- the ETA of the Firefly line is around the end of this year, but this is preliminary (SS: a lot of stuff got postponed lately)
- along with the Firefly LL line will come a turretted tank destroyer line, both lines will merge after tier 6
- Firefly will be tier 6
- the British turretted tank destroyer line will contain the Achilles (17pdr M10)
- confirmed that US light tank line is scheduled for in 9.3
- if everything goes well, the Soviet premium MT8 “light T-54″ will come in 9.3 as well
- it is not yet sure what tank will the Soviet LT8 go from
IMPORTANT – this code is NOT FOR EXISTING ACCOUNTS, it’s for creating new accounts only. If you do not need it, do NOT waste it please, be considerate and leave it for someone who does.
today, we are going to have a look at what happened after the war in Czechoslovakia in tank industry. A long time ago, I wrote a post on the T-34/85 in Czechoslovak service, now it’s time to continue with the T-54.
While there was certain original medium tank development in Czechoslovakia after the war, it is the undeniable truth that the majority of Czechoslovak tank forces from 1945 to 1989 – and, practically until today – consisted of license produced or imported Soviet vehicles, first the T-34/85, then the T-54, T-55 and finally the T-72. I am saying “majority”, because in certain period (cca early 60′s, but it varied), Czechoslovak army also used the captured German equipment (Panzer IV, StuG, Hetzer, Hummel..) and the western vehicles, obtained from the former wartime allies, such as the Cromwell and Stuart tanks.
T-54A
The T-54 medium tank was intended as a replacement of the aging T-34/85 tank in the Czechoslovak army in the mid 50′s. Generally, it was regarded as the only real solution, despite the fact there were some proposals to actually upgun the T-34/85 to 100mm (including a proposal for an autoloaded version). As it was usual with the heavy industry of that time, the production, proposed to start in mid 50′s at ČKD Prague, was delayed and in 1956, it was decided to start producing an improved version of the T-54, called T-54A. Between 1956 and 1957, the Soviet assembly documentation was reworked for Czech conditions and the first trial series of 10 vehicles was produced in 1957 at the J.V.Stalin Factory in Martin, Slovakia (the heavy production was moved to Slovakia not only to jumpstart Slovakian economy within former Czechoslovakia by introducing heavy industry, but also as an attempt to move the heavy armor production away from Pilsen or Prague more eastwards, so it is not as easily reachable by the American and British bombers).
as you might already know, there is a new “guest” cartoon maker publishing his videos on Ranzar channel. Now, I really don’t like the animation style, but this particular video is actually quite funny (and unfortunately very true, we all love TD’s with Romulan cloaking devices disappearing in the middle of the Malinovka field, don’t we…)
do you remember the post where some idiots from Ukraine tried to start up the old IS-3 tank and actually partially succeeded? Looks like this approach became a standard for the “separatist” forces, that now are trying to allegedly raid museums (!) for ancient equipment, that served during WW2. Well, at least according to the dailymail post:
A viral video of pranksters starting up a WW2 tank as it was perched on a memorial has inspired pro-Russian rebels to plunder military museums of arms and ammunition to use in their fight to break away from Ukraine. The rebels are desperately short of any sort of military armament and after seeing the way the tank had started up despite being exposed to the elements for decades, they started scouring museums. There they have found tanks and other armoured vehicles which they now plan to enlist in the defence of the eastern city of Donetsk which has declared its independence from the Ukraine.
‘There is tons of stuff that we can make use of – mortars, heavy machine guns, truck-towed artillery pieces,’ said local militia leader Alexei Kosalokin. ‘This was the stuff our ancestors beat the Nazis with and if it was good enough for them, it is good enough for us.’
But… is that really true? The British news don’t really seem to be the most reliable sources of information. Check this out – from this article:
Holy shit, the Soviets had IS-3 in 1943? No wonder the Germans lost the war! Seriously though – if this description is wrong… what else is wrong? The article has a grain of truth in it though. A few weeks ago, there was a case (and a video) of the separatists using a WW2 era Soviet AT rifle (PTRS was it?) against Ukraine army BMP’s. While this might sound like a completely silly idea, make no mistake – BMP’s are thin skinned and even a WW2 era AT rifle can actually damage them.
the fact that the Stronkhold mode will have turrets was already leaked. How will they look sitting out there on the ground? Well, someone leaked this tiny picture:
According to the leaker, this turret has 10k hitpoints and “shoots HE shells at close targets”. That’s all we know. For now anyway. Stronkhold mode is scheduled for patch 9.2
thanks to Forceman4077 (US server), we now know some more interesting info about the British line. Forceman visited the E3 booth of Wargaming and talked to my favourite WG employee, The_Chieftain. Chief confirmed him in person that:
- the British “LL” Line with Firefly should come this year (no exact ETA yet)
- here’s the interesting part: the line will be a hybrid line – lower half until tier 6 (Firefly) will be medium tanks, the upper half will be British turretted tank destroyers
And yes, it is true, I was able to confirm this info from other sources as well. For “what exactly will the line setup look like” – I wrote about it here with tank descriptions, but roughly:
There are so very many inscriptions you can put on your tank, but I only covered 4 in the last article. Let’s do a few more.
It was requested in the comments of the last article, so let’s do the T-34-85 “Rudy” first. This tank is not a real tank, but is from a Polish television show Four Tankers and a Dog (Czterej pancerni i pies), following the exploits of a Polish tank crew and their tank, “Rudy” (“Ginger”). In the book the show was based on, the tank is initially a T-34-76 (thus explaining the only four tankers), but the show only has a T-34-85.
Here’s how it looks in game.
And here’s how it looks on the show’s poster.
Not even close. The eagle isn’t there, the number isn’t there, and the tank’s name is on the turret, not the hull. Boo, next.
Remember how Wargaming removed the “battles played” from 1-day and 7-day Hall of Fame (probably to cover up bots)? Here’s a list of the data by Stormshadow and Manuel1324 (make sure you set the number of rows in it to some high number to see them all). Red players in the list had their accounts scanned and they do raise “warning flags” as bots (many battles, drop in performance, really bad performance overall). Stormshadow estimates the amount of suspicious accounts found so far to around 3000.
Overlord on skill MM:
Regarding all these MMing ideas, as you can see from the discussion it’s already divided. With WoT and its huge audience around the world it’s difficult to decide on such major changes the consequences of which are not fully clear. It’s mostly about making compromises right now to satisfy the majority.
and
Leagues are ok, to my thinking. They should be seasonal though, ie should be reset periodically. Also they need to account only for some relevant performance, not all-time stats.
- apparently, majority of players doesn’t even read any news on the portal
- Overlord on WG attitude towards XVM changing if XVM becomes paid service: “Regarding XVM, it might, since we are F2P and appreciate the free staff.”
- Overlord considers the gun barrel marks too easy to get apparently
- apprently, the developers are considering “renting” historical battles tanks the way the HB ammunition is “rented”
