Previous Q&A.

Q: The wiki says that the T-43 was a project to build a medium tank with more armour, but was cancelled when it was discovered that more armament was what was needed. Does the current T-43 not make sense? Would it instead work better as a tier 6 premium tank?

A: At the time the T-43 project began, the 76 mm F-34 was considered sufficient. Later, it turned out that the larger 3-man turret with a wider turret ring could carry an 85 mm gun. The tank was rejected for reasons other than firepower, especially since the turret migrated to the T-34-85. As such, it makes perfect sense to have this tank in game in its current state, armed with an 85 mm gun.
As far as working in a role of a tier 6 premium tank, I don’t think it would. The F-34 is already insufficient at tier 5 in the T-34, having it on a tier 6 tank would be awful.

Q: Are there any more evolution steps between the T-34 and T-44? Are there tanks that are more suited for a tier 7 role?

A: The T-44 was, indeed, a large leap from the T-34 chassis, probably due to incorporating lessons learned from the T-43 project, which it ended up killing. The path from the T-34 to the T-44 is complicated. The T-34 led to the T-34M and T-34S, neither of which took off the ground. Then the results of those two influenced the T-43, whose turret went on the T-34-85, but, obviously, with a T-34′s hull. So to fully model this in a tech tree, the T-43 would also have to be a tier 6, and there would have to be a lot more sideways transitions between the trees. The missing tier 7 slot could be filled by a T-44-85 (with parts from all T-44 prototypes, to flesh out an entire tank) or a T-34-100.

Q: The T-54 and T-55 are largely the same tank, what was the main technological difference between them?

A: The main difference between a T-55 and a T-54B (the tank that the T-55 was derived from) is the NBC protection. The T-55 also had thermal obscurant (IR-hot smoke), and an automatic fire extinguisher system. T-54s were later upgraded to match the features of a T-55. These models were called T-54M.

Q: What was the rate of fire of the D-5 85 mm gun on Soviet vehicles? Was it the highest in the roomy SU-85 and then the lowest in the cramped T-34-85?

A: The size of a vehicle’s fighting compartment does not necessarily restrict the rate of fire, provided the ammo rack is well placed and the loader’s workspace is ergonomically designed. Solyankin’s books give the following figures:
SU-85: 6-7 RPM
KV-85: 12 RPM
IS-1: 12 RPM
T-34-85 mod. 1944: 6-8 RPM

Q: The ST-I in WoT has a 650 hp engine and a 700 hp engine in game, but I found mentions of a 850 hp engine! Do you have any information on it?

A: The novelty of the ST-I was not in the engine, but in the turret (and it should be, as it was designed by an artillery engineer, and not a tank engineer). The hull was taken from the Object 701. As far as I know, every Object 701 had a 750 hp engine. Seeing as how the ST-I is in an incredibly sad state in game compared to its project, that isn’t very surprising.

Q: How realistic is the IS-2U? How many were made?

A: Very realistic, and none. ChKZ and factory #100 didn’t want to skip right from the IS-2 to the IS-3 and IS-4, since the production output would drop, and that was unacceptable. A solution that factory #100 came up with was to gradually shift production to the new tanks without completely dropping the IS-2, and building an intermediate variant. One of these variants was the IS-2U, a tank with a piked hull and standard IS-2 turret. Some intermediate tank prototypes were built, but this was not one of them, and none of them went into mass production. The plans were then given to the Chinese, which explains the tank’s presence in the Chinese tech tree.

That’s it for this week! Email more questions to tankarchives@gmail.com.