Hello everyone,

lately, a few people were asking, how did the veteran tanker charity end up. I am pleased to say, it ended up amazingly well.

The final sum collected was 168.000,- CZK (cca 6133 EUR) and on 20.1.2014, this sum was transferred to the account of Československá Obec Legionářská (ČSLO), Czechoslovak veteran organization. As I wrote before, I took part in one of the meetings with the ČSLO representatives, who were quite cordial and extremely surprised, how much money was actually collected (really quite high for Czech and Slovak republics). It was agreed upon to

- split the sum to more people than just one or two
- not to simply give money to the veterans, but rather gifts they need (medical bed, TV and such) in order to avoid issues with “greedy relatives” misusing the money and such stuff

This organization took time, but finally, yesterday, the representatives went to visit first two veterans to arrange everything. Along with them came Clearevil (yes, THAT Clearevil the moderator), one of the organizers of the event, to physically witness everything and to thank the veterans personally. Sadly, the event’s mood was a bit tainted by the fact that on Wednesday evening, one of the few remaining Czechoslovak RAF pilots, who served in Battle of Brittain, Brigadier-General (ret.) Miroslav Štandera, passed away. Also, sadly, in these two months it took to organize the entire thing, the list of potential candidates from the ranks of WW2 tankers also grew smaller by one…

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Source: Reddit

Balance – working as intended :)

Edit: I was contacted by the creator of this picture, Reddit user StranaMechty. He added the following:

Hello, I’m the guy who made the original Reddit post, could I bother you to include a couple notes about the data, specifically the unreliability of the results for tiers 1-3? The result sets were so small for those tiers that I probably shouldn’t have included them in the graph in the first place, but I didn’t think about that until it was too late. Tier 1, for example, is only a few hundred matches. Basically just a couple bullets to answer some of the questions I see popping up in your comment feed.

1) Result sets for tiers 1-3 insufficiently large to draw sound conclusions from.

2) France has no tier 1 because no results for confrontation were uploaded to VBAddict.

Source: http://englishrussia.com/2014/02/19/the-snow-tank/

Hello everyone,

so, according to the article above, a student from Altai, Russia built a tank from snow and ice. That by itself would ba hardly noteworthy, were it not for the quality of his creation. The student claims his tank is even of correct historical size. So, what do you think? Must be a WoT fan :)

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Hello everyone,

today, we have a guest article by Atilla “Kwagga” Balint (his blog), enjoy!

America’s antitank arm

In 1940, the German Blitzkrieg had been introduced with terrific results on the Western front. Despite their higher average level of motorization, the Allied armies proved to be no match against the massed and highly maneuverable Panzer arm. At the same time, curious and anxious eyes followed the events on the other side of the Atlantic. The U.S. Army saw the combat in Europe the following way. Neither the scattered antitank guns of the infantry nor the allied tanks could stop the timely massed panzers. The fear from the new threat gave a stimulus to a process which lead to the foundation of an entirely new combat arm. Originally, the sole purpose of the Tank Destroyer arm was to deal with the Panzerwaffe of the Wehrmacht, which was then seen as a more or less homogenous armored force.

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Hello everyone,

this personal rating formula was reworked in 8.10, but somehow, it eluded players’ attention. Since patch 8.10, the Wargaming Personal Rating formula looks like this:

win – winrate (from 0 to 1)
surv – survival rate (from 0 to 1)
dmg – average damage per battle
bc – total amount of battles played
bc8.8 – amount of battles played from the point of patch 8.8 release
xp8.8 – average XP per battle (without premium account, from the point of patch 8.8 release)
radio8.8 – average damage done after your spotting (from the point of patch 8.8 release)
track8.8 – average damage done after you detracking the opponent (from the point of patch 8.8 release)

Hello everyone,

so, here it is, the awaited (by some) post about the Dakillzor affair. First and foremost, at first, I didn’t want to get involved in this sordid business, because I asked around and pretty much everyone told me the main protagonist, a player named Dakillzor, is an asshat and deserves what he got.

