Fixing the T-15 in HD

Hello everyone,

continuing with the series of the “fixing” articles (because yes, some vehicles do need some serious fixing), we’ll have a look at the T-15 premium tier 3 light tank. Now, it’s a premium tank so we can’t really consider any serious nerfs, but okay.

skoda_t-15_b_156

The T-15 was a light scout tank developed by Škoda. Several prototypes were made and it was tested along with Panzer 38t nA and the Luchs in comparative trials at Kummersdorf, where it failed due to its poor reliability. The design was new and had many teething problems. The vehicle to come out the best from the trials was actually the nA, but politics intervened and in the end, the Luchs was produced instead. T-15 prototypes were returned to Škoda, where they remained until the end of the war. After the war, one was heavily modified to produce the T-15A/T-15S/T-16, but that’s a story for another time.

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Movie T-34/85 for Sale in Sweden

Thanks to Tankstar for this one.

Hello everyone,

apparently, the T-34/85, used for the Estonian movie “1944″ is for sale, according to this site. It looks to be in a pretty good shape too. Too bad it’s not entirely historical – according to the page, it has a T-54/55 engine. Well, okay, why not, if it’s running.

The movie “1944″ is actually a new Estonian movie. According to its official description:

This motion picture deals with the events of 1944 in Estonia, from the Battle of Tannenberg Line in July until the Sõrve Peninsula fell into the hands of the Red Army in November. The film focuses on the individual within the context of war, rather than war itself, and shows the war from both perspectives – those of the Red Army and the German Army.

Could be interesting.

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Straight Outta Supertest: Accuracy Nerf

Hello everyone,

the supertesters on Russian server started testing an accuracy nerf. As far as I can tell, the nerf is valid for all the vehicles (possibly excluding artillery but including premiums) and does not concern the accuracy value itself, but a distribution within the circle (as in, shells flying to the center of the circle less often). Unfortunately, no details are known at this point (or relevant, developers are testing several variants), but the supertester thinks it’s planned either for 9.6 or 9.7.

Also, all the 9.5 vehicles are apparently balanced for CT2. 9.5 release is scheduled apparently on 22.-23.12.2014, if nothing goes wrong.

10.12.2014

Not much today. The test server was already disabled and next iteration (this time with real vehicle values) will follow.

Also, Storm made a rather large topic, collecting the feedback on the Individual Missions. Or Personal how they are called today. Whatever. Basically, as far as I can tell, the two largest “issues” with them are:

- the fact they don’t activate automatically like achievements and you have to manually select them
- the presence of platoons in requirements

Unfortunately, Storm did not provide any answer as to whether WG will do anything with them based on the feedback or not. Okay, one more very important piece of news. Remember the “replay vulnerability” post? Well, Wargaming just acknowledged the issue by a special portal post. TLDR: replays can be modified to run malicious code.

According to the post, this issue will be fixed in 9.5. In case you want to know your replays are safe, download them only from wotreplays.ru/com/eu (based on your server). This WG site contains a check against this issue, so replays from it should be safe. And of course, not a peep on EU portal… after all, who cares about potential nasty exploits, right?

Also, interesting how this issue was on Reddit for days and this warning was only posted after the matter made it to FTR and Russian blogs…

Posted in Q&A

T-55 in Action in Syria

Hello everyone,

thanks to Looser for this one! An interesting video from the Syrian war, featuring a government T-55 shelling terrorists in Jobar (a part of Damascus) in December 2014.

 

 

As you can see, the old tank still has some teeth. The video was shot by Russian AnnaNews – the journalist mentions that the war in Jobar turned out to be a positional one, with government forces routinely shelling the terrorist-occupied area with direct and precise fire, demolishing terrorist firepoints one by one.

The T-55 tank is using AP shells, that penetrate two or three buildings. The army’s task is to contain the terrorist forces, so they don’t threaten the civillians of Damascus. The Syrians are using the T-55 because it’s not a primary battle zone and the vehicle’s rifled gun is quite sufficient to knock out enemy strongpoints at larger distances. Notice how the tank intentionally stops firing when there are civillian cars on the road not to hit them by accident.

Must be really strange to live like that… normal life a couple kilometers from a warzone.

At 5:40 notice a beautiful shockwave, I wish we had that effect in World of Tanks…

WG Shares In Danger From Being Forcibly Removed From Stock Exchange

Source: https://roem.ru/2014/12/09/wowsce113507

Hello everyone,

once again, the same issue, that was once already mentioned in the past pops up. According to the Russian portal vedomosti.ru, Wargaming Public Company on Cyprus is in danger of having its shares forcibly delisted from the Cyprus Stock Exchange, because it does not fulfill several requirements a listed company should, one of which is not publishing its financial reports (for 2013 and first half of 2014).

However, for Wargaming, it’s no big deal and such a thing would not really damage them.

There are several reasons for that – one is that WG PC is not WG LLP, it’s not the publisher of WoT, “just” a distributor for the EC and Switzerland. Second – and main – is that WG never really intended to perform an IPO, its shares were private placement only (in layman’s terms, instead of offering the shares for public trading, they just offered the shares to actual specific people, who are the same people who founded it, including Big Boss Kislyi, Vladimir Kislyi and others).

Why did they do it then in first place?

Well, as you can imagine, the internet is full of speculations. Two theories that come up most often (the second is allegedly more likely) are:

- some sort of tax optimization (why not)
- an attempt to obtain Cypriot citizenship by the WG owners, which requires some sort of investment on Cyprus (in which case this would actually qualify)

Who knows? Maybe Big Boss likes the mediterranean sun, or is fed up with Lukashenko’s “paradise” and uncle Putin. Wouldn’t blame him.

Straight Outta Supertest: 9.6 Swamp

Hello everyone,

in the future (possibly 9.6, although this is not confirmed), the map Swamp will be rebalanced as such:

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- starting point of the left team was moved more to the center
- bases were moved to more vulnerable areas
- white line zones were changed (terrain, cover)
- the middle “swampy” part had its terrain passability improved

Today’s Advent Offer (10.12.2014)

Hello everyone,

today’s advent offer for EU server includes:

- E-25 + slot
- improved ventilation
- camo net
- binoculars

Price: 31,64 USD (25.75 EUR)

Meanwhile on Russian server, today’s offer is: KV-220 + 3200 gold for 20 USD.

Guys, around Christmas time, WG will give out huge discounts on premium tanks. They always do, my guess is that this one will be 30 percent off. If you don’t want to buy the extra junk and want the tank with a discount, wait a week or two.