Author: Karika

Hello everyone,

I’m Karika from the EU server, a volunteer researcher of the Hungarian armored fighting vehicles. Some of you might already read my articles about the Hungarian tanks and tank destroyers of WWII, here on the FTR blog. Today, I’m going to start a new series of articles here, about how the Hungarian tanks could be implemented into World of Tanks.

In this first part, let me explain some of the main aspects and problems of this hopefully upcoming branch, and from part two, I’ll list the possible candidates with their predictable characteristics from vehicle to vehicle. Also, I’ll try to give reasons why I put that vehicle in the tech tree where I put it.

Silentstalker already wrote a short summary about this topic, you can read it here, but there are some new detailes and corrections I would like to add in my articles. I’m also not going to go into too much detailes about the concept of the European tech tree. SS already wrote a great summary about this too, you can read it here and here.

First of all, I must make clear, that there are NO official decision or statement from Wargaming was made about how exactly and when exacty will the European tanks come. All we know, according to the latest informations and leaks, that the first parts/waves of the EU tree might probably come sometime in 2015, but no details yet and this is not sure either.

Keep in mind that even if the fate of the EU tanks was already decided, WG is definitely not going to disclose that decision for now, because this is at least medium-far future stuff. It could be delayed or totally changed, or some parts of it could be scrapped during the development process and they certainly don’t want people to be upset or whine about it.

So – after this long prelude – let’s take a look at how I imagine the Hungarian tech tree tree now. Right now, as it might change in the future, for example when/if the alternative hull options will be implemented, maybe the Toldi IIA and the Toldi III could merge, as one could be the other’s optional hull and turret.

As you can see, Hungary can not build a complete WoT tech branch on its own. This creates a lot of problems and questions, so I’ll try to explain a few here.

Is this tech tree proposal historical?

Yes, it’s as historical as possible. I mostly used the historical or historically verifiable planned/considered modules and characteristics of these vehicles, with one or two expectations in the paper projects, I’ll note them. However, I have to say that I’m not a WoT developer or an expert on the in-game balance and I don’t know what exactly is acceptable and what is not, when it comes to unhistorical stuff. Therefore, I sticked with the historical stuff, and let the developers (screw up) balance the tree.

It will definitelly change, because the tanks in WoT rarely correspond to their historical equivalents, when it comes to modules such as guns, engines, turrets, radios etc. And there’s nothing wrong with that, WoT is an arcade game for the masses,and not a history simulator for tank nerds. I’ll give you the details about the historical authenticity of the Hungarian tanks and TDs in the following articles.

Will we get Hungarian heavy tanks?

No, because the only traditional heavy tanks in Hungarian service were the Pz. Kpfw. VI Tiger during and the IS-2 after the war. These tanks are already in the game, so there’s no reason to put them into WoT again in a different tech tree.

But this stuff is a bit more complicated than that, let me make it clear. The Hungarian tank classification terminology during the war was a bit different than the international one. The Hungarians distinguished their heavy tanks from their medium tanks based on the caliber of the main gun and not simply based on the weight of the vehicle. This means that any tank with a 75mm or higher caliber gun was considered ’heavy tank’ in Hungarian service, regardless of its weight, size or anything.

Therefore, the 41M. Turán II medium tank with its short 75mm L/25 gun and 19 t weight was referred as Turán II ’heavy’ tank*, just like the 43M. Turán III and the 44M. Tas, along with technically every German Pz. IV variant, and Pz. V Panther used by Hungary. However, according to the classification system of WoT, these Hungarian tanks will be still classified as medium tanks, so no heavy tanks for you Hungary, sorry. Not even as premium/gift tanks, because there aren’t any researchable/regular heavy tank to train the crew for.

*To compare: The real life Pz. Kpfw. IV Ausf. C had similar attributes; short 7,5cm KwK 37 L/24 cannon and also 19 ton weight.

What about the artillery?

Fortunately/unfortunately, Hungary completely lacks the candidates for an artillery line, as the only artillery in the WoT timeframe, which had any Hungarian connections is basically a Czechoslovak conversion, this – and that vehicle should be placed in the Czechoslovak artillery line of the EU tree as a tier 3 arty, because it was only operated by Czechoslovak crews.

