World of Tanks: Premium Tanks

Welcome Tankers! This will probably be familiar to most of you but several people do not know the glory and amazing versatility of a premium tank not only for earning credits but to also train crews in.

This is an image of an IS-7 crew placed inside a premium KV-5 without any retraining or penalty added.

Which Premium Tank to Buy?
This is an interesting question that depends completely on what you want to do with the tank. If you want to grind credits like a fiend then your choices are more limited to the Tier 8 tanks. This is because they have the highest credit per game return since even on a lose unless you shoot a ton of gold rounds you'll be making 10,000~30,000 credits easilly.

However if your primary goal is to train a crew line which I'll get to a bit further down then you'll choose a tank of the same nation and class. If you want to go up a heavy line like the IS or KV line then getting an IS-6 would be a good idea. Not only does it earn credits but it also earns your crews experience.

Finally and the most important is that pick a tank based on its play style since if you hate the tank you won't be having fun and making credits / exp in it. It could be the best credit grinding tank in the game and you could hate it so much that you just play poorly in it.

Credit Grinding
Premium tanks can grind credits faster then other tanks of the same tier for two very good reasons. The first is that their repair is lower then other tanks of their tier and the second is that they naturally gain additional credits as well. This grants most premium tanks Tier 5 or better a nice boost of income compared to their counterparts. Tier 8's will see an average of 40,000 credits and will break 100,000 credits on a good game.

Training Crews
One of the biggest things about premium tanks is that you don't need a dedicated crew for premium tanks because you can use the crews from other tanks of the same type like an IS-3 crew for your IS-6. This is because premium tanks don't suffer penalties to reload speed, aim time, acceleration, and everything else when a crew that is not trained in that tank is in it.

As a reference the penalty of having a crew trained in another tank inside of non-premium tank is around 25% (a 100% crew will act like they are 75%) and they won't use their skills or perks. This penalty is also greater for crew in a different class of vehicle from which they are trained is closer to 50%. Also placing a tank destroyer crew in a heavy premium tank will have a penalty to their abilities as well, but it is not the full penalty.

This is why my premium tanks along my Russian line (I have a lot of Russian tanks) have no dedicated crews since I will just place a crew from another tank of the same class like my KV-1 into my IS-6 or Churchill III or my SU-100 in my SU-122-44. This is extremely effective when credit grinding since I can train my crew for a commonly played tank and make money at the same time. So instead of two crews with just one crew skill each, I'd have a single crew with two skills on them.

Preferred Matchmaking

A cool thing about certain premium tanks like the IS-6, KV-5, and T-127 is that they don't get normal matchmaking for their tiers. Instead of getting the standard plus / minus two in matchmaking where a Tier 8 will see Tier 10's, these get something closer to plus one / minus two (so a Tier 8 IS-6 will only see up to Tier 9's). This is nice since you'll be more likely to fight against weaker opponents so you'll have an easier time scoring damage and kills. However this is offset due to low penetration (they can't hurt tanks two tiers higher without a gold shot to the ass) so it is balanced out nicely.

In Short

• Don't have a dedicated crew for premium tanks when you can use a non-premium crew in it since you'll be making both tanks better at the same time. If you do need a dedicated crew, have it trained for a tank you want to get eventually instead.
• Pick them based on what you want out of them, Credits, Crew, Fun.
• You do not need to retrain a crew that you place into a premium tank, you just send them to the barracks (right click and send crew to barracks), and then on the premium tank select the empty crew slot (in the garage) and click on the crew member you are transferring to that tank. Nothing else is involved.
• This is a short list.

Well Known Premium Tanks

IS-6

• Russian Heavy (4 crew)
• Preferred Matchmaking
• Role: Brawler
• Weakness: Driver hatch

Lowe

• German Heavy (5 crew)
• Role: Sniper / Support
• Weakness: Relatively weak armor on chassis

T26E4

• American Heavy (5 crew)
• Role: Hull Down Brawler
• Weakness: Commander hatch under the two barrels on the turret, don't bother hitting the front chassis unless you know you can pen it easilly

JgTig 8.8cm

• German Tank Destroyer (6 crew)
• Role: Damn his front armor!
• Weakness: triangle on the front and sides / rear.

KV-5

• Russian Heavy (6 crew)
• Preferred Matchmaking
• Role: Big ass Tank
• Weakness: R2D2
• Extra: Side-scrape for increased effectiveness of fighting on corners (wall is covering R2D2). Ramming is the most fun you'll have, but do it where you'll come out better for it. Laugh at T-50's that try to pen your ass.

Type 59

• Chinese Medium (4 crew)
• Role: Wolf pack / That guy that shoots you in the side / ass
• Weakness: Sides and Rear (not much on the front besides the commander hatch)
• Extra: You're a jerk.

Tog II*

• British Heavy (6 crew)
• Role: RR and go off to watch tv until it gets to battle, then just mouse over an enemy and shoot
• Weakness: Slow as dirt at 14 km and fairly weak armor when not side scraping.
• Extra: Amazing side scraping abilities and has HUGE health, also so special it has a star next to its name.

AT-15A

• British Tank Destroyer (6 crew)
• Role: Assault Tank, push the enemy and use your high gun traverse to angle that armor.
• Weakness: The angled plate on the front of the tank under the gun.
• Extra: The gun traverse is HUGE, use that for your advantage.

Examples

• To level my IS-3 crew faster I will send them to barracks and then play a x2 game in my Churchill, IS-6, KV-5 so if I have a good game in each one I'll make 8k exp off doubles on just one crew. (without accelerated on.)
• In a nice battle I'd get 100,000 credits off my KV-5 before taxes. (making 60,000 to 80,000 after taxes)
• In a great battle in my IS-6 I can make over 100,000 credits.
• They're already elited so you could train your crew, get credits, and get convertible exp to get that next tier.
• I grabbed a Matilda IV so that every so often I can pop my T-34-85 crew in it to level a smudge faster when I feel like playing Tier 5's with a platoon mate.

Penalties
So you might be wondering why not place my MEDIUM crew into my HEAVY premium tank, well lets go over the side effects of why that is a bad idea. By effectiveness it means your 98% crew will act like they where a 73% crew. 

• premium to premium of the same class = 100% effectiveness
• non-premium to premium of the same class = 100% effectiveness
• premium to premium of a different class = 75% effectiveness 
• non-premium to non-premium of the same class = 75% effectiveness
• non-premium to premium of a different class = 75% effectiveness
• non-premium to non-premium of a different class = 50% effectiveness