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AWACS Tank Guides
Conqueror: I came I saw I Conquered
Hello everyone! EdAWACSdenyY here! and today I'm going to be talking to you about the Conqueror! This is the Tier 9 British Heavy Tank. Down below is an image of that British Beast of a Tank!
Background History:
During much of World War 2, the British Doctrine for armoured vehicles were divided into 2 classes of tanks: Infantry tanks; slow but heavily armoured for troop support and cruiser tanks, which were rather poorly armoured but agile and fast to exploit breakthroughs. With the conclusion of the Second World War, the British Army decided it was time to reorganize their obsolete doctrine and plan for the uncertain years of the Cold War to come. They decided upon 3 proposed classes of vehicles.
The FV100 series was going to be a group of vehicles in the 80-100 ton range most likely to be super heavy tanks. The FV200 series would be the middle weight class of tanks weighing in at 60-80 tonnes around the weight of most heavy tanks in that area, and at the bottom end of the scale the FV300 series were going to be a meagre 40-50 tons.
However once they had this brilliant new doctrine (sarcasm intended) they immediately started tearing it up due to common sense. There was no way the FV100 series would ever fly given the potential costs and impracticality of building such potentially super heavy tanks. With some reluctance the British were also planning to do away with the FV200 series as well seeing the days of such heavy tanks were numbered compared to the much more versatile Centurion Universal tanks.
However one factor made the British think twice about scrapping the FV200 series of tanks. That factor was Soviet; the Iosef Stalin 3 heavy tank. The Iosef Stalin 3 or IS-3 heavy tank when it was first unveiled in 1945 around the end of the Second World War, alarmed the Western countries. They had good reason to be alarmed. The tank had a very well sloped soup-bowl like turret, pre angled pike nose frontal armour and a terrifying gun. The tank however did have its faults but the Western powers still deemed it a serious threat. And as in all warfare, the best way to counter a new threat was to invent a bigger threat.
So he British decided to look with care once again at their tanks. The one particular tank they took note of was the tank designated as the FV214. But better known to you and me as the Conqueror.
The chassis for the new tank was taken from the A45 Infantry Support Tank, started in 1944 shortly after that of the A41 Centurion. After the war the project was relocated to that of the "Universal Tank" design of the FV 200 series. The 200 series was to have used a common hull for all uses (self-propelled artillery, armoured personnel carrier, different varieties of tank, etc.). One tank type was to be the heavy FV 201 of 55 tonnes, armed with an 83.4 mm gun also known as 20 pounder.
In 1949 it was decided to bring the armament up to 120 mm. As this delayed the project, in 1952 the FV 201 hull was combined with a 17 pounder-armed Centurion Mk 2 turret to give the FV 221 Caernarvon Mark I. Twenty-one were built with the Mk III 20 pounder turret as the Caernavon Mk II. The FV 221 may originally have been intended to be the "Main Battle Tank" member of the FV 201 series, but with the success of the A41 Centurion such a vehicle was no longer required. In either event, the Caernarvon was only used for chassis development work serving in troop trials. Basically they had the tank crews drive Conqueror chassis mounted with Centurion turrets both to help them train for the new vehicle and so the engineers could work out any potential bugs which may arise during testing.
In 1955 the first Conqueror was produced. Twenty Mark 1 and 165 Mark 2 Conquerors were built including conversions of Caernavon MkIIs. The Conqueror Mk. 2 was the one which sported the large egg shaped turret and carried the long 120 mm L1A1 rifled cannon capable of firing APDS as well as HESH. The gun design was American, the same as used on the US M103 heavy tank; with separate charge and projectile, as would also be the case in the Chieftain that followed. The charge was not bagged but in a brass cartridge, which offered some safety advantages, but reduced shell capacity to 35 rounds.
Speaking of the turret, there is something to note about it. One feature of particular note was the rotating commander's cupola, which was at the heart of the Conqueror's fire control system, advanced for its time. The commander could align the cupola on a target independently of the turret, measure the range with a Coincidence rangefinder, and then direct the gunner on to the new lay mechanically indicated to him by the cupola. In theory, when the gunner traversed to the new lay he would find the target already under his sights, ready to be engaged. Meanwhile, the commander was free to search for the next target.
The armour was very heavy for any tank in that time period, especially in the front, where it was seven inches (178 mm) in the horizontal plane. Unfortunately, this, along with the weight of the huge turret required to house the large gun and the very large hull volume, made the vehicle very heavy, giving it a relatively low top speed and making it mechanically unreliable. Also, few bridges could support its weight. However, rather like the Second World War Churchill tank, the Conqueror had exceptional terrain handling characteristics and proved to be as capable cross country as the lighter (and on paper slightly faster) Centurion tank.
