On Wargaming promotion of fakes

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Partial source: http://world-of-kwg.livejournal.com/269679.html, Zarax’ posts and articles

Hello everyone,

this is something that kinda… bothers me. Today, on developer blog, Yuri Pasholok posted about the VK7201K (Failowe) – according to him, it was a real project with a 150mm (149mm) gun KwK L/38 and a rear turret. There was some development, the Lowe project got cancelled and the attention of Hitler and his merry band turned towards the Maus. This is how the model looked, according to Yuri Pasholok:

fakelowe

The picture above is a model (mock-up) of a rear-turret Lowe variant, mistakenly named “leichter Lowe” (“light Lowe”) by the site called Achtungpanzer (responsible for numerous myths about German tanks). Yuri Pasholok claims this vehicle is historical, but in a serie of articles (the Lowe history is actually pretty complicatged), it was argued by Zarax (and me (see the Tiger Maus section)) that that’s just crap. There was never such a rear turret project of such a weight, the ingame Failowe is a Wargaming fake (the picture above belongs to a proposal for a light vehicle of 70 tons).

This tank was created as an award for the Clanwars players and as such was issued to the best clans of the second campaign. This is how it looks in the game.

vk7201

And this is where it could end, right? Just another fake tank in the game. But it doesn’t end there, unfortunately. Check this out. This is offered as a plastic kit by a Japanese company:

vk7201

Yea. Someone took Wargaming’s fake and made it into a real plastic model. This actually pisses me off, because this is exactly how rumors about fake tanks start. Next thing you know, someone will take this and will start writing articles on the “amazing German 120 ton supertank” (of COURSE it makes sense that something wighing 120 tons would be called VK7201 – in case you didn’t know, the VK designation means an experimental vehicle, first two (or three) numbers mean weight in tons and the second two numbers mean the number of the prototype).

No, this is utter bullshit. Yuri Pasholok is commenting on how pissed he is about it (copyright issues), but in reality, this is Wargaming’s fault. In fact, this is his personal fault, because he is the chief historical consultant for Wargaming and it should be his duty not to let unhistorical crap appear in the game. Same story with the Waffenträger E-100, which even by Wargaming’s admission is completely made up.

In past two years, Wargaming single-handedly managed something very, very impressive: they made a game, that lifted people’s interest in armored vehicles to such levels that it has actually become mainstream. No matter how you look at it, the success of World of Tanks as a game is stunning. With that however comes the power to influence the perception of armor amongst people. Wargaming always claimed their vehicles are based on truth, but by introducing unhistorical crap into trees, they sort of “validate” their fantasies – after all, since 95 percent of the vehicles in game are based on real tanks, prototypes or projects, the rest must be too, no? Well, no, obviously not. E-50M, T28, T28 Prototype and other vehicles are Wargaming inventions. I think they should be clearly labelled as such.

Personally, I regard the whine about copyright and whatnot with grim satisfaction. You claim this vehicle to be historical, Mr.Pasholok? Well, too bad, you shouldn’t have made a fake tank and then passed it off as a real one.

119 thoughts on “On Wargaming promotion of fakes”

    • Uuh…. there are a few made up tanks but many are just shelved prototypes/paper projects/proposals etc. The thing is… when you mix up historiac tanks with prototypes and fantasy gap fillers… people tend to think that everything is historical.

      I’m primarily a gamer not historian or tank passionate like SS and I look at WoT from gameplay perspective for which I praise this game more than anyone BUT I agree with SS. Even though the made up tanks look realistic and are great to play, there MUST be somewhere in-game clearly said what is historical and what was made up by game designers. This is serious issue because not everyone is interested in history and in fact it makes a fertile ground for tank myths, lies and other bullshit to flourish. It just erases the line between facts and fantasy for uneducated/uninformed.

      TL;DR WoT Fanboy agrees with you SS.

