History
In 1943, the Directorate of Tank Design was asked to produce a new design for a heavy cruiser tank under the General Staff designation A41. After a series of fairly marginal designs in the A series in the past, and bearing in mind the threat posed by the German 88 mm gun, the War Office demanded a major revision of the design requirements, specifically: increased durability and reliability, and the ability to withstand a direct hit from the German 88 mm gun withn a maximum weight of 40 tons. The hull was to offer more protection against mines and top speed was not vital while agility was to be equal to that of Comet. A high reverse speed was also required.
The Centurion was used as the basis for a range of specialist equipment, including combat engineering variants with a 165 mm demolition gun Armoured Vehicle Royal Engineers (AVRE). It is one of the longest-serving designs of all time, serving as a battle tank for the British and Australian armies from the Korean War (1950–1953) to the Vietnam War (1961–1972), and as an AVRE during the Gulf War in January–February 1991.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Amazing gun in the 105 mm RO L7
- Excellent gun depression
- Strong turret armor with a tough mantlet
- 410 m view range
- Excellent gun
- Good gun handling
- Good acceleration and hill climbing
- HESH shells have high DPM if they penetrate
- Did I mention the L7 is an amazing gun?
Cons:
- Poor mobility
- Poor DPM/long reload
- Unreliable hull armor
- Unreliable HESH penetration
- Turret unsuited to long exposure
- Lack of a high-penetration premium round
- Extremely poor camouflage values
After you have researched all the modules you have two choices regarding guns, you can use the L7 or the 20pdr B barrel gun. Both guns are good, however they play differently.
The 20pdr has 2651 DPM, and 4,7seconds reload time, but only 230 avg. damage. While this might not sound so impressive, in reality the DPM is on par with the other tier IX meds and due to the really great RoF and aiming time it gives you some much needed flexibilty. The 20pdr allows you to permatrack enemy vehicles, and while the tank is best played as a sniper with this gun too, when it comes to CQC you will find the DPM and RoF a real lifesaver, as you can dish out more damage than them (except for the Patton) and bounces or non-penetrating hits hurt you less -again, faster rof gives more room to correct your mistakes-. On the down side, the damage/credit ratio is really bad, you pay nearly 3 credits - 2.97 to be exact - for one damage done, other guns of this caliber/damage have a ~1:1 ratio.
If you don't like the low damage guns, you can go ahead and use the L7A1, compared to the 20pdr, this gun is sub-optimal for CQC, due to the combination of long reload -and thus poor DPM-, also the aim time is somewhat slow which can cause misplaced shots (actually the aim time is good, however accuracy on the move and during turret traverse is terrbile, making the full aiming cycle a lot longer than what you would expect). On the other hand the 390 avg damage is really noticeable and the penetration is superb, unless you are facing a sidescraping Maus for example.
Considering the poor armor of the 7/1, theoretically the L7 is the superior gun, as it forces you to expose yourself to enemy fire half as many times as you need to do it with the 20pdr, so there is a positive side effect of the long reload, also the better penetration is always nice, you barely pay more for the damage with the other cannon, doing one point of damage will only cost you 3.08 credits . What is there not to like? You might be asking, well... the HESH premium rounds.
The 105mm gun features a new shell type, or something similar at least, called the HESH. It's practically a HE shell with insane penetration, the standard HESH has 105mm pen. and the premium one has 210mm, both have 480 avg. damage.
In theory this shell would work like this: you aim at a weakspot, which should NOT be spaced armor -so no gun mantlets, no tracks, no side skirts and whatnot - and your HE shell penetrates the armor, doing more damage than your regular APCR shell, also inflicting some more possible module damage and boosting the poor DPM by a large margin. In reality, the lack of normalisation, low-is penetration and the incredible amount of spaced armor on tanks can really ruin your day, and the premium shell is mostly only usable when shooting the rear of tanks, where - most of the time - the regular HESH shell would do just fine. Damage from external explosion is not worth mentioning (sub-60 on the upper front glacis of an IS-4 for example) you practically do the damage of a tier III artillery in this case. The premium HESH costs 5200credits. and the regular one costs 950.
So while HESH is a unique feature, and can be worked with, I'm fairly sure it's not worth the 5.2k credits( also nearly 11 credits/ damage IF your shot penetrates), as it doesn't really help you defeat stronger opponents, just the ones you already can defeat.
IMHO the 20pdr can be slighty better, IF you are in tier a IX match. The 20pdr is able to penetrate every tier IX tank frontally with standard ammo, but it can struggle vs. tier X tanks. The L7 remains viable in tier X battles too, as you are not forced to flank anymore. It's really up to the player to decide which gun he/she wants to use.
Crew Skills
Commander :6th Sense, Repair
Driver: Repair, Off-Road driving
Gunner: Repair, Snap Shot
Loader: Repair, situational Awareness (he is also the radio operator), safe stowage
Equipment
Vertical stabilizer, Rammer, and Vents
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