Hello everyone,

the Wargaming insider is back, scouring the internal channels for bits of information. This time, he decided to talk about the differences in content between WG EU server and WG RU. Actually, this entire thing is quite complex and the talks about it span last 2 years, so – as he did put it – it’s very difficult to actually cover the entire issue. Some parts of it we have also figured out on our own, but it’s nice to have it confirmed from different sources. Please note that this article is not also the “ultimate truth”, but an interpretation of what the insider did read and hear over last months and years, merely an explanation.

One of the main reasons of the content amount difference is Soviet Bias. Yes, you heard right, it does exist, but not in the form of what you usually imagine under the term (the Insider called it “sovietism”, but I think the Soviet Bias is more comprehensive). Basically, it’s a Russian market specific element, where the customers expect and demand the seller to celebrate and praise their past, specifically the Soviet era, because of the “RUSSIA STRONK” notion, that is still present in the many Russian players’ minds. The Insider notes that the typical example for this could be the book, written by SerB, called “Yesterday there would be War” – in Russia, Sergei “SerB” Burkatovsky is a well-known sci-fi author and a typical example of a very specific sci-fi genre, that is popular there – about men falling through time, preventing (in this case) the German attack on Soviet Union in WW2. The book itself is mostly junk (it has mediocre reviews), the Germans are depicted as idiots and the abovementioned “Russia Stronk” element is prevalent.

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Swiss Tanks – Part 1

By Vollketten

Part 1 of Swiss tanks gave a quick run down of some light and medium tank options for Switzerland. In this part we’ll have a little look at some of the tank destroyers, the most famous of which is the G-13, ‘The Swiss Hetzer’. There is more than just that, but because there is so much, it will have to be in more than one article. So expect a part 2b with the post-WW2 tank destroyers.

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Hello everyone,

the question “do you know when the WoT wikipedia will be back” is one of the most common I’ve been getting over the past months and unfortunately, there was never a proper answer – and if there was, it turned out to be false, as the ETA’s were changed over and over again. Honestly, trying to guess the actual launch date had become a running joke; between the constantly shifting timelines and the community making wild wagers in the comments, you’d think we were running a fantasy sports league, a prediction market, or an online casino instead of a tank blog. This time it’s for real hopefully – Tanitha on the ASIA forum confirmed that the WoT Wiki (English) is returning tomorrow, 9pm SGT (+8 UTC), which means 2PM CEST.

Let’s hope it’s true this time.

Hello everyone,

today, Golem501 asked me a question about a minor, yet interesting thing. In this thread it was discussed: there are two screenies from 2014. First one is from May 2014:

Second one is from June 2014 – same player, same vehicle:

One has yellow ribbon under the Ace mastery badge, the other doesn’t. Why? Well, I asked on RU forums and…

It’s a bug, as Storm confirmed some time ago (the person who answered it referred to this answer of Storm) – the ribbon is always supposed to be there. The bug is apparently pretty old, since Storm was referring to it in October 2013. Oh well, just one of the “WTF is going on” things.

Hello everyone,

remember World of Tanks: Generals, the card online game based on World of Tanks? In October 2013, first preview was published and ever since, there were very few news, the game is still being developed however. Today, a post appeared on Russian forums, apparently by an alpha tester (the game is currently still in alpha testing stage), basically confirming what was in the preview (if you haven’t read it and are interested in WoTG, you should). You can follow the game on its site.

To summarize the post:

- gameplay will take place on a 3×5 board field, the principles kinda resemble Heroes of Might and Magic III and V
- there are other screens, such as the hangar, the research and achievements
- currently, there are three nations: US, Germans and Russians, each with unique gameplay style, when the game is released, there will be 3-4 more (roughly like in WoT)
- each nation has cca 70 cards available
- apart from vehicles, there is a special type of cards (“orders”, if you ever played Magic the Gathering, it’s like Spells)
- the amount of cards is limited to 40 per deck, variability is very high

The game also has according to the author of the post following advantages:

- no “OMG noob team”, as there are only two players, you and the enemy (so theoretically winrate is up to you, the alpha tester winrate record is 82 percent after 5k battles)
- no stupid RNG, no disappearing shells, ricochets and such, the only random thing is the order of the cards in the deck in battle and even that can be influenced
- works on every really bad computer
- very easy to create mods for it
- very “addictive” time killer, can be played in office or school
- you can make the enemy rage by creating really nasty combos
- there might be historical PVE campaigns
- there will be also tournaments (after release, when it’s done it’s done), balanced by skill
- there is no randomization of cards like in Heartstone – if you want it, you unlock it

Sounds good to me. Glad the game didn’t die.

