Part I – Introduction
Part II – Italy, Czechoslovakia
Part III – Hungary
Part IV – Sweden
Part V – Yugoslavia
Part VI – Poland
Part VII – Spain
Part VIII – Switzerland and others

Hello everyone,

in our last part of the European tree series, we will talk about the common questions, that arise in connection with the possible European tree, we will be debunking some of the most common myths as well. So, without further ado, once more unto the breach, dear friends!

Myth 1: EU tree would be infested with Soviet (on in rarer cases, American) copies

Possibly the most common myth about the potential EU tree. Obviously, if you have followed the series, you know that it is not true. Granted, some nations are problematic on high tiers (Italy, Hungary, Poland), but – Czechoslovaks do have hightier vehicles (TVP series), Yugoslavia does too, Switzerland does too, Sweden has TONS of original stuff. There would be no shortage of hightier options for the entire EU tree. Granted, that would happen provided that all these nations are a part of the EU tree and not introduced as separate minitrees.

The best case scenario is that additional research would reveal more interesting candidates for the hightier nations, that are currently lacking in this respect. It is not unheard of. Worst case scenario is that some of the important, yet problematic nations would “merge” into one big branch (for example, imagine a single line of Czechoslovak light/medium tanks, with Polish and Hungarian tanks attached to it, merging into the Czechoslovak branch on their respective tiers. Or – in another case, Hungarian into Swedish (after all, they did have common designs). That would work.

But yes, there are many options for high tiers, with even the heavy branch present in form of the Swedish Kranvagn tanks.

Continue reading →

Thanks to CaptianNemo for sending me the data required.

Hello everyone,

when playing World of Tanks, have you ever asked yourself, what is a shell “penetration”? The natural answer would of course be “a situation, where the shell goes through the armor”. True, of course, that is the essence of the entire thing, but it is not all. In order to estabilish a penetration at certain distance, you have to know four basic things:

- obviously, the distance
- the type of gun (shell) you are shooting
- the type of armor you are shooting at
- what exactly counts as a “penetrating hit”

Especially the last part leads to a lot of confusion, because it’s absolutely possible that using different methods, the very same gun with the very same shell can have WILDLY different penetration values.

So, what counts as penetration? Well, everyone counts it differently. The most blatant case of this is the different performance of German and Soviet guns according to German/Soviet tables. Let’s have a look at some of the methods first. It’s all very technical, so I will try to skip the mumbo jumbo and explain it in layman’s terms.

Americans

This is the American basic table, showing the penetration methods of various US military branches with various purposes. The important part for us is the army branch. As you can see, there are two categories – complete and partial penetration. Complete penetration according to the American methodology is acquired, whenever a shell punctures the armor enough for light to shine through, once the shell is removed. In other words, it’s enough for the shell to have just a tip inside the armor and you have achieved a complete penetrating hit. This led to the situations, where the guns had WILDLY higher penetration values when tested by the Americans then when tested by for example the Soviets.

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

sorry for the delay with this post – I wanted the draw to be as far as possible, so after manually checking, I exported the appropriate names to an Excel table and randomly picked one number using RNG.

And the winner is…

Hustodemon (EU server)

Congratulations! Please contact me on EU forums via PM (my nickname is SilentstalkerCZ) with what vehicle would you like to have.

As for the rest of you guys, I will be reading through the “optional” answers (as you can imagine, will take some time, perhaps a day or two), the best answers will be published and the very best will be rewarded :) Just give me some time to do it.

Thanks everyone for participating!

There are two schools of thought on WoT inscriptions. Many vie for more freedom in the size and location of the inscriptions. Others (including SerB) believe that the current way is the only way: having the inscriptions set in stone is the most historical way to do things. Or is it? Let’s take a look at some inscriptions and their real life inspirations and find out.

For starters, one of the most famous T-34 tanks, Boyevaya Podruga. The game translates it as “Fighting Girlfriend”, but it’s more of a “friend that is a girl” word. In Russian, as in many languages, it does not imply romantic associations. A brief history of the inscription: Mariya Vasilievna Oktyabrskaya, whose husband was killed in battle, donated all of her savings in order to buy a tank for the front (as many did), but then sent a letter to Stalin personally, requesting to be made the tank’s driver, and to give it its name. Stalin granted the request. Mariya fought in the rank of Guards Sergeant in the 2nd Guards Tank Corps. After the first tank was knocked out, three additional vehicles inherited its name. The fourth tank lived to see victory, but, unfortunately, its “mother” did not.

