Edit: comments disabled after some very nasty outbursts. Gonna go through the filth later to see if there is anything ban-worthy. I am very disappointed in some commenters.
Hello everyone,
a very, very long time ago (like mid 2012 or so), there was a discussion about the possible Israeli medium branch in World of Tanks. One of the ideas kicked around was to actually have a Merkava on tier 10. Now, I know what you thinking – that’s a ridiculous idea. Merkava would never fit, right? Well… yes and no.
Above, we can see the Merkava Mk.1 from the Latrun tank museum. It’s the first model of this famous Israeli vehicle, entering service in late 70′s. According to wikipedia, Merkava was developed from 1973, making it too new for World of Tanks (even if it could fit characteristic-wise). Or is it?
According to the book “Merkava – a History of Israel’s Main Battle Tank” by Marsh Gelbart, the development actually started in 1970, with the first prototype coming in 1974. This is a mock-up turret variant, dated 1970:
Before the Merkava Mk.1 prototype (too modern anyway, sorry), there were two vehicles, that served as so-called “proof of concept”. In both cases, it was not really a Merkava stage, it was a Merkava-shaped hull with an existing turret. And these came very early. Technically – that would make both of them actually viable as Leopard 1 or STB-1 contemporaries. The credits for finding them go to Vollketten (US forums).
One is the Merkava hull with the Centurion (Sho’t Kal) turret:
And here’s a walkaround video:
That’s right, the turret is in the rear, engine in the front. This vehicle really exists, it stands in Latrun to this day. Obviously, it was never meant as a serious combat vehicle, the turret was there basically as a weight. While the rear-turret variant is interesting, there was one more Merkava testbed, this time with an M48 Patton turret:
Well, that looks considerably… more functional. Prettier too IMHO.
There are obviously tons of issues with this thing. The entire Merkava program is classified for starters, it’s not like you can go and measure everything (at least I think you can’t). Noone knows how exactly thick the armor is, or even what propelled the testbeds, a lot of it would be a guesswork. Still, in this limited sense, it’s actually possible to include one of the testbeds in the game I guess… obviously, the Israeli branch would have other issues as well, but… I guess one branch is possible.
As much as I’d like to see an Israeli tech tree, including any one of the things shown above would not be much different that pulling a design out of one’s ass and putting it in the game.
Not really – you can see it’s functional and it’s been tested, that’s quite different to make a concept up completely out of nothing.
Apart from the Merkava, the Israeli tree would be excellent. Lots of existing tanks with customised variations. Its not a direct copy of any other tree but some interesting variations. For starters, the M-51!
The only issue, as far as WG is concerned, is that they don’t have enough tanks to have a full medium, heavy, td and spg branch up to tier 10 (apparently that’s their reasoning for not adding so many of the proposed EU trees anyway). They’d have enough mediums, tds and maybe enough spgs, but heavies would be a problem.
IMO any tank branch is a good tank branch, except for the branch that doesn’t have a Jagd E50 with the 128 L/61…..
Awsome pics, seriously though, the Isrealis have some amazing WWII upgrade tanks that would fit right in. Of course then we have to listen to how they made all our equipment better. I mean every piece of equipment better.
Wait a second. Can we just make it premium? OMG, so many puns here……
Yea, good luck w/ this.
Love the idea, lot of material, the Shermans and French stuff would be really cool.
Should it be a part of EU tree? ;D Before Uncle Adolf, the jews were fundamental part of european culture.
Well the “European” tree should be replaced with like “Others” tree, since the countries in the EU (refering to European, not European Union) were exactly not allies with each other so the only thing keeping the EU-tree together are the location and some similarity in tanks. So why not add all other possible country branches to one?
then it should change name from EU tree to World Tank Tree for instance
The name “European tree” is labelled as “work name” so its not going to be the name the tree gets in the game anyways.
Arguing about what the name “should” be isnt really worth it since we dont have the slightest clue about how it looks. it might end up being only EU countrys (swedish, czech, italian)…
I think the most propable name is really something like “Mixed Nations” or “Other Nations” since thats least offending and offers the possibility to include israel for example.
Offending ? what the hell ? Its Western Asia ..
Arabs are offended by mere existance of jews. Minsk might be afraid of getting Jihad’d by some arabic noob who thinks he sucks because Israeli tanks are in the game :) and we have alot of muslims in europe these days.
