You kids have it easy these days, with your internet tanks and plastic kits. When I was your age, back in the old country, we had to find different ways to scratch that tank itch.

“A thought on developing a remote controlled land torpedo came to me this winter, during the fighting of the Red Army with the Finnish White Guards. I thought that, in order to destroy pillboxes, bridges, anti-tank fortifications, a machine must be created with massive destructive power. A land torpedo is such a machine.

Continue reading →

Welcome to the 12th edition of Ensign’s Q&A, where you ask questions, and I answer them. The previous edition can be found here.

Q: Is there anything in Soviet archived indicating what the Soviet troops though of German tanks as far as comfort was concerned?

A: The PzIII is indicated several times as being fairly luxurious (as far as tanks go), and well liked by commanders that used them as command vehicles (once the radios have been replaced, of course).

Continue reading →

Before you guys start whining about Communist propaganda, SS asked me to do this, and The_Chieftain (WGA’s historian) put in his corrections into the list, as well as various posters of the World of Tanks NA forums. Some of these should be familiar to you, while others are a little more obscure. Still, don’t repeat them!

Myth: Belton Cooper’s book “Death Traps” is a good book about the Sherman.
Fact: Belton Cooper was a mechanic during the war, and thus lacked a good overall perspective of the Sherman’s performance. His laments about Shermans being no good against Tigers and Panthers are questionable, as his unit did not encounter Tigers and Panthers when he said it did. Furthermore, a portion of his book is dedicated to a rant about a Yankee conspiracy when it came to naming the tank, despite the fact that “Sherman” was a British nickname. The American designation was “Medium Tank M4″. To be fair, the Sherman name did make it into official documentation in 1944, but the common soldiers never used it. (Partial credit: The_Chieftain)

Continue reading →

I have briefly visited this topic for 122 mm guns specifically, but since Wargaming is adding the S-34 into the mix, I’ll start from the top.

The KV-1 was king of the battlefield, enjoying comfort that the “Queen of the Desert” could only wish for. Its powerful F-32 gun, and later ZiS-5, was capable of handling any armour the enemy could throw at it. Later on, as high velocity 75 mm guns became more common and 88 mm guns became more mobile, the armour of the tank became more of a liability than an advantage. The KV-1S shaved off some of this unnecessary armour, leaving the tank largely invincible to 50 mm guns, but making it faster and more reliable. The gun remained the same. In 1942, the ZiS-5 was enough to handle nearly any threat. The ballistically identical F-34 enjoyed the same privileges. The gun was good enough, to the point that it was the “original” gun of the first IS tank (Object 233IS).

Continue reading →

Let’s take a look at a meek tier 2 light tank, the T-26. It never had much advantage over the BT-2, and since the advent of Pom-Pom autocannons and softer tier 2 TD matchmaking, it doesn’t have much going for it. Let’s see what historical resources exist for a buff!

First, the armament. The “top” gun on the T-26 is the 45 mm 20K, based on the 45 mm model 1932. This gun was installed on the tank in 1933, but the tank remained in service for over a decade after that. Let’s see what other armament options are available.

T-26 model 1931 with 76.2 mm recoilless gun

Continue reading →

The T-60 light tank is a fairly new member of the Soviet tech tree, arriving only 2 patches ago. However, according to NoobMeter data, the tank is only in 7th place by win rate and 3rd place by OP rating. How terrible! Let’s see what resources exist to get this thing to the top of the charts, as per standard Russian Bias protocol.

Continue reading →

We’ve had a number of Buff My Tank articles here on FTR, but what about a nerfing one? During my research, I have come upon an interesting statement that, as a completely impartial guardian of history, I could not possibly keep from you. In Comrade Halepskiy’s bitching and moaning about shuffling around various 37 mm guns, 45 mm guns, and machine guns (it’s not quite as easy as right clicking on a module in your garage), he writes down an interesting phrase:

“…the [37 mm] Hotchkiss gun has poor ballistic qualities, and penetrates less armour than a machine gun with armour piercing bullets.”

The machine gun in question is the DT (Degtyaryev, tank version), a 7.62 mm machine gun. The cartridge used is similar to a Mosin, which can penetrate 15 mm of armour at 150 meters. That’s not so great by in-game standards. That means the WoT version of the gun should be completely useless, right?

Hm, guess not. Maybe then in-game machine guns will get a similar buff?

How terrible.

From reading the comments on FTR and WoT forums, it seems that some people define propaganda as anything that they disagree with. Maybe they have never seen any propaganda. To familiarize them with some, here’s a propaganda poster.

Continue reading →

In this article series, you ask me questions, and I answer them! Email your questions to tankarchives@gmail.com, and I’ll answer them here (as long as they’re within scope, of course).

Previous Q&A

Q: What was the highest caliber gun mounted on a tank (not artillery or tank destroyer)?

A: Off the top of my head, the KV-2′s 152 mm howitzer was the biggest, but that was practically an SPG anyway.

Q: Were there German plans for autoloading tanks?

A: The T-25 was supposed to have an auto-loader. SerB says that the Waffentrager E-100 was, too. Aside from that, no idea, but there were probably some obscure autoloader projects.

Q: Is there any other kind of gun that the PzII Ausf J had aside form the 2.0 cm KwK 38?

A: Nope. The PzII Ausf J was meant to be a scout tank, so improving armament over the original PzII was not a priority. The tank quickly proved inadequate for its task, and was discontinued without receiving further modernizations.

Q: Were there tanks like E-100 planned by other nations (big gun on a heavy tank)?

A: Heavy tanks fell out of favour after the end of the war, so nothing quite like that. The closest thing was the BL-10 armed IS-7 SerB talked about, but that was never built.

Q: Were there Soviet rear turreted tanks? Why were they made? How did they compare in combat?

A: The reason for putting the turret in the rear was to allow for a larger gun. The gun’s weight would not shift the center of mass too much, the length would not interfere when fighting in the city or on bumpy terrain. Several Soviet rear-turreted tanks were planned, like the A-44, Object 416, and Shashmurin’s breakthrough tank. None were ever mass produced, so it is hard to judge how well they would have performed in combat.

Q: How legit is this? 

 A: Completely legit.

Let’s take a small break from the seething masses for another Ensign’s Q&A! You can find the previous one here.

Q: What was the historical ROF of the D-25T? Was it with two-piece or one-piece ammunition?

A: The IS-2 was capable of 4-6 RPM. As far as I am aware, tests of one-piece ammunition with the D-25T were only performed on the T-44-122.

Continue reading →