Here is how the tank looks in game:

And here is how it looks in real life.

Kind of shatters the “historically accurate” theory, eh? The font is much smaller, it’s written in two lines instead of one, and there is no inscription on the hull. Not exactly a precise replica.

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

as promised, an anniversary competition is here! And because FTR birthday is only once, we will be competing for something very attractive – a tier 8 premium tank of your choice :)

Rules are very simple. You write the answers (won’t be difficult) in comments, along with your nickname and server (acceptable servers are EU, NA, RU, ASIA) like this:

answer 1
answer 2
answer 3
answer 4
answer 5
answer 6
Yournicknamegoeshere EU

You have until midnight (central European summer time). After midnight, I will randomly pick one winner from the correct answers. Or more. We’ll see :)

So, the questions are:

1) What is the totem animal of For the Record
2) What is the nickname of For the Record webmaster, who runs this site, as well as his own RU WoT server?
3) What is SerB’s favourite answer to stupid questions? (two words)
4) Who is FTR’s featured streamer?
5) How many posts (including this one) in total were posted on wot-news-based FTR until today?

and, bonus question, you don’t have to answer that, but you might want to

6) How many Wargaming developers does it take to switch a lightbulb and why?

Yes, best answer(s) to question 6 will be rewarded as well.

Good luck!

PS: As always, if you ever appeared in Hall of Shame, you are disqualified.

Edit: Comments closed.

Edit 2: Due to a small glitch in the system, I will have to recheck each entry manually, that will take some time. The results will be posted in the morning. Also, had a good laugh at some of the lightbulb jokes, but reading all cca 800 will take some time, results of both will be posted in separate posts.

Thanks to Gappa for this one.

Hello everyone,

remember how I wrote the post about the doom of the Tiger II tanks in southern Bohemia in May 1945? Consider this an… addition of sorts. Gappa sent me a couple of pictures, showing some interesting vehicles from the last days of war on the territory of Czechoslovakia, southern Bohemia specifically.

Continue reading →

Part I – Introduction
Part II – Italy, Czechoslovakia
Part III – Hungary
Part IV – Sweden
Part V – Yugoslavia
Part VI – Poland
Part VII – Spain

Hello everyone,

today, we are going to finish the European tech tree vehicle count with an overview of the nations, that could also fit in in one way or another. And then, in part IX, we will conclude the series with some of the most frequently asked questions and arguments against the EU tree.

Switzerland

The Swiss can build – with some efford an entire branch of medium tanks, even though they have some real issues around tier 6 and 7 (tier 6 is a bit worse). In case you are interested in Swiss tank development history, Vollketten wrote a first part of the Swiss series already (about medium tanks), can be found here. To sum it up though, the Swiss line is revolving around the Panzer 58, Panzer 61 and possibly Panzer 68 development.

Continue reading →

Hello everyone,

today is the 1st anniversary of the new For the Record, hosted on the wot-news portal. Much has changed ever since last year, both in the game and on For the Record blog, but one thing remains the same – I am still having fun doing it (as exhausting as it is sometimes) and I am still trying to mine the internetz for the best content about WoT out there.

At this point I would like to thank Edrard, without whose intervention and help over the past year, For the Record would certainly not be here. He was able to get along with me (a feat by itself), running this site, fixing its bugs – a tremendous help. Thank you.

Secondly, I want to thank all the contributors, who helped me finance FTR over the past months and months, both via Patreon and via the Paypal donations. You guys are the best.

And last but not least, I would like to thank everyone else, all of you readers, for your continued support and – earlier – for putting up with ads, that’s what kept me going and keeps me going. Now, enjoy your Saturday (I hope you have as nice weather as it is in here), there will be a competition in the evening (well, at least evening of EU time), so you better refresh your game and tank knowledge :)

PS: Those, who were banished and forgotten, might just return yet…