      • If copyright and Design Rights were be involved it would depend where it would most advantageous to take legal action. Copyright relates to the expression not to the information or the ideas contained in a work. The Polish Guy who copied SS articles also translated the expression in how the words were arranged and the general arrangement of the articles. If PG had have interpreted the information in his own words he would have been OK. Similarly if WG put enough of their design interpretation into the VK7201 to realise what the production tank would look like in the field then copyright would apply to WG realisation. Design Rights usually needs to be registered in each country or where there is an international agreement one registration would do. Since WG are involved with model making they should have done this and if they invested in or licenced the production of models the cost of this would be a factor and strengthen WG’s case. In my view, historical or not, there is sufficient creative work in WG’s realisation/interpretation of the VK7201 to make their design subject to copyright and the Amusing Hobby’s version is close enough to be infringing. If WG registered their design internationally then they are in a good position.

        As to what in the end might happen – the best thing thing would be for Amusing Hobby to licence WG’s design and produce this for the world market which would be a not so bad deal for everyone. Or they could opt for the making lawyers even richer approach.

  3. Well thats a shame its looks very interesting tank to bad its fake how how much is it fake like is a an idea mentioned old german reports or is it 100% made up from WG staff?

  7. I really like my VK and leave it alone ;)
    Today 4500dmg and 8000 potential + ofc survived.

  8. - (of COURSE it makes sense that something wighing 120 tons would be called VK7201

    Well, it’s not as if the Germans were good at keeping to weight requirements. Panther went from a 30t project to a 45t tank. Tiger went from 45t to 57t. KT from 45t to 70t. Maus from 100t to 180t. Etc, etc.

  11. im looking forward to see an detailed article on Wikipedia about the E50 Ausf. M and the VK7201(K)..

    that is how you write history folks :)
    spread something and say its right until nobody knows if its wrong anymore.

  12. Just a question beside: Have you tried the Faillöwe on the press Account?
    I would really like to find out more about the Löwe’s history – and the history of Faillöwe but unfortunately since WoT has become so populär you can’t find even the Wikipedia articleabout Pz IV because there are so mäny WoT related searching results.
    I really hope ‘ll find some specific literature about the Löwe project since this tank is a kind of phantom in german tank development, somehow mentioned as Tiger successor as well as a quickly developed solution for the “100t tank task”… Unfortunately I have to finish my exams before i jump into studying this tank :/
    Greetings from the neighborhood of Panther development site
    Chr15

    • Zarax’ article pretty much points out all the sources I know of about the Lowe’s history

  13. Don’t be hating Amusing Hobby now, they make an awesome version of the premium Loewe we have in game already and of the Krupp Neubaufahrzeug we have yet to see :P

    If this creates interest in scale model building I’m quite happy, there are numerous prototypes and production vehicles untouched by modelling companies which many of us would love to see in plastic, especially American prototypes. It’s damn near impossible to find an M6, let alone a T29/30/34 in 1/35 scale in RESIN, and that’s as hipster as it gets.

  14. What pisses me off the most is they got rid of the T50-2 in the name of historical accuracy. It didn’t exist, so they said it had to go and now they spring this along with other completely fictional tanks.

    So damn typical of Wargaming, they say and do what suits them best at the time.

    • The stupid thing is that the T-50-2 did exist. The real name is the Object 211 and unlike what WG said about the tank, it was FASTER than the production T-50. Nowhere near the motorcycle handling it had in-game, but still.

    • They removed it because it was the only tank that was moving around like a motorbike and not tank and it was completely unrealistic not in terms was it a real tank or not, but in the way it played…i know you are butthurt they removed your most lovable tank, but you missed the point with all the historical accuracy..

  15. What with the insane amount of actual German designs, you would think there is no need to make up things.

  16. Meh, without trying to rock the boat too much:

    E 50 Ausf. M: There were plans for a rear transmission version.
    Rear turret Lion: It’s mentioned that the Germans were looking into various turret placements, including rear, in Panzer Tracts 20-1.

