Hello everyone,
it’s been a while since I posted on any topic like this one, but recently, I gave this topic some thought. Here’s a thought about the Israeli branch and its introduction into World of Tanks. Yes, I said World of Tanks – for Armored Warfare, this is not really a problem (there’s the Merkava already), but World of Tanks branch-making follows a different set of rules.
The whole question can be split into two parts:
- is it even possible to make an Israeli branch?
- will such branch be implemented?
The answer to the first question is easy enough – yes, absolutely. More than three years ago (oh god, I’m old), I made a proposal. It was really crude, but it does showcase how the branch would look like (we’re talking about a medium branch of course, any other branch becomes exponentially more difficult).
The basic setup is:
- 1948 Independence War oddities on low tiers
- Shermans in the middle
- Sho’t (Centurion), Mag’ach (Patton), Tiran (captured T-series) or even Merkava prototype on high tiers
Merkava I hear you say? Impossibru! Well… it would be those three years ago. But we are somewhere else now. The old rules don’t apply anymore to a certain extent. When it comes to timeline, we have a Type 74 prototype and the Type 64 Chinese light tank, those are fairly new. There are other factors as well – I’ll get to that. Back to Merkava – some of the prototypes might very well be suitable.
This is actually VERY important. It means that the branch has a viable, attractive Tier 10 and that is rare. Really, really rare – the remaining Tier 10 candidates are mostly paper stuff the introduction of which has to be “justified” by other means (for example, the upcoming heavy French branch – French heavies were one of the few outstanding lines left). Now, to concrete examples.
This is a tree proposal by Life_in_Black – you can find the entire thread dedicated to it here.
While I disagree with some of the choices he made, it’s the most comprehensive proposal available. Definitely check the thread I linked, it’s well worth the read. So yes, it’s possible to assemble the tree.
But will such branch be implemented?
To answer this second questions, we must look at World of Tanks as a whole in current setting and compare it to what was already developed since these first proposals appeared.
The main branches (American, German, Russian, French and British) are more or less developed and are unlikely to have other full lines to appear. Yes, I know it’s possible to build another American medium branch, but… somehow, I don’t believe that it will happen. French line is very likely finished with the French heavies. Germans can field more superheavies but after the Japanese superheavy feedback, I don’t think WG’s eager to implement another static line. Chinese tank destroyers might appear simply because Wargaming needs the Chinese market, Japanese TD’s? Unlikely. More Czechoslovak tanks? I doubt it. Sweden… we’re getting Sweden at the end of this year, that much you already know. That means that the branch that will come AFTER Sweden will be different, Sweden is neither very demanded (which is why the Czechs came first) nor has a hugely attractive market, spamming it would make no sense.
Now… about World of Tanks.
When Rita announced the World of Tanks 2.0, my first thought was World of Tanks was dead and all the resources would be pooled into the “next big thing”. I was wrong. I can’t really tell any details about it, but let’s just say I am pretty sure that WoT 2.0 will not appear this year. Or the next one. Call it a hunch.
That basically puts more pressure on World of Tanks to carry the torch while its successor is still in the making and will be for a while. Now, fixing bugs is well and good and I think that’s the right way to go, but content delivery is equally as important. Wargaming might be working on something mightblowing in the sense of new modes (how long it’s been since historical battles), but the bread and butter of new content are tanks. Based on this logic, I believe there will be at least one more full branch after this year’s Swedish one. One, maybe two.
But which branch should it be?
Well, for starters, it shouldn’t be something static. I am pretty sure Wargaming realizes the attractiveness of highly mobile vehicles. The Czechs were such a branch, the French HTs will not be slouches either and the Swedish MT branch promises high mobility as well. Furthermore, while many might disagree – I don’t think the Japanese heavies are too popular. Forget Italians, forget Poland – I doubt they’ll ever appear as full branches because Poland has a huge tier 8-10 problem and Italian branch is full of copycats. It’s possible that Italian and Polish tanks will appear as low tier semi-branches or premiums but… I don’t know. Low tiers don’t make money. High tiers do.
If I were to guess, the 2017 early branch would be the Chinese TDs (based on economy reasons) and the second branch would be… something.
Now, consider Israel. The medium branch is full of copycats, yes, but:
- so is every other branch of possible nations (*Israel blocks Italy’s jab attempt*)
- even these “copycats” are pretty iconic (Super Sherman, Sho’t Kal) (*Israel delivers a mighty uppercut, Italy’s nearly knocked out – Italy survives because lowtiers fought as well*)
- the MT branch is relatively mobile, which would be a nice counterpoint to Chinese TDs (*Italy and Israel circle each other, looking for weaknesses*)
- compared to earlier days, it seems making a new nation (crews, art etc.) is not really a problem anymore (*Italy and Israel both launch an attack, but Italy is visibly shaken*)
- no paper stuff – these things actually fought! (*aaaaaaaaaand here’s where Israel delivers the knockout blow, everything Italian above Tier 7 is either paper or obscure*)
- the vehicles are accessible (Latrun museum) and rather well documented (there are exceptions of course but overall I expect the Israeli tanks to be better documented than the Czechoslovak branch)
- they are really, really famous, there are fanclubs all over the world. Famous = more premiums sold.
