Renault G1

The Renault G1 (or G1 R) is a tier 5 French heavy tank. It has good armour, good mobility, and a decent gun with great premium rounds. This tank can almost play as a medium due to its very mobile nature.

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 note:

Armour

(The G1 R in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

vs 110mm AP (left image), 144mm APCR (right image)
Flat ground:
Upper plate 150-175mm (weak bar & viewport 96mm)
Mid rounded plate 91mm
Lower plate 120-175mm auto-ricochet
Turret face 125-200mm (cheek weakpoints 95-110mm)
Upper turret and cupola 72-112mm

Side armour:
G1 R has very weak side armour.
The tank’s hull sides themselves are only 37mm thick, and the sideskirts are 63mm, however they are not good for bouncing shots on.

For some reason, WG has modelled these as being base armour (not spaced); but in game, these skirts still act as spaced armour, since they stop HE.
This may be why they cannot bounce shots (this was tested quite a bit), and hence shouldn’t be used to sidescrape or angle the tank.

Armour vs tier 4:
The G1 R will have incredible armour against tier 4 tanks. Its weakest frontal plate is 91mm (94.6 with enhanced armour) in nominal thickness, many tier 4 enemies won’t have enough penetration to go through it.

The angled upper and lower plates are too strong for any enemy in tier 4 to penetrate.

The turret is also extremely strong against tier 4 enemies, with only the top left side being rather weak. However this is a troll weakpoint, as many shots will bounce off even though it shows a grey highlight (see below).

Armour vs tier 5:
Tier 5 enemies will also somewhat struggle against this tank, the weakpoint in the mid plate is fairly narrow, and the upper and lower plates are both too strong to penetrate with standard ammo.

As shown above, premium ammo makes this tank much easier to penetrate, but there are still many areas which are red and will cause bounces.

(Note that in tier 5, all tanks are inaccurate. Its very common for tier 5 tanks to have 0.35-0.4 dispersion, even on low caliber guns. It makes hitting weak areas a bit more challenging than in higher tiers)

The turret is strong, but there are a few weakpoints enemies can hit, sugh as the upper left of the turret, or the cheeks next to the gun.

When using full gun depression, the armour is only weak in a few areas, and enemies may easily miss and bounce of you don’t sit still.

Armour vs tier 6:
Tier 6 tanks take a big step up in penetration compared to tier 5 tanks (especially heavy tanks).

Don’t expect to bounce much when faced against enemy tier 6 heavies, as their penetration (145-160mm AP) will easily cut through most areas of this tank. There are still a few troll areas, but they aren’t reliable.

Enemy mediums have slightly less penetration, but are more accurate. Again, don’t expect to bounce, but there will still be troll areas on your armour which may catch shots from the enemy.

Playing against a G1 R:
There are 2 caveats you should be aware of on this tank.

The side armour:
As said above, this has weird armour modelling, and it causes this tank to have very weak side armour. The G1R cannot angle or sidescrape well, so even if the side armour shows up red, its worth taking a chance to try penetrate it (if you can’t penetrate anywhere else).

This side armour cannot be penetrated by HE, as it still acts as spaced armour (even though its not modelled as such).

The top left area of the turret:
This is the turret’s “weakpoint”, but its rather troll. You can see the image below, 10 shots were fired at different areas of the grey highlighted section of this weakpoint, 4 penetrated, 6 bounced.

This is not to say its a strong area, but note that its quite troll. If you’re playing against this tank and have to shoot here, note that there’s a chance you may bounce off.
If the game depends on each shot penetrating, it may be a good idea to use premium ammo, just in case.

Gun

The G1 R mounts a 75mm gun

-Damage per shot is 170 on AP, 150 on HEAT, and 220 on HE
-Reload time is 6.7s, giving it 1526 DPM
-Penetration is 128mm on AP, 152mm on HEAT, and 38mm on HE
–Estimated aim time is 3.7/4.0s
–Base aim time is 1.91s, but it can get down to 1.7s.
-Dispersion is 0.395/0.355
–Gun handling is 0.2/0.2/0.08, or 0.17/0.17/0.07 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -10 degrees

This is overall a good gun. Its nothing special, but it has a few nice features to it. It has great damage, and decent DPM, it also has impressive premium ammo which only loses 20 damage compared to AP. Penetration and aim time are both very good for a tier 5 heavy, and gun handling is also not bad. The only downside here is its accuracy, but all tier 5 tanks have poor accuracy.
This gun doesn’t really stand out in any area, but its just overall quite good for this tier.

Mobility

-Top speed is 37km/h, reverse is -11km/h
-Traverse speed is 49.8 deg/s on hard terrain, and 36.8 deg/s on medium.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 16.1 hp/t, it has a strong 627 horsepower engine for its 39 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 16.1 hp/t on hard terrain, and 12.4 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Ground resistances are a good 1/1.3/1.7

The G1 R is quite a mobile heavy, especially for tier 5. It has good acceleration rate, and very nice traverse speeds. The top speed is also good for this tier, as most other tanks are limited to 35km/h. The reverse speed of this tank is poor though, at only -11km/h which is poor even in tier 5.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

The G1 R has no special provisions/consumables.

