Regarding the Bovington Packages

Hello everyone,

as you might have noticed, Wargaming EU took some steps in the right direction this week. First, what I really like is the Operation Bagration special – historical specials are a good thing :)

Another good thing are the Bovington packages. There are three and they are not cheap (two 50 EUR ones and one 35 EUR), but the good thing is, the entire proceeds go for the Bovington museum tank restoration and that’s a worthy thing. If you feel like buying some gold anyway, might do it as well now.

There are three things I would like to point out about.

First: the LeFH artillery is – as far as arties go – quite overpowered, because it was the ONLY artillery (well, maybe along with the premium Sexton, but there I am not sure) not to be influenced by the massive artillery nerf from last year and as such, it is currently pretty overpowered (statistics and characteristics can be viewed here):

tankcurve

If you are thinking of buying it, yea, it’s a good purchase.

Second: regarding the restoration post – it says “Jagd Kanonon – A mighty German tank destroyer in need of a revamped interior, among many other repairs. Wouldn’t it be something to see this beast in motion?” – well, first, it’s obviously not called “Jagd Kanonon” (gonna call it Jagd Kanomnomnomnomnom from now on) – it was called Jagdpanzer Kanone (or Kanonenjagdpanzer, Kjpz) and it was anything but mighty – it was a post-war effort to utilize the obsolete M47 Patton 90mm guns on a turretless chassis. It had one very nasty feature though, it fired two types of shells – 90mm HEAT (cca 300mm RHA penetration) and 90mm HESH. By the way, for those who are wondering, it’s the same gun as the RU251 upcoming tier 8 German scout uses.

Third: this is considerably less funny and a thing I do not understand. This is the Bovington “M4″, supposed to be restored – as posted in the article:

bov3_684x

As you can see, it’s the 76mm version of the M4A3 I think, used to shoot the upcoming Fury movie. What I do not understand – why does the tank need a restoration, when they clearly used it to shoot the movie and it was moving just fine in it? Weren’t the moviemakers supposed to pay for using this tank in the movie? The text says “needs its tracks replaced, amongst other repairs, in order to get rolling again” – so the moviemakers broke it/worn it out and the museum doesn’t even insist on them repairing the damage?

I am not sure I understand and the only explanation I found in the discussion by The_Challenger (British WG military expert) was along the lines of “it’s complicated”. Make no mistake, this tank does deserve restoration and the packages are okay in my opinion, but I would like to know, what the hell happened there…

58 thoughts on “Regarding the Bovington Packages

        • Premium tanks rarely get nerfed. See the recent TD camo nerf, all Premium TDs are unaffected.

          105 leFH18B2 was also pretty much unaffected by 8.6 patch, beyond a slight accuracy adjustment and going up a tier – but since it used to have +4MM and now has +2, you could argue it came off better since it now fights tier 7 max.

          And now that it’s not normally available anymore, expect it to never get touched again.

    • Read some comments further down: leFH was in fact part of the arty nerf – I own it since release.

    • Yes it was affected by the nerf. As its 99% like the Sexton II. It was affected in the same way on the gun side at least. So it went for useless to hopeless. I don’t regret getting any premium tanks. But I do regret getting that one. Hardly use it to train my 304 crew even when they do get close to a skill. Might take it out if I need one more daily to get the next still. But that’s like… never.

  1. I think you overestimate how many live action takes of the tank would of been required for the movie. CGI allows for explosions and damage without the tank actually being involved. It’s more of a prop than anything else.

  2. I have the leFH and I dont think its OP, is can be efficient but like all arty it relies on luck way too much.

    Pro’s
    - very good reload (8s)
    - good range for a low tier arty usually you can cover all map
    - Decent aim time

    Cons
    - Very low speed
    - Low damage, on low tiers its good enough but on KV-1 I hit for 30 damage per shell.
    - Meh accuracy

  3. leFH is in fact underpowered.

    I have it, and I can get better damage with SU-5 which is a tier 4 artillery. Bishop is also twice as good as leFH.

    This French SPG is enjoyable in that it reloads fast and zooms fast. It’s a good “for fun” buy. But it’s not good for winning. It has really poor damage due to terrible penetration and flat angle. SU-5 which is a tier lower has much better penetration, and like Bishop lands shells vertically which is a huge difference because you’re not shooting the frontal armor. Both of these SPGs are also more accurate than leFH.

    • UP . With half the reload time and half the aim time of every other tier 5 arty ? Oh and accuracy is 20-30% better than on every other T5 arty. And don’t forget it has enough armor to immune against T3 scouts like P1c and even bounce some tier 4 tanks. How is that UP ?

      • It’s UP because of the reasons I mentioned. It does not influence battles. Which is mainly due to low penetration and flat trajectory.

