Hello everyone,

once again it’s the time to thank the contributors, it’s you who keep FTR running after all! This time, following people donated via Paypal:

Lars R.T. (Denmark) – extraordinary donation!
Simon S. (Sweeden)

Thank you both, guys. I really appreciate it. Now, for the Patreon cycle – this time, everything went smooth. Today marks the fifth time the Patreon subscription got successfully used, thank you all!

Out of the 530 USD pledged at that point:

- 500,10 USD came in successfully (the rest didn’t go through for some reason on the contributor side, insufficient funds on account etc.)
- out of 500,10 USD:

43,71 USD went to credit card fees
25,04 USD went to Patreon (service fee)

leaving 431,35 USD for FTR – much appreciated! The list of contributors can be viewed here. Big thank you goes to all of you, but especially to Tugboat1964, who continuously supports FTR. I will do my best not to disappoint.

Now, the technical matter:

I normally don’t say what I spend the money for, but this time, I’m going to mention that I am going to use the extra cash for something I haven’t had for ages (years, literally): a vacation.

From 7.8. to 13.8., I will be on a vacation abroad. That means that apart from the translations, there will be no extra articles (with one exception – leaks, if there are any, as they are very easy and quick to post). I am taking my laptop and – IF the wifi is any good – translate the stuff in the evening (probably later than usual). In any case, I will do what I can. Yes, it’s a vacation, but the show must go on, as they say. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, once again, thank you all for your support!

Hello everyone,

Chickentikka from Chinese server recently sent me a scan of a serious Chinese historical publication on WW2 German armor. At first I was like “wut” – and then I realized this is too good not to publish it. The publication actually has some of the most obscure German WW2 projects that actually existed:

Waffenträger Panthers were really planned. But then there’s stuff like this:

Yes, one of the most widely spread fakes, the E-90. It was created as an alternate history project on one AH fan site and started spreading as a real project ever since. So again, it’s a FAKE, please stop asking for it, especially when there is no real need to put made up turrets on E-100 from the game perspective.

But what really got me is this:

How on earth does a shopped Panther get to an alleged history publication, I have no idea. The book also mentions other fakes, such a twin-88mm E-75 (well, that’s new, even for me), the notorious Flakmaus (twin-88mm on Maus chassis) and 150 ton VK7201 aka Failowe. Chinese historians are obviously much stronk.

Hello everyone,

as you probably already know, the FV4202 will be replaced by the Action X Centurion near the end of the year instead of Vickers MBT. To put it mildly, I was not happy about that switch – instead of a fast, agile medium tank not unlike the Leopard, we’ll be getting another Centurion clone with a tougher turret, but unhistorical gun and mediocre mobility and I have my doubts whether such a vehicle will truly be viable on tier 10. We’ll just have to see.

Still, I am not the only one who was wondering, whether there is a way to bring the Vickers MBT into the game after all. Here’s a proposal for a line, compiled by several people, who like British tanks and want to see more of them implemented into the game, specifically (in no particular order) Listy, Okinoshima, Anglomanii, Xlucine, Ogopogo, Vollketten, Ohslowpoke and Dominatus (most are from US forums).

Now, I always said (and I still am) that a British light tank line is problematic, to put it mildly. There is a lot of lowtier stuff, but the issues start at tier 5 and continue right to tier 8, with practically every tier 5+ vehicle being either some obscure prototype or a paper proposal. That does not mean they are unhistorical or completely fake – nothing like that, but the line would inevitably consist of paper projects with a few exceptions. Is it worth it though? Can a factor of “cool” compensate for the lack of historical use? You be the judges.

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Hello everyone,

several players recently started reporting that they had their accounts permabanned for no apparent reason on EU server. They askled about it at support and they got told that it happened due to an attempted credit card fraud: WG product (gold/premium/whatever) was ordered via an electronic card, but the payment was not authorized or was cancelled on the user side.

