Hello everyone,

I recently recieved a message, reminding me of this little gem. It’s been two years since Overlord reposted this (by then highly controversial) take on the German tree, originally posted by Slava Makarov I think. In case you don’t remember Overlord or are too new a player to remember him, he was a developer of World of Tanks on EU server and in his time (think early 2012), he ran a huge thread, where you actually could – imagine that – ask a real developer anything and he answered, just like Storm and SerB did on RU forums. It was a glorious time for WoT: the game was new and fresh, the EU office was not filled with PR clowns. Overlord’s unfortunate departure to other projects was one of the defining moments in creating FTR, because at that point, with the EU community being deprived of information, I started translating from Russian to first Czech, then English. Or was it vice versa? Can’t remember.

In any case, Overlord reposted this tree on his blog (which is active until this day, do follow it for some interesting info!)

As you can see, the tree was highly controversial, because the original post actually suggested that a lot of vehicles would be downtiered with losing their top unhistorical guns. That this approach proved to be correct was shown only later on, with some of these changes eventually really happening (remember how VK3001 lost the Vaderturm?). Another interesting moment is the Maus on tier 9 (with even worse mobility than the current tier 10 one) and Maus II on tier 10. In case you are wondering – Maus II project actually existed, it was an alternative turret project (described here).

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Hello everyone,

you all probably know about the Tobruk historical battle, that came in 9.1. Originally, however, the patch brought two historical battles – that one and the one called Bryansk. Russian server, where the historical battles are more popular than on the EU server, got both, EU got only one, because it was felt by Wargaming that too few people are interested in HB’s to actually split the HB queues between too battles and so, only one was introduced, with the other one probably coming later.

Here’s a bit of history behind it, as translated from the Russian portal.

In May 1942, the forces of the Red Army suffered a serious defeat at Kharkov. After that, OKH (German high command) made new plans for the followup operations in the southern part of the eastern front. The general goal of these operation was the final destruction of the Soviet armies of the South-Western Front and Bryansk Front, followed by a dash to river Volga and Caucasus.

One of the planned Germans operation was called “Blau”. The army that was to participate in it was called Army Group “Weichs”. The task of the Group was to attack Kursk and Voronezh. After that, the Group was to turn towards Kantemirovka to participate in the encirclement of the armies of the South-Western Front.

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Thanks to WARLOCK360100

Hello everyone,

game portal MMOBomb made an interview with Gareth Luke, senior producer of World of Warships. Here it is, in case you are interested in this sort of stuff.

Hello everyone,

just a reminder – today, from 15:00 BST (16:00 CEST), Listy is organizing a Tobruk historical battle event. Plenty of people will be playing historical battles on EU1 server, including me and Jingles. Come join us for some hot desert sun action :)

Ehm… that came out wrong…

Anyway, if you are into trying the Tobruk HB, 16:00 CEST it is on EU1.

Hello everyone,

those of you, who follow FTR for longer and/or are interested in the German war industry are probably aware of the Sturmpanzer Bär project, a superheavy assault gun, whose development was however cancelled in favour of what would later become the Sturmmörser Tiger, or – as you know it – the Sturmtiger. It is certainly the best known “bear” out there, but there was one more self-propelled gun project, bearing the same name out there, a Soviet one..

As you also know from World of Tanks, the Soviets had a large number of various heavy self-propelled guns. One of the later ones whas the one pictured above, the heavy SPG called “Medved” (“bear”). It was designed right before the end of the war (Spring 1945) by the combined effort of three design bureaus: the UZTM (Uralmash), No.100 Plant and No.9 plant. The plan was to create a long-range rapid-fire artillery vehicle, the main purpose of which would be rapid artillery fire missions and counter-battery fire. This design was a part of the “Medved” program and for some time, it had quite a high priority.

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Hello everyone,

yesterday, the new “Light T-54″ (I will call it LT-54 in this article) tier 8 premium medium tank was unveiled and it was only natural people immediately started speculating. Will it be another Type 59? Will it be overpowered for a premium tank? Or will it disappear into the pit of mediocrity like the T-34-3? Well, let’s have a look at both.

Keep in mind that the supertester statistics leaked are preliminary, which means they can (and probably will) change.

The Armor

Here are both armor schematics of the vehicles. Type 59:

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Source: wot-news.com

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Source: VK Wotleaks community

Hello everyone,

this is the upcoming tier 8 Soviet premium medium tank, the “light T-54″. Right now it’s being supertested on the test. Compared to regular T-54, it has lighter armor. Currently, its ETA is unknown (possibly 9.3). The description says:

“A project of the lighter variant of the T-54 medium tank. The work on this vehicle began in May 1949. It was proposed that this vehicle, thanks to its increased terrain passability, could be used for tasks, in which the use of the regular serial T-54 tanks was not practical. While the project was being developed, the T-54 Model 1949 was finished and mass-produced and there was no more need for the lighter medium tank.”

Statistics:

Gun: D-10T
Penetration: 175
Damage: 250
Reloadtime: 8,24s (this is most likely with 100 percent crew and such)
Aim time: 2,7s
Accuracy: 0,4
Gun depression: -5 deg

Weight: 30,79 tons
Engine power: 520hp
Power-to-weight: 16,89
Hull traverse rate: 44 deg/s
Ground resistance: 0,959/1,151/1,918

Viewrange: 385m
Radio range: 800m
Battletiers: 8,9,10 (regular tier 8 medium MM)
Hitpoints: 1300

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