- amazing premium tank potential (Zvika Greengold’s Centurion!)
Regarding the Israeli “controversy” – so what? It’s vehicles. Armored Warfare has a Merkava, nobody rioted. We even ran an article about Zvika Greengold. It’s history. As long as you stay away from politics, you’re fine.
And last but not least… there are some very fine people willing to help Wargaming with implementing the branch the way I used to help with the Czechoslovaks.
Based on the abovementioned assumptions, I think that the chance of Israel appearing in World of Tanks in 2017 is quite high. I could be wrong of course :) I am inviting you to find faults in my logic. What say you? Would you enjoy Israeli tanks in WoT – or AW for that matter?
btw: concreate examples – betonové příklady ;) jinak super článek! great that you are back!!!!!
it sure is an interesting view on things and there’s another fact that might help it being introduced sometime in the future, Yuri P. has mentioned on previous Q&As (translated to RSR) that some of the Merkavas were “acceptable” (as in didn’t have tecnhology too modern for WoT) and that such line could be built, although he also hinted to want to make a Super Sherman line for the french tech tree wich would be okay except for the last evolution (the one with the 60mm gun) since the french had nothing to do with it’s development
about being possible for 2017, there’s already the Swedish that will be introduced this year and for 2017 is sort off expected the Polish and Italian trees, then you have the ususal game performance improvements, balancing patches, etc…
add to that the missing Japanese and FAKE chinese TD lines (the chinese is already under work and I hope it will be a “SEA server only” addition because they are mostly unrealistic)
even the Swedish tree isn’t certain for 2016 since they will be working on balance 2.0, there’s also the 2nd french heavy line and the US tech tree rework (at least the medium line wil be reworked, wich will result in being “broken” once again until they finally realize they have to make several lines according to the different “general characteristics” of the US mediums, they will also release a new tier 8 heavy that is said to have armor and firepower wich will probably be a premium)
in conclusion a Israeli tech tree would have to wait until 2018 or really late 2017
Well, as I said, I don’t really expect Polish or Italian branches to appear at all. Polish market is huge, but Poland can’t build a branch, even a near-copycat one, period. A bunch of premiums, sure.
Merkava Mk.1 is perfectly fine by the way, it has super thin armor and is quite low-tech. In AW terms it’s tier 4-5 (maybe), WoT – depends purely on how they tune the soft stats, I can even imagine it on tier 9 (again, it has very, very thin armor).
Swedish tree… hmm, I think they’ll actually rush it for Christmas, but I don’t know.
there’s nothing to disagree about the Israeli tree seeming the most attractive/more complete to implement right now but it’s also true they have already said to have material for the polish and italian branches
it’s pretty much a issue of having too many things to do at the same time
1st: of all they are running sandbox simply to try and speed up the “balance 2.0″, it could get delayed and put them under “stress”
2nd: they have also mentioned a new game mode on the normandy map (if I’m not mistaken)
3rd: they are still working on some persistent bugs (like invisible shots or map “black-holes”, among others)
4th: they are still gathering info on the swedish tree
5th: US medium line rework, wich is already in “development”; (I hope they “fix” the gameplay, jumping from well protected tank to mobile tank to armored tank to mobile once again and finaly returning to well protected tank is a pain, since it’s possible to separate the 2 different playstyles in 2 different lines and make at least another medium line)
since I know you do understand mistakes can and probably will be made the schedule might change and make 2017 a bit less realistic for a possible addition of the israeli tech tree, and of course don’t forget some more “exotic” branches like the swiss (wich would be 100% original on the top tiers, wich you yourself said are the most important for them since it makes money)
Any possibility for Yugoslavian branch? I’d love to see that..
Technically it seems possible, but lot of Soviet-related tanks in the tree: http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/550734-branches-de-chars-et-nations-potentielles-pour-wot/page__pid__12028818#entry12028818
The meds in tiers 8 to 10 are the most interesting ones.
The Swiss tree is another possibility ;-)
No copycat excepted on the first tiers, possibility of 3-4 branches, attractive TX, possibility of some premium tanks.
A lot of Swiss tanks are paper/quite obscure.
