Now I know that this sounds ridiculous, but let me explain. For the background of this post, I have recently finished the grind to top tier Russia using the 10.0 lineup, and it was horrible. To grind out the current Event, I have switched to 9.7 German which I haven't played in a long time, and it was so much easier. I know, everyone says that this tier is cancer anyway due to premium spam, but I think it goes deeper than just premium one death leavers.

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Now my first point are the teams. Again, one death leavers are a problem often discussed here, but I mean something different. Russian teams are really terrible. And I do mean that, in comparison to NATO teams, they suck. Take this game for example: https://imgur.com/a/HIOKA6b

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Both teams have 2 one death leavers, yet the russian team got absolutely stomped. To the point where I was 13th at the end of the game (The Leo2K got 2 more kills). Yet, if I was on the other team and had performed the same, I'd be placed 4th. It's not a single game either (another screenshot I took: https://imgur.com/a/MkIreUk , I have noticed that in the past it's no longer a problem that people leave after 1 death, rather it's that russian teammates underperform. So why is that? why is it that in a tier infested with premium players, the russian ones especially suck. Well, it's because the tanks suck.

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10.0 russian tanks are average at best, there's no argument about it. With the exception of the 2S38, they all share similar flaws which hinder them in the game. This is not an attempt to downtier or change them, their unique design doesn't really allow that, but rather to call attention to it. Let us take the T-72B (1989) as an example.

For the pros: Great frontal armor, great round for it's tier. For the cons: Average speed, slow reverse, slow turret rotation speed, slow elevation speed, slow reload (but consistent), no thermals, 3 crew, bad gun depression, fixed 8x zoom. Clearly this tank is meant for... sniping? But it's lack of thermals and fixed zoom plus bad depression hinder it in this role, meaning you have to expose a lot of your tank and thus your weakspots to hit the enemy. So brawling then? Well, in cities the aforementioned problems aren't a problem anymore, but now the slow reaction speed, slower reload and lack of survivability become a problem. So it's disatvantaged as a sniper, and as a brawler. If you compare it to the Leo 2k, my current main, the Leo is just so much better for both. Most NATO tanks are (I'm not advocating for BR increases or nerfs here).

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the 4 crew members and better ammo stowage plus the higher reverse means more survivability if penetrated, and let's be honest, at 10.0 you'll get shot through slighty angled sides, armor matters less than before. Better sights and reload allows NATO tanks to be more effective as a sniper. Better reaction time means a bette brawler, and the higher turret rotation/elevation speed and reverse makes most NATO tanks better able to react to changing situations, like in a brawl.

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And these problems aren't just created by only comparing the T-72B against all NATO tanks, most of these problems affect all 10.0 Russia tanks, and that leads to decreased performance by inexperienced players, leading to worse teams for Russia.

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Now, I want to be fair and say that yes, the T-80B does alleviate some of those problems, and sits at 10.3 like the Leo 2. But it still suffers from many of these problems that make it difficult to pinpoint the way it's most effective. And yes, I've shot T-64's in the side and their ammo didn't blow up, but that happened to me at least once too, and I've shot quite a lot of NATO tanks during my grind whose ammo also didn't explode. But I don't think I have enough experience to accurately judge this.

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But the way russian bias is cried out on this subreddit makes it seem like NATO tanks just are generally inferior to russian ones, something that just simply isn't true. So, in conclusion, I wish that NATO players can start appreciating their own vehicles, like I did with my Leo 2k. I hope my point came across, and I want to reiterate that no, I don't think Russian tanks need to go down, or that there's some kind of NATO bias in the game, but rather that with the way the russians designed their tanks, it leads to game balance problems and that descisions made in the 70's and 80's haunt russian teams to this day.