I can go out on a limb here, pretty safely I hope, and state that I do not believe their will ever be a Tank Branch called Others. Lord I hope not.
EU tree should be created before the Isreali tree though. Isreali tree might be really easy too once HD components become available. Very few of their tanks have Organic or New Hull designs.
Should it be part of Africa tree? Before the first migration, hominids where part of african culture.
Oh No,
They’ll want their own tree. Probably send someone from Latrun or give WOT space at the Museum, lmao.
The more I think about it, their line would fit into the EU tree. All their Tanks were created after WWII, not the designs u idiots complaining and not reading any further! They were all manufactured in exactly the same time line as the EU, i.e, Sweden, Swiss, if it ever gets here, and well, you know the rest.
Yes, please. Only, i cant see it happening. But i’d like to see whole Israelis as a separate tree.
The whole thing about Merkava is crew survivability. So you could load something instead of the first-aid kit…. Too OP.
Yes, but you know how WoT models engines/transmissions. Front is bad in WoT, crew are expendable.
First frontal shot, engine wrecked. Repair. Second shot, engine fucked up again. Third shot, fire?
No, thanks. Not only it doesn’t fit the timeline, any of the nations we have or were planned in WoT (no, Israel is not in Europe and Merkava was never designed in Europe), but also it’s completely abstract tank we know nothing about but the generic shape of the hull.
As someone said – equally well Wargaming might start pulling the tanks out of their ass, again.
What if i told you:
Japan is not in Europe!
And the EU-tree has nothing to do with Europe. It only happens so, that all nations that are right now considered part of the “others”-tree are in europe. Which means WG can announce Israel any time they want :D
“Japan is not in Europe!” – https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/2727748211/c3d0981ae770f926eedf4eda7505b006.jpeg – never said it was.
“And the EU-tree has nothing to do with Europe” – official WG source, or STFU.
pulling a design out of one’s ass and putting it in the game.
This what WG do best.
Israeli tank …. Kay
Lol, that Merkava with Centurion turret would have like ZERO gun depression :D
To the front, probably not more than -2
Sides, maybe even around -10
http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f10-pr-bf2-general-discussion/112536-how-strong-merkava-reality-pr-2.html
Also, take a look at this site, not exactly official website of Israeli MoW but still, the numbers in the table look very interesting. Even the Merkava mk I seems to have 380 mm effective hull front armor (calculated as RHA equivalent) and 550mm turret front.
Even if they did put the M48 turret on Merkava mk I hull, it would still be pretty impressive tank.
Anyway, what would probably happen if WG put Merkava (even mk I), is that Israeli government would not exactly be happy that their secret armor layout would be displayed in a online FTP game with millions of players.
With the way the engine and turrets mounted, It looks like the thinking was a defensive rather than offensive tank, designed to fight from hull down in prepared positions then make a fast getaway to another line of prepared positions if they were in danger of being overrun.
I think most people will agree with me when I say, NAY!
Want reasons? Tanks are older than Israel! your comment is invalid!
It’s like today somewhere in Africa a shitty piece of land decides to be independent, and they get some shitty primitive tanks from the rusty backyard of Russia, and cause those were build before 1960 we should have Zimbalaguu tech tree too!
Well, if your best reason is that the State of Israel was formed in 1948, then I think we can say you support the implementing of Israeli tanks.
Anyway, I’d really like to see this sort-of-Merkava in WoT, but creating a whole line is can be a problematic thing. Maybe it could be a high tier premium for the EU tree?
I think you got brain damage and don’t understand proper English!
Stronk argument.
Well I can see where the statement
“They took a Centurion hull and turned it around to make the Merkava”
Comes from, with the first image as that is pretty much what they have done there.
no thx
If this means getting the Super Sherman into WoT, then I’m all for this Merkava testbed.
Yeah but at what tier do you propose the Super Sherman do be? I mean it’s too strong for tier 6 (like the easy 8 en Jumbo), and not mobile enough to compensate for it’s armor at tier 7. I would love to see it too, but it would be a balancing nightmare I’m affraid
Well,
The T34-85 was one of the best tanks of WWII, but it gets walloped in WoT.
The Panther was probably the best tank of WWII, and it is not the best T7 by a long shot, although it can be very good.
