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

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 box with a round turret, that has little gun in middle, "ears" (ATGM cameras), and the ATGM launcher itself on right side. Front of the hull is sloped, but it doesn't really help. On its right, there is an exhaust port, which may prevent gunner from firing precisely in Realistic Battles, but usually it's not a problem.

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

Mobility is adequate on its BR, both forward and backwards, but don't expect to be climbing mountains like with the Vickers MBT in Arcade Battles.

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 American desert, though sometimes it just doesn't work again at same spot. Accidentally hitting something on max speed, especially explosive decorations, launches the Warrior up to 5 meters in air, which is very entertaining, but almost never fazes the enemy.

Practically, the Warrior is the only proper light tank the British faction has. It's mostly played as an aggressive ATGM tank or ambush scout tank, though it can fulfill any role that doesn't involve it being constantly shot at.

Its weapons are best described as a hybrid between a slowed down SPAA gun and upgraded assault ATGM launcher, while armour is either nonexistent, or installed via 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.

It's also very easy to play the vehicle while stock, as it has most essentials at stock or unlocked early on, and every upgrade make it even stronger.

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.

General info

Survivability and armour

Warrior is well protected against heavy machine guns, however, it's turret, back and even sides can be penetrated by 12 mm and 14mm HMG if shot correctly. Coaxial auto cannons and low caliber SPAA penetrate turret and sides without add-on armour instantly. Vehicle can be hull-broken by any chemicals with more than 35mm penetration.

Protection analysis might get all weird with protection and damage values, but essentially 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 entirety of the sides, but is weaker. Any stronger shells will likely obliterate Warrior from sides, unless it was a graze shot.

With Add-on armour, the Warrior can survive any machine gun fire, misplaced auto cannon fire, close artillery miss, low-caliber SPAA fire, chemical shells and all the other things that normally cause hull break or annihilate light tanks, so the Warrior can play much more boldly and harass enemy, if they are alone.

It defends the sides and half of the front, with the frontal plate covering the driver. In case if it somehow saved the vehicle from frontal shot, the Warrior will be very likely set on fire and have the engine broken, which may mean an impending knock-out if unable to retaliate, so keep that in mind. The front-right side does not have complete armour protection, because it's expected, that engine compartment takes the hit for vehicle, but in game it cannot prevent hull break, caused by explosives even touching the hull, so try to face enemy with the left side, if possible.

The plates aren't immortal, so after being hit too hard they will break off, much like explosive reaction armour. The protection quality of these armour plates are most notable when compared to facing the BMP-2 (when it doesn't help at all) and the Begleitpanzer (when it actually saves the vehicle from graze shots).

Side armour plates can block HESH and some weaker forms of chemical ammunition with about 130-160 mm of penetration power, frontal plate can save from about 220 mm of chemical penetration power, saving the light tank from hull break. If shell is stopped, hull break is prevented at the cost of protection panel.

Any AP based shot, like APHE, will most likely go through, unless it was a graze shot. Because of this, it's adviced to avoid directly attacking SPAA with 30mm guns, and other IFV, as those can destroy the Warrior even without special APDS ammo, and have guns with much highter rate of fire.

Here is the most unlikely and ridiculous example of add-on armour saving the Warrior's life. IT-1 ATGM has about 500 penetration power, which should destroy side armour of warrior at any angle, and even frontal plate with ease, however:

• 
• 
• 
• 

Since this particular edge of Armour plates is invulnerable, ATGM destroyed entirety of Warrior Armour, but Warrior survived. As could be seen here, armour on warrior is extremely random. The sharper the angle of attack, the bigger the chance of miraculous survival.

Mobility

Mobility characteristic
Weight (tons)	Add-on Armour weight (tons)	Max speed (km/h)
22.5	1.0	83 (AB)
		75 (RB/SB)
Engine power (horsepower)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded
Arcade	852	1049
Realistic/Simulator	486	550
Power-to-weight ratio (hp/ton)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded	Upgraded w/ add-on armour
Arcade	37.87	46.62	44.63
Realistic/Simulator	21.60	24.44	23.40

• Adding armour does not decrease Warrior's hp/ton significantly, so it should be used when unlocked without worries of mobility penalty.
• Despite having enough horsepower, cannot climb mountains.

Armaments

Main armament

30 mm L21A1
Capacity (Belt capacity)		Fire rate (shots/minute)	Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance	Stabilizer
222 (6)		81	-10°/+45°	±180°	N/A
Turret rotation speed (°/s)
Mode	Stock	Upgraded	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
Arcade	57.1	79.06	96.0	106.16	112.94
Realistic	35.7	42.0	51.0	56.4	60.0
Reloading rate (seconds)
Stock	Prior + Full crew	Prior + Expert qualif.	Prior + Ace qualif.
1.30	1.15	1.06	1.0

Ammunition

Penetration statistics
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Penetration in mm @ 90°
		10m	100m	500m	1000m	1500m	2000m
Default	AP-I/HEI-T*	60	53	40	33	28	19
30x170 APDS-T	APDS	110	101	95	69	52	41

Belt types

Belts	Shell composition	Combat usage
Default	AP-I, HEI-T (Armor Piercing Incendinary), (High-explosive incendinary-tracer) shells	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 increased 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 (Armor piercing discarding sabot) shells	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, resulting in 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.

