Type 59

Last updated 01 March 2026

Type 59 is a tier 8 Chinese medium tank. Its features good all-round traits for a medium, with reliable armour, good mobility, and a decent gun.

Armour

(The Type 59 in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

Drag slider right -> to view 185mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 245mm APCR

Drag slider right -> to view 210mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 259mm APCR

Armour when flat and facing head-on:
Upper plate 220-230mm
Lower plate 195mm
Turret 285-800mm+ (weakest points 220-240mm)
Cupolas 210-360mm+

Side armour:
87mm flat, small turret ring weakpoint.

vs 210mm AP (top image), 259mm APCR (bottom image)
Using -7 gun depression:

-Upper plate 290-306mm
-Turret 300-800mm+ (weakest point 230-250mm)

Armour performance:

Strong areas:
-Turret is very strong against all enemies.
-Upper plate is strong to all enemies when using gun depression. On flat ground its strong only against lower penetration tier 8 tanks when angled or at range.
-Lower plate is strong against only tier 7 enemies, especially when slightly angled.

Main weakpoints:
-Lower plate is weak against almost all tier 8-9 tanks in all situations, unless over-angled.
-Turret cheeks next to the gun are penetrable by tier 8-9 premium ammo.
-Cupolas are fairly weak to most same tier ammo.

Gun

Firepower:
-Caliber: 100mm
-Ammo: AP/APCR/HE
-Penetration: 181/241/50mm.
-Alpha damage: 280/240/350
-Reload time: 7.5s
-DPM: 2245

Handling:
–Estimated aim time is 3.1/3.3s
–Base aim time is 2s, but it can get down to 1.52s.
-Dispersion is 0.353/0.300
–Gun handling is 0.14/0.14/0.08, or 0.12/0.12/0.07 with Vertical Stabilizer.

Usability:
-Shell velocities are 900/1125/900 m/s.
-Gun depression is -7 degrees around the entire tank, except the rear where its -3.

Overall this is a decent gun. While its dispersion is rather poor for the alpha, the good aim time & gun handling help to make up for it. The DPM & alpha damage are decent but not above avergae, and penetration is among the lower end of tier 8 mediums.
Overall this gun isn’t anything too impressive and doesn’t stand out among similar 100mm guns, what makes it work is the combination with the armour & mobility.

Mobility

Raw stats:
-Forward speed is 56km/h.
-Reverse speed is -20km/h.
-Raw acceleration rate is 18.1 hp/t.
-Engine power is 650hp for its 36 ton weight.

Hard terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 22.6 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 62 deg/s.

Medium terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 21.2 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 58 deg/s.

Terrain resistance stats:
–Terrain resistances are 0.8/0.95/1

Type 59 has good mobility considering the armour it has. Its acceleration and top speed are both above average, and its traverse speed is good. In tier 8 its definitely one of the best armoured mediums for its level of mobility (but in the scope of all mediums its among the slightly above average for mobility).

Since the variation across terrains is so little, the Type 59 is able to even drive in water and it loses very little mobility.

Special mechanics

The Type 59 has the Adaptive Concealment mechanic.

Overall this is a very good mechanic for a medium tank, as it allows you to control any situation very easily. The red eye mechanic shows you who you’re spotted by, and is an instant notification, not delayed like the spotting lightbulb.

The 7s unspotting time also allows you to easily run away from situations, or just go unspotted before you finish reloading, allowing you to mitigate damage to your tank.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

Type 59 has no special consumables or provisions.

Gun Rammer:
Since the Type 59’s penetration is decent enough (in most situations the tank doesn’t struggle to penetrate enemies it faces), calibrated shells isn’t really needed. For the most part you fight against medium tanks, and hence don’t need high penetration.
Its more beneficial to use gun rammer, as the DPM of this tank is nothing special, and worsening its reload for more penetration just isn’t useful in the majority of battles.

Improved Optics:
Type 59 has the joint best base view range for a tier 8 MT, with improved optics it has 296.5m, which allows the tank to spot tanks at a more comfortable distance than most other mediums in tier 8.

Enhanced Armour:
Despite having fairly unimpressive base HP of 1370, the Type 59 has an emphasis on its good general armour as a medium tank, so using enhanced armour does actually benefit the tank massively. It allows the tank to bounce more on its lower plate when facing tier 7s, bounce more on the upper plate against tier 8s, and bounce more tier 9s on the turret.

Enhanced Armour improves:
Upper plate from 220mm to 226mm.
Lower plate from 195mm to 201mm.
Weakest areas of turret from 220mm to 230mm.

vs 180 mm AP
Drag slider right -> to view Improved Assembly
Drag slider <- left to view Enhanced Armour

Refined Gun:
Due to the Type 59 having a mediocre accuracy of 0.353, it benefits much more from having refined gun than vertical stabilizer.
The Type 59 still has decent gun handling of 0.14/0.14/0.08, which isn’t bad for its 280 alpha. Refined gun will improve the dispersion from 0.353 to 0.300, which makes a huge difference to how effective you can be with this tank’s gun, especially at mid to long range.

