Sentinelle

Last updated on 06 May, 2025.

Sentinelle is a tier 8 French heavy tank. It features a similar gun system to the M-IV-Y, by having a long intra-clip but a very quick magazine reload. It has good general mobility but a limited top speed, and its armour profile is solid.

Armour

(The Sentinelle in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

Drag slider right -> to view 225mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 265mm APCR

Armour when facing head on:
Upper plate 345-365mm
Driver hatch 245mm
Lower plate 150mm

Turret face 270mm
Gun area 300mm
Cupola 110mm

Using -7 gun depression:

Upper plate 460-485mm
Driver hatch 265-285mm
Turret face 280-285mm
Cupola 115mm

Armour vs tier 7 tanks:
Facing tier 7 enemies, the Sentinelle has very good armour. The only areas that most tier 7 tanks can go through will be the lower plate and the cupola. Every armour area is far too strong for even premium ammo to go through.

The only exceptions to this are tanks with 250mm of base HEAT penetration which run calibrated shells (such as Smasher, IS-2, or SU-152). These tanks can penetrate the turret front if on flat ground.

Armour vs tier 8 tanks:
Facing tier 8 enemies, the armour performance remains roughly the same as when facing tier 7s. The upper plate is fully impenetrable, & the turret front is fully impenetrable to standard ammo.

The main issue when facing tier 8s is that most tier 8 premium ammo can penetrate through the driver’s hatch on the upper plate; and nearly all tier 8 heavies will have enough premium penetration to deal with the turret front, even without needing calibrated shells.

The lower plate is also prone to quite a few HESH-using tanks in tier 8.

Armour vs tier 9 tanks:
Against tier 9 enemies, the armour has the same weakpoints as when facing tier 8. The driver hatch is weak to most standard ammo of tier 9; and the turret front is penetrable by standard ammo from most higher-penetration heavy tanks, or heavy tanks using calibrated shells.

Gun

The Sentinelle mounts a 120mm autoloader gun.

Firepower:
-Ammo: AP/HEAT/HE.
-Penetration: 220/260/68mm.
-Alpha damage: 350/300/440.
-3 shells in the magazine.
-8.00s intra-clip reload.
-Reload time is 14.5s for a total of 2067 DPM.
-DPM while unloading: 2625

Handling:
–Estimated aim time is 4.7/5.0s
–Base aim time is 2.75s, but it can get down to 2.12s
-Dispersion is 0.317/0.269
–Gun handling is 0.24/0.24/0.14, or 0.21/0.21/0.12 with Vertical Stabilizer.

Usability:
-Shell velocities are 920/800/800 m/s.
-Gun depression is -7 degrees around the entire tank.

Overall this gun is decent. Its not a typical autoloader, its more similar to the “Adrenaline autoloader” of the M-IV-Y; its more about the flexibility of being able to the magazine reload extremely quickly, not so much about dumping damage quickly.

The intra-clip reload is noticeably long, but the actual DPM while unloading is still good for its alpha damage. Magazine reload is very fast, with great dispersion, and decent penetration on AP & HEAT, and great HE penetration. Gun depression is decent but nothing amazing.

The biggest downsides of the gun are its terrible gun handling & aim time stats, which make the gun feel very derpy despite having amazing dispersion.

Mobility

Raw stats:
-Forward speed is 32km/h.
-Reverse speed is -15km/h.
-Raw acceleration rate is 17.0 hp/t.
-Engine power is 897hp for the 53 ton weight.

Hard terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 17 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 35.3 deg/s.

Medium terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 13.1 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 27.2 deg/s.

Terrain resistance stats:
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.3/1.7

Overall the Sentinelle has good mobility, but not good speed. The tank feels quite mobile, the strong engine lets it maintain a good average speed in battle, and its traverse is decent on both medium and hard terrain. The issue is that the top speed forward is very limited, only 32km/h, so its definitely not a fast heavy.

Consumables & Provisions

Provisions:
Run a regular setup.

Consumables:
Tungsten shells – Mandatory on this tank, increases alpha to do 403 average damage. Helps take out one-shot enemies with 350-400 health.
Multi-Purpose Restoration pack – Mandatory for general tank repairs, fires & crew.
Repair kit – To let you repair tracks mor often without waiting & for other modules.