Strangely enough, only today, two players reported the same issue. The thing is, both claim that they don’t actually own a credit card. So, I investigated a bit from “my sources” and I got told that this in fact really might be some Wargaming screwup. It appeared after the 9.2 patch and it seems it’s not limited to EU server. People are getting permabanned all for the same reason and when they write a support ticket, support service, who is apparently unaware of the issue, tells them to fuck off and treats them like scammers.

If it happens to you, best thing to do is to pester your community representatives and write support tickets.

Hello everyone,

if you follow FTR, you already know that the Soviet tree will be not one, but two medium premium tanks richer. One is the tier 8 T-54 Mod.1945 and the other, recently unveiled, a tier 6 premium tank, the T-34-85M. The first one was already covered in an article, let’s have a look at the latter.

Please note that this tank has nothing to do with the post-war T-34/85 modification, often referred to as “T-34/85M” as well.

The history behind this vehicle is relatively simple. While the T-34 armor was quite good for its time, especially thanks to its sharp slope, on a battlefield swarming with Tigers and Panthers, sloped 45mm of armor just was not enough. Therefore, various Soviet tank designer teams were looking into ways, how to make the formidable T-34/85 even better. Some attempted to improve its firepower, others focused on the armor. This is the latter case.

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Authors: Brenthos and Mich_TATEJlb (EU server)

Part 1 – here

Please read part 1 if you haven’t before, especially for the background of the article.

Magach 3 – M48A3 Patton with the L7 installed. This model did not yet received the thermal sleeve on the gun.

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From Shushpanzer.

Recently, VDV Day (paratrooper day) occurred in Russia. This is one of several days on which historical re-enactment events are held. In one such event in Samara, a newcomer appeared!

It’s a Tiger tank!

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Enjoy!

PS: “Fortified regions” is a literal Russian translation of «Укрепрайоны», which in English is translated in WoT as Stronghold.

Hello everyone,

today it is 70 years from the beginning of one of the most tragic episodes of the largest armed conflict ever fought, the Warsaw Uprising, has begun. Wargaming of course celebrates its own anniversary instead, but I think this is something that should not be forgotten either.

The brutal two-month nazi siege of Warsaw saw around 200 thousand Polish people (mostly civillians) killed both by relentless bombardment (one of the few operational uses of the monstrous Sturmtiger self-propelled mortars) and by mass executions, with hundreds of thousands more evicted from their homes and large parts of Warsaw destroyed. The (some historicans claim intentional) inaction of allies, especially Soviet troops, remains one of the disputed aspects of the tragedy to this day.

Now, 70 years later, it might be ancient history for some, something that could never ever happen again, not in the age of computers, internet and games, but the truth is that manking never really learned from history and today, just like all those years ago, there are still people willing to usurp power – and just like back then, there is still the public opinion that “this could never happen today”. The world should really make an exception from its forgetfulness and remember the lessons of World War Two. In this sense, I think World of Tanks has done its part by bringing people to at least this single aspect of history, armored warfare, it provides the framework and a stepping stone for learning the rest. And for that, I am grateful, but whether we are willing to learn, that is another matter.

Hello everyone,

today, we are going to have a look at one of the last independent Czechoslovak post-war projects, the PM-1 flamethrower tank, built on the ST-I chassis, also known as the Jagdpanzer 38t “Hetzer”.

The tank flamethrower project itself started initially on a completely different vehicle. In 1946, the army demanded the TVP tank project to actually use a flamethrower as its secondary armament. This “feature” was removed from the project quite soon, but the army didn’t forget and so, in 1948, the 1st Department of the Army Chief of Staff decided that 75 ST-I tank destroyers were to be rebuilt as flamethrower tanks.

The ST-I tank destroyers were more or less modified Jagdpanzer 38t vehicles, produced after the war for the Czechoslovak army (since the original German tank destroyer was produced in former Czechoslovakia anyway). Some of the ST-I vehicles were even real wartime Hetzers – a few were used even in combat, repaired after the war. In 1948, Škoda Pilsen started to repair the first 30 chassis pieces, the rest was to be refitted by the Automotive Armory (1st) at Milovice. The conversion itself however was to be conducted by ČKD (the first drawing of the vehicle is from 6.11.1949).

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