Caliban

The Caliban is a tier 8 British heavy tank. It features weak armour, abysmal accuracy & gun handling, and extremely low shell velocity on its gun. Its mobility is decent but top speed is limited. The main speciality of the Caliban is having very high alpha damage on its HESH shells.

1. Armour
2. Gun
3. Mobility
4. Equipment loadout
5. Gameplay advice
6. Overall
7. Is it worth getting?
8. Most recently sold for:
9. Camo cost:

Armour

Drag slider right -> to view 160mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 208mm APCR

This is the penetration of a tier 7 medium tank.

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Drag slider right -> to view 180mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 235mm APCR

This is the penetration level of a lower penetration tier 8 medium tank.

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Armour when flat & facing head-on:
-Upper plate 200-210mm
-Lower plate 120mm
Turret front round area 135-175mm
Turret upper angled area 185mm

Side armour:
The Caliban has 40mm side armour, with a 5mm spaced armour sideskirt over the tracks. This is terrible side armour which makes angling and sidescraping impossible with this tank.

Armour vs tier 7:
Against tier 7 enemies the Caliban actually has some armour. It can bounce tier 7 mediums off its upper plate reliably, even if not using enhanced armour. Just don’t facehug these enemies as they’ll be able to negate your armour angling.

Some tier 8 heavies will struggle to penetrate the upper plate of the Caliban, not all. Tanks with APCR as standard ammo, or tanks with 170-175mm AP may occasionally bounce off. Tanks with mor penetration than this won’t bounce unless you angle the hull, which exposes the weak side armour.

The turret is weak to all enemies, except the lowest penetration ones with 140-150mm AP penetration.

While using gun depression, both the turret and upper plate can be quite reliable against the majority of tier 7 enemies you face.

Armour vs tier 8:
Facing tier 8, the only tanks that have a chance of bouncing off the upper plate on flat ground are light tanks with low penetration (170-175mm AP), or mediums with low penetration standard APCR (Bourrasque or Vickers MBT). All other enemies you face, even ones with just 180mm AP, can easily cut through the upper plate.

The turret is similarly weak, nothing will bounce off it on flat ground.

When using gun depression, the upper plate can bounce much more standard ammo, and even some low penetration premium ammo, such as from mediums or light tanks (225-240mm penetration). expect heavy tank standard ammo to penetrate, just due to heavies having good penetration. The turret can only bounce low penetration standard ammo, all decent penetration standard ammo and premium ammo penetrates easily.

Armour vs tier 9:
In tier 9 battles the Caliban has no usable armour whatsoever, all shots from all enemies will always penetrate the tank.

Gun

Caliban mounts a 6 inch (152.4mm) gun.
(While its called a 150mm 6-inch gun in game, the actual gun caliber of the gun is 152.4mm).

AP:
-Alpha damage is 580.
-Penetration is 218mm, or 235mm with calibrated shells.
-DPM is 1839, or 1747 with calibrated shells.
-Reload time is 18.9s, or 19.9s with calibrated shells.
–Shell velocity is 500m/s.

HESH:
-Alpha damage is 860.
-Penetration is 170mm, or 184mm with calibrated shells.
-DPM is 2727, or 2590 with calibrated shells.
-Reload time is 18.9s, or 19.9s with calibrated shells.
–Shell velocity is 354m/s.

Other gun stats:
–Estimated aim time is 5.6/5.9s
–Base aim time is 2.55s, but it can get down to 2.01s.
-Dispersion is 0.474/0.403
–Gun handling is 0.38/0.39/0.19, or 0.32/0.32/0.16 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -8 degrees

Other than its high alpha damage and good DPM with HESH, nothing about this gun is good.

Gun depression is ok, but nothing special; shell velocity is abysmal, so it can only really be effective in close ranges, or mid-range if enemies don’t move or if you can lead your shots well.

Dispersion is very poor and gun handling is worst in game, though the base aim time is relatively decent. If the Caliban sits still and aims, its doesn’t have to aim as long as you might expect for such high alpha. However what balances this out is the fact it has to aim fully, which makes the tank exposed.