The M51 Super Sherman beat out Centurions, T-54′s, T-55′s, and the occasional M47 Patton in Israeli Hands. That probably means it would get 1 shot by an IS3.(which was a piss poor tank in reality)
What’s the reason for adding an Israeli branch if it would piss out a lot of your playerbase cause they’re communists, neo-nazis and muslims? Surely WG doesn’t want that to happen.
Remember, the arch enemy of muslims, nazis, and communists (they’re all the same btw) are jews, and the Israeli tanks kicked Arab tanks on the middle east badly.
Well if you look at the composition of the Israeli forces in the wars you speak of, I wouldn’t necessarily agree that their tanks were far superior, they used superior tactics and strategy to overwhelm their enemies. Secondly I don’t think adding Israeli’s would lead to a shit storm, they added Chinese and Japanese tanks to, not exactly the best of friends in the world.
Yeah… “Israeli tanks”
Why did they implement 9.0 and not reverse the clock back to 8.11?
I am certain that 9.0 has pissed off a lot more players.
Besides that, WHO GIVES A FUCK WHAT MUSLIM TERRORISTS think? Or Neo Nazi’s? Or Red Scum?
In real life, all 3 groups are LOSERS!!!!
I’m both Arab and Muslim and I wouldn’t care if they added in an Israeli tree. As long as they add in a Pan Arabian tree so I can whoop those Israeli tanks’ rear ends.
It would be the only place an arab could ever whoop an Israeli tank.
Israel is the World’s #1 supplier of burnt out spare Soviet Tank parts.
Palestinians would like a word with you. (And their land back.)
Don’t worry…after we get rid of the dictators Israel and Iran are next.
*cough*Most Jewish people are communists themselves.*cough
And no. I’m not Jewish if such question arose to you,
WG will just have to make up their own armor thickness and such. They’ve done it before and I personally think it’s fine as long as there’s some link to a historical machine of the same sort (yes even the WT E100 has such a link, however fragile).
I really like the far-rear turret designs so I’d really like to see the Centurion-turreted testbed.
I see no problem with having this and similar tanks in the game. While its real armor values can’t be taken, it could very easily be aproximated and balanced with values from similar tanks like the Leopard or Centurion tanks. The same thing could be done with the RU126 and Leopard B prototype untill they get permission to research them better.
Why are they holding off on implementing real tanks into the game that lack some of the info on them but they happily implement paper projects for which there was no real historical armor values and they put whatever values were necessary for balance.
Plus I have no issues with putting Israel into the game. They have made interesting tanks.
You got 2 tanks that would be great for 2 different trees, one with the Patton and the other with the Centurion, if you can see where I’m going.
They have a Merkava mk1 in Saumur, it was a lot bigger then I expected it to be. I think there are more Merkava mk1 outside of Israel, so maybe research is easier these day’s?
I don’t see why we can’t or we mustn’t get this Merkava concept in-game.
How they implement this tank, it’s another thing. Personally, I am okay-ish with Israeli tree. They already make some interesting tanks (especially super shermans) and these tanks are working as intended. As long is not become Chinese tree MKII, i welcome our Judaism tank friends on WoT.
Merkava? A X tier MED? U MAD?
Merkava I weights 63 tons. Since WG considers Chieftain prototype (50something tons) as a heavy, Merkava 60something would be heavy as well.
The weight is irrelevant. Merkava,as far as I know,is a main battle tank,which places it on the medium tanks branch since they are the closest thing to a MBT.
It weighs like a Heavy. Looks Like a Heavy, but moves like a Medium.
Oh, and it packs a punch like a heavy.
I don’t think a 105mm gun that’s just another version of the M68/L7 is “hits like a heavy”.
That said, we have the Leopard I and they intend to implement the AMX-30 MBT, as well as some Yugoslavian Hellcat/T-54 Hybrid (Hellcat turret and 76mm gun on T-54 turret – basically Eastern European version of the Type 64). It’s not so much an arbitrary year limit as a tech limit. One could, theoretically, also put the M1 Abrams in by way of the very early XM1 prototypes not using computers, composite armors, and the M1 didn’t use a smoothbore gun until the A1. Will the XM1 appear? Probably not, because that’s really picking the barrel for a reason to implement it.
