Source: Wotbase.ru
AMX50B

Sherman Jumbo

Hello everyone,

looks like we have found our EU server “rage of the week” (well, at least until regular WG EU weekend event screwup).

Basically, what happened: a Polish player is complaining in a rather long thread that Russian teams are joining European ESL competition, while European players are not allowed to play RU ESL. And – because they are better, folks are like “evul commies steelin muh cheezburgr prizes n stuff”.

Naturally, the whole thread (along with its several “child” threads) has become a trollfest, with many players claiming Russian bias (that never gets old, does it). Therefore, several minithreads got canned by mods.

There was also a separate voting thread, ending… well, obviously, not exactly in favour of Russian participation in EU ESL.

Anyway, those who complain also bring up the WoT Pro League rules:

A Russian player can only either play in the RU Pro Leauge or the EU Pro Leauge, but not in both.

(yea, there is a double typo in official ESL rules, just brilliant)

Honestly, I don’t care that much about e-sports and I don’t know, whether those Russian players participate in BOTH leagues, but if you feel like supporting the Europeans (or to oppose them), just go to the abovementioned thread. Personally, I think it would be easier to just… you know, allow everyone to play everywhere.

And what’s your opinion?

Hello everyone,

this article starts where part 1 left off – today, we are going to have a look at the Waffentrager Panther, that is to appear in 8.9 (or…. is it? “Some say” there were some changes in the branch. Sorry, no details on that).

But first, let’s have a look back at the Jagdpanther II, because last article left some questions unanswered. So, is it historical?

Well, yes and no. The concept of Jagdpanther II actually predates the ingame Jagdpanther. One of the first Jagdpanther (I) proposals from January 1943 for a self-propelled 88mm gun, based on Panther platform, actually counted on using the Panther II hull – please note it was just an idea, the vehicle was not even called Jagdpanther, or Jagdpanther II, it was called 88mm Sturmgeschütz auf Fahrgestell Panther. By May 1943 however, Panther II itself was shelved and the designers were ordered to re-work the Jagdpanther proposal to the Panther I platform, instead of Panther II. In this sense, Jagdpanther II actually predates Jagdpanther I and historically, it would most likely look similiar, except for the Panther hull (thicker sides). Only 88mm KwK 43 was ever proposed for the early Jagdpanther, the 105mm gun is not historical and is there for balance. Same goes for the 128mm for Jagdpanther II – there was no such thing originally invented.

So, what about the ingame Jagdpanther II? Well, that’s sort of made up. It’s a mashup of two actual designs, with a healthy dose of WG invention. What Wargaming basically did was that they took this design as a muster:

Yes, this is the 128mm Jagdpanther redesign by Krupp from late 1944 (I mentioned in part I). It was supposed to allow the Panther chassis to carry the 128mm L/55, but Doyle stated that it would be too heavy and unwieldly, weighing up to 51 tons. Wargaming took this design, renamed it to “Jagdpanther II” and switched the hull armor characteristics from Panther I to Panther II (mostly concerns side armor thickness). They strapped more armor on it and unhistorical engine and voila, Jagdpanther II is born. In other words: while somewhat logical, ingame Jagdpanther II is nearly completely made up and has nothing to do with the early proposed 88mm tank destroyer on Panther II platform. The 128mm gun was added for balance. I mean – I get WHY they did it, but it’s not historical. By the way, the wotwiki description says:

“The Jagdpanther II was conceived in November of 1944 by Krupp to up-arm the Jagdpanther with an 12.8 cm PaK 80.”

No. That’s not true. The Umbewaffnung project by Krupp from November 1944 was not called Jagdpanther II, it was simply “Jagdpanther mit 12,8cm PaK 80″. It also never sported the improved side armor (it had enough issues with weight as it was).

Okay, that took longer to explain than I hoped, back to the Waffenträger.

Waffenträger Panther

First, some basics. What’s a Waffenträger? A quick rundown: it’s (presumably mass-produced, but also ad-hoc) chassis with a (anti-tank) gun mounted on it, preferably a bigger gun than the chassis would normally carry, either “just so” with only a gun shield, or in a lightly armored casemate/turret.

In case of Waffenträger Panther, it would look something like this:

This is the Rheinmetall’s “Skorpion” proposal from 2nd April, 1943. Yes, this design actually existed in blueprints. So, is the Waffenträger Panther historical? Again, yes and no.

You might have noticed the “K43″ in the picture description. That is in fact the 128mm gun designation. Those who dabble in this sort of thing probably know that tank cannons were designated KwK, while AT guns were designated PaK. “K” simply means “Kanone” and it designates an artillery piece. That’s right – all the “Waffenträger” Panther designs were designed as artillery vehicles. It’s worth noting however that while the 128mm K43 was an artillery weapon esentially, 128mm K44 L/55 was practically identical with the Jagdtiger weapon (PaK 44 L/55).

