Gravedigger

Gravedigger is a tank from the Mad Max universe, designed by the vehicle designer of Mad Max: Fury Road, brought into Blitz as part of the Mad Games event in 2018.

The tank itself features a unique, machine-gun-like autoloader, very strong armour, and amazing mobility for its high weight.

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. Special features:

Armour

(The Gravedigger in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

Drag slider right -> to view 180mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 220mm APCR

Armour when on flat ground:
-Upper plate 252-300mm auto-ricochet
-Lower plate 136-180mm
-Turret face 180-225mm+
-Turret roof 236mm auto-ricochet

The armour of the Gravedigger is all-round very strong, and this is discussed more in the equipment recommendation and gameplay advice section.
Unlike most tanks, the tank actually has extremely strong turret and hull sides, making it very easy to angle, and overall very resilient to any enemy.

Drag slider right -> to view 218mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 262mm HEAT

This penetration level represents a tier 8 tank, and displays how strong the Gravedigger’s armour is, even against a fairly high penetration tier 8 enemy.

The images with HEAT also display very well how HEAT can penetrate more of the armour, since the Gravedigger’s upper plate and turret roof are both auto-ricochet angles to any AP or APCR shell.

Armour vs 160mm AP penetration.

This penetration represents a tier 7 medium, and shows the Gravedigger on the left image “engaging” this tier 7 medium, and on the right image, as though the tank was fighting a different enemy, with the hull and turret turned away.

These images show very well how strong the sides of the Gravedigger are, able to have the turret completely flat to the enemy, and still bounce, and with the hull severely over-angled, but the sideskirts can still bounce shots.

Also its important to note, 160mm penetration is not the lowest penetration level you face. Tier 6 tanks only have 125-160mm penetration, and tier 7 mediums only have 145-160mm penetration (with 1 exception).

Armour vs tier 6 enemies:
As stated above, tier 6 enemies can have as low as 125mm penetration, and the highest on most common heavies is 160mm (some exceptions like TOG II*, Eraser BP44, T-150, etc.).

The best chance tier 6 tanks have against the Gravedigger are to shoot its lower plate with AP, go for its hatch, or shoot its turret with premium ammo.

If the turret is not angled, then many tanks have a chance to penetrate it on the rounded cheeks next to the gun.
If the turret is angled, then there’s no chance of penetrating it, even with the highest penetration round.

Armour vs tier 7 enemies:
Tier 7 tanks face  similar issues as tier 6, so they can either shoot the lower plate, hatch, or turret.

Tier 7 heavies won’t struggle as much against the hull and turret sides of the Gravedigger, but its still extremely strong and can easily be over-angled (as shown with the 180mm/220mm penetration level).

If the turret front isn’t angled, most enemies can shoot premium ammo and penetrate the turret cheeks.
If the turret is angled though, most enemies won’t be able to do anything against it, only a few tanks with have HEAT with over 240mm penetration (or Ju-To with 255mm premium AP penetration) will have a chance to penetrate.

Armour vs tier 8 enemies:
Against tier 8 enemies, the Gravedigger’s armour is not significantly weaker, but most tier 8 tanks will be able to penetrate the turret cheeks without using premium ammo. If the turret cheeks are angled, then they are harder to penetrate, and enemies may need to use premium ammo to go through (as shown above with the 218mm penetration level).

The hull isn’t any weaker to tier 8 tanks, the upper plate remains impenetrable, and the lower plate is weak.

Tier 8 tanks won’t struggle nearly as much as tier 6 or 7 tanks against the spaced sideskirts or the turret sides, however you can still sidescrape effectively.

Gun

Gravedigger mounts a 57mm “Nailgun” autoloader

-Alpha damage is 90 on AP, 75 on APCR, and 110 on HE
-It has 6 shells in the magazine, with a 0.67s intra-clip reload, so in 3.35s it can burst out 540 damage.
-It has a 10.9s reload, giving it 2282 DPM
-Penetration is 170mm on AP, 230mm on APCR, and 20mm on HE
–Estimated aim time is 3.7/4.0s
–Base aim time is 2.3s, but it can get down to 1.87s.
-Dispersion is 0.326/0.293
–Gun handling is 0.2/0.2/0.08, or 0.17/0.17/0.07 with Vertical Stabilizer. 
-Gun depression is -5

Overall the Gravedigger’s gun is good, it has a fast unload speed and reload speed, good burst damage, Above average premium penetration, good gun handling, and decent aim time and dispersion.

The issues that this gun has are with how quickly shots fire, how low the alpha damage per shot is, and how the more you shoot, the less accurate the gun becomes. This is just due to the combination of the after-shot-bloom, and the intra-clip reload being MUCH shorter than both the base and estimated aim times,

If you think that it only deals 90 damage per shot, its got poor aim time, mediocres dispersion, and quite poor gun handling. Its extremely important to use vertical stabilizer to make the bloom after each shot smaller.