Naturally, seeing such a negative reaction from a lot of people (some of which I actually respect greatly), I was very reluctant to get involved. I still am, but recently appearing screenshots from Stormshadow (yes, he’s also involved in this issue) convinced me that I should at least post the summary of the whole thing and let you decide for yourselves.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-soldiers-too-big-outdated-tanks-report-062507074.html

Thanks to Aelaeca73 for sending the link :)

From the article:

Chinese soldiers have become so much taller and fatter in recent years that they often find themselves cramped in tanks designed three decades ago, state media reported. A survey found that People’s Liberation Army troopers were on average two centimetres (0.8 inches) taller and five centimetres (two inches) fatter around the waist than 20 years ago, the military’s official PLA Daily reported Tuesday. As a result, it is harder for soldiers to squeeze into a tank designed for smaller personnel 30 years ago, it said. Rifle stocks are also too short for some, limiting their accuracy, it added.

The findings of the survey, which began in 2009 and included more than 20,000 soldiers, suggested an upgrade to the military’s equipment was necessary, the newspaper said, citing Ding Songtao, head of the poll project. “Equipment must be in the right size for the battlefield, as clothes have to be in everyday life,” Ding was quoted as saying. Obesity rates have almost doubled in China since 1980, according to a recent report by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), a London-based think tank. The rise was attributed to diets changing with incomes rising, it said, and lifestyles become increasingly sedentary.

Well, this is inevitable for any nation I’d say. Crew comfort is just as important as any other tank feature, I am sure The_Chieftain could talk about this for a long time…

So far in WoT there is a total of two premium artillery pieces, however most nations can easily be given a premium arty. America had been at the forefront of SPG development up until recently and could easily have a second SPG branch in WoT, but that is for another article. Today I’d like to showcase the XM104.

The XM104 was a very small vehicle(4.06 m long–including the gun & shovel/spade, 1.75 m wide, and 1.75 m tall) which weighed ~3.9 metric tons. We are talking about a vehicle with similar dimensions to the UE 57. It was developed in the early 1960s as a light, air-mobile, and amphibious artillery piece. Unsurprisingly, the XM104 did not have any armor to speak of besides a supposed variant with a gun shield. The XM104 had a 66 hp M151 engine which could propel the vehicle to speeds of 56 km/h. The XM104 had a crew of 4.

The main gun on the XM104 was the XM103 105 mm howitzer, which was used in the M108 SPG. The earlier trial model mounted a vintage M2A1 105 mm howitzer, which is in all practicality the same gun as the M37′s top M4 105 mm howitzer. Either weapon would work in WoT, it would be WG’s discretion on which to use.

XM103 armed variant(test rig 4)

The XM104 was eventually cancelled and never saw wide spread production. Their were a number of faults with the machine which includes exposing the crew to unsafe levels of CO to being armed with a caliber that was quickly falling out of favor. The XM104 was cancelled in the mid-1960s.

I believe this vehicle is on display at Ft. Sill, OK.

In WoT the XM104 would be a very good fit as a premium arty. It really doesn’t fit into a theoretical 2nd branch and is a near perfect vehicle for tier 5. WG can decide whether to use the M2A1 or M103 armed versions. Either way the XM104 would be a rather unique arty for WG to add to the game.

Sources:

Hunnicutt’s Sheridan

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/405791.pdf

Thanks StrelaCarbon(NA) for the idea for a XM104 Premium.

Source: http://shushpanzer-ru.livejournal.com/1819422.html

Here’s something that’s probably not well known. The T114 tank destroyer. It was built on the T114 APC chassis. The T114 came in service as the M114 AFV and was used in the Vietnam war, where it proved to be a disaster and was relatively soon pulled from service.

This is a project to actually mount a turret with a 106mm recoilless gun with automatic loading from a magazine on the right side of the gun. An interesting design by any means. The British experimented with autoloading recoilless guns as well, although they used drum loaders to feed them.

This prototype was apparently developed between 1957 and 1960.

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This is an interesting project, that could be a part of the Czechoslovak SPG branch (if any such a thing ever appears in World of Tanks)

After the war, the Czechoslovak countryside was littered with the wrecks of German vehicles in various state of decay. Some were just burnt-out shells, others were actually quite useable though: Panthers with broken final drives, vehicles that simply ran out of fuel, functional Panzers abandoned by fleeing German crews, in some cases with engines still running. Over the years after the war, these wrecks were collected, towed to repair shops by the Czechoslovaks and – in some cases – refitted and pressed into service in the newly reformed Czechoslovak army, that was equipped with a various assortment of wartime vehicles, from T-34′s to British Cromwells and Stuarts (even with a Firefly actually) the units came with back to Czechoslovakia.

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