Upcoming tanks in WoT 1 – T-4 and T-5

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Hello everyone,

as you know, recently in the 8.9 video and subsequent leaks, new vehicles could be spotted. There is no ETA on them and some were confirmed not to come this year at all. Still, it’s an interesting insight. The vehicles “uncovered” were T-4, T-5 Pantera, Brummbär, G1L

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Furthermore, in 8.9 video, we could glimpse the British M2A4, A7 and premium Neubaufahrzeug.

Let’s have a look at them.

T-4 and T-5 “Pantera” and other captured tanks

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Here it’s really simple: T-4 (sometimes T4 or “Chetvyorka”) was Soviet designation for Panzer IV and T-5 (sometimes T5, or “Pantera”) was Soviet designation for Panthers. Any Panthers that is, but in this case, captured Panthers, used by Soviets are meant. I asked Ensign Expendable yesterday to write something on the topic of captured Panthers and he wrote an excellent article, if you are interested in this issue, I wholeheartedly recommend it, it’s historically correct. Please note that the T-4 tier is most likely a placeholder, the vehicle won’t be tier 7 in game.

The truth is, Soviets used all kinds of captured German equipment (even converted captured Panzer III and Stug III hulls into their own vehicles, such as the SU-76i) and that goes for Panzer IV too. The use of captured vehicles was not really something the Soviets wanted to do (unlike for example the German Ardennes assault, where the Germans actually counted on the fact they would capture fuel supplies before their own tanks run out of gas), but it happened and in no small numbers (though a majority of the captured vehicles were not tanks, but trucks and cars).

Captured tanks were actually used by the Soviets as early as 1941. Those were mostly Panzer III tanks (referred to as T-3), StuG III SPG’s (referred to as “tank bez bashni” (“tanks without turret”)), Panzer 35t’s (referred to as “Shkoda” based on their manufacturer) and Panzer 38t’s (referred to as “Praga” by the same principle). Some of the 35t’s didn’t come from Germans, but from their allies, such as Romania. By the end of 1941, collecting captured equipment has become an organized undertaking with its own designated Red Army department. Captured vehicles were moved behind the lines, where they were repaired (using either captured parts, or parts cannibalized from other vehicles). In 1943, this army department became quite large and was led by Marshal K.Voroshilov.

In Spring 1942, the use of captured tech in the Red Army was widespread and hundreds of captured vehicles were moved behind the lines for repairs. Those hundreds however were not armored vehicles, most were cars and trucks. The repair and refit of these vehicles for Soviet use happened in factories near Moscow. In order to imagine the numbers here’s an example: Only the 5th Army of the Western Front captured between 12/41 and 4/42 following vehicles: 411 vehicles in total, of which: 13 medium tanks, 12 light tanks, 3 armored cars, 24 tractors, 2 armored transports, 2 SPG’s, 196 trucks, 116 light cars, 43 motorcycles. Furthermore, during the same period, Red Army as a whole collected 33 undisclosed medium tanks, 26 light tanks. Other captured tanks were identified: 2 Panzer I, 8 Panzer II, 19 Panzer III, 1 Panzer IV, 1 “Praga” 38t, 7 StuG III. These vehicles were moved behind the lines in April-May 1942 and studied thoroughly.

These captured vehicles later returned to fight on the Soviet side. It’s interesting that each of these vehicles had an individual name, such as “Aleksander Suvorov”, “Dmitrij Donskoj”, “Aleksander Nevskij” and other legendary Russian heroes. They had huge red stars painted on their sides, turrets and on the top to help the Soviet pilots to recognize their own, but it didn’t help much, incidents happened. For example in 1943 during the fights in Ukraine, two batteries of captured StuG’s were used to support the assault of the 3rd Guards army. One T-70 crew disregarded the huge red stars on the StuG’s and opened fire on the captured StuG’s. They couldn’t penetrate the armor of the German vehicles, but the infantry riding on them was pretty pissed and they did beat the crew of the T-70 with fists later. In general, the StuG III’s were the most actively used captured armor.

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The Soviets valued the comfort and quality optics and radios in the German tanks (Panzer III’s that is). Panthers were in general assigned to more experienced crews, more on that in EE’s article. T-5′s (Panthers) were used primarily for anti-tank roles.

Another use for the captured tech was its conversion into hybrid German-Soviet vehicles, such as the SU-76i. The “i” in this case means “inostrannij” (foreign). SU-76i was mass produced (based on Panzer III and StuG chassis) and in total 201 were made. It suffered from the lack of spare parts however and in late 1943 the production was stopped. According to Soviet data, Soviets actually during the war captured a total of 24612 tanks and SPG’s, that could have been used to arm 120 German armored divisions.

Source:

http://topwar.ru/2189-trofejnye-tanki-na-sluzhbe-krasnoj-armii.html

53 thoughts on “Upcoming tanks in WoT 1 – T-4 and T-5”

  1. “pronounced pahntyera” – пантьера? Вообще то произносится именно как Pantera (пантэра), исправьте.

