Keiler

Keiler is tier 8 German superheavy tank. It has great frontal and side armour, a very strong turret, decent mobility with high speed, and an accurate and high alpha 105mm gun. Its only real downside is that its quite slow on medium terrain.

Armour

(The Keiler in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

vs 265mm APCR
Flat ground:
Upper plate 280-300mm
Lower plate 205-215mm
Turret mostly 260-300mm
Cupola 205mm at weakest (410mm+ on edges)

Note that the ammo this is shown against (265mm APCR) is a premium round. Even to premium ammo the armour is extremely resilient, with few weakpoints other than the lower plate

Sidescraping works very well in the Keiler as it has very thick sides at 100mm of base armour, 40mm thick tracks, and spaced armour schürzen worth 15mm, and 25mm at thickest.

vs 265mm APCR
Using -8 gun depression:

Upper plate 400mm

Turret mostly 280-320mm

VS tier 7:
The tank has no frontal weakpoint against guns with less than 190mm of penetration. Lower penetration tier 7s will even struggle to penetrate the side armour of the Keiler if its not completely flat.

VS tier 8:
Other than low penetration Mediums and Lights, most tanks can penetrate Keiler’s lower plate.

Unless facehugging an enemy with good gun depression, no tank can penetrate the upper plate of the Keiler. If you do facehug, make sure to angle the hull to the enemy, as some can penetrate premium ammo with enough gun depression and pen.

Due to the shape of the turret, its never going to be easy to penetrate, there are so many angles on it that make it unpredictable.

VS tier 9:
In tier 9 battles the armour doesn’t change much, still no tanks can penetrate the upper plate other than high penetration premium rounds.
The turret is still very solid due to all the angles.

Playing against a Keiler:
Turret weakpoints:
-Under the gun mantlet (like on a Löwe)
-Next to the mantlet
-2 small rangefinders (the balls behind the mantlet)

All these points are about 225mm thick. They are small and hard to aim for, but they are weakpoints.

The cupola is a less reliable weakpoint, it has spaced armour in front of it which makes the chances of penetration significantly lower. The shell ahs to penetrate 2 spaced armour plates, each 20mm thick, then travel a small distance (which father decreases penetration) to actually reach the cupola.

Hitting the spaced armour stops all HEAT and HE ammo, but also easily eats AP and APCR. The hatch is also small and very well angled, overall just not a weakpoint you should be baited by,

Gun

Keiler mounts a 105mm gun

-Alpha damage is 350 on AP, 300 on APCR, and 450 on HE
-It has a 9.7s reload giving it 2169 DPM
-Penetration on AP is 225mm, APCR is 283mm, and HE is 60mm.
–Estimated aim time is 4.0/4.4s
–Base aim time is 2.4s, but it can get down to 1.96s.
-Dispersion is 0.317/0.285
–Gun handling is 0.22/0.22/0.14, or with Vertical Stabilizer its 0.19/0.19/0.12

Compared to other German guns, this may not look that impressive, but it is a very effective and comfortable feeling gun.
Considering its increased alpha damage, this gun actually has quite nice DPM, not high but also not low. It has great penetration, amazing accuracy, and quite good aim time. The gun handling isn’t great, but also doesn’t feel terrible.
When playing this tank in battle, the gun just feels reliable and consistent.

Mobility

-Top speed is 40km/h, reverse speed is -15km/h
-Traverse speed is 33.2 deg/s on hard terrain, and 22.1 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 12.9 hp/t, it has a good 1030hp engine for its 80 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 12.9 hp/t on hard terrain, and 8.6 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are very average for a heavy, at 1/1.5/2.

-Keiler weighs 80 tons, so it can do some good ramming damage when it gets a good speed

-On hard terrain the Keiler is much more mobile than you would expect, but on medium terrain it feels just as slow as an E75 TS.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Keiler has no special provisions/consumables.

10% & 3% Fuel:
Double stack fuel, this will help with acceleration and traverse on medium terrain, which is where the Keiler is much more sluggish and cumbersome. If you aren’t taking advantage of that speed, you may as well play a Tiger II or Lowe.

Engine Power Boost:
Same as above, the speed is one of the special points of the Keiler, try to use it to your advantage when relocating or reaching positions early.

Gun rammer:
Keiler has amazing penetration, so it definitely does not need to use calibrated shells, especially as it doesn’t have any special HEAT or HE rounds.

In the whole scope of tier 8 its DPM is lower than most other 105mm heavies, and even with gun rammer equipped, the reload is still nearly 10 seconds.
Gun rammer is necessary for the Keiler to have a competitive level of DPM in its tier, and the combination of increased alpha with still a decent reload is very nice on this tank.

Engine Accelerator:
Even though the Keiler traverses very slowly on medium terrain, do not use Improved Control. It only adds 0.7 deg/s, and that’s not worth losing acceleration for.
One of the selling points of this tank is its 40km speed, and it needs Engine Accelerator to be able to reach that.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Keiler already has amazing accuracy of 0.317, especially considering its higher alpha damage. There is no point to improving it as its already so good, its far better to improve the gun handling of the Keiler, as its a frontline brawling heavy which is constantly moving around, so improved handling benefits the tank much more.

Gameplay advice

Keiler is not a heavium. Its a proper heavy tank that can sometimes be quite fast. It plays just like like a Tiger II, Löwe, or E 75 TS.

