just rush out in front of 3 enemies who are hiding behind cover, just so you can ram one of them. Similarly, don’t ram a 60 ton heavy tank and expect to win the damage trade. Stationary targets are best, and the lighter the tank the more damage you’ll do.

Using ram physics:
To get the most out of ramming you need to know a little bit about ram physics. The basics are this:

1- Ram flat, not at an angle. Try to make sure your frontal armour is as parallel to the enemy armour plate as possible, generally this does more damage, and if you hit them on the side it means its harder for the enemy to just reverse backwards and avoid damage.

2- The most damage comes from enemies which are wedged against a wall. If a wall is behind them when you ram them, you will do the most damage.
The next best situation is if the enemy is not moving (away from you) when you ram them, even though there’s no wall behind them, they still take most of the damage due to not moving away.
The worst situation for ram damage is if an enemy sees you coming, and starts reversing backwards. Even if you hit them fast, you won’t do nearly as much damage compared to the other situations.

3- Weight sometimes matters. Of course the most damage will come from hitting the lightest enemies, but often these are also the quickest ones, so are harder to catch than the enemies that weigh more.
Also due to weighing 46 tons, sometimes (not always) you can ram heavier targets and still do good damage to them.

The Aufkl. Panther’s gameplay is essentially just that of a regular fast-firing light tank, but with one difference, which is ramming. Ramming should be ideally your main objective in the battle, since otherwise there isn’t much point to play the tank.

Tank gameplay:

Overall

Armour – 3.5/10
Gun – 6/10
Mobility – 6/10
Speed – 6/10
Ram ability 10/10

Aufkl. Panther is overall a good tank.

Armour is weak, but not bad for a light tank. It can resist most HE well from the front and even from the side. Large caliber HE is still a danger, and HESH protection is very poor. No armour at all to AP/APCR/HEAT. Size is very large for a LT.
Gun has great DPM, good penetration, accuracy, gun handling, decent aim time, but low alpha and mediocre -7 gun depression.
Mobility is good, with great acceleration rate, good traverse, but unimpressive terrain resistances. Reverse speed is good with -24km/h.
Speed is good at 64km/h.

Ramming is the best in the game. There is no better tank for ramming in the entire game, for its weight, its speed and mobility are extremely good, and due to this it just rams enemies better than anything else for its weight class.

Is it worth getting?

This tank is definitely worth getting, just for its trait of being able to ram enemies better than any other tank in the game (for its level of weight). Ramming is by far one of the most rewarding and fun ways to deal damage, especially for a light tank, a class that’s usually the one getting rammed. Other than this tank tank just has generally great mobility and high DPM, so its not like ramming is the only thing its good at.

If you don’t enjoy ramming enemies then this won’t be the tank for you, since you could buy a M41D, which does everything this tank does but better, except the ramming and HP.

The Aufkl. Panther is worth 6,000 gold. Largely due to the fun factor of its ramming ability, but it is also genuinely a good light tank with high agility, speed, and DPM. The ability to ram lighter enemies just makes it extremely effective at taking out enemy medium and light tanks (depending on if its actually practical to ram them).

How to get this tank:

The Aufkl. Panther is being released in a quest which will be available for all players who have over 10,000 battles in either random battles or rating battles. The requirement of the quest is to win 1 battle and receive the tank.

Camo cost:

Currently the Aufkl. Panther has no special camouflages.

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