Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/2172063.html

Just a few points, regarding the upcoming 8.7 changes. You’ll like them :)

- T-50 will NOT apparently lead to MT-25, it will lead to T-34
- MT-25 will be unlockable from KV-1S
- current accumulated T-50 XP will be somehow transferred to KV-1S
- Panther tanks (apparently both Panther I and II) will be rebalanced, they will lose their top engines, but will recieve a rate of fire buff (amongst other things)

Hello everyone,

the A-43 (or T-34M, as it is also known) is the upcoming tier 6 medium tank in the World of Tanks 0.8.8 patch – so let’s have a look at him, shall we? First, official Wargaming tank description (that was leaked earlier):

Developed in 1941 at Plant No. 183 under the designation A-43. A new vehicle was intended to replace the T-34 tank. The vehicle was to be equipped with torsion-bar suspension, diesel engine V-5, a new transmission and a reinforced to 60 mm front armor.

History

As the name “T-34M” (and the general shapes of the vehicle) might suggest, the story of this tank prototype starts with the original T-34 Soviet medium tank.

The thing was, for all its advantages, it had a number of serious flaws. One of them was the vertical spring suspension, that had trouble coping with the 30 ton vehicle (let alone later even heavier models). Torsion bars would have been a much better solution – a thing the Soviets themselves did realize, they however also realized that such a conversion would require massive hull re-work.
Nevertheless, the order to convert the T-34 to torsion bars suspension was given in October 1940 – the vehicle recieved the designation “T-34T“.

The initial idea was that the torsion bar suspension would be adjustable and usable even for already produced vehicles, but that hope was not fulfilled, the hull simply couldn’t have been easily adapted. That’s why another decision was taken: to create a completely new medium tank with torsion bar suspension, which would share only some parts with the T-34. The project was redesignated “A-43” and the development was to take place in the Plant No.183 in Kharkov.

It is also suspected that when designing the A-43, the developers had a close look at the Panzer III and simply implemented some of the German solutions in it. Specifically, the A-43 was designed to have some reserves, so it could be modernized in time. Mobility also played an important part. However, the A-43 was an original design and by no means a copy of either Panzer III or T-34.

The design works on the A-43 began in January 1941. The vehicle was longer and higher, but narrower than the T-34 and its clearance was improved by 5cm. A new variant of the V-5 diesel engine was specifically developed for the A-43, with increased horsepower (600hp) and increased capacity of fuel tanks. The transmission remained the same (4-speed), but it was supposed to have a reduction, so the handling of the tank would improve. As a result, the A-43 had 8 gears for forward driving and 2 reverse gears.

The suspension was also changed a lot – instead of 5 big roadweels, 6 smaller doubled roadwheels were used, each with individual torsion bar suspension. The track width was also changed – in fact, the A-43 tracks are narrower (450mm), resulting in somewhat bigger vehicle ground pressure.

The interior was also changed (compared to the T-34). The driver was moved to the right side of the hull and the radioman/machinegunner to the left. The A-43 was supposed to be equipped with a new 3-man turret (1700mm turret ring diameter), equipped with the commander’s cupola.

The weapons of the vehicle wouldn’t change from the T-34 though, the tank was to be equipped with the 76,2mm F-34 gun (I assume we’ll see that as the stock version). The only additional armament was the addition of the portable PPD machinegun to the interior. It’s an interesting fact though that the designers apparently counted on the fact that there would be a flamethrower version eventually developed, because they did consider the installation of a flamethrower instead of the frontal machinegun.

Despite all these improvements, the vehicle was actually one ton lighter than the T-34 and its maximum speed was estimated to be 52-55km/h.

The preliminary project of the A-43 (at that point, it was still called T-34T) was presented to the committee for mock-ups in January 1941. The project was accepted warmly – in fact, it was liked very, very much. There were only two demands: one was to increase the frontal armor to 60mm and another was a different (planet) transmission. These demands were met and in February 1941, the project was officially approved by the People’s Commissariat of Tank Industry (NKPT). However, more demands (aimed at simplifying the production of the vehicle) were brought up soon after. One of them was to reduce the curves of the vehicle (in favour of sharp angles) and to replace the old welded turret either with a new welded turret (that was simplier to manufacture), or with a cast turret (designed by V.Buslov), that had 52-50mm thick sides and a hatch in commander’s cupola. These demands were also met.

