ARL-44
Contents
Description
The ARL-44 is a Rank III French tank destroyer
with a battle rating of 5.3 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.75 "La Résistance". As a rank III turreted tank destroyer, it performs very well in its role. It is the final iteration of the ARL-44. With a very good gun and appreciable armour, this tank is deemed to be a long-range sniper on the battlefield. Its only downside lies with its mobility: it is slower than most tanks at this BR.
The ARL-44 bears very distinctive characteristics, with a WWI-style track system (similar to the Churchill) which runs across the whole side of its chassis. This tank is a mix of different inspirations, mainly late war German tank technology such as the Panther series or the Tiger II, from which it takes its sloped frontal armour and tall profile. As France was reviving from WW2, its engineers were hard at work to catch up with tank technology, the ARL-44 series was a training ground for them. This is why this tank has rather weird design choices, coming from both experience and experimentation. This final iteration of the series is comparable to the famous King Tiger (while being not as good).
Distance is your best ally as your armour has many big weak spots. Avoid showing sides and/or back to your enemies and you should be mostly fine. As armour on this tank has very large weak spots, it is better to keep as far as possible from the frontline, using its astonishing gun to knock down enemies.
The gun is clearly what this tank is all about: taking down anything from a good distance. Keep in mind that your reload rate is rather slow. Every penetrating shot carries a very large amount of shrapnels, hence, one shot kill are frequent even if this tanks only has solid shots.
Moving around is the greatest issue an ARL-44 will face: its track traction is very poor and won't allow to move as quickly as you would wish on most terrain. Since your mobility does not make you neither a good flanker nor brawler, keep behind friendly lines, breaking even the heaviest of your foes.
General info
Survivability and armour
Armour type:
- Cast homogeneous armour (Turret)
- Rolled homogeneous armour (Hull)
| Armour | Front (Slope angle) | Sides | Rear | Roof |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 120 mm (48°) Front glacis 75 mm (63°) Lower glacis 100 mm (1-80°) Machine gun port |
50 + (25-50) + 50 mm | 20 mm (72°) Top 35 mm (32°) Bottom |
20 mm |
| Turret | 110 mm (0-70°) Turret front 100 mm (0-75°) Gun mantlet |
60 mm (13-14°) | 30 mm (8°) | 10 mm |
| Armour | Sides | Roof | ||
| Cupola | 60 mm | 60 mm |
Notes:
- Suspension wheel are 15 mm thick while tracks are 20 mm thick.
- 25 mm RHA plate separate the engine from the crew compartment.
Mobility
| Mobility characteristic | ||
|---|---|---|
| Weight (tons) | Add-on Armour weight (tons) |
Max speed (km/h) |
| 50.0 | N/A | 41 (AB) |
| 37 (RB/SB) | ||
| Engine power (horsepower) | ||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded |
| Arcade | 852 | ___ |
| Realistic/Simulator | 531 | 600 |
| Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton) | ||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded |
| Arcade | 17.04 | __.__ |
| Realistic/Simulator | 10.62 | 12.00 |
Armaments
Main armament
| 90 mm SA45 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capacity | Vertical guidance |
Horizontal guidance |
Stabilizer | ||
| 43 | -10°/+20° | ±180° | N/A | ||
| Turret rotation speed (°/s) | |||||
| Mode | Stock | Upgraded | Prior + Full crew | Prior + Expert qualif. | Prior + Ace qualif. |
| Arcade | 8.9 | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ |
| Realistic | 8.9 | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ |
| Reloading rate (seconds) | |||||
| Stock | Prior + Full crew | Prior + Expert qualif. | Prior + Ace qualif. | ||
| 10.00 | __.__ | __.__ | __.__ | ||
Ammunition
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration in mm @ 90° | |||||
| 10m | 100m | 500m | 1000m | 1500m | 2000m | ||
| 90 mm Obus de rupture | APC | 193 | 191 | 180 | 168 | 156 | 145 |
