What are the roles of the different types of tanks?

[MacaroniBurger]

I know spaa is to take out airplanes (obviously) but what are the roles of the other tanks?
Do light tanks rush caps? Flank?
Heavy tanks are supposed to be the "frontline" or something?
And medium tanks are an inbetween of mobility and armor?
What do tank destroyers do? Sit back and snipe tanks?

[DarkFenix]

There are no fixed roles, but the more armour you have, the more luxury you have to simply roll in through the front door, the lighter your armour the more cautious distance you need to keep from the shooty shooty. Oh and turretless vehicles are far more vulnerable in close range fights, so keeping your distance is a good idea.

However, there are very few tanks heavily armoured enough to just roll straight in, everything needs to be played a bit smart in WT.

[Dr. Fronkensteen]

You have it mostly right, although heavys are more standoff tanks than pushers. Find a decent guarded position which reduces your chance to be flanked. Heavys cannot push too well alone, because their poor mobility and their generally poor side armor.

[↯Zindy⛦]

not all tank that are in a category are meant to be played by the same rules. A Kv1 sin't gonna play like a M6a1, a jumbo or a churchill

[Waryth]

Light Tanks aren't just a tool for capping. They can also fight just like any tanks would.

Almost every tanks have their weakspots at the rear and a Light Tanks and a SPAA can destroy tanks from behind.

Medium Tanks are the jack of all trades. They just have adequate armor and speed but this is the main common class out of them all.

Heavy Tanks have some parts of the armor from them that can withstand any cannon shots. Usually at the front and can hold a position.

Tank Destroyers just as you said are used more often for sniping from long distances as almost all tanks in this class have long barrels that can do its sniping role. They are more useful at choke points where you can get a lot of kills.

Staying behind the back may sometimes be not fun at times but its usually done more as a support.

Doing the choke point ambush makes it more effective.

Overall, you got the gists of it. I just added some supplementary details for them in your understanding.

[Foxtrot39]

Depend of what the tank is capable of and its gun performance, I.E the US hellcats are TD yet they behave like light tanks

[Mechanical_Lamb23]

You can really do almost anything with any tnak. A good example is the SU100Y. Its a large house mounted with a 130mm naval gun and has 60mm of armor. Sounds like something you want to keep back from the fight right? Well i love to play it as an assult tank, because it can take a beating, i mean it can really take a good ol pounding, but it kills whatever it hits, the only exception being the odd broken tiger 1 machine gun port, the tiger 2P if you hitt the hull, and the T28 if you see one of the 3 that exist (and i own one of them). If you find a way to make something work, it works, even if its outside the realm of whats considered that tanks "job"

[Adagamante]

Originally posted by Mechanical_Lamb23:

You can really do almost anything with any tnak. A good example is the SU100Y. Its a large house mounted with a 130mm naval gun and has 60mm of armor. Sounds like something you want to keep back from the fight right? Well i love to play it as an assult tank, because it can take a beating, i mean it can really take a good ol pounding, but it kills whatever it hits, the only exception being the odd broken tiger 1 machine gun port, the tiger 2P if you hitt the hull, and the T28 if you see one of the 3 that exist (and i own one of them). If you find a way to make something work, it works, even if its outside the realm of whats considered that tanks "job"

Couldn't agree more. I've been quite sucessful using my Jagdpanzer 38(t) as a "heavy tank" to counter jumbo spam. A lot of guns at its tier will have a really hard time penning it from the front, (the LFP is a weakspot, but the transmission usually eats whatever gets in). I keep untracking the jumbos, putting some apcr in their mantlets and being a nuissance in general to prevent them from steamrolling the rest of the team.

[Sum Birdy]

The role of every tank in the game is to simply rush B.

[StingerRPG]

Originally posted by The_Supersnoper:

The role of every tank in the game is to simply rush B.

Never try to make a T95 haul ass.

[PyroPaul]

Originally posted by MacaroniBurger:

I know spaa is to take out airplanes (obviously) but what are the roles of the other tanks?
Do light tanks rush caps? Flank?
Heavy tanks are supposed to be the "frontline" or something?
And medium tanks are an inbetween of mobility and armor?
What do tank destroyers do? Sit back and snipe tanks?

none of the above.

The 'class' of tanks you see is an arbitrary designation.

the M4a3e2 and T26e1-1 are both Medium Tanks that simply mounted ~4 tons of additional armor plating mounted to the front. Outside of a difference in agility - they perform roughly the same as their medium tank counter parts.

however they are designated as 'heavy tanks' in the game.

How the tank is supposed to be used is entirely dependent on the tanks design and nothing to do with it's in game designation.