Bench Seat Beater
By:
IrmaBecx
So to this day the Hype 59 remains my most driven tank in the game, I drove it before I drove the Object 140 when I first got my press account, and all these years later I still feel it was a good investment in spite of the monstrous price tag, because it offered a sensible introduction to Soviet Medium tank gameplay without all the grinding.
The Hype is just that – sensible. It has a sensible armour profile with slanted upper plate and rounded turret, a sensible diesel engine to move it around, and perhaps the most sensible 100 mm Medium tank gun in the game, if not outright mediocre. And if you give the Hype 59 a tier X makeover, what you’ll end up with is very probably the 121B which is about as sensible a choice as you could make if you wanted to get into tier X Medium tanks.
“Sensible” however, does no mean exciting, and unless you are a tier X medium tank degenerate like I am the thought of one that basically represents the exact mid point of any variable you care to mention might not seen super appealing. You take a Russo-Chinese Medium tank chassis with one of those wok pan turrets, and then you stuff a Chinese ripoff 105 mm L7A1 clone inside it. Done. I think that’s genius.
You may think it’s boring.
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Look, if you want a sturdy tier X Medium that can hull down and put our damage there’s a perfectly good one in the tech tree, widely considered the low key best tier X Medium out there. And you have like five Russian varieties to choose from if you count the T-100LT, all with slightly different hull and turret configurations. 105 mm L7A1 clones are a dime a dozen on NATO tanks, and everyone knows the Leopard 1 Bordkanone is the best example. Again, why would you be excited by one that doesn’t outperform the others in any respect?
You look at the stats of the 121B, and literally nothing will stand out. Not a thing. Well, it has 300 mm HEAT pen which is joint highest in tier, but that’s joint with more than half the others. Here you will have to remember how Russian bias works, because Chinese bias is a lot like it only more subtle. There is not a single bad thing about the 121B either. Almost all the stats are in the top half or top third compared to other tier X Mediums.
So yeah, it’s a tier X Hype 59. Tier average weaponry. Tier average everything, and pretty robust for a Medium. You have that 120 mm front plate, but it’s not all that well angled so showing maybe 220 mm effective. Put some angle on it, and it’s quickly over 300. 80 mm sides that are basically flat with very small turret supports won’t get overmatched by any gun in the game. Turret front is around 300 mm effective, and the hatches maybe 250 mm, so not all that weak.
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I bought my 121B with a generous helping of Wargaming gold, it was pretty much no cost. Even got the terrible looking golden camo for it. But I always loved the Type 59, and the 121B really is the same tank at tier X. Surely the attraction is self evident? It’s useless to compare it to the Russian Mediums, because the whole point of the 121B is to be different; to be Chinese instead. A little more gun, wok pan turret, and that Chinese mobility.
If you drive Chinese tanks already you’ll know what I mean by that. hey can be pretty fas, but they take a while to get going. They don’t like to climb hills or ford streams, but on the whole they’re pretty agile. I hit 64 km/h on a slight downhill straight on my way to the northwest corner of Ghost Factory just now; that’s Cromwell speed. Got there first, and held it too. I’s a tractor, an off road 4×4 and not a sports tank, a spartan utility vehicle that is fairly capable in any situation, city our country, desert or snow. The sort of tank that gets you wherever you want to go.
It’s also no secret I have a soft spot for Chinese tanks, and perhaps Medium tanks in particular. There is no way my review won’t be partial. But then all I’m saying is the 121B is a run of the mill daily grind beater just like the old Hype, your average work horse credit grinder premium.
What; you didn’t know this is an actual premium tank? Russian tier X Mediums give you maybe 85% credit coeffisient, and I think the collectibles are actually worse. But while the 121B isn’t quite a Type 59 in this regard, it does get 140%. Not that it matters a lot in this game economy, but it’s kind of nice all the same.
There aren’t many more ways to say it. It’s a Communist tank with a NATO sourced gun. If you have the slightest notion of Communist Mediums past tier VII or so, that should tell you everything you need to know.
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So what’s it actually like to drive in the current climate?
