19 replies to this topic

[ollonborre]

When I started playing this game about a year ago I had only one goal in mind, I wanted the Maus so badly I would throw money at Wargaming until I got it. After months of grinding ( note that this was my first months in WoT, I had almost no idea of what I was doing) I finally aquired it and tested it out on the battlefield. My armour could withstand anything and I laughed as even GW Tigers bounced on me, and I laughed even harder whenever I took over 500 HP from almost any tank ingame with every round.

Fastforward some months later and the Maus has been driven in to a very awkward position. Now there is running around a whole lot of tier 10 tanks with good armour, mobility, adaptive and with insane guns. Some people has already stated that the Maus has become obselete with the introduction of all these high pen guns and new tanks. While this is somewhat true, since the Maus gun was never really the strongpoint of the tank and the armour had more bugs than a 3 months old cookie yar, I still think the Maus is worth defending and playing.

If we are going to look at survivability we might as well also look at the other tanks that seems to outclass the Maus if we are going to trust the community.

Maus:

HP: 2800
Armour: 200/185/160
Turret: 220/210/210

E-100

HP: 2400
Armour: 200/130/150
Turret: 240/150/150

IS-7

HP: 2150
Armour: 150/150/70
Turret: 240/185/98

IS-4

HP: 2400
Armour: 140/160/100
Turret: 250/200/170

T110

HP: 2200
Armour: 254/76/38
Turret: 203/127/30

AMX 50B

HP: 2000
Armour: 170/30/30
Turret: 100/50/30

Note that slopes are not taken in account on the stats.

Judging by these stats there should be no contest in which tank that wís the most durable one. The Maus is still THE best Steel Wall in the entire game ( thank you Charcaro for the title of the Maus) and with enough slope you will bounce anything, even gold rounds, some of them atleast. Hell I have lost count on how many rounds that have bounced of my rear, needless to say the turret and frontal hull. I will still never forget the day I bounced 3 BL-10 rounds in a row to my rear armour with a bit of angling . And I have also succesfully bounced T110 on the rear, IS-4 aswell and so on. That is only what the rear is capable of, the front is even more durable. As long as you can maintain some sort of sloping of your lower front plate nothing will go through this part of the tank. The only downside is the turret front. It is actually quite easy to pen unangled with 230+ of penetration. But then again your whole turret is more armoured all around then most tanks are on their entire hull combined. Angle the turret when you are reloading and you can simply just laugh at your opponets as you collect their rounds and absorb them into your already awesome armour.

You HP pool is also the highest in game and will probaly stay that way. 2800 HP is more than enough for any tank to handle in a fair fight, and combine this with your armour you are almost only killable by artillery on some maps/positions. This massive HP advantage is also why the Maus will beat every other tier 10 ingame in a 1 on 1 engagement.
   The turret and sides are simply amazing. When facehugging another tank and your sides and turret sides are only slightly angled the enemy facehugger wills tand no chance and he/she will probably just bounce all over the place. This also makes the Maus very resilient to medium packs and flanking attacks.

Now to the main point were people call the Maus undergunned. Again let's look on the stats but this time on the guns of all tier 10.

