Warrior

Warrior

Swingfire

ZT3A2

Warrior

Swingfire

ZT3A2

Britain

VI Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
8.3	8.3	8.3

Class:

Light tank

Research:135 000

Purchase:380 000

Show in game

Description

The Combat Vehicle, Personnel, Tracked, 30mm Gun, Warrior FV510 (or just the Warrior) is a rank VI British light tank with a battle rating of 8.3 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.81 "The Valkyries".

Warrior is basically a big box with a round turret, which has a little gun in middle, "ears" (ATGM cameras), and the ATGM launcher itself on the right side. Front of the hull is sloped to decrease small firearms damage. IFV hull is huge compared to even medium tanks of some factions (about double the size of T-62) and looks even bigger when carrying additional armour.

On its right front, there are exhaust ports, which are a weak spot in armour structure and may prevent gunner from firing precisely in Realistic Battles due to smoke and heat coming out of them, though usually, it's not a big problem.

If the vehicle has Add-on armour, it's easily identified for its riveted plates on sides of the vehicle. Usually, after being shot with a high velocity round, they break off. Plates do not protect the rear of the vehicle.

The Warrior is mostly played as an aggressive ATGM tank or ambush scout tank, though it can fulfil any role that doesn't involve it being constantly shot at.

It's best described as a hybrid between a slowed down SPAA and assault ATGM launcher, while armour is either nonexistent or installed via a modification to partially protect from hazards that normally annihilate light tanks. The weapon combo is potent enough to destroy even modern MBT's, and with add-on armour, the Warrior can bully even heavy tanks in close range, though the turret is still very vulnerable.

The Warrior can be played defensively (mostly around hills and mountains), or aggressively (on flat terrains and in towns), given that there is enough cover for the Warrior. In realistic battles, Warrior can also hide relatively well and use either of its weapons to punish unsuspecting people, or just scout them.

This vehicle is very easy to play while still in stock mode, as it has most essentials available at stock or unlocked early on, however, every upgrade only makes it even stronger.

General info

Survivability and armour

While this construction outside of Warrior can sometimes stop HESH coming from behind, it will also often doom the tank by allowing chemical shells coming from the side to damage tracks or unprotected parts of the hull, triggering hull break.

Overview:

The Warrior has a huge profile, and its armour is mostly made of aluminum alloys, which compromises its protection against medium tanks. While at the first glance the hull may seem uniform, and technically thick enough to survive hits of kinetic shells up to 120 mm and chemical shells of up to 105 mm, it has a lot of weak points, which trigger instant hull break on hit. For that reason, if artillery hit its hull or turret directly, the Warrior will not survive. A direct hit to the suspension, ventilation, fuel tank or tracks will often instantly destroy the tank if hit by a kinetic round or chemical shell of caliber higher than 75 mm, especially noticeable with HE shells.

When considering smaller weapons, the Warrior is well protected against heavy machine guns, however, its turret, engine ventilation, hull's back and even sides have weak spots, which can be penetrated by 12.7 mm and 14.5 mm heavy machine guns. At some angles, the frontal ventilation port can be penetrated even by German 7.92 mm, however it's near impossible to meet those at rank VI.

The hull frontal armour is sloped and can sustain light automatic cannon fire at best, allowing it to fight BMP-2 or SPAA armed with 23 mm guns head-on in some scenarios, as long as they do not know where to fire. It is preferable to fight them from distance or while employing high ground to increase their attack angle as close to 60 degrees as possible, rendering their main weapons useless. The engine to the right of the driver can add a sort of spaced armour effect by absorbing penetrating shells. This works well in addition to the add on armour, as it means that half the front is protected by the engine and the other half by composite armour.

Add-on Armour:

The add-on panels defend the sides of the hull, with a piece of composite on the frontal plate covering the driver. These panels are geared towards protection against Chemical munitions, and add surprisingly little armour against kinetic rounds.

The side armour plates conceal weak spots on the Warrior hull and are effective against chemical rounds, although they are unlikely to stop most rounds head on. In general, they prevent hull break from being hit by shells smaller than 105 mm and try to deflect HESH and HEAT coming at a sharp angle. Direct hit of a 105+ mm shell can often brute-force its way in between panels and cause hull break anyway by damaging tracks. Angling can be an effective tactic with these panels installed, and it will also help tank to survive some 30 mm kinetic rounds, as long as the screen is not destroyed (which usually doesn't take long).

