Helsing H0

The Helsing was one of the first 2 stereotypical Halloween tanks in the game. It features a double barrel 85mm gun with great DPM and accuracy, great speed with a fully turning turret, and a troll armour profile.

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Armour

(The Helsing in the images is using Improved Assembly)

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

Armour on flat ground:
Upper plate 182mm auto-ricochet
Lower plate 85mm
Turret face 60-100mm
Gun mantlet 260mm
Area under gun mantlet 210mm

(Note how the image hardly changes between penetration levels, this is because the armour is mainly based in auto-ricochet angles.)

Side armour:
The hull sides are 40mm thick, with a 25mm spaced armour sideskirt.

This means the sides are fairly hard to HE, but there are still weakpoints if you avoid the spaced armour

Armour vs all tier 6-8 tanks:
The armour performs the same against any enemy you face.

The lower plate, turret cheeks, and the middle and top areas of the upper plate are all easily penetrable to any enemy.

The majority of the upper plate, and the gun mantlet are impenetrable to any enemy’s standard ammo. HEAT can penetrate through the upper plate, as it ignores the auto-ricochet angle that AP and APCR have.

Gun

Helsing mounts a twin barrelled 85mm gun. This gun is a burst-fire autoloader.

-Alpha damage is 200 on AP, 170 on APCR, and 300 on HE
-It has 2 shells in the magazine, with a 0.25s intra-clip reload, so in 0.25s it can burst out 400 damage.
-It has a 9.1s reload, giving it 2580 DPM
-Penetration is 170mm on AP, 220mm on APCR, and 45mm on HE
–Estimated aim time is 3.3/3.6s
–Base aim time is 2s, but it can get down to 1.70s.
-Dispersion is 0.327/0.294
–Gun handling is 0.18/0.18/0.16, or 0.15/0.15/0.14 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -6 degrees
-Gun arc is +/-180 degrees, so the turret is fully traversable.

This is a great gun overall, its accurate, good aim time, comfortable gun handling, and great DPM for a 400 alpha damage burst. Penetration is decent but nothing special, and gun depression is quite unimpressive.

The gun’s after-shot-bloom is 1.800, one of the best in game. This is due to the gun only having a 0.25s delay before shooting the next shot. This good after-shot-bloom means that unlike a regular tank (with 4.000) or the Annihilator (with 3.000), the burst is quite consistent, and both shots generally hit very close to each other.

Another point to note with this gun is its HE, since this counts as 2 guns with 200 alpha each, it gets 85mm HE shells (which do 300 damage each). So unlike a normal 400 alpha gun, with 500 alpha on HE, the Helsing’s HE burst is 600, making it a very good healer tank in fun modes, and very quickly able to take out tanks with little armour.

Mobility

-Top speed is 60km/h, reverse is -15km/h
-Traverse speed is 41.5 deg/s on hard terrain, and 38 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 23.5 hp/t, it has a strong 585 horsepower engine for its 25 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 21.3 hp/t on hard terrain, and 19.5 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Ground resistances are 1.1/1.2/1.6

Overall this is pretty good mobility. The top speed is very high, with great acceleration to be able to reach it. Traverse speed is less impressive, but still decent. Considering that this tank has quite a troll armour profile, this is a good mobility profile.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Helsing H0 has no special provisions/consumables.

Gun Rammer/Calibrated Shells:
Either can work fine on the Helsing, since its penetration isn’t low, but it also doesn’t lack so much that it needs vents. Generally, calibrated shells is the better choice, since the difference in reload is so minimal, and calibrated shells will let you penetrate more heavily armoured enemies.

Vents would very slightly increase view range, improve aim time, DPM, reload time, terrain resistances, and traverse speeds.

Calibrated shells would increase the AP penetration from 170mm to 178mm, APCR form 220mm to 231mm, and HE from 45mm to 50mm.

Camo net:
Even though the Helsing isn’t a long range sniper, you should still take camo net. The tank has poor view range and won’t be able to spot for itself, even if it did use improved optics. The tank also plays a support role, so the improved concealment is helpful when on the 2nd line, or relocating.

With a level 7 “camouflage” crew skill, and using camo net, the Helsing has 60% camo when stationary, 47% when moving, and 15% after shooting. All pretty decent numbers for a TD, but nothing insane.

Improved Assembly:
As shown with the armour images, the Helsing’s armour is almost fully reliant on its auto-ricochet upper plate and very thick gun mantlet. Due to the weak and thin other areas of the armour, enhanced armour adds no benefit to the Helsing

Improved assembly is better, as it improves the tank’s HP, allowing to to trade damage and survive longer in the battle.
Improved assembly increases the Helsing’s HP from 1000 up to 1060.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Due to the Helsing being an autoloader, it fires shots in very quick succession (in fact its the quickest intra-clip from tiers 6-10). Due to this factor, the after-shot-bloom is extremely important, especially as you cannot control when you fire that 2nd shot, both fire automatically.

If not using a vertical stabilizer, the chances that the 2nd shot misses are much higher, especially at mid to long ranges, since the bloom from the first shot will be bigger. With stabilizer, you can reduce this bloom down from 1.800 to 1.530, and with the “soft recoil” crew skill, it can go to 1.404.

Other than this, vertical stabilizer also helps maintain accuracy when the tank is moving, or just after you stop moving, which is good for the fairly active support/flanking role which you often play in the Helsing.

Gameplay advice

The Helsing’s gameplay is that of an active supporting medium. It doesn’t play with any gameplay trait of a TD, other than having to play carefully and conserve HP.