Maus

128 mm
Penetration: 246/311/65
Damage: 490/490/630
Accuracy: 0.38
RoF: 4.04

E-100

150 mm
Penetration: 235/334/85
Damage: 750/750/950
Accuracy: 0.42
RoF: 3.18

IS-7

130 mm
Penetration: 260/303/68
Damage: 490/490/640
Accuracy: 0.4
RoF: 4.38

IS-4

122 mm
Penetration: 268/400/68
Damage: 440/440/530
Accuracy: 0.38
RoF: 5

T110

120 mm
Penetration: 269/381/60
Damage: 400/400/515
Accuracy: 0.35
RoF: 6.45

AMX 50B

120 mm
Penetration: 267/351/65
Damage: 400/400/515
Accuracy: 0.35
RoF: 6.29

Okay here I see the problem on paper atleast. Every single other gun has more pentration, accuracy and rather of fire, besides E-100 but the E-100 makes up for it by having an OMG derp gun with awesome AP and HE damage. But in the field the stats might be lying. For example the rate of fire on every tank can only be achieved if you can engage a target for a full minute without breaking line of sight. Penetration drops with distance, bounces may occur or just a random ghost shell. But nevertheless the Maus gun seems to lack. But honestly I really love this gun. The penetration and accuracy is more than enough to constantly poke other tanks in their weakspots for 500 damge per shot. And the HE on the Maus is actually very brutal and can easily destroy plenty of modules or just take away absurd amount of HP. For example I managed to hit an AMX 50B in the side, and he took over 750 damage from my HE shell. Is that IS-7 bothering you? Not anymore since you just knocked his gun and gunner 3 times in a row with your HE. See, the gun might suck because of randomness, poor penetration etc. but on these high tier tanks it comes down to the matter if you can aim or not. And I know some E-100 players will say " aim with this gun on a distance of over 200 meters? lol you must be mad". While the accuracy on the E-100 is rather poor you still have something the Maus lacks: mobility. Get to another position were you can hit the enemy and throw a 800 damage shell in his face.

My god this thread starts to get long, alright time to round it up.

I can talk all day on how awesome I think the Maus is and feels, but yes I still see the problems people are stating. The Maus is starting to feel undergunned no matter the fact if you can aim or not the gun is not really on par with the other guns. The armour and HP are still amazing though even if the lower frontal plate is bugged beyond belief and the turret front feels like paper sometimes. Another mayor factor why the Maus is not favoured over other more flexible tanks is pretty simple. The Maus can not exactly take on a whole lot of roles on the battlefield, and you are often forced to play as a "road block tank" defending key locations while providing fire support to the advancing force. And if you are the advancing force you have no chance to return to the base if that falls, and if you stay in base you can't help your front line. Most other tier 10 tanks can both defend and push during the same game, the Maus simply can't do that on most maps.

At the end of the day the Maus still sits proudly on its throne as the most durable vehicle in game. It is almost like a massive guy with full body armour armed with a steel pipe fighting versus naked dudes with hand guns.
   All I can say to end this thread is that if the Maus needs a buff then the buff would be velcome to the gun and the turret front. Feel free to post your own oppinions and suggestions.

The forum does not allow me to add pics for some reason   I shall look it up and see if I can post some screens.

Edited by ollonborre, 26 May 2012 - 12:34 AM.

[niick]

Quote

While the accuracy on the E-100 is rather poor you still have something the Maus lacks: mobility

[TorontoTankt0ps]

Germany always had the best tanks   I proudly own a Maus and its a true wonder to behold

[ollonborre]

niick, on 26 May 2012 - 02:48 AM, said:

What I meant about that is that while the accuracy on the E-100 is poor you can still change position and get closer to your enemy faster than the Maus can, so that you always will fire at close to medium range Sorry if that was a bit unclear, I wrote this 1.45 am so I was slightly tired and my brain had already started to malfunction.

Edited by ollonborre, 26 May 2012 - 09:10 AM.

[SimpleMinds64]

thanks for your nice words in favour of my most beloved Tank... (after VK3601)....

but besides a few town maps our awesome Maus is not the most wanted CW tank,
in random battles it is these days necessary to platoon if you want to play it as it is as you described...

a castle on the battlefield, but with its enormous agility it won´t be able to hush from here to there...

i played 880 battles with it, may be 30% of them in CW, 25% in randoms and rest in Platoons or Companies...

I am proud to have it as it was my first Tier X, but these days more and more it stays in hands of my Garage Crew as IS-7, T110, IS-4 are the dominators in agility and damage dealing...

Let´s see what the future brings, but since "Fog of War" in CW and all the other great Tier X Tanks the Maus lives more and more a life in the "Shadows" of WoT

Edited by SimpleMinds64, 26 May 2012 - 09:32 AM.