In March 1941, the tank was officially renamed to T-34M and the construction of two prototypes was initiated (later increased to the initial batch of 6 vehicles). In the meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the Soviets also ran an experiment, where they (somewhat crudely) converted one T-34 mod.1940 to torsion bar suspension. This experimental vehicle, called T-34T (once again) performed about the same as the regular T-34, but the ride was smoother.

In the meanwhile, through April and May 1941, various parts of the prototypes were completed, including several new suspensions in one factory and the new pressed-welded armor turret in another (5 pieces were prepared). Three partially finished hulls were also prepared by that time.

Despite all the efforts however, the plan to create at least one functional prototype until the evacuation had failed. The main reason was the trouble with the new V-5 engine – mating it with new transmission (as requested earlier) took time and while it was supposed to be done by May 1st 1941, the Plant No.183, responsible for the conversion, pushed the date to 25th of July.

And so, by the time the Germans invaded, none of the six vehicles reached at least the state of 70 percent completion. According to some sources, some parts were evecuated with the rest of the plant (turrets and some hulls, but no transmissions or engines) to Nizhny Tagil, but the development and production could not continue: the army demanded mass production of inferior, but readily available T-34 tanks and there was no capacity left for the T-34M project – and that was the end of it.
It is not officially known, what became of the parts that were evacuated, but some sources state that the turrets and perhaps even the hulls were used as parts for the regular T-34 construction. Other sources claim they were scrapped.

Characteristics

Since the T-34M will be directly competing with the T-34/85, we will compare the two vehicles. The following table will take the ingame values of the T-34/85 and compare them to the historical T-34M. The T-34/85 values will be in brackets.

Weight: 24 tons (31,7)
Hull Armor: 60/45/45? (45,45,40)
Turret Armor: ??? (hard to say, but I’d wager the T-34M turred will be less armored than the T-34/85 one)
Engine: 600hp V-5 (500-600hp engines)
Speed: up to 60km/h – or 55 from other sources (54 km/h)
Gun: 76,2mm F-34 (but here I expect both tanks to have roughly similiar weaponry)

Verdict:

I guess we can expect the T-34M to have better viewrange and better accuracy when moving (smoother suspension). Thanks to its lower weight, it will probably also be more mobile. The armament will apparently stay the same, but the T-34M might not recieve the T-34/85′s top gun as a mobility tradeoff. Overall, it should be quite a nice and mobile vehicle to play with.

Sources:

http://www.aviarmor.net/tww2/tanks/ussr/t-34m.htm

Ensign Expendable’s notes on T-34M

A video by Darth_Woras, enjoy :) I swear I like ever new part more and more :)

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/2170543.html

Straight outta supertest…

Long story short, the Wolfpack situation is fixed, players can now buy the event premium vehicles with 50 percent discount.

Aodheus:

Hey guys, seems like I finally have some good news for you.

Again, our sincere apologies for the hick-up, and hope you’ll still enjoy the 50%!

Okay, in all honesty:

The situation wasn’t as dire as some of the players assumed and it got fixed actually pretty quick, considering it’s weekend and WG EU office is probably manned only by skeleton crew. For that, I think they deserve our praise.

However, it shows WG’s main weakness, PR. Instead of issuing a clear message that this WILL be fixed and that 50 percent discount will come, they simply backedited the original event post to 30. I guess I can understand the “okay, what now?” confusion, still… ah well, let’s just blame it on weekend.

Source: http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/263919-special-wolf-pack-weekend/

Well, this time it’s something a bit different.

As you are probably aware, the current weekend event, a discount was offered for two premium vehicles: the Ersatz Panther and Schmalturm Panzer IV. They players were happy about that, as you can see from the thread reactions.