Production continued until 1959. It had lost much enthusiasm once the Centurion was upgraded to an L7 105 mm gun. By that time the tank doctrines for almost all countries on either side of the Iron Curtain shifted away from large heavy tanks but to the more mobile and versatile Main Battle Tank. The Conqueror would never realize it's true potential in combat but instead be destined to live out its life as either a Museum piece, a target dummy or send off for scrap.
Now that we have brushed up a bit on the history of this tank, Let's go over it's stats:
Hitpoints: Stock: 1750 Elited: 1850
Speed Limit: 34.3 km / hour
Hull Traverse Speed: 24 degrees per second
Turret Traverse Speed: 25 degrees per second
Hull armour:
Front: 130 mm
Sides: 51 mm
Rear: 38 mm
Turret armour:
Stock:
Front: 165 mm
Sides: 112 mm
Rear: 112 mm
Elite:
Front: 152 mm
Sides: 51 mm
Rear: 38 mm
Top gun: (Cause I'm sure no one is dimwitted enough to use the 20 pounder after unlocking the top gun) 120 mm L1A1
Standard Shell Penetration:
259 mm (AP)
326 mm (APCR)
120 mm (HE)
Average Damage:
400 (AP)
400 (APCR)
515 (HE)
Rounds per minute: 5.71
Accuracy: 0.33 (at 100 m)
Aim time: 1.9
Top Engine: (Cause I'm sure non of you are dimwitted as to use the stock engines when you have unlocked the top engine) Rolls-Royce Griffon Engine
Horsepower: 950
Now that we have glanced over the general stats of this tank, Let us review its advantages and disadvantages on the battlefield in great detail:
Advantages:
Mobility: Despite sharing the Caernarvon's hull with a much more powerful engine,the Conqueror isn't as fast as it's Tier 8 counterpart. That being said, the Conqueror is actually pretty fast and agile for a heavy tank. In fact it can be considered the most mobile and responsive of all Tier 9 heavy tanks with only the American M103 rivalling it in mobility. This allows you to move into positions much quicker than other tanks can and makes keeping up with any member of your team be it a medium tank or heavy tank much easier. This also allows the Conqueror to get out of a risky situation ASAP which most other Tier 9 heavy tanks cannot do successfully due to their slow and cumbersome nature. As your the most mobile and responsive of the Tier 9 heavy tanks, should the situation call for it, you can also provide heavy fire power for medium tank wolf-packs
The gun: The 120 mm L1A1 rifled Tier X cannon is an excellent weapon for the Conqueror and the first proper heavy tank gun you get on a British heavy tank after having to use the same guns from the British medium tanks. The L1A1 deals a respectable amount of alpha damage for a Tier 9 heavy tank at an average of 400 damage per shot. However your usual alpha damage per shot will mostly be in the 360-380 ish range. The average penetration of 259 mm is very good for its tier and will be able to penetrate the weak spots of Tier 10 vehicles with ease. With APCR ammunition it can penetrate up to 326 mm of armour on average.
The Conqueror shares the same gun as the M103 Tier 9 American gun. However, the Conqueror's L1A1 is far superior to the M103's 120 mm gun in all aspects. It has a much higher rate of fire than the M103. It also has better aim time and accuracy overall. In fact some could compare the Conqueror's gun to that mounted on the T110E5 Tier 10 American Heavy tank. These excellent gun stats means that you can pull off some pretty good clutch shots and will be able to fire and retreat back into cover before most of your equivalent Tier 9 tanks can finish reloading and aiming. The very high rate of fire also means that you will usually be able to fire twice for everytime the enemy fires.
TLDR; The top L1A1 gun does a respectable amount of damage and the high ROF means that you will often get a second shot in before your enemy has a chance to reload. The decent damage and penetration on the L1A1 will allow you to engage Tier X tanks in high tier matches and still be very effective. It has the same penetration and alpha as the top gun on the M103, but is improved in terms of aiming time, accuracy and rate of fire.
"HESH" Ammunition: The Conqueror is the first of the British Heavy Tanks which can load regular HESH ammunition which is essentially a high penetration HE shell. This will allow you to completely devastate weakly armoured targets who were unfortunate enough to be caught in your cross-hairs. The penetration is pretty good at 120 mm and deals awesome alpha damage should it penetrate.
With your regular HESH rounds you will be the bane of equal to lower tier medium tanks which turn their backs on you not to mention other British and American Tanks. Just remember, like HE ammunition, HESH is not subject to normalization of enemy armour and can be mitigated by spaced armour as well as tracks.
