Hidden Panzer III Nerf in 9.0

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All credits for this find go to Kerberospanzer from US forums.

Hello everyone,

finding differences in models between versions is not really that simple. It’s a process that takes a while and sometimes (I hope not often), something simply “slips through the cracks”. Kerberospanzer discovered an interesting change in Panzer III top turret. Check this out.

This is the pre-9.0 Panzer III

Pre90PanzerIII_zpsd3baf169

Notice specifically the mantlet. And now, in 9.0:

shot_071_zpsaf9e399f

There is no reason for this change – at least not historically (here, you can see the tank with the “original” mantlet in real life):

panzer-3-pzkpfw-iii_7_zps38861b87

Either way, I screwed up the part with the armor thickness, that was my mistake (I was by accident comparing stock and elite turrets), I apologize. The real change is this. The mantlet really lost 20mm of thickness. This is the L/60 version (top turret):

3-50

As you can see, the mantlet is now 50mm. Strangely enough, for the L/42 gun, the top turret still has the old (pre-9.0) mantlet, that looks like this:

3-5042

As you can see, for the L/60 gun, the turret lost the 20mm plate in front of the 50mm one, so it’s a nerf.

57 thoughts on “Hidden Panzer III Nerf in 9.0”

    • Also, that tank had 120mm of armor and not 110 :)

      Besides, WG now use technical drawing. The different IS-3s varied so much that there can be no one single model…

    • What Russian bias? Last time they changed the IS-3 for “historical reasons” they nerfed it to crap. It’s armor used to be amazing, now it’s worth fuck all.

        • No, they nerfed it. Turret armor was nerfed, it just to be great all around but they weakened the sides and rear badly. Also the frontal pike nose gets easily penned by everything nowadays even the shitty Russian guns with 175mm pen guns. The IS-6 can destroy it easily now while it used to not stand a chance against an IS-3.

          I used to take extra caution when facing an IS-3, now I just laugh at them as they will be ripped apart no matter how badly I preform.

          • nope , can you read? , I say they BUFFED it , 250-240 armor on the turret front is a buff not a nerf

            • You can say all you want, doesn’t make you right in the slightest. Last time they touched the IS-3 they nerfed it. Turret can be easily penned. If you shoot above the gun it’s pretty much auto pen though shooting the pike nose dead on is way easier.

              • ?are you serious or troll???? it was from the beginning of the game like that its a weak spot

              • and even before your so called is 3 nerf a is 6 had a good change to destroy a is3, i killed so many is3 that tought i was a easy kill for them

            • No one shot the turret front anyway.

              So no buff mate :)
              The turret side and rear nerf though, that I exploit with many of my tanks :D
              Ohh and they nerfed the turret side panels at the front :)

          • Wow iulan do you even understand which armour is important for the is 3 ? It was a straight up nerf ..And you call him a troll ….

        • You mean that heavy tank whose upper front plate gets penetrated by tier 7 tanks?

          • Whine some more. The Tiger gets penned by tier 5 medium tanks in the front (if you don’t angle your armor, but sometimes even that doesn’t help because then they just hit the front idler wheel for your tracks), and you don’t hear me complaining about it.

            • Difference being that the Tiger I is a T7 Heavy that’s mean to snipe not take hits while the whole purpose of an IS-3 is to go head on with other tanks. Besides the Tiger can tank with it’s hitpoints (same amount as the IS-3 FYI), T5 tanks need to pen a lot of shots before they take out a Tiger, while it only takes the tiger 2-3 shots to take out a T5 tank.

              Even more funny is the Tiger actually got buffed, the tank is ridiculous now and miles ahead of the IS-3, especially since it’s armor nerf. I’d rather face an IS-3 than a Tiger I in any situation.

              • I think you’re confusing the IS-3 and KV-4. IS-3 is just more of the IS play-style, which is slightly more heavy tankish than the way you play the KV-1S. It does have decent armor but it is not the charging bull of the pack.

        • Wut? Can’t u see they nerf turret roof? almost all high pen gun capable to shoot it now……….

          • the turret roof armor of the is 3′s top turret has always been 20mm thick. I could easily pen it with the 76mm while i was face hugging it in my jumbo due to overmatcing.

    • Yeah, but look at it this way, they have 800k subs in russia, 200k in europe, and what 50k in america? It pays them to keep the 800k happy. So it is a bias, sure but one motivated by profit and not so much by ideology.

      • The amount of money spent per player is higher on the US server, by quite a bit compared to RU. WG has done a LOT in order to please the US player base. Since they nerfed shell normalization the IS4/IS7 have become more competitive but the T110E5/T57 are still more fun to play, more flexible and generally more popular for those reasons.

        • Hell, as a NA player, I won’t be happy until my beloved T7 CC get a pair of 20mm MGs with the same RoF as the 50 cals, and 80mm worth of armour all around.

          (Note, I’m kidding….)

