FV217 Badger

The FV217 Badger is a British tier 10 TD. Its an all-purpose assault tank, with extremely high DPM and penetration, very strong armour, and good mobility. The only real downside of this tank is poor gun handling.

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:
9. Camo cost
10. Historical info:

Armour

(The Badger in the images is using Enhanced Armour.)

On flat ground: (click images to enlarge)
-Upper plate 350-370mm
-Weakpoints 338mm
-Middle area of lower plate 250mm
-Lower plate edges 285mm

Armour vs all tier 9-10 tanks:
When on flat ground, many tier 9 tanks may struggle to penetrate the lower plate, low penetration tier 10 MT and LT will too. Angling the hull will help get bounces from higher pen tanks as well.

The upper plate can’t be penetrated by any HT, MT, or LT. The only case where they can penetrate is if they are using calibrated shells to achieve 350mm+ penetration. 340mm isn’t enough to penetrate reliably, even on Badgers that don’t use enhanced armour.

When using full gun depression, only the highest penetration enemy TD rounds will be able to penetrate, and that’s only if using calibrated shells. If not using calibrated shells, only the Ho-Ri has a chance to penetrate.

Playing against a Badger:

-If you can’t penetrate the tank, try to track it or shoot HE, then get out of its line of fire. There is no point sitting in front of a tank which you can’t penetrate, the result will always be be the same.
Work together with allies to either flank or overpower the Badger, or just change targets/flanks to make the Badger more isolated later in the battle.

-The same advice applies for if the Badger is hulldown and using gun depression. Just don’t let it shoot you, and eventually the Badger will leave the position if it can’t get any damage.

-Do not try to circle around a Badger alone, it has high traverse speed and could easily catch you. Only do it as a distraction so your allies can shoot it in the side.

(In general the Badger is just an extremely hard tank to counter, since it basically has everything it needs to get rid of any enemy)

Gun

The Badger mounts a 123mm gun.

-Alpha damage is 460 on APCR, 390 on HEAT, and 550 on HESH
-It has a 7.2s reload giving it 3856 DPM
-Penetration on APCR is 275mm, HEAT is 370mm, and HESH is 110mm.
–Estimated aim time is 3.6/3.8s
–Base aim time is 1.82s, but it can get down to 1.55s.
-Dispersion is 0.335/0.301
–Gun handling is 0.26/0.26/0.08, or with Vertical Stabilizer its 0.22/0.22/0.07
-Gun depression is -10 degrees.
-Gun arc is a flexible +/-10 degrees to the left and right.

Other than the gun handling stats, all areas of this gun are very good, high DPM, great penetration, gun depression, aim time, and dispersion.

Keep in mind that this gun handling is truly terrible, and makes the Badger feel less accurate than its aim time and dispersion stats would lead you to believe.

Mobility

-Top speed is 34km/h, and -12km/h in reverse.
-Traverse speed is 44.3 deg/s on hard terrain, and 38.4 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 15.1 hp/t, it has a strong 948hp engine for its 63 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 11.6 hp/t on hard terrain, and 10 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are average for an assault TD, at 1.3/1.5/2.1

This is good mobility, considering how well armoured the Badger is both on its front and sides. The top speed is decent, but not great, and its reverse speed is quite slow, but not terrible. The acceleration is also decent, but nothing impressive.

The truly impressive point of the Badger’s mobility is its traverse speed, which is quite fast, especially for such a heavily armoured tank, and especially for a TD with no turret.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Badger sandbag armour as a special provision, and has no special consumables.

Provisions:
-10% food, this is vital to the Badger’s accuracy, aim time, and its high DPM. Food improves all crew related aspects of the tank, and is essential on any tank.
-10% fuel, this is needed to give the tank better acceleration, which it struggles with, and helps to improve the great traverse speed. Improving mobility is very important as the Badger lacks a turret.
-6% sandbag armour, it adds 120 extra HP to the tank, which helps the tank to survive longer in battle. This can help you to win battles and trade damage, its the best choice for a third provision slot due to how influential extra HP can be.

Gun Rammer:
The Badger has very high DPM, and its one of the main features of the tank. Not maintaining that DPM with gun rammer would be a mistake, especially as this tank has proper TD-levels of penetration.

Taking calibrated shells in this tank would just defeat the purpose of playing the Badger, as it would lower the DPM, and give it unnecessary penetration.
Use gun rammer, its what gives the badger that amazing 7.2s reload with 3856 DPM.

Improved Optics:
The Badger should not snipe. Its the wrong playstyle and there are other tanks that do it better. Badger is a frontline tank, and therefore should be using coated optics, and not a camo net. The Badger also already has a good base camo rating, which helps it to keep undetected when it needs to.

Improved optics this equipment gives the Badger a respectable 277.2m view range.

Enhanced armour:
Badger’s armour is already very good, but when not using enhanced armour, much more tanks will be able to penetrate it using high penetration rounds or with calibrated shells (especially on flat ground against tanks with 340mm+ penetration).
Enhanced armour basically guarantees that no MT, LT, or HT can penetrate the upper plate on flat ground (exceptions: TDs).