        You can say it’s great against t3 scouts (which good player will never even see, let alone die to, in tier5), but you don’t say that the downside is slow speed which means you’re stuck near the place you spawn.

        You mentioned good reload, but you don’t mention how this tank works in practice – doing 15dmg to a TOG* (true story).

        I have Ace Tanker in all tier5 tanks that can be bought ingame (including premiums) and this is one of the worst t5 tanks when it comes to winning. The main reason being that it’s artillery (so you can only shoot, but not hold flanks) and the fact that it does low damage per hit.

        Now, of course, if someone has low winrate this tank will be good no doubt, but I am speaking as someone who has 64% wr, and tier5 tank that can only win 55-60% of time is by my criteria underpowered.

        It would be nice if you post your ingame name so that I can see how successful you are in leFH. Maybe I’m just unlucky and the tank is great, but I’d like to see your stats.

  4. The movie company most likely hired a service from the museum that included a live rolling tank – I dont think they hired the tank itself…

  5. Sorry to say this SS but IeFH18B2 was nerfed like any other arty (every arty got aiming circle bigger than a lake when u start aiming). I know this cuz i got it from start (that arty was at tier 4 beforfe and for 750 gold durning discount). Currently on tier 5 most arty got far more powerfull guns (specially more pen, like 75 or even 88mm, compare this with 53mm on B2). This arty is nice when playing against tier 5 tanks, but going further… well. doing tiny amount of damage (like 30-40) to KV1-S with direct hit is not that much, and u need to remember that B2 got only 1,9m of blast, so u need to hit enemy directly in order to make any kind of damage (even then many times u just make enemy tracks yellow, not even damaged).

    French got 105mm gun with same 53mm of pen and 410 damage even on tier 3. In the meantime u are two tiers higher and got just more rof, which is not that good comparing to russian or american guns with 75-88mm of pen and 700-900 damage (its difference between making like 40 damage while having 53mm of pen and one shooting enemy KV1-S while having around 80mm of pen).

    • This one speaks the truth: leFH was moved up one or two tiers and had its aimtime and bloom nerfed like every other arty. Saying it was never nerfed and is therefore overpowered is just plain wrong.

      Still a nice arty, though, especially in platoons where you can easily permatrack enemies and slowly nibble their health away.

    • I actually think it wasn’t nerfed as much, something about it remained the same, I remember that quite well. I will find out exactly though, good idea.

      • Yes, it was affected less than most other arties, I think I remember that. If you could dig something up it would be appreciated!

        • I found it.

          http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/19/premium-vehicle-changes-86-update/

          105 leFH18B2 and Sexton

          The French 105 lefH18B2 will be bumped up from tier IV to tier V; no changes will be made to its combat characteristics. The matchmaking for this vehicle will remain the same, but due to the overall changes made to artillery this vehicle definitely belongs at tier V. Similarly, this vehicle will be removed from the in-game store but will not be making a return. Instead, this vehicle will be used as a special reward for events.

          No characteristics changes (its aim circle size was NOT increased, unlike with other artilleries), but it was kicked up a tier.

          • Actually the accuracy was “decreased” in order to compensate for the accuracy buff. It’s technically just as accurate as before, but shells that would have flown to the edge of the old circle will now fly a little wider.

            It wouldn’t have been 0.73 before, more like 0.45

              • Aiming circle was increased because the new aim dispersion by 50% (so the accuracy stays about the same)
                What was nerfed is the dispersion while moving the gun, maybe aim time and profitability (shells where made twice as expensive)

          • Changing the tier is the biggest change a vehicle can possibly have. So even if the stats remained the same, but MM stat was nerfed to t5, that’s a huge nerf.

            IMHO, even SU-5 which is tier4 has better gun than leFH.

  6. I imagine that the Fury M4 is in need of restoration because of modifications they made for the movie…not just busted/worn tracks, but didn’t they also modify it somewhat to look like a different model of Sherman, and for some hollywood purposes?

    • Who knows.

      Perhaps the tank’s condition was questionable already and they simply broke it. Maybe they even had an extra (broken) tank to stand in explosions and effect because the film staff didnt wanted to break a working WW2 tank.

  7. Apparently Brad Pitt was spotted riding on top of the tank by a roaming horde of middle aged women. They then attacked the vehichle attempting to get at Mr Pitt who had quickly slipped back inside and closed the hatch. The women continued to claw at and bang on the tank for fifteen minutes before police arrived. The tank took more damage in those fifteen minutes than it had in its entire military life. Hence why repairs were needed and also why the film company weren’t liable for the damage.