[blackout1148]

When there are 4+ arties on each side, that durability rating soon swings away from the Maus :(

[ollonborre]

Well yes the artillery is the main enemy to the almighty Maus, but then again you will survive longer versur 4 artys then any other tier 10 atleast. That itself is a noteworthy point in its durability.

[blackout1148]

ollonborre, on 27 May 2012 - 09:30 AM, said:

Well yes the artillery is the main enemy to the almighty Maus, but then again you will survive longer versur 4 artys then any other tier 10 atleast. That itself is a noteworthy point in its durability.

yeah thats true, but I mean that an IS-7 or T110 has more chance of being evasive/ smaller target for arty

oh and sorry durability was the wrong word i used there, sorry it was late for me :P

Edited by blackout1148, 27 May 2012 - 11:55 AM.

[ollonborre]

blackout1148, on 27 May 2012 - 11:49 AM, said:

yeah thats true, but I mean that an IS-7 or T110 has more chance of being evasive/ smaller target for arty

oh and sorry durability was the wrong word i used there, sorry it was late for me :P

Well the IS-7 and T110 can evade arty more then the Maus can, so yes that is one of their strongpoints, however, once the arty hits they will get squashed.

And no problem, I wrote this wery late aswell and some things can be very unclear

[Nazgarth]

Checks OPs stats;
240 games in maus with less than 50% win ratio in it....

/Sarcasm/ Clearly we can believe him when he says the Maus is most durable. /Sarcasm/ Its only durable against sub-teir 9s, the only teir 9+ tanks that have a tough time penning a Maus are German tanks.


Maus, randoms and CW:

•The lower hull on the maus is quite large, and before the introduction of these new insanely high pen guns from the Americans and Russian tier 9 and 10s, was able to bounce very well when angled correctly, now often even when over-angled can be penned.

•The upper hull on the maus can be easily penned with the new gold rounds found on the IS4 (400mm pen).

•The areas to the left and right of the gun are able to be penned even when angled perfectly by new American and Russian guns.

•Obviously the least mobile and most easily out-flanked tier 10 around.

•The 128mm gun lacks pen (246mm) against t110 and IS4-7 (bounces on "weak spots" all the time (not so weak for German guns)), and for some reason has slower reload than the S-70 (@the reason being known only by Russian devs@).

Maus, CW:

•Now with the "new" IS4 base defenders aren’t restricted to the Maus alone.

•The IS4 has less armour but is a far lower profile and does have very good turret armour and is more capable of bouncing gold rounds because of this.

•Due to the fact that it is far more mobile than the Maus it can retreat more easily for spotting purposes (in a Maus for base defence vs. multiple enemies you won’t last long, nor can you quickly or effectively retreat).

•With higher ROF the IS4 can more effectively slow down an advance by tracking enemies, so Maus is inferior in this aspect as well.

•Not to mention the IS4 with the insane 400mm pen with gold rounds, which can make short work of any tank.

•Maus is far larger and a bigger target for arty, depending on the map, meaning the Maus is less effective for base defence than an IS4 (if there is little arty cover).

•2800 HP (400 extra) counts for one shot more survived when compared with the IS4, (S-70 dmg per shot 490,122 mm M62-T2 dmg per shot 440, 15cm KwK 44 L/38 dmg per shot 750, 12,8cm KwK 44 L/55 dmg per shot 490, 120 mm Gun M58 dmg per shot 400, 120 mm SA 46 dmg per shot 400).

Quote

This massive HP advantage is also why the Maus will beat every other tier 10 ingame in a 1 on 1 engagement. No, high pen guns will pen turret and hull even when angling (sometimes when over angling), not to mention the 128mm lacks pen; had many bounces on "weak sopts" of IS4, IS7 and T110.