The composite in front of the driver is much stronger and is capable of stopping HEAT rounds with about 400 mm of penetration, and will also add enough kinetic protection to stop most direct 20 mm auto cannon round hits. It will not save tank from direct 120 mm HE hit, as explosion will reach tank's turret, track, or ventilation and likely annihilate vehicle via hull break.

Protection analysis view: frontal panel gives a 45% chance for the Warrior to not be destroyed from frontal HESH shot by just being there. Side armour does the same thing for the entirety of the sides but is significantly weaker. Any shells of 120 mm calibre will likely obliterate Warrior from sides unless it was a grazing shot.

These images show a Warrior surviving an ATGM fired from an IT-1 due to the additional armour. Be aware, that surviving direct HEAT hit like on the screenshot is very unlikely due to tracks often triggering hull break:

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Mobility

Game Mode	Max Speed (km/h)		Weight (tons)		Engine power (horsepower)		Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
	Forward	Reverse	Stock	AoA	Stock	Upgraded	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	89	89	24.9	1	852	1,049	34.22	40.5
Realistic	80	80			486	550	19.52	21.24

Mobility is adequate on vehicle's BR, it can move forward and backwards equally fast, but don't expect it to be climbing mountains like with the powerful Vickers MBT in Arcade Battles. It will just slide down if the surface is too steep.

In Arcade Battles, it's generally driving at 46-54 km/h offroad in either direction without engine upgrades, regardless of additional armour. With mobility upgrades it may drive up to 60 km/h, but not very often. Speed of 81-83 km/h can be reached if the Warrior drove off the hill and keep driving forward, or on completely flat terrains, like roads in the American desert, though sometimes it just doesn't work again at the same spot.

Due to its sheer size, it almost never gives in to ramming attempts, though it cannot move enemy heavy tanks either and shouldn't fight them on a narrow street.

Accidentally hitting something on max speed, especially explosive decorations, launches the Warrior up to 5 meters in the air, which is very entertaining, but almost never fazes the enemy.

• Adding armour does not decrease Warrior's hp/ton significantly, and it only reduces maximum climb angle by 2 degrees, so it should be used when unlocked without worries of mobility penalty.
• Despite having enough horsepower, this vehicle can not climb mountains.

Armaments

Main armament

The 30 mm L21A1 RARDEN cannon is an effective autocannon, although its fire rate is sub par. The 30mm APDS belt is capable of penetrating the front armour of most light vehicles, and the sides of almost any tank that the warrior will face. The sub par fire rate and low post penetration effects mean that gunners will need to pick out individual crewmembers or modules in each well placed shot. While not technically stabilized, warrior gunners can manage to fire with some accuracy on the move if they are skilled. The shell velocity in the RARDEN APDS belt allows the warrior to lay down effective fire on light enemy targets up to about 2km, although it will be difficult to hit moving targets past about 1.5km.

There is virtually no reason to use the stock belts on the warrior. The stock belt uses half HE and half AP rounds, but only the HE rounds have tracers. The lack of tracers causes awkward gunnery, and the penetration on the AP shell is not satisfactory. Meanwhile the APDS belt has tracers with every round and is very effective against enemy vehicles.

30 mm L21A1						Turret rotation speed (°/s)					Reloading rate (seconds)
Mode	Capacity (Belt)	Fire rate	Vertical	Horizontal	Stabilizer	Stock	Upgraded	Full	Expert	Aced	Stock	Full	Expert	Aced
Arcade	222 (6)	81	-10°/+45°	±180°	N/A	57.10	79.06	96.00	106.16	112.94	1.30	1.15	1.06	1.00
Realistic						35.70	42.00	51.00	56.40	60.00

Ammunition

• Default: AP-I · HEI-T* - This belt can be used against other light tanks and certain lightly armoured medium tanks. However, it also includes anti-air round (HEI-T), which does increase damage to air targets but is useless against tanks at rank 5. The low rate of fire of Warrior doesn't compliment this dual belt.
• 30x170 APDS-T: APDS · APDS · APDS - This belt can be used against sides of most medium tanks of rank 5 and 6, and even some heavy tanks can be damaged by it. Performance of this belt deteriorates much slower than of AP-I belt, but it does less damage the more armour it had to penetrate, resulting in an inability to set off enemy ammo racks in 1 hit if it was behind any good armour. If used against planes, it can damage or rip off wings, or snipe out the pilot.

