Optics

What are optics and where to look for them

Optics are used by your crew to look at enemy. For you, they are used whenever you use sniper (gunner) scope.

You can always see them when you use X-ray in vehicle preview, though they often come without proper description and don't say their magnification levels. Generally, only one of them tells zoom levels.

Some vehicles are half-filled, and only say one zoom level (presumably, it always means maximal zoom):

Optics and viewports are also sometimes a weakspot of super heavy tanks, such as IS-7, though they are extremely hard to target, as they are very small.

Just damaging the optics does nothing to the tank or player's effectiveness in game so far.

Zoom levels in the game

Optics zoom levels are no joke and one should keep in mind what they're using. Fighting dedicated sniper tanks with X12+ scopes is extremely dangerous.

Commander's binoculars always have about X6 zoom.

Here are the examples of zoom levels for different confirmed vehicles. Screenshots are made in test drive, always from a certain position (seen on minimap), hull front is always towards the target to minimize collision. Weather settings : 16:00, overcast. (It surely will be easier to spot enemy at good weather, but in RB they have camouflage, so it's only fair if we make target a bit harder to see.) The target is at a distance of exactly 1km on these screenshots, as should be seen by indicators. It is also worth noting, that certain nations and/or vehicles have much cleaner scopes (As in, your vision is not blacked out all the time, even if zoom level itself is atrocious). (Click on first image and browse them with arrow keys/buttons on screenshot sides to make it easier.)