Attack of the Clones

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Hello everyone,

you might have noticed that yesterday, we recieved yet another copy of the T-54, this time in the German tree (I wonder if we’ll ever get an American T-54 clone as well). On one hand, it’s a solid tier 9 reward tank and – let’s face it, the model is beautiful, all that I am missing are the external fuel tanks, but I can see why developers didn’t add them (they wouldn’t be a part of the hitzone and people would be confused: “why the hell does it not catch on fire, when I am firing at his fuel tanks”). Another neat part is that according to the source of the leaks, developers are even making the East German crest on the tank, just like the Leopard has a Bundeswehr one. I do not understand the designation too well – I mean, T-55 NVA DDR? In English, NVA almost always refers to the army of North Vietnam and I can already see how people will be confused (“we are having a Vietnamese T-55 in German tree?”). Why not Kampfpanzer T-55 or even Kpz T 55 (without the dash), that’s how the vehicle was designated in some German sources and books?

t55_1

On the other hand, this vehicle, despite having somewhat different characteristics, is a clone of the T-54. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing?

Personally, I don’t mind. I mean… yes, this tank existed and was in service, thanks god it didn’t get to fight anyone though. Ironically, this vehicle, deployed by the East German army (NVA), was not manufactured in Germany, it was imported from Czechoslovakia (and partially Poland). Congratulations, another Czechoslovak vehicle fighting in German colours :) Hell, the German vehicles even fired indigenous Czechoslovak ammunition, not the Soviet one (specifically, the 100-JprSv HEAT shells with cca 300mm penetration).

As I wrote, I don’t mind. I personally think T-54/55 are some of the most beautiful tanks ever made and having one in the German tree? Why not. There is nothing inherently bad in having multiple copies of one tank in the game, it adds nothing negative to the game, apart from somewhat less diversity, but even that is a minor issue, considering this will not be a tier 8 premium tank and so we do not have to fear floods of T-55A tanks in battles

All jokes aside however, there is one thing that I hate about that and it’s the Wargaming inconsistency and hypocrisy. On one hand, the developers are moaning about the EU tree “filled with clones” and on the other hand, they introduce TWO T-54 clones in space of one month?

And that goes for the T28 Concept (upcoming tier 7 US TD apparently) – on one hand, developers are not happy with fake tanks to the point of actively trying to replace them, on the other hand, they introduce a completely fabricated vehicle with fake statistics based on one wooden mockup, that wasn’t even seriously considered?

Seeing how easy it is for them to break their own rules, the EU tree should be a piece of cake. In any case however, this inconsistency is something that really brings them down in my eyes. Oh well, here’s to another version of the T-54, may many players get it and enjoy it!

63 thoughts on “Attack of the Clones”

  2. NVA means Nationale Volksarmee. Its german. in english: National People’s Army. that was the army from East Germany during the Cold War.

    Its the T55 because the russians controlled east germany (DDR)

        • Exactly.

          NVA is the North Vietnamese Army. Damn near fought them. Joined up one year too late.

            • That analogy made me hurt. How can anyone confuse a single tank named “IS-3″ (for example, any other one would work as well) with a group of people calling themselves ISIL(or ISIS in some countries)?
              If you buy RAM, do you think it was made by the GDR because you buy “DDR” RAM?
              The NVA (the vietnam one, since we are speaking english here afaik) did have T-55s and used them in combat. They’re probably more famous for their T-55s than the GDR army.

    • Yea because in a ww2 game having post war countries (DDR) make lot of sense….

      Russian bias anyone?

      • you’re retarded. This game is about mid-20th century armored warfare. It was never said to be limited in WW2 warfare.

        • Actually, this game is about tanks… just that, nothing more and nothing less. There is no time frame and the only limitations on which tanks are acceptable or not is technology.

          No smooth-bores and no composite armor and nothing that came after it.

          Just that.

          • “World of Tanks is a team-based massively multiplayer online game dedicated to armored warfare in the mid-20th century.”
            it does have more limits then the ones you said, and i took it from their website
            http://worldoftanks.com/game/

      • As others have said, this is not a WW2 game. But by your logic, how is it Russian bias that the Russian tree has post war tanks, if EVERY NATION has a post war tank?