Penetration statistics
Belt	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
	10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
Default	53	50	39	29	21	16
30x170 APDS-T	110	101	95	69	52	41

Ammo racks

Ammo racks of the Warrior

Full ammo	1st rack empty	2nd rack empty	Visual discrepancy
37	30 (+7)	1 (+36)	No

Additional armament

Warrior carries MILAN missiles as a secondary weapon, although these function more as the primary armament due to the tank based gameplay in Warthunder.

Warrior managed to launch MILAN 2 straight at the enemy tank, instantly destroying it.

MILAN 1 has 500 mm of RHA penetration. It is 103 mm in diameter.

MILAN launcher can be upgraded to the MILAN 2, which has 730 mm of RHA penetration. The MILAN 2 is 115 mm in diameter. The flight performance is essentially the same, but it's starting speed is higher.

Missile is guided via gunner's seat crosshair, if gunner cannot see missile directly, tank will lose control over it, so any indirect attacks should be aimed quickly after sending missile as high as possible.

The MILAN can be used at close ranges, but cannot be fired point-blank (10 m or so), and if not careful it can overshoot (look at launcher itself in Third-person view to avoid this). The missile only has 2km of range so it is not particularly useful against enemies at very long range, or more often against helicopters who are hovering far away from the battlefield.

103 mm MILAN ATGM
Capacity	Vertical guidance	Flight speed on launch (m/s)	Max Flight speed (m/s)	Range (m)
8	±5°	~160	200	2,000
115 mm MILAN 2 ATGM
Capacity	Vertical guidance	Flight speed on launch (m/s)	Max Flight speed (m/s)	Range (m)
8	±5°	~200	200	2,000

• Despite being launched at their max speed, they are still very manoeuvrable, so they still can be curved behind some hills at targets ~500 meters away, and generally targets up to 800 meters can't dodge it.

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm)
		10 m	100 m	500 m	1,000 m	1,500 m	2,000 m
MILAN	ATGM	530	530	530	530	530	530
MILAN 2	ATGM	730	730	730	730	730	730

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity (m/s)	Projectile Mass (kg)	Fuse delay (m)	Fuse sensitivity (mm)	Explosive Mass (TNT equivalent) (g)	Ricochet
							0%	50%	100%
MILAN	ATGM	200	6.55	0.0	0.1	1,400	80°	82°	90°
MILAN 2	ATGM	200	7.00	0.0	0.1	1,800	80°	82°	90°

Ammo racks

Ammo racks of the Warrior

Full ammo	1st rack empty	2nd rack empty	3rd rack empty	Visual discrepancy
8	5 (+3)	1 (+7)	0 (+8)	No

Machine guns

The machine gun is kind of useless for Warrior, but it can still destroy weak fences, which normally slows any tank down if they hit them, and it makes much less noise than the main gun. For enemy marking purposes, Scouting should be used instead, as it doesn't reveal the vehicle.

7.62 mm L94A1
Mount	Capacity (Belt)	Fire rate	Vertical	Horizontal
Coaxial	2,000 (2,000)	600	N/A	N/A

Usage in battles

Generally, Warrior needs to quickly get into the medium range of the expected enemy, then figure out its strategy for the current battle. While moving towards an objective, Warrior should keep a low profile and scout every enemy it can notice.

After looking around, Warrior either takes some hills or well-protected hull-down position near to capture point to utilize ATGMs and scouting ability for medium-range attacks and team support, or takes an aggressive approach and goes for stealthy flanks and close-range combat. It's not rare to see Warrior try and destroy heavy tanks, which just don't expect the light tank to go at them.

If forced, Warrior can always use a smokescreen to disrupt enemy plans of taking it down, either baiting them to waste time looking for it, or using smokescreen, MILAN-2, scouting and add-on armour together to attack the enemy from the fog with little fear of being punished for it. For some reason enemy does not often reply to ATGM shots but instantly fires back at cannon fire, so use cannon sparingly during this.

Example of using smokes and armour offensively in arcade battle. Not only enemy is blinded and can't hold the line, allowing the team to rush in, but even if they fire towards the Warrior's general direction, they will likely load HESH and fire at the hull, hitting the add-on armour and doing no damage. MILAN-2, on the other hand, is almost unblockable and does fatal damage, and the player can clearly see the direction they are in due to scouting. A skilled Warrior can take out up to 2 tanks per 1 smoke deploy like that. Works on any range from 30m to 800m.

