Vipera

SMV CC 64 Vipera is a tier 8 Italian assault tank destroyer. It features strong frontal hull and turret armour with mediocre mobility. It has a “regular” gun with 400 alpha, but also a reserve shell mechanic.

1. Armour
2. Gun
3. Mobility
4. Equipment, provisions, & consumables
5. Gameplay advice
6. Tank gameplay:
7. Overall
8. Is it worth getting?
9. Most recently sold for:
10. Camo cost:

Armour

(The Vipera in the images is using Enhanced Armour)

Drag slider right -> to view 225mm AP
Drag slider <- left to view 265mm APCR

When flat and facing head-on:
Upper plate 270mm
Lower plate 140mm
Lower-lower plate 225mm

Turret face 265mm
Gun mantlet 270mm+
Turret cheeks 450mm+

Armour vs tier 7 tanks:
Against tier 7 enemies, the SMV has very strong armour. The weakest part is the lower plate, which is 140mm thick.

The lower-lower plate is strong against tier 7 due to their low penetration, and the upper plate and turret front both can’t be reliably penetrated by any tier 7 enemy.

Armour vs tier 8 tanks:
Facing tier 8, the armour is still good, the lower plate is the weakest point, and the lower-lower plate is weak to higher penetration enemies.

The turret front and hull front are both strong, and only HT and TDs have enough premium penetration to be able to go through it.

Armour vs tier 9 tanks:
In tier 9 the armour of the Vipera is still decent, it can bounce most standard ammo from most tier 9 tanks, especially when using gun depression. Tier 9 enemies won’t struggle to penetrate the Vipera with premium ammunition, and most can penetrate very easily, even when using full gun depression.

Gun

The Vipera mounts a 120mm auto-reloader gun.

All auto-reloaders have 3 firing modes (you won’t notice in battle, but it helps to understand the gun better). The Vipera is only able to use 2 of these firing modes, due to its small magazine size of 2 shells.

Single shot mode:
(Where you shoot one shell, reload, shoot….)
-The best DPM in “single shot mode” is on shell 1*
-Shell 1* has a 9.7s reload, giving the tank 2474 DPM in this mode.

Autoloader mode:
(Where you just unload 2 shells then reload back to full)
-Reload time from having 0 shells in the clip to having 2 shells in the clip takes 27.6s.
-Intra-clip is 2s with 2 x 400, giving the tank 1621 DPM if it shoots like an autoloader would (as in: fires 2 shells, reloads fully, then fires 2 shells, etc).

Auto-reloader mode:
As the Vipera only has 2 shells, and one of these shells is a “reserve” shell, it doesn’t have an “auto-reloader mode”.
The way this tank uses its gun is either as a single shot cyclic gun, or as a double shot autoloader. The reason for this can clearly be seen with the reload of each shell:
Shell 2* – 19.92s = 19.92s
Shell 1* – 7.7s (+2s) = 9.7s

*Shell 1 is the first shell you shoot when the magazine is fully loaded. Its the last shell that gets loaded into the magazine. Shell 2 is first shell that begins reloading when your magazine is empty, the last shell you shoot when its full.

Gun stats:
-Alpha damage is 400 on AP, 345 on APCR, and 515 on HE.
-Intra-clip reload is 2s with 2 shells, so it can deal 800 damage in 2s.
-Penetration on AP is 240mm, APCR is 290mm, and HE is 61mm.
–Estimated aim time is 3.9/4.1s
–Base aim time is 2.3s, but it can get down to 1.77s.
-Dispersion is 0.335/0.285
–Gun handling is 0.23/0.23/0.13, or 0.2/0.2/0.11 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -11 degrees
-Gun (turret) turn arc is +/- 60 degrees to the left/right.

Overall this is a good gun, it has good DPM with decent aim time & accuracy. The penetration is on the lower end of average for a TD. Gun handling is poor but made up for by the decent aim time & accuracy.

The best traits of this gun are its flexibility, the -11 gun depression allows you to easily use any hill or rigdeline position, and the 120 degree traverse arc of the turret is one of the most flexible for an armoured tier 8 TD.

Mobility

-Top speed is 35km/h forwards, and -14km/h in reverse.
-Traverse speed is 38.05 deg/s on hard terrain, and 25.4 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 12.8hp/t, it has a decent 667 horsepower engine for its 52 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 12.8 hp/t on hard terrain, and 8.6 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.5/1.8

Overall this mobility is mediocre. Its good on hard terrain due to great terrain resistances, it traverses fast, has decent acceleration, and can reach its top speed easily. On medium terrain its very slow, due to terrible terrain resistance; the tank turns very slowly and is very slow at accelerating.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

The Vipera has no special consumables or provisions.

Vents/Calibrated Shells:
Either is a good option on this tank and can work well. Vents help the tank to be generally better in accuracy, aim time, reload time (by roughly 0.3s), traverse, and view range. Vents is a good option if you want a more accurate gun with slightly more DPM.

Calibrated shells is a good option if you want to penetrate shots more consistently without needing premium ammo. Since the standard AP penetration of the Vipera isn’t impressive, calibrated shells is useful to improve its standard ammo consistency. Calibrated shells would increase AP penetraiton from 240mm to 250mm, APCR form 290mm to 305mm, and HE from 61mm to 66mm.

