World of Tanks Crew Guide

World of Tanks Crew Guide by MemoryReborn

0. Table of Contents
Post 1:
0. Table of Contents
1. General
2. Primary Specialization/Qualification Level
A. Qualifications
B. Commander Bonus
C. Promotions
3. Secondary Specialization
4. Training Crews with Currency
4.5 Why Retrain?
5. Training Crews via Battles

Post 2:
6. Crew Injury
7. Barracks and Personnel Files
8. Recruiting a New Crew Member
9. Further Notes
10. Changelog
11. Acknowledgments

1. General
The effectiveness of the tank completely depends on the crew. Basically if you have two of the identical tanks going against each other there can be difference in the speed, reloading, aim and other factors depending on the level of the crew.

2. Primary Specialization/Qualification Level and Promotions

A. Qualifications

The image below is how a fresh crew looks after they are recruited. This is for a T-26 crew.

You can see that each crew member has 50% of experience (fresh out of the basic tank school), with icons indicating qualification, or qualifications if the crew member is taking on a multiple of roles.

1. Binoculars mean Commanding qualification, and take the affect of a bonus to other crew members and view range. A more experienced commander will provide a higher bonus and a larger view range.
2. Cogwheels and Steering Wheels mean Driving qualification, and affect tank acceleration and turning. A more experienced driver will accelerate faster and slow down less during a turn.
3. Shells mean Loading qualification, and affects reload speed. A more experienced loader will load shells faster.
4. Gun sights mean Gunning qualification, and affects shot accuracy and aiming time. A more experienced gunner will zero-in on targets faster.
5. Headphones and Sound Icons mean Radio Operation qualification. A more experienced radio operator will increase your radio range. A 50% radioman will operate at 75% radio range.

Should multiple people have the same primary qualification, the skill of the two tankers is averaged to become the final skill level for that associated attribute. So two gunners at 50% and 100% is the same as one gunner at 75%.

Note: The only things affected by crew skills are:

• Loading time, affected by Loader skill
• Aiming time, affected by Gunner skill
• View range, affected by Commander skill
• Tank movement dynamics, affected by Driver skill
• Radio range, affected by Radio Operator skill
• Tank visibility, affected by average crew Camouflage skill
• Repair time, affected by average crew Repair skill
• Firefighting, affected by average crew Firefighting skill

Everything else are independent of crew skills.

In some tanks, some members might have multiple qualifications. For example, the T-26 crew on the screen above fits only 3 crew members so Efrem Pchelikov does both the aiming and loading. In other tanks, multiple crew members will fulfill the same role, as shown below from a S-51 crew, where Efim Monahov and Boris Svetlov are both gunners.

As long as your crew ins below 100% experience, your tank will perform worse than what the statistics say about your tank. For example, a 50% Loader will take more time to load than a 75% Loader, who still takes more time to load than a 100% Loader.

In battle, only the icon indicating the crew member’s primary role will be displayed. For the T-26 crew above, only a Commander, Driver, and Gunner Icon will appear.

Note that any crew member can operate any vehicle from their country, but will take a penalty to their effectiveness. If a tanker is in a vehicle of the same class (but not in their own vehicle), they will take a 25% penalty. If a tanker is in a vehicle of a different class, they will take a 50% penalty.

B. Commander Bonus

As noted previously, the commander of the tank gives experience bonus to every crew member, in the form of 10% of the commander’s own experience, rounded to the nearest percent. This bonus will allow the crew to operate beyond 100%, and as a result, will perform better than the tank’s specifications. However, some specifications cannot be exceeded due to being out of crew control, such as tank speed limit.

In addition, the “Improved Ventilation” equipment and the Chocolate/Rations expendable will also give a small bonus to the crew percentages. This will also affect the commander bonus as well.

As of patch 0.5.4.2, this bonus to crew percentages can only be seen when you mouse over the crew member’s icon card.

C. Promotions

Crews will be promoted at 50% intervals, starting at 100% in primary specialization, then at every 50% and 100% while training secondary specializations. Crew members cannot be demoted should they lose experience through retraining.

The Current Known Ranks are: (German, Soviet, American)

• Panzeroberschutze
• Ryadovoy
• Private First Class

• Gefreiter
• Efreitor
• Corporal

• Unteroffizer
• Mladshiy Serzhant
• Sergeant

• Unterfeldwebel
• Serzhant
• Staff Sergeant

• Feldwebel
• Starshiy Serzhant
• Technical Sergeant

• Oberfeldwebel
• Starshina
• Master Sergeant

• Stabsfeldwebel
• Mladshiy Leytenant
• First Sergeant

• Luetnant
• Leytenant
• Second Lieutenant

• Oberluetnant
• Starshiy Leytenant
• First Lieutenant

• Hauptmann
• Captian
• Captain

3. Secondary Specialization

After the crew member reaches 100% of experience in either a primary or secondary specialization, he can get an additional specialization. If your crew member is at 100% there should be a plus symbol right there:

Note: If a crew member’s primary qualification percentage drops due to retraining for a different vehicle, all experience earned will go towards the primary qualification until primary qualification reaches 100% again. However, any secondary specialization will still be in affect.