Its 2000 base HP is already above average and is very healthy for a TD, so its armour should be improved instead. One of the Badger’s main selling points is its impenetrable upper plate, and bouncing 1 shot far outweighs the benefit of 120 hitpoints.

Engine Accelerator:
As mentioned above, the hull traverse speed is very good. The acceleration however, is quite low, so using improved control on this tank would actually not help it as much.

Badger needs the horsepower that the engine accelerator gives, as this will help it to accelerate up to its top speed easier, and let it get around the battle more conveniently.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Badger has terrible gun handling, but decent dispersion. Its the exact combination where you should be using vertical stabilizer, and not refined gun.

This tank also won’t be needing the improved dispersion that refined gun gives, as the Badger’s playstyle does not involve sniping, rather its often constantly turning and moving since it brawls on the frontline. Use vertical stabilizer, it gives a much more noticeable and useful benefit to the Badger.

Gameplay advice

The FV217 Badger is a frontline assault TD. It uses its high DPM and strong armour to bludgeon through the enemy’s heavy flank.

Starting the battle:
Take Badger to the frontline (or at least the 2nd line) on the heavy tank side of the map. Find a position where you can use you gun depression , or hide your lower plate, and grind down the enemies’ HP with your high DPM and penetration.

The Badger should never snipe as that’s not what the tank is built for. It has strong armour to bounce shots on both flat ground and on hills, high DPM and penetration to bludgeon enemies with, and great traverse speed to bait with your armour or re-engage tanks.

Utilize traverse speed:
If you’re out in the open with no cover to hide your lower plate, use the Badger’s high traverse speed to bait enemy shots. When the lower plate is not hidden, enemies will aim for this, the high traverse speed of the Badger means it can easily make enemies miss, either by hitting the tracks or the strong ednges of the lower plate.

Continuously turn the tank left/right to make to hard for enemies to aim. Also make unpredictable movements, don’t just repeat the same pattern of movements, occasionally make an unexpected change to the movement, it will throw off the enemy’s aim.

Use gun depression and go hulldown:
Try to always keep the lower plate hidden. The Badger has one of the strongest frontal armour profiles in tier 10, but its lower plate is a weakness in its armour.

By going hulldown, the lower plate is hidden, and most enemies you face will be unable to penetrate the upper superstructure even with premium ammunition (especially if you keep the tank moving slightly).

Using gun depression increases the armour’s thickness even further, to the point where nothing except tank destroyers using calibrated shells even have the slightest chance of damaging the Badger’s armour. When using gun depression or going hulldown, the Badger is practically invincible.

Keep with allies:
Make sure to have allies covering you, even though Badger has the highest DPM in tier X with great armour and traverse, it doesn’t have a turret. This causes it to be weak to multiple enemies on different angles, and it can get overwhelmed by multiple enemies if they have enough HP to tank a few hits.

Overall

Armour – 9.5/10
Gun – 8/10
Mobility – 7/10
Speed – 5/10

FV217 Badger is overall a very powerful tank.

Armour is essentially perfect, a decent/strong lower plate, good side armour, and a large upper plate with no weakpoints. HESH protection is decent, rear very weak to HE.
Gun has great aim time, penetration, DPM, reload time, accuracy, and gun depression. Alpha damage is mediocre, gun handling is very poor.
Mobility is good, a decent enough engine and acceleration rate, but with very good traverse speeds. Reverse speed is low.
Speed is average, 34km/h.

The Badger is a very strong tank. It has all 3 factors a player could want in a tank, great gun, great armour, and good overall mobility.

Is it worth getting?

Badger is definitely worth buying if you like playing assault TDs or tanks with high DPM and great armour. Its essentially just a tier 10 version of the Tortoise or the Turtle Mk.I, but with better armour, better mobility, and better penetration.

However, if you don’t enjoy tanks with guns that occasionally troll you, then you may want to avoid the Badger. Having unreliable gun handling is one of the few downsides that the Badger has.

Badger is worth 21,000 gold, since its just good at everything, its not hard to use, and its quite an enjoyable tank to play.
20k is usually the price of it in a bundle with camouflage and equipment, 17.5k is usually for the tank only.

Most recently sold for:

20,000 gold (Full bundle) – August 2022
£31.11 (on WG website) – November 2022
£31.11 (on WG website) – January 2023
20,000 gold (Full bundle) – May 2023
20,000 gold (Full bundle) – August 2023
15,000 (start) -> [unknown](end) – Auction December 2023

Camo cost

Historical info:

The “FV217” “Badger” is a somewhat real tank, but many parts of what we know about it are made up.

The name is wrong, “Badger” is made up and was never a nickname given to this tank. Its also a combination of both the FV205 and the FV217, which were both casemate tank destroyers, based on the FV205 (or FV221/FV214) chassis.

FV205 had an unknown armament, and its armour layout was also unknown.
FV217’s armament was a 120mm gun (likely the 120mm L1A1 gun from the FV214 or FV4004), this tank had a miniature model of it built, so the “Badger” armour and layout is modelled off this, however the thickness of this tank’s armour is unknown.

The OQF 123mm MK. 1 gun is fake, no such gun ever existed.

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