Mobility

-Top speed is a good 36km/h, and a reverse speed of -15km/h.
-Acceleration is very good, 13.7hp/t on hard terrain, and 11.7hp/t on medium terrain.
-Traverse speed is also good, 36.7 deg/s on hard terrain, and 31.5 deg/s on medium terrain.
–Ground resistances are good, with 1.2/1.5/2

Considering that the Gravedigger is the one of the most well armoured, and heaviest by weight in tier 7, its mobility is very good. It has both very good acceleration and a great traverse speed, along with that a decent 36km top speed which is definitely not bad.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Gravedigger has no special provisions/consumables.

Calibrated Shells:
Tier 7 is well known as a tier of low penetration, and the Gravedigger is definitely no exception. It has poor penetration on its AP, and while its APCR is above-average, its still not enough to go through many tier 8 enemies.
Calibrated shells is essentially a free penetration buff for autoloaders, as they barely lose any DPM for using it.

Using Calibrated shells will increase the AP penetration from 170mm to 178mm, APCR From 230mm to 241mm, and HE from 20mm to 22mm.
That 241mm APCR will be very useful for dealing with tier 8 enemies.

Improved Modules:
The Gravedigger is the heaviest tier 7 tank, weighing 75.2 tons, which is 8 tons more than the next heaviest tier 7 HT, and over 10 tons more than all the rest.

This means you can ram any tier 7 enemy, and with the good mobility of the Gravedigger, its definitely possible to do some good damage.
Improved modules helps to decrease the damage your tank takes when ramming an enemy vehicle.

Enhanced Armour:
In both gameplay and in stats, the Gravedigger has a very large focus on its armour. Its one of the most all-round well armoured tier 7 tanks, so enhanced armour really gives a large benefit to the tank.

Improved assembly really isn’t needed as much, since the Gravedigger has a very healthy 1550 base HP, so it doesn’t really need to increase this. Even bouncing 1 extra shot of damage will already outweigh the benefit of improved assembly.

Enhanced armour would improve:
Upper plate from 252mm to 262mm.
Lower plate from 136mm to 142mm.
Lower-lower plate from 180mm to 187mm.
Turret face from 180mm to 187mm (weakest point).
Turret roof rom 236mm to 245mm.

Hull sides (when flat) from 82mm to 85mm.
Hull sideskirts (when flat) from 45mm to 47mm.
Turret sides (when flat) from 162mm to 168mm.

Note that the hull angles are very slightly different in the images below, however these images do show quite well how much of a difference enhanced armour makes.

Vertical Stabilizer:
This equipment piece is essential on the Gravedigger. Other than making the tank more accurate on the move and after movement, it decreases the after-shot-bloom.

As the Gravedigger has to fire 6 shots in very quick succession, the gun blooms out and becomes very inaccurate after each shot (even if you already fully aimed in your first shot).

The vertical stabilizer improves the after-shot-bloom from an already decent 3.5 down to a very good 2.975 (If you have the light tank crew skill “soft recoil” this goes down even further to 2.73), and this is SO important due to how fast you fire the shells in this tank.

Gameplay advice

The Gravedigger plays as a frontline heavy tank. Its strong when shoved right in the faces of enemies and constantly raining down shells on them.
Its not as effective to play very passively in the tank, for one, the gun doesn’t allow it, and secondly, its got both the armour and the mobility to be a brute on the frontline.

General gameplay:
Gravedigger is a frontline brawler, and needs to be played on the heavy tank side of the map.

Heavy tanks are larger targets, are slower, and are less accurate, all of these factors benefit the Gravedigger.
The larger size of heavies makes them easier to hit than medium or light tanks, which is very good for your quick firing (and fairly inaccurate) autoloader.
The slower speed makes heavy tanks easier to hit, but also means you have a higher chance of being able to unload more shells before they react.
The worse accuracy of heavies means that there’s a higher chance that they miss your weakpoints and bounce off, compared to mediums which are generally very accurate but less penetrating.

Try to also play in closer ranges to enemies, engaging targets at long range just isn’t effective in this tank, due to its low alpha, quick intra clip, and fairly unimpressive aim time.
As soon as you shoot its first shell, the next 5 are quite unpredictable if you don’t aim, especially if you are at a distance, or have to aim for a small weakspot.

Reload the magazine:
If there are no available shots to take, then just reload the magazine. Since the reload time is only about 11 seconds, there’s no real point to just have 1-3 shots in the gun, especially when your alpha is only 90 per shot.

Ammo usage:
AP is the best ammo type both for damage and for penetration. Its the ammo type you should use most commonly.

