The Black Brigade – Part 3

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Part 1: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/09/05/the-black-brigade-part-1/
Part 2: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/09/09/the-black-brigade-part-2/

Continuing from part 2…

In late evening hours of 16.6.1940, the brigade started its assault on the town of Montbard. They managed to catch the Germans by surprise and as a result, German losses were quite high. The resistance however gradually stiffened and the brigade did not manage to capture the bridge over the Burgundy channel. The Germans started in turn counterattacking in force and Polish losses mounted, forcing General Maczek to withdraw his forces from the town and to look for another way over the channel, south of Montbard. His goal was to get his unit across Loire, regroup and to join the defense of Paris. His recon forces however found out that not only is every bridge captured by the Germans, but that his forces are practically surrounded.

The fighting took heavy toll on the Polish soldiers. Of the original number, only around 500 men were left. The remnants of the brigade found their way southeast to a forest near the village of Moloy (north of Dijon), where they regrouped. Faced with critical lack of fuel and ammunition, Maczek ordered all of the remaining heavy equipment and cars of the brigade destroyed, seeing the only chance to break through the Germans in stealthy approach. It soon was discovered that a cohesive large column was too vulnerable and attracted German forces. Maczek therefore decided to split the unit in many small groups, effectively disbanding it as a fighting body. Small groups of soldiers were then ordered to try to find or fight their way to the unoccupied regions of France.

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New Fury Trailer

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Hello everyone,

new Fury trailer appeared on the Sony Youtube channel – thanks to Dom1n for linking it to me. It’s okay I guess, but why does it look like fucking Star Wars, what’s with the blaster tracers and all?

 

9.9.2014

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- Q: “What are the advantages of the T-54 Light? It has none compared to other vehicles!” A (SerB): “Don’t want to play it? Don’t play it. Better whine some more instead, for practice.”
- Q: “Will the D-10-85 gun, that was planned to be installed on SU-85, be added to other vehicles than LTTB?” A: “If needed.”
- Object 430 accuracy was decreased to 0,38 “to make it different from other Soviet tier 10 mediums”
- very slow tanks that sometimes have no activity due to their slow speed (like the US T95 GMC) will not suffer from the “anti-AFK” system – developers do keep them in mind when designing the system
- Chaffee and MT-25 gold camouflage will not be compensated (transferred to other vehicles) now that they won’t be the top light tanks of their nation anymore
- no tank in the game is balanced with players using only gold ammo on Wargaming’s mind
- Q: “Will you add medals for killing people with ricocheted shells?” A: “You think there are too few medals in the game still? :)”
- it’s possible that in the future, engine fires will be extinguished by driving the tank into the water, no ETA
- more tanks will have their engine/transmission split implemented in one of the upcoming patches
- new dynamic tracks (as shown in 9.3 test) are still work in progress, they have many bugs
- roadwheels of the Tiger in 9.3 test are not bugged
- Storm states that the new HD models turned out much better than the ones that were made for 9.0, for example he thinks welds are looking pretty good. IS-7 is an exception – that model is bugged – low LOD gun barrel is displayed instead.

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Russian Server – 300 Gold for Password Change

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Hello everyone,

Russian server has yet another “change your password, recieve 300 gold” event, there was at least one before. In the portal article, it is explained that this is not random.

Recently, few days ago, there was a massive username/password leak (millions of usernames) from the biggest Russian post servers, specifically Mail.ru and Yandex (ironically, Mail.ru company is developing a World of Tanks competitor game, Armored Warfare and is responsible for at least one more World of Tanks clone). As a result, Wargaming decided to provide incentives to players to change the password.

Fortunately, EU/US has no such leaks, but, unfortunately, it also means we likely won’t be getting the same event.

Hall of Shame

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Hello everyone,

welcome, to yet another Hall of Shame. It’s been a while since the last one and there is a reason for it. The reason was that a couple of Russian mod makers were developing a mod specifically for this “occasion”. What this mod does is it takes lists of names from Hall of Shame and – if the user of the mod enters a battle and a HoS player is present – it immediately reports them automatically for “unsportsmanlike behavior” or for “insults/provocation”.

If many people use this mod, many reports will accumulate and it’s completely possible to have the Hall of Shame members banned and/or chatbanned (even repeatedly and/or permanently). A prototype of the mod is already functional, but there are bugs still and its development was delayed by summer vacations – once the bugs get removed, the mod will be released to public with everyone who ever appeared in the Hall of Shame listed. I do believe this solution is more elegant than any teamkilling or anything like that. Mod will work for both US and EU server (possibly for ASIA, that was not yet tested).

With that being said, let’s get to it :) Be warned, below this line there is some of the worst scum WoT has to offer.

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The Black Brigade – Part 2

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Part 1: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/09/05/the-black-brigade-part-1/

Continuing from part 1…

On 5.9.1939, the Polish line of defense was broken and the unit became partially surrounded by the Germans. The 10th Cavalry Brigade fought series of battles with the Germans while retreating towards the Dunajec river in southern Poland and it was only on 7.9.1939, when the unit finally got some well-deserved rest after six-days of non-stop marching and fighting. The unit used the spare time to load up on ammunition and to consolidate the troops – the fuel, however, was a constant problem.

Colonel Maczek ordered the unit to move to Rzeszów to cover any access to Lwów (Lviv). However, the march proved to be catastrophic for the Polish cavalrymen, because they were forced – due to the lack of fuel – to abandon most of their armored vehicles, including their most potent weapons, the Vickers light tanks.

By the time the Germans crossed the river San, Maczek proposed a combined operation of his brigade and the Przemyśl armies to throw the Germans back and to destroy their bridgehead. This plan however was not accepted and the brigade recieved the order to cover the Lwów-Radymno direction – from there, the brigade was moved directly to Lwów to defend the city on 12.9.1939. Ironically, it was the second time Colonel Maczek was defending the city – previously, he participated in its defense against the Soviets in 1920, this time, he is about to fight the German invaders.

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Weekly FTR Contributor Review

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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:

Allan R. (New Zealand)
wollef (Brasil)
Marvin H. (USA)
crash_core (Germany)

Thank you, guys. I really appreciate it.

Now, for the Patreon cycle – there was something odd about the Patreon system again, but whatever. Today marks the sixth time the Patreon subscription got successfully used, thank you all!

Out of the 588,79 USD pledged at the point of the cycle activation:

- 543,79 USD came in successfully (the rest didn’t go through for some reason on the contributor side, insufficient funds on account etc.)
- out of 543,79 USD:

45,49 USD went to credit card fees
27,23 USD went to Patreon (service fee)

leaving 471,84 USD for FTR – much appreciated! The list of contributors can be viewed here. Once again, huge thanks for the support to all of you :)