T-22 Medium

T-22 is a USSR tier 10 medium tank. Its most well known feature is its unique armour layout with a reverse angled  V-shape. It also has good speed and acceleration, with great accuracy and gun handling.

1. Armour
2. Fighting against a T-22 Medium
3. Gun
4. Mobility
5. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
6. Gameplay advice
7. Overall
8. Is it worth getting?
9. Most recently sold for:
10. Camo cost:
11. Misunderstandings about the T-22

Armour

T-22’s armour will be shown against multiple penetration levels, due to its different performance.

(The T-22 Medium in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

Drag slider right -> to view 240mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 290mm HEAT

Armour when flat and facing head-on:
-Upper plate 250-260mm (up to 280mm on edges)
-Lower plate 260mm
-Turret 360-500mm+

Armour vs tier 9:
Many tier 9 medium and light tanks will struggle to penetrate the T-22’s upper plates, as only 2 tier 9 MT have over 245mm of standard ammo penetration. Angling the hull will weaken it against these tanks, and make one of the upper plate easier to penetrate.

Most tier 9 heavy tanks won’t struggle to penetrate of the tank when its not angled, since very few have under 245mm standard penetration, and most use AP as standard ammo. Angling slightly will make one of the upper plates red, and this is good to get bounces.

When using gun depression, the armour is very strong and practically impenetrable. The turret is also very strong, even on flat ground.

Armour vs tier 10:
Some tier 10 tanks will struggle to penetrate the T-22’s upper plates using standard ammo if its not angled. Tanks with low standard penetration on AP (230-245mm), and also tanks which have APCR as standard ammo, such as the 60TP or Obj. 777 II.

The turret is essentially just impervious to any ammo that hits it, it has a few small penetrable spots but they are very hard to aim for and hit, even if the tank doesn’t move.

Angling the hull just slightly causes the upper plate furthest from the enemy gun to become very strong, and the closest one to become very weak.

Fighting against a T-22 Medium

-If a T-22 is circling you or has their hull sides exposed, don’t immediately shoot them. Wait for a clear shot into their sides when they angle too much (shown above), the closer it is to 90 degrees (perpendicular to your tank) the easier it will be to penetrate.

-The biggest mistake you can make when playing against a T-22 is to shoot its side armour without properly calculating the shot. The T-22 thrives on misplays like this and that’s what makes it a very troll tank.

-If an enemy T-22 is sidescraping, wait for them to expose their hull front. The tank has a pike-nose, so the front does get exposed when they come out to shoot.

-Don’t shoot the hatches, they aren’t there. The 2 cupolas on the turret roof are only there visually, but have no actual modelled hitbox. If you shoot them, you deal no damage.

-Don’t shoot the track wheels, due to them extending out in front of the hull, and the V shape sides, if you shoot the track it won’t deal damage. Only when the T-22 is far over-angled will there be a chance to both track and deal damage to the tank, however in general its just best to not try and track the T-22.

Gun

The T-22 Medium mounts a 100mm gun

-Reload time is 5.5s, with an alpha damage of 310, giving it 3398 DPM
-Penetration is 240mm on AP, 300mm on HEAT, and 50mm on HE
–Estimated aim time is 3.1/3.4s
–Base aim time is 2.3s, but it can get down to 1.87s.
-Dispersion is 0.308/0.277 depending on equipment.
–Gun handling is 0.1/0.1/0.06, and it can be improved to 0.09/0.09/0.05 with Vertical Stabilizer. 
-Gun depression is-6 degrees. 

Overall this gun is good in most regards. It has good DPM, a quick reload, good HEAT penetration, amazing gun handling, good dispersion, and decent estimated aim time.
Its only downsides are its fairly low standard penetration, and its poor base aim time (explained here).
The gun depression is average for a USSR medium, but the T-22 is a just slightly taller than the other -6 tanks.

Overall the gun is good and consistent, but you have to take the time to aim, otherwise you may find yourself missing many shots, though it is great at snapshotting.

