Tankenstein

Tankenstein is an amalgamation of tank parts. It has the hull of a Tiger P, the turret of a KV-4, and the guns of the SU-100Y and the T29. This tank has solid armour, slow mobility, and a choice of a big and small gun.

This was the first tank of WoT Blitz’s “stereotype Halloween character” tanks, clearly being inspired by Frankenstein.

1. Armour
2. Playing against a Tankenstein
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. Special features:

Armour

(The Tankenstein in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

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

When flat and facing head-on:
Upper plate 202mm
Mid plate 240mm
Lower plate 130mm
Turret 150-160mm
Mini turret on roof 155-230mm

2 armour choices:
Few tanks in the game get to choose their armour, but Tankenstein is one of them.
As it has the guns of the SU-100Y and the T29, it also uses their same gun mantlets.

With the SU-100Y’s 130mm gun, the mantlet is small but its effective thickness is over 280mm. Most of the turret is still 150mm as the mantlet is small and doesn’t cover it.

The T29’s 105mm gun gives much better turret protection, as the T29 has a much larger gun mantlet. Most of the turret is hidden behind the mantlet and there are only a few weakpoints. The effective thickness is over 480mm thick.

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

Armour vs tier 6: 
Most tier 6 tanks will struggle to penetrate even the turret of this tank.
The main weakpoint will be the lower plate, which most can penetrate with standard ammo, if using the 130mm then the turret can be penetrated by premium ammo.
The hull will withstand hits from nearly every tier 6 tank. Only TDs using premium ammo can penetrate it, and that’s if its not angled.

Armour vs tier 7: 
The hull is still very strong, even most tanks using premium ammo will be unable to penetrate it, and if its angled then only the highest penetration TDs will have a chance to penetrate. If using the 130mm gun then all tier 7 HT and many MT will be able to penetrate the turret without needing premium ammo.

Armour vs tier 8: 
HT in tier 8 will easily penetrate the upper plate of the Tankenstein if its not angled, if it is angled then they will be able to penetrate with premium ammo.

The turret with the T29 gun will be strong against any enemy as long as you’re careful with exposing weakpoints.

The turret with the SU-100Y gun will be weak to every enemy so play it like it has no turret armour.

Playing against a Tankenstein

First thing you should do is to take note of what gun the tank is using, it will change how you engage the tank.
-If the Tankenstein is using the 130mm gun, then the turret will be weak and it will have poor gun depression, however it will hit you very hard and is quite accurate.
-If the Tankenstein is using the 105mm gun, then its turret will be very strong and you will need to shoot its weakpoints, it will have good gun depression as well. This gun has much less alpha and is less accurate relative to that lower alpha.

-Tankenstein’s turret sides are 120mm thick, so even if the turret is turned to the side or completely away from you, don’t aim carelessly. The turret also has a very good 31.6 deg/s traverse speed so the angles can change quickly.

Hulldown weakpoints:
-With the T29’s 105mm gun, the mantlet covers the fairly weak turret face. There are still weakpoints though, the two bottom corners of the turret are weakpoints that are always there, even when using gun depression.

-Be careful of shooting the mini-turret on the roof of the tank, it has very strong cheeks, and if the tank is moving then its easy to miss the weak middle.
Make sure to hit it as central as possible, the mini-turret has armour angling which makes it 230mm thick near the top and bottom.
When the tank is using its -8 gun depression, the mini-turret is almost fully hidden, and the part that is visible is very thin, hard to hit, and 280mm thick. Its not the best weakpoint to aim for, instead try to hit the turret’s lower corners.

-If the Tankenstein player is careful, they can extend over a ridge using the full -8 gun depression, hiding the hatch, but also hiding the lower turret area under the ridge by not over-extending. It would hide all turret weakpoints, leaving only a 480mm thick mantlet area to shoot at.

Sidescraping:
-If the Tankenstein is sidescraping, the best way to penetrate it is to just use premium ammo.
Try and hit the “cheeks” of the upper plate, where the hull is half angled; when sidescraping this is the flattest part of the armour. 

