VK 168.01 (P)

The VK 168.01 (P) is a tier 8 German superheavy tank. Its the 3rd heaviest tank in game and the heaviest in its tier. The tank sports decent mobility but low speed, high alpha, poor accuracy, decent gun depression, and decent armour.

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

Armour

(The VK 168.01 (P) in the images is using Improved Assembly)

vs 225mm AP (left image), 265mm APCR (right image)
When facing head on:
Upper plate 285-305mm
Lower plate 130-160mm
Turret cheeks 238mm-405mm

Weakpoints:
Hull machine gun port: 140-200mm
Cupola 120-170mm

VS tier 7:
Tier 7 tanks won’t struggle to penetrate the VK 168.01 (P). Its lower plate is an easy penetration, and its cupola is very weak.
Tier 7 tank’s won’t be able to penetrate the turret cheeks unless they have an extremely high amount of premium penetration. Some lower penetration tanks will struggle against the side armour if its not flat, as this tank has very strong turret and hull side armour.

VS tier 8:
In tier 8 its essentially the same, the lower plate and cupola are easy penetrations.
Tier 8 tanks have much better premium ammunition though, and most tanks will be able to go through the turret cheeks.
The side armour is still exceptional so angling and sidescraping should be used to get more bounces.

VS tier 9:
Tier 9 tanks will see the same as tier 8 tanks, however, most tier 9 heavies can easily shoot the turret cheeks of this tank and penetrate it with standard ammo.
The Upper plate is still impenetrable to standard ammo, but heavy tanks can penetrate it with premium ammo on flat ground.

Note that the VK 168.01 (P) should always be angled. It has very strong side armour on both the hull and the turret, so over-angling is actually a good tactic on this tank. Its turret side armour is 160mm base, but 190mm when flat, as the turret is slightly angled. Its hull side armour is 130mm.
An example is shown below

Gun

The VK 168.01 (P) mounts a 12,8cm (128mm) gun

-Alpha damage is 460 on AP, 390 on APCR, and 600 on HE
-It has a 14.3s reload giving it 1928 DPM
-Penetration on AP is 220mm, APCR is 260mm, and HE is 65mm.
-Aim time is 3.8s/4.1s
-Dispersion is 0.389/0.350
–Gun handling is 0.25/0.25/0.18, or 0.21/0.21/0.15 with Vertical Stabilizer.
-Gun depression is -8 degrees

Overall this gun is decent. Alpha damage is high, aim time is quite good, penetration is decent, and gun depression is good. Its downsides are accuracy and gun handling, which mean that its much better suited to a close-range fight.

Note that this tank has very poor penetration loss over distance. 
On AP it loses 13.64%, so at 500m it only has 190mm of penetration
APCR loses 15.77%, so at 500m it only has 219mm of penetration.

Mobility

-Top speed is very limited 20km/h forwards, and -15km/h in reverse
-Traverse speed is 27.7 deg/s on hard terrain, and 25.4 deg/s on medium terrain.
-In game acceleration rate is shown as 11.1 hp/t, it has a fairly low 1872hp engine for its 168 ton weight.
-Actual acceleration rate is 10.1 hp/t on hard terrain, and 9.3 hp/t on medium terrain.
–Terrain resistances are very good at 1.1/1.2/1.6

Overall the mobility of this tank is not bad considering its a 168 ton superheavy tank. While its top forward speed is very limited, the VK 168.01 (P) has quite good acceleration, traverse speed, and reverse speed for a superheavy. Its not able to get anywhere quickly, but it can maintain its speed quite well.

Equipment, provisions, & consumables

The VK 168.01 (P) has no special consumables or provisions.

Gun Rammer:
The penetration of the VK 168.01 (P) is already sufficient enough, so there is no need to take calibrated shells on this tank.
Instead use a gun rammer to improve its rather long reload and low DPM. With a gun rammer, this tank has a 14.3s reload with 460 alpha, giving it 1928 DPM. For its alpha, this DPM is still not bad, but you cannot afford to lower it.

Improved Modules:
Use improved modules in this tank. It will benefit it greatly when you play it in gamemodes and want to ram enemies. Improved modules decreases the damage you take from ramming an enemy, and when you’re going at 60km/h in Gravity Force mode, this makes a pretty significant difference.

Improved Assembly:
The VK 168.01 (P) has an armour layout that makes using enhanced armour completely irrelevant. The upper plate is so strong there is no need to enhance it; and the hatch weakpoint on the turret deems it irrelevant to be enhanced. Even if the turret armour got stronger, what’s the point when the hatch is still so easy to hit and penetrate?

Use improved assembly. It improves this tank’s very impressive base HP of 1950 up to an incredible 2067 HP, the highest in the tier (excluding tanks that use sandbag armour).

Improved Control:
The limited 20km/h top speed, along with its actually fairly decent acceleration rate, mean that its actually more beneficial to improve the VK 168.01 (P)’s traverse speed by using improved control. The tank can still just as easily stay at its 20km top speed throughout the battle, but becomes more mobile as its traverse speed will be better.

Improved control decreases the engine power of the tank by 112 hp, but will increase the traverse by about 0.7-0.8 degrees. With improved control equipped, the tank has 28.4 deg/s traverse on hard terrain, and 26.1 deg/s traverse on medium terrain.

Vertical Stabilizer:
Due to its poor gun handling, and the fact that its a frontline heavy tank, the VK 168.01 (P) should use vertical stabilizer. Refined gun won’t at all benefit the tank, as its just designed to not be used at a long distance, and its playstyle won’t support it at all. Use vertical stabilizer and make the tank more capable in close range fights.