  3. I am only annoyed because of the hypocrisy.

    We say we want a JagdMaus, WG tells us it will be too similar to JagdPanzer E-100 (no it wont, if we use a long 128 or 150mm gun…)…

    And the next patch they give us Object 140… and then 430… and now another T-54/55…

    Complete hypocrisy!

  4. You need to be Russian to see the difference between the tanks and appreciate their individuality.

  6. I need soviet premium, for crew training :( I have only Matilda for it.
    Germans: PZ S35, T-25, PZ-IV, Panther M10, and come Panther 88 and now T-55A

  7. I’m somewhat dissapointed. Mass produced vehicles of other (eu) nations that fought in the ww2 (main WoT timeframe) are being constantly postponed, whereas it wasn’t hard to create the chinese cloning facilities. The same goes for this t54 version. Though it’s pretty darn good, but still…

    • I think most of the EU tree hang ups are in the higher tiers, like 8 and up finding good candidates. Although those mid tiers in that tree are going to be glorious.

  9. There’s nothing wrong with clones (as long as they’re russian)
    Meanwhile we’re gonna continue cutting branches from other nations because one tank in the middle was kind of but not really a clone so we cant add in the other 4.

  10. SS, as far as you know, will the NVA T-55 be a reward that can be achieved by normal players, too (meaning no CW exclusive reward)?

    Thanks.

  11. If the Gaijin guys can create an entire German tree from four German tank, then it fits smoothly :D

    • “there is nothing inherently bad in having multiple copies of one tank in the game, it adds nothing negative to the game, apart from somewhat less diversity ”
      part of the reason I don’t see why he dogs on Warthunder’s tech tree so much.

  12. >and on the other hand, they introduce TWO T-54 clones in space of one month

    What about the Chinese tree. :D

    And yeah, this NVA DDR name is obviously a placeholder and it will be replaced in release version.

    • the chinese ones play completely differently (-3 gun depression, high pen/dmg 122mm guns) so theyre fine

  14. I’m annoyed because I want it in my garage. I don’t have time for clan wars currently and I doubt that I am even skilled enough to earn one if I did. Also do don’t have time to run a ton of battles to get any kind of reward tank.

    I wouldn’t mind buying a new crew trainer though. But they aren’t offering any for sale.

  15. This tank is wonderful, and as a german tank collector I WANT IT.

    I had to pass the second campaign because of work and university (and thank god the vk72 will be available with another kind of mission), but now I’m settled and ready to play any event/cw/campaign/mission/random stuff to get this prize tank.

    I know it is extremely premature SS, but do you have any idea how it will be given to players?

  16. The only difference between a T-54 and T-55 is the T-55 is NBC capable. So unless nukes are coming to WoT, IMO this is a waste of resources. To me this seems silly that WG wants to kick out another T-54 variant for the same tank stats. They must be running out of ideas for CW rewards

        • Exactly. The in-game T-54 as it is has the best features of all variants of the T-54 and some of the T-55 variants, with virtually none of the downsides.

    • The T-55 also had a rotating turret floor and some other minor improvements over the production T-54 it replaced.

  17. lol @ “it’s not a tier 8 vehicle”. Well, fuck the tier 9 battles are already flooded with normal T-54s.

    World of T-54s here we come. And yes I do mind. I like variety more than battles filled with “Russian” random bouncers with their precious 330 HEAT shells.

    • Most of the other nations mediums have better or at least comparable HEAT at T9 and more damage per shell so I don’t see why you’re crying about the Russian 100mm HEAT shells.

      • Yeah, sure. Let’s see here. M46 Patton has 218 AP penetration and 265 APCR, that’s +47 pen. E50 has 220 AP and 270 APCR, that’s +50 pen. T-54 has 201 AP and 330 HEAT, that’s +129 pen.

        Not to mention that tanks with high penetration as their strong point like PTA gets the same gold shell as T-54. Yeah, seems legit. T-54 is supposed to have low penetration due to its combined armor, mobility and gun handling, but nope.