If you press on it you’ll be able to choose one of three additional skills: repairs, camouflage, fire-fighting. Repairs reduces the time it takes to repair a broken module, camouflage decreases your detection radius, and firefighting reduces the time your tank is on fire, should it ever catch on fire.

After you select one of those qualifications there will be a corresponding icon with the percentage level of that specialty. Maximum level you can reach on the secondary qualification is 100%. After that you can choose another specialty, and continue the process until all specializations are reached.

Secondary Specializations works immediately and is averaged across all crew members, meaning that secondary specializations are for the entire crew. Looking at the S-51 Crew above, with 3 crew members at 65% repair, the final repair skill for the crew is equal to the three’s skill total skill divide across the six crew, which becomes 32.5% Repair skill for the entire crew. Thus, to reach 100% of a secondary specialization for the entire crew, each crew member must reach 100% on that specific specialization.

Recommended secondary skills will vary from tank to tank, but in general, repair is a good skill for every tank. Camouflage is good for Tank Destroyers, SPGs, and tankers who prefer to keep their distances. Firefighting is extremely valuable for many of the heavier tanks who have the tendency to catch fire often.

It is unknown if any bonus from secondary specializations are lost should the crew member with the specialization be injured in battle, but logically they should.

4. Training Crews with Currency
You can instantly increase your crew’s competency in their current tank or retrain your crew members for another tank, although doing the latter may cause you may lose some experience in the process. There’s also a limit to what type of tanks you can re-educate crew members.

There are three levels of training:

• Tank Academy – Costs 200 gold, equivalent to 80,000 credits.
• Regimental School – Costs 20,000 credits.
• Rapid Courses – No cost.

Training through Tank Academy will always result in a primary skill level of 100%. However, training via Regimental School or Rapid Courses may result in a loss of experience.

The final experience level for a tanker that is trained through either is as follows:

• Regimental School
  • If the tanker is retraining to a vehicle of the same class, then the final experience is 90% of the tanker’s current experience level.
  • If the tanker is retraining to a vehicle of a different class, then the final experience is 80% of the tanker’s current experience level.
  • For both scenarios, the minimum final experience is at 75%, meaning that retraining through Regimental School will guarantee that the tanker is at least at 75% experience

• Rapid Courses
  • If the tanker is retraining to a vehicle of the same class, then the final experience is 80% of the tanker’s current experience level.
  • If the tanker is retraining to a vehicle of a different class, then the final experience is 60% of the tanker’s current experience level.
  • For both scenarios, the minimum final experience is at 50%, meaning that retraining through Rapid Courses will guarantee that the tanker is at least at 50% experience

  Note that any crew member can operate any vehicle from their country, but will take a penalty to their effectiveness. If a tanker is in a vehicle of the same class (but not in their own vehicle), they will take a 25% penalty. If a tanker is in a vehicle of a different class, they will take a 50% penalty.

  Credit to EchelonIII for the doing the research for this.

  To retrain a crew member, open up their profile and select training. Here, you can select which class of vehicle, which specific vehicle to retrain to, and the level of training you want to give. If you wish to advance training on the same tank, make sure the vehicle selected in the vehicle tab is the same as the vehicle your crew member is currently using. Below is a screen shot of the crew re-training dialog

  The burning question: Why Retrain an Old Crew??
  In general, if your crew has a secondary skill, it is best to retrain them when moving to a new vehicle, as freshly trained crews don’t have any secondary skills at all.

  Also, even if retraining results in a tanker being just as good as a freshly trained one, remember that the older tanker still keeps his medals and progress towards their medals, allowing a player to track the tanker’s career as he moves on to other vehicles.

  

5. Training Crews via Battles

Simply earning experience in battle will increase your crew’s own experience level, and is the only other way to increase your crew’s experience. Crew experience is on a logarithmic curve; tankers will increase experience very quickly at the lower levels of experience, but increase more slowly as they gain experience.

Also there is an important feature, known Rapid Training, which is available only for “Elite Tanks”, tanks that have researched all upgrades. Selecting this option means you will no longer gain experience that can be converted to free experience. This will work for both the primary and secondary specializations. Crew members will gain a 20% bonus to their experience. This bonus can be altered depending on the number of crew members in a tank and whether or not the tanker survived the battle. Tankers that did not survive the battle will only receive a 10% bonus.

Rapid Training works on both primary and secondary skills.

Also note that crew experience levels are on a Logarithmic curve; the higher the tanker’s experience, the longer it will take for them to advance.

Here you can see where you can choose the “Speed up crew training” option. Notice the golden tank with wreath – symbol of the Elite Tank.

Selecting “Speed up crew training” will produce this notification: