World of Tanks, a free to play online simulation of World War II tank battles, has several characteristics that separate it from other shooter games. One of these is the crucial need for teamwork in every battle. This is particularly evident regarding the importance of scout vehicles. This guide will provide useful information for novice and experienced scout players.
What is a scout?
A scout is a player who that rushes his vehicle forward toward enemy-controlled areas in order to detect opposing vehicles and reveal their locations to his teammates.
How does this differ from a spotter?
Scouts are typically fast-moving light or medium tanks that rely on closing the distance to the enemy to detect them. Spotters are typically tank destroyers (TDs) or other vehicles that move into positions of concealment and hide. This lets the spotter remain undetected while reporting the location of enemies as they move through the spotter’s field of view.
Why scout?
Scouting provides two major advantages for your team. The first is that it provides early tactical intelligence. Your heavy hitters, like SPGs and vehicles with high accuracy, long-barreled guns can inflict early damage on the enemy if they know where opposing vehicles are. This gives your team the chance to inflict casualties before the enemy can respond.
The second is disruption of enemy deployment. While scouts are typically lightly armed they can still inflict damage. Even their modest guns can make short work of SPGs, making them a tremendous threat to the enemy’s heavy weapons. Your opponents know this and will almost certainly, upon detecting the scout’s approach, alter their maneuvers and move to intercept the scout. This delays the enemy team’s efforts to reach strategically important locations on the map while your own team is free to maneuver for advantageous position.
A third advantage to scouting applies only to the scout. Being the first player to detect an enemy vehicle pays off in the form of experience points for the scout. Detecting SPGs carries the greatest reward – a task the fast-moving scout is well equipped to perform. Detecting at least nine enemy vehicles in games where your team is the victor wins you the Scout award as well.
The Cardinal Rule: Dead Scouts Tell No Tales.
Some players will set their cruise control to full speed, take off at a sprint the moment the game begins, and zoom into enemy guns without a plan. This leads to a quick death and at best a modest contribution to victory. Don’t waste your vehicle in a suicide rush without a plan.
The Second Rule: Thou Shalt Talk To The SPGs.
Before you go zooming off into unknown territory it’s important to coordinate with the artillery (arty) players. Tell them where you are going. Highlight your destination on the mini map. Ask the arty players to tell you when they are in position, loaded, and ready to fire on targets you discover. Ask if they have any particular location they need you to scout. Rocketing off into the distance and illuminating targets that no one is prepared to fire upon contributes little to your team’s success.
Scout Strategies
Weapon of Mass Distraction – Rush ahead immediately at game start. Your goal is to penetrate the enemy deployment area while most of them are still in or near it. Most of them will stop and turn to fire at you. Some will return to base to chase you. SPGs will flee to avoid detection. Ideally you will be familiar with the map and know the most common SPG hiding places. Bore down on them, jinking side to side to deny anyone an easy shot. If you locate an SPG aim at it, right click to auto aim, and zoom right by. Do not stop to aim. Do not stop to fight. Let the computer aim and just keep firing every time you reload. Weave crazily around the enemy backfield. Duck behind hills, rocks and buildings to deny the enemy firing opportunities. Move from one SPG hiding spot to the next to try to locate as many as possible.
Remember this is a suicidal strategy. Your tank is going to be destroyed most games. This strategy should only be used in situations where both teams have multiple SPGs. Your SPGs will use the targeting information you send; their SPGs are worth taking out early, justifying your risky attack. Your survival is paramount. The longer you live the greater the interruption of enemy maneuvers and the longer your SPGs will have to rain shells down on the enemy.
Tank Destroyer Sweep – this strategy is used to identify locations of enemies in concealed defensive positions. Most of the time it will be Tank Destroyers (TDs) hiding in bushes. They will always see you before you see them since they are in cover, stationary, and have a natural concealment bonus. You are conducting recon by enticing them to fire at you. As usual it is critical to jink, forcing opponents to guess the proper amount of lead necessary to hit you. Conduct your run just ahead of your main attack force, preferably on a flank. Enemies cannot resist shooting at scouts. They will fire, become visible, and the heavy hitters behind you will paste them.
