Chimera

Chimera is a British tier 8 heavium tank. It sports a high alpha and accurate gun, with solid armour and good mobility. It is also has the highest damage-per-shot of any medium in game.

1. Armour
2. Gun
3. Mobility
4. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
5. Gameplay advice
6. Overall
7. Is it worth getting?
8. Most recently sold for:

Armour

(The Chimera in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

vs 225mm AP
When flat and facing head-on:
Upper-upper plate auto-ricochet to all guns smaller than 152mm
Upper plate 185mm 
Lower plate 160mm
Turret & mantlet center 203mm
Gun mantlet edges 406mm

VS tier 7: 
When faced against tier 7 tanks, the Chimera is a basically just a fast heavy tank.
It has the armour to bounce most tanks in tier 7, and even most tanks using premium ammo will still struggle against both the hull and the turret.

VS tier 8-9: 
Tanks with under 215mm of standard pen will still struggle to penetrate the Chimera’s turret, especially if its using gun depression.
Tanks with more than 215mm if penetration will go through the tank fairly easily.

The hull will be weak to most tier 8-9 tanks, and even if its angled it will be quite hard to bounce shots. Note that the upper-upper plate is an auto-ricochet to all guns smaller than 151mm, so there are still bouncy areas on the tank.

Playing against a Chimera:
-Don’t just auto-aim at the tank because you have enough penetration to easily penetrate the tank. The upper-upper plate is an auto-ricochet to anything that doesn’t have a 151mm or larger gun, so there is almost always some red on the upper plate of the Chimera.

-Same for the turret, the mantlet edges will catch some shots, so you do need to aim carefully for either the center of the gun mantlet, or for the turret face.

Gun

Chimera mounts a 5-inch (127mm) gun.

-Alpha damage is 440 on AP, 400 on APDS, and 530 on HESH
-Reload time is 13.1s, giving it 2023 DPM.
-Penetration is 218mm on AP, 252mm on APDS, and 64mm on HESH
–Estimated aim time is 3.9/4.2s
–Base aim time is 2.1s, but it can get down to 1.71s.
-Dispersion is 0.326/0.293
–Gun handling is 0.2/0.2/0.12, or 0.17/0.17/0.1 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -10 degrees

Overall this gun is amazing. Considering its alpha damage, it has great accuracy, aim time, penetration, and gun depression. Overall its DPM is definitely not bad for a medium with such a gun, and its gun handling is better than average for its gun caliber. Gun depression is amazing as no other gun in tier 8 has both this much alpha damage and this much gun depression, and it makes the tank very flexible.

Chimera also has special APDS (APCR) shells which do increased alpha damage, doing 400 per shot, instead of 370 (which is what a 440 alpha gun would usually have on premium ammo).

Mobility

-Top speed is, 50km/h forwards and -20km/h in reverse
-Traverse speed is 40.8 deg/s on hard terrain, and 37.1 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 18.4 hp/t, it has a very strong 1035hp engine for its 56 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 18.4 hp/t on hard terrain, and 16.7 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are good at 1/1.1/1.9

Overall the mobility is quite good, having a good top speed and acceleration rate, only the traverse is a bit slow. Considering that this tank has some decent armour, the mobility is by no means bad.

Note the 56 ton weight, Chimera is the 4th heaviest medium tank in the game, and it can actually out-ram many heavy tanks.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Chimera gets sandbag armour, reticle calibration, and reactive armour for special consumable/provisions

Reticle calibration or reactive armour should be used depending on what role you want to play in battle, you shouldn’t use both.

-If you notice you often play as an aggressive heavium, then reactive armour will be useful to absorb damage in brawling engagements.
-If you notice that you play more of a support or 2nd line role, then use reticle calibration. You won’t need reactive armour as you’re not so much on the frontline or in brawls, and the improved accuracy allows each of your shots to be more effective and impactful.

6% Sandbag Armour:
For provisions, use 10% food, 10% fuel, and 6% sandbag armour. The sandbag armour gives the Chimera an extra 84 HP on top of its very decent 1400 base health.

Gun Rammer:
Chimera already has quite a long reload at 13.1s, and it already has good penetration for a medium tank. There isn’t any need to give it the tank better penetration, it would just be a waste.

Use the gun rammer to keep the tank having a competitive level of DPM in tier 8.

Improved Modules:
Chimera weighs 56.21 tons, the 4th heaviest medium tank in the whole game. It also goes at 50km/h with relative ease, so this tank can do huge ramming damage, even to heavy tanks. Using improved modules will reduce the damage that your tank takes from the impact of ramming an enemy.

Enhanced armour:
The Chimera has relatively flat armour, but its very thick, which means enhancing it will make a decent amount of difference to the armour.
The main benefit is to the turret, which will increase from 203mm up to 211mm, and to 215mm when using gun depression. It means that the tank will be able to bounce more from same tier tanks with about 215mm of penetration or less (and there are many in tier 8).

This also benefits the hull front, and the side armour, and these will help to bounce more from the lower penetration enemies in tier 8, and most tier 7 tanks.

Vertical Stabilizer:
The Chimera has decent stabilization for its 440 damage; however its dispersion is far better than average, so it definitely does not need to use refined gun.

Vertical stabilizer will be useful as Chimera has quite an active playstyle, and it needs to be able to aim in fairly quickly after moving, which is exactly what the stabilizer improves.

Gameplay advice

Chimera is a heavium with a TD-like gun, it plays quite passively in most games due to its long reload, but its able to play either on the HT or the MT flank.

Chimera is a frontline tank. Its not a brawler, but it should be on the frontline, using its gun depression and armour to bounce shots and trade damage with enemies. It always needs allied support though, its reload is long and if you’re alone on the frontline you will get rushed easily.

Due to its alpha damage, the Chimera will always win in a trading war, since only TDs have higher damage per shot. Its best to only expose the tank when you are ready to shoot, doing this gives enemies only a very small target to shoot at since only the top of the turret is exposed, and only for a short period of time.

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Other than this it can play like a normal medium tank, doing flanking plays, supporting from a distance, creating a crossfire, etc. Even though its a heavium it still definitely has medium mobility to take all the actions that a regular medium would.

Overall

Overall the Chimera is a great tank; all heavy tank, medium tank, and tank destroyer players will all be able to appreciate this tank, due to its stats and gameplay all being similar in some ways to those tank classes.

The best way to summarize this tank is as having tier 7 heavy tank armour, a tier 8 TD gun, and tier 8 MT mobility.

Its a very unique tank that combines having great accuracy and high alpha, which is very rare in tier 8 and you can only get that on TDs. However TDs lack the durability and overall flexibility of this tank, and that’s what make the Chimera so desirable and popular. It basically adds HT and TD gameplay onto a MT.

Is it worth getting?

The Chimera is definitely worth buying. As mentioned above, it has aspects of HT, MT, and TD in the tank, which makes it quite friendly to players who are used to any of those 3 tank classes. Overall its just a very strong combination of stats, and its quite fun to play with that 440 alpha damage and good accuracy.

Chimera is worth at least 12,000 gold. It is an extremely strong and very unique tank in tier 8, along with that it can suite the playstyle of 3 different classes, and makes great credits. While not the most new player friendly tank, it shouldn’t be too hard to get used to, due to its decent level of mobility, armour, and penetration.
This tank’s strength in its stats is really amplified by a good player and skilful gameplay.

Most recently sold for:

7,500 gold (tank only) – Black Friday event, November 2021
10,000 gold (tank only) – September 2022
10,000 gold (tank only) – May 2023

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