| 90 mm Obus explosif | HE | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 | 13 |
| Shell details | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity in m/s |
Projectile Mass in kg |
Fuse delay
in m: |
Fuse sensitivity
in mm: |
Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent): |
Normalization At 30° from horizontal: |
Ricochet: | ||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||
| 90 mm Obus de rupture | APC | 1000 | 11 | N/A | N/A | N/A | ° | 48° | 63° | 71° |
| 90 mm Obus explosif | HE | 700 | 11 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 945 | +0° | 79° | 80° | 81° |
Ammo racks
| Full ammo |
1st rack empty |
2nd rack empty |
3rd rack empty |
4th rack empty |
Visual discrepancy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 43 | 31 (+12) | 25 (+18) | 13 (+30) | 1 (+42) | no |
Turret empty: 25 (+18)
Machine guns
| 7.5 mm MAC 31 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Coaxial mount | ||||||
| Capacity (Belt capacity) | Fire rate (shots/minute) |
Vertical guidance |
Horizontal guidance | |||
| 5,000 (150) | 1,350 | N/A | N/A | |||
Usage in the battles
This tank is a dedicated sniper, using it in any other role is a bad idea as its characteristics does not suits it for anything else. Hull-down positions are mostly ineffective as its turret armour is bad. At best, try to hide its LFP behind solid cover. Angling is not very necessary in most cases it is better to face its enemies head-on and concentrate on the firing. If caught in close-quarter combat, make sure to angle its turret ~30 to the left between shots (thus protecting your ammo racks with gun breech).
At this BR, you are not the only good sniper on the battlefield, watch out for SPGs as they can take you out from a very good distance. Still, these are not your biggest fear, armoured SPGs and heavy tanks are.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- What a gun !
- Very good 90 mm gun with lots of penetration
- Average reload rate
- Lots of shrapnels
- Fast round: easy to aim at distances
- An armour tailored for a sniper
- Has 120 mm of sloped armour on the glacis plate.
- Better overall armour than the ARL-44 (ACL-1)
- Side armour is complex, negates occasional HEAT shells.
- Can be played a little like a heavy tank when facing weaker enemies.
- Mobility is alright as long as you don't push it
- Good acceleration at low speeds
- Good hull turning rate
Cons:
- Does not like getting shot at, especially up close
- Large silhouette
- Vulnerable side profile. Big and flat.
- Wall of ammo behind the upper glacis plate, penetrating it can result in an ammo rack
- There is a shell staying next to breach that won't go away untill all ammo is spent. Shells penetrating the turret and hitting the breach have high chance of blowing it up.
- Turret armour is underwhelming at 100mm-110mm of flat armour. German 75mm can penetrate at range.
- Extremely thin roof armour (10 mm on the turret and 5 mm on the engine deck). Strafing planes are deadly.
- Weak lower plate is only 50 mm, a major shot trap.
- Weak gun mantlet is only 60 mm flat armour
- Turret back is only 20 mm thick, vulnerable to HMG fire.
- Moving can be unpleasant
- Tracks have poor ground traction
- Hill climbing is hard
- Struggles reaching top speed
- Others
- Struggles when uptiered in matches.
History
Sixty ARL-44 were built between 1951 and 1953. However in 1953, they were phased out in favour of the M47 Patton.
Media
An excellent addition to the article will be video guides, as well as screenshots from the game and photos.
References
Read also
Links to the articles on the War Thunder Wiki that you think will be useful for the reader, for example,
- reference to the series of the vehicles;
- links to approximate analogues of other nations and research trees.
ETC.
Sources
Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:
- topic on the official game forum;
- other literature.
| France tank destroyers | |
|---|---|
| Lorraine 40t derivatives | CA Lorraine · Lorraine 155 Mle.50 |
| ATGM | MEPHISTO · AMX-10M |
| Other | AMR.35 ZT3 · Lorraine 37L · SAu 40 · ARL-44 · ELC bis · AMX-50 Foch · AuF1 |
| USA | ▄M10 GMC · ▄M36B2 |