Mid-Game Recon – sometimes your best opening move is to hide. As a scout you have the speed to re-enter the fray at almost any time and location. Wait for your teammates to reveal where the bulk of the enemy force is maneuvering. Once you have a feel for that force in terms of location and composition, tear off in another direction. There is almost always a multi-pronged attack in progress and your job is to locate and reveal the sneaky buggers trying to outflank your team. Nothing ruins their sneak attacks like being discovered and shelled while they are trying to wade through the weeds. Barrel right past them. They can either continue their advance, in which case you turn back and shoot them in the exhaust pipes; or they will turn back to chase you, in which case you can lead them on a merry chase like the Pied Piper.
Closing Pitcher – you’ve opted for a late game strategy and the game is winding down. In these situations it’s common to find two relatively equal teams with four or five vehicles each, including an SPG or two per side. You’ll have a pretty good idea of where the remaining forces are because everyone will be engaged by then. Pick an empty approach lane and charge into their deployment zone as an SPG distractor. Find them and illuminate them. Two things will happen. First, they will cease fire on your teammates because they need to kill you or die. Second, your SPGs will start shelling them. It lets you interrupt their offensive operations and give your team the chance to remove the enemy heavy guns. Once their SPGs have been dealt with move in behind any remaining enemies and ping their rear armor and tracks.
The Ninja – with patience, thorough map knowledge, and the right opportunity a scout can sometimes reach the enemy cap point without being detected. This usually occurs in games where one main approach point is simply empty with all combat occurring on other transit points. Appearing by surprise on the enemy cap point will have one of two effects. First, enemies may return to the cap point to defend it or begin firing blindly into it in hopes of hitting you (the normal SPG action). Second, if there are no enemies close enough to return and defend, they may increase the aggressiveness of their push on your cap point. That may lead you to gaining a lot of capture points on your own, or may cause the enemy to rush ahead blindly to counteract your capture efforts. Both of these increase your chance of victory.
Safety Valve – if you survive till the endgame point you may have the only vehicle with enough speed to return to base and start hitting enemies on your cap point to reset the capture counter. If you see the enemy capture bar start to fill, assess the mini map and correlation of forces. If the game is a close one and you are in position to do so, return to base and hit the enemy tanks with HE rounds while watching the cap counter. As soon as you damage an enemy and remove his contribution to capture, switch targets. You may delay them long enough for your team to pull ahead and win.
Movement guidelines
As a scout your tank will have low hit points and low armor. You do not soak damage well. Mobility is your key defense. When you move around the map spend as much time as possible moving through forests and bushes. Avoid swamps and marshes because they slow you down. Avoid knocking over trees because that reveals your presence. Learn to travel below ridgelines to keep solid earth between you and enemies till you are ready to expose your tank. Make a habit of using buildings and large rocks as cover. Always move from one point of cover and concealment to another. Avoid traveling in the open as if your life depended on it – because it does. Drive with a side-to-side, serpentine motion to keep SPGs from locking in and denying people a consistent path to use for gauging lead time. Try to travel across enemy firing lines rather than directly toward them. Laterally moving targets are hard to hit. Enemies charging right at you just keep getting bigger in your crosshairs. Learn to turn a lot.
Optimal Upgrade Path
Always invest research points on a scout vehicle by upgrading suspension first, then engine, then radio, then turret, and finally gun. Your suspension determines top speed and turn rate. Your engine gives acceleration and ability to maintain speed on hills and during turns. Your radio lets you report enemy locations on the mini-map across greater distances. Your turret increases your viewing range, and usually your armor and/or hit points so you survive longer. Your gun is mainly useful when engaging other light vehicles or SPGs, which is not your primary function.
Optimal Tank Gear
Equip your tank with Coated Optics, Improved Ventilation, and Vertical Stabilizer. The optics will give you increased detection range even when moving. Improved ventilation increases all crew skills by 5%. That’s important because the commander’s skill modifies detection range (higher skill means you see further). It also filters down to add to every other crew member’s skill. Increases in driver skill make your tank move faster and turn better. Increases in radioman skill let you communicate across greater distances. The vertical stabilizer makes your gun more accurate on the move. Since you will practically never stay still once you get under way this is tremendously helpful.