Gun rammer:
Its best to use gun rammer on this tank. It has very impressive standard penetration (for a tier 5), and its premium rounds are also pretty good. It generally doesn’t struggle to penetrate most enemies, due to this good penetration, so it doesn’t really need calibrated shells.

Gun rammer is very helpful to this tank’s gameplay, as quite a few tier 5 tanks have a similar/better reload than the G1 R. Using gun rammer lets this tank have a competitive reload, especially against higher tier tanks, which often have higher alpha.

Enhanced Armour/Improved Assembly:
Both equipment pieces are good choices on this tank.

The main benefit of enhanced armour will be to that mid plate, as it will increase the armour from 91mm, up to nearly 95mm, it makes it more challenging for tier 4 enemies to penetrate. Enhanced armour also just generally improves the overall armour profile, making the rounded angles of both the hull and turret stronger, especially against premium ammo.

Improved assembly boosts this tank’s HP up from a decent 750 to 795. It will help the tank survive longer when it does get penetrated.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Since the G1 R is a fairly active frontline tank, vertical stabilizer is generally a better equipment choice. The tank will be moving to positions, changing targets, pushing flanks, etc. It doesn’t have static gameplay, and hence doesn’t usually have the time to fully aim in each shot. With such gameplay, vertical stabilizer is far more useful to the tank than refined gun.

The tank does have terrible accuracy at 0.395, so if you use the stabilizer and feel the gun is still missing many shots, refined gun is still a good option, especially if you like to fully aim every shot.

Gameplay advice

The G1 R plays a fairly standard heavy tank playstyle for tier 5.

It should go with heavies, grind out ridgelines, and brawl with enemies. This tank is able to push with the mediums in the right matchup, as its got pretty good mobility to be able to keep up with them.

Use gun depression & hulldown positions:
The mod plate on the lower part of the front hull is by far the weakest part of the tank, hiding it will result in far more bounces on your armour. Even though there is a cupola on the top, this is still troll against same tier penetration levels, and you can make enemies miss by slightly rocking the tank back and fourth.
The turret is small, and that hatch weakpoint is only a small part of the turret, its quite easy to miss.

Gun depression is a strength of this tank, use it whenever possible, as it makes the armour profile of this tank so much stronger, especially on the hull. It also hides the lower plate, which will help your tank survive longer in battle.

Aim shots well:
Due to poor accuracy, its good to try and give each shot a little time to aim. Snap shots and rushed shots generally won’t work out well due to the poor accuracy.

The aim time of this tank is very good, so it won’t take too long to aim in your shot, and your armour is decent, so same and lower tier enemies are still likely to bounce even if you sit still for a few seconds.

Never sidescrape or angle:
As stated in the armour section of this review, the side armour doesn’t work. Its very weak, and angling or sidescraping it will only result in your tank taking damage.

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The G1 R has a very standard playstyle in tier 5. Just being a brawling heavy tank with gun depression. It can also play with the mediums quite well due to its nice mobility, but like most tier 5 tanks it will still struggle against higher tier enemies.

Overall

Overall the G1 R is a decent tank. Its nothing special in terms of gameplay or stats, its not the worst tank, but it also can’t rival the strongest tier 5 heavies in terms of competitiveness. 

It has a nice gun with great penetration and aim time, though like all tier 5 tanks, it lacks accuracy. It has good mobility, with great traverse speed and good acceleration, with a nice 37km top speed. The armour is also fairly impressive, being very thick on the upper plate and turret, though with defined weakpoints on the mid plate and cupola.

Is it worth getting?

The G1 R is currently a free tank, so yes its absolutely worth getting.

Though, if it comes for sale in the future, no its not worth getting. This tank doesn’t offer enough over other dominant tier 5 heavy tanks like the BDR G1 B, T1 Heavy tank, or Excelsior. Those other tanks just offer more overall, and are also generally a bit more interesting to play.

The G1 R is worth 1,500 gold. Its a decent tank, not very interesting or exciting, but its pretty good in terms of its stats.

The G1 R is a collector tank, it can be sold for 250 gold.

Most recently sold for:

One of the rewards in the “Blitz turns 9!” event (free subscription) – June 2023

Camo cost:

Historical note:

The Char G1 was a real tank project.

This was a French Medium tank, intended to replace the rather unsuccessful D1 and D2 tanks.

It featured many similar features to the standard tanks of WW2, such as the M4 Sherman and the T-34, with a 75mm gun, and a decent level of armour and mobility. It had a few unique and advantageous features for the time, such as a stabilized gun, and a semi-automatic loading system.

This project was undertaken by many companies, including FCM, Somua, BDR, Fouga, Lorraine, SEAM, and Renault, with Renault’s ultimately being chosen as the most successful candidate.

Another Char G1 project that’s in game is the tank from Baudet-Donon-Roussel, the BDR G1 B, by far the heaviest and largest proposal at nearly 38 tons.

Inaccuracies:
In real life this was a lightly armoured medium tank, its heavy armour and heavy tank designation are incorrect.

The Renault version of the tank was estimated to be roughly 32 tons. (Extra weight in game makes sense for the additional armour)

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