Continued from part 3.

The first time the LT Vz.40 light tanks were shown to public was on 1.6.1941 as a part of the military festival in Turčianský Sv.Martin as a part of a military parade. Other vehicles in the parade, showing off Slovak military equipment, consisted of LT Vz.34 (already declared obsolete at that point), LT Vz.35, Vz.38 and finally the LT Vz.40 tanks, equipped only with machineguns. From mid-june, the Slovak LT Vz.40′s were quickly refitted by mounting in the new frontal turret plates with A7 guns. However, not all were refitted in time for Operation Barbarossa and so, some of the tanks equipped with ad-hoc frontal plates and machineguns only had to participate in the operation the way they were “put together” (the gun hole was covered by a plate and the vehicle was armed with ZB-53 machineguns only:

It is worth noting that the machinegun LT Vz.40′s were NEVER intended as “infantry tanks”, equipped with machineguns only – all the tanks carrying only machineguns were these temporary refits. These “machinegun” tanks fought during the early months as well and the refit of all 20 vehicles was completed (with the help of Czech workers from ČKD/BMM) by the end of October 1941. At the same time, the LT Vz.40 (now referred to in German documents also as LT-40) tanks also recieved new German radios (Telefunken). In November 1941, the vehicles were fitted with gun optics and periscopes and in December, assembly trials took place. In the end, 20 tanks were refitted like this – one returned from the front heavily damaged and was not able to complete the trials.

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Hello everyone,

bothered by the appearance of weird-ass ISU-130? Think it’s crap? Well, no need to worry. According to Evilly (RU producer), this vehicle will not be available to public, it will be given as a gift to moderators and WG volunteers. Probably just Russian ones that is, but you never know.

Not sure if a gift… or a punishment.

Hello everyone,

here’s another Wargaming video, explaining how the tanks work, this time about the vehicle running gear. It’s… accurate enough I suppose, but to compress the running gear principles and evolution is pretty much impossible. Considering that, it’s kinda okay.

Author of subtitles, poster of video: Renhanxue

Hello everyone,

Renhaxue (well-known for his Swedish tank research) posted this amazing Swedish video, showing the trials and terrain passability of numerous vehicles, including the mighty Panther (and its famous terrain passability) and the Sherman. There are English subtitles, turn them on, unless you speak Swedish of course :)

Source: http://worldoftanks.ru/ru/news/pc-browser/1/fair_play_wot/

Hello everyone,

Russian Wargaming, having learned from its mistakes and started publishing the names of offenders and ban statistics. In the post above, we can read that in the first half of October alone:

- 8191 players were punished based on the reports from the ingame complaint system
- 2592 players were banned for games rigging (influencing the battle result by having an agreement with the opposing team) random and company games
- 1868 botters were banned in last two weeks only

WG even made this beautiful picture :)

Well, that’s all nice, but I have two things I would like to add to this.

First – remember how they told us that there are no bots or that the issue is marginal? Well, 2k banned players in two weeks alone doesn’t seem marginal to me – and that’s just the RU server. EU server decided not to publish any names and such (voluntary decision as Ectar confirmed, not one forced by law), so heaven knows how many botters they ban (if any).

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

here are the new vehicle statistics for EU server for last 4 weeks, courtesy of Edrard.

And for comparison, these are the statistics for RU server.

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3552084.html

Hello everyone,

Wargaming decided to switch the game sound engine to Audiokinetic Wwise, first in World of Warplanes (current 1.6 test), then in World of Tanks. The reason for this change is to allegedly introduce more stable and effective sound engine. That however means one thing: from that point onwards, all sound mods (engines, gun shots, music etc.) will stop functioning.

It is unclear whether the mods will be possible to rework under the new system, it allegeldy has nothing in common with the original FMOD. Freeware version of the engine is apparently quite limited and the full one starts at 150 USD, so it’s possible the mod makers (even if they can do it) will find it too much of a hassle.

Hello everyone,

finalized stats (when it comes to supertest anyway) of the reward vehicles made it to the supertest. These vehicles will apparently be the rewards for individual missions, that are coming in 9.5 and will be obtainable by anyone, not just clan players. The changes were as follows:

T28 Concept

- side armor rounded up from 101 to 102mm
- hitpoints nerfed from 900 to 880
- aimtime nerfed from 2,1s to 2,3s
- ROF nerfed from 6,74 to 6,45

Tier 7 premium TD
Hitpoints: 880
Engine: 960 hp
Weight: 70 tons
Power-to-weight: 13,71 hp/t
Maximum speed: 29 km/h
Hull traverse: 18 deg/s
Armor: 203/102/50
Gun: 105mm T5
Damage: 320/320/420
Penetration: 181/224/53
ROF: 6,45
Accuracy: 0,4
Aimtime: 2,3s
Viewrange: 370
Radiorange: 570

Continue reading →

Source: http://world-of-ru.livejournal.com/3553269.html

Hello everyone,

here’s the summary of upcoming tier 8 Soviet premium/reward tank destroyer, ISU-130. Basically, it’s ISU-152 with SU-100Y’s gun.

Description:

Heavy SPG based on ISU-122S. It was developed in 1944 and a prototype was built in October of the same year. It was created by installing a 130mm S-26 gun, which was developed from the naval B-13 gun on the ISU-122S platform. Driving and shooting trials were conducted until June 1945. Because of the end of WW2 and the fact that the gun was inferior in penetration to 122 guns, ISU-130 was not accepted in service.

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Hello everyone,

once again it’s the time to thank the contributors, it’s you who keep FTR running after all! Sorry for the delay by the way, I was just handling an issue with my Paypal page (IRS: “Are you an American?!” Me: “No” IRS: “PROVE IT!!!!” – because apparently, scans of your ID, passport and driver license (all of them at the same time) are not enough).

This time, following people donated via Paypal:

Carl M. (United States)
Michael G. (United States)

Thank you, guys, I really appreciate it, as always. A note – I’ll handle the Panther competition this weekend (gotta buy packages and all that).

The best way to help me and FTR is via the Patreon service

http://www.patreon.com/silentstalker

This is the Patreon account of For the Record. In case you read this for the first time and feel like contributing, here is an explanation what it is, how it works and how to contribute. You can find a list of all those, who pledged and help to keep FTR running here.

Thank you all!