If you are completely unable to penetrate, you can try to shoot the hull underflaps with AP (shown in image below). Here it is 25mm, so all 76mm+ guns will be able to overmatch it.
Alternatively try and splash HE at the turret base or just above the tracks, as the hull deck is 25mm as well, and both of these will take big HE damage, even if its only a splash.

It is best not to wait for it to expose itself to shoot (and thus show its weak turret), as you are likely to take a 530 damage hit in return, and with the tanks in tiers 6-8 its very unlikely that you out-trade the Tankenstein.
If its using the T29 gun then you will likely take 310 damage and bounce off the thick gun mantlet. Even if you do hit your shot in the turret weakpoints, ideally you don’t want to just trade away your HP, that would be a last resort situation.

Gun

The Tankenstein can choose between 2 guns, the American T29 gun with 310 alpha, or the Soviet gun from the SU-100Y with 530 alpha.

T29’s 105mm gun:
-Reload time is 10.4s for 310 alpha, giving it 1796 DPM
-Penetration is 198mm on AP, 245mm on APCR, and 53mm on HE
–Estimated aim time is 4.2/4.5s
–Base aim time is 2.5s, but it can get down to 2.04s.
-Dispersion is 0.380/0.340
–Gun handling is 0.23/0.23/0.16, or 0.2/0.2/0.14 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -8 degrees

SU-100Y’s 130mm gun:
-Reload time is 16.8s
–Estimated aim time is 5.0/5.4s
–Base aim time is 2.9s, but it can get down to 2.36s.
-Dispersion is 0.407/0.367
–Gun handling is 0.23/0.23/0.2, and it can be improved to 0.2/0.2/0.17 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -6

There are 2 important ammo types on this gun, and they are the exact same as the SU-100Y.
-Standard AP which does 460 damage with 196mm penetration. DPM is 1639.
-Premium AP which does 530 damage with 171mm penetration. DPM is 1888.
The HE shell is just regular, it does 600 damage with 65mm penetration.

This means you should play the tank by using premium AP as your main ammo, and your standard AP as your “premium ammo” with higher penetration but less damage.

Which gun?
The better gun is the 130mm, this is explained in depth below.

Guns overall:
The T29’s 105mm gun has great penetration, nice gun depression, and pretty decent aim time and accuracy. For 310 alpha, its DPM is very low, and has poor gun handling.

The SU-100Y’s 130mm gun has great alpha damage & ammo choice, but a long reload, and no ammo with very good penetration (196mm is alright considering its AP, but not great).
Though the accuracy, handling, and aim time seem terrible, they actually aren’t too bad, especially compared to tanks with 400 alpha, the Tankenstein’s gun isn’t as derpy as it looks on paper. Gun depression isn’t great, but is still perfectly usable.

Mobility

The gun choice also affects the tank’s mobility stats, its not by much and you really won’t notice it while playing, but the stats are different nonetheless.

T29’s 105mm gun:
-Acceleration rate is 10.1 hp/t on hard terrain, and 8.1 hp/t on medium terrain.
-Traverse speed is 24.9 deg/s on hard terrain,  and 19.9 deg/s on medium terrain

SU-100Y’s 130mm gun:
-Acceleration rate is with 9.7 hp/t on hard terrain, and 7.8 hp/t on medium terrain.
-Traverse speed is 23.9 deg/s on hard terrain, and 19.1 deg/s on medium terrain

-For both guns the top speed is good at 35km/h, and reverse speed is quite a slow -12km/h.
–Terrain resistances are very average, with 1.2/1.5/1.9

For both guns, the tank’s acceleration is slow, and traverse speed is low. The Tankenstein is amongst the 3 least mobile tier 7 heavy tanks, however its thick all-round armour and hefty weight do justify it.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Tankenstein has no special provisions/consumables.

Gun Rammer:
It doesn’t matter which gun you use, both have low DPM, and both also have high penetration. There isn’t any need to be using calibrated shells, and doing so would really cripple the tank.

Using the gun rammer gives you decent DPM on the 105mm at 1796, its still fairly low for 310 alpha, but the high penetration means you can be quite effective with each shot.

The 130mm gets a very good 1888 DPM (with its premium AP). The good shot consistency of this gun, and and strong armour of the tank make the 16.8s reload manageable.

