20.11.2013

- Q: “Why is it possible to actually destroy a tank by shooting it in its commander’s copula?” A: “It’s possible to destroy a tank by a shell penetration, by the penetration of shell fragments or by fragments of its own armor in the area behind armor. Commander’s copula provides direct access for the shells and their fragments to the area behind armor. So the logic is there. It’s like to complain that a house is also accessible via chimney, not just via door. It’s possible – not easy, bot possible”.
- regarding the above question, when asked how come parts that do not provide such access (such as AC48 rangefinder) do cause vehicle damage too: “Well, the tracks don’t repair in real life 6 seconds either, in real life the barrel can bend when crashing into trees… you know what I mean”


- SU-100Y has two AP shells. The AP shell with increased power (gold shell) loses the penetration a bit faster over distance than the regular one, but the difference is negligible
- HESH shells in WOT are simply HE shells with increased penetration
- SerB states that the Vbaddict site map winrate statistics are “very far” from the truth
- SerB states that the LFP of King Tiger COULD have been 120mm on some pieces, WG decided that the 100mm “paper value” is “more correct”
- there is no data on a King Tiger (E-75) turret, that could hold the 105mm L/100
- there are enough ideas in WoT for 10 major (0.8.0, 0.9.0 etc.) patches
- about time limits: WoT is limited by appearance of smoothbores, WoWp is limited to the first generation of jets, WoWs is limited to the point when battleships lost their importance, eg. roughly the same time period
- SerB has not watched the “Megafactories” show on WG yet

And from developer blog:

- Veider: there will be a new award (Top Gun, Confederate style) for damage done in battle: top damagers (under certain conditions) in the losing team will recieve the same amount of credits and XP as if they won
- Sniper medal will be significantly reworked
- apparently, older collision models of suspensions will be reworked to feature a “hole” in the middle, like this:

684_900

- Sturer Emil will not recieve a better stock gun (“And what tank you can’t penetrate with 169mm on tier 7? Stop smoking that already”)
- no plans for destructable (changeable) terrain for now
- Havok will bring destructable spaced armor (parts of it torn off)
- only some tanks will have optional hulls

Tanitha (SEA server) on roaming punishment: “Its likely or at least possible that any rule violations on a non home server, will result in the roaming feature of the player being switched off permanently. Breaking the rules on another server, isn’t a good option.”

60 thoughts on “20.11.2013

  1. “Havok will bring destrictable spaced armor” – Sounds nice :) :) Can’t wait for this :) But I guess the SuperPershing will be dead as dead can be after this :P

    • Hmmmm I was thinking, If Havok will allow spaced armor to fell off, that means we’ll be able to “dig through” Super Pershings front armor with every hit.

            • I think they meant more along the lines of thin schutzen falling off rather than stuff like the SP boiler plates – that stuff should be pretty solidly welded to the tank…

              • True, but from a player’s point of view, it will be pretty hard to see which tank has the spaced armor shot off and which hasnt. The schutzen doesnt count as armor, so that part is pretty useless. But when it comes to IS-3 sides, or SP armor plates, you won’t be able to know if the spaced armor is shot off(not that it is a problem) but still…

                • ? Schutzen side skirts do count as armor. 5mm for the hull skirts and 10 or 8mm around the turret depending on the tank.

                  Now on some tanks like the Panther 2 they put it on the model but never bothered to model in on the armor model (lazy? or bias who knows)

        • I can see some people trying to rip apart spaced armor of their T26E4 to gain some speed or at least to try to gain some at start of battle

          • I think they are talking about the visual model of spaced armour looking damaged rather than “being” damaged. There would most likely be set or single damage model for each panel. If WG implement degraded effectiveness for damaged spaced armour shooting through the holes would do no good as it would be based on a probability model rather than modeling the bits with holes or missing.

            • It’ll be literal armor falling off. That’s why they’re waiting for Havok implementation; so they won’t need a separate model for each “damage version” of the tank, spaced plates will be attached to the base model and literally fall/fly off when smacked with sufficient force, and the tank’s hitbox/damage model will be modified on the fly accordingly.

