P43 bis - Bold Italian

8 aug 2021 at 11:36

The Italian research branch in World of Tanks consists of a single branch that diverges after the sixth tier into medium and heavy tanks. At the sixth tier, you'll find the lonely medium tank P43 bis, which you'll have to spend a fair amount of time playing to earn experience for researching the next two branches. So, you'll have to get to know this Italian tank quite closely.

It's difficult to categorize this tank unequivocally. By classification, it's considered a medium tank, but it has a fairly powerful gun and its dynamic characteristics are close to heavy tanks. Overall, the tank is quite comfortable to play with, and you won't have trouble earning the necessary experience on it.

The medium tank has average armor

If you look at the hull of the P43 bis from all sides, you'll notice that the Italian designers took into account the war experience and tried to maximize the optimal angles for the armor plates. However, they should have made the armor plates thicker because the frontal armor of both the hull and the turret is only 80mm, while the rest of the hull and turret are only 50mm.

If the front of the hull occasionally ricochets shots, the turret can be penetrated not only by tanks of the same tier but also by lower-tier tanks. And if a shell misses the Italian tank, there's a high probability that it will hit the massive commander's cupola. It's huge and sticks out even where the tank seems to have taken cover behind an obstacle. You need to be aware of it and always keep it hidden.

Good gun and high DPS

The P43 bis would be uninteresting to play if it weren't for its gun. It's truly good: with a relatively slow reload time of 7.19 seconds, it's ready to penetrate 140mm of armor and deal an incredible 240 hit points of damage to the enemy. This is a decent figure for a tier six tank. Interestingly, even with such power, the gun has acceptable aiming time of 2.3 seconds and a dispersion of only 0.38 meters per hundred meters.

In total, the tank is capable of dealing an excellent 2,003 damage per minute. The decent vertical gun elevation angle from -7 to 20 degrees allows you to feel confident on hilly terrain, but it lacks elevation for shooting from reverse slopes in mountainous areas. There's a small downside in that such devastating 90mm shells cost 435 credits each, making them expensive shells for a tier six tank, so it's better not to miss.

The mobility is also average

Despite a fairly good top speed of 50 km/h and good specific power, the P43 bis surprisingly accelerates slowly and doesn't like to go uphill. Its pivot speed is also average. Everything about it is average. But average doesn't mean bad, and you can enjoy battles in this Italian tank as long as you remember that it doesn't have anything outstanding apart from its gun.

How to play

The P43 bis is undoubtedly a second-line tank. Its relatively slow reload time and lack of reliable armor won't prevent it from being sent back to the Garage on the front lines. The main task is to provide strong fire support for your allies. The gun is relatively accurate and can penetrate opponents with confidence. It's important to remember that each missed shot costs you half a thousand credits, so you need to aim well. You also won't be able to spot enemies easily as your view range is weak. In the screenshot, you can see a rare case where the front of the hull ricocheted a shot. It's worth noting that the shot was taken from a distance of over 200 meters.

In the next screenshot, you can see a ricochet mark on the upper glacis plate.

What to upgrade?

The upgrade of any tank comes down to either enhancing its outstanding qualities or reducing the impact of its weaknesses. In the case of the P43 bis, its weaknesses cannot be fixed, so you need to focus on increasing the effectiveness of its gun. In the first equipment slot, install Improved Ventilation for a notable bonus to gun handling and dispersion reduction.

Next, reduce the reload time by installing a Gun Rammer. And to make it easier for the crew to breathe after firing such a gun, use Enhanced Gun Laying Drive. Train the crew with Brothers in Arms, followed by all perks that improve the functionality of the gun, and then focus on camouflage. This way, the tank remains paper-thin but possesses high firepower.

Author: Swordself14
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