The turret and sides are simply amazing. Yes they have the highest values, but you won't often see the Maus absorb shells from the side like the IS7 and IS4 (spaced armour). Not to mention they are huge slab sides.

When facehugging another tank and your sides and turret sides are only slightly angled the enemy facehugger wills tand no chance and he/she will probably just bounce all over the place. Almost impossible to pen is7 turret when in face hug with 128mm using standard rounds, "weak spots" on other tanks magicly absorb or bounce 128mmm rounds; MG turret on T110 has bounced shots at close range (20-50m) many times. Cupola on IS4 turret has the habit of bouncing more often than not.


This also makes the Maus very resilient to medium packs and flanking attacks. Resilient to medium packs, what? Yea, against low tier meds it can bounce alot (so can every other tier 10s, excluding French), but 2-3 teir 8 or 9 meds can take a Maus apart easier than an IS7 or IS4. Frstly lack of mobility to gain better position for engagment. Secondly the armour (slab sides) counts for little because a pack of meds will wait for their shots and make them count; tier 9 meds dont have sub-185mm pen guns unless they are stock. Thirdly a for some reason slow reload give alot of oportunity for meds to do damage. Oh yea ever come accross T-54 sidescraping? No? well Maus doesnt fair well.

#German superior armour#; (which is meant to be their specialty) and on paper it would seem so, but the paper figures don’t take into account; sloping, size/quantity of weak-spots, spaced armour or the size of the tank in question.

@ The reason being known only by Russian devs@; E-100 and Maus turrets are very large and boxy, most importantly that they are boxy (rough scale; Height 1.6m, length 4.5m, width 3.5m), comparing this to the IS7’s turret it does have a large plan (from above) view yet it is very flat and sloped (rough scale; Height 1.4m, length 4.0m, width 3.3m average (wider at base and narrows towards the top)).

Taking the above figures into account inside space for Maus is around 25 cubic meters and the IS7 is around 19 cubic meters, obviously these are estimations, but there isn’t that much difference from real values.

The fact that IS7’s turret is heavily sloped there for reducing space even further it is odd that the 128mm has a slower reload than the S-70. Now for some historic matters; the IS7 was fitted with an auto loader however being a large rivalry between mainly the US and the USSR values were “bigged up” to make them more impressive than they actually were. To top this off Russian tank designers sacrificed crew comfort for low profile tanks, this would have increased loading time and crew performance throughout a battle; I suggest that the 128mm should receive the same reload time as the S-70 for balance purposes.

Edited by Nazgarth, 30 May 2012 - 06:09 PM.

[Dibuk]

Nazgarth, on 30 May 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Checks OPs stats;
240 games in maus with less than 50% win ratio in it....

Clearly we can believe him when he says the Maus is most durable. Its only durable against sub-teir 9s, the only teir 9+ tanks that have a tough time penning a Maus are German tanks.

And you think Maus is fine and well?

[Nazgarth]

Dibuk, on 30 May 2012 - 05:57 PM, said:

And you think Maus is fine and well?

Edited post since then, u'll see.

[ollonborre]

Nazgarth, on 30 May 2012 - 05:33 PM, said:

Checks OPs stats;
240 games in maus with less than 50% win ratio in it....

/Sarcasm/ Clearly we can believe him when he says the Maus is most durable. /Sarcasm/ Its only durable against sub-teir 9s, the only teir 9+ tanks that have a tough time penning a Maus are German tanks.


Maus, randoms and CW:

•The lower hull on the maus is quite large, and before the introduction of these new insanely high pen guns from the Americans and Russian tier 9 and 10s, was able to bounce very well when angled correctly, now often even when over-angled can be penned.

•The upper hull on the maus can be easily penned with the new gold rounds found on the IS4 (400mm pen).

•The areas to the left and right of the gun are able to be penned even when angled perfectly by new American and Russian guns.

•Obviously the least mobile and most easily out-flanked tier 10 around.