Why there are not any German, Soviet, or other tanks in that tech tree, which were used by the Hungarians?

I intentionally left out the not domestically designed/manufactured tanks and TDs from this tech tree plan, because the Hungarians did not modify their foreign tanks enough to consider them as a ’new’ vehicle in WoT. They would be worse copy-cats than some of the Chinese stuff :)

For example: During the WWII, there were hundreds of Pz. Kpfw. 38(t), Jagdpanzer 38(t) “Hetzer” and various Pz. Kpfw. IV variants – just to name a few, there were many more – in Hungarian service and fought on the Eastern Front with Hungarian insignias and crews. But these markings, colors and the operating personel were the only differences between the Hungarian and German tanks, they used the same German/Czech guns, ammunition, radios, everything as the originals, the ones we already have in WoT. Same goes for the post war Soviet tanks, such as the T-34/85, SU-76M, etc.

Pz. Kpfw. IV Ausf F1 with Hungarian licence plate and insignias

To be honest, implementing these already playable tanks again with Hungarian colors and voiceover would not add too much to the game experience. Maybe just in the upcoming, overhauled Historical battle mode, who knows? I can only imagine them as ’captured’ premium tanks or gift tanks of some sort, but they definitely should not be placed in the researchable, regular branches.

(Karika: In my opinion, this “rule” should be applied to every EU tech trees, otherwise the game would be literally flooded with tons German/Soviet/American tanks of the European countries – such as Pz 38(t), Pz. IV, Panther, T-34/85, T-54/T-55, Patton and more – in different colors but with roughly the same setups. The major domestical modifications, or licence built variants does not count to this of course, only copies without modifications. Maybe its just me, but this would ruin the game. Imagine a tier 9 match with nothing but Soviet, Chinese, Czechoslovak, Polish, Yugoslavian, Romanian and Hungarian T-54 modifications.)

All in all, this leaves us only the light and medium tanks, plus the tank destroyers. But here comes the other huge problem: namely the ’best’ of the Hungarian tanks would be only tier 7 material in the game. There is technically nothing above that, except maybe some Soviet-made tanks. Therefore, the Hungarian tree most likely will end at tier 7.

But what about the high tier tanks?

What if this abovementioned ’end-at-tier-7’ thing is not an option, and WG decides that the Hungarian tanks MUST have a tier 10 connection? I honestly don’t know…

There’s no real, logical connection between the Tas medium tank (or any other mid-high tier Hungarian tank) and the rest of the tanks of the world, so merging the Hungarian tree into some other brances in the EU tree, such as the Czechoslovak or Swedish tech tree would be a bit forced and illogical. However, it’s possible.

Continuing the tech tree with Soviet armor, such as with the T-54/T-55 and its variants is also a possibility, because these tanks were in Hungarian service after the war. But Hungary did not modify them enough (same gun, same engine, etc. as on the original) or manufacture them to implement these tanks as a ’new’ vehicle, so this would be just a simple copy-paste from the Russian tech tree. And the last thing WoT need is more T-54 clones.

The only major Hungarian T-54/T-55 modification, the T-55AM (note, it’s not the same vehicle as the Soviet, the Polish or the Czechoslovak T-55AM!) which could be considered as a new vehicle in the game – maybe as a tier 10 candidate – was created in the early 1980’s, and it had laser rangefinder, semi-automatic fire-control system and stabilized gun, so it’s probably too modern for WoT anyway.

Merging the used to be Eastern Block countries (Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia) with shared post war Soviet tanks is also a possibility, but still would be mostly a copy-paste solution, like the earlier.

And lastly, creating fake Hungarian tanks for tier 8-9-10 is certanly not an option. Hopefully. There is a whole lot of bad solutions, WG should choose the least bad one. I myself don’t see any problem with the end of the research at tier 7, and the “branches-must-have-tier-10-tanks” rule probably will not be as crucial for the EU tree as for the already in-game trees for many reasons. But we’ll see how WG will decide about this.