In any mode, but especially in AB, mark the enemy with the "scout" ability, so they can be found whenever smoke is deployed. This must be done for two main reasons:

1. Since the MILAN ATGM can instantly destroy or cripple anything, even seeing just the name of enemy and type of tank through smoke is good enough for the Warrior to have a chance for a hit. In realistic battles, it's less reliable, but the Warrior can still see where the enemy is. For light tanks, the 30 mm autocannon can work just fine (just don't do that against BMP; unless it already spotted and scouted the Warrior, it's not worth it).
2. In Arcade Battles, If the "intelligence" reward is obtained for marking enemy that was or is invisible to teammates and then got destroyed, the player will get artillery support point and airstrike point. If the squadmates destroys the marked target, the player will get airstrike point regardless as a squad assist.

Due to this, in 9.0 arcade battle warrior can call in ATGM helicopters on very first minute of a fight, simply by marking 2 enemy vehicles and destroying someone with an almost undodgeable and unblockable missile, while the enemy cannot even request gunships to protect themselves from it. ATGM helicopter than can destroy 6 to 10 enemy tanks, significantly weakening the enemy team. As the game goes on, Warrior can join multiple air battles in a row as second attack helicopter or bomber, because it's a scout vehicle.

Since MILAN has relatively good controls and there is 8 missiles total, the Warrior can try and fire it above hills and guide it down on people, much like Swingfire and Striker. It's harder to aim at the enemy without a straight visual firing line, but if it hits anywhere important, they could be knocked out anyway. Since the Warrior is considered a scout vehicle, mark them and ping them on the map, even if a shot lands a hit.

In Arcade Battles (AB), it's best to fire the missile at tank's gunner, so in case if it didn't destroy the tank on its own, the Warrior can just circle around the enemy and use the main gun to destroy the engine, then proceed to incapacitate the crew. In Realistic battles (RB) even taking out cannon barrel or breech might be enough, as repairs in that mode take much more time, and field repair doesn't even guarantee, that gun won't just jam itself again or fire in a completely different direction.

As with all light tanks play style, be very wary of people that have any kind of explosive ammo, as the Warrior has the Hull Break mechanism on it and can be easily engaged. With Add-on armour, the Warrior can fight them directly, but the vehicle's turret, front and back are still a giant weak spot.

Usually, MBT's will carry AP ammo as their first shot, which may just over-penetrate and maybe do almost nothing. So if there is an absolute must directly attack someone, attack them, SPGs or other non-Soviet light tanks.

There is also a trick related to the Warrior - if baiting an enemy that is looking towards the Warrior, pull the Warrior's rear end out of cover first. Since the rear has very little critical components outside of the MILAN missile stowage, usually being shot there doesn't do anything too drastic for the overall tank health. After being fired at, drive out of cover and fire back at them. This trick probably won't work twice, indicating you should make the most out of the opportunity you have at hand. Nobody likes to be shot with ATGMs and the second shot coming will most certainly be HE of some kind. This tactic may backfire if your IFV gets shot with APHE, or APDSFS will enter the vehicle at a bad angle, but those types of ammunition have the potential of instantly destroying Warrior regardless of the entry point.

Finally, the Warrior can also repair any allies, so if in cover and not busy - do help them.

Specific enemies worth noting

Any Soviet light tanks: Destroy it with ATGM, use scout ability to see when they are trying to leave their cover, use gun adjustment to never miss, generally never play around with them. BMP-1 will just hull break the Warrior, BMP-2 will just turn on full auto mode and unload half of its magazine into its target, even if it misses its ATGM, just to get rid of a threat and even add-on armour won't save the Warrior at that point. Oddly enough, the infamous Object 906 is probably the least dangerous of them, but it will still destroy the Warrior with proper shot placements. If the Warrior is spaded in modifications, just call artillery strike on them.

IS-7: Do not ever engage this thing frontally without MILAN 2 and add-on armour. It is also extremely risky to attack it on a narrow street. Fire at the right (their left) side, to disable its turret. The main goal in engaging this tank is to disable its engine with the 30 mm gun and then blow it up by destroying its ammo in back of a turret or just blowing it up by firing ATGM in the middle of it or into ammo rack, if there is a spare ATGM (the IS-7, as a threat to any BR below 8.0, should be prioritized with every missile in the Warrior's capacity). Even the many machine guns on the IS-7 can shred the Warrior apart.

Any tank with heavy machine guns: If possessing the add-on armour modification, simply avoid turning the rear towards them, otherwise the weak rear armour would be easily penetrated. Weaker machine guns of around 7.62 mm calibre can't penetrate the Warrior armour at all, and even 14,5 mm will have some problems penetrating the front of the hull and protected sides, so just destroy them by returning cannon fire and avoiding being hit in the turret. They'll never see it coming.