Enhanced armour:
The Tankenstein has the 2nd highest HP pool in tier 7, sitting at a base 1600 HP. It does not need any extra health, especially as its a tank that’s heavily armour focussed.

Enhanced armour will increase the hull thickness from 202mm up to about 211mm, which makes a significant difference when you face tier 7 premium ammo or tier 8 guns.
It also increases the turret face thickness from 155mm up to 161mm, which makes it harder for same tier MT and lower tier tanks to penetrate.

Engine Accelerator:
Though the Tankenstein has one of the worst traverse speeds in game, the engine accelerator is still the better equipment piece. Improved control will only improve traverse speeds by about 0.5 deg/s on all terrain types, which is such a small change that its definitely not worth losing engine power for.

The engine accelerator gives the Tankenstein an extra 0.5 hp/t of effective acceleration which is very important for helping it reach its good 35km top speed.

Vertical Stabilizer:
The Tankenstein is a heavy tank, it fights in close ranges and not at long distances. The vertical stabilizer makes the Tankenstein much more accurate in these close range fights, and makes the gun more consistent with its aiming when and after its moved.

The aim time on both guns is already fairly long, and accuracy is unimpressive on both, so generally you won’t get the time to fully aim in, and actually take advantage of the improved accuracy that refined gun gives. The vertical stabilizer is helpful in all situations for a heavy tank, so use that.

Gameplay advice

Which gun?
You would think that the best gun is the 105mm, clearly it has the better DPM, accuracy, penetration, and gun depression. It even gives way more armour on the turret and slightly better mobility.

The 105mm gun:
This would be the gun you use if you want boring and sometimes frustrating gameplay.
Relative to its alpha damage, the 105mm is a lot less accurate than the 130mm, it misses a lot and you have to aim for quite long.

It also has much longer reload and lower DPM than other tier 7 HT with 105mm guns. Even though this is shown in-game to have better DPM than the 130mm gun, it doesn’t.
The 130mm gun fires premium ammo as standard since it has higher alpha and lower pen, and this isn’t shown in-game.

The best gun is the 130mm gun:
Not only is it a lot more fun and exciting, but its also generally more effective.

For its alpha damage of 530, its much more accurate than it really should be. Its gun handling and dispersion are only marginally worse than guns that do 400 alpha damage, and the Tankenstein has much better aim time than those guns.

The 130mm gun is very consistent, and it forces you to be careful with your shots as your reload is 16.8 seconds. Even though the gun hits hard and fairly accurately, the reload is still balanced.

Dealing 530 alpha in tier 7 is very effective, it can out-trade nearly every tank from tier 6-8, and when you have such strong armour and high HP, Tankenstein is able to easily absorb hits like its nothing.

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Gameplay for 105mm gun:
The 105mm gun plays just like you expect. Its a heavy tank with strong armour everywhere except the lower plate, its got loads of side armour to sidescrape and good gun depression to use and go hulldown with.
The gun is typical of heavies, decent alpha, a 10s reload, good penetration, and ok accuracy. Mobility is quite poor but it has armour all over to justify it.

This gun is all about hulldown gameplay, if you don’t use this gun in hulldown and gun depression positions, then there is no point playing it, as the 130mm gun does better in other scenarios.

Use hills and ridges to hide the mini-turret on top of the tank and only show your extremely strong turret. Shoot, reverse, reload, shoot again; you can’t out-DPM anything as the Tankenstein’s 105mm gun has the lowest DPM in tier 7.

Gameplay for 130mm gun:
The 130mm is all about trading shots and peek-a-boom playstyle.
You shoot at enemies (ideally while sidescraping or hiding the lower plate) and then hide. Only 4 tanks in tier 7 can out-trade you, and every single one of them has worse penetration.

Avoid all-out engagements, as every tier 7 tank has a faster reload than this 130mm gun, meaning that even if your DPM isn’t much worse than an enemy (for example an IS only has 12 more DPM), they will still be able to confidently shoot you twice before you are reloaded (that IS has a 4.2s faster reload).

