TNH T Vz. 55

Page last updated on 05 December, 2025

The Vz. 55 is the top tier Czechoslovakian heavy tank. It features strong armour both on the front upper plate and turret, a reliable and accurate 130mm autoloader gun, and decent mobility.

Click the table of contents below to access the section you want:

Armour

(The Vz.55 in the images is using Improved Assembly)

Drag slider Right –> to view 258mm AP
Drag slider <– Left to view 340mm HEAT

Flat ground:
Upper plate 470-525mm
Lower plate 205-215mm
Driver port weakpoint 250mm

Turret cheek weakpoints 245-280mm
Turret spaced armour area 420-465mm
Cupola 210-270mm (400mm+ on edges)

Side armour:
The Vz. 55 has strong side armour, which is 100mm thick. The tank is good at both sidescraping and reverse sidescraping, but it has to fully pull into cover after a shot, as enemies could hit the cupola, turret cheeks, or hull shoulders if you let them aim for those.

vs 258mm AP(top image), 340mm HEAT (bottom image)
Using -7 gun depression

Upper plate 650-700mm
Driver port weakpoint 280mm

Turret cheek weakpoints 250-285mm
Turret spaced armour area 390-1000mm+
Cupola 215-275mm (400mm+ on edges)

Armour vs all tier 9-10 tanks:
The GSOR’s armour performs roughly the same against all enemies. Its worth noting that the entire turret front is covered by 15mm spaced armour.

Strong areas:
-The upper plate is extremely thick and very well armoured, no ammo in the game is able to penetrate it.
-The turret front & cheeks are well angled and almost fully covered by very thick spaced armour plates, able to bounce essentially anything.

Main weakpoints:
-The lower plate is weak to all standard ammo you face, but can resist lower penetration HESH ammo quite well.
-The cupola is the same case, weak to standard ammo, but largely HESH resistant.
-Directly between turret spaced armour & gun mantlet is penetrable to most tanks’ premium ammo.
-The narrow driver viewport on the hull is penetrable to most standard ammo, but is usually very hard to hit.

Gun

The Vz. 55 mounts a 130mm autoloader gun.

Firepower:
-Ammo: AP/APCR/HE.
-Penetration: 254/330/68mm.
-Alpha damage: 460/400/610
-Reload time: 18.3s
-Intra-clip: 3.00s
-DPM: 2593
-Burst damage: 920

Handling:
–Estimated aim time is 3.4/3.6s
–Base aim time is 2.2s, but it can get down to 1.62s.
-Dispersion is 0.344/0.292
–Gun handling is 0.2/0.2/0.11, or 0.18/0.18/0.1 with Vertical Stabilizer.

Usability:
-Shell velocities are 890/1120/840 m/s
-Gun depression is -7 degrees around the entire tank, except the rear where its -5 degrees.

This gun is overall very good. It feels accurate and consistent compared to most other 460 alpha guns due to a good combination of accuracy, aim time, and gun handling.

For an autoloader, it has good burst damage and single-shot alpha for a 2 shot burst, with decent DPM & reload time. Penetration is also very good, especially on premium ammo.

Mobility

(The stats below are with 6% Gear Oil equipped.)

Raw stats:
-Forward speed is 42km/h.
-Reverse speed is -17km/h.
-Raw acceleration rate is 16.8 hp/t.
-Engine power is 1234hp for its 73 ton weight.

Hard terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 16.8 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 43.8 deg/s.

Medium terrain mobility:
-Actual acceleration is 11.2 hp/t.
-Traverse speed is 29.2 deg/s.

Terrain resistance stats:
–Terrain resistances are 1/1.5/1.9

The overall mobility of the Vz. 55 is good, however the large difference between medium and hard terrain causes the tank to perform very differently on the two terrain types.

On hard terrain this tank is very quick and mobile, its acceleration is high and traverse speed is fast, so its easy to reach the 42km top speed, and to maintain that speed.

On medium terrain the tank is much slower, and the mobility is what you would expect from a tank with such a solid upper plate & turret. It turns fairly slowly, and acceleration rate is fairly mediocre. On medium terrain, the tank can struggle to reach its top speed if it constantly has to turn.

Special Mechanic

Vz. 55 has the combat stabilization mechanic.

Visualized, this mechanic would be as follows:
“When moving at speeds of 15km/h or less (forward and reverse), gun handling becomes 0/0/0.11”

Essentially, your gun has little to no bloom when you are moving at slow speeds, making its accuracy even more consistent.

Provision Loadout

10% food & fuel:
-Necessary for general tank performance in accuracy, reload, aim time, and overall mobility.

6% Gear oil:
-Optional for improving mobility further, as this tank is sluggish on medium terrain. Also helps greatly with adding 4km to forward & reverse speed.
-Could be replaced with Protective Kit, as Vz.55 also has some issues with modules & crew damage.

Equipment Loadout

Improved Ventilation/Calibrated Shells:
Either of these are valid options.