The engine boost consumable is useless on this tank as it already has very good acceleration and a very limited top speed by default.

Equipment loadout

Improved Ventilation/Calibrated Shells:
Depending on what you want to improve on the Sentinelle’s gun, either of these can work.

Vents will be good for helping to improve the gun’s horrible aim time and make the dispersion better, which will help make the gun feel more usable in terms of overall handling.

Calibrated shells works well since the Sentinelle’s gun is an autoloader and isn’t based around a fast reload, and with the flexible fast reload, a difference of 14s -> 14.5s isn’t noticeable with how this tank plays. The improved penetration helps you to “aim less” at stronger armour, also helping technically to reduce the effective time needed to aim.
Calibrated shells increase penetration on AP from 220mm to 238mm, on HEAT from 260mm to 294mm, & on HE from 68mm to 73mm.

Enhanced Armour:
Enhanced armour is needed due to the flat turret armour. Most tier 8 tanks can penetrate it with premium ammo, and its a very easy target due to being such flat armour.

The Sentinelle’s turret is 270mm of effective armour, which isn’t bad, but due to it being slightly angled, premium AP & APCR shells from tier 8 enemies can easily go through due to shell normalization.

Using enhanced armour would increase the turret front from 270mm to 280mm thick, which would allow you to bounce much more premium ammo from tier 8s, and standard ammo from higher-penetration tier 9s.

Improved Control:
Due to its limited 32km/h top speed and its very good acceleration rate of 17hp/t, there isn’t any need or use to having better engine power to accelerate faster.

Using improved control is better as it helps improve the traverse speed of the tank, which helps to maintain a better average speed, especially as the engine is already strong and the traverse isn’t impressive.
Improved control increases traverse on hard terrain from 35.3 to 37.3 deg/s, and on medium terrain from 27.2 to 28.7 deg/s.

Vertical Stabilizer/Refined Gun:
Vertical stabilizer helps to reduce the tank’s horrible gun handling and lower its equally horrible effective aim time. Its good for a heavy tank like the Sentinelle since you aren’t often sitting still with ages to aim your gun in.

Refined gun will let you min-max the tank’s accuracy. The already amazing dispersion of 0.317 is lowered to 0.269, making you very accurate but with even worse effective aim time & handling. This option is good if you want to ignore improving the bad aspects, and rather just improve the good aspects to be even better.

Consumable Delivery System:
Due to the how the Sentinelle’s gun is balanced, CDS is generally a better choice.

The Sentinelle takes 8s to shoot 2 shots, 16s to shoot 3 shots. The tungsten shells consumable only lasts for 15s, or 20s if using HEC equipment.

Using HEC would allow you to shoot all 3 shells in the magazine while using tungsten, but most of the time its hard to guarantee that you’ll be able to use all 3 shells within that 20s time limit. The only situations where this reliably happens is in an all-out brawl.

Generally its better to use tungsten for 2 of the shells in the magazine, that’s usually all you need it for. Using CDS will reduce the cooldown from 70s to 62s, letting you use it across more magazines with the faster cooldown.

Gameplay advice

The Sentinelle is essentially just a regular heavy tank. Despite its odd gun, it generally plays in the same way as other heavy tanks, which is just frontline gameplay.

General gameplay:
Take this tank to the heavy flank, as its low top speed, poor aim time, and long intra clip make it an extremely awkward tank to use on the medium flank.

Use hulldown positions to utilize the good turret & hull armour. Avoid poking out for too long against tier 9 enemies, since generally they can easily penetrate the turret cheeks with premium ammo.

Try to avoid trading damage, 1700 HP is the lowest a tier 8 HT can have, and it makes the Sentinelle quite fragile when it comes to taking hits or trading HP for damage.

Using the autoloader:
Due to the very long 8s intra-clip reload, you shouldn’t use this gun like other autoloaders, where you try to put in multiple shots into one enemy or in quick succession. Expect many enemies to be able to out-reload you in your intra clip.

Play it more like you have adrenaline activated on a higher damage gun. Keep the pressure on the enemy to ensure that you are actually able to use that “adrenaline DPM” while you unload the damage. The 8s intra-clip with 350 alpha doesn’t sound impressive, but it works out to be effectively 2625 DPM for the duration that you have shells in the magazine. Compared to other tier 8 heavies, tanks with 310-350 alpha all have less than 2.5k DPM, and the majority have less than 2.3k DPM.