Mobility

-Top speed is 56km/h, and 20km/h in reverse
-Acceleration is 35.6 hp/t on hard terrain and 26.8 hp/t on medium terrain.
-Traverse speed is 61.2 deg/s on hard terrain and 45.9 deg/s on medium terrain.
-Ground resistances are 0.6/0.8/1.2

Overall the T-22 has good mobility. It has a high acceleration rate and great top speed, however its hull turning rate is slow for a medium. Overall the tank will feel fast but not agile.

In battle you will definitely notice the slow traverse, and it may catch you off-guard and make it hard to maneuver. Its not a crippling downside of the tank, but it can take some getting used to if you are accustomed to quick traverse on mediums.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

T-22 has no special provisions/consumables.

Gun Rammer/Calibrated Shells:
Both gun rammer and calibrated shells can work on this tank. Gun rammer is much better for brawling against medium tanks, calibrated shells is better for penetrating heavier armoured tanks or enemies in hulldown positions.

Gun rammer would improve the tank’s reload and DPM, from a 5.9s reload with 3161 DPM, down to a 5.5s reload with 3398 DPM.

Calibrated shells would worsen the reload to 5.9s and DPM to 3161, but improve penetration. AP increases from 240mm up to 252mm, HEAT from 300mm to 330mm, and HE from 50mm to 55mm.

Enhanced armour:
T-22 is an armour-focused tank. it trades quite a lot in term of mobility (traverse) and gun (DPM/penetration) in order to gain very strong turret armour, side armour, and a troll upper plate.

The tank also has quite good base HP of 1850, 50 above the majority of mediums. Due to these reasons, its better to use enhanced armour, since the tank’s gameplay is quite reliant on that armour.

Enhanced armour would improve the effective armour:
-Upper plate from 250mm to 260mm on weakest point.
-Lower plate from 260mm to 270mm.
-Base side armour from 80mm to 83mm.

Turret armour is also overall improved.

This armour improvement just makes the T-22’s armour (hull especially) more troll and harder to deal with. It makes the biggest difference against tanks with APCR as standard ammo, or with 245mm or less on AP.

Improved Control:
T-22 Medium has the perfect combination of stats for it to benefit more from improved control than from engine accelerator. Its traverse speed, particularly on medium terrain, is quite poor for a medium tank, meanwhile its acceleration both on medium and hard terrain are very good.

As the tank already has superb acceleration, it doesn’t suffer in getting to its top speed, and the improved traverse speed will actually help the tank to maintain its speed when it turns, making the T-22’s overall mobility improved.

Enhanced Gun Laying Drive:
The T-22 has the worst base aim time of any tier 10 medium tank, even worse than all the tanks that have higher alpha damage.

Gun laying drive is the only equipment piece that’s actually able to improve base aim time, and this is definitely needed, as its the T-22’s worst accuracy-related gun stat.

Vertical Stablizer:
Refined gun can work on this tank due to its superb 0.1/0.1/0.06 gun handling, though it would mean you have to aim in for slightly longer on enemies.

Since the T-22 has fairly mediocre aim time, vertical stabilizer really helps the tank to hit more snap shots, but also just retain more accuracy when its moving and when it stops to aim in. Since the T-22 is quite an active medium and constantly moving, vertical stabilizer is often more noticeable than refined gun.

Gameplay advice

The T-22 is essentially just a regular medium tank, but it has some side armour with can allow for slightly different gameplay.

Other than the special armour use, the T-22 plays similarly to most other mediums with 5-7 degrees of gun depression and a strong turret. You brawl on the medium flank, try to out-trade enemies by using DPM, flank enemies, cap bases, etc.

Sidescraping (image below):
If you sidescrape in the T-22, make sure to fully hide your front plates behind cover. This tank can sidescrape very well, but it can’t expose itself to shoot for long, as then enemies will just shoot your upper plate.

While you wait to reload pull forward and hide the upper plates, then reload, reverse out (sidescraping), shoot, then pull forward again to hide the front plate.

