It is time to start introducing my minions. First of them and my personal favourite in World of Tanks is ELC AMX - french tier 5 light ... tank ... or is it a tank ? I will answer to this later, now a bit of history.
ELC project was french initiative aimed to create something lightly armored but heavily armed with capability of being transported by air. Sounds like rocket on wheels - doesn't it ?
Development started in 1955 in GIAT Industries which now is known as Nexter company. There were several prototypes created but it never entered service. "Tank " weighted merely 6 tons and depending on version was 4,95-4,97 m long, 2,24 m wide and 1,43-1,58 m high. These numbers are comparable to cars dimensions, I found a photo on Japanese blog http://gamenewstl.blog.so-net.ne.jp which shows this machine in comparison to men - author I suppose.
6 tons of weight seems to be overestimated for something not bigger than Ford Mondeo. Version you see above is 1957 ELC AMX bis ( 1,58 m high ) armed with 90 mm d 915 cannon. There were also another variants like ELC 30 armed with twin 30mmm HS825 cannons and machine guns, ELC 75 armed with four ( 4 ! ) recoilless rifles, ELC Na2 armed with rocket launchers and ELC 90 - armed with 90 mm gun on which we will focus.
As you can see this "tank" has a turret, or almost a turret - because in could rotate 360 degrees only when the vehicle was stationary - I suppose that one of reasons why it had to worked like this was because both crew members - driver and commander - were placed inside the turret. Just imagine driving in at maximum speed and rotating the turret driving blindly. Or better don't.
Enough of reality - how does it work in World of Tanks ?
Firstly it is full of surprises.
First of which it can't be more different from its predecessor AMX-40 - aka the DUCK.
Now you know why it is a duck. AMX-40 is heavily armored heavy light tank. No - it wasn't a mistake, AMX-40 is classified as a light in game, but it has exceptional armor for its tier and is very, very slow with one exception - going downhill. And AMX-40 has a very weak gun with below average 74 penetration, ok 110 damage, and bad 0.46 accuracy. Myself I found AMX-40 quite boring to play, because lack of the speed means that you cannot react fast enough to the changes on the battlefield. Sometimes when the team is good, you will not be able to hit anyone, and when the team is poor - you cannot do much against 10 enemies circling you around. When you are top tier you can do miracles bouncing enemy shots - until someone decide to shoot premium ammo - then you die.
ELC AMX weights three times less then its predecessor while having stronger engine. Lets look at some technical data.
This thing has specific power 36,98 bhp per tonne - it is about the same as my car ( I know ... :/ ) - not much for a car but definitely a lot in tank terms - "tank", this word still doesn't suite this thing. This little thing can go 65 km/h so you could score a ticket. Traverse speed is 38 degrees per second - not bad either. In comparison to other tier 5 light tanks this tank has worse terrain resistance and it is one of few things against its mobility. Talking about other tier 5 tanks. ELC differs from every other tank you meet in the game. It isn't real light tank - it has no turret in game. You have just limited gun rotation 15 degrees to the right and left. Talking about the gun. It is exceptional for light tank. 90 mm on tier 5 ? It is heavy tank and td's caliber not light. It has massive 170 mm penetration on plain "silver" rounds and 240 mm damage. But just to stop you from killing everyone on the battlefield it has horrible aiming time. It says 2.9 s aiming time - but after each time you move aiming circle becomes so big that it takes ages for it to be smaller, and if you want to snipe remember to wait till it can't be smaller because if you don't you will miss.
So what about the armor ? What armor ? every other tank - even tier one can penetrate you. See yourself :
30 mm is max armor on this tank and this is the gun... 14 mm is the real top armor - don't expect to bounce anything. But be surprised when your tracks eat damage without doing any damage to you.
So to summarize it:
- No armor
- Great mobility
- To small for a tank
- Interesting gun
- No turret
Doesn't seem like a tank does it ? So what ELC AMX really is ?
It is a sports car with a gun fitted in the middle. It is a Ferrari disguised as a tank with red paint removed to improve its camouflage value. It is the ultimate troll machine.
This machine is so small that most of tanks can't even lower its gun to hit you when you are near them. This beauty gives as much fun from the game as it is possible. And you don't have to worry when you are fighting with vehicles three tiers higher than you - you can be happy that you will earn more experience from spotting and more damage to be done. It wasn't bad when this beauty was facing tier X tanks - your view range was lacking at this level but still - ELC is to troll. There are tanks with better view range, most of them have better radio, almost every tank has better damage per minute, they have turrets, more hp ... I don't care! I can spot one, circle around another and drawing their attention from my allies which can attack enemies weakspots when he is trying to hit me. ELC is great. Unfortunately I can't show you my replays on YouTube - my computer isn't game-focused and can't handle recording software with good framerate, but there are people that drive ELC AMX better than me :
Seriously one of the best ELC replays ever by Polish player DominikWrobel uploaded by sirturok666, commentary is in Polish, but if you aren't from Poland just enjoy epic gameplay:
Another Polish player _Sakker_ posted on hallack05 channel:
Of course there is mighty jingles :
Hope you enjoyed it - write in comments if there is something more that can be added about this "tank".
See you in game CiasteczkowyPotwor on EU server.
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