    • Yes but it’s not that popular nor it has characteristics to influence battle greatly… just saying it would be hard to notice any changes to this little bugger while Pz III is signiffficant both historically and, thanks to popularity, in game.

  3. I saw a Pz III after 9.0 with the 50mm gun and the turret had the spaced armor removed. I was like what the hell can you actually mount the 50mm with the stock turret? (no you can’t)

    Well, when I played it, hulldown abilities were quite neat for tier 4.

    I guess historical accuracy was just overwriten with “balance reasons” again.

    • Just like the M4′s rotor shield. “What’s two inches in the name of “balance” one moment then “HISTORICAL ACCURACY” the next..

  4. I noticed the mantled losing the spaced armor too, mainly because its pretty ugly now :P
    I also want the spaced armor on the hull tbh, though looking at the thickness of the UFP it seems to already be accounted for in the armor model, but not visually.

    • A solid 70mm of armour is very much different from 50mm + 20mm spaced armour.

      What WG needs to do is split the Panzer III like the Panzer IV, and have a tier 3 one representing the E, F and G variants and the one at tier 4 being the L, M, and N variants with spaced armour and schurzen.

    • Yep. When I first played rebought Pz III after patch, I felt somewhat disturbed, now I know why – the turret looked odd for me. They basically exchanged the L version turret for version J. I hope they’ll split Pz III, and the new one will have the old L/M/N turret and maybe Schurzen.

  5. I’m a bit confused, so with the 75mm derp gun it has 107mm of armour? O_O I’m confused, i noticed the change but the change with the 75mm and 50mm gun is confusing me…

  6. i check it with tank inspector, i found mantlet is 50mm, and front armor is 57mm (top turret) If you use 3.7cm, 2cm or 5cm L/42 (top turret), dditional armor plate exists

  9. Might be that this is a preparation to split the Pz III in early and late Version like the Pz IV.
    So out current Pz III might be the early version without extra armor and a next version might be the Late M& L versions with armor upgrades and another one or additional hull option the N version with Schürzen and 7,5.

  10. I guess it was too OP. Basically all you could see in T4 battles were PzIIIs and Matilda’s. /sarcasm off

    • Everything that Russian players cannot pen in their Russian tanks from up front automatically deserves nerf.

  13. Is it me, or did the gun barrel receive a different ‘interior’ for the Lowe in 9.0?

  15. how terrible… i cant now go hull down whit my panzer 3… fuck me. i think im gonna uninstall wot now… its such a game changer.

  16. Note that they also changed the name of pz3 in the replay files. Before it was refereed to as germany:PZIII now its germany:PzIII_AusfJ

    maybe another planned change for 9.1 they forgot about?

  18. I feel that this kind of hidden nerf also happened to Cent. 7/1, its gun mantle became smaller comparing to pre-9.0. However since I have updated my Tank Inspector, I could not really compare the pre-patch model and the new HD model of Cent/ 7/1. Anyone out there think this is correct?

    Edit: I also suspect that the new HD T-54 model contains hidden nerf: the hull is now larger and taller (slightly), and the tracks now do not cover the entire side of the hull. Same here, correct me if anyone who can compare the new and pre-patch model, find out that there is actually no such changes

    • I think the Centurion mantlet is more an optical thing.
      However they nerfed the turret side armor from 112 to 89mm.
      But they buffed the frontal turret parts left and right where the smoke grenade launchers are attached from 112 to 121mm.

      The T-54 suspension was announced, it was known that the track collision model does not cover the gaps between the first and second roadwheel.
      In addtion to that there are several existing hull and turret shapes around for the T-54 and WG apparently decided to bring all of them into the game. New patch, new T-54 hull.

    • smaller mantlet and less armor at the thickest point, but more on most of the thinner areas. and less armor on the outside edges.

      Used to be 200/100 mm armor on it, now it’s 152.4/114.3/88.9/76.2

      Turret is slightly shorter, but wider as well.

  20. The late Ausf J’s with the long 5cm had that tight-fitting mantlet design:
    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-748-0089-10%2C_Russland%2C_Soldat_auf_Panzer_III_J.jpg

    What they’ve done is basically made it match the in-game Panzer III match Ausf J historically. Fine, but there are a number of problems with this:
    >The turret is labeled as an Ausf L turret, even though it’s and Ausf J turret (ausf L turrets didn’t have the side view-ports).
    >If the turret is an Ausf L turret, it should have an Ausf L mantlet, or what the tank had before.
    >The hull matches that of an Ausf J, but the armor more closely matches the configuration of an Ausf L. The Ausf J had a single 50mm upper plate, which is what the in-game model has. The Ausf L had this plus a 20mm plate bolted on top of that (which could arguably be considered spaced armor too) making the grand total of frontal armor equal 70mm, or what the in-game damage model has.

    • it will most likely be changed to be more correct when its HD model comes (which i cant wait for, the PzIII is one my favourite tanks)