Counter-tactics

Just fire at its turret, preferably with explosives or high fire rate guns.

If it tries to spook away a threat by being ominous and peeking over hills, disable its ATGM camera (on "ears") with concentrated fire if a direct hit to the crew and modules is not possible. Keep in mind that must damage whole IFV really hard for ATGM repairs to take long (otherwise it may take less than rearm time, which is not good).

If the missile is already homing towards a vehicle with no way to avoid it, try to get outside of direct missile control range by not letting the light tank to aim at you directly (which will make missile spiral crazily and possibly missing by a centimetre) or face it with the gun barrel and fire all machine guns in hopes that it would get shot mid-air or get absorbed by the gun and not damage or destroy any critical modules.

Never fire pure AP rounds to the back of this tank, since unless it hits one of the missile ammo racks there, it will just do nothing to it.

If the Warrior has the add-on armour package, do not underestimate it and use anything possible when engaging it, not just HMG. Warrior repairs and reloads fast enough to disable its adversaries, if it must, "just set it on fire" mindset is not going to stop it. Low calibre machine guns are useless against hull from front, despite it having incomplete add-on armour protection.

In case Warrior destroyed your primary weapon, but you still have 12.7 mm machine gun, you can fire at its ventilation to destroy it. It's very well hidden on the right-front side of the IFV (left for you, if facing it) behind a small grey shield, making it nearly unnoticeable. Firing at ventilation from the side is also possible, but it will do less than fatal damage.

The Warrior can be destroyed by a fighter jet. However, do not just strafe it directly, as it actually can fire back and may have armour. It's best to attack it from the top.

Modules

Tier	Mobility		Protection	Firepower
I	Tracks		Parts	Horizontal Drive	30x170 APDS-T
II	Suspension	Brake System	FPE	Adjustment of Fire	Airstrike
III	Filters		Crew Replenishment	Elevation Mechanism	MILAN 2	Laser rangefinder
IV	Transmission	Engine	Additional Protection Package	Artillery Support	Improved optics	NVD

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Extremely powerful MILAN ATGM with 8 missiles, over 700mm of penetration
• Can stop pushes if manages to get to good cover (scouting, artillery, ATGMs, good mobilty and smoke)
• Can survive a direct hit by a miracle and even brawl with MBT's if armour mod is installed
• One of the only post-war British light tanks capable of scouting, (aside from Rooikat Mk.1D, Rooikat 105 and the rare AEC Mk.II)
• Has gunner thermal (2nd generation) vision and commander / driver night vision
• Exceptionally mobile both forward and backward. True fresh airs for British tankers!
• Favorable levels of gun depression vertically and horizontally

Cons:

• Can be destroyed easily, especially if situation awareness is not maintained; a big visible target.
• Any properly landed turret shot will destroy the vehicle, little chance to survive if it was a HE shell
• Add-on armor effectiveness it's often unclear (whether the Warrior survived a hit thanks to them )
• Engine exhaust placement (front right corner of tank) obscure gunners thermal vision when looking between approximately 45° and 80° to the right.
• No stabilization for the turret greatly affects firing capacities. Disheartening performance on duels.

History

The FV510 infantry fighting vehicle was developed as part of a program to create a modern IFV for the British army at the end of the '70s. The vehicle went into series production in 1986. The vehicle was equipped with 30 mm gun, fed by magazines of three shells each. This gun was designed to destroy lightly armoured vehicles with maximum accuracy. For the Desert Storm operation, the Warriors were equipped with Chobham passive armour – add-on armour plates that significantly improved the IFV's defence in battle, allowing it to survive a hit from an RPG-7 grenade and shrapnel from high-calibre HE rounds. A little later, in 1990, the military decided to equip the Warrior with anti-tank weaponry – a 30 mm gun for these targets was clearly not enough. The roof of the turret was equipped with a launcher for the MILAN ATGM. The commander used a hatch to fire the ATGM, and it was reloaded through the upper hatch of the armoured vehicle's infantry compartment. The FV510 Warrior is still in service with the British army and is the main IFV of the United Kingdom.

- From Devblog

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for the Warrior from live.warthunder.com.

Videos

The Shooting Range #116 - Metal Beasts section at 00:35 discusses the Warrior.

Best IFVs discusses the Warrior at 2:15 - War Thunder Official Channel

British IFV - WARRIOR Suffocating Meta (War Thunder Tanks Gameplay) - PhlyDaily

Warrior Tank Review - Napalmratte

See 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.

External links

• [Devblog] FV510 Warrior: Built for the future!