You should NEVER snipe in this tank, and there’s multiple reasons for this. The tank needs to play more actively to fully utilize its gun, speed, and troll armour.

General gameplay:
Take this tank to the MT flank and support the medium/light tanks. You basically want to play as a medium yourself, using the decent armour to bounce shots while dealing huge damage with your 400 damage burst.

You can also support the heavy tanks, but you have to play a more laid back role, since you can’t brawl with heavies as well, due to their much higher HP than mediums, and generally bigger guns (some of which can out-trade you).

Use the 2nd line often, you shouldn’t always just rush in with the mediums, since often you won’t have enough info about where the enemy team is. The 2nd line is very good for support TDs/MTs like the Helsing, as you are close enough to the front line to support allies and shoot enemies, but far back enough to have good cover and protection from the enemies.

Generally you should be quite careful in the gameplay of this tank. Be cautious of pushing a flank, since 1060 HP is still much lower than all mediums, and low profile tanks can troll you by sidehugging since you only have -6 gun depression). Try to conserve your HP in the battle, since its very useful in the late stages of the battle.

The Helsing can quite easily carry games if it can survive to the late stages, since it has such good burst damage and reload, with great mobility and even troll armour.

Never snipe:
You should never camp at the back of the map trying to snipe with this tank.

Its double shot gun does not allow this. Even though the after-shot-bloom is very low, your shots at long distance are still fairly unreliable, especially if you are trying to hit a small or moving target. Often you’ll find only 1 shot hitting, dealing only 200 damage instead of the full 400 burst.

Also, as this gun is a burst damage autoloader, its shells can only go to a maximum of 400m, if the enemy is at 401m, the shells will disappear and deal 0 damage. If you’re sniping, then the distance to the enemy is higher, and you’re more likely going to have to relocate to get closer so your shots can hit (for example on Dead Rail, Castilla, or, or Canal).

Play like you have no armour:
On tanks which have “troll” armour profiles, you should never expect bounces, because even though they do happen, your armour profile just isn’t reliable.

If you rely on the armour of the tank, you’ll play it like it has armour, and it can bounce enemies often. The fact is that the Helsing can be very easily penetrated by enemies who aim well, or by enemies who have a bit of good RNG.

Its better to play like you have no armour and avoid taking damage, this will help you to conserve the HP of the tank better, and make it easier to reach the late game stages where you can carry the game.

Use HE:
Even though the HE penetration is very average (45mm, or 50mm with calibrated shells), its damage is extremely high, so you should true to use this whenever you can penetrate an enemy with HE.

The burst damage of 600 can take out half of the HP of most light tanks or tank destroyers that you face, and using the HE shells boosts your DPM to almost 3.9k.

Snap shots and take chancy shots:
Due to having 2 shells, sometimes you can get lucky and hit one of them, even if an enemy is largely impenetrable.

Unlike a tank with a single shot 400 alpha gun, you have 2×200, with a very quick burst time. This means that you get 2 chances to penetrate the tank, so against tanks with troll armour (Helsing itself is actually a great example), you can just snap the shot without aiming much, and often you’ll hit one of your 2 shots.

This isn’t a reliable way to get damage, but its very good if you don’t have time to properly aim for weakspots, or the enemy is really far away, or their armour profile is troll and you may bounce off.

Overall the Helsing’s gameplay is more comparable to a medium tank than to a TD. Its best at supporting the medium flank, and using its turret and troll armour with good speed to fight against enemy medium and light tanks. It shouldn’t snipe, though it can play a 2nd line support role.

Overall

Armour – 4.5/10
Gun – 9/10
Mobility – 8/10
Speed – 9/10

The Helsing is overall a great tank.

Armour is decent, the upper plate is troll, and gun mantlet is fairly large and strong, but other areas are weak. The tank is fairly HE resistant, only weak to HE on the hull rear.
Gun is very good, with great burst damage, high DPM, good accuracy, aim time, and gun handling. Gun depression is a mediocre -6, and penetration is decent.
Mobility is good. Engine power and acceleration are both good, and traverse is decent (but not amazing). Reverse speed is average. Turret is fully traversable, very good for TD.
Speed is amazing at 60km/h.

Is it worth getting?

The Helsing is definitely worth getting. It has such a unique feel which no other tank can offer, and novel gameplay with its double barrel gun. It also combines aspects of both medium tank and tank destroyer gameplay into one, and is overall a very comfortable and enjoyable tank to play.

Most players will be able to enjoy this tank, its both very good yet also unique and interesting to play.

The Helsing is worth 9,000 gold. Its a great tank with unique gameplay and visual theme. Its a very enjoyable and also fun tank which most players will find interesting to play.

Most recently sold for:

Helsing H0 was obtainable for free in the 2016 Halloween event “Night Hunt” as one of the 2 main rewards along with the T6 Dracula.

Since then it has never been sold outright in store, the only ways to get this tank are in Helsing crates, or “Bad Company” crates, sold at Halloween each year.

Helsing and Dracula also get sold in Blitzfair Auctions every year.

Camo cost:

“Raven” camo: 3D, can only be received from Bad Company crates.

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

-Helsing’s intended special feature is its double barrelled gun, with 2 shots in very quick succession. This also comes with the benefits of being 2 separate guns, as the damage is split (you get 2 chances to deal damage/to bounce), and you get the full 600 HE damage burst of x2 85mm guns.

-Helsing’s name is Helsing H0, as it is still called in the game files. This was changed by WG in 2020 for unknown reasons.

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