Enhanced Armour:
Due to the Vipera being an armoured assault TD, improving the armour of the tank is much more beneficial than improving the HP. One extra shot bounced is worth far more than an extra 54 HP.

Using enhanced armour improves the turret & hull front by roughly 8mm of effective thickness, enough to bounce most HT premium ammo in tier 8.

Refined Gun:
Due to the Vipera being a slow tank, and often needing to sit hulldown to use its armour, refined gun works better than vertical stabilizer.
Often in this tank you aren’t moving about the battlefield at high speed due to how slow you are, and generally you sit still in hulldown positions, due to this, vertical stabilizer isn’t as beneficial as refined gun. 

Refined gun will allow you to be much more accurate in hulldown positions, letting you snipe weakpoints and be generally more consistent when at lower speeds (which is most of the time in this tank).

Gameplay advice

The Vipera is similar to its tech tree counterpart, the SMV CC-64. It plays essentially the same role due to its good armour, gun depression, and alpha damage.

General gameplay:
The Vipera is essentially just a heavy tank with low HP. Its strong armour should be used in heavy tank environments, going hulldown, and damage trading. The Vipera works best when it can use its amazing -11 gun depression on a hill or ridgeline.

Try to stay on hard terrain, due to the terrible medium terrain mobility of the tank. Stay with teammates, since your turret isn’t fully traversing, and for a TD your DPM isn’t anything special. If you get isolated against faster or multiple enemies, the 1350 HP doesn’t last long, and your side armour will falter.

Don’t use both shells:
The Vipera technically has a 2 shot auto-reloader, however you shouldn’t use it as an auto-reloader. 

The 2nd shell has an extremely long reload of 19.9s, causing it to ruin your DPM and essentially make you unable to fight for 27s (add 7s since you would need t reload the other shell as well to be able to use the gun).

Due to this, the Vipera needs to be played as a cyclic gun tank, shoot, reload the first shell fully, shoot, and so on. The 2nd shell should only be used in very crucial moments in battle, such as if you need to secure an important kill, or if an enemy is about to kill you. You can also use it if you know there will be downtime in the battle, such as needing to relocate across the map.

Use gun depression:
Use the great armour and gun depression of the Vipera in hulldown positions. Just like the tech tree counterpart, the Vipera has an amazing -11 gun depression, with very good turret armour. In hulldown its weaknesses are hidden perfectly, and you can easily dominate positions due to this.

Be wary of high penetration enemies (such as T34s, TDs, or tier 9s) since the Vipera’s armour is weaker than the SMV cc-64 in the tech tree, and high penetration premium ammo can easily cut through the flat turret front of the Vipera.

Stay on hard terrain:
Keep on hard terrain as much as possible to retain good mobility. The Vipera has terrible medium terrain resistance, causing it to be much less mobile when going off-road. 

On hard terrain, the Vipera is pretty mobile, but on medium terrain it becomes one of the slowest tanks in tier 8, being easily circled by fast enemies and making it hard to reach positions quickly.

Hard terrain are roads, paved areas, paths, etc. Medium terrain is any off-road area (most of the map).

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Overall gameplay of the Vipera is very similar to the tech tree version, which plays essentially like a well-armoured heavy tank with low HP. The tank does best when using its armour hulldown and trading its good damage with enemies.

Tank gameplay:

Overall

Armour – 7.5/10
Gun – 6/10
Mobility – 4/10
Speed – 5/10

Vipera is overall a good tank.

Armour is good for a TD. Its upper plate and turret are very strong, but lower plate and sides are very weak. Good HE protection, average HESH protection.
Gun has decent DPM, good alpha damage, amazing gun depression, decent aim time, & decent accuracy. Gun handling is poor, but gun arc is amazing.
Mobility is mediocre. Its mobile on hard terrain, but accelerates and turns extremely slowly on medium terrain due to poor terrain resistance. Reverse speed is average with -14km.
Speed is average (considering HT-like armour) with 35km.

Is it worth getting?

(Note that leaks have shown the SMV CC-64 in the tech tree is getting a substantial armour nerf and a 1s reload nerf on its 120mm gun in a future update, consider that when considering if you want the Vipera)

The Vipera is worth getting. If you enjoy the tech tree SMV CC-64, then the Vipera is essentially a premium version with a few different traits. Notably its armour is worse, it has 10 less alpha, APCR as premium ammo, better mobility, better accuracy, and a reserve shell (currently its reload is worse, but not after the SMV CC-64 gets nerfed). If you just want a premium and different version of the tech tree tank, the Vipera is worth getting.

If you like heavy tanks or heavy tank destroyers, you’ll also enjoy this tank. It has the perfect combination of good armour, a nice gun, and relatively decent mobility to be an effective tank in a heavy-like role. -11 gun depression is also something no other tier 8 can offer.

The Vipera is worth 7,500 gold. Its a good tank with some strong traits, but also some notable downsides such as its side armour or its medium terrain mobility. Its not a high skilled tank, so it can suit all players (as long as you don’t use reserve shell).
Unlike the tech tree SMV CC-64, this tank isn’t “OP”, its just a pretty good overall tank which performs the same role.

(Also note that the tech tree SMV will still have better DPM & turret armour than the Vipera even after its nerfs. The main difference will be the Vipera’s different ammo, better accuracy, better mobility, & reserve shell.)

Most recently sold for:

New release crates – August 2024
Paired bundle (Vipera + ShPTK) – £/$22.99

Camo cost:

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