Paper, not really. Nearly none of them are, excepted the recent Laupen tanks recently discovered by Mizutayio.
Lot of prototypes, yes, but they were extensively tested by the Swiss army, and the upper tiers of the central branch (meds) were in service. It is clearly equivalent to the French tree when it was released.
And many prototypes are still in museums.
There is a lot of obscure and unpublished material. And differentiating between some tank models is down to minor details that don’t affect game play. resulting in copy pastes. Which WG really tries to avoid at all costs.
Not worse than in the French tree and that what was found in the French archives, and not worse than the Israeli tree.
Before WoT, who heard of the BC25t? Who knew of the story of the AMX M4 and AMX 50, their linkage with the Lorraine 40t and the Somua SM?
And in term of gameplay, consider the branch going from the AMX 12t to the BC25t, or to the whole Japanese heavy line …
The other problem with Switzerland though, is that while some people have heard of the Panzer 68, it definitely isn’t iconic. On the other hand, tanks like the S-tank and Merkava are both very iconic, and the Merkava has the added bonus of having seen combat, something that very few tier 10 vehicles can claim. Also, the differences between the Panzer 58, Panzer 61, and Panzer 68 are quite minimal in game terms, so it is sort of copy and paste. While the Israeli tree would have lots of copy pastes in the forms of Shermans, and others, the tanks were not only modified by Israel, but also saw combat. Plus they’re quite well known in all of the modeling and tank history circles, which means that even people who don’t normally game online will pay attention to World of Tanks if they’re implemented. Switzerland just can’t compete in terms of popularity sadly.
The authors of the Swiss tree(s) suggested to only include the Panzer 58 and the Panzer 68, and keep the Panzer 61 as a reward premium, because of its similarities with the two other ones.
What i wanted to say since the beginning is that the Swiss tree is much more complete and has far less clones than other nations like Spain, Italy, Poland or Yugoslavia, and has a potential equivalent in term of tanks at least to the current French tree.
With the Sweden and Israel, it is a tree that has definitively potential and would deserve to be included.
YES! Always love to have Israel tanks in WoT.
And Merkava MK1 fits too? Thats even more good news.
Yes. Merkava Mk.1 is quite low-tech.
“Armored Warfare, this is not really a problem (there’s the Merkava already)”
Well …. problem (for me) is, that is a prem tank, sadly. So currently, for me, you don’t have any Israeli tank in the game (premium tanks do not exist for me and i am ignoring them). Just my input on that.
There will be a non-premium Merkava of course. Probably more than one.
Glad to see you writing articles about such a subject, altough you are a at AW
And lots of subjective interpretation here again!! GG!
TD branch of this tree is great no matter what,
T-34-100 is an Egyptian tank
T-55-122 and T 55-130 are not TD,
these are T-chassis 55 on which is mounted directly above
a 122mm gun D-30 or D-46 130mm
http://img110.xooimage.com/files/a/a/e/32500_600_zpsirh1xwmz-4ee6beb.jpg
that are not TD but artys, in addition to not be powerful enough to tier VIII and IX
and then the TX, the Koksan!
is a North Korean artillery dating back to 1978 and has provided only iran,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koksan?oldid=348519766
not only it has nothing to do with TD tier X,
it has nothing to do in the nation of israel,
and it has nothing to do on WOT !!!
That’s cool to reply without even reading the thread in question: http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/426870-an-israeli-tech-tree-in-world-of-tanks/
The TD branch correspond to Panarab tanks captured by Israel during the 6 Days War: http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/426870-an-israeli-tech-tree-in-world-of-tanks/page__st__20__pid__8669576#entry8669576
That allows to introduce in WoT these tanks in a gameplay different from the Soviet meds they are based on.
If you had actually read through my thread over on the forums, you’d have realized that I created an alternative TD branch that didn’t have the Koksan artillery piece. But the fact you can’t even tell the TD branch is an “Arab” branch, means you haven’t read through the thread at all. Furthermore, yes, the Lebanese T-55 with the 122mm D-30, and the Iraqi T-55 with the 130mm M-46 are both technically artillery pieces in, as is the Koksan (Iraq captured several Koksans from Iran during the Iran-Iraq War), they’re useless in an artillery line in WoT, especially as Israel has no trouble making an artillery line all on their own. So making them TDs makes the most sense for getting these unique vehicles into the game. And to be honest, the TD line could be scrapped, and the Sherman AMX and Egyptian T-34/100 could become tier 7 and 8 mediums leading to the Tiran 4/5 and Samovar. Which again, a sensible person would have realized before flying off the handle on a blog about something they clearly have little knowledge on.
Oh man, you sent me down the comment war rabbit hole between sp15 and Life_In_Black.
What do you think about the Merkava being a heavy though?