Don’t be too hesitant to reload:
Just like the M-IV-Y, you have a very long intra-clip and a very fast magazine reload. If you run out of targets to shoot, don’t hesitate to reload the full magazine.

If you wait for the intra-clip to count down, then decide to reload, you’ve already wasted mover half the time it takes for a full reload. The intra-clip is 8s, the full reload is 14.5s, meaning it only takes an extra 6.5s over your intra-clip reload to reload the full magazine.

Reload if you don’t think there will be a chance to get damage in the next few seconds. Having a full magazine will let you be ready for a next engagement, such as a push or a brawl. It would be pointless to enter a fight with only 1-2 shells in the magazine, especially if you had time to reload (and 14s isn’t long at all).

Use tungsten shells:
Tungsten shells are vital for playing this tank, they increase the average damage from 350 to 403, which is a massive difference for damage trading against any enemies, and can help you to shut down tanks which have between 350-400 HP in one shot (without tungsten it would need 2 shots).

Using tungsten also increases your DPM while unloading, from having an 8s reload with 350 alpha, to having 8s reload with 403 alpha; an increase from 2625 DPM to 3019 DPM.

Conserve HP:
The Sentinelle has a very low HP number at 1700, 100 less than most tier 8 heavies, and up to 250 less than the healthiest tier 8 heavies.

Due to this, you don’t have as much HP to use for trading, especially earlier in the battle. Try to avoid trading HP and exposing the tank to get damage, especially in early stages of the game. Use hulldown positions and try to use the hull side to bait enemy shots (explained below).

Generally its good to use a peek-a-boo type tactic to try conserve HP. Poke out to shoot, dealing the damage and exposing your tank (ideally only your turret), then immediately pull back for your intra-clip reload, then repeat when reloaded.
This will also give you space/time in case you want to reload the full magazine, as your tank is already in cover.

Sidescraping:

Sidescraping in the Sentinelle isn’t as effective as other sidescraper tanks, as the Sentinelle has a weakpoint on its hull shoulder (shown in the right image)

Sidescraping can still work, but try to use the long hull of the Sentinelle to bait enemies, keeping the weak shoulder area hidden. This does mean you can’t shoot the enemy while you do this, as your turret is still behind the building.

Overall gameplay of the Sentinelle is quite generic, except for how the gun is used with the autoloader. It works well on the heavy flank, using its good hulldown armour and good DPM for frontline fights.

Overall

Armour – 6/10
Gun – 5/10
Mobility – 6.5/10
Speed – 3.5/10

Sentinelle is overall a decent tank.

Armour is solid, upper plate is extremely strong, turret is decent. HESH/HE protection are average, with usual lower plate & cupola weaknesses.
Gun has terrible aim time, & gun handling, unimpressive penetration, but great accuracy. It has good DPM when unloading but an 8s intra-clip for 350 alpha. Gun depression is -7
Mobility is good, with great acceleration rate on both terrain types, and decent traverse speed. Reverse speed is -15km/h.
Speed is limited, 32km/h.

Is it worth getting?

The Sentinelle is not worth getting.

It doesn’t offer much over other tanks. Unlike the M-IV-Y, the autoloader on the Sentinelle is just much more awkward to use, and on a much worse tank platform, so the gimmick of that “adrenaline autoloader” just isn’t worth it on this tank.

If you want something with 350-400 alpha and “increased DPM” on its autoloader, get a T28 Defender or IS-3 defender instead. Keiler is also a great option for just a regular cyclic gun with 350 alpha.

The Sentinelle is worth 7,000 gold. Its a decent tank, and it is quite unique in the sense that there is nothing else quite like it in tier 8 or even the game. The main issue is that that uniqueness (of the gun mechanic) is just very awkward, since unlike the M-IV-Y, which has great armour, HP, a mobility, & gun handling, the Sentinelle lacks those aspects, making it a much more awkward feeling tank.

Most recently sold for:

New release crates – May 2025

Legendary Camos:

The Sentinelle currently has no special camouflages.

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