Chieftain Mk. 6

Page last updated 13 June, 2026

The Chieftain Mk.6 is a British tier 10 heavy tank. It has a high DPM gun with premium HESH ammo, good top speed & mobility for a heavy tank, and a strong turret profile.

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Armour

(The Chieftain Mk.6 in the images is using Improved Assembly)

Armour facing head-on:
Upper plate 340-590mm
Driver hatch weakpoint 230-240mm
Mid bar 130-190mm
Lower plate 125mm
Hull shoulders 290-320mm

Turret 270-600mm+
Cupola 200mm

Side armour:
38mm flat behind the tracks, with 6mm spaced armour.
51mm above the tracks towards the hull rear.

Armour Performance:
Strong areas:
-The turret is overall very strong to all ammo. Note that on flat ground it is penetrable on some areas above the gun to premium ammo.
-The upper plate is very well angled, and can bounce most standard ammo.

Main weakpoints:
-The lower plate is weak to all enemies, including HESH shells.
-The entire hull side is weak to all AP/APCR ammo types, even in a sidescrape.
-The cupola is weak to all enemies on flat ground.

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Gun

The Chieftain Mk.6 mounts a 120mm gun

Firepower:
-Ammo: AP/HESH/HE.
-Penetration: 260/200/80mm
-Alpha damage: 400/470/515
-Reload time: 7.4s
-DPM: 3230 (3795 on HESH)

Handling:
–Estimated aim time: 3.1/3.3s
–Base aim time: 2.16s
-Base Dispersion: 0.308/0.274
–Base Gun handling: 0.15/0.15/0.12

Usability:
-Shell velocities are 880/800/740 m/s
-Gun depression is -10 degrees.

The Chieftain’s gun is very good. It has good handling, great accuracy, and very comfortable gun depression with high DPM, however aim time is mediocre.

What this gun lacks is penetration potential. Its fine on standard ammo, has good premium HESH penetration, and HE is also decent. What’s lacking is a high-penetration premium round, which means you struggle to penetrate enemies where other tanks would just use premium ammo.

However, despite this the tank does do amazingly at dealing high damage quickly against enemy lower plates, side armour, weak cupolas, or any HESH exploitable areas.

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Mobility

Stats as though using 6% Gear Oil.

Raw stats:
-Forward speed is 46km/h.
-Reverse speed is -19km/h.
-Raw acceleration rate is 16.6 hp/t.
-Engine power is 915 hp for its 55 ton weight.
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.15/1.7

Hard terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 16.6 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 36.7 deg/s.

Medium terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 14.5 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 31.9 deg/s.

Overall this is a good mobility profile for a heavy tank. Its top forward and reverse speeds are both great, and the strong engine allows the tank to quite easily maintain a good speed.
Effective acceleration rates are also very good, with decent traverse speed.

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Consumables

Provisions

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Equipment Loadout

Gun Rammer:
Despite being a tank with premium HESH, and lacking a premium round, calibrated shells actually isn’t always the best choice.

Gun rammer focuses on what the Chieftain is good at, which is high DPM. Its penetration on AP will be 255mm, which is fine as with how tier 10 is balanced, armour plates are balanced around the numbers 250mm for standard ammo, and 300-330mm for premium. This means that despite calibrated shells increasing AP penetration from 255mm to 275mm, the amount of armour the tank can go through doesn’t actually change much.

The main reason to use calibrated shells is for higher HESH penetration, as it increases from 200mm to 216mm, however for the most part, this also doesn’t change much when facing enemies frontally.

The best thing to do is just try both, as gun rammer is a choice you wouldn’t expect on a tank with premium HESH, but it does work well.

Improved Assembly:
Enhanced armour on this tank only really benefits the turret, and doesn’t benefit it by a large amount. The effect of enhanced armour can be seen with the below image slider.

Improved assembly is generally more useful, since the Chieftain’s upper plate and turret are already strong without enhancing. Its armour also really only works when hulldown, so in most other situations, improved assembly is a better choice, as it lets the tank take more hits. Improved assembly increases the HP of the Chieftain from 2350 up to 2491.

Vertical Stabilizer:
As the Chieftain has already got very impressive dispersion of 0.308, there isn’t any need to use refined gun. This tank isn’t a sniper, and plays fairly actively, it will constantly be moving about during the battle, and generally won’t have time to fully aim each shot, especially due to unimpressive aim time.

Due to this, the vertical stabilizer is a more useful equipment choice, as it makes hitting shots a lot easier in an active playstyle, and especially as the Chieftain uses the finicky HESH round a lot in gameplay.

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Gameplay advice

Due to the Chieftain’s fragile armour (if the hull is exposed), it can’t play a standard heavy tank role. Its more of a support heavy tank, which helps cover allies with supporting fire, and takes advantage of distracted enemies.

This tank can also play the role of a more armoured heavium, due to its strong upper plate and turret, and good mobility. However this role is harder to play than the support heavy role.

General gameplay:
At the beginning of a battle, choose a flank to play on. Check the enemy tank lineup and look at their heavies and mediums, then compare it to your own team’s lineup.

The Chieftain is an in-between point between regular heavies (such as T110E5) and full-blooded heaviums (such as T95E6), so it can be flexible in where it goes on the map, and which enemies it “counters” on the enemy team.
Based on what heavies, heaviums, and mediums are on your and the enemy’s team, you can either choose to help your allied MT on the medium side of the map, or support the allied HT on the heavy side of the map.