But if the AMX-30 is coming “some time in the future”, I see no reason why the Merk Mk. I couldn’t.
There’s already MBTs in WoT (they were originally called “Universal” tanks until the T-62 with a smoothbore gun showed up – examples include both Centurions, the T-54, T-62, Type 59, WZ-120 (which is the factory designation of the Type 59), and a few others)
1 reason why WG might flinch on an Israeli Tank LIne.
The Tier 2 would have to be the Micro-Maus. Israel purchased 10 of them, and they were used in action in the Independence War of 1948.
Also, Israel has a full line of Arty that could be implemented all the way to Tier 10.
As far as Heavy Tanks go, only the Merkava could be classified in that manner, even though as far as mobility is concerned, it is a Medium in every way. I know this for a fact. First Hand. I have also driven several older tanks in my service in the Army.
AMX 13-75. (like a Lotus Elise).
M51 Super Sherman.
Various Centurions
All Pattons that were in Israeli Service.
Merkava Mk1 was the culmination of 22 years of Combat Experience in Modern Warfare, plus the experience of Ex-Soviet, Ex-US, & Ex- British Tank crew that fought the ragheads during that time.
It is a true Death-Star, whose combat record is on par with what is the absolute best tank in the world. The M1 Abrams.
In a word, PERFECT.
Yep. You have no slightest idea what you’re talking about.
Yep, you have no idea what I talked about.
It is ok, not everything that is talked about needs to be understood by dimwits like you.
“ragheads”
Kill yourself.
It is a proper way to describe them.
Since they wear rags on their heads.
Then might as well call you jews yamaka heads, or thieves but I’m not going to go down to your level and do that.
Israel players and SS here me out
Like u guys know from history, Israel as a country came to life in 1948 so we can assume they start to develop their first own tanks in late 50s or even later. This is a problem cuz our low tier tanks in game are very mid war and placing anything from late 50′s or 60s at tier 1would be debatable cuz such tank would be 10 times better than any mid war vehicle. Here is where my ideas comes into mind!
As some of u probably know the biggest group of Jews before ww2 lived in Poland (10% of population in 1939). Then Hitler and Stalin together attacked our country and both Poles and Polish Jews started to fight against them. Many died. Tho after war like other countries, Poland fell under Russian occupation until 1989 and durning that time Russians tried to erase good relations and our shared history. Despite that still many older Israelians know Polish language or even remembers war.
Moreover in Polish section there is topic about Polish tech tree. Long story short – there is nice amount of midwar and late 30s tanks for more than one or even two lines but all ends around tier 6.
My idea – we could create Polish – Israel tech tree, putting Polish tanks from low to mid, and Israel tanks from mid to hi tier. This would be somewhat historically accurate cuz we are preety much one nation anyway, just splitted by war.
Cheers
p.s sorry for my english ;))
Yea, and Israel should now sell Poland a few Merkavas, so there is a continuity past 10tier :) …
“Tho after war like other countries, Poland fell under Russian occupation until 1989 and durning that time Russians tried to erase good relations and our shared history.”
Poland wasn’t occupied by Russians. Only countries which belonged to USSR were occupied by Russians. Get your facts straight next time.
I want Yugoslavian tech tree….. we have better tanks of Israel !!
Yugoslavia in past been 4 world army noobs !
Lay off the crack pipe.
I’d have to agree with deveen23 on this one.
Let’s compare:
Sticking a 122mm A-19 in a Sherman? Yeah, that’s about on par with the Sherman carrying a long 105mm I would say.
But as far as locally, self-designed vehicles? What does Yugoslavia and Ex-Yugoslavia bring? A couple of downgraded Soviet export tanks? We have the Chinese for that. At least Israel actually designed its own tanks.
Unless you can pull something neat like a 60mm T-54 killing autocannon out of the nether then I would say Yugoslavia would, at best, belong to the Europe Composite tree with a few premium vehicles.
Sure the Merkava mk1 or it’s prototypes would be a great addition to WoT but you guys should also look towards the other jewels an Israeli or Middle Eastern tree could bring, T-54/55 with British L7 gun, Super Sherman variants with 105mm French gun or automatic 50mm gun, Sherman with AMX 13/75 turret and a modified Mk.5 Centurion with L7, American engine and added frontal armor! =D