Reverse sidescrape (image below):
Reverse sidescraping is where you turn the hull around, so the rear is actually facing the building. Then you turn the hull slightly as you would in a sidescrape, and go round the corner to shoot enemies.

This is not the most practical tactic to use in battle, due to you having to turn the hull completely around, but it is by far the most effective way to get bounces, and the tank becomes practically invincible when doing this. 

Again, left image is a “regular” reverse sidescrape, the right image is the angle that the T-22 can achieve with its V-shape hull.

Note that for any sidescrape, if you do angle to the full extent of the T-22’s armour, even though it will bounce all AP and APCR, it can still be penetrated by HEAT ammunition. Its still best to try use only the necessary amount of angling, as most tanks in tier 10 do have HEAT as premium ammunition.

Wiggling the hull:
This is not the best tactic in this tank, all it does is let the enemy know exactly what you’re doing, as you’re repeating an action in a very predictable manner. This give enemies a very easy opportunity to shoot either your front or your sides, because all they have to do is wait for you to give them the perfect angle to penetrate.
What you want to do when facing an enemy, is to be unpredictable while showing the side armour. Never just show your front without angling the sides, and try to zig-zag if you are driving towards the enemy, it will keep the sides at changing angles while also making the front of the tank harder to aim for.

Go hulldown:
Use the turret, the T-22 has the strongest turret on any tier 10 medium tank. Use it in hulldown positions and hide the hull behind some cover.
Alternatively, you can sidehug large enemy heavy tanks (such as Maus or E 100) so that they can only aim at your turret, keep moving back and forth, giving them no chance to hit the hull.

Aim shots:
Due to great gun handling, you can easily hit many mid and close range shots without even aiming, you don’t even need to use vertical stabilizer to achieve this result.

However, in battle you will have to take long range shots, especially if you flank around enemies, or are on a map with very separated flanks (such as Castilla, Alpenstadt, Naval Frontier). For these long range shots, you MUST stop and take time to aim. As stated before, the T-22’s base aim time is quite mediocre for a tier 10 MT, so even though its gun doesn’t bloom out much on move, and its aiming reticle is small, when it comes to actually aiming, the T-22 has to wait longer than other tanks for the aim circle to be fully aimed in.

Use gun depression:

As shown in the above image, the tank’s armour is much stronger when using even a small amount of gun depression.

Its shown here against 250mm AP (left image) and 330mm HEAT (right image), and the T-22 is only using 1-2 degrees of its gun depression.

Even using a small amount of gun depression makes the hull armour much stronger and very hard for enemies to penetrate with standard ammo. Don’t angle the armour when using gun depression, as it will make one of the upper plates weaker.

Use correct armour angling:
Against low penetration tanks (tanks with 220-245mm AP penetration), don’t angle the hull, keep it flat and head-on to the enemy gun. This will be the point where both frontal armour plates are the strongest, and you’re most likely to bounce the enemy.
This also applies when facing tanks which use APCR as standard ammo, since they have less normalization than AP, and your armour will be more effective.

Against higher penetration tanks, (250-260mm+ AP penetration), angle the hull. This is better than keeping the hull head-on to the enemy, since this level of penetration will have no problem to go through both of your frontal upper plates.
Angling will make one of the upper plates much stronger (rather than both being weak), and expose the side armour, which may bait shots from enemies.

---

Other than using its special armour layout, just play the T-22 like a regular medium tank. Apply its armour strengths to your regular medium gameplay and you should be able to do very well in the tank.

Overall

Armour – 7.5/10
Gun – 5.5/10
Mobility – 6.5/10
Speed – 7/10

T-22 Medium is overall a good tank.

Armour is great for a MT, the turret is strong and sides are very good. Upper plate is good against some enemies, and can be angled to troll any enemy. Sidescraping is very effective. Tank is almost fully HE/HESH proof.
Gun has good accuracy, gun handling, but mediocre aim time and standard penetration. Reload is quick and premium penetration is good. DPM is decent. Gun depression is mediocre.
Mobility is good, a strong engine and high acceleration rate, though fairly slow traverse speed on medium terrain. Reverse speed is average.
Speed is good, 56km/h.