For calibrated shells, it helps to have better penetration, especially as this isn’t a high DPM type of tank.

For Improved ventilation, the tank already has great penetration, and the improvements to accuracy, traverse, aim time, and a bit of reload do still help make the overall feel of the tank more comfortable.

Improved Modules/Defence System:
Use Improved Modules if you notice that you get constant damage to your ammorack (not destruction) or fuel tanks. Improved Modules will also improve your ramming capability, which this tank is fairly good at as it weighs 73 tons and can go up to 38km/h.

Use Defence System if you notice that you constantly have injured crew members or a damaged engine. If you get destroyed by ammo rack detonation, defence system also helps reduce the chances of that happening.

Improved Assembly:
Vz.55’s armour is very simple, the upper plate & turret are too strong to need enhancing, and the lower plate & cupola are too weak to gain any use from enhancing. Hence, enhanced armour doesn’t have much use on this tank.

Its better to use improved assembly, which would improve this tank’s base HP of 2400, up to 2496 HP.

Vertical Stabilizer/Refined Gun:
Either of these can work, however due to the Combat Stabilization mechanic, the Vz.55 is able to get more benefit from refined gun. Combat stabilization means your gun essentially has no bloom when moving at low speeds, so it keeps it fully aimed in, and with refined gun improving your accuracy, you’ll be much more accurate in many situations.

Gameplay advice

For the most part the Vz.55 is just a very “standard” heavy tank but with an autoloader gun, and hence it plays as such.

General gameplay:
Generally you should use the Vz.55 on the heavy side of the map. Its solid armour allows it to be effective both when hulldown, and when sidescraping. If playing on the medium side, it can keep up due to having good mobility, but you have to try stick to hard terrain if trying to reach positions quickly.

Other than managing the reload and trying to burst shots, the gameplay of the Vz.55 is fairly similar to most standard heavy tanks.

Go hulldown and use gun depression:
The Vz. 55’s biggest weakpoint is the lower plate. Compared to that, the cupola is fairly small. Hiding the lower plate makes the Vz. 55 far harder for enemy tanks to deal with, as the upper plate is essentially impervious, and the turret only has the cupola for a weakpoint.

Keep the tank moving back and fourth slightly. This makes the armour even harder to deal with, as enemies will have to aim at a moving target, and this can sometimes cause less accurate or responsive enemies to miss the cupola.

Note that due to the mechanic “combat stabilization”, you can move the tank up to 15km/h while hulldown, and still remain fully accurate. So making movements while hulldown is very advantageous to this tank.
(You may receive a small amount of bloom, this is from the 0.11 dispersion-on-turret traverse, and it barely affects accuracy while in a hulldown situation).

Keep to hard terrain:
The huge difference in terrain resistance causes the Vz. 55 to feel very different when on medium terrain.

Keeping to hard terrain will help this tank to remain quite quick and mobile, as its mobility on hard terrain is quite impressive. Hard terrain areas are generally roads, any paved area, concrete, and some paths/trails. Some maps (such as New Bay, Himmelsdorf, or Dynasty’s Pearl) are mostly hard terrain, so the tank will generally be far more mobile on these maps.

Sidescraping:
In the image below, the Vz.55 is sidescraping against 258mm AP. Notice how the track wheel isn’t penetrable, and other than the cupola, the Vz.55 is essentially fully protected.

The Vz.55 in this image is reversed quite far from the building, so is able to pull forward after shooting, and hide the weak center part of the cupola.

Reverse sidescrape:

As shown here, the Vz. 55 is able to utilize reverse sidescraping.

Its sides are strong, and one flat, uniform shape.

(Reverse Sidescraping over the other side of the hull is more effective, as the cupola would be hidden)

Overall

Armour – 5/10
Gun – 7/10
Mobility – 5.5/10
Speed – 6.5/10

Vz.55 is overall a great tank.

Armour is typical for a HT, strong upper plate & turret, weak lower plate & cupola. Its able to utilize hulldown and sidescraping well.
Gun has good alpha damage & decent DPM considering its 3s intra-clip, with consistent accuracy, aim time, & handling. Penetration is good, with a decent -7 gun depression.
Mobility is decent. On hard terrain its quick for its armour, but on medium terrain its traverse and acceleration are much closer to “average”. Reverse speed is great with -17km/h.
Speed is good with 42km/h.

Is it worth grinding?

The Vz. 55 is a tank that’s worth grinding. It doesn’t stand out with anything extremely impressive in any statistical area, but it does stand out with overall reliability and consistency in battle.

This tank is most comparable to a T110E5 or Super Conqueror for its overall feel. It has the usual strong frontal armour, the usual weak lower plate and cupola, sidescraping capability if a fairly standard heavy, decent but not impressive mobility, and a very good and reliable gun. The biggest difference to these 2 other tanks would be its high 470 alpha and slightly less gun depression.

Most players will be able to enjoy this tank just due to that great frontal and side armour, and the great gun. The mobility, though unimpressive, is still decent enough.