Here is the Wolfpack screenshot from last night (google cache):

It was not to last, however. I am not sure when, but some time last night, the discount was changed from 50 percent to 30 percent without any warning (allegedly, even without changing the news themselves, so some players bought the vehicles 30 percent off, when in fact they were expecting 50 percent off). First reaction of this type came at 7:22 AM this morning, so they did it in the night, without any warning whatsoever. Furthermore, they didn’t even bother to change the official even text before that, so players kept being confused.

At first, players thought it is actually a shop price mistake, only to learn later that the event was “nerfed”.

When called on their bullshit, Wargaming EU first announced they are “working on fixing it” and that the “discount should be 50 percent“, but later, Aodheus (I think he’s a German community organizer, not sure) announced that the discount will in fact stay at 30 percent and that there simply was some confusion.

Naturally a shitstorm happened, with various people asking for refunds, others raging about WG cheating, others posted kinda funny pictures:

In the end, Aodheus at least offered a refund to those “affected” by this, but the shitstorm (that could have easily be avoided, if WG EU people bothered to actually doublecheck stuff on their events) is raging even as I write this.

Yet another day at WG EU office…

Hello everyone,

basically, yesterday evening I was scouring books for some information about the leaked LTP light tank. While I didn’t find anything exact, Ensign_Expendable (you know, the awesome guy who writes about Soviet tanks on FTR and on his blog) has some theories, we’ll get back to it later.

In the meanwhile, I found something interesting as well. In the beginning, there was this picture:

At first I was like “Okay, there is something weird about that Vickers/T-26″. After a few seconds, it did hit me – it’s the suspension. The original T-26 looks like this:

As you can see, it’s a bit different. So, what IS the first suspension (since the second picture shows the “original” suspension)? Well, the answer was somewhat surprising.

Czech-Soviet cooperation

In 1938, the Soviet army asked the Czech Škoda company (by that time well-known for its LT-35 tank, internal company designation Š-IIa, the players of WoT know it under the name of Panzer 35t) was asked by the Soviet army to demonstrate their Š-IIa tanks to a committee of soliders and engineers. Škoda, eager to export the (somewhat aging, yet still viable) design, complied.

The trials of two Š-IIa vehicles (a serial LT-35 and a prototype) were conducted (under the Czechoslovak army representative’s oversight) on Kubinka proving grounds from 14.9.1938 onward. The results were good: the vehicle was relatively fast (36km/h on the road, 32,4 km/h off road) and it did well when its ability to break walls, trees and passing various obstacles was tested. Its fuel consumption was also relatively moderate – during the trials (lasting cca 3 weeks), one vehicle drove cca 1500km in total, while consuming 1947 liters of gasoline (130 liters per 100 km on average, while Soviet Union’s T-26 tank “drank” 130-190 liters per 100 km (depending on surface)). The Czechoslovak army officials even permitted the Soviets to shoot one of the light tanks from a heavy machinegun – only minor damage is caused. It was also found out that when shooting directly at vision ports, the protection of the crew was sufficient.

But the best part was: unlike with Soviet tanks, medical examination of the crew proved that even after 8 hours of driving this tank, the crew fatigue was very, very low – the tank was easy to drive, easy to handle and comfortable (a trait even the Germans and their allies praised when Czechoslovakia was occupied).

Here’s how the LT-35 suspension looks like, for comparison:

The Soviets examined the tank very closely – for example, they demanded to measure EVERYTHING, down to milimeters. They also demanded the engineers to “demonstrate” the tank maintenance by removing and dismantling the engine and transmission components. At that point, the Czech army staff got really suspicious that the Soviets are not trying to evaluate the vehicle for purchase – they are in fact trying to basically copy some of its components. After that, the trials quickly deteriorated, the Czech staff forced the Soviet engineers to destroy any such “notes” with exact measures/numbers and the delegation went home, along with the prototypes.

Further tests were agreed upon (including comparative tests between Soviet and Czech vehicles), but after the Munich treason, nothing came of it.

But that was not the end for the Soviets. They liked the Škoda suspension. They liked it in fact so much that they decided to copy it, no matter what. Many Soviet engineers and tank designers studied the test results, including some drawings that were left (some were even present during the tests themselves before) – the result was, that the design bureau of the Leningrad Kirov Plant No.185 (in cooperation with Plant 174) designed several Soviet tank modifications and designs, based on the T-26 tanks.

