Fixing the Panzer 35t Tank in HD

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Hello everyone,

to my eternal shame, despite being a Czech vehicle fan, as you well know, I don’t play Panzer 38t or 35t much. I don’t generally sealclub, that’s one reason, but the truth is, I am really not that much into Czech tanks, that have German crews (waiting for the Czech branch). But yesterday, I decided to give 38t a shot after a year or so.

Imagine my surprise and “joy”, when I found out that historically, both 35t and 38t are completely FUCKED up. Well… let’s have a look at them.

Panzer 35t

As you probably know, Panzer 35t is the Czechoslovak LT Vz.35, used by the Wehrmacht forces. To that end, it was somewhat modified. What is wrong with it historically:

- the 20mm guns are completely unhistorical, they are there for the balance purposes I assume
- the top turret is fake (unhistorical), there was never such a thing as “Verstärkterturm” on Panzer 35t
- the top gun is partially fake, it wasn’t present until the advanced prototypes during the war
- stock engine has somewhat wrong designation
- elite engine is fake
- tracks could use different designation
- radios are problematic but noone really cares about those anyway

Considering that this vehicle is scheduled for rework when it gets remodelled to HD, here’s what could be done with it to keep at least some historicity. Basically, there are three variants, all of them revolve on turrets, one is somewhat unhistorical and I think it’s unnecessery.

- for starters, I’d drop the 20mm’s. They don’t belong to this tank anyway, leaving us with the 37mm’s only (the XP price would have to be compensated somewhere but whatever). Next, the engine.
- the T-15 engine is completely unhistorical, the stock engine should better be designated as T-11/0 with 120 horsepower (T-11 series had several stages, this is the one used by the original LT Vz.35). Now, we run into a bit of a problem. The stock engine has (historically correct) 120 horsepower, the top engine the vehicle series ever used was the Škoda T-11/2 135 horsepower engine (this engine appeared during the war on T-12 and T-13M prototypes). I suggest removing the top engine and replacing it with a 135hp T-11/2, compensating the mobility decrease by increased traverse rate and decreased terrain resistance to effectively leave the level of mobility the same

And now, the grand finale, the turret. Here, we have basically three options.

- option one is to rename the elite tracks to T-11 and replace the fake turret with a “T-11″ turret. T-11 was basically an upgraded version of the LT Vz.35, intended for export. The major user of this vehicle turned out to be Bulgaria (as “lek tank Škoda”) – you can read about that here (roughly in the middle of the article).

This is how it would look:

blg1

The advantage is, the turret wouldn’t have to be remodelled. The T-11 turret is from the outside practically identical to the LT Vz.35 – however, the problem is, it has the very same armor layout as the stock turret. It had improved ergonomics due to the presence of the new more advanced gun and so, unlocking this turret wouldn’t result in an improved armor, but rather in improved rate of fire. Here, the problem is the gun. Historically, the visual model would be kept, but the gun would have to be renamed from the KwK 38(t) to Škoda A8 (or ÚV Vz.39) and its performance would have to be nerfed to the stock gun level (while increasing its ROF significantly and perhaps tweaking soft stats like accuracy, although that is not entirely historical). This setup (with stock engine) would then be completely historical, as used by Bulgaria in WW2. On the downside, the turret wouldn’t have improved armor anymore and the 20mm’s would be gone.

- option two is to close both eyes and introduce the T-13M turret. The problem is, if you do that, then you have an unhistorical hull (T-13M hull was modified and looked differently, it also had more armor than the “stock” LT Vz.35). This is how it looked, you can read about it here:

untitled

The advantage of this setup would be the fact that the top engine would be historical (T-11/2 that is) as this vehicle used it. The turret also had improved armor – increased from 25/16/16 to 30/25/25. It also carried the gun that is already in the game (Škoda A7 aka KwK 38 (t)). The elite tracks would then have to be renamed to something as well, T-13M possibly (to make sure the players know the suspension and turret belonged together). The major disadvantage here is that the new turret would have to be remodelled visually, as it looked different.