  2. T-4 is tier VII? How is it going to be balanced? With L/70(seriously overused) + more hitpoints?

  3. since the T-4 is a captured Pz. IV and seems like a normal Pz. IV on that sprite, i wonder why it would be designated as a tier 7 now. i think it would rather suit a tier 5 then or it must have some upgrades

    • When applied coefficient of Soviet crew and Soviet stars on vehicle, armor effectiveness increases about 50% and an additional armor plates of zero weight with “we got them/0 dmg hits” capability is added. Also, do not forget those superior driving skills of Soviet drivers, reducing ground resistance to around 50% of contemporary vehicles with other nations origin. I bet that T4 will beat T20 or Panther or VK3002DB anytime.

    • And once recaptured by the original owners, the same tank can be a tier 9 Waffenträger. Sounds legit.

  5. ”One T-70 crew disregarded the huge red stars on the StuG’s and opened fire on the captured StuG’s. They couldn’t penetrate the armor of the German vehicles, but the infantry riding on them was pretty pissed and they did beat the crew of the T-70 with fists later.”

    Who can blame them..

    I would never want to be in an captured vehicle for this reason ( covert perhaps)

    • Bet the T-70 crew thought what the hell be on the safe side and shoot them anyways. They could always be fascist propaganda tricks! ^^

    • That reminds me of troll noob platoons where tier 1 drives around and shoot tier 10 allies. Then someone snaps and kills them. :D

    • No. Captured vehicles will by a category by itself (like premium and promo vehicles are different categories). There was an idea that they might be reward vehicles for historical battles.

      • Sounds like a neat idea actually. But, wait, that means I’d have to start doing well in my Russian tanks to complete my collection of German-made vehicles. Clever girl… .

  7. “24612 tanks and SPG’s” Fuck me, if the Soviets rearmed everyone of those tanks and SPG with Soviet guns they would have some serious firepower.

    • You forget the logistical problems . Germans used every bit of captured kit they could get their hands on .. that did not work out very well for them.

      • You know that this is only propaganda claim?
        Or some accounting trick, like counting ALL captured vehicles as tanks and SPG’s.
        Nothing new in history of wars, and soviets were very proficient in it.

        • Herp derp, once war was won, all cars/trucks/tanks/trains/donkeys that were on the russian front (and I’d like to point out that russian front included about half of germany) now belonged to them. This is including shit that still stood in the factory lots and in maintenance hangars and the like. So yeah, saying they captured so much shit thorough the war is correct.

          But for a wehraboo anything from soviets are lies and propaganda, isn’t it?

  8. Looking forward to the three German tanks, not so much for that French prototype whatever.

  9. T-5 is prolly gonna be as useless as Panther M10.. if those had limited MM maybeeee id consider buying.

    • Teir 7 is a place-holder. These tanks aren’t even going to be released this year. No one reads the posts.

    • pz5/m10 is a rape machine in the right hands, unless I make a stupid mistake I generally do well in mine and make on average 60-70k credits per battle. If the battle went terrible I will usually see 40k. If I do really well its not uncommon to see 80-90k

  10. Please tell me they appear as premium even though they could be tech tree vehicles. The G1L fits well into a tech tree branch

  11. I’d really like to know the source for 24612 captured “tanks and SPGs” (not half-tracks, trucks or artillery tractors).

      • Propaganda claim, most likely.
        During Winter War, one of war messages of Soviet command caused a moment of cheerfulness in Finnish HQ, because it claimed that Red Army destroyed more finnish tanks than Finns ever had.
        So it’s nothing new on field of fabricating numbers.

        • Or, even more likely, someone somewhere down the line having forgotten to sort the AFVs from the other vehicles. After all the quoted “snapshot” of captures in late ’42 to early ’43 are both perfectly plausible numbers and diligently enough differentiated.

  12. Funny the only versions of Pz4 and Pz5 that look correct… belong to soviet tree. German Pz4 and Panther look like xit.

  14. So they put the design of Pz.4 that everyone would like to see on a soviet premium vehicle… So you get two times trolled by WG -.-

  15. Upcoming tanks in WoT 1 – T-4 and T-5 i repeat WoT 1, I didn’t know there a WoT 2 or is ther :/

  17. i bet the 1200hp BMW engine from the maus is still running in a russian power plant^^

  19. Soviet Star bestows blessing of great father Stalin to any tank.
    +50% to armour effectiveness and chance to autobounce at weird angle.
    +50% to enemy cry of “Russian Bias”
    +10% chance for fire. :[

    • +50% ammo detonation chance

      gotta be fair to every Russian bias claim after all, because you know… they DO tend to suffer from lol worthy catastrophic ammunition explosion a lot in game.

  20. “The Soviets valued the comfort and quality optics and radios in the German tanks ”

    This is why in-game the Soviet radios are so much better than the German ones, ha.