T55AM2
The feared muscle behind the Warsaw Pact during the 50s and 60s, the T-55 is an aged tank in 1985. The T-55AM2 however, represents a comprehensive upgrade program to attempt to bring the chassis to the modern era or at leaast make the crew feel somewhat less like cannon fodder. The glacis plate was thickened, a distinctive "horseshoe" brow armour was added to the turret front and a smoke launcher to increase survivability. A laser rangefinder, wind sensor and a ballistic computer were added to increase gun accuracy. Finally new gunner optics were added to enable missiles to be fired from the D10T 100mm gun. The T-55AM2 upgrades were the first prong in East Germany's plan to modernize the panzer of the Volksarmee (the second being further procurement of T-72M).
In Team Yankee
The T-55AM2 combines sturdy armour and a moderately powerful gun with bargain basement point cost. While NATO tanks and ATGMs can penetrate the T-55AM2, most other enemy assets on the battlefield cannot, this makes the T-55AM2 a priority target as they close the distance with the enemy, tying up enemy anti-tank assets that may otherwise be shooting at something else. The D10T 100mm can't frontally penetrate the NATO MBTs but can be dangerous if you can enter a melee where the gun can be brought to bear against side armour. The slow firing rule discourages firing on the move, once your T-55s have reached an advantageous position you'll want them to keep them stationary to fire. Dash mobility and Cross-Rating is sub par, however the poor cross can be mitigated using Movement Orders which synergizes with the NVA's superior skill rating over the Russians.
Two schools of thought have emerged when including T-55AM2s in a Volksarmee force. The more instinctive approach for horde force players is to take multiple large companies of tanks to push down the field in a wave. Simply providing more targets than the NATO opposition can hope to kill, until you can enter a messy melee fight or tie up objectives all game. But alternatively, due to a quirk in points costing, a minimum strength T-55AM2 Battalion of 10 tanks (1+3+3+3) can be taken for 7 points, making each tank cost less than a single point. While these small companies can be erased by NATO tanks in a single salvo, they can operate independently (rather than an unwieldy mess of a 10 tank parking lot) and, when taking multiple minimum strength T-55AM2 Battalions provide extra command tanks to issue more orders.
East German armies make take T-55AM2 Kompanies ranging in size from 3 tanks to 10 tanks, starting out at 2 points and topping out at 16. Basically every time you add a tank to the original 3, tack on an additional 2 points. And yes, this does mean that you can take 10 tanks where a US Player could only take 2 Abrams (and base Abrams at that).
IRL
See the thing about the Soviet Union is that when your large enough to reach from one hemisphere to another equipping all of those soldiers can be a a pain in the ass. As such the Soviet Union tried to keep it's old equipment and just passed them down to less important units as the newer better stuff arrived to replace the old gear. Russia proper got the good shit, second line units older equipment, warsaw pact nations got stuff a generation behind, and so on. This is why the East Germans in Team Yankee use the much older T55AM2 while the Soviets proper, don't. Hell the T-34 was still used by the soviets up until the 1960's. This is why when you look up soviet equipment you sometimes find lists of at least five different types of machine all doing the same thing. The T55AM2 was an attempt to get more life out of the ageing T-55, and make it more able to fight the then modern NATO tanks like the M1 Abrams and Chieftain MBT, which by that point it was something like two tank generations behind. In fact, the T55AM2 is the only Soviet Tank in Team Yankee that does not have an Autoloader, all tanks after the T-55 (with the exception of the pretty much failed and useless T-62), did which is why it has the slow firing rule. It's IRL performance would have likely be similar to it's game performance: not very well, but there would have been a lot of them!
If you play 40k and think this thing looks a bit familiar, you're not entirely wrong. The bubble top turret from the T-55 and T-62 tanks was likely an influence on the forge world "Deimos pattern Predator" tanks.
| East German Forces in Team Yankee | |
|---|---|
| Tanks: | T-55 - T55AM2 - T-72M - T-72B |
| Transports: | BTR-60 - BMP-1 - BMP-2 |
| Troops: | Mot-Schützen Kompanie - Hind Assault Landing Company |
| Artillery: | 2S1 Carnation - BM-21 Hail - RM-70 - 2S3 Acacia |
| Anti-Aircraft: | ZSU 23-4 Shilka - SA-13 Gopher - SA9 Gaskin - SA-8 Gecko |
| Tank Hunters: | Spandrel |
| Recon: | BMP-1 OP - BRDM-2 |
| Aircraft: | MI-24 Hind - SU-22 Fitter |
| Soviet Support: | SU-25 Frogfoot |