              Some tanks will gain additional armor with this, too; notably extra track links mounted on the forward hull will potentially be useful for gameplay, rather than just hang there all static and pretty like.

          • Dont expect the SP to lose his armor-plates, and also that already penetrated armor will be weaker (SerB stated, that will not happen). Its more like (the typical example) the tracks on the second Tiger II – turret or tool-boxes and stuff like that.

    • Super Pershing was dead before the 8.7 nerf. Let’s not talk about how dead it was AFTER that nerf, let alone if spaced armor would be destructible.

  2. “- Veider: there will be a new award (Top Gun, Confederate style) for damage done in battle: top damagers (under certain conditions) in the losing team will recieve the same amount of credits and XP as if they won”

    That`s really nice! Farming the ISU-line will be very easily :P

    • and now those battles just need to count as wins for the win ratio, or at least add another option in the statistics so we can see just how often someone really only lost because of his team.

      • Meh, the “battles where I did good but my team was inept” are easily balanced by “I potatoed, but got bailed out by the team.” Besides, rolling up lots of damage doesn’t necessarily mean you played well. If you only rolled damage in mopup time after the battle is essentially lost, it’s entirely possible that you were part of the problem to begin with. (Not always, to be sure, but fairly common.)

  3. - there is no data on a King Tiger (E-75) turret, that could hold the 105mm L/100

    105mm L/100 ? Is this even serious ? 7,5cm L/100 was already absurd and would never work in reality, not with materials available in 1945.

  4. “Tanitha (SEA server) on roaming punishment: “Its likely or at least possible that any rule violations on a non home server, will result in the roaming feature of the player being switched off permanently. Breaking the rules on another server, isn’t a good option.””

    Can we have that type of punishment on the home realms as well please? Ridiculous they’d only actually enforce their rules on roaming -.-

  5. “WoWp is limited to the first generation of jets” Naaasty naaasty SeRBie liar. Gloster Javelin is second generation jet same as Supermarine Swift. (Javelin is more likely to be conceived as one though)

  6. >> – Q: “Why is it possible to actually destroy a tank by shooting it in its commander’s copula?” A: “It’s possible to destroy a tank by a shell penetration, by the penetration of shell fragments or by fragments of its own armor in the area behind armor. Commander’s copula provides direct access for the shells and their fragments to the area behind armor. So the logic is there. It’s like to complain that a house is also accessible via chimney, not just via door. It’s possible – not easy, bot possible”.
    – regarding the above question, when asked how come parts that do not provide such access (such as AC48 rangefinder) do cause vehicle damage too: “Well, the tracks don’t repair in real life 6 seconds either, in real life the barrel can bend when crashing into trees… you know what I mean”

    Frank, read “Tigers in the Mud”, that’s what happened to the author, cupola got shot off and he lived by great luck, bending at that moment to light a cigarette. Tank was still in combat afterwards.

    Generally that book is full of propaganda BS and wishful thinking but there are some interesting facts regarding combat reality. Unfortunately, very few technicalities.

    • I was thinking about making an account for some time, but the part of your post (about Tigers in the Mud) really convinced me to do so.

      I was reading this book few weeks ago, very carefully. The author is trying very hard to be apolitical, really focusing only on battle experiences, about situations about wise/clever leadership of his superiors, about bravery of his comrades or his panicking fellow soldiers.

      The only stuff that gets close (about one mile close) to being propaganda is that he met Himmler one time and he found his personality to be pleasant, contrary to what he heard about him. Now I of course don’t like Himmler (knowing about all he did/caused), but this is hardly propaganda.

      The book is from the same publisher who did Michael Whitman’s books. I haven’t read these, but I would suppose there will be propaganda in them.

      But Tigers in the Mud ? No way. It’s purely battle experience recounting.

      • I am sorry to disagree with you. The propaganda BS is very subtle but it’s lingering there and poisoning readers souls – revisionists approach to history.

