The new tier 8 Russian premium medium tank T-54 First Prototype will be released with 9.7 and with it brings another heavily armored tier 8 medium tank to the picture.  With the T-54 chassis the T-54 First Prototype will play very similar to the Type 59 due to the armor scheme and sluggishness of it.  The T-54 First Prototype has excellent protection on its frontal hull and also the turret armor is fairly tough for a tier 8 medium(but not as strong as a regular T-54).

This weak spot guide will breakdown the T-54 First Prototype into sections based on the weakest areas(green), the strongest areas of armor(red), and armor that can still be penetrated by most tanks but are not always easy to penetrate with lower tier tanks(yellow).  Purple areas are places where there is no hull armor behind to cause HP damage or an area that could cause a zero damage critical hit.

T-54 First Prototype Frontal View

Frontally the T-54 First Prototype has above average armor for a tier 8 medium tank and without knowledge of the weak spots many tanks will struggle penetrating one from the front.  The frontal upper glacis takes up most of the frontal profile of the tank and it is 120mm/60° making it have an impressive 240mm effective armor.  The lower glacis on the frontal hull is still 120mm but only angled at 45° giving it 170mm effective armor.  The lower glacis is a good weak spot to use if you can penetrate 170mm effective armor and the yellow areas around the gun only go up to 199mm effective armor.

For tanks with poor penetration there is only one sub-170mm effective armor weak spot on the hull and that is located near the view port on the upper glacis.  Hitting behind the view port here will see you hit 120mm armor that isn’t angled making it very easy to damage.  Otherwise you are left with the commander’s cupola on top of the tank, which the upper part of it can be overmatched by 90mm+ caliber guns.  The turret roof is only 15mm thick(45mm+ overmatches) however it is very small to hit unless you are taller than the T-54 First Prototype.

T-54 First Prototype Side View

The side of the T-54 First Prototype becomes very easy to damage like most medium tanks since it loses armor thickness and also the angled armor that the frontal profile has.  Like the frontal view there are still two overmatch spots on the side profile albeit you shouldn’t need to worry about ti since most of the armor is very weak on the side.  Simply avoid shooting towards the front of the turret and you will be alright damaging the T-54 First Prototype from the side.

T-54 First Prototype Rear View

The rear profile of the T-54 First Prototype is even weaker than the side profile and again has a few areas to overmatch.  Granted you won’t need to worry about overmatching since the armor on the rear is even weaker than the side profile, but it never hurts to know just in case.