•The 128mm gun lacks pen (246mm) against t110 and IS4-7 (bounces on "weak spots" all the time (not so weak for German guns)), and for some reason has slower reload than the S-70 (@the reason being known only by Russian devs@).

Maus, CW:

•Now with the "new" IS4 base defenders aren’t restricted to the Maus alone.

•The IS4 has less armour but is a far lower profile and does have very good turret armour and is more capable of bouncing gold rounds because of this.

•Due to the fact that it is far more mobile than the Maus it can retreat more easily for spotting purposes (in a Maus for base defence vs. multiple enemies you won’t last long, nor can you quickly or effectively retreat).

•With higher ROF the IS4 can more effectively slow down an advance by tracking enemies, so Maus is inferior in this aspect as well.

•Not to mention the IS4 with the insane 400mm pen with gold rounds, which can make short work of any tank.

•Maus is far larger and a bigger target for arty, depending on the map, meaning the Maus is less effective for base defence than an IS4 (if there is little arty cover).

•2800 HP (400 extra) counts for one shot more survived when compared with the IS4, (S-70 dmg per shot 490,122 mm M62-T2 dmg per shot 440, 15cm KwK 44 L/38 dmg per shot 750, 12,8cm KwK 44 L/55 dmg per shot 490, 120 mm Gun M58 dmg per shot 400, 120 mm SA 46 dmg per shot 400).







#German superior armour#; (which is meant to be their specialty) and on paper it would seem so, but the paper figures don’t take into account; sloping, size/quantity of weak-spots, spaced armour or the size of the tank in question.

@ The reason being known only by Russian devs@; E-100 and Maus turrets are very large and boxy, most importantly that they are boxy (rough scale; Height 1.6m, length 4.5m, width 3.5m), comparing this to the IS7’s turret it does have a large plan (from above) view yet it is very flat and sloped (rough scale; Height 1.4m, length 4.0m, width 3.3m average (wider at base and narrows towards the top)).

Taking the above figures into account inside space for Maus is around 25 cubic meters and the IS7 is around 19 cubic meters, obviously these are estimations, but there isn’t that much difference from real values.

The fact that IS7’s turret is heavily sloped there for reducing space even further it is odd that the 128mm has a slower reload than the S-70. Now for some historic matters; the IS7 was fitted with an auto loader however being a large rivalry between mainly the US and the USSR values were “bigged up” to make them more impressive than they actually were. To top this off Russian tank designers sacrificed crew comfort for low profile tanks, this would have increased loading time and crew performance throughout a battle; I suggest that the 128mm should receive the same reload time as the S-70 for balance purposes.

Well I do understand what you mean, yes my win ratio is not that high, yes I had not played so many games in it.

But the true point of this thread was to give out my experince with the Maus I am used to play with. I have not played the Maus so much a since few weeks back since I have been busy to learn the T95. The Maus is indeed flawed, I know that, but I still don't think it is inferior. Just fix the damn turret and gun it will become playable again.

[BigGameHunter]

Maus: (talking about randoms)
- bad speed --> It can't run when things go bad
- bad mobility --> At close range enemy will just circle and t10 guns will pen side easily(no slope)
- bad gun --> Tough time to pen an enemy t10 at distance
- bad turret armor --> Enemy T110, IS4,IS7 etc. (with high pen guns) pen the turret once you aim, while you will most likely bounce
- huge size --> arty will love you much more than other t10s (i do) because it is harder to miss you than to hit you. Therefore you are forced to move a lot less out of cover than other t10.

To sum it up:
Maus used to be usefull before the high pen, high accuracy guns. It's armor just can't take T10 gun's beating any more. To make matters worse the immobility doesn't allow it to adapt to changing situations either. So while in "the old days" a maus had the trade of accuracy+armor vs pen+mobility it now has all 4 against it.

It performs real good against -t8. But t10 guns(on t9+ tanks) really kick the crap out of it.

Edited by BigGameHunter, 30 May 2012 - 10:47 PM.