        1. The author very conveniently forgets why that war started and what happened during it. It’s written as if Germany had to defend themselves from the whole world’s aggression. And, while he may not have been a direct perpetrator of any atrocities, he was an active contributor to the war effort, which allowed others to commit them.

        2. He presents Germany as a great defender from communism, bringing freedom to baltic states and other eastern countries. The same baltic states, that they gave away to Soviet Union two years before, with Ribentropp-Molotov pact. After forcibly getting Memmel from Lithuania. While these two years were very harsh on Balts and many fought along Germans in consequence, the whole defending freedom idea is BS – Balts were to be subject to Generalplan Ost, just further down the line after Poles and other nations.

        3. I can understand that war had destroyed his young years and changed the rest of his life. I (somewhat) can understand that when he was teenager, he was proud th fight for his country (even if it wasn’t a defense fight – he was excited and proud of taking part in early Barbarossa, he was proud for taking Poland and France, exited that they may invade Britain) to the extent that he was trying to join army many times. I can understand that he was mislead and as a young guy he was susceptible to that – and i could understand resentment based on that. And i pity him because of that.
        3a. What i cannot understand is that he is still proud of the whole thing – while he says that that war was bad, he sees no connection between his fight and the whole thing. He is proud that he fought and why he fought. He thinks that being “just a soldier” is a justification, and excuse – while in reality it’s not much better than “taking orders”.
        3b. The one thing that is good is that he openly admits what he did – most Germans strangely happen to have been “cooks” or “writers”…

        4. He omits the huge carrot that German nation were shown, how really the war started and what was planned to happen.

        • Hmm, you may have a point. But I just don’t see the propaganda in there. Sure, he glorifies the action of soldiers a lot. But then again, maybe he (and many other soldiers, especially tank crewmen) didn’t see any crimes of war.

          I am aware that I am getting on quite thin ice here and playing devil’s advocate while defending him, but he really grew up in fucked up times. I won’t get into discussion if he could have done more to prevent the war, or crimes of war, or something like. That’s not my judgement to make.

          But I know that I have read a battle memoirs of a tank crewmen, later tank commander, later tank destroyer commander – who really liked the camaraderie of his unit, of how war changes a person and shows his best/worst attributes. Would he be one of the war mongers ? I suppose he would.

          But regarding to suffering of conquered nations (I am from Czech Republic as SilentStalker, so my country was occupied and tormented too, I have reasons to hate nazis), he doesn’t talk about political/sociological/economical situation of countries, he just talks about war. And war geography. And how many tanks/infantry units are needed to hold certain strong points.

          I don’t remember him talking about

          Common man, we are talking here about Wehrmacht soldiers. This is as apolitical as you can get when talking about them, without downright damning them all to hell and back thrice.

          While I don’t like German propaganda, I would rather direct my hate to those far more responsible, rather than on Otto Carius, who seems to me that all he did was just fought for his country. Yeah, corrupt war criminals as leaders, aggressive war against most of Europe countries, but if what he writes is true, then he is a really good soldier.

          Who fought with a good reasons for a bad cause.

          P.S – he was right about Russians.

          P.P.S – politics aside, this is quite true for many WoT players nowadays :-D
          http://oi43.tinypic.com/xglllk.jpg

        • You clearly don’t know what propaganda is and you review that book too subjectively.

          • Of course it’s a subjective review, I’m just a human and this is how it seems to me. I didn’t start to like Naci Germany more because of this book, I didn’t convert more to their cause.

            But sure, I CLEARLY (because yeah, it’s so blatantly clear) don’t know what propaganda is.

            No. I don’t consider Tigers in the Mud book as a propaganda book. Do you ? Great, that’s your opinion. But I will keep recommending this book to every WW2 buff/military fan, because of its rare insight and battle experience recounting value.

            • Just to clarify further – I will gladly send SS (that is, Silent Stalker) screenshots of people being racist (and related offenses) in battle chats, I will laugh at EXNOM behaviour (I even met one in battle few days ago, it was weird) and I don’t like Naci or Commie propaganda both.