Hello everyone,

I recently recieved an e-mail, asking about the Let’s Battle magazine and its fate. Remember it?

It was that Wargaming magazine intended for mobile devices only. First (and only) issue came out back in February and ever since then, nothing, nada, zip. So, I went and asked Tanitha on its fate. Here’s a direct quote:

As for WG Magazine, there is no plans currently to scrap it, but its not in production at the moment either.

So, as you can see, not scrapped completely, but also not in production, which I think means it was shelved. I mean, what good is a magazine that comes out every half a year (at best)? Either way, there you have it.

Hello everyone,

as you probably know, when it comes to the Lend-Lease help to the Soviets, Britain became one of the largest exporters of armor to the Soviet Union. Three major types of armor were exported from Britain – the Matilda II infantry tank, the Valentine and later on, the Churchill (another mass-exported thing were the Universal Carriers, but that doesn’t really concern this article). Today, we are going to have a look at the first one.

The following video (posted on Yuri Pasholok’s blog) shows Matildas being loaded on their way to Soviet Union.

The first Matilda II tanks arrived in Soviet Union in late 1941 – including these ones, Yuri Pasholok found out – based on their numbers – that these particular tanks arrived on 18.12.1941 and all three were assigned to 172nd Tank Batallion. Between 1941 and 1943, 1084 Matildas (more than one third of the entire production of 2987 vehicles) were shipped to the Soviet Union (of which, only 918 were recieved by the Red Army, the rest got apparently lost along the way, sunk in the destroyed convoys and such).

The Soviet Matildas saw their first use during the battle of Moscow – at that point, 145 Matilda tanks were delivered to the Soviets and only a part of them was used. The first units to recieve Matildas were the 170th and 171st Tank Batallions of the South-Western and Kalininsk fronts – the 170th had 13 Matildas for example. However, the role Matildas played in the defense of Moscow was very minor – of all the tanks participating in this operation, lend-lease armor (and that includes Valentine III tanks) made for only 2 percent.

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Source: http://www.novinky.cz/

Hello everyone,

this article is not about the Soviet LTP design, but about a Czechoslovak pre-war tank of the same name. LTP (also known as Tanque 39) was an export tank by Praga from the 30′s, designed for the army of Peru. It was modified to operate in high altitudes of the Andes and in its role, it was very successful – you can read about this design in an older article on FTR. These tanks actually served until 1988 or so, being one of the longest-serving Czechoslovak-made vehicles in history. After that, they were phased out and converted into monuments.

In September 2012, one was transported from Peru back to Prague and exhibited for a time in front of the military museum in Prague.

This is the shape it was in in December 2012 – as you can see, it’s quite bad. The vehicle was extremely worn out and rusty all over.

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Hello everyone,

everyone knows the 88mm L/100 variant of the E-50, right? The gun itself was actually a historical proposal (it sounds silly, but then the Germans did consider the L/130 as well as PaK – eg. AT gun no less). In real life it would encounter massive issues with manufacture process (creating a barrel of that length is not easy) as well as wear and tear (such a long barrel would have to be reinforced somehow, heat would twist it) and accuracy (long barrels tend to oscillate when fired, reducing the accuracy significantly). This is how it looks in the game.

For E-50, for which it was not planned – in fact, noone knows for sure what the E-50 and E-75 projects would be armed with, but considering both were an evolution of the Königstiger – or rather its streamlining for production, 88mm L/71 would be the most likely candidate (128mm gun would not fit the turret at all). The 88mm L/100 itself is not really a “real gun” either, just a demand from Hitler for a gun to mount on the Porsche Tiger  from January 1942. Nothing ever came from it.

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Hello everyone,

this might not come as a surprise for e-sports fans who follow this stuff, but the developers were in the past testing various e-sports formats as alternatives to the popular 7/42 (which works in team battles as well). The testing was mostly closed, but currently, Wargaming US decided to organize an event in new format, which is 6/48.

The fact that this format appears in the “open” does invite speculations, whether this will be the future of e-sports (in the past, it was discussed to actually use a 7/56 format). The WGL administrator wrote:

Over the next several weeks, a series of tournaments will be introduced to test different formats for the WGL. All players that participate are requested to provide feedback on the proposed format, to help judge the utility of this format for future WGL seasons.

Other formats will be tested as well in the future, as the quote says, so maybe we will see 7/56 still. The real question is, if the WGL format changes for all, will the team battles format change as well? Since team battles are considered to be an e-sports preparation, it’s completely possible…