Gameplay advice

The VK 168.01 (P) is basically a tank that never stops driving until it gets to a fight. To be able to do effective damage and win battles in this tank, you need to play an active role. Try to always be at the frontline, the only time you shouldn’t be at the frontline is if you are driving to it. This tank is really not suited to being in any other situation other than on the frontline, absorbing damage for the team, sidescraping, going hulldown, and putting in the occasional big damage hit.

Don’t stop moving until you are at the heavy tank frontline. You can’t afford to stop in this tank, as you are so slow that you won’t be able to make up for time lost by stopping.  You want to be able to help your allies by providing them with armour, HP, and a big gun; as you’re already slow enough you shouldn’t be stopping at any point before reaching the heavy flank front.

Always angle the hull. Even though enemies can just aim at and easily penetrate the lower plate, angling does give a higher chance of them missing it and hitting the tracks. It also forces them to take time to aim, which is always important to force your enemies to do, as it lowers their effective DPM when you are fighting them (as in , their DPM is worse due to aiming time + reload time).

Do facehug enemies. While it may sound counter-intuitive due to this tank’s angled upper plate, large and weak turret cheeks, and a MG port weakpoint; its better to facehug than it is to just let enemies have free shots into the lower plate.
The hatch isn’t even really a huge problem in this situation, your tank is so tall and turret is so frontally mounted that you can easily put the gun mantlet and gun in the way of the enemy shot.
You can also angle the upper plate to increase its effective thickness, and you can turn the turret to make the cheeks stronger. Even if you do still get penetrated, the enemies will be doing less damage as they are forced to shoot premium ammo.

Aim your shots. The VK 168.01 (P) is designed to miss if it does not stop and take time to aim. Thankfully that aim time is not very long, so generally you can put in a fairly effective shot after just a short amount of aim time. This tank aims much quicker than the notoriously inaccurate 122mm heavy tanks at tier 8.
If you don’t stop to aim, or you only give the reticle an extremely short time to get aimed in, you are likely to miss, as this tank has poor accuracy and poor gun handling. Of its accuracy-related gun stats, only the aim time is good.

Go hulldown. By far the biggest weakness on the armour of this tank is its lower plate. This area is both large and weak, if it gets hidden, the tank is immediately much harder to deal with. The other weakpoints aren’t as easy to exploit as you might think:
1 – Most players don’t know that the hull machine gun is even a weakpoint. The players that do often aren’t brave enough to shoot at it, since its so small and surrounded by the 285mm+ upper plate.
2 – The hatch, while tall and weak, is narrow. Its very easy to miss if you keep the tank moving back and fourth, and bobbing up and down on a ridge. When using -8 gun depression, the hatch also becomes harder to hit.
3 – The turret cheeks are by far the easiest alternative weakpoint to hit, but it still requires enemies to use premium ammo to hit it. Hopefully if they do hit it, you put back a shot of 460 alpha, the only tanks that will out-trade you are 150mm+ guns.

Trade shots with enemies. Try to avoid DPM fights, this tank’s DPM isn’t terrible relative to its alpha, but its low in the scope of all tier 8 tanks. However, outside of the Caliban, the VK 168.01 (P) has the highest alpha on any tier 8 heavy tank. Try to avoid combat with enemies while you reload, stay hulldown or in cover until ready to shoot, then push out (or sidescrape) and shoot them, generally you will win in terms of alpha, as long as you don’t allow enemies to shoot you twice.

Overall

Overall, the VK 168.01 (P) is a decent tank. Its armour isn’t the best considering the low top speed, but its still decent and usable; it has a fairly decent gun for this playstyle, and generally good mobility outside of that low top speed.

It has unique gameplay in tier 8, with only the VK 100.01 (P) being similar to it.

Is it worth getting?

VK 168.01 (P) is worth it from a price perspective. Generally its very cheap, sold for under 6,000 gold, and thats a good price for any tier 8 tank, just for the fact that its a premium.
In terms of is it getting for being a good tank, no. The VK 100.01 (P) is a better tank, and its fee. In the whole scope of tier 8, the VK 168 isn’t bad, but its also not great.
In terms of is it worth getting for fun, yes. Even in regular battles, this tank can be quite fun, just due to its large gun, size, and high HP; its a different kind of playstyle. However the main reason to get it for fun is to play in gamemodes. In Gravity Force, Burning Games, and Uprising, this tank can ram anything and everything. In tiers 7-9 only the Mäuschen weighs a small 2 tons more. Of course, in Big Boss mode this tank takes multiple roles, but when it gets to be Boss, its one of the best possible tanks to be Boss in just due to its higher HP and weight.

The VK 168.01 (P) is worth 6,000 gold. Its not a terrible tank, it can perform well, and it can be quite fun to play, especially in gamemodes. However, the VK 100.01 (P) is just the same tank but with fewer weakpoints and an armour profile that’s easier to use; its also free.
Buy this if you want to have loads of fun in gamemodes, as thats where the VK 100.01 (P) cannot compete, the VK 168.01 (P) weighs 48 tons more than it.

Most recently sold for:

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Camo cost:

Historical info:

The VK 168.01 (P) was a real tank, however it was not its own tank. This vehicle was just a development step in the deign process of creating the Maus tank.

This tank looks nearly identical to the Mäuschen as it was the preceding blueprint. These tanks may have also been planned to mount 15cm guns, the same armament that the E 100 and VK 72.01 (K) mount.

In game, it is the 3rd heaviest tank by weight.
Maus is 188.98 tons
Mäuschen is 169.85 tons
VK 168.01 (P) is 168 tons

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