  8. I disagree about LeFH artillery wasn’t nerfed. Before artillery it was able to kill detracked KV-1,KV-1S or even some tier 7 heavies with repeating shots almost every time, even when it disappeared from view. Now it is matter of luck. One shot not in the middle of the circle and KV-1 repairs and goes away. Before arty nerf I was killing 80% of detracked KV-1′s, after the nerf it goes down to about 30%.

    It is not that this arty wasn’t nerferd, It is that only good players bought it for a purpose, training crew for overpowered at that time BC 155 58.

    I remember those complains about low alfa and low speed of this arty when it was introduced. I bought it with a heavy heart to train crew for my regular artillery, and i was surprised how good it performs, when you know how to use it.

    Other thing is that moving it form tier 4 to 5 wasn’t really a nerf for this arty. Higher tier battles means more HP with enemy tanks and more possible damage.

    As for the Sexton I, I didn’t buy it because of low tier battles. On this tiers battles are super fast, and enemies have small HP pool, which make this arty useless for training crew. But on paper it as good as LeFH …

    • Sexton i was planned a high rof (8) low damage arty, but was not released before 8.6
      After it comes out its completely pointless to buy it because it just a ctrt+c ctrl+v copy of the Sexton II

      • The only point are it’s slightly different looks and the fact it’s Premium, so it can accept other SPGs’ crews. While it sucks at training, if you like the Sexton II and you have another British SPG then you can get Sexton I instead and won’t need to keep another crew (except for Radio Operator).

        Don’t think of the Sexton I as a crew trainer for your UK SPGs. Think of your other SPGs as crew trainers for Sexton I.

    • It would be also good if there was a manual on how to read the statistics, because people compare premium tanks (curves) to non-premium tanks (curves) without knowing what they’re reading, and then we get interpretation that is way off. leFH is a premium tank so it comes elite right from the start. At tier5 most people play with stock vehicles half of the time before moving to t6, so overall statistic is very deceiving. Fully elite tank can be very different from stock tank. And second, this being premium tank, it means it is played by more experienced and skilled players. So one should expect better curves.

  9. Saw Rita play with it a few times and it looked like fun and if the money really goes to Bovington then hells yeah! Sadly tho that playing arty is against my holy promise of never touching the arty scumbags!

    • The best way to learn counter-arty tactics is to play artillery. When you know how it works, you know how to defeat it. Go ahead and give Bovington some money. ;)

  10. Regarding 105 leFH18B2, you can see changes for yourselves here:

    http://wot-news.com/game/compare/en

    No battle characteristics has been nerfed except speed of all shells and pen of premium shell. Accuracy has been subject to adjustment, just like all SPGs (as others pointed out, it remained basically the same as before 0.8.6).

  11. ANd wouldnt you know it the US gets left out……We are only the highest spenders per person and the tanks hae us tank.

    Damnit give us the option.

  12. Sorry for the off topic comment (if it is a bit off)

    As we can see how the new HD models got changed -more armor thickness layers..- lets look at the m103
    There was one layer with 150 mm… and they devided it in to 4 or 5 layers (150,147,133, etc…)

    What could that mean for premium tanks when they get changed in to HD ?… Lets look at the KV5′s R2D2
    Changing it from 120 to 120,118,105, 98 (nerf it) or maby 140, 135,130,125,120 (they could bring the 140 from the back and put it in the middle where it looks a bit more armored and buff it a little)

    You know what i mean… HD models can bring buffs and nerfs to the current armor thickness, because tanks are being remade (a good time to rebalance it)

  13. Q: Im on the US server, I am thinking of buying some gold, I would like to verify that I am not eligible to use this promo. I cant, correct?

    • Have a look on worldoftanks.com, check the news there and visit the premium shop to see if the offer is available.

  14. The LeFH was hit pretty hard with the nerf hammer. It was moved from tier 4 to tier 5 without any changes to its performance. Try taking your Stug into a battle with IS-6′s and T-32′s to see how much fun that is.

    • First of all, it wasn’t nerded at all. Second, it doesn’t meet T8 tanks in regular battle.

      leFH is majory OP to be honest, I have decided numerous battles with it for my advantage, something I can’t tell of of any other arty. It fantastic.

      • OK I thought you’re just a little dumb at first when you tried to argue with me, but now I see you’re completely dumb claiming a tank whose MM was nerf (the most important stat) is not nerfed.
        And then you don’t even get his analogy, but instead you ‘correct’ him that leFH doesn’t meet t8, something which he didn’t claim at all.

        So you say the tank is majorly OP, ok, may we get your ingame name to check out your OP stats?

  15. I’ve had it before 8.6 and it’s indeed not nerfed. Maybe the accuracy a bit, but shells also seems to fly more to the middle of the circle in the same patch. It’s mm got buffed from 6-8, to 5-7 and I have 71% winrate in it in 150 games. But still no Ace QQQQQQQQQ