What will be the tier 1 tank?

Difficult question. There are basicly two options for the EU tech tree:

- either every nation will get their own tier 1 tank,
- or there will be only one tier 1 EU tank and every different nation and their branches will start only from tier 2.
Both options have their own advantages and disadvantages.

The first option would be nice, we would probably get some rather interesting and unique tier 1 machines, things like the Czechoslovak Kolohousenka, the Swedish Strv. m/21-29 , the Italian Ansaldo 5 tonne or the Hungarian V-3 or the turreted Ansaldo experiment, or mysterious vehicles like the tank proposals by Jenő Fejes (I’ll describe them in a later part) and a few others. Something new and not just another different Renault FT-17 variant with a different name we already have – like the French FT, the Chinese NC-31, the Japanese Renault Otsu, and basicly the Soviet MS-1 too. However, not every nation has this kind of unique tier 1 candidate, so a few of them would get a Renault FT modification anyway. But at least we would get something interesting and also historical too, along with the prosaic FT clones.

The disadvantage of this option is, well… its financial aspect. If every nation gets its own tier 1 tank, it clearly follows that we would get as many new garage slots for free, one for each new tank. (Karika: I’m not sure how many exactly, let’s say around 9 new tanks/slots) And every free stuff we get is money WG does not earn. And, also, more tanks to implement means more money to spend on researching, developing and testing them (SS notice: there is however also the option of simply choosing your only one “free” tier 1 tank the way you might choosee the crew nationality).

This leads us to the other option, namely that we would get only one tier 1 EU tank = only one new slot, only one tank to model, supertest and implement. According to some sources, the most likely candidate is the Italian Fiat 3000, yet another boring FT clone we all know, thus forget every other tier 1 candidate. This would be sad, but again, it’s up to the developers of Wargaming to decide.

In the perspective of the Hungarian tech tree, this means that it would either start from the “Pan-European” Fiat 3000 or from a Hungarian candidate. I’ll list the latter in the next article. Fiat 3000 would be more or less acceptable for Hungary, as 5 Fiat 3000B tanks were in Hungarian service between 1930-1938 as training-instructor tanks, but it was only armed with a World War I era 8mm 7/12 M. Schwarzlose machine gun there, which is just too weak armament against tanks. They never saw combat in Hungarian service.

I hope that we’ll get separated tier 1 EU tanks, for example the late, turreted version of the Straussler V-3 for Hungary, that’s why I put that in my tech tree proposal. But if we will get only one tier 1 tank for the whole EU tree, the V-3 could be still used as a tier 2 premium/gift tank and the research for the Hungarian tree would start from that shared tier 1 tank. For now, we can only speculate.

What on Earth is that “Tas prototype”? I’ve never heard about that before!

That tank is a ‘compromise’. I’ll give you more detailes about it in a later article, soon.

The main point is that unfortunately, there is a gap between tier 5 and tier 7 in the Hungarian medium line, there is not a single historical Hungarian candidate for there. Only the T-34/85, but thats not an option for several reasons. On one hand, with the historical armament/engine/armor combination, the 43M. Turán III is just too weak and slow to be use as a tier 6 medium tank. It will be probably a “bad” tank even at tier 5 and it would require serious and very unhistorical buff for tier 6 role. But on the other hand, the historical 44M. Tas – with its 100-150mm effective frontal armor and with all the considered modules – would be definitely over powered at tier 6, it’s tier 7 material.

Therefore I separated the real life Tas into two different vehicles:

- At tier 6, we would get the tank that was assembled in the WM factory before it was destroyed, with all the historical modules that was available at the time. You could say the “real” Tas.
- And at tier 7, we would get the tank the Tas could have been, if the development would have been finished. It would get everything (stronger 80mm gun, more powerful engine, etc.) that was considered or even developed at some point during the development of the Tas, but was scrapped due to the lack of resources and time.

Both vehicles would be more or less historical, as even the tier 7 Tas would not get any completely unhistorical stuff, only considered/planned modules.

That’s it for now. From the next part, we’ll take a look at the candidates of the Hungarian tech tree.