              But your one line comment scream with everything at me “trolling, trolling”.

              • Seems, that we are reaching some understanding ;) .

                I agree that he tries to be apolitical but the problem is that (1)he very conveniently omits certain fact and parts of history, presenting only one side, the way that it seems objective and neutral (which influences casual readers, if they aren’t much into history) and (2) he feels resentment that German soldiers were and are “stripped of their glory” – whereas there was no glory for them in this war from the very beginning (unlike ww1, where there wasn’t the “good” side). I doubt his “reasons”, they surely couldn’t have been “good” – it wasn’t that German nation was a victim of some Martian Nazis invasion, or hijacked by one guy who used to have been a bad painter; in fact, they were promised a huge carrot, and said carrot was partially delivered before they lost – before they started to get beaten crap out of them, war enthusiasm was huge and the only thing they were “defending” was the right to grab more and to beat everyone else, to be Ubermeschen.
                Regarding Russians – if Germany sat silently and peacefully on their asses five more years instead of starting with CZ, LT and PL, it even might have been true. But, the way it happened, it wasn’t – it’s simply a lie, they had to defend from Commies, because they didn’t manage to beat them. And, you surely know what NSDAP acronym means ;) ? It’s commie with a national flavor added.

                I presented you enough historical facts to be arguments. It’s that i’m very sensitive to revisionist approach to history, as it is very dangerous for future generations – and i find some of that there, by “propaganda” i mean this. I value this book for its “field” content (although, there’s not enough of it and very few technicalities) and i caution all readers about the rest (again, if you are not into history, you can easily swallow everything that he wrote.

                • The NSDAP purged most of the “Red Nazis” who took the “Socialist” in the name too seriously pretty soon after grabbing power, though. And the remainder – Goebbels, for example – were kept well away from economic policy and suchlike.
                  Vasguely relatedly, in wartime Soviet parlance the Germans were never referred to as “Nazis” as they refused to sully the name of Socialism with that association; the terms were “Hitlerite” and “Fascist” instead.

                  And as far as the Soviets (“Russians”) go, since when was Stalin noted for a streak of aggressive adventurism?

                • (playing Devil’s advocate again, but for the sake of argument, why not – it’s good argument)

                  Indeed we are and I wanted to thank you in previous post for your intelligent comment (unlike certain other user), so I am doing it now.

                  Yeah, he is omitting a lot. But then again, maybe he (the author)
                  1)is in some kind of denial about all the war crimes, aggressive German moves, capturing/influencing/ravaging and destroying other countries.
                  2)just thinks the stuff is above his paygrade, he is a soldier, not politician.
                  3)or – and this is very probably cause – it would just spoil the book. After all, he isn’t exactly the best writer in the world, so any mention of politics COULD turn this book into something political, which is something he didn’t want to.

                  Was he omitting ? Yeah, but then again, we are taught how bad Naci Germany was in elementary/high schools, in EVERY WW2 movie or computer game.

                  That’s the second reason why I don’t mind the omissions as far as they are not propaganda. I don’t mean “holocaust denial” people by this – that’S different. But you see ? We are bombarded from all sides by the notion that Nacis were bad. And yeah, they were. They did few good stuff (let’s be honest – autobahns?), but screwed pretty much everything else, ruined the country (which was already ruined), cost Germany so many millions of lives (and tens of millions in other countries).

                  ____________-

                  Moving on – I believe that in WW1, Austria-Hungary was the “evil” side with less evil, but still more than allies Germany helping.

                  Though ask yourself a question. What would you do, if you were “normal” German person during war years ? Could something have been done to prevent the war ? To stop it ? The Naci (I write “c” in case that some search engine would tag it) machine was very cleverly designed (evil design, but still clever) to avoid disruptions.

                  Germany in 39/40 was winning. And while it’s easy to fall/kneel under peer pressure of 30s, it’s even easier to kneel/fall from peer pressure of actual victories in a war.