    • >There were plans for a rear transmission version.
      And for a bigger turret and L7 clone as well? Don’t forget about them.

      >various turret placements
      But not 200/160/120 mm armor and 120+ t weight.

      • There were in fact considerations for using a 10,5 cm gun, although that was left at idle concepting.

        Yes, not going to talk about the weight and whatnot, just the fact that there were works on rear-turret designs.

        • >that was left at idle concepting
          The gun and the turret are still made up – so, both ingame E 50s are made up in total.
          Schmalturm with 8.8 cm L/71 and 100/60 hull armor (at least definitely not 150/80 of the heavy tank of the same period of time) – that how I see E 50.

          >not going to talk about the weight and whatnot
          But that is the point!

    • Yes, cited in Spielberger as having an armor of 100/80/80.
      What is ridicolous is that Pasholok himself found the 120 ton tank in “Kampfpanzer Maus”, being the one of the very first drafts of the Maus.

      • Unfortunately those Maus prototypes have been found after the rear-turreted Löwe was made for the game. And we all know how WG doesn’t like to change plans.

        • Pasholok has been warned about picking the wrong tank long before it reached public stage.
          They could have used the early rear turret Tiger-Maus draft instead (Doyle has it, just not published it yet and Panzer Tracts 20-3 cannot come soon enough) which would have had pretty similar features but they just pressed on with VK 7201.

          • Yeah, I know.
            They could use early Maus variant too – http://i.imgur.com/hWjVogw.png – but with tank variant of the FlaK 40 gun equipped with sub-caliber or shaped charge shells. With same hull armor, 220 mm turret front armor, weak spots (bow machine gun and commander’s cupola) and 1000 hp engine it wouldn’t be better than Maus.

        • Well, they’re considering using one of these Maus prototypes to fill in the gap when they get around to merging the VK 45.02′s

  17. about t28 – they just have to take t95, remove one pair of tracks and whola – historical t28

    also in VK designation not only first 2/3 numbers means mass – sometimes even one – like in VK31 (Loltraktor)

    • >they just have to take t95, remove one pair of tracks
      And for some reason – move the transmission to the front.

  18. Its not just that. But other WG historical errors have been edited into history by people who don’t know what they’re talking about, but have played hte game.

    The other issue is, when using google for research, you get bombarded by hundreds of entries that relate to WOT. This makes it a longer and more annoying process to gain information.

  19. You should already be thrown off by the designation of the tank as VK7201 and it’s actual ingame weight.
    There has to be something very wrong there.

  20. The only fail about the VK7201 ingame is it’s armor. The design itself is based on the historical wooden model and it’s ok to implement such vehicles if you accept paper projects in general.

    A quote about the wooden model from “Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two” by Chamberlain, Doyle & Jentz (page 13):
    “VK7001. A wooden model of “Löwe” or “Tiger-Maus”, the Krupp project to build a replacement for the Tiger II; it was to utilize Tiger II components, and to have the engine at the front of the vehicle.”

    Replacement for Tiger II suggests it has a far lighter armor than the ingame VK7201.
    However the VK number is often very wrong. Remember Porsche Maus? It’s the VK10001 so the number suggests a 100 ton vehicle while Maus reached 188 tons.

    Spielberger talks about a VK7201, a 100 ton vehicle (March 1942).
    Krupp created several designs for 110, 130, 150 and 170 ton vehicles, all named Krupp-Maus, competing with the Porsche Maus.
    Further designs were at Sturmgeschütz Maus, a Tiger-Maus with rear turret weighting 130 tons and a Maus with Tiger components and 110 tons.

    That’s all from Spielberger about the various designs between 1942 and January 1943 when the Porsche Maus was ordered by Hitler.

    So we have the historical wooden model of a VK7001 or VK7201 and a mentioned rear turret tank of 130 tons.
    It is possible that there exists more data of this design. Unless we know the sources of Spielberger and WG we simply cannot decide what is real and what not.

