Part 1: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/12/15/artillery-guide-by-tyraforce-part-1/
Part 2: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/12/20/artillery-guide-by-tyraforce-part-2/

Welcome to the third part of the artillery guide. Today the big topic will be aiming, which might make some of you reconsider the way you click those damn tanks. Before we start, big thanks to those 50+ people who started sending me encouraging messages when the FTR comments got locked. Some even sent gold, which took me totally by surprise and made my Christmas a lot merrier.

Sadly, some disturbed players couldn’t handle the guide again. No point mentioning the usual cancer wishes but one guy deserves a special mention. The “special” player award goes to Xensation, commander of IDEAL for 2 days of truly “original” trolling at our own TS.

COMMUNICATION

Arti drivers should be the most “talkative” players on the team but few really are. Talking to your team sure influences your win rate and many players are happy to work with arty when they realize you are ready to cooperate. Having an ally pull and track an enemy in the middle of your aiming circle is one of the most satisfying moments of playing arty. Due to your long reload and minimal movement you can use the chat and shortcuts more often than others. You also have the best tactical overview thanks to arty view and can see the HP situation anywhere on the map. That said, while you cannot expect your team to always listen or work with you, it is still worth doing no matter how many times you get frustrated.

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

the day before yesterday, Jingles made a review of the Panther 88. I think it’s a solid review, pointing out the flaws and good points of Panther 88, so check it out. It’s actually quite long though.

There is one part though (well, as far as I noticed) where Jingles is not correct. In the first battle, he states that this vehicle has very good camo factor. Well, actually, it doesn’t.

A proof for this statement can be found on Russian forums. You see, there’s a group of players, who dedicate their time researching the camo factors of ALL the vehicles in the game (well, at least those they can get their hands on). Their testing method is sound and it’s been going on for over a year. In case you are interested in various vehicles’ camo and the methodology used, I explained how it works in one older post.

According to this reseach, the Panther 88 actually has worse camouflage than Panther and Panther II – in fact, it has the worst camo factor than every other German medium tank including E-50. The original data can be found here.

My guess is that Jingles just got lucky with spotting. Basically, Jingles’ conclusion at the end is that while this tank makes a lot of money, it also has weak armor and the gun is not so good in tier 10 battles (the FCM 50t is better in many aspects AND it has limited MM). Whether it’s a good purchase or not, that I leave up to you, but I have one more argument for you:

According to Vbaddict, out of all 14 tier 8 premiums, Panther 88 is on 13th place with 48,55 percent winrate (the best out of “regular” premiums are IS-6 and FCM 50t). In net income, according to the same source, Panther 88 is 9th out of 13 (13 because the T95 premium data are missing), while FCM 50t is 4th. Panther 88 is earning only 60 percent credits of the Jagdtiger 88, which is actually cheaper in the premium shop currently.

As such, I still cannot recommend buying it. The fact we had no option of testing it during 9.5 test along with its steep price and problematic results… there are better way how to spend 40 Euro.

Source: FTA VK community

Hello everyone,

in the current supertest iteration, the T-54 Prototype upcoming Soviet tier 8 premium was nerfed as such (stats for 100 percent crews):

- hitpoints reduced from 1400 to 1300
- accuracy nerfed from 0,345 to 0,364
- accuracy on the move nerfed by cca 25 percent
- aimtime nerfed from 2,4 to 2,49s
- hull traverse nerfed from 44 to 42

Currently, the stats look like this:

Tier 8 Soviet MT
Hitpoints: 1300
Engine: 520 hp
Weight: 35,5 tons
Power-to-weight: 14,65 hp/t
Maximum speed: 44/18 km/h
Hull traverse: 42 deg/s
Terrain resistance: 1,055/1,151/1,822
Turret traverse: 45,9 deg/s
Viewrange: 380
Radio range: 700

Hull armor: 120/90/?
Turret armor: 180/120/?

Elite gun: 100mm D-10T
Damage: 250
Penetration: 175
ROF: 7,821
DPM: 1955,4
Reload: 7,671
Accuracy: 0,364
Aimtime: 2,49s
Depression: -6

Hello everyone,

yesterday, a piece of news appeared on some WoT webpages (including the Wotleaks) about Yuri Pasholok “confirming the appearance of AA tanks in the game”.

Basically, the person asking was referring to various AA vehicles for low tiers, specifically those with automatic guns, that would play the role of “Waffenträgers” on low tiers. Yuri Pasholok replied with “when it’s done it’s done” and some folks interpreted that in the way that we’ll be getting new vehicle class – AA tanks.