Optimal Consumables
If you are using credits only, load your tank with a Small First Aid Kit in slot 4, a Small Repair Kit in slot 5, and Lend-Lease Oil or 100-Octane Gas in slot 6. If you are using Russian vehicles consider Removed Speed Governor, Small Repair Kit, Lend-Lease Oil. In the first case the First Aid Kit can revive your driver, keeping your speed high. The Repair Kit can fix immobilization via track or engine hits. The Lend-Lease Oil improves tank speed, as does the Removed Speed Governor. Using that last item will hurt your tank and cause repair bills, but a combined 15% increase in speed can make a huge difference, particularly on faster tanks. An A-20 with a pure speed load (consumables, equipment and crew to hit ) can theoretically hit 111 KPH on a straightaway if you are willing to eat the repair bill. Good luck hitting that bad boy in motion.
If you use Gold consumables swap the First Aid Kit for Chocolate, Combat Rations, or Cola as appropriate to your tank’s nationality. Swap the 100-Octane Gas for 105-Octane Gas as appropriate.
Optimal Crew Skills
Train Repair first, Firefighting second and Camouflage third. Your tank is most likely to suffer a system damaging critical hit. Less likely is an engine fire. Finally, since you are a scout, the only time you should ever need the camouflage skill is early in the game when hiding before you unleash your engine.
Which vehicle should I use to scout?
Several vehicles make good scouts. The key advantage your vehicle needs is high speed. The fastest vehicles from each country will typically be found in the branch of the tech tree that begins with light tanks. Light tanks, and the medium tanks further down the tree in the same line, usually have a significant speed advantage over other vehicles of the same tier. Here is a breakdown of the best picks by country and tier. In all cases assume the vehicles have the best upgrades for suspension, engine, radio, turret and weapon.
Russia Tier 2 – BT-2. Speed 55, traverse 40. It’s fragile with low armor. Tier 3 – BT-7. Speed 66, traverse 47. It’s a performance car. It’s still fragile and offers no improvement in armament over the BT-2. Tier 3 – T-46. Speed 58, traverse 55. Incredibly agile, very fast, but even less armor than the BT-7. That’s a surprise since this tank comes from the medium/heavy branch of the tech tree. Tier 4 – A-20. Speed 72, traverse 44. It’s the fastest vehicle in the game and therefore the best early detection tank. It is almost certain to reach the enemy before they have had time to move far from their deployment zone. It’s still very fragile for its tier. Tier 5 – T-34. Speed 56, traverse 40. Fast for its tier, this is the first tank in the line offering any measurable improvement in armor. It’s still thin. It carries a better gun than anything above it on the tree. Tier 6 – T-34-85. Speed 54, traverse 40. It has vastly improved turret armor combined with a hard hitting gun. This allows taking peeks over ridge lines and some hull-down shooting in relative safety. Tier 7 – T-43. Speed 51, traverse 40. It’s the slowest scout in the Russian line. It has better hull armor than the T-34-85 but less turret armor, making it less useful for pop-up scouting or shooting. It also uses the same weapons as its predecessor. Tier 7 – KV-13. Speed 60, traverse 38. This tank lies outside the normal tech progression. It’s faster than the T-43, has more armor, and an accurate, rapid fire gun. It beats the T-43 as a scout. Tier 8 – T-44. Speed 51, traverse 40. It offers better hit points, armor, and armament than the T-43, making it a solid combat vehicle. Tier 9 – T-54. Speed 56, traverse 48. It’s fast, turns well, carries decent hull armor and has turret armor worthy of a good heavy tank. It sports a brutal gun for a medium vehicle, which allows it (in conjunction with its amazing turret armor) to be a capable hull-down fighter. Germany Tier 2 – No viable scout vehicles. Its two offerings, the PzKpfw II (medium/heavy branch of the tech tree) and the PzKpfw 35(t) are both abysmally slow. German