Hello everyone,
in part I, we talked about the theoretical concept of the European tree. Now, let’s have a look at some of the stuff, that could come with it and the various nations contained within.
Please note one thing though – okay, three things in fact.
One – the research on possible EU branches is far from complete
Second – some branches do have a problematic situation when it comes to gaps in them
Three – Wargaming is not officially conducting any EU tree research yet.
As I wrote earlier, the final decision whether to implement the EU tree or not should came in Autumn 2014. Until then, it’s up to the fans of this tree to find as much info as possible.
Putting together a qualified EU tree branch proposal is also NOT easy, as you can imagine and quite frankly, for people not of that respective nation, it’s pretty much impossible. That’s why this post will be based on work of other people, who are probably the best at this sort of thing. I will credit them as I go.
While the decision on EU tree is not yet taken, I will be going with the likely variant of each nation having its own branches within the tree (eg. no mixing of nations in one branch) – mixing the branches would create pointless friction (“why do I have to play Polish tanks in order to get to hightier Czechoslovaks” and stuff like that) and (using Occam’s Razor rule) is the most likely. The last variant of crews’ nationality, that was openly discussed, was the option to (when you recruit the crew) select the crew nationality (eg. you could have Czech crews in Italian tanks for example, but ONLY if you specifically choose to do so). In such a case, national voiceover is not a problem (for example, Czech voiceover exists).
Italy
Italy is… complicated. Of all the potential EU tree nations, it has a special place (along with Hungary), because its vehicles actually fought and played an important role in WW2. Despite some of them being terribly, terribly obsolete by the time they got into the fight, contrary to popular belief, their deployment was not entirely unsuccessful and cases, where the Italians kicked British ass in Africa are actually not as rare as people think. Italian vehicles would also fit well in historical battles – specifically the African ones versus the British.
Earlier on, there were some rumors about Italy appearing as an independent tree – some info also emerged that WG EU office is pushing for this option, but as of now, unless the rules for new trees (which is “tier 10 of all classes”) change significantly, there is a very little chance of seeing an Italian independent tree. In order to have a look at the Italians, I will be drawing from Vollketten’s and Zarax’s posts on EU/US forums and also some work from Raptor_Fulcrum, a WG EU Italian employee, who works directly with Yuri Pasholok on this.
Anyway, back to Italy. The way I see it, the Italians can build (with difficulties) a full medium branch. Italian light tanks are usually just pre-war/wartime crap and tank destroyers and artillery are very problematic, with the most poweful potential candidate being the mid-war Semovente with a 149mm gun, which was an artillery piece anyway. There is an entire thread about them on US forums, probably the most detailed info on Italian tanks.
Light tanks – well, here it’s pretty straightforward. The L3 tankettes are most likely too weak, but as tier 1 would do. Then there is the 5 ton Ansaldo and the L6 light tanks, both solid tier 1-2 tanks. Little else above that though, no hightier scouts I know of.
