see, that's the point. 1v1 t-59s are dog food. When there's 4 of them rushing down one side though, it's incredibly hard to deal with even for big tanks that can pen them reliably like KTs or Lowes, even Jagdtigers. I can walk away from one relatively unscathed in my panther 2 if we're dogfighting, and I know all the weak spots... but the problem in hand is having a t-59 wolf pack slam into your team that is made up of mostly tier 6-7s. Even playing defense will cripple your ranks.
1v1? T-59 is comparatively weak in those cases. When you have 3 of them driving all over the place chewing you up... that's the problem. End result is whichever team has more t-59s that pack together usually wins.
If there's 4 T-43s or 4 Panther IIs or 4 of anything rolling in on your tier 6/7 front, it'll be hard. This is not a strength of the type59 but rather a weakness of the lack of organization/planning of pub match teams. Your team has roughly as many tier8 tanks as their team does. Where the hell did all of those tanks go? Why are you defending a tier8 push with only lower tier tanks?
My point with the 1v1 is that tier6 tanks can do plenty of damage to the type59. Like the vk3601's short88 and the sherman M1A2 gun have solid DPS (but lame pen) that isn't really exceeded till you start talking tier8 tanks. So if you have some heavies in place to the type59s and your team is actively tracking them, the tier6/7 tanks can clean up effectively.
Yes, you'll lose a bunch of tier6/7 tanks if that's the bulk of your defense force. But I feel like 6 tier6 tanks traded for 4 tier8 tanks is reasonable.
As mentioned above, track them and/or ram/facehug with heavies. Lower tier tanks need to either keep moving to flank or use cover effectively (including shielding yourself from other type59s with the body of the 59 you're engaging now). Keep them tracked & don't stop moving/shooting if you're going the flanking route.
They're a relatively small number of tanks cut off from their team. Halt the advance & then envelope them. Wait till they're deep enough in your territory to hit with vastly superior numbers. If you could just barely defend them with say 6 tanks, then with 8 or 10 tanks you'll fucking rape them.
And yeah then your team didn't get to move into their fav spots before the enemy could. But that's a tactical trade-off. They traded material strength for space. So I'd suggest having slow/high alpha tanks digging in while faster tanks exploit the weakest part of the enemy line. The maps are big; they won't be able to halt your advance with a bunch of their high tier tanks dead.
The problem is that retard pub match kiddies like to take them on 2 or 3 at a time and get raped. Or the low tier players will try to play peekaboo and get raped b/c they can't pen the front armor. Or they run out to flank but stop moving once they have a "good" spot and get raped. Or they run into the middle of the type59 group and get raped. People are just fucking stupid.
edit: a prime example of fucking retards happened to me today. I was on the receiving end though so it was hilarious. Tier6 match on Mountain Pass (snowy northern mountain road); I was in my Sherman E2 starting in the bottom right. My team decides to rush west. I go north to cover the eastern flank hoping to buy time for our rushers (durrr) if the enemy pushes that flank. I was joined by a leopard and a T-50. They prob planned on doing a scouting run until 1 M7, 1 T-34/85, 1 T-34, 2 T-28, 1 M4, 1 vk3601 show up. M7 is way out in front and I pick him off (machine gun M1A2 woot). T-28 runs out into open ground. Killed. Then the rest peek out and drill shells into my frontal armor... none of them can penetrate reliably but they keep shooting. I don't even have to aim b/c there are so many targets--just shoot and I'll hit something. Then the vk3601 makes a break for it, and I"m like SHIT. I fire twice at him for no damage () and he's got a perfect shot on my weak side armor now. But... he keeps driving! Clearly the T-50/leopard are bigger threats! So I retreat behind rocks and just drill shells into his rear armor. In the meanwhile, the remaining T-28, M4 and T-34/85 are taking pot shots at the light tanks from around the corner... instead of coming out to rape me. So I drive back out and kill them all. 1.8k exp, 50k credits. With a 7:1 advantage if they just rode out and surrounded me, I would've been completely fucked. But instead they were retards. This kind of lack of thinking is why type59 pushes are hard to beat.
I know they switched it to win/loss ratio but I didn't expect it to be that ridiculous. Is that why I'm getting so many window lickers on my team? God forbid I do well, now I'm expected to carry the team to victory as well?
Wait what? Seriously? That would explain a lot. Since getting elite on my vk3601, my win ratio was something like 70% on pub matches pre-7.0 (I was at a 50% win ratio before elite; then steadily moved up to 60%). Now it's much worse. And I find myself getting fucking pissed at my team way more often than before. Weak.