Side skirts: Like most tier 8 and above British tanks, the Caernarvon's side armour is covered completely by tracks and side skirts. This gives the tank effectively 2 layers of spaced armour, allowing it to mitigate most of the damage from High explosive shells and completely neutralizing HEAT shells. People will regret firing HE ammo or HEAT into your side armour unless they aim really carefully.
Disadvantages:
Sub-par hull armour: Unfortunately unlike other Tier 9 Heavy tanks which have different more heavily armoured hulls than their predecessors, the Conqueror is burdened with having the same sub-par tank hull of the Caernarvon. The hull armour of the Caernarvon was at best acceptable for its tier but in tier 9 the hull armour now for the Conqueror is just downright terrible. The frontal armour is decent with the upper plate being 130 mm thick and sloped at a nice steep angle. However while this may have bounced some shots from tier 8 heavy tanks, it is no match against the guns of Tier 9 and 10 which can easily slice through your frontal armour with ease.
The lower glacis like before is extremely weak being only 76 mm thick and sloped at an angle. That is where everyone will be aiming for if they encounter this tank frontally and not hull down. Tier 7 and even some Tier 6 guns will have no trouble penetrating your lower glacis so be sure to hide it when possible.
Your side and rear armour are a dismal 51 and 38 mm respectively which is utter garbage. The sides and rear are also completely flat with no slope what so ever. Anyone getting the flank of your tank will most definitely go through with no trouble. Your weak side armour prevents you from side scraping as the thin side armour can be easily over-matched by guns of it's own tier and above or below. The rear of your tank has the thinnest armour.
If people managed to get the back of your tank and they want to utterly wreck your tank, they will fire High-explosive ammunition into the back of your tank setting the engine on fire potentially.
The compound all these problems, the hull of this tank is also very wide which makes it difficult to manuever in tight spaces.
Traverse speed: The hull traverse speed of the Caernarvon isn't stellar being only 24 degrees per second. You will struggle to turn your tank to face the enemy or to counter carousel a flanking medium tank. This combined with your thin side armour can be disastrous.
Terrible Second Turret: The Second turret on the Conqueror feels more like a downgrade than an upgrade. It is much less armoured all around than the Centurion Turret on the Caernarvon. It turns much slower than the old turret and the view range is pretty much the same. This means that unlike in the Caernarvon, you cannot go hulldown in the Conqueror as doing so will still give the enemy a viable target to aim at. This also negates your ability to face hug effectively as well since at such close range your turret's numerous weak spots are easily penetrated.
Your frontal turret armour's glaring weak points are the turret cheeks and the protruding commander's cupola on the top. Despite the rounded angled shape of the turret, the armour is as soft as butter and makes all those rounded and curvy areas of the turret pointless. Wiggling your turret will help a little but now much as most of your turret will be penetrated quite easily. Getting hit in the Commanders cupola will knock out your commander. And shots to your turret will injure your gunner as well.
Below Average Gun Depression: Your gun depression is only -7 degrees which means in when you are cresting a hill or ridge-line or just trying to fire down at an opponent, you will be frustrated due to the limitations of the Conqueror's gun depression. This means that unlike the Caernarvon, The Conqueror will find it more difficult to bring its gun to bear on a target below without exposing its vulnerable hull to the enemy to blast away at.
Propensity for Module damage and crew damage: The Conqueror like all its relative the Caernarvon is prone to module damage. The lower glacis of the tank is where the ammunition is stored and penetrations through the weak lower plate can very likely damage your ammunition rack, doubling your reload time making your gun less potent or worse detonate your ammunition. The driver and loader also seem to get knocked out more easily from the front and your side armour contains your fuel tanks which can also be damaged and set on fire. The engine if hit can also be easily crippled or ignited as well. With your now fragile turret armour, penetration shots through the cupola will either injure or kill the commander.
Zero Resistance to High-Explosive Splash Damage: The Conqueror also has almost no resistance to the splash damage from HE ammunition unlike other tanks and so can easily be brought down by guns which exclusively fire HE ammunition or deal considerable splash damage upon impact.
Exposed Turret ring: This may not seem that prominent, but the Conqueror's second turret has a much more exposed turret ring which with careful aim can be very easily penetrated. This will both damage your tank and potentially jam your turret ring as well.
Large and Visible: For a rather weakly armoured heavy tank, you are rather large and tall with the turret and wide hull. This means your camo rating is downright terrible and you will often be detected before you can detect the enemy,
Now that we know what's good and bad about this tank, Let's move on shall we to performance and how to effectively operate this tank in battle.
Summary:
Hey you ever wondered why the Stock Conqueror looks a lot like a Caernavon? Well cause it is the Caernavon! The Conqueror is basically the Caernavon's hull with a different turret stuck on top of it.