Well… It’s nice. It’s quick enough to reach some spots and do some brawling, it can take a few hits and not fall to pieces, it puts out fairly consistent damage; and you know consistency is what the 121B is all about. It is what it says on the box. Does what you think it will do, over and over again.
I took mine out in a few Rating games as I mentioned, and I managed to win three of them by doing fairly simple things: fighting other Mediums, hull downing, flanking short and long, holding a position to give vision to TDs and not allow the enemy to advance, a bit of side scraping even. When finally we lost I actually went down against another 121B, it had the gold camo so I messed up five or six shots in a row and got completely outplayed. Couldn’t hit it, couldn’t pen it; nothing worked, it was just GG and thumbs up.
In the right circumstance the 121B can be quite a rowdy little number. Often simply by being a Medium, and one that isn’t really bad at anything at all Medium tank wise. Everything you try to do with it is going to work most of the time as long as you don’t try to make it do something outlandish.
Also chances are you’re going to know how to drive the thing already, it does the “Russian thing” with the front plate and turret, and it has the exact same interior layout as practically any Soviet Medium past tier VIII: driver on the left, fuel tanks and ammo racks on the right, so show the left side if you can help it. If you consider the Type 59 is really a downtiered T-54, the 121B compared to the Russian seems slightly detuned for comfort in the same way. It’s not as highly tuned as my Object 907 sports tank, but it’s also not as fragile.
If you followed all that, this insight should inform your gameplay. You’re not necessarily going to outperform other Mediums except maybe in terms of turret armour, but you will be able to keep up with them in any regard. So you lean back and play patient, start relocating early, make sure to reset camo, everything you can do to give you an edge in level competition. Any Medium tank strategy or tactic will be possible to execute, and to me that is the appeal of Chinese tanks on the whole. Being unassuming in themselves they instead draw focus to the actual gameplay.
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This is I suppose a love letter to the 121B. But then why wouldn’t it be? It’s a tier X version of my most driven tank in the game; a simple idea executed well.
For the sake of completion I bring out the main competition. You know the Object 140 is my favourite tank, but the 907 and I have been spending a lot of time together since I got my hands on one. .244 dispersion with the refined gun, fastest Russian on the market although that could also be the 140, but certainly a light weight sports prototype and the stealtiest in class.
For once my team actually goes northwest on Vineyards, I hit two beautiful HE shots on the gun shield of a Grille while capping B, and we own the corner. Relocate to start shooting at enemies over at A, but one of our Mediums goes down having advanced, so I move to replace it. Easy shots at stragglers before the encirclement is complete and the enemy evaporated.
So yea. My 907 is fantastic.
But again I don’t think the comparison is relevant beyond establishing differences, because the 121B quite clearly aims to be different. Downtuned. Consistent. Reliable. Laid back, even. If you want something more exciting you could go French or Russian, American even if you are so inclined. All kinds of sporty models out there. What we are looking at here is more of a touring tank.
So what’s the story here?
The 121B is a great tank with little to no weaknesses unless you consider six degrees of gun depression lacking, it’s a solid performer in the vein of the Type 59 and Russian Mediums but it’s also conspicuously Chinese if you know what to look for. It is perhaps not the most exciting of Mediums at tier X, but this lack of excitement is precisely what makes it so dependable; with everything set to medium-high nothing is bad about it. Mediocre or reliable? You decide.
And you can get everything the 121B has to offer and more in the tech tree, you can get a faster, more highly strung premium Medium, but you cannot get this exact thing: an Eastern bloc tank with a Western bloc gun. Is that worth 15.000 gold? Again, you decide.
If you like the Medium playstyle, your favourite credit grinder is a Medium, or you have a thing for Communistic tank design; if you are looking for a daily driver to last you through the years, and if you like Russian Mediums but somehow still feel 100 mm is just half a centimetre too wimpy, then the 121B was made for you. If you look at it and all you see is a Chinese knockoff made up of surplus tech tree parts, then not so much. It really is that simple.
Me, I love my 121B very dearly and I’ve enjoyed spending some time considering it’s place in the current meta. It’s two thumbs up with bells and laurel wreaths of course. IrmaBecx says whatever you may think of it, middle of the road will simply never go out of style.
Take it easy out there.
IrmaBecx School of Tank Philosophy 