There were basically two proposal branches for the Panther SPG’s: one by Krupp and one by Rheinmetall. The Skorpion was proposed by Rheinmetall as a SPG with fully traversable open turret (casemate and closed turret versions also existed). Krupp proposals were a bit different from the ones of Rheinmetall. One of them looked like this:

Is the shape familiar to you? Yes, that’s the ingame GW Panther proposal. In real life it was called “12,8cm K. 43 (Sfl.) Kp.II”. It was originally supposed to carry the same gun (K43), Wargamming upgunned it to a 15cm gun, based on other Krupp Panther SPG proposals.

Back to this “Waffenträger” then – it is clear that any such vehicle ingame would be a actually a re-worked artillery pieces. What does that mean for the game? Not much really, apart from the fact it’s not very realistic (therefore, it’s a prime candidate for replacement for something… more historical). Are there any other historical vehicles to replace tier 8 and 9 with? Well, yes, but that is a story for another time.

Short history of these “Waffenträgers”:

The work on self propelled arty pieces based on Panther chassis started as early as July 1942 and was basically (as mentioned before) conducted by two different companies, producing competitive designs (that’s how Germans liked to do it: there were always two designs for each program, take Maus/E-100 or Porsche/Henschel Tiger as an example).

Krupp

Krupp started to work on the Waffenträgers by producing a 150mm and 128mm designs. Here we can see the 150mm design, called Gerät 5-1528 (picture courtesy of Zarax):

The vehicle had extended Panther platform hull and a fully traverseable turret with a 150mm sFh 43 gun – it was designed based on the Russian experiences. The 150mm variant was to be called Heushrecke 15, while the 128mm variant Heushrecke 12 (as you can see, even the names scream “artillery”, not a self-propelled TD gun). Another two variants were designed and named Grille 15 (150mm gun) and Grille 12 (128mm). Wooden models were ready in January 1943. The prototype vehicles were supposed to be ready in September 1943, but in April, it was decided to produce only one prototype of Grille 12/15 (its mockup is on the picture I linked as GW Panther above) and in May 1943, both the Heuershrecke 12 and 15 were cancelled. In the meanwhile some work on the Grille 12/15 continued. However, as with many German late war projects, the war needs intervened and the Grille 12/15 was eventually cancelled in late 1943.
From early to mid 1944, Krupp (along with Waffenprüfamt 4) proposed (out of its own initiative) a bunch of other SPG proposals (with removable weapons, that could be dismounted and used separately from the vehicle actually), but nothing really came of it, mostly because there weren’t any spare Panther hulls around for such vehicles to be constructed on. One of the late Krupp proposals from September 1944 was actually called “mitteler Waffenträger” (here we see the word used for the first time, when it comes to SPG’s), but it was still basically an artillery piece.

The most complicated parts of the Krupp designs were the ability to remove the howitzer and use it as a towed piece (for whatever good that was, late in the war, towing vehicles were at premium, with German troops being actually forced to abandon perfectly good guns simply because they had nothing to tow them with, this being the principal reason behind the Waffenträger concept) and the rotating turret. Late in the war (early 1945) there was another 128mm K44 concept, simplified without these features, but by that time it was way too late for anything and the war was practically over. Thus, none of these designs made it beyond the drawing board (or wooden mockup).

Rheinmetall

Just like Krupp, Rheinmetall began in July 1942 to make their own proposal for Panther-based artillery pieces. They produced a bunch of designs in January 1943, using 128mm K43 and 150mm guns. They all looked like the abovementioned Skorpion, they had revolving turrets. This is how some of them looked (from above: 12,8cm K43 Sfl from January 1943, 12,8cm Skorpion from April 1943, 15cm sFH 43 mit Panther Bauabteilen from April 1943 and sFH 18 mit Panther Bauabteilen from January 1944)

Long story short, these designs suffered the same fate as the Krupp ones. Bunch of them were developed, but they never progressed beyond mockup stage, because there were no Panther hulls available.

Conclusion

So, this is it, the story behind Waffenträger Panther. There will be part 3 – the Sturmmörser Panther, that will be fun and I promise it will be shorter.

Sources:
W.Spielberger – Panther and its variants
H.L.Doyle, T.Jentz – Panther Variants 1942-1945
H.L.Doyle – Panzer Tracts
Posts by Daigensui (US forum)

Not sure if this was posted officially or not anywhere, but here’s a new teaser for the WoT for Xbox game. It’s actually kinda nice :)

Another pretty funny video by Darth_Woras :)

Hello everyone,

some of you might recall that not so long ago, Storm stated that they want to introduce more reward T10 vehicles (like the M60, Object 907 and the Failowe), obtainable thru random battles – but they have a problem: all of the tier 10 candidates are already “scheduled” to appear as regular vehicles with lines of their own.

