Weak Spot Guide: VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B - World of Tanks Guru

Sitting at tier 9 in the German heavy tank line just before the behemoth Maus is the VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B which has a rear mounted turret design.  The VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B since it’s 9.2 update changes has great frontal armor on it’s hull since the armor was increased to 200mm but it’s turret weak spots mostly remain which leaves open a place to damage it frontally.  Overall the VK 45.02 (p) Ausf. B has some of the best armor at tier 9 with it’s recent changes as of 9.2 since it does not have massive weak spots frontally and the most well known weak spot(lower glacis) is now gone.  Add on top of that the VK 45.02 can easily angle and increase it’s armor even more and you have yourself a great tank to deflect shells with.

It’s armor layout is very “front heavy” with most of it’s protection being concentrated on the frontal hull armor.  Although it’s side armor is weak from shots that hit it square on due to it’s rear mounted turret and 100mm side armor VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B drivers can angle it to improve the armor scheme immensely.  Simply keep the side armor angled at 70° or more to have the side hull armor at 300mm+ effective armor and to limit the overall weak spots on your tank.  The main downside is that while you can improve the hull armor the turret armor is another problem that is difficult to fix.  The turret ring, turret front, and cupola pose protection issues for the VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B.

Frontal View

Frontally as gone over above the VK 4502 (P) Ausf B’s frontal armor does provide decent protection, just not against many of the tier 9/10 tanks it faces on a regular basis.  The upper frontal glacis(UFG) while strong at 282mm EA is slightly weaker when you take into account normalization and allows a lot of tier 10 tanks to simply go through it.  The other strong portion of the frontal armor is the turret which struggles to provide adequate protection on the flat turret front.  Taking these two problems into account even before getting to the “main” weak spots that are even weaker you can see why the VK 4502 (P) Ausf B has a tough time playing as a heavy tank against it’s peers.

The turret roof as mentioned earlier in this guide is only 40mm thick which means any gun 120mm or above can overmatch and penetrate it.  Yet another hole in the VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B’s armor.

Side View

The side of the VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B is very weak if you get a clear shot on it since the hull armor is 100mm with minimal angles while the turret armor at 160mm with minimal angles also is not well protected.  Avoid the red sections where the armor is thicker and/or angled and you will find the side armor easy to penetrate.

Rear View

The rear of the VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B like the side armor is not protected very well and is easy to deal with.  Simply avoid the sections that are heavily angled and you will have no problem with the rear armor.

Angled View

This angled view is showing the scenario of a VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B over-angling and having it’s side armor drop below 70 degrees making it vulnerable to incoming shells.  In this case use the green and yellow areas to easily go through it’s armor.  If a knowledge VK 4502 (P) Ausf. B driver is set up well and is angled to maximize their armor then you should focus on the turret weak spots and/0r frontal weak spots.