APCR is less damaging but has higher penetration. This is better for dealing with stronger enemies, but also if you just want to get the damage out, and not waste time aiming at weakpoints.
This can be good in high pressure situations where every second counts. Due to the after-shot-bloom of the tank, its sometimes more effective to just use premium ammo than aiming at a small weakpoint. Note that even bouncing 1 shot of AP will reduce your damage down to the same amount as a fully magazine of APCR (450 damage burst), so sometimes shooting APCR can actually give you more damage and faster.

HE is basically useless, 20mm of penetration (22mm with calibrated shells) will struggle to penetrate tanks like the Rhm.-B. WT, and can’t penetrate most areas of light tanks. There is very little use for this shell.

How to effectively shoot the gun:
If shooting at long range, don’t just spam the fire button. Spamming the fire button will only result in misses, as the first shot will be accurate, then the gun blooms out after each subsequent shot.
Its best to carefully aim your shots, as if you just follow up each shot with another, the after-shot-bloom will cause you to miss at least 1-2 shots per magazine.

At least aim in every 2 shots, shoot twice, let the gun aim, then shoot twice again; and then just repeat till the magazine is empty. Its a much better use of the DPM this way.
(This is also the best way to shoot if you are trying to hit weakpoints of an enemy.

If you are in close range (and especially if the enemy has weak armour), then you can spam the fire button a bit more, since it will be quite hard to miss.

Angling the Gravedigger:
Gravedigger is like a tier 7 Maus in terms of how you angle, its just a bit more extreme. The tank has a huge profile, a narrow but weak lower plate, a rounded turret face, and very strong armour even on its sides.

To angle, the turret needs to turn about 40 degrees away from the enemy to get the maximum effective armour (This angle is roughly the halfway point between having the gun facing the front of the hull, and the gun over the side of the hull).

At this angle, the turret front is 240-300mm, and the turret side is 240-265mm. As shown in the armour section of the review, this armour even gives tier 8 tanks a hard time to penetrate.

The base hull sides are 82mm thick (85mm if using enhanced armour). You can’t really over-angle, but the tank can sidescrape very effectively.
The 45mm spaced armour plate over the tracks will eat many shots from tier 6-7 enemy tanks, as they just don’t expect it to be so well armoured on the side.

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The Gravedigger plays essentially just as a frontline brawling heavy, using its good mobility and armour to get into positions and soak damage, and using its quick firing autoloader to get out damage. Its not a complicated playstyle other than with how you manage your shots.

Overall

Armour – 9.5/10
Gun – 5.5/10
Mobility – 7/10
Speed – 6/10

Overall the Gravedigger is a good tank.

Armour is very strong. Frontal hull and turret are both strong, side armour is very strong, armour is easy to angle and sidescrape. HE protection is very good. Not usable with gun depression.
Gun has is pretty good overall, with good DPM, burst damage, unload speed, penetration, and dispersion. Aim time and gun handling are both mediocre, gun depression is terrible, -5 degrees.
Mobility is good, acceleration and traverse speed are both quite high for the armour and weight of the tank. Reverse speed is 15km/h, quite good.
Speed is good, with 36km/h.

This tank technically fits the bill to be an OP tank, having amazing armour, great mobility, and quite a good gun; however it is not OP. The gun depression can make it very awkward to play, and the tank not very shot-effective. Due to having that “Nailgun”, its very prone to misses, especially over longer ranges; and if you nly hit a few shots per magazine it will take a long time for the damage to add up.

Is it worth getting?

Overall the tank is great fun, and that’s the main selling point. No other tank in the game offers a playstyle like the Gravedigger, no other tank in the game can burst out as many shells as quickly as the Gravedigger does.

This tank is worth buying from a “fun” point of view. Its also fairly competitive, but there more reliable options out there.

Gravedigger worth 7,500 gold, anything under that is a great price. Manage your expectations for prices though, as usually this tank is only obtainable through crates and auctions. It will often sell out fairly early in auctions as the tank is already well-known by many players for its gun and armour.

The tank itself can be sold for 2,500 gold as its a collector tank

Most recently sold for:

Mad Games tank release – October 2018
Blitzfair auction – December 2020
Halloween tank crates – October 2021
Blitzfair auction – 2021

Special features:

Halloween tanks often have special built-in features, sometimes they are intentional, sometimes they aren’t; some are visual, some are in statistics.

-The intended feature of this tank is its 6-shot nailgun, however, the tank is also mentioned to have high ramming damage. With its weight and mobility, it definitely can ram well, but its not confirmed if the Gravedigger does any increased ramming damage compared to a usual tank.

-Another (probably unintentional) feature would be a shockingly high camo rating, being one of the best camouflaged heavy tanks in the game, even though its one of the larger tanks. It has 43/38/10% without camo net, and 49/41/12% with a camo net (don’t use camo net, this is a heavy tank).

-The Gravedigger features special exhaust effects, when the tank brakes or accelerates the exhaust will spit flames, then a plume of white smoke, and then dark smoke as the tank starts to move forward/backward again.