If going to the HT flank, its best to not aggressively push to the front to capture bases or take a dominant positions. The Chieftain doesn’t have the holding ability to really use such positions well, as its lack of premium APCR or HEAT makes it hard to deal with other enemies if they get hulldown or hide their weakpoints.

Once you get into position, don’t just push forward impatiently. Let allies spot enemies and get intel on where the enemies are. Once you know where enemies are, then you can start taking actions to try win the battle. If you push out before you know where enemies are, its likely that you’ll lose most of your HP, since the Chieftain’s armour won’t work well when its out in the open.

Use the strong turret, and great gun and mobility to out-DPM or trade damage with enemies, flank and relocate, or hold hulldown positions and grind down the enemy’s’ HP.

Use gun depression and ridgelines:
The only time where the Chieftain’s armour will ever work well is when it can use its gun depression and hide its hull behind a ridge.  If you find yourself in a position where you can go hulldown, make sure to utilize it.

Note that often enemy tanks will also be hulldown against you in such positions. With your limited penetration levels, you may need to aim for smaller weakpoints, or just not expose the tank at all for really well armoured enemies.

Use ammo right:
Make sure to try utilize all ammo types in battle, as they are very good for increasing the damage you deal.

Premium HESH:
Load premium HESH by default in battle. Doing this lets you immediately know what armour you can’t penetrate, without the need to switch from AP to HESH then back to AP.

Premium HESH offers the best damage/penetration combination, having much higher penetration than standard HESH, but doing significantly more damage than AP. This will generally be used best on lower plates, turret/hull side armour, or other thin weakpoints.

AP:
AP will still likely be the ammo type you use most in battle, but don’t load it by default. AP is most useful for penetrating armour which HESH can’t deal with, such as stronger armoured lower plates, some MT upper plates, or tanks which are well-protected by spaced armour (such as WZ-132-1 or CS-63).

Standard HE:
This is best in close ranges against flat armour due to its lower penetration compared to HESH. Since it has 80mm of penetration, it can penetrate the sides of certain lighter armoured medium & heavy tanks, and the rear armour of most tanks. Its also useful against tanks such as FV4005 or Grille 15.

Armour caveats:
When using gun depression, try to use as much gun depression as possible, as this really benefits the weakpoints that are above and around the gun.

When in hulldown or using gun depression, try to not expose too much of the hull, as the weak mid bar may become a exposed if you push over a ridge too far.

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The Chieftain’s gameplay revolves around its gun and turret armour. In battle, your main goal should just be putting these two aspects to use. Find good positions to use the turret armour, and try to maximize your use of the gun by using the right ammo and taking advantage of the DPM.
Try to play it like it has no armour on flat ground, because it really doesn’t. The only bounces you get on flat ground will be from players who don’t aim well.

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Overall

Armour – 6/10
Gun – 7/10
Mobility – 7/10
Speed – 8/10

Chieftain Mk.6 is overall a good tank.

Armour while hulldown and using gun depression is great, but weak in all other aspects. HE protection is decent on front and sides, but not rear. Armour on flat ground is decent, but lower plate is weak.
Gun is good, great accuracy, gun handling, high DPM, great HESH damage & great gun depression. Aim time is mediocre, with low penetration potential due to premium HE-type ammo.
Mobility is good, with a strong engine, good acceleration, and good traverse speed. Reverse speed is just average at -15km/h, but can get to -19km/h which is amazing.
Speed is good, 42km/h base but up to 46km/h with provisions.

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Is it worth getting?

The Chieftain is worth getting, but only for certain players. This tank is a unique blend of mobility, hulldown armour, and an amazing gun. No other tank in tier 10 really able to offer a similar gameplay experience to the Chieftain Mk. 6.

Its an extremely effective tank when its played right and played to its strengths, but only a fairly experienced player will be able to properly mitigate its weaknesses.

Less experienced players are likely to really struggle in this tank, as its lower penetration makes it more difficult to penetrate well armoured tanks, and its armour isn’t great when outside of hulldown.
The biggest aspects that make the Chieftain hard to play are its poor armour when not hulldown, and having to use HESH, which you need good knowledge of positioning to use, and of enemy armour plates.

This tank is worth it for experienced players, but not for newer or less experienced players, due to the complexity of its gameplay and its weak armour (compared to conventional heavies) on flat ground.

The Chieftain Mk.6 is worth 19,000 gold. Its a good tank when played to its strengths, and its really enjoyable with such an amazing gun and reliable hulldown armour, with good mobility. Its not easy to play though, and to really perform well in the Chieftain, you have to be quite well practiced with a hulldown-only tank.

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Price Guide

20,000 gold (Full bundle), 17,500 gold (Tank only) – April 2023
15,000 gold (Tank & equipment) – Blitz Birthday event, June 2023
20,000 gold (Full bundle), 17,500 gold (Tank only) – October 2023

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Legendary camos:

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Historical Note:

The Chieftain was the successor of the Centurion, created using design elements from various projects including the FV4202.
It was Britain’s primary MBT between the 1960s and 1990s, after which it was replaced by the Challenger 1 MBT.

The “Mark 6” is actually just a Chieftain mark 2, but upgraded to the standard of the Chieftain Mk.5. The Mk.5 was the final production version of the Chieftain, all Chieftains that came after it were just improvements on the Mk.2-4, and the Mk. 5 itself.

The “Custodian” camo visually upgrades the tank to the Chieftain Mk.10, identified by the additional armour on the turret. The camouflage pattern is the historical “Berlin Brigade” urban camo.

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