Go hulldown:
Hulldown and sidescraping are big strengths of this tank, so hide the hull behind some rubble or on a hill and you should bounce many shots. Reversing out and only showing the thickly armoured side will also stop enemies from penetrating, as shown in the images.

Never sit still while hulldown. The turret may be nearly impervious but there are weakpoints, sitting still lets enemies aim for them and makes your turret much weaker.

Use hard terrain:
Due to a huge disparity in terrain resistances on hard and medium terrain, the Keiler’s mobility performance and battle performance can greatly depend on where you drive the tank.

Sticking to hard terrain will keep the Keiler’s mobility being “very good” for its armour, and the tank will accelerate well and turn relatively quickly. However if going off-road (medium terrain), the mobility drops drastically, and the tank accelerates very slowly and has some of the worst traverse speeds in tier 8.

Hard terrain can be identified by concrete and paved areas, generally any roads or paths are also hard terrain. Medium terrain takes up the majority of the map, and is any area that’s not hard terrain, and not water (soft terrain).

Other than what’s stated above, the Keiler has almost identical playstyle to other hulldown 105mm heavy tanks in tier 8. Using hulldown and gun depression positions and brawling with other heavies. Its a fairly easy tank to get used to.

Overall

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

Keiler is overall a great tank

Armour is very good on all areas. The only real weakpoint is the lower plate, which is still decently armoured. Armour is easy to use in all situations and has perfect protection from HE.
Gun has great alpha, penetration, & accuracy. Gun handling is average, DPM & aim time aren’t great. Gun depression is good.
Mobility is great on hard terrain, high acceleration rate, good traverse speed. Its slow on medium terrain, with slow acceleration and traverse. Reverse speed is average.
Speed is great, at 40km/h.

Is it worth getting?

The Keiler is worth getting for players who like heavy tanks with quite “standard” gameplay, but want a bit of a different feel in that gameplay. The slight different alpha is a refreshing difference compared to other 105mm guns.

Alternatively, if you just love German HT gameplay, the Keiler is worth it. It has the same feel of gameplay as other tier 8 German heavy tanks, just with different stats, making it interesting but still with a similar feel.

Keiler is a great tank, but its not “better” than the tech tree Tiger II or VK 45.02 (A). It has strengths in different areas and weaknesses in different areas.

The Keiler is worth 9,500 gold. Its a very good tank with quite unique characteristics, yet still having comfortable and enjoyable gameplay.

Most recently sold for:

Crates release – June 2022
15,000 gold (full bundle) or 12,500 gold (tank only) – August 2022
6,500 gold (tank & equipment) – Black Friday November 2022
6,000 gold (Starting price), 4,500 gold (Final price) in Auction – August 2023

Camo cost:

“Exterminator” camo: 3D, with damage animations, costs 3,200 gold

Historical info:

The Keiler is a largely real tank.
Keiler is just an E75 TS, but with WG renaming it so they can have 2 versions of one tank design in game (this design being the project TS).

Project TS would be a more accurate name for both the Keiler and the E 75 TS. Project TS was a design which Krüpp was developing alongside the Tiger II, and after the Löwe/Panzer VII project ended.

At first, it was meant to use components from these 2 tanks (Tiger II and Löwe).
Engine-
It was intended to have a gas-turbine engine (hence its high speed in Blitz, and its strong engine & high speed in WoT PC).
Gun-
Intended to be a 105mm L/70 or L/73 gun (in German WW2 guns, the L/ indicates the gun length in calibres). It would have been a long gun (7.35-7.67m) with high accuracy and velocity. The gun on the WoT PC E75 TS is an accurate length (L/73), but the Blitz E75 TS and Keiler are not.
Interestingly, the L/70 version of this gun is mounted on the Löwe.
Turret-
No confirmed shape, design, or visuals exist for project TS, or for any E 50 or E 75. The only aspect which is confirmed is the “option of additional turret armour”, shown on both the Keiler and the E75 TS.

Interestingly, the schürzen (sideskirts) on the hull are accurate. German tanks stopped being equipped with schürzen and schürzen mounting points after the Panzer IV ausf. J (a much earlier tank design). However this project TS was apparently intended to have schürzen as an option.

Later in the project Krüpp requested to use components of the Entwicklung series tanks (E series), changing it from resembling Tiger/Löwe, to more resembling an E 75 (or E 50, only their hulls were designed, and were nearly identical).

The only inaccurate or unknown aspects of the tank are really how it looked. The hull can be assumed to be a similar design to E 75 (which is what WG did), but its not confirmed. This is only the case as the E75 is the only Entwicklung heavy tank to be even remotely similar to a Tiger II (E 100 is the only other Entwicklung heavy tank).
The armour thickness is unknown , the turret shape, armour, and design, are all unknown.

The design that WG has proposed for this tank is actually very good considering the environment the tank is being placed into.
E 50 had no known turrets, E 75 was to have a 8,8cm gun with the Tiger II’s turret, and Project TS has no known turret design.
Since project TS was initially taking components from Löwe and Tiger II, using a turret that’s similar to but not the same as the Löwe is actually fairly realistic (compared to using the Tiger II’s turret, which is already on 4 other tanks).

Back to homepage