T 55A

The T 55A is a hybrid nation tier 9 medium tank. It features good all-rounder stats, with decent overall armour, decent overall mobility, and a pretty good gun with great DPM.

Armour

vs 240mm AP (left image), 290mm HEAT (right image)
Flat ground:
Upper plate 235mm
Lower plate 180mm

Turret 370mm+ (weakest point 260mm left/right of gun)
Cupola 160mm

Armour vs tier 8 enemies:
The T 55A’s upper plate will be strong against most mediums, as its effective thickness is between 205-210mm when faced against AP shells.

Against higher penetration tanks, such as heavies, the upper plate will need to be angled or using gun depression to be able to bounce such enemies reliably.

When using gun depression, both the upper plate and turret are very strong, and most enemies won’t even be able to penetrate with premium ammo.

Armour vs 9-10 enemies:
Against tier 9-10 tanks, the upper plate is easily penetrable, the only situations where it will bounce are if its over-angled, or using its -6 gun depression.

The turret is very strong, and to penetrate it, enemies will have to shoot to the bottom left/right of the gun. These are both small weakpoints for such a tank, and will be quite hard to hit if you are at distance or don’t sit still.

Gun

The T 55A mounts a 100mm gun

-Alpha damage is 310 on AP, 260 on HEAT, and 420 on HE
-The reload time is 5.9s, giving the tank 3156 DPM
-Penetration is 219mm on AP, 270mm on HEAT, and 50m on HE
-Aim time is 3.3/3.6s
–Estimated aim time is 3.3/3.6s
–Base aim time is 2.3s, but it can get down to 1.87s.
-Dispersion is 0.317/0.285
–Gun Handling is 0.11/0.11/0.06, or 0.09/0.09/0.05 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -6, this is over the whole tank, even the rear.

Note that the AP rounds have poor penetration loss over distance: 11.42%, so these shells lose 6.26mm of penetration every 100m travelled (up to 500m, where penetration levels off at 194mm).

This gun is overall just a great weapon for a tier 9 medium. It has the highest DPM for a tier 9 MT, with a quick reload and decent alpha damage. Accuracy and gun handling are both good, however the aim time is fairly unimpressive.

The only aspects which it really lacks are HEAT penetration and gun depression; however this is quite a common trait among tier 9 mediums, and its gun depression is noticeably better than the T-54 and WZ-120.

Mobility

-Top speed 56km/h forwards, and 20km/h in reverse.
-Traverse speed is 65.2deg/s on hard terrain, and 59.3 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In-game acceleration is shown as 23hp/t, with a strong 805 horsepower engine for its 35 ton weight.
-Acceleration is very good, having 23hp/t on hard terrain and 20.9hp/t on medium terrain.
–Ground resistances are 1/1.1/1.6

This is overall a good mobility profile. The top speed is quite high, the traverse speed is good, and the tank has a strong raw acceleration rate, and a pretty good effective acceleration rate. Overall the T 55A is a fairly mobile tank

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

T 55A has no special provisions or consumables.

Gun Rammer/Calibrated Shells:
While the penetration of this tank on its HEAT rounds is not the most impressive, most of the time you will be on the medium flank, fighting mediums (which have less armour than heavies).

Its best to play this tank using gun rammer first, after player 5-10 battles, if you really feel that the tank must have more penetration, then switch over to calibrated shells.

Calibrated shells will take the penetration on AP from 219mm up to 230mm, HEAT from 270mm up to 297mm, and HE from 50mm to 55mm

Gun rammer will improve the reload time from 6.3s down to 5.9s, and DPM from 2935 up to 3156.

Improved Assembly/Enhanced Armour:
While the T 55A has quite good turret and upper plate armour, it doesn’t reapply play the role of an armoured tank. Generally the turret is strong enough against most enemies without any enhancing, and the hull usually isn’t worth relying on.

Improved assembly would take the tank’s decent 1650 base HP up to 1749.

Vertical Stabilizer:
There is no need to use refined gun on this tank, as it is not a sniper medium tank. Having better gun accuracy while its moving is more important to tanks like the T 55A than having good long-range accuracy, since it plays a fairly active role in battle.

Use the vertical stabilizer to have a more consistent gun on movement and right after movement, this is more beneficial for the playstyle of the tank.

