the following picture actually shows the Sherman called “Fury” – not the movie one however, the real one. It’s from an older French publication (didn’t get the name, sorry) and it shows the M4 Sherman tank “Fury”, participating in the operation Cobra (the offensive in Normandy, following the D-Day landings) as a part of the 3rd Armored Division. Note the additional armored plates welded to the side hull and turret, protecting the tank weakspots and crewmembers.
Unfortunately, absolutely nothing new today, apart the apparent issues with Belarus and Russia for Wargaming. How much impact will that have – well, that remains yet to be seen. But considering it’s the end of the year and it’s Christmas soon, I don’t think we’ll see any breaking news in the following days. Oh well, gonna keep checking anyway.
But the Maus armor is slightly fucked on the 9.5 test, so we got that going for us, which is nasty:
after the issue with the falling ruble, Wargaming RU has another problem. Belarus (the “home” country of Wargaming) decided to impose a new 30 percent tax on purchases of foreign currency (which does concern the WoT prices, as they are in USD). This tax is tied to the situation of Russian ruble, which is closely tied to the currency of Belarus. In effect, everything could become 30 percent more expensive for Belarusian players (it’s possible that WG will pay this tax from its profits without making stuff more expensive, but… you know how it is).
As “added bonus”, there are issues in Belarus with internet banking and some payment methods were temporarily disabled for the users in Belarus.
I guess it’s time to start focusing on EU and US market without just milking it, Wargaming… so, about that EU tree in December 2015…
another tier 5 medium tank appeared on the supertest – this time an American one, the M4 Improved. While we wait for the leaked photos and statistics, let’s have a look at the history of this vehicle (I sure hope it is the right one, but I think so).
At this point, some of the old FTR readers might remember that they saw this tank before. That’s right – it was actually amongst the huge batch of vehicles, whose descriptions and icons were leaked a year and a half or so ago. Naturally, that is no longer valid – this is the the HD version.
The initial request for an improved version of the Sherman was made as early as December 1941. A day after the infamous Pearl Harbor attack, Aberdeen was instructed to propose an improved Sherman version with better armor and mobility. Aberdeen complied and the proposal was submitted on 13.3.1942. The vehicle proposal had following characteristics:
- frontal armor remained the same except for the lower part, which was sharply angled instead of rounded, providing better protection equivalent to 63,5mm of armor, frontal armor is sloped 60 degrees from horizontal
- thickness of rear armor increased to 50,8mm
- turret was welded from rolled plates due to expect shortage in foundry capacity
- armament was standard 75mm M3 gun
- to improve mobility, new Wright G200 engine, producing 640 horsepower was proposed
- in order to keep the ground pressure the same (since the powerplant and the armor weighed more), Aberdeen proposed to utilize a modified M6 heavy tank suspension (HVSS type)
- the vehicle was weigh 37,92 tons and maximum speed of 56 km/h
This vehicle was never put into production, as further development of several components was required. Detroit Arsenal then produced another proposal of the modified Sherman of different properties, but that’s a story for another time. Unless it’s the Detroit version in WoT, but that would be too strong for tier 6.
Basically, what we have here is a mobile Sherman with better armor, but stock gun.
Source: R.P.Hunnicutt – History of the American medium tank (vol.1 – Sherman)
I am sure the story of Mad Jack Churchill in the Russian magazine is interesting and all that (Listy wrote about him some time ago), but we all know what drew most attention – Ola’s photosession. Well, without further ado, the pics, ripped from the magazine, courtesy of Roman J.
you probably heard of the upcoming Armored Warfare game. For those, who have not – well, it’s basically World of Tanks, but with modern tanks. Currently, it’s in the alpha stage of development, with some footage released (looking at you, World of Warships) and with developer updates coming out now and then. The developers recently released a new video, where they describe the way AW is moving – let’s have a look at it and compare it with World of Tanks.
Okay, here are the basics. No point in sugarcoating it. It’s a WoT clone. But before you go all “fuck that” – the mechanics are the same (WoT was taken as development baseline), but the declared aim of the developers is to actually build a game without the issues, that currently plague WoT – specifically high RNG, disappearing tanks, current model of artillery and matchmaking. Whether they will succeed, well, that is a real question, isn’t it.
Unlike WoT, AW actually has a narrative. Basically, it’s some sort of cyberpunk backstory, where you play as a PMC (mercenary armored company), getting hired by various people. The developers are actually American (Obsidian Entertainment) and they have previous experience with RPG’s, so this might actually turn out really nicely. There’s also the goal of releasing the game with a PvE story mode, something WoT is lacking for obvious reasons (and, seeing the “historical battles” fiasco, probably will for a while more). As a bonus, in this sense, battles of T-55′s versus Abrams tanks are completely possible to fit into a narrative (unlike WoT’s Maus vs STB-1).
remember the “Let’s Battle” web magazine, that we had on EU server? Last issue came about a year ago and after that, it was thought discontinued (let’s face it, it was not exactly the best thing WG ever produced), but now, a new issue appeared… in Russian. Given the content, it’s specifically a Russian edition and it’s unlikely there will be a translated version.
Inside:
- Mad Jack Churchill’s story (a guy using a longbow in WW2)
- “intrigues” – the fight for contracts in German tank industry
- the future of Strongholds with their developer
- Olga Sergeevna photosession
and some other crap. It’s still in mobile-only format (ohgodwhy) tho. From the stronghold article (courtesy of maiorboltach), some statistics:
- on RU server, there are 100+ thousand strongholds with 300+ thousand buildings
- the most popular building is “finance department” (SS: how is it in English? Not sure)
- it took a year to develop the mode
- the game mode is bassed on a board game for 3-6 players with dices
- at first, it was planned to give strongholds only to the largest clans
- there were several variants of the visualisation and UI considered
I haven’t seen the magazine myself (apparently it’s not possible to install it on PC), but if you know how to do that or are running a mobile device, you can get it via GooglePlay, App Store or Amazon.