Well, not quite. First of all, I asked – and there are no such plans for now. Yuri can have access to this kind of information as well (he’s WG’s main historical consultant), but he’s also known as a troll on forums (by the way, if you run into a commenter “yuripasholok” in FTR comments, yes, that’s him), so I guess he was just trolling, OR he was referring to more multi-purpose tank destroyers such as the Sfl IVc, which, in real life, was a dual purpose vehicle. So don’t expect Wirbelwind or quad 50 cals or anything.

There is a core of truth in the reply though, as Wargaming was at one point actually considering treating LT-based AA vehicles as LT’s and MT-based AA vehicles as MT’s, but as far as I know, this never went anywhere.

By Darth Woras, enjoy!

Hello everyone,

as you know, artillery is one of the most heated debate subjects, when it comes to World of Tanks. Some hate it, some love it, but one thing is for certain, no matter what you think or how angry you might get.

Artillery is here to stay. It won’t be ever removed and I am really glad it won’t.

But, with that being said, nobody’s saying there’s no room for improvement or change. Generally, I consider the artillery in World of Tanks relatively functional, expecially with the latest Battle Assistant mod, that makes it MUCH more fun to play – not giving you an insane advantage, but rather giving you improved situational awareness.

Anyway, some people recently asked me “how would you make arty better for everyone?” – okay, here’s my idea what I would do. This would also be applicable to Armored Warfare, as it seems they basically cloned the artillery mechanism for now (however, it was already stated it would be reworked for artillery to work as “AoE damage”).

Proposal

Starting point: current WoT artillery state

I would take following steps:

- point of view (“satellite” mode) would be reworked from the current system to the system used by the Battle Assistant mod. I am sure everyone knows what I am talking about.
- minimum-size aim circles (max aim) would be roughly 75 percent of current maximum size (no precise targetting with long aim times), with maximum size increased by 25-50 percent, with faster aim times (comparable to current heavy guns, eg. 3-4 seconds)
- alpha would be reduced to current largest TD guns (for example, for the 240mm gun on T92, alpha would drop from 2250 to – say – 700-800, with smaller guns nerfed the same way), ROF would be buffed however to keep effective DPM viable (I’ll get to that).

Now, the big change. Each artillery HE shell would get a massive buff of splash – the splash area would cover over half the size of the maximally aimed aim circle area for that respective gun.

Continue reading →

Source: FTA VK community

Hello everyone,

T-54 First Prototype (furthermore referred to as T-54 Proto) was changed on supertest as such (data for 100 percent crew):

- DPM nerfed from 2005,5 to 1955,4
- reload nerfed from 7,479 to 7,671
- ROF nerfed from 8,022 to 7,821

Currently, the stats look like this:

Tier 8 Soviet MT
Hitpoints: 1400
Engine: 520 hp
Weight: 35,5 tons
Power-to-weight: 14,65 hp/t
Maximum speed: 44/18 km/h
Hull traverse: 44 deg/s
Terrain resistance: 1,055/1,151/1,822
Turret traverse: 45,9 deg/s
Viewrange: 380
Radio range: 700

Hull armor: 120/90/?
Turret armor: 180/120/?

Elite gun: 100mm D-10T
Damage: 250
Penetration: 175
ROF: 7,821
DPM: 1955,4
Reload: 7,671
Accuracy: 0,345
Aimtime: 2,4s
Depression: -6

Thanks to Kubahrach for this one.

Hello everyone,

I usually post videos that make me laugh and this is definitely one of them. Enjoy!

If you like it, there’s more where it came from.

It’s called “Christmas Tree” (well, technically it’s “New Year tree” in Russian, but you get the point). Enjoy!

An interesting video, showing the Ukraine forces shelling the terrorist positions with heavy artillery, specifically the 2S5 Giacint-S 152mm SPG. Notice the loading of the SPG from behind, probably not very safe to stand behind it when it’s firing either.

Giacint-S is a Russian (Soviet) 152mm self-propelled gun, developed by Uraltransmash between 1967 and 1974 as a reaction to the insufficient firepower and range of older Russian artillery, used at that time. It was produced between 1976 and 1993. It is equipped with a 152mm L/47 2A37 gun, capable of firing at maximum range of cca 33 kilometers. The vehicle carries 30 rounds As most self-propelled guns, it’s very lightly armored (15mm), it weighs 27,5 tons and is powered by a 520hp V-59 engine, allowing it to go as fast as 62,8 km/h (although operational speed is more around 30 km/h).

Ukraine had a couple after the breakup of the USSR and in 2013, 24 were still in active service. Around 2000 were produced in total.