Camo cost:

“Xeno” camo: 3D, costs 3,000 gold

Tech tree overview

To get to the Vz. 55, you’ll need to grind through the low tier European mediums, and then switch onto the Czech heavy line at tier 6.

All tanks in this Czech heavy tree have similar characteristics. They all have good turret armour, good hull armour, great guns, and decent but unimpressive mobility. All tanks have the same -7 gun depression.

All the tanks in this line have usable stock grinds, being fairly slow, but still having good stock guns, and decent turret armour on stock turrets.

-Tiers 1-5 are all lightly armoured tanks which are fairly quick and mobile. These are a quick grind and easy to get through. None of these tanks’ stock grinds are too hard, as their XP costs are fairly low, and its quick to upgrade modules.

If you’ve grinded up the Kranvagn, 60TP, TVP T50/51, or Progetto 65 line before, then this section of the grind will already be completed.
If not, then don’t sell the Strv m/42 after you finish grinding it. It leads on to 4 other tech trees.

-Tier 6 is the Škoda P-JS, its a pretty mobile heavy tank with great speed and armour, with a good 85mm gun. It had good DPM and a quick reload, and its frontal armour is very reliable (even against tier 7 tanks), though with a weak lower plate and big cupola.

When stock, the gun’s alpha is low, with very unimpressive DPM. The turret armour is decent, and mobility isn’t terrible, though the tank is definitely notably slower than when fully upgraded.
Its best to first research the “middle” 85mm gun, as it upgrades both alpha and DPM significantly.
The turret isn’t needed to be researched for the top gun or the next tank, but is still important as it improves reload time, HP, and armour. Same for the tracks, they improve both traverse speed, and significantly improve gun handling.

-Tier 7 is the Vz. 44-1, its a heavy tank somewhat similar to the 45TP Habicha, having a great gun with good DPM and alpha, decent but unimpressive mobility, and good hull and turret armour. The best aspect of this tank is definitely the gun, which sports great gun handling and DPM, along with good penetration. The armour is good against same and lower tier tanks, but tier 8 enemies won’t have trouble dealing with it.

When stock, this tank is very slow. Its turret armour is decent, but not strong, and its gun has good DPM and reload time.
The engines and tracks are worth unlocking on this tank, as its just extremely slow without them. The tracks also significantly improve the gun handling, which is one of this tank’s best aspects. The stock gun and turret are perfectly usable for grinding while you unlock the tracks and engine (at least 1 of the 2).

-Tier 8 is the TNH 105/1000, a great tank that’s reminiscent of the VK 45.02 (A) or Tiger II. At this point in the line, the tanks become very similar to the tier 10 Vz. 55. The TNH has incredible turret armour for a tier 8 tank, but with a cupola weakpoint; the hull is also very strong, but the lower plate is weak. The mobility is good, but nothing amazing; and the gun is very good, having great accuracy, DPM, penetration, and good gun handling.

This tank is decent when stock. It keeps the same alpha damage, has decent penetration, good aim time, and good DPM for a stock tank. The turret armour is far weaker than the top turret, but can still bounce many enemies’ standard ammo. The stock mobility is poor.

Upgrading the engine is important on this tank, as its the weakest aspect when stock. The turret and guns are also important to upgrade. The tracks aren’t as necessary, they don’t improve terrain resistances, and they don’t give a big benefit to traverse speed, and only a relatively small improvement to gun handling.

-Tier 9 is the TNH T Vz. 51, an amazing heavy tank in its tier, with strong armour just like the previous tanks, but a much smaller cupola weakpoint. It also has amazing mobility, with great ground resistances and a strong engine. There are 2 gun choices on this tank, either a 105mm with great DPM but less alpha, or a 122mm with good alpha but low DPM and less accuracy.

This tank’s stock grind is fine. Its top engine doesn’t gain much horsepower, so the tank is still quick; the top tracks don’t improve terrain resistances, so overall mobility is still good. The stock turret has decent armour against standard ammo, but is definitely weaker than the top turret; and the stock gun has decent DPM and premium penetration.
None of these modules are locked behind other modules, you can unlock the top gun while still mounting the stock turret. (The top 105mm gun is in front of the 122mm gun, so you do have to unlock that before the 122mm gun).

-Tier 10 is the TNH T Vz. 55, which should feel very familiar to the previous 2 tanks, and especially the Vz. 51. It features the same very strong hull and turret armour, the same cupola and lower plate weakspots, a similar great gun for its tier, and similar decent mobility.

The biggest difference you may notice on the Vz. 55 is the medium terrain mobility. Unlike previous tanks which had 1.0 hard terrain resistance, and 1.3 medium terrain resistance, the Vz. 55 has 1.0 and 1.5, which causes it to have a bigger difference in mobility performance compared to the previous tanks in this line.

However, what it loses in mobility, it makes up for with much better hull side armour and gun consistency.

Back to homepage