Hello. I registered on TG recently. I've platooned WoT with Bernout a few times now.

I'm interested in experimenting with specialized roles in platoon-level play. Maybe you do that already. But in the spirit of the Tactical Gamer founding principles, here goes (not just winning, but HOW you win).

The idea I had for tactics was to define roles for each member of a 3-man platoon, similar to tank/DPS/healer. Why go to all that bother? To quickly get everyone on the same page (we all know what the healer is supposed to do), and because you are game nerds that like this stuff. I don't know if specialization beats 3-of-a-kind, it seems at level 10 clan wars you want all heavies with few exceptions. But at levels 3-8 I think it's worth a try.

Instead of tank/DPS/healer, in WoT you might have tank/DPS/flanker, where the roles could be filled by heavy/TD/medium respectively. tank/DPS/flanker is the timeless infantry/archer/cavalry tactic, and that's where I'm looking to develop an advantage. For example, at a chokepoint, infantry+archer beats 2 infantry every time. Can we do that in WoT? Bernout and I have had some success doing that as I'm sure many of you have - spotter+TD is the WoT equivalent.

Let's look at the roles. Heavy tank as the 'infantry', medium tank as the 'cavalry' is pretty obvious. But for DPS, it's either arty or TD, and I want to talk about TDs. The archer gets its advantage when the enemy can't shoot back; for a TD, that means being invisible while shooting, which you can do more often than you might think. So learning how to stay invisible is critical. Once the TD is spotted, it's like archers in melee.

You can organize platoons at different levels based on matchmaker. level 5 (churchills, or battle tier 6) and level 8 (lowes) are the most common because of the gold tanks and people grinding for ISK, and there are good specialized tanks available at those levels. But I'll start with level 4 for illustration because it has some of the most extreme specialization. If you score the tanks by the customary (simplified) attack strength, defense strength, and mobility, then infantry=strong defense; archer=strong attack; cavalry=mobility. At level 4, the B1=infantry; SU-85B=archer; T-28=cavalry. So while we hate the B1, it's pretty good at surviving while the invisible TD is destroying the enemy. The cavalry is your mobile reserve waiting for the opportunity to strike.

FYI, I was in a clan (DPS-II) for a few weeks and participated in Clan Wars, but then decided I wasn't interested in Clan Wars. I'm not in a clan and I haven't joined yours for the same reason, I just want to do platoons and companies.