Thanks to WARLOCK360100 for this one.

Hello everyone,

according to this article, Wargaming (specifically Viktor Kislyi) announced at the Tokyo Game Show 2014 that Wargaming (World of Warships) would cooperate with the creators of anime called Arpeggio Blue Steel, which is apparently warship-themed. Tried to check on the story of the anime and it makes no sense to me, so I guess it’s an attempt to make specifically the Japanese players interested.

Well, at least they are doing the advertising right:

Hello everyone,

here are the pictures of a very old map – and by very old I mean more than two years back. It was called Savannah and it never made it even to the open test server. The reason for that was that the developers considered the map too open and without cover – the artillery dominated on it.

Savannah was one of four maps, that were “leaked” around March 2012. The other maps of the batch were Mexico, Munich and South Coast. Munich and South Coast eventually made it to the game (Munich is now called Widepark), Mexico and Savannah did not. Below are the screenies of Savannah and Mexico. Too bad – now that arty was nerfed big time, I think it might be time to have a look at those maps again :)

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Hello everyone,

you might have already heard of the Extra Credits Youtube show. It’s actually a really great show I like a lot, even though I sometimes disagree with some of their ideas. I think it was Vallter, who actually introduced me to this show and I am grateful for that. Anyway, here’s one part that you should find interesting. Go ahead, watch it. I’ll continue after you do.

So, now, you know the reason why there are no player-to-player ingame transactions in World of Tanks of any sort. By not introducing them, the developers essentially bypassed a whole lot of trouble, one of the biggest being raging inflation. Bethesda with Elder Scrolls Online went the same direction by the way, allowing auction houses to work only within guilds, removing the worst predatory practices, that appeared in World of Warcraft over the years by the “peer pressure” (players are much less likely to attempt to cheat their percieved guildmates).

In World of Tanks, the economy is completely closed, which means that the developers have complete control over its flow. Various elements of the economy, requiring both credits and gold, are introduced to keep the inflation in check. And yes, there is an inflation.

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Hello everyone,

from RU server – the Chaffee Race Footage.

The mode is apparently 3vs3 Chaffee race (special fast Chaffee Sport). It takes place on completely reworked Port map. There are various obstacles, such as jumping ledges, exploding barrels and such. It ends with a very fast base capture it seems.

Hello everyone,

as a part of the “Remember Everything” series of videos, WG RU makes interviews with soldiers (not only tankers), who survived WW2 and are willing to share their experiences. Naturally, these videos are… let’s say written with Russian audience in mind, but nevertheless, they are very interesting.

In this video, Ismagil Nigmatovich Galiullin (quite an unusual name), former tank driver in WW2 tells the story of him becoming a tank driver and of defeating a Tiger tank by ramming it. There are English subtitles, you can enable those.

Hello everyone,

apparently, Wargaming EU will be doing an “Ask Me Anything” session today from 19:30 to 21:00 CEST (GMT +2) on the Reddit subforum. So, if you are interested in this kind of thing, go ahead.

The bad news is, unlike last time when we had Evilly, there is nobody from WG RU represented there, so the replies will likely be… limited. Personally, I wouldn’t really even know what to ask, but I would suggest – instead of asking “when” and “if”, trying to ask “why”.

Hello everyone,

Wargaming just published the Chaffee race video. We of course knew about it earlier from the leaks, but it’s nice to see they were correct :) The event will apparently start on 29.9.2014

Hello everyone,

today, we are going to talk about one vehicle, that could eventually appear in the game as “EU tree” tier 10 artillery. As you probably know, Czechoslovak branches are planned within that tree and every tree has to come with at least one artillery branch. What you might however not know is that of all the potential nations of the EU tree, there are only two, that can build a complete tier 2 to 10 artillery branches: Czechoslovakia and Sweden.

This is obviously the Czechoslovak candidate. Let’s have a look at it in more details.

Between 1946 and 1948, numerous (perhaps more than a dozen) various self-propelled gun projects were developed for the newly reformed Czechoslovak army. The exact numbers are not known and likely never will, as a part of the archive in Prague became flooded at some point and many precious documents were lost. What remains are the scraps of information, that take painstaking effort to piece together.

One of the challenges the Czechoslovak army faced was “what to do with all that collected German stuff” – during the war, Czechoslovak territory became a major strategic location, when it came to tank production (Jagdpanzer 38t and its variants, Marder, Grille, Sturmpanzer IV and others), but also repair. That meant that after the war, large amounts of German vehicles were recovered – either in state of repair from various workshops, or scattered around the countryside. Some the army got rid of immediately (Tiger and Tiger II tanks) because keeping them would be pointless (heavy, unreliable, no spare parts), some got pressed into service (Panzer IV, Hummel, Jagdpanzer 38t and others in limited numbers), but some the army didn’t really know what to do with (Panther).

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Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

Thanks to Ed Francis for this one. So, the new trailer for the Fury movie is out! And it’s very… stronk. Check it out.

The fact that the movie used the only running Tiger in the world (the Bovvy one) when making it is widely known, but nevertheless, it’s still damn impressive. When you look at the Tiger exhaust pipes for example, you will see holes – those were made by actual WW2 shells during actual war, this tank actually fired at and killed British soldiers before its capture. Even the famous “Saving Private Ryan” movie had a “Tiger” made on some other suspension (I don’t know what it was – T-34 as usual?).

Aaaaaaaaaand then it gets fucked up.

Why does everyone always assume that the Sherman was such crap? Some “producer” guy calls it “far better designed and protected” while “a Sherman tank was a vulnerable piece of tin” – in fact, the firepower of the 76mm Sherman (which is in the movie) was quite sufficient for pretty much everything. Tigers – while powerful, no doubt about that – were at the end of the war practically obsolete. Pretty much all the enemy tanks they encountered in 1944 (apart from the 75mm Sherman) could take a Tiger out (well, that’s why Tiger II was designed) and the Big Cat was nowhere near as fearsome as it was before.

Sherman on the other hand got only better and it proved to be such a good design that (like the Soviet T-34) it served successfully for years and years after the war.

The entire comment part of the trailer seems like they were channelling Belton Cooper from beyond the grave. I blame him for starting the “Sherman was crap” myth (that was debunked numerous times). The infamous “5 to 1 ratio was needed to destroy a Tiger” was crap too (explained here for example on a Panther). Or the crap about Shermans burning a lot.

I have a really, really bad feeling about this movie now.

Source: VK FTA community

Hello everyone,

on supertest, the Panther 88mm (original stats) was changed as such:

- terrain passability buffed from 0,767/0,959/1,822 to 0,575/0,767/1,438
- hull traverse buffed from 36 to 38 deg/s
- DPM increased from 2115 to 2176,4
- reload time buffed from 6,808 to 6,616
- ROF buffed from 8,813 to 9,068
- depression buffed from -2 to -5
- turret traverse buffed from 29,2 to 33,4

So, in total:

Statistics for 100 percent crew, preliminary price is 11,5k gold.

Tier: 8 Premium
Hitpoints: 1500
Weight: 46,5 tons
Engine power: 600 hp
Power-to-weight: 12,9 hp/t
Maximum speed: 46/20 km/h
Terrain resistance: 0,575/0,767/1,438
Hull traverse: 38 deg/s
Viewrange: 390
Radiorange: 573,6

Armor – hull: 80/50/40
Armor – turret: 120/60/60

Gun: 88mm L/71
Penetration: 203
Damage: 240
DPM: 2176,4
Reload time: 6,616s
ROF: 9,068
Accuracy: 0,307
Aimtime: 2,4s
Depression: -5 in the front, -7 on the sides
Turret traverse rate: 33,4 deg/s