The Conqueror is a very unique Tier 9 Heavy tank as are all British tanks compared to other tanks. The Conqueror has its own quirks and special features which defines it. It's was designed for mobility on the battlefield, however the trade-off for that mobility is the lack of adequate armour for a Tier 9 heavy tank. The Conqueror is capable of dishing out a large amount of damage but it cannot take a beating for very long. In a way, the Conqueror is like a less armoured M103 as both these tanks share the same gun and also have a large turret overhang. The Conqueror's gun and mobility definitely surpass that of the M103. However, The M103 has better armour protection which the Conqueror lack severely.However that doesn't make it a bad tank.
The ISU-152 is much weakly armoured than the Conqueror but possesses a powerful gun. The Conqueror too also wields a powerful gun; The 120 mm L1A1. That is the Conqueror's greatest one and only asset of them all. So looking from that viewpoint, the Conqueror could be said to be a one dimensional tank as its a tank which sacrifices almost every other asset such as adequate armour for what could be the most damaging heavy tank at Tier 9.
This does mean however that the Conqueror requires a lot more skill and experience to operate effectively. Most British tank, I'be noticed, unlike Russian tanks, are not forgiving of mistakes. In most Russian Tanks, you can get away with errors which you cannot in a British Tank due to the British Tanks lack of adequate armour. The British sacrifice overall armour protection for better gun stats. Therefore you would find that British guns are all very accurate and fire quickly.
The Conqueror fits that theme perfectly and embodies that idea of a flexible hard-hitting fragile tank. And make no mistake, the Conqueror despite how it looks is very fragile and must be played with utmost caution, otherwise you may end up being the one conquered. The Conqueror is the kind of tank which is difficult to play at first and punishes you severely for messing up, but greatly rewards you if you get your ducks in a line and mitigate as much of it's numerous faults as best you can.
So without further ado, let's go over some tactics you can use.
Hanging back: You are not meant to be a front-line heavy. You are more of a dedicated support tank. However with the way matchmaking works these days, you will on occasion be the top tier tank. However that does not mean you have to charge into the fray. You will not last very long if you try to do that. Neither will cowering and sniping from range help much either. It's best you accompany your team and let some of your other tanks detect and report enemy tank positions for you. You can than unload on these targets while they are preoccupied with other matters ripping them apart with your guns superior rate of fire. Around the late game where some tanks are down to low health, you can really shine in shredding wounded tanks and finishing off near death tanks. This tactic will also come in handy when you drive the Conqueror.
Peek a boo: You can play peek a boo with other tanks by popping out and taking a shot. before retreating quickly.This is the most effective tactic to utilize when playing the Conqueror. This works much better when you have a much more armoured ally to help deflect enemy fire for you. Wait for the enemy to fire their shots than rush out and fire before quickly scuttling back into cover. With the somewhat decent hull armour when angled, this tank can afford to play peek a boo which is something you should avoid in the Centurion Mk. 1. With your excellent accuracy and quick aim time, you can peek out take your shot and hopefully get back into cover before the enemy have time to react or aim. However while you can pull it off, it is a risky tactic as you could be tracked out in the open and pinned down.
AWACS Equipment:
Large Calibre Gun Rammer: The rammer is a must have piece of equipment for this tank, boosting your rate of fire which is already quite high for a heavy tank at Tier 9 to be even higher.
Gun-Laying Drive: This will allow your gun to be more accurate with the shots by decreasing your already stellar aim time.
Vertical Stabilizer: This will allow your tank to fire on the move with decent accuracy and a decrease in size of your aim circle. However this is optional.
Wet ammo-rack: While on the Caernarvon the weak ammo rack was not that big of a problem on the Conqueror it is as the Conqueror sees Tier 9 and Tier 10 games more often against higher calibre guns. Therefore to prevent your weak ammo-rack from being damaged so easily, a wet ammo-rack is a must.
Coated Optics: If you wish to increase your already good view range and spot enemies sooner, you can equip coated optics to extend your view range. But given your decent view range this shouldn't be needed
I hope you guys found this guide helpful, and hopefully allowed those of you who struggled with this tank to now find it somewhat bearable at the very least. If you feel that there were any parts to this guide which were inadequately explained, or there were some areas I left out. Please let me know and I will try my best to rectify.
Thanks for reading AWACS Tank Guides and I will see you on the battlefield.
IF YOU LIKED THIS TANK GUIDE PLEASE LEAVE AN UPVOTE! IT REALLY HELPS THE WRITER
THANKS!
Edited by EdAWACSdenyY, 06 April 2015 - 05:21 AM.
Very good