Ammo racks

Full ammo	1st rack empty	2nd rack empty	3rd rack empty	4th rack empty	Visual discrepancy
XX	XX (+XX)	XX (+XX)	XX (+XX)	XX (+XX)

Turret empty: 62 (+3)
Front empty: 33 (+32)

Additional armament

103 mm MILAN ATGM
Capacity			Vertical guidance	Flight speed on launch (m/s)	Max Flight speed (m/s)	Range (m)
8			N/A	~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			N/A	~200	200	2,000

• Despite being launched at their max speed, they are still very maneuverable, 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 in mm @ 90°
		10m	100m	500m	1000m	1500m	2000m
MILAN	ATGM	580	580	580	580	580	580
MILAN 2	ATGM	730	730	730	730	730	730

Shell details
Ammunition	Type of warhead	Velocity in m/s	Projectile Mass in kg	Fuse delay in m:	Fuse sensitivity in mm:	Explosive Mass in g (TNT equivalent):	Normalization At 30° from horizontal:	Ricochet:
								0%	50%	100%
MILAN	ATGM	200	6.6	0.0	0.1	1,400	+0°	80°	82°	90°
MILAN	ATGM	200	7.0	0.0	0.1	1,800	+0°	80°	82°	90°

Ammo racks

Full ammo	1st rack empty	2nd rack empty	3rd rack empty	Visual discrepancy
8	XX (+XX)	XX (+XX)	XX (+XX)

Machine guns

7.62 mm L94A1
Coaxial mount
Capacity (Belt capacity)				Fire rate (shots/minute)	Vertical guidance	Horizontal guidance
2,000 (2,00)				600	N/A	N/A

Usage in battles

First of all, one needs to understand that both of the guns on the Warrior are useful.

The gun is very slow firing, but with AP belt it can penetrate the sides of most medium tanks and SPGs. Basically it's effective against medium tanks, but lackluster against fast vehicles that have spaced armour. It can be used to hurt crew from over 1 km distance, but it's not very good at damaging enemy ammo racks, so it's best used to destroy engines, tracks and crew, unless it's easier to hit. Proper heavy tanks are normally not fazed by its fire at all, but for them there is the powerful MILAN launcher, which can penetrate them even from front with its 580 mm penetration power. In a perfect world, even in worst situation the Warrior can still use its 30 mm gun to de-track charging enemy tank and instantly destroy it with side shot or ATGM, but it's not very likely that the Warrior will live that long. Also, in a worst case scenario, the 30 mm autocannon can be used to try and shoot down planes with it, but it will require skill with slow-firing SPAA (like the Crusader AA MK I), and any plane coming down at a high angle can't be engaged.

Not convinced? The main gun can remove trees at any range, which is normally a nightmare for any other British ATGM vehicle.

Machine gun is kind of useless, but it can still destroy fences, which normally slows any tank down if they hit them, and it makes much less noise.

The MILAN missile itself is absurdly fast in contrast to Swingfire missiles, while retaining good control. This make it very hard to dodge up to 700 m range, but harder to turn it into enemy cover, especially horizontally. The Warrior also cannot be flanked unlike normal ATGM launcher, since its turret based. It can be used in general melee range, 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). MILAN launcher can be upgraded to the MILAN 2, which has an absolutely insane 730 mm of armour penetration. Needless to say, it simply disintegrates or cripples the target tank that doesn't have chemical armour, unless the missile somehow hits the enemy gun barrel.

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.

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 other hand, is almost unblockable and does fatal damage, and 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 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 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 almost undodgeable and unblockable missile, while enemy cannot even request gunships to protect themselves from it. ATGM helicopter then can destroy 6 to 10 enemy tanks, significantly weakening enemy team. As 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 are 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 on enemy without a straight visual firing line, but if it hits anywhere important, they could be knocked out anyways. Since the Warrior is considered a scout vehicle, mark them and ping them on map, even if a shot lands a hit.

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 will 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, so make the most out of the opportunity. Nobody likes to be shot with ATGMs and the second shot coming will most certainly be HE of some kind.

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 wont 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 capacaity). 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 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 break visual, try to get outside of direct missile control range (which will make missile spiral crazily and possibly missing by a centimeter) or face it with the gun barrel in hopes that it would absorb the damage and not cripple any critical modules.

Never fire 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 setting it on fire is not going to stop it. Low caliber machine guns are useless against hull from front, despite it having incomplete add-on armor protection.

Warrior can be destroyed by 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.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Extremely powerful ATGM with 8 missiles
• Can stop pushes if manages to get to good cover
• Can survive direct hit by a miracle and even brawl with MBT's if armour mod is installed
• The only British light tank beyond rank 1

Cons:

• Can be destroyed by other light tanks easily, especially if situation awareness is not maintained
• Any properly landed turret shot will destroy the vehicle, with nearly no way to survive if it was a HE shell
• Many will be disheartened by the main gun's performance, especially in a duel with other light tanks
• Add-on armour does less than one may expect from it, it's not clear when the Warrior survived a hit by sheer luck or because of armour plates.

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 70’s. 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 defense 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

An excellent addition to the article will be video guides, as well as screenshots from the game and photos.

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!