Hello everyone,

yesterday, Polyarmus sent me an e-mail with an interesting question: how many potential tier 10 vehicles are there left to implement for already existing trees? That kinda gave me pause, because the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that it’s probably not that many. Let’s have a look at the existing trees one by one. I ommitted the potential artillery class vehicles for obvious reasons. Special thanks to Dominatus, Vollketten, Anglomanii, CaptianNemo and Listy for brainstorming ideas.

Germany

German tree is pretty much finished, the only thing that is missing from it are the historical Waffenträgers (on 38t suspension) and the Sturmtiger branch, with Sturmtiger of them all being probably the only viable tier 10 vehicle. Theoretically, another vehicle that could serve as tier 10 could be the Sturmpanzer Bär, but of the Waffenträgers, none really reach tier 10 potential. The only chance (for WT E-100 replacement) would really be the idea, that was mentioned some time ago – it’s possible Yuri Pasholok found some advanced Waffenträger Panther material in the German Bundesarchiv, but so far, he has not published anything of that sort.

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This is a post about some technical matters with FTR itself.

One:

In recent days (weeks), I’ve recieved numerous complaints from people, who tried to register on FTR and never recieved their confirmation e-mail with a password back. This issue should now be fixed (it was a problem with the mailing system). In case it is not (I have seen several cases where FTR mail goes to spam folder), try logging on using social login

Two:

Recently, I have recieved several articles from various players – articles, that they want to have published in FTR. When you want something published, guys, a couple of points you should pay attention to:

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Hello everyone,

unlike the Cromwell tanks (and the Challengers), the Czechoslovaks didn’t use Shermans after the war, but rather during the war.

The Czechoslovak tankers encountered the Shermans first in 1944. The first four (of the Sherman V type, also known as the M4A4) were attached to the artillery regiment of the Czechoslovak Independent Armored Brigade in from April to August 1944 in Britain as artillery observation tanks. After the Brigade was moved to France, on 13.9.1944, they were replaced by Cromwell AOP tanks.

Another mention of the Sherman came from August 1944, when there were some negotiations between the Brigade officers and the British about the unit recieving some 17pdr Shermans, also known as the Fireflies. The British were not to eager to equip the Czechoslovak unit with even a few Fireflies, but in the end a compromise was reached and on 27.8.1944, the Brigade recieved its first four Sherman IC tanks (the Firefly built on M4 tank, can be seen on the photo above in Britain). These four tanks were then split into two groups of two tanks and each group was attached to one of two Brigade’s tank batallions. More tanks of this type were recieved by the Brigade in March and April of 1945. By that time, the Brigade was already organizing the creation of third batallion and according to the new organization tables, each company was to have one 3-tank platoon of Firefly tanks. In May 1945, the Sherman Fireflies were replaced completely by the Challenger tanks (specifically on 9.5.1945). Before that however, the Brigade recieved 36 Fireflies in total of both types (the welded and the composite hull). No Czechoslovak Sherman Firefly was ever lost in combat, although the fate of one (WD No. T 269822) is not documented (not listed as decommissioned).

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Source: RU server forums

It was confirmed by the Russian WG forum folks that the 9.1 patch is scheduled for release next Tuesday (10.6.2014) on RU server. EU release is not yet confirmed, but is apparently to follow a day later.

In Minsk, who needs cranes and lifters, when you have stronk men!

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Thanks to Jusuchin for this one.

Hello everyone,

some of you probably know and follow the video series and the site, called “Forgotten Weapons”. Its owner mostly deals with small arms, machineguns and generally exotic infantry weaponry, which makes the show kinda beyond the scope of FTR, but this time, he had a look at the 37mm M6 GMC, which was basically an early stopgap tank destroyer, introduced by the Americans in 1942. It was mostly used in the early fighting in Africa and in limited numbers also in the Pacific.

The 37mm gun M3 was pretty much outdated by the time the vehicle got introduced, it was not very well liked and by 1943, this ad-hoc tank destroyer was completely obsolete. Of cca 5000 M6 GMC’s made, some were sold to the French, some left on Philippines, the rest was dismantled and the the trucks and guns got repurposed. You can read more about it here.

Hello everyone,

I don’t usually post various “RNG” videos, but this kinda made me giggle. It’s a video by Blubbyzor (EU) and it nicely demonstrates, why

a) artilleries shouldn’t stick together at one spot
b) artilleries shouldn’t occupy “predictable” spots
c) artilleries should move after shooting

Thanks to TheFightingTemeraire for this one

Guess what’s appearing on E3…

Source: http://cyprus-mail.com/2014/06/04/third-point-vote-of-confidence-in-hellenic/

Thanks to Vahakn for this piece of info.

Hello everyone,

just a small tidbit of information, that is interesting nonetheless. The abovelinked post about the state of the Cypriot Hellenic bank (co-owned by Wargaming) wouldn’t be too interesting (although it suggests that WG is doing fine, which is good), but it has one interesting short passage in the end:

A Russian business publication reported at the time that Wargaming probably had funds in the bank that got frozen and needed to buy into the bank to be able to withdraw them.

This confirms that during the last year’s Cypriot account government and EU-sanctioned robbery (it wasn’t anything else), Wargaming actually couldn’t access its funds and so they bought into the bank to do so. When you think about that, that’s kinda badass.