Objekt 263
This is not a guide, it is a disscussion thread about the tank. At some point we may collate it into a guide but for now I do not plan on it.
I will start out with the 263's dpm, it has over 3200 base dpm and that can be increased to over 4200 with equipment and provisions. This means that it can literally kill 2 tier 10 tanks per minute and has double the DPM of most tier ten heavies.
In terms of armor, it has a weak lower plate, but something like 300-350 effective armor everywhere else. The gun mantlet is a weakspot, being 260mm, but unsloped. The engine deck near the front is weak, so tanks firing down onto the front of the tank can do a lot of damage. Sides are lined with ammoracks, and are pretty weak.
Kinda OP IMO, I was recently in a battle where an Obj 263 was able to fire faster than my E50M. IDK about his provisions and equipment, though. Trollish as heck armor as well, four shots into mantlet and only one of them penned with E50M's 270mm of pen. Gun is great, good frontal armor, good mobility, literally the only thing bad is the gun arc.
Those are just the strengths though. Being able to use them is hard.
Well it seems that the armor will help it be of use in cities and towns!
Let's take a look
First of all, the thing is incredibly long, like the same length as a TOG (Not even exaggerating), and the sides are paper thin. It also has TERRIBLE gun arc. These things coupled together mean that it cannot sidescrape, and it cannot easily get shots off in city environments especially with the rear mounted gun. Fighting in towns and cities is further limited by its low alpha, since tanks like the JPE-100 and 183 can hit it for double, or more than double the damage. in peek-a-boom situations.
So city fighting in the 263 is a no-no. Well how about hills and dunes? The DPM and mobility will help it there!
Well, that'll be tough with the 4 degrees of gun depression. Good luck navigating these new and reworked maps with that. You'll be fighting your own vehicle more than the enemy, and in addition, in these open areas, meds will have no trouble at all flanking it and getting in easy shots on those giant, long, and paper thin sides. And again, the poor gun arc hurts its ability to counter flankers, and while it is mobile, the traverse speed still isn't the best
Well how about sniping then?
Sniping is really the only viable option for the 263 imo. But that's not particularly ideal either. You won't have targets often enough to take full advantage of the DPM, and when a target presents itself long enough for a shot, you can only hit some stupid 430 damage shot when an Obj 268 and JPE-100 can hit for 640 and 800 respectively. The gun depression also makes some spots unsuable, or less useful, and the awful gun arc means you will have to constantly traverse the tank, resetting the aimer, or even forcing you to miss shots and opportunities.
In conclusion, the Obj 263 does have some really nice strengths, frontal armor, DPM, and mobility, but it can never quite use them to their fullest extent, no matter the role it plays on the battlefield, and is always going to be subpar due to the awful gun arc, low alpha, poor gun depression, insane length, and poor side armor, all of which end up negating the strengths.