vehicle users will have to wait for tier 3 to find decent scouts. Tier 3 – PzKpfw III Ausf A. Speed 68, traverse 44. It carries solid turret armor and a powerful gun for its tier. Tier 3 – PzKpfw II Luchs. Speed 60, traverse 38. This tank is slightly slower and less maneuverable than the AusfA (above) but has more armor. It also uses the same gun. This is the first of two vehicles in a dead-end branch of the German tech tree. Tier 4 – Pzkpfw III. Speed 64, traverse 45. This tank is from the light/medium line. It has amazing hull and turret armor for a scout and mounts a powerful and fast-firing gun. Tier 4 – PzKpfw 38 nA. Speed 62, traverse 35. This vehicle from the medium/heavy branch is fast, but has modest maneuverability. It has decent armor and very effective armament. Tier 4 – VK 1602 Leopard. Speed 68, traverse 33. Its armament is good and armor is solid, though not as good is the PzKpfw III. It’s really stellar ability is acceleration. The 585 HP motor makes it reach top speed in the blink of an eye. Cover-to-cover dashes are a piece of cake for it. Many consider this to be the best scout in the game. Tier 5 – PzKpfw III/IV. Speed 55, traverse 35. Its hull armor is weaker than its predecessor but its turret armor is better. Its armament is decent for a scout. Tier 6 – VK 3001 (H). Speed 55, traverse 40. It’s only slightly more maneuverable than the tier 5 counterpart but carries substantially better turret armor and a better gun. At this point the player can begin using the tank as a hull-down participant in battle, even as a first line combatant. Tier 6 – VK 3001 (P). Speed 60, traverse 28. It’s quick but turns like a cow compared to other scout tanks. Its armor is moderate without being exceptional. Tier 7 – VK 3002 (DB). Speed 56, traverse 40. It’s a tank from a dead-end tech line. The turret armor and gun are identical to the VK 3001(H). Tier 8 – Panther II. Speed 55, traverse 29. It has the speed to scout but must be cautious because its ability to dodge is limited. Its armor is modest. The Panther II has the option of a superior long range sniping gun or it can fall back on the same DERP gun (High-Explosive ammo using gun designed for short range, high damage hits) carried by the Hetzer. Tier 9 – E-50. Speed 60, traverse 27. This tank is new since the most recent patch. It’s definitely a drag racer – great on the straightaway, not so great in the slalom. It carries tremendous improvement in armor and gun over the tier 8 vehicle. USA Tier 2 – M2 Light Tank. Speed 56, traverse 40. It has heavy armor for a tier 2 tank, and oddly, more than its medium line equivalent. Armament is modest. Tier 3 – M3 Stuart. Speed 61, traverse 45 vehicle is an excellent scout vehicle. As with most low-tier American light tanks it has very solid armor. The gun offers moderate damage with a high rate of fire. Tier 4 – M5 Stuart. Speed 58, traverse 45. It’s slightly slower than its predecessor. An important detail is its turret upgrade. This upgrade reduces armor but gives it a nearly 40% increase in detection range. Tier 5 – M7. Speed 60, traverse 48. It’s quick and agile. It is also the first tank in its line to reverse the trend of heavily armored scouts. From here on up most vehicles in this line are lightly armored compared to those of other nations. It has a very hard-hitting gun for a scout. Tier 7 – T20. Speed 56, traverse 37. It’s quick but has modest maneuverability. Its armor is unimpressive but it has a hard hitting weapon. Tiers 6, 8 and 9 – no viable scout. The tanks in these tiers are simply too slow for scouting duties. Best Scout Vehicles By Tier Tier 2: M2 Light Tank (USA). Tier 3: PzKpfw II Luchs (Germany). Runner up: BT-7 (Russia) Tier 4: VK 1602 Leopard (Germany). Tier 5: M7 (USA) Tier 6: T-34-85 (Russia). Runner up: VK 3001 (P) (Germany) Tier 7: KV-13 (Russia) Tier 8: T-44 (Russia) Tier 9: T-54 (Russia). Runner up: E-50 (Germany).
Choose your vehicles, learn the maps, and pick a strategy. As a scout you’ll be vital to your team’s success.
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