Mobility

-Top speed is 30km/h forwards, and -14km/h in reverse.
-Traverse speed is 40.8 deg/s on hard terrain, and 29.1 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 16.1 hp/t, it has strong 656hp engine for its 41 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 16.1 hp/t on hard terrain, and 11.5 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.4/2.

The Caliban’s mobility isn’t bad. On hard terrain its quite agile, with good traverse and acceleration. On medium terrain its mobility is more similar to an “average” heavy tank’s level of mobility, which isn’t bad. The biggest mobility issue is the fact that Caliban’s top speed is so limited, making it slow to get anywhere over longer distances.

Equipment loadout

Caliban has no special provisions/consumables.

Gun Rammer/Calibrated Shells:
There is an argument for either equipment piece here.

Calibrated Shells: You penetrate more armour even though you shoot less often, so your effective DPM is higher.
Gun Rammer: You have more chances to shoot enemies even though you can’t penetrate as much armour, so your effective DPM is higher.

Try out each equipment piece, as this choice will be different with each individual player. Some may appreciate shooting more often, getting more chances to shoot. Sometimes you don’t have to aim or penetrate, just lob a HESH shell at them and do splash damage.
Other players will prefer higher penetration, being able to penetrate more enemies with HESH and AP, and doing damage more consistently, even if its slower.

Supercharger:
Despite the fact that GLD improved the effective aim time of this by 0.9s (which is a massive amount), its a much less effective and worse choice than supercharger.

The shell velocity of this tank so low, that even if the Caliban had a pinpoint accurate gun with amazing aim time & handling, it would still have a very high rate of misses just due to ths shell velocity. Unfortunately the reality of Caliban’s gun is that it is both extremely inaccurate and has terrible velocity.

As Caliban has to often use HESH (which has the lowest shell velocity above tier 6), supercharger helps you to actually hit shots much more consistently than GLD does, even in close ranges, but especially at mid to long range.

Supercharger improves your AP shell velocity from 500m/s up to 675m/s, and HESH from 354m/s to 478m/s.

Improved Assembly:
While the Caliban has a small amount of armour, its only noticeable against tanks which you’ll rarely ever fight in a head-on engagement, these being tier 7 medium & light tanks, and the lowest penetration of tier 8 medium & lights (the 160-175mm penetration level).

The Caliban also isn’t the type of tank to rely on armour, as you just expose the tank for a few seconds, shoot, then hide for 19-20 seconds while you reload, hence generally enhanced armour won’t help you.

The Caliban has the lowest base HP of any tier 8 heavy tank, 1700 HP. As it also has no armour, it makes it a tank with low durability, so you need to use improved assembly to increase its HP from 1700 up to 1768.

Vertical Stabilizer/Refined Gun:
Both are good choices on this tank, as the dispersion and gun handling are equally abysmal on the Caliban.

For vertical stabilizer, the benefit is having slightly faster effective aim time due to your gun blooming out less when moving, which is extremely useful due to the terrible gun handling of the tank. This is even more important if you choose to use supercharger, as you don’t have the better aim time of GLD.

For refined gun, the benefit is having a more accurate gun overall, though it aims noticeably slower. Refined gun will make the most difference for snapshots and for fully aimed shots, where having a lower dispersion number matters a lot.

Gameplay advice

The Caliban is a support heavy, and plays very differently to other heavy tanks due to its traits.

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General gameplay:
Play the Caliban on the HT side of the map, its far too slow and far too inaccurate to be fighting mediums. Heavies generally are slow, large, and take a while to aim, it evens the playing field for you who has slow aim time, terrible accuracy, a slow reload, and need to rely on damage trading rather than DPM. If you go and fight mediums, often you’ll find the tank reloads far too slowly, and accuracy/velocity are too poor to deal with the fast reactions and agility of mediums.

Use allies as armour:
The Caliban itself has no armour, so you have to let your heavier armoured allies go first on the frontlines to take the hits and absorb the damage which you’d never be able to bounce.

When you reach the position you want to use, if you have allies also pushing with you, let them make the first move. In nearly all cases your ally will have a better chance to bounce damage from their upper plate, by sidescraping, going hulldown, or angling, where the Caliban can’t do any of this.