                  Hietler (and others, but let’s make him a scapegoat) played on the feelings of lost WW1, “humiliating” (note the quotation marks) terms of Versailes treaty and very bad economic situation. He promised – and delivered. Though not for some groups of population.

                  This is known a lot, but if you were back then, would you be able to resist ?

                  _______________

                  Whether or not NSDAP were “national” commies is a good question. People’s opinions vary a lot. Weren’t Nacis basically capitalists ? Wasn’t there a lot of nobility, old “blue blood” lines ?

                  ________________

                  And some kind of strong warning when selling this book would be great – for those already knowledgeable in history. Or “contains only war experience memoirs, no political stuff”.

                  I like to think that I am quite a history buff and I already know the wider consequences. Or when he gave a date, for example May 14, 1944, I knew roughly how much soldiers/tanks Germany had, or how was the situation on other fronts. Big advantage to see the bigger picture.

                  But then again, most people getting to this book already know how was it with Germany. It (with biggest probability) won’t be their first experience with WW2 Era.

                • That’s what i’m saying: whole nation was guilty and there is no running away from that. There is no way to bleach it, no way to justify it – you can explain how that happened, but it’s not the same.
                  And again: i’m very sensitive to revisionists, it’s even more visible in US, where “Nazis” happened to be some mythical Martians instead of Germans.

                  As for Autobahns, they were build for loans that were to be paid with war grabs – that was the plan from the very beginning. The whole economic miracle was made on this.

    • probably sometime like X times your tanks total EHP/average DPM.

      EHP means that heavy tanks would be pulling their weight, but it would make things like arty pretty much get the award as soon as one of their shells actually hit. but DPM would mean things like arty would be screwed since they can almost never get their DPM due to terrible accuracy, and explosive damage rather than penetrations.

  7. As to holes in suspensions that should only apply to certain types, for example the tiger 2′s overlapping road wheels on the tracks don’t have gaps so it should stay as a solid piece.

    • I doubt they’ll change cases like this. As you’ve pointed out, the roadwheels overlap and provide a solid cover, and from a gameplay point of view the track hitbox is small and doesn’t cover a lot of the hull anyway.

  8. A new medal for damage dealing, that is awesome. I guess it could be for damage done that is over set percentage over the whole team’s dealt damage.

  9. - SerB states that the LFP of King Tiger COULD have been 120mm on some pieces, WG decided that the 100mm “paper value” is “more correct”
    _____________
    And we in WG decides what is important and correct…

    • well, mabye they will have an alternate hull that gives 120mm LFP…
      then they will make it so that it increases the weight by a few tons and lowers the already poor HP/T ratio.

  10. About the commanders cupola, which is a great question, wouldn’t the shell lose a lot of damage because it had to go through the armor and lost some layers of casing? (not sure what its called, the shell part on the outside that actually hits an object)

    • Shells were designed to kill tanks after passing through their armour, thank you. To further expedite achieving this an awful lot of them had an explosive charge fused to detonate slightly after a hard impact.

  11. —-
    Tanitha (SEA server) on roaming punishment: “Its likely or at least possible that any rule violations on a non home server, will result in the roaming feature of the player being switched off permanently. Breaking the rules on another server, isn’t a good option.”
    —-

    Sounds good, punisher roaming TKs.

  12. First Paragraph:
    “So the logic is there. It’s like to complain that a house is also accessible via chimney, not just via door. It’s possible – not easy, (bot) possible”.
    *but
    SS please fix this my OCD is acting up… :P

    • ‘Course, that analogy assumes the dumbshit “southern” straight-up style of chimney. Up here in the cold north the things were built with a “dog-leg” twist to keep the heavy snow out of the fireplaces during the winter, which is incidentally also why A) the chimney-capering Santa Claus sure as fuck wasn’t invented here B) chimney sweeping hereabouts didn’t involve children climbing through the things.

  13. Repeatedly shooting the copula to kill an enemy tank is dumb. The problem with this is that it is too easy, especially with accuracy changes even at moderately long ranges.