        Where the fuck are your logic and brains?

  19. It’s always the same with Wargaming. They’ll shaft the Germans out of “similar” tier 10′s or 9′s (Leo Type B, JagdMaus, although the latter I dunno about how historical or not), they’ll shaft the EU out of numerous tanks, and they’ll shaft the British out of the FV4005, Vickers MBT Mk3 and numerous light tanks/tank destroyers (mostly tanks that actually existed!) and yet when it comes to Russian tanks and their foreign derivitives they’ll move heaven and earth to get one that has a 1mm difference in the height of the Commander’s fold up seat.

    This double standard to just favour their own likes is really draining me from the hope of the future of the game. So many amazing tanks are getting “scrapped” (The FV4005 the most notable recent example) to not be put in while it’s rapidly turning into World of T-54′s. We’ve already got, what, 10 of them in game or now planned? Now they want more?

    • the british are getting the chieftain of all things so stop whining (and the centurion action x)

  20. Really hope this doesn’t become a CW/Stronghold reward tank; be nice if us “casuals” who play primarily random/platoon games had a chance at it. Imagine the mission, whatever it is, will be tough… but I might just give it a go, depending. I covet one of these in my garage massively.

  24. If we keep getting T-54 clones, why can’t we have another British doom cannon/Death Star?

  25. “all that I am missing are the external fuel tanks, but I can see why developers didn’t add them (they wouldn’t be a part of the hitzone and people would be confused: “why the hell does it not catch on fire, when I am firing at his fuel tanks”)”

    When has this ever mattered before? A great number of Soviet vehicles and several British vehicles already have them.

    “And that goes for the T28 Concept (upcoming tier 7 US TD apparently) – on one hand, developers are not happy with fake tanks to the point of actively trying to replace them, on the other hand, they introduce a completely fabricated vehicle with fake statistics based on one wooden mockup, that wasn’t even seriously considered?”

    After the WTF E100, a tank based on nothing more than a wooden mockup and some vague specifications seems pretty legit, really.

  26. They are just lazy to make new models and are just c/p as much as possible similar tanks until they ran out of them. You said yourself that they admited this to be true with UK TD line where they could implement some other TDs and they still went with the AT line as far as possible simply because it was easy to make due to very similar tanks(much less parts to model etc)

  27. I understand the reason behind the designation, as well as the fact that people would assume that NVA means North Vietnamese Army, though in this case it stands for “Nationale Volksarmy”, or something like that). It’d make more sense just to call it the T-55 DDR.

    While I’m a bit annoyed with yet another T-54 variant/knock-off in the game, I suppose in this case it’s acceptable as a means to represent East Germany, since we have the Indien-Panzer, Leopard Prototype A, Leopard 1 and RU 251 to represent West Germany.

    On the other hand, this wouldn’t be my first choice of a vehicle to add to the game for Germany. THAT would be the Kanonenjagdpanzer, which WG said repeatedly that they won’t add, even though it should be no trouble to balance at tier 8, since it has a tier 6 TD’s armor with what basically amounts to the 90 mm gun currently on the Indien-Panzer as its main weapon…okay maybe not that gun exactly, but that’s basically how it would work in the game.

    • Kanonenjagdpanzer was a West German project like the Leopard 1 and the RU 251. This vehicle is representing East Germany and I personally think more of the Leopard project when I think of cold war West German designs and not so much the Kanonenjagdpanzer. Although getting some of the test bed designs for the Europanzer into the German and French trees could be fun.

  28. “on one hand, developers are not happy with fake tanks to the point of actively trying to replace them, ”

    SS, once upon a time you mentioned in one QA that they are considering removal of german tier IX HT “vk4002b” I think.(the one that with rear mounted turret) – seriously ? I mean, this tank isnt complete fake, is it ?
    What’s the problem with that thing ? The fact turret is rear mounted makes it kinda unique vehicle.. how many of these do we have after fv215b removal ? none I think if I dont count TDs…
    They are replacing it with maus protoype… seriously? so one semi-fake tank for another ?
    Even the real Maus was kind of prototype.. no serial production apart from two pieces for testing purposes…