Gameplay advice

The T 55A is just a standard medium tank, it plays almost identically to the T-54.

For veteran players, the current version of the T 55A may feel similar to the original versions of the T-62A and Obj.140 when they both had -5/-6 gun depression, strong turrets, and 310 alpha; just as a tier 9 version of that.

General gameplay:
Play the T 55A just as a regular medium, use the great mobility and get up to the medium tank frontline. From the medium flank, you just play it like a typical Russian medium tank. Though you don’t have the best gun depression, your turret is strong, you DPM is high, accuracy is good, and reload is fast. There are many similar USSR medium tanks, and this should be quite easy to get used to.

Go hulldown:
The T 55A has a relatively small size profile, so it can use quite a few hulldown positions, such as behind walls, small piles of rubble, barriers, etc. Its strong turret with small weakpoints means its easy to get bounces, as long as you don’t just sit still in front of the enemy guns.

Move back and fourth slightly to throw off the enemies aim, and make them hopefully miss and hit the red areas around the weakpoint.

Use gun depression:
6 degrees of gun depression isn’t much (but at least better than the T-54), but it doesn’t mean that you can still use it and shoot at enemies over ridges. There is a guide for how to properly do this in tanks with poor gun depression here.

Trade in DPM, not alpha:
The T 55A has very good DPM and the quickest reload for a tier 9 medium tank. When playing against enemies, you should try to shoot them at least twice for each time that they shoot you, this way you will always come out on top in terms of damage dealt. Other than autoloaders, no tier 9 tank has a quicker reload then the T 55A.

Note the times it takes for you to do X amount of shots, compared to the reload of enemies. If you know this then you can trade more comfortably and know when to avoid the enemy’s damage.
2 shots, 620 damage = 5.9s
3 shots, 930 damage = 11.8s
4 shots, 1240 damage = 17.7s

Sharply angle the hull:
Though the hull armour isn’t too amazing when facing head-on, there is no reason you shouldn’t utilize it when you need to poke a corner. You can turn the hull sharply so it is at an angle that no enemy can penetrate, then use this and slightly poke around the corner. Sometimes enemies may get baited and shoot the upper or lower plate and bounce off.

Overall

Overall the T 55A is a good tank, it has good damage dealing capabilities with its high DPM and good accuracy. Its armour is decent, with a strong turret but a hull that’s weak to all standard ammo. Mobility is very good, having a great top speed, strong engine, and fast traverse.

The only real downsides of this tank are the fact its HEAT penetration is not the best.

Is it worth getting?

The T 55A is worth getting if you love the playstyle of Soviet medium tanks. Its a good all-rounder tank, with good stats in most areas where you’d want them.

This tank is not worth getting if you don’t really care too much about Soviet medium gameplay. Though the T 55A is different, even slightly better than the T-54 in some fairly significant ways, its differences are often not too hugely noticeable in gameplay. You can get essentially the same gameplay experience from the tech tree T-54.

The T 55A is worth 10,000 gold. Though it is very similar to the T-54, it does have some significant advantages which can make it stronger in battle. For example the quicker reload with higher DPM, having fewer and smaller turret weakpoints, and very importantly, an extra degree of gun depression. Its just a fairly good all-rounder tank, though it does very notably lack premium penetration.

Most recently sold for:

March 2023 (Full bundle)- £17.99
May 2023 (Full bundle)- £19.99

Camo cost:

T 55A is currently has no special camouflages

Historical note:

The T 55A is a Soviet tank, an upgraded version of the T-55 tank, which itself was an upgraded version of the T-54 tank. Between the 1960s and 1980s, T-54s and T-55s were used by East Germany, hence its German gun designation and its “hybrid nation” status.

The T 55A is clearly a real tank, but why is it in Blitz nation?
Wargaming for some reason could not decide on whether the T 55A is Soviet or German, so they just put it in the hybrid nation, for no real reason at all.

The tank in game should be in the German nation, other than its clearly German-named “100mm Panzerkanone D-10T2S L/56” gun, Wargaming’s own tankopedia says this:

“An upgraded version of the T-55 tank. The T 55A had a higher level of nuclear protection and no bow machinegun. From 1962 through 1970, about 1,800 of the T-55 and T 55A tanks were supplied to East Germany by the U.S.S.R.”

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