      • As long as it is called Löwe you are right.
        But the VK7201K is not named Löwe ingame.
        Spielberger mentions that the development went from Löwe to Tiger-Maus to Maus.

        Löwe to Maus history by Spielberger in short:
        VK7201(K), 72 tons, 100mm front, 80mm side (also for turret), early proposal with 12,8 or 15cm gun, later 10,5cm L/70 or 15cm L/35.
        Then 80 ton and 90 ton versions with 8,8 L/71 or 15cm L/37.
        Then came the Tiger-Maus (various designs including the mentioned 130 ton rear turret design) and finally the Maus.
        He also mentions a similar design VK7001 Löwe with a 10,5cm L/70 gun. But I’m not sure to what it is similar, he mentions this after mentioning the Maus. But I assume he means similar to the VK7201.

    • The most funny thing – in Pasholok’s book about Maus it is said that on this picture (with wooden model) the VK 72.01 (K) variant is shown and the thickest armor of the VK 72.01 (K) Pz.Kpfw. Löwe was 120 mm.
      Pasholok himself doesn’t deny that the ingame rear-turreted Löwe has overstated armor values.

      • Probably all Krupp variants mentioned by Spielberger were named VK7201.
        The 188 ton final Maus surely has nothing to do with the first VK10001 designs.
        Just look at the Porsche tanks in game, we have two completely different VK4502. Apart from the wrong armor values in game both were VK4502 designs.

      • Panzer Tracts 20-1 lists the VK 70.01 K’s intended frontal thickness to be 140mm, and the project developments only managed to achieve 120mm at best(This is what the tier 8 premium HT is)

        Special Panzer Variants lists the VK 72.01 K(which it insists are different from the VK 70.01 K) as originally being slated for 100mm at best, though it went through some design evolutions

  22. Could someone please make a list of every fictional tank in World Of Tanks? It interests me a lot.

    • There are pretty many.
      Gw. tiger P.
      Gw. E-100
      Waffenträger E-100
      Batchat 155 55
      Foch 155 (halfly, there was maybe plans to add 155mm gun to Foch but it never had 1.2k HP engine or autoloader.)
      E-50M
      FV215b (120)
      Conqueror GC
      T25/2
      T28
      T28 proto
      T110E4 (was in real life but WG modificated it so much thatt its barely like its IRL counter part)
      VK 4502 B (unhistorical weight, armament, armour and mobility, it was clone of auf A expect rear turret)
      Jagdpanzer E-100
      And Faillöwe aka VK 72.01 (K).

      • JPZ E-100 is not fake, see Panzer tracts 6-3.
        E-50M should be just the Ausf B (rear transmission pack and 1200HP engine were the “Projekt B”)

        • It might be mentioned there (including its armament) but there is no image of such a tank.
          IMO it is fake, every tank without an actual model/design/blueprint is fake for me.

      • Thank you for the info. Interestig WG doesn’t desecrate the soviet tech tree by making fake soviet tanks…

        • and why WG should? there is a plenty of soviet projects.
          there is problem with german projects and why – it should be REALLY OBVIOUS to you.

          it it isn’t obvious to you – then i don’t know what to say.

          • >there is problem with german projects
            Well, with what? Apart from the tier 10 vehicles of light armored tank destroyers lines there are enough real tanks and projects to make all other branches without fakes.

      • The T28 P. is based on a real drawing so it’s not really a problem.
        The T25/2 is actually real even though it’s not very known:

        AFV Weapons Profile 26
        “90-mm. Gun on Open T23 Tank Chassis, Without shield, project only.
        90-mm. Gun on Turreted T23, Skirted project only.”

        The first is the T25 AT and the second is the T25/2.
        (calling them 25 instead of 23 still doeasnt makes sense though)

  23. Thanks for this article, it’s fun to read and confirms the doubts I ready had regarding the Failöwe. Didn’t know about the VK naming either, so thanks :)

    • I have no idea where S-S got that ‘VK means experimental tank’ from.