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Tankenstein needs support from allies no matter which gun it uses, one has actually low DPM but a faster reload, the other has decent DPM but the longest reload in the tier.

While its armour can hold itself, that’s only when you control the situation. If enemies decide to rush you, then you need to be careful and start turning the hull before they reach you, the sides are strong, but not when they are flat, and the tank turns really slowly.

Overall

For the 105mm gun:
Armour – 9.5/10
Gun – 5/10
Mobility – 4.5/10
Speed – 5/10

With the 105mm gun it has very solid armour on both its hull and turret, even most tier 8 tanks are unable to penetrate it when its hull is angled. The gun depression is good and penetration is high, though its aim time isn’t the best and DPM is low for its alpha. For the armour it has, the mobility isn’t bad and it is able to utilize its 35km top speed.

For the 130mm gun:
Armour – 7.5/10
Gun – 7.5/10
Mobility – 4/10
Speed – 5/10

With the 130mm gun, Tankenstein still a solid tank. Its got the same amazing hull armour, and though the turret is weaker, you are still able to bounce many same and lower tier opponents, and troll higher tier tanks with the ell angled turret edges or the strong (but small) mantlet.
The penetration is still very good, and it has very high alpha with much better accuracy and aim time for it. Again the mobility isn’t terrible considering the armour, though the gun depression isn’t great.

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Keep in mind, if you compare Tankenstein to the other 2 “high alpha” tier 7 HT: Smasher and Annihilator, those two tanks are OP. Their guns make the Tankenstein look “bad”, where in fact Tankenstein is just well balanced, so it doesn’t have ultra good OP statistics. The stats of this tank are still good when you take the OP tanks out of the comparison.

Note that this tank can be very hard for some players to get used to, if you hate long reloads then you will probably not enjoy the 130mm gun, and even the 105mm gun has a long reload for its alpha. If you hate slow turning tanks, then similarly its very unlikely you will enjoy the Tankenstein.

However if you can tolerate both then the Tankenstein is a unique combination modules and statistics which make it a very interesting and quite fun tank to play.

Is it worth getting?

Tankenstein is very unique, its made from the parts of 4 different tanks, so it really doesn’t play like anything else in the game.

The best comparison for its gameplay would be like a tier 7 version of an E 75 or E 100, as its fairly slow but has a good top speed, has decent accuracy with huge alpha (130mm gun), strong armour, and a large HP pool.

If this looks like the kind of tank you would enjoy, then it is worth getting. If the 105mm gun is what you think you would prefer on the tank, then its better to buy an M6A2E1 instead, as this tank is all about the 130mm gun.

Tankenstein is worth 6,500 gold. Its quite rare and many players aren’t too aware of what the tank actually is before buying it, so often it can get sold out before reaching this price in auctions (the most common place for it to be sold, its quite rare to appear in the in-game store).

Most recently sold for:

Halloween 2015 release – October 2015
Mad Games event – October 2018
15,000 gold – October 2019
Blitzfair auction – December 2020
Halloween tank crates – October 2021
Blitzfair auction – 2021
7,500 gold – February 2022
Halloween tank crates – October 2022
2,500 gold – October 2022
3,500 gold – August 2023

Camo cost:

Special features:

Halloween tanks often have special built-in features, sometimes they are intentional, sometimes they aren’t; some are visual, some are in statistics.

-The intended feature of the Tankenstein is mainly that its comprised of parts from many tanks,  and it gets a choice of 2 guns.

However, in 2021 WG changed it to have a more prominent “feature” of an undead crew. This means that the crew won’t be damaged in any way, even if they are hit directly by a huge HE shell.

-Tankenstein used to have constant flames coming from its exhausts, however it was removed without any reason in 2021. It will return in a future update, WG has confirmed that the flames stopped working due to a bug and the developers will fix it in the future.

-Currently Tankenstein’s exhausts are similar to the Gravedigger’s.
It will shoot thick black smoke when its turning or moving very slowly, generally 2-4km/h. As you accelerate faster than this the smoke sputters out and then disappears entirely. While moving above this speed it has no smoke at all (this is because, its meant to produce flames while moving at speed, bit they aren’t there due to a bug which WG hasn’t yet fixed).