Once the enemy as shot, take that opportunity to push out and put a shot into the enemy while they are on reload.

Aim & don’t aim:
Due to the terrible gun handling, dispersion, and effective aim time of the Caliban, you must aim every shot as much as you can if you want it to deal full damage and not bounce or miss. Your single shot of damage is roughly 33% of your DPM, so if you miss it is detrimental to both your damage score and the chance at killing the enemy. The impact of your single shot on the outcome of the battle is high, its best not to waste it.

In other situations, don’t aim at all, just snapshot with HESH. Since your accuracy stats are so slow, and aiming in takes at minimum 5 seconds, it causes your tank to be exposed for a long time, which causes enemies to aim at you, and for you to take damage, which isn’t ideal.
Sometimes its better to just take what damage you can, (in this case its HESH splash damage). The Caliban, like a KV-2 or Smasher, has the advantage that even though its accuracy is terrible, it can get away with not aiming at all and still doing 200-400 damage with a HESH shell splash.

Either shoot HESH for splash damage without aiming, or fully aim in the shot, there is no in-between for this tank.

Keep with your allies throughout the battle:
Stay with allied tanks as much as possible. The long reload time, weak armour, and low HP of the Caliban make it fragile and very team reliant. If your team isn’t there to support you while you are reloading, there isn’t anything to deter enemies from rushing you.

Use gun depression & hide the hull:
Though the turret armour isn’t strong, it is still a very small turret and size profile. Using the small size of the tank to your advantage makes it more likely for enemies to rush their shot or miss. 

You also have some armour on the tank when you do use full gun depression. You can bounce tier 7 tanks easily, and the lowest penetration tier 8s. Note that the hull armour is much better than the turret, and its still best to avoid relying on either and play the tank like you’re expecting to be penetrated.

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Generally the tank needs to be played conservatively, don’t confidently push without having strong allied support, and play carefully. Caliban is usually a “support” role vehicle, its unable to lead an attack itself without getting completely torn apart by its lack of HP and armour, and the fact it has a long reload. On top of all this an added factor making it hard to play is how easy it is to miss shots in the tank.

Overall

Armour – 2/10
Gun – 3.5/10
Mobility – 6/10
Speed – 3/10

Caliban overall is a bad tank.

Armour is weak in all cases. It can only bounce low penetration tier 7 tanks on the hull, all other areas can be easily penetrated by any penetration level you face. HESH protection is poor, HE protection is decent.
Gun has great alpha damage, decent DPM, and usable aim time for its alpha damage. Penetration potential is low. Accuracy, reload time, gun handling, & shell velocity, are all abysmal. Gun depression is -8 degrees.
Mobility is good. Acceleration & traverse are great on hard terrain, and average on medium terrain. Reverse speed is a good -14km/h.
Speed is limited, 30km/h.

Overall the Caliban really isn’t a conventional heavy tank, this tank is meant to be derpy and fun, and it achieves that. The Caliban is not meant to be “the best”, or have extremely strong stats to be a competitive tank. 

Is it worth getting?

Caliban is a hard tank to play well due to its weak stats, but its amplified by complicated ammo use with HESH. If you’re a less experienced player, you may want to avoid this tank, as often times its very frustrating to play.

This being said, if you don’t care about the style of gameplay and just want a premium tank that is purely for fun (sometimes) and to mess around with, Caliban is currently the only tier 8 collector/premium that is very derpy with high alpha damage.

From a competitive standpoint (or how good the tank is), its not at all. Caliban is the worst tank in tier 8 just due to it being incapable of achieving anything in so many battle situations.

The Caliban is worth 7,500 gold from a purely “fun” standpoint. In terms of how competitive it is, the tank is worth nothing as its just very bad in a competitive sense. Don’t buy the tank if you want a great tank to win you battles, this tank is just for messing around with and having a bit of derpy fun.

Most recently sold for:

New release crates – November 2022
M60 Lockboxes – February 2023
10,000 gold – Black Friday 2024

Camo cost: