Smasher

The Smasher is a tier 7 hybrid nation heavy tank. It has relatively poor armour, and is not very mobile, however it carries a devastating 152mm gun with high damage and penetration.

Armour

(The Smasher in the images is using Improved Assembly)

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

Armour when flat and facing head-on:
Upper plate 115-135mm
Lower plate 125-130mm
Turret 150-155mm (sides are 300mm auto-ricochet angles)
Gun mantlet 450mm

Armour vs all tier 6-8 tanks:
Smasher generally does not have armour. You may occasionally find tanks with very low penetration bouncing off, but as its a KV type hull, it has easy to hit weakpoints, and its just not very well armoured in general.

The turret armour is decent against same tier enemy mediums and lower, however most tier 7 heavy tanks and all tier 8 tanks will be able to shoot next to the gun mantlet and easily penetrate.
The turret side armour thickness is actually quite good, and can bounce some shots when angled, or from the spaced armour.

The tank is able to sidescrape a bit as its hull sides are a decent 75mm thick. Its turret sides are also fairly thick at 120mm, so they may get an occasional bounce if enemies shoot it at an angle.

The armour is basically a KV-2 with slightly thicker armour plates, as its flat it still doesn’t get many bounces, but don’t be surprised if the occasional shot fails to penetrate your tank.

Gun

The Smasher mounts a “15 cm” gun, but its actual caliber is 152mm

-Alpha damage is 640 on AP, 545 on HEAT, and 960 on HE
-It has a 15.2s reload, giving it 2534 DPM
-Penetration on AP is 140mm, HEAT is 250mm, and HE is 85mm.
–Estimated aim time is 4.6s/5.0s
–Base aim time is 2.7s, but it can get down to 2.2s.
-Dispersion is 0.407/0.367
–Gun handling is 0.23/0.24/0.2, or 0.2/0.2/0.17 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -6 degrees

Alpha damage scales against everything on a tank’s gun, so generally a high alpha tank trades out DPM, accuracy, handling, reload, and penetration (see tanks like T49, Caliban, Tankenstein, E 100, 60TP).

However the Smasher goes against this completely, and the gun is the reason the tank is considered OP. It has very high alpha for a tier 7 tank, yet it also has very good DPM, a decent reload, very good penetration on HEAT and HE, aim time is good, and dispersion and gun handling are both relatively decent (consider that tanks with 400 alpha are barely more accurate than this).

The only actual downside of this gun is how high it is mounted off the ground, and its fairly low -6 gun depression. But these are hardly downsides considering how good everything else on the gun is.

Mobility

-Top speed is 35km/h forwards, and -12km/h in reverse
-Traverse speed is 31.8 deg/s on hard terrain, and 27.3 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 13.2 hp/t, it has a decent 702 horsepower engine for its 53 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 11 hp/t on hard terrain, and 9.4 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are average, having 1.2/1.4/1.9

The Smasher is a sluggish tank. Though it has a decent top speed, it has quite a weak effective acceleration rate and traverse speed due to having poor terrain resistances. Just like the KV-2, this tank is quite slow.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

The Smasher does not have any special consumables provisions.

Gun Rammer/Calibrated Shells:
Either piece of equipment is a valid choice on this tank.

With calibrated shells, you can penetrate more armour even though you shoot less often, so your effective DPM is higher.
With gun rammer, you have chances to shoot enemies even though you can’t penetrate as much armour, so your effective DPM is higher.

The Smasher does not lack penetration. The only reason to use calibrated shells will be to increase your HE penetration from 85mm to 94mm, as its AP and HEAT are already perfectly adequate without needing to use calibrated shells.

Try the tank with gun rammer first, and if you feel that its penetration is more important, then switch over to calibrated shells after trying it.

Improved Assembly:
The Smasher has relatively flat and thin armour, using enhanced armour would not allow the tank to bounce many more shells from the enemies it generally faces, so there is no use in enhancing the armour.

Use improved assembly instead, and increase the tank’s base HP from 1450 to 1537.

Vertical stabilizer:
As the Smasher has such poor dispersion-on-movement (relative to its alpha its fine, but as a whole its still not great), and as its a frontline heavy tank and doesn’t play passively or snipe, the Smasher needs to use vertical stabilizer.

Vertical stabilizer will make the tank more accurate when its moving, which it definitely needs to be. When playing this tank you will notice that the slightest movements can cause the reticle to bloom out quite significantly.
Don’t use refined gun on the Smasher, as the gun is rarely ever aimed in enough for this to benefit its dispersion.

Gameplay advice

The Smasher essentially plays as an aggressive frontline derp tank, just like an SU-152. If you play the SU-152 quite actively (not as a sniper, but rather a support/ambush tank), then this tank plays almost identically to that, but just with a turret and more HP.

General gameplay:
The Smasher is not a brawler, its an opportunistic tank, and bases all of its gameplay actions around getting the gun to deal damage, nothing else matters.

Smasher should go to the HT side of the map, as tanks are slower and easier to hit (the turret turn rate of Smasher can sometimes be a problem against fast enemies). When top tier, facing only tier 6-7 tanks, you can play quite aggressively, as your HP will go further, and your gun is more intimidating to these tanks. As long as there is no very aggressive heavy on the enemy team willing to push you, you can just play as a regular heavy tank (but don’t rely on the armour at all)

When bottom tier, facing tier 7-8 tanks, you need to play more like a frontline support TD, you let your more heavily armoured tanks take the hits, then you push out and put your big shot of damage into the enemies. You have to try avoid damage, as tier 8 tanks will hit harder, and your armour which was weak against tier 6 tanks, definitely won’t perform any different against tier 8s.

If you play like you don’t have armour, but keep your gun shooting, you will do well in this tank (Other than the active SU-152, the Smasher also plays similarly to the Caliban).

Aim your shots:
Even though the gun is so good in so many regards, you still MUST aim your shots properly. There are a few good reasons for this:
1 – None of your ammunition types are ease to use. Your AP can overmatch and go through tracks and spaced armour, but its penetration is low. Your HEAT has high penetration but can’t go through spaced armour, and your HE requires careful aiming to be able to fully and effectively penetrate and deliver its 960 damage.
2 -If you do miss, enemies will know it. Even though your DPM is high, your reload is long enough that enemies could easily put in a few shots and you wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. (Of course they may do this even if you did hit, but at least then they would be on lower health and easier for you to finish off after your reload)
3 – Your gun deals such a large amount of damage, that it is worth taking a little bit of extra time to aim and make sure that the shell connects.

Utilize the correct ammunition:
-AP should be your standard shell, always load AP as soon as a battle starts. It deals the most damage with the most effective penetration, and its able to overmatch 50mm armour plates, and go through tracks and spaced armour.
-HE should be your secondary shell, depending on where you want to go on the map, what tanks are on the enemy team, and where you think these tanks may appear on the map, you may want to pre-load HE so that you can get an ambush shot into the enemy. (Do this for light tanks, lightly armoured mediums, and lightly armoured TDs).
-HEAT should be the shell you use the least. It does the least damage but has the highest penetration. This will only be needed against very well armoured tanks, such as tier 8 heavies, or some tier 7s when they go hulldown.
-In cases where the enemy can’t even be penetrated by HEAT, just shoot HE at them. Since the Smasher’s HE shell is so large in caliber and high in alpha damage, it can generally still do 200-300 damage to a fairly heavily armoured tank, especially if you hit an engine deck or roof.

Hide the hull whenever possible:
Just like a tank destroyer, you want to avoid getting hit on your long reload. The hull is more important to hide than the turret, as there is still a chance that enemies bonce off the gun mantlet or angled edges of the turret. However, the hull is so weak that its almost impossible to bounce off of it.

Test your HE:
If you are new to the 85mm or 94mm HE number, then you need to test it. When playing the Smasher, and you are faced with the side or rear of an enemy tank, and you aren’t sure whether you can penetrate or not, switch to HE just to see.
If its yellow, then you can’t penetrate; if its grey then you can penetrate.
Learning what enemies and what armour plates can be penetrated by HE is the most important skill to learn on the Smasher, as its HE shells are arguably one of the strongest points of the tank, and revolutionize the gameplay (compared to only rarely using it, Smashers should use it whenever they can penetrate).

Overall

Overall the Smasher is a tank with an OP gun, but quite poor mobility, and weak hull armour. The turret can occasionally bounce, but all tanks that face it are able to penetrate it with premium ammunition.

The tank is weak when used by a player who doesn’t know the intricate workings of their tank and of the battlefield. Its AP penetration is low, accuracy and gun depression are relatively poor, the tank is tall with not the best turret armour and a weak hull, and the mobility is bad. All of these factors make the Smasher actually quite a balanced tank when its used by less skilled players.

The reason the tank is considered OP is because great players will know when to use the correct ammo, including its HEAT and HE, and this ammo, along with the tank’s DPM and alpha, are what allow good players to do amazingly in the tank. It still has poor mobility and weak armour, however a good player will know where to position so that both of these are negated.

Is it worth getting?

The Smasher is worth getting for players who love derpy tank with big guns, or just want a tier 7 tank that’s very fun to play.
The Smasher is not worth getting if you absolutely can’t stand sluggish mobility and a weak armour profile, as this tank definitely has both of those. While the tank is considered OP, its only because good players make it OP. The tank is actually rather weak when players don’t know how to use the tank properly.

The Smasher is worth 12,000 gold. Its a very strong and powerful tank when played correctly, but its importantly also very fun, which is something which the Annihilator doesn’t really offer.

A skilled player will make this tank OP, as they will be able to use its gun properly, using the right ammunition in the right situation, knowing weakpoints and overmatch plates, and being able to mitigate the poor mobility and weak armour.

Less skilled players will definitely struggle in the tank, as even though the tank is undoubtedly OP, its not the case when the player doesn’t know how to properly take advantage of the tank’s strengths.

Most recently sold for:

The Smasher was released for in a bundle for real currency in March 2019.

It has not been available since then.
The only way to get this tank is from certain crates or lockboxes.

It was released in prize draw in June 2023, with the maximum cost being 15,500 gold.

Camo cost:

Smasher has a permanent camo which cannot be changed.

Historical Note:

Smasher is just a KV-2 with some additional bits added onto it.

It has a strange turret design, where the front is the angled MT-1 turret, but the rear is flat MT-2 turret.

History in the game:
The original tank was called the KV-TG, and could shoot missiles. This was removed for balance reasons. This is why there are rockets strapped to the side of the tank.

The Smasher, now considered overpowered by the playerbase, was ironically released in a regular sale, it costed $29.99 (USD), no crates or anything. Very few players bought the tank in this bundle, as the tank was relatively unknown when it was released.
It has never been sold since in any way, you can only get it through luck-based methods, like crates, draws, or lockboxes.

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