As a reaction to that, Kankou, Zarax and me did make a tier 10 proposal: the E-75 Ausf.W:

You can read about it here (including proposed stats): http://ftr.wot-news.com/2013/06/26/no-random-t10-reward-tanks-available-presenting-weserhutte-tiger/

What happened afterwards?

Two things. Basically, I asked an “unnamed developer” (I don’t want to bring pressure on him, my question was informal), whether this design would be viable. Basically, his reply was that it’s as good as any other proposal. At the same time, I gathered feedback, which was actually quite positive (more than I expected at least).

In the meanwhile, Kankou did propose it to Wargaming officially thru some other contacts. But honestly, we all know, every project needs support – your support, the support of players, who like it and would like to see it in the game.

So, this is where YOU come in, dear readers. This project needs your approval and some good hype. I can see you asking one (the most logical) question – “Why should I support it?”

Here are a few reasons why:

- first, it’s (semi) historical. The historical background is described at length in the aforementioned article
- it’s not another German huge metal box. You probably could find more heavy tank “historical” candidates for the German T10 position, such as the “Tiger Maus”, or the “E-100 Ausf.B”, but all of them are basically Maus/E-100 clones. This proposal is different, it’s more mobile, has sloped armor and packs quite a punch, it’s like E-75 on steroids
- it’s essentially a player-described evolution of the original Weserhütte hull proposal. In other words, if your feedback can get it in, it might as well be the first “player-suggested” tank in the game.
- it’s as good a design as any, when it comes to T10 random battles. If you have a different idea for the T10 reward tank, sure, that’s cool too, but you have to consider the fact it can’t be anything “common”, as those vehicles (for example the Chieftain tank) are scheduled to appear at some point as regular vehicles. If you care only about getting some rewards for random battles too, you might as well consider this tank

Regarding the third point – make no mistake, the chance to get this tank in is most likely small, but I still think it’s a good idea and it’s worth trying.

So, what can you do?

Talk about it. Propose it. This appeal goes especially to EU (and possibly SEA) server, where every community has its own language section (especially the EU German, Polish and others), you can translate a part of it if you want to, post it in the “suggestion” section. Stuff like that.

Of course, if you don’t do any of that, that’s just fine. All I am asking for you, dear readers, is to at least consider the idea and the reasons I posted above.

Hello everyone!

For past 2-3 days, Wot-news.com was running a review thread of the new artillery. I decided to translate some of it (well, not literally, I will add some comments) in hope it will bring the prospective arty players (who should should be summarily sacrificed to Khorne would like to try the British arties) some info to decide, what’s what.

Author (tester): Madspider

British arty review

As everyone knows by know, patch 8.7 will bring the British artillery. It’s a whole new branch, that looks basically like this:

Tier 2 – Loyd GC (150XP and 3900 creds)
Tier 3 – Sexton II (1350XP and 49000 creds)
Tier 4 – Birch Gun (5250XP and 152000 creds)
Tier 5 – Bishop (14750XP and 405000 creds, 19600XP when researched from Valentine)
Tier 6 – FV304 (31000XP and 930000 creds)
Tier 7 – Crusader SP (64750XP and 1440000 creds)
Tier 8 – FV207 (118200XP and 2730000 creds)
Tier 9 – FV3805 (202000XP and 3560000 creds)
Tier 10 – Conqueror GC (267000XP and 6100000 creds)

Loyd GC

A proposal to mount a 76.2-mm gun on the chassis of the Loyd Carrier artillery truck. Developed from 1940 through 1941. No prototypes were manufactured.

This vehicle is characterized by very thin armor, good speed (which it can however reach only when going downhill) and good traverse angles. The rest of the properties however are pretty sad and the gun is mediocre at best, not being really good in any respect.

Hull armor: 7/7/7
Hitpoints: 80
Hull turnrate: 22-24 deg/sec
Traverse: +30, -15 degrees
Viewrange: 320m
Radiorange: 250-375m
Maximum speed: 48 km/h
Gun: QF 13Pr Mk.III (42 pen, 165 dam, 6,67 ROF, 0,8ACC, 5s aimtime)
Shell range: 508m
Crew: 3

Armor model:

Sexton II

Modification of the Grizzly tank, mounting the British 25-pounder field howitzer. Mass production was launched at the Montreal Locomotive Works in Canada, with 2150 vehicles manufactured from 1943 through 1945.

A decent, but unremarkable arty piece. Her “brother”, Sexton I, is going to be a premium vehicle and is very similiar to this arty (the only difference is the engine, Sexton II has a 460hp one, while the premium Sexton I only has a 390hp one). This vehicle kinda resembles the US M7 and M37. It