      VK means ‘Vollketten’, which means ‘fully tracked’. Indicating the design was, well, fully tracked and not something like a halftrack or whatever.

      Well, I do have an idea where S-S got it from, he probably thinks the ‘V’ stands for ‘versuchs’, which does mean experimental.

        • Panzer Tracts uses ‘VK’ as ‘Vollketten’, and that’s what WG uses ingame as well.

          WG recently changed some names of tank guns. ‘KwK’ got changed to ‘Kw.K’, which is what Panzer Tracts uses. Even though in ‘modern’ German it’s incorrect, but I’m not a German so I’m not completely sure.

  24. That would be great if you could make a article that list all the unhistorical or partially unhistorical tanks in WoT with explanations. It’s true that some of them are really confusing.

      • Not true, 4 ships of that class were laid down. All were overtaken by war. (or preparations for it).

        And by BS i mean completely fake ships.

        Plausible if ahistorical upgrades should be acceptable for the sake of balance.

        • I advise you too look at a F2P game called Navyfield there you can see what they made up.

          • I have, some of it is utter garbage.

            And Navyfield Europe has actually closed down it seems.

        • Well, in 1939 – when ww2 started, VMFS didn’t have any naval combat capacity, with most ships being either outdated or completed on paper only (and it’s Russian archives that speak true to WG, so we know where it goes) – in real life suffering from various problems. In 1940 it got better but we are already into the war so you can get pretty imaginative with “what if” alternate history freaks ;) .

          • It had a comparatively lower combat capacity. Saying it had no capacity is overlooking 3 battleships, 7 cruisers and 59 destroyer leaders and destroyers (vessels not in WoWS have been omitted.)

            There were also several under construction.

      • The earlier soviet tree would be hilarious, as the Russians didn’t have classes of warships, they’d just build individual ships to order with whatever design they felt like at the time,

        • Not entirely true, the Russians built larger capital ship classes than the United States, Italy and France up until the South Dakota 1939 for the USA, the others never matched it, in terms of ships completed.

  26. So, where can i buy one of these kits? Doesnt look like the have their own website. :(
    Does anyone know?

    • By the sounds of it you’ve never made a model before nd like the box art so you want to make it.
      Well no!
      Its not for a beginner, I’ve built 2 and they are heard for me and I’ve made hundreds of models.
      So no site recommendations for you, ungrateful foreigner!

      • Wow you are some kind of “model snop” or something. All i meant was i didnt know of this company before and i didnt see the fail loewe anywere to buy. And i fucking know that they arent for beginners. Fuck off.

  27. To be frank I don’t care about unhistorical tanks. I mean: true tanks, but nerfed/buffed for the sake of game. I thinks it’s better like that, since some tanks can be really too OP/useless.
    Even though WG claim, directly or not, that they’ve historical tanks, I don’t think it’ll be really good to have ALL tanks historical.
    If people really want true tank, I don’t think people will play a(a lot) like today. After all: true battle were boring.

    However fake tanks… Seriously… That’s just useless, and they always said that they don’t want to put fake tanks to do a tree.
    At least it’s a reward tanks for CW. Can we see it in random battle?

  28. WG should remove and try to find replacement for those completely made up tanks…even if they couldn’t find the suitable replacement i still think they should remove those tanks from the game because they don’t have any connection with real tanks not even as blueprints….it’s stupid to mix all those tanks like Tiger or some like E50M who still have some connections with realism and those totally made up tanks by WG like T28 proto or WFT E100….

  29. month ago i asked here how they manage to implement the light lion as T10 whils the heavy one is only T8.
    its obviously phantasy garbage. in WoT i like if they bring blueprints to life but not this phantasy shit like this.
    also the WT E100 or FV215 ….

    thats just to bring another WTF tank that everybody wants.
    and WG plan sucesses. look whoch much 45%-Noobs driving arround the WT E100 yet … all with converted XP $$$