Gameplay advice

Type 59 plays fairly similarly to the tech tree T-44, just with better mobility and much more armour, but a worse gun. Its a fairly easy medium to play once you get used to the constraints that the gun has, as its armour and mobility can really allow this tank to work very well.

General gameplay:
The Type 59 should be played just like it has the armour of a typical medium tank. Don’t rely too heavily on the armour, but it can be used very effectively if you know your enemy’s penetration.

Use the Type 59 on the medium flank, this is where the terrain is favourable, you can use the terrain to increase the armour while using gun depression, and be basically impenetrable to other medium tanks. Mediums also have lower penetration than heavies, so the Type 59’s durability is much higher when it faces enemy mediums.

Generally try to hide the lower plate, but if that’s not possible, then angle the hull. Lower penetration tanks will really struggle to penetrate the tank, as shown in the images below.

Angling the armour:
One very strong aspect of the Type 59 is the fact that its lower plate is strong, which allows it to easily bounce tier 7 mediums without much issue.

Against tier 8 tanks, like in the images below, your lower plate will be penetrable, but angling and wiggling the hull while driving at enemies or reversing into cover make the tank extremely troll to deal with. Often enemies will panic and shoot a red area of armour due to your movement of the tank.

Always try to use gun depression and/or go hulldown:
The strongest points of the Type 59 are the fact it has a rounded T-54 type of turret in tier 8, and it also gets an amazing -7 degrees of gun depression. The Type 59 can be extremely strong in hulldown positions due to this, and its one of the factors that helps to mitigate its quite lacklustre gun.

Trade in alpha damage:
When fighting any enemy, trade damage shot-for-shot. Don’t ever get into a DPM battle with any tank, the tanks with worse DPM than you either have autoloaders or higher damage per shot, and the tanks that have lower damage than you will have much faster reloads and higher DPM. The best way to win an engagement is to conserve HP and use the Type 59’s armour while it reloads, and only expose the tank when you have a shot loaded.

Aim shots:
Due to its fairly low DPM of 2100, and its slow aim time, you can’t afford to miss shots (which ruins the DPM more). If you want to deal damage when it matters, don’t risk rushing shot, just let the gun aim in properly.

With refined gun you actually have a pretty good dispersion of 0.300, which definitely helps with snapping in shots when you don’t have time to aim.

Sidescrape:
Tanks to having a very good 87mm of side armour, and 20mm of track armour, the Type 59 can sidescrape very effectively for a medium tank.

In these images, the Type 59 is over-angled, meaning its hull is past the 70 degree auto-ricochet angle.

The right image shows how premium APCR can penetrate the hull, but gets absorbed by the tracks.

Having a sharper angle while sidescraping would also easily bounce the APCR on the base armour of the right image.

Overall Type 59’s gameplay is quite a standard Chinese/Russian MT style of gameplay. Solid armour which allows you to use most positions very easily, good gun depression for going hulldown and holding positions, good speed to get to important places on the map, and overall a decent brawling and damage trading capacity in battles.

Overall

Armour – 9/10
Gun – 5.5/10
Mobility – 6/10
Speed – 7.5/10

Type 59 is overall a great tank.

Armour is strong on the upper plate, and hull sides, with a decent lower plate. The turret is very strong, and armour is easy to angle and use hulldown.
Gun has great gun depression, good gun handling, penetration & alpha. Aim time, reload, & DPM are fairly average, with unimpressive dispersion.
Mobility is good, a decent engine and great acceleration rate, with good traverse speeds. Reverse speed is average, great terrain resistances.
Speed is great, at 56km/h.

Is it worth getting?

Type 59 is worth it for players who like the Soviet/Chinese MT playstyle, having reliable armour and mobility. Type 59 differs slightly with its reliable overall armour with -7 gun depression compared to other similar tier 8s.

The Type 59 is worth 8,500 gold, it has very solid armour and mobility for a medium tank, which make it fairly easy to use. Equipping it correctly, you can mitigate the bad dispersion, have very good and easy-to-use armour, and comfortable DPM & alpha, making it a very good tank.

Price guide:

Prices you can expect the tank to be sold for, based on previous sales in store.
7,500 gold – Camo + equipment + tank.
5,500-6,000 gold – Tank only
4,500 gold – Auctions & discount events

Camo cost:

“Digital Trace” rare camo: 2D, costs 750 gold

“Qing Long” camo: 2D, costs 1,450 gold

“Ding” camo: 2D, costs 1,450 gold

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