Is it worth getting?

The T-22 Medium is worth getting for medium tank players who want a challenge. This tank is not easy to play, its low penetration and overall trollish gun can be frustrating to the player, the large size, slow traverse, and poor gun depression can make the tank very awkward to play. 

Its definitely not a beginner friendly tank, and takes some definite skill to get right; for this reason its really not worth it to most players.
The main feature of the tank is its V shape hull, and that’s the only reason for anyone to buy this tank. If you aren’t interested in the V-shape hull and using that side armour, do not buy this tank as all the other areas are just worse than similar MT with normal armour layouts.

16,000 gold is a reasonable price for the tank on its own (15k is standard tier X price). Anything above that is overpaying, if the tank is in a bundle with camo for 17.5-20k gold, this is also a reasonable price as the camo with attachment are worth 6,550 gold.

The tank itself can be sold for 7,500 gold as it is a collector vehicle.

Most recently sold for:

22,500 gold (Full bundle w/camo & attachment), 17,500 gold (tank only) – September 2022
22,500 gold (Full bundle w/camo & attachment), 20,000 gold (tank only) – March 2023
17,500 gold (Starting price), 13,000 gold (Final price) in Auction – August 2023

Camo cost:

Misunderstandings about the T-22

Size:
The T-22 is a large medium tank, its hull is about the same dimensions as an IS-4. This can be a bit limiting in battle, as the long hull occasionally extends round a corner where you don’t expect it to. It also impedes in overall mobility, as the slow hull turn rate combined with large and long size make it a bit more awkward to drive.
The silver lining is the troll side armour angling, because as long as your tank is angled a little bit, still many shots will bounce off, even if you accidentally extend it around a corner or you drive into an obstacle.

Aim time:
T-22 has very poor base aim time, its by far the worst part of the T-22’s gun, and its not helped by the fact that it also has fairly low shell velocity of 1,002m/s on AP.

Note that base aim time and the estimated aim time shown in game are different things, its explained in-depth here.

To understand and use the gun properly, you MUST know why and how the aim time affects your aiming compared to the other stats.

Basically the T-22 is a very accurate tank due to its gun handling and dispersion, and it can move around actively without its gun blooming out too much. However, when it does actually have to aim its shots in, that aim time will feel a lot worse than on other mediums, as the base aim time (the rate at which the circle shrinks) is longer than on any other tier 10 medium tank.

Status:
The T-22 Medium is not an enriched tank like the other tier 10 collector tanks, its just a regular reward vehicle. It has an 81% credit coefficient, so it doesn’t make more credits than tech tree tanks

Overpowered?
Old T-22:
T-22 medium was considered overpowered for years after its initial 2018 release, this is because when it first entered the game, such “reverse angling” like on the T-22’s sides was a completely new concept to all Blitz players. This meant T-22 players could essentially just yolo in and get away with murder, because so few players know how to penetrate it.

It was also one of 3 tier 10 mediums with over 3500 DPM, other than the T-62A, Obj. 140, and T-22 Medium, every other tier 10 MT had around 3200-3300 DPM, another point which was strong about the tank.

Heavy tanks also had 10-20% less HP when the T-22 was released, so the tank’s DPM advantage along with its good HP was amplified even more (For example, T-22 had 1850 base HP, a WZ-113 had 2000 base HP, and the highest HP tank in the game was the Maus with 2500 base HP).

Current T-22:
Now its not overpowered. Not because WG nerfed the tank, but because time has passed. Players now know how to deal with T-22 Mediums much easier, not only because the tank became less rare so players faced them more, but also because players learned to not just randomly shoot the side armour without aiming.

Tier 10 meta has also changed, now with most mediums having over 3400 DPM, heavy tanks having 10-20% more HP, and many heavies also having higher DPM.

The tank is still a great vehicle, and its armour has not become any less effective, so it has kept its main strength and feature though the years, but powercreep and player knowledge has caught up with the tank and it is no longer OP.

Back to homepage