Do you think it’s better than it being a medium?
I personally think the Merkava would fit better as a medium than a heavy because retraining crews at tier VIII to a completely different class is a bit annoying. The French line is already annoying enough (which makes me wonder about the Swedish branch), and makes it not very friendly to new-ish players. Only reason I can get away with the French line is a couple of extra crews I accumulate over thousands of battles.
I believe it was mentioned that the tier VIII Merkava might mount the L7, which I am doubting: unless you completely ruin the L7 by giving it horrible stats and banning the use of high-pen APDS, it’d not fit. What’s wrong with the 20 pdr anyway? Give it the Type B, with high DPM and it would be another use for the Type B other than that gun everyone in the Centurion 7/1 has to grind through.
If the Merkava is made a medium, a role it could fit quite well, it means there’s almost no chance whatsoever of getting any other tank branch alongside it. So no Sho’t Kal, no Magach,and no Tirans or Samovar, either. Furthermore, if it’s made a medium, there wouldn’t be a tier 8 Merkava variant either, as the tier 8 medium would be the Sherman M-51.
As for giving the tier 8 Merkava variant the 105mm L7, on a tier 8 it would be perfectly fine. I don’t think anyone would complain about the Caernarvon getting the 105mm L7, as the tank is quite mediocre as it is with that same 20-pdr B-barrel. In addition, the vehicle used the reverse gear of the original Centurion engine, the 650hp Meteor, to move forward. Meaning the top speed, is going to be quite bad. So it’s going to be a big, slow, and heavy vehicle, that is going to need something like the 105mm L7 to make it work. And given the AMX 65t appears to be a tier 8 heavy with the same tier 10 120mm that the AMX 50B gets, there is precedent for such a thing too.
Ah, I see, for the sake of the other mediums too, the Merkava would need to be a heavy. I guess three medium lines might be a bit excessive for a new nation.
I knew the Merkava used off-the-shelf spare Centurion and Patton parts, but I didn’t realise the tier VIII prototype would be that slow. I thought it would have the mobility of a Centurion. If it’s reverse gear, its max speed would be in the 20kmph range, unless they really strain the gearbox. Do you know if they put the transmission backwards? i.e. whether it moves faster backwards than forward.
As for the 20pdr, I can see it being lacking, I like it though, it has great handling. I didn’t like it in the Centurion 7/1, it would need an alpha buff similar to how the T-54 gets an alpha buff while keeping the same calibre for me to like it. I do agree the Caernarvon would be more respected if it had the L7 though, it even mounts the Action X turret already!
Yeah, three medium lines is a bit much, as despite the Sho’t Kal and Magach both being iconic and well known as being used by Israel, we’re unlikely to see them unless Wargaming really wants to tap into the market of Israeli modelers and fans, as the tanks are famous. But if the Merkava is made a heavy, including a true medium branch like that of the Tiran 4/5 at tier 9 and Samovar at tier 10 becomes much more doable, and despite people not liking clones, T-54/55 variants are always popular. So if the Merkava is a medium, only count on one Israeli branch, whereas if it’s a heavy, the possibility of getting two branches, medium and heavy, is much more likely. Plus, the Arab TD line can be scrapped and the Sherman AMX and Egyptian T-34/100 can be the tier 7 and 8 medium tanks of that “Soviet” branch instead. So there is some flexibility there.
Also, the tier 8 “Mule” was just a reversed and widened Centurion chassis with the turret mounted at the rear solely as a counterweight. So nothing was changed about the engine, and it most likely would have gone faster backwards because of this, much like the Archer. I could see it keeping this feature in-game, but I can also see Wargaming buffing it up to 30-35km/h in order to make it more mobile. So that being said, as a heavy with something like the 105mm L7, it becomes a nasty tank to face, even if the armor isn’t the greatest as it was only given enough armor to resemble the Merkava mockup. Although the ass of the tank would troll people quite well since the rear would have the same armor as the Centurion 7/1 has on the front. So yeah, it would function sort of like a rear-turreted Caernarvon that trades some of its gun depression and mobility for the use of the 105mm L7.
“You want the role of armor to become more important?” “Yea! Please give us a gun on a T8 HT that has more pen then the T34 which makes any sort of armor useless on that tier already!”
105 mm L7 is too much for a T8 heavy, period.
I was also thinking this, but they could of course ruin the L7 and give it AP for some reason, and ban APDS. They could also make the handling horrible, and just make it not an L7 anymore.
They are introducing a new tier VIII HT with the AMX50B’s 120mm though, which is why I think it’s a valid point. That gun has 257mm pen or so. The L7 still has higher pen, but given some horrible AP rounds with 230mm pen or something, they could fit it in tier VIII.