[Diabolical_Psycho_Panzer]

BigGameHunter, on 30 May 2012 - 10:45 PM, said:

Maus: (talking about randoms)
- bad speed --> It can't run when things go bad
- bad mobility --> At close range enemy will just circle and t10 guns will pen side easily(no slope)
- bad gun --> Tough time to pen an enemy t10 at distance
- bad turret armor --> Enemy T110, IS4,IS7 etc. (with high pen guns) pen the turret once you aim, while you will most likely bounce
- huge size --> arty will love you much more than other t10s (i do) because it is harder to miss you than to hit you. Therefore you are forced to move a lot less out of cover than other t10.

To sum it up:
Maus used to be usefull before the high pen, high accuracy guns. It's armor just can't take T10 gun's beating any more. To make matters worse the immobility doesn't allow it to adapt to changing situations either. So while in "the old days" a maus had the trade of accuracy+armor vs pen+mobility it now has all 4 against it.

It performs real good against -t8. But t10 guns(on t9+ tanks) really kick the crap out of it.

I agree with all of this plus it all applies exponentially to E-100 which is the king of the turds. I find it pretty easy to kill a Maus if I use soviet or american tier IX tanks because of their high pen-accuracy guns but I don't need even that for E-100. And on the open maps with arty - dead man walking - spall liner helps some but not much because everybody is aiming for you. These days I only do daily double with Maus and E-100 and play the rest of my games with IS4,IS7 and T110 - true tier X tanks in this game. At least until they nerf T110 then only IS4 and IS7.

[ollonborre]

Well it seems I have to abandon my lovely Maus, since the British tier 10 will be a average mobilty, great armoured, rapid fire gun thing behemoth. So it looks like that thing is going to be a Maus on steroids.

[Diabolical_Psycho_Panzer]

ollonborre, on 31 May 2012 - 08:19 AM, said:

Well it seems I have to abandon my lovely Maus, since the British tier 10 will be a average mobilty, great armoured, rapid fire gun thing behemoth. So it looks like that thing is going to be a Maus on steroids.

Don't worry, there is no way they are going to make any non-soviet tank better then IS4 and IS7. Maybe, just maybe they'll give you a month or two of supperiority just so they hook you to research/spend gold on free xp but then the nerfs will start and never stop! See that they are still nerfing E-series and that appeared ages ago.

[bobleplast]

Maus: A failed tank

http://www.youtube.c...&feature=relmfu

[Exocet6951]

Maus is not so awesome anymore.
Armor is meaningless with the new 269mm pen guns, which will cut through your LFP weakspot at almost any angle, or can just fire at your mudguard and get you anyways.
Or, if you hull down, well, they'll cut through your (angled) turret one out of two shots while they do the same. The only difference being that you can't hurt them back.

Also, HE ammo is fine and all, until you realize that HE ammo is for either finishing off targets, or simply when you cannot pierce the target (like a moving T110 250m away)
If you use it as primary ammo, every tierX tank will destroy you through sheer outdpm. You might say you took out a few modules, but for a tierX fighting another tierX, claiming to find solace in that is just wrong on so many levels. That's the sort of thing I would expect to hear from a tier7 medium using a derp gun, not an equal tier and weight category tank.

In short, in only real thing the Maus is still good at is sidescraping, and the IS4 is better at it.

[FreakDC]

In CW. The only real advantage is a disadvantage. Due to the huge size the Maus can act as mobile (more or less) cover for other tanks and absorb damage for the high dpm + high pen tanks with the good guns.

In random matches the Maus still works (in a platoon) because most tanks you face don't have the pen to go through anything but the weakest spots at close range and almost no one uses gold ammo. So if you have some support (from your platoon mates) you can't get flanked/rushed and still bounce a lot of shells.
One on one at close range you CAN kill a Maus with the other T10s and even some T9s on most maps, all you need to do is out smart his turret rotation. Sidehug, flank ect..