Here’s a timeline of the vehicle development, based on Jiří Tintěra’s work from the valka.cz server (will be quoted in sources):

T-26M

As can be seen from the table above, the T-26M was based on T-26-1, which is better known as “T-26 mod. 1939″. The first picture of this article (that caught my attention), represents exactly this vehicle. When you compare the LT-35 and T-26M suspensions, you can see clear similiarities.

T-26M was built as a prototype in the Leningrad plant No.185 (as mentioned before) in 1939, under the guidance of Semyon Ginzburg (who was later stripped of his chief designer position for the failures of the initial SU-76 design and sent to the front, where he died in 1943). Apparently, 2 prototypes were made, but it was never accepted in service. Unlike the T-26 mod.1939, it was propelled by a 97hp Vickers engine, it was less armored (15mm frontal armor), but it was a bit faster (30km/h, compared to 28km/h of the original). The 45mm armament recieved was the same.

T-26-5

The T-26-5 (project name “Project 126″) was further developed on the T-26M in 1939 in the Plant No.1985 by the same team, led by S.Ginzburg. It was never accepted in service and an unknown number of prototypes (at least one however) was made.

Compared to the T-26M, it was higher, but narrower (by cca 20cm). It had its armor improved to the T-26 Mod.1939, even surpassing it at some points (20-25mm frontal armor), it was also tested with two stronger engines: the gasoline Type 745 I6 (130-150hp) and the diesel Type 744 I4 (130-180hp). The armament remained the same. The effect on the weight and speed of these modifications is unknown.

T-126-1

T-126-1 (“Project 126-1″ designation) is the ultimate evolution of the “Škoda” T-26 series, made by the same team to design the previous vehicles, this time in cooperation with the Voroshilov Plant No.174 in Leningrad. It was made probably in 3 prototypes between 1939-1940. It was basically a redesignated T-26-5, with some partial modifications. This time, only the diesel engine was selected for trials (Type 744, producing 130-180hp). The armor was increased once again, reaching up to 40-45mm (this is including the “screen” armor one of the prototypes had added, the “regular armor was 30-40mm thick). This of course increased the weight of the vehicle, reaching up to 14 tons.

This project also never entered service. By the time these were built, the war was looming ahead and it can be speculated that (as was the case of other Soviet designs, the T-34M in particular) existing mass produced types were preferred in order to simplify and increase the production as much as possible.

T-125

There was one more project with the Škoda suspension, this time by the Voroshilov plant No.174. It was designed by the chief plant designer, F.A.Mostovoy in 1939 to 1940. No prototype was ever built however.

It was supposed to be a 13 ton tank, powered by the aforementioned Type 744 diesel (tuned to 180hp), it was supposed to be lower, but wider and longer vehicle with 40mm frontal armor, armed with the same 45mm gun as the other tanks. The tracks were also wider (400mm, compared to the 350mm of all the other T-26 “Škoda” models), giving it better mobility.

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find and drawing thereof.

Source: Jiří Tintěra – T-26M,T-26-5, T-126-1 via valka.cz

Source: http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/19/new-mission-system-revealed/

Hello, everyone!

Basically, US server gets its own missions now. And they are pretty cool!

Mission 1 (repeatable):

If you kill 3 tanks, you get a bonus of (100*yourvehicletier) XP (eg. a Ferdinand would get 800XP) AND you get a bonus of (5000*yourvehicletier) credits. (ergo for 3 kills, a Ferdinand will get an 800XP and 40000 credits bonus)

That’s not bad :)

But there’s more. In July, more missions will come:

- 20 percent more XP and 30 percent more credits for the tank that does the most damage for each team (SS: sucks compared to the RU event, but still, good)

- destroy a vehicle of each nation (once per day) and get 1 of each gold consumables

- destroy 20 T4+ medium tanks and get a day of premium account (one time only)

And in the future, there will even be SETS of missions with their own rewards (“complete mission 1, 2, 3 and get some bonus”) and special weekly missions. Not bad, not bad…

Oh, and what about the EU server?

Well… I guess we’ll get them…. later.