- option three is to go all out to add the T-12 turret instead, turning the elite vehicle into a pseudo-T-12. T-12 was another LT Vz.35 based prototype, but it had one very distinctive feature: it carried a 47mm gun A9 (and as you can imagine, this is a serious upgrade). It’s the same gun as the current elite gun for Panzer 38t by the way. The performance of the gun was as such:

Penetration (at 30 degrees):
52mm at 100m
48mm at 500m
41mm at 1000m
35mm at 1500m

That means the ingame performance is roughly historical. As you can see, this would be a MAJOR buff. The engine for this variant (T-11/2 135hp) is historical as well. The turret would have to be larger however and it would also have to be remodelled. Naturally, such firepower on tier 2 would have to come at mobility cost (historically, the T-12 was also heavier – original LT Vz.35 weight was 10,5 tons, T-12 had 10,95 tons), which could be nerfed even further by introducing a third engine (Škoda Diesel, 120hp, failed due to low reliability) of the T-12D project. You can read more about it here.

T-122

Personally, I’d prefer the first “T-11″ variant, because it was actually fighting. At first glance, it’s a nerf, but everything could be tweaked by soft stats to keep the level the same. The T-13M variant makes probably most sense due to module continuity. The T-12 variant is a “let’s go wild” option. In any case however, Panzer 35t needs some serious overhaul. Next time, we’ll have a look at the Panzer 38t, which is even worse.

39 thoughts on “Fixing the Panzer 35t Tank in HD”

  1. who cares if its guns arent historically acurate, not much else is about the game such as ARTY shooting a tank accross the map!

      • yea, right, the Waffle is historically accurate too based on “plans.” How about cars exploding when u shoot them? How about a camo difference between a TD and heavy in a city? How about not hitting ur gun, which in many cases is longer than the tank, on anything such as a building? The biggest is arty. How would arty aim at a tank in a field if they cant see the tank or the field? How would arty even know theres a tank there?

        I love Sir Fochs sarcasm when he quips, “historically accurate, no problem.”

          • Unfortunately there is no arty in WWIIOL. We asked for it for years but with a ten-man dev team development was never quite so speedy. Got mortars in the end, and bombers could bomb from higher than 3km without bombs vanishing, but no dedicated artillery short of naval support.

        • Arty – unhistorical — In real war like WWII any unit that had arty support would use it first before sending in tanks or infantry. Just because it is rarely in the movies does not mean it was not the preferred way of dealing with enemy units. The first thing the US did when it got hold of a programmable computer was to recalculate the ballistic tables for arty to remove errors and to improve accuracy. A war game without arty is not a war game.

          • Artillery, the God of war.
            Hell, to this day, the Russian method to warfare is to put an artillery unit every 100m and shell the zone until the tanks can roll over the rubble.

            By the way, the first reaction the Germans had after the initial shock of seeing tanks in WWI was to point artillery guns at them.
            You can pack as much armor as you can, but you are never safe from dozens of kilos of explosives detonating directly on top of you.

          • My father was loader on an M7 Priest in Pattons’ 3rd Army. He took part in the Battle of the Bulge relief column counter attack. His comment was as follows:

            They lowered the gun where it was parallel to the ground and loaded solid shot to shoot at German tanks. They bore sited the gun because visibility was so bad due to fog, snow and trees they were shooting point blank at german tanks. When I was a kid (Over 40 years ago) there was a picture he took which resided at my great Aunts house that showed a Panther Tank he section of guns knocked out doing this. There was 1 shot right the rear hatch on the German tank. If I knew then that I was going to be playing this game, I would have made sure I saved that picture. The only think that is really not historical about arty is that it cant defend itself. If you have played any miniature games that use arty, (Flames of war comes to mind) They use a similar system that WOT uses. You fire at a tank, then they overlay a circular drift gage and roll dice to see where the shot lands. I know no one likes arty, but get over it. It is not going anywhere. (That includes me)

      • well this is funny… WG cares about historical accuracy.. removing fake tanks and stuff, cares about unhistorical flashlights on ISU … yet almost EVERY fucking tank has unhistorical top gun.

        Pak L70 on StuG ? please…
        7.5 L100 on panther ?
        88 L71 on Tiger I …
        There goes historical accuracy…

        And then maybe.. if tier V tanks were not equipped with these guns… maybe armor would suddenly matter…

        • Historical = those guns were at least “considered” (blueprints, known plans, etc). I am not a WW2 expert, so I can’t say these three were more or less accurate, but I have a feeling that these guns are not a problem…

          • these 3 were just an example…
            There is one on almost every tank.

            and to be honest, L70 on stug is way OP. I’m not complaining, I love my stug… but I can shred anything I meet. As far as Im not spotted ofc. There are only like 3-4 tanks I have to try to aim at weakspots… otherwise, its almost autoaim it slices them like butter.

            And dont tell me that combo Tiger and IS would loose against one StuG III. .. because right now… i see no fear of these two heavies.. they are just 2 moving frags…

            • If you want some degree of historical accuracy, go play War Thunder. Their tanks have guns they used IRL. (Well, except for panther 2 and KT with a 105mm, but those are there solely for balance reasons, as Germans don’t have anything to counter T-54 and IS-4)

              • tried it, it sucks.
                its not fun, hate the tank controls, cant zoom out, graphics isnt taht good as it looks on videos, its just a mess.

          • And that is about as far as it got. The Pzkw III chassis could not take the weight of the gun or the recoil. Even the Pzkw IV had problems mounting the L70, which is why it had steel road wheels on the first bogie, and was still ridiculed as Guderian’s duck. Ass in the air, nose in the mud. But WG have done what the Germans could never do.

      • the problem with going for historical accuracy, is that then every tank has to be historical accurate. You can’t go both way’s down the street in different directions. World of tank’s has never, and will never be a historical accurate game. as Such they should just leave the Panzer 35T alone. And I haven’t ever even played the thing.

        • Historical accuracy and balancing, those two by nature do not hold hands and sing songs. Historical accuracy has always shown that there were always tanks better than other tanks and the only way to overcome such odds was research and development to make better tanks, pure numbers, or better supply chains, better air superiority, and more close range and long range ground support, and better communication.

  2. 60-80% care but lets face it some tanks would not be competitive if stuck with the historical setup and there has to be some stretching of “realism” if there has to be a widely enjoyable game. If the game is to exist and develop then it has to be economically viable and make compromises. No game – nothing even approaching historically accurate tanks – no opportunity to whine about random shit (which, on the basis of the word count in comments, would seem to be the main purpose of WoT.

    Edit.. I love when the arty whine monkeys jump in …. It makes me play a lot more arty. LOL :)

    • They could just be made historical, then knocked down a tier or two.

      Tiger on tier6 in historical setup would be pretty sweet (rather sluggish), same as an ISU on tier7 with the 152mm howitzer or 122mm gun.
      It’s not a perfect solution, as there are some tanks you just can’t put in a lower tier without breaking everything (ie: KT, IS3, B1, KV-1, etc…) but it could be worth looking into.

  3. I got a better option :D Replace all CZ tanks in the German line with german tanks. Use the CZ tanks in the European tech tree.

      • There are enough german-made tanks that fit the tiers without having to make them unhistorical for balance reasons. The czech vehicles could be used with their historical loadouts in the european tree.

        • They are not “upgraded” (~unhistorical), just because they are in german colors. (Well 20mm flak is quite bs… but the tank doesn’t need that to be competitive)

          And actually… geniune german tanks can be also “unhistorical” for balance reasons (Pz II with its long 20mm gun for example).

          All this doesn’t mean that Pz 35t (or 38t) can’t appear under other designation number, with different color, moduls etc. in the eu tree.
          But they still have a spot in the german tree.

  4. Historically plausible or not, you have to admit that for tanks introduced from day one of the game, they’ve remained very well balanced.

    Will you do a second article focusing on the 38(t) as well?

  8. Two of my Favourite tanks, the PZ38(t) and T15. Great all around crew trainers. Good mobility, view range, not bad cammo, just a good balance. I’d love the option of unit numbers on the turret, and even divisional emblems.

  9. Butt-hurt arty haters want the game to be more historical? Try hitting the “V” key next time you play. Tell me how you like it.

  10. The question is, are those three options had actually been used by Germans? If not, then this will be another unhistorical issue…

  11. Not like I’m a big expert but the original design of LT(L)-40 originally had 20 mm guns who were later replaced with 37 mm ones due to the rapid advancements of Panzer warfare. So right, even though 20 mm guns were never used on Pz. 35(t) per se it’s not like they are there out of the clear blue sky. I feel calling them “completely unhistorical” is a bit harsh.

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