Ground Grind has halted. What am I doing wrong?

[AOD_Marcuswalrus]

recently have grinded a 5.3 lineup for American ground but it seems like 1. every match is a full uptier, and 2. I can't pen 80% of enemy tanks even when aiming at what I think are weak points (Machine gun ports, viewport, flat armor). I've just been padding the enemy team's stats. Is this just a BR I have to slog through or will it get worse unless I make a change? It feels like how it felt when i first started air RB but now it seems the experiences have flipped.

[AOD_Ovinus]

In my opinion, its just the way 5.0/3 US BR works
You have limited access to good guns (76mm), and practically no "great" guns (I´d say 5.3 M36 gun is amazing, but its locked behind a 5.7 M18 in the tech tree)
Meanwhile the enemies (especially germans) have good guns all around.
5.0/3 BR is especially painful, because the German golden era is 5.3-6.7. Everyone loves and everyone plays the Tigers, Panthers, Kingtigers, all the great german TDs that brilliantly enhance the already great line-up. All those vehicles are in the 5.3/7-6.3/7 BR range, and because alot of people play those, when queueing up as a 5.0/3 US player, the Matchmaker only has 5.7-6.3 german players to put you up against.

So yeah, I´d say its more a BR and nation problem that it feels horrible, and it is horrible.
US ground tree gets better at 6.7 I´d say, when you start getting better guns and armour, though this is my personal opinion. (Overall I dislike the US tree over any others.)

[AOD_Blodgett]

Like Ovinus said, the US tank lineup is fairly weak altogether in my opinion. At the BR your at, russian t34's and KV's along with all the german tanks will dominate matches.

As far as uptiers, if you ever play with me and say anything about an uptier you will immediately hear me say, "every match is an uptier, the sooner you understand that the better off you'll be." As you progress in the BR's less and less players you will find. This means Gaijin's matchmaking system kicks in and you will commonly (9 out of 10 matches) face tanks that are up to 1 BR higher than your tank. The good news is every tank in this game is designed to kill tanks up to 1 BR higher and some can kill tanks much higher. But yes you are not at a BR level where just about every match you play you will be close to the bottom tier of the tanks.

That being said, when a completely new country is introduced into the game, I can usually unlock every single tank up to 5.0 in about 4 to 5 hours. Once you hit 5.0, it starts becoming a lot harder to gain RP to continuously unlock new tanks. So keep that in mind.

Also one other thing I tell players, do not get locked into researching only one country at a time. Start researching all the countries at the same time. This will make it easier for you to group up with and play with other members of AOD and that makes the game more fun to play than just grinding by yourself. This also allows you to switch to another country when the country you are currently playing somehow seems to get it's ass kicked every match you go into. To me it just seems like certain days favor certain countries. When your locked into only 1 country your choices are limited.

The other thing that makes grinding easier is buying the top tier tank pack with real money. This top tier tank (usually the 60 or 70 dollar pack) allows you to efficiently research tiers 1 through 7. It is the only tank in the premium line that allows it. Most premium tanks will only allow efficient research for 1 BR above and below it. If you do this method you will be hated by all your teammates you go into a match with because you will be a "one and done" or "two and Done" if you put a back up on it. Most 8.0 to 10.0 matches are now filled with one and dones or two and dones which usually means one side gets blown out every match.

[AOD_GaRebelZ71]

u.s is a hard grind till top tier honestly

[AOD_Greenspike]

I came here to say things which....have already been said.

The metagame has a LOT of premium tanks at 6.3-6.7, in every nation. Thus: there is a huge playerbase in that BR range.

The big annual War Thunder sale is coming up in about 8 days. You can expect most premium packs to go on sale for 50%-off (or more). In some previous years, I've seen certain in-game premium tanks go for as much as 75% off. For example: a few years ago, the T117 and T26-e99 (the rocket one) were 75% off.

Every year: I like to make a "wishlist" of vehicles, where I pre-commit to buying them if they go on sale at a certain rate. For example: "if the premium T34 goes on sale for at least 50%, i'll buy it. Ehh, I don't care about the TigerII, but if it goes on sale for 75% i'll buy it". Here's a link to their sale last year......if you scroll down, you can see that different nations went on-sale on different days. I strongly suggest making yourself a max-budget, and making yourself a buylist now so when the sale starts, you can snag an intelligent and intentional lineup of things you want.

TL;DR: 5.3 is weak because the meta has a lot of 6.3 | buy some premiums | there is a sale in about a week

[AOD_Macjagger]

5.3 US is tough, used to be meta but has been nurfed to hell... Once you get to 5.7 it gets better as you have some 90mm in the M36's to deal with uptiers.

* For US 75mm and even 76mm on bad angles, most german med & heavy armor have HUGE commanders cupolas, any APHE results in commander/gunner dead if not 1 shot kill. Exploit this. Watch OddBawz videos on the US 75mm tanks to see how it's done.

* For frontal engagements you have a few options: take out the barrel or hit a weak spot precisely. Weak spots are panther flat facing turret either side of mantlet or cupola. What makes this so unfair is they can oneshot you (except for jumbo) literally anywhere... while you have to aim for weak spots... with the 90mm this all goes away as you can go through the turret front easily.

* Any good lineup consists of a uptier vehicle...that is to say one that can better deal with better stuff.. at 5.7 the M36s are your uptier choices... spawn regular m36 1st and 2nd spawn m36b with the turret cover. Late game shermans can work as everyone is on their spawn.

* Some BR lineups are just weak...move past them and get to a meta BR and sit there for a while researching.

* Do your daily assault arcade game for max 300% booster

* When starting a new lineup of stock tanks, play a few games in arcade... crew and module research 3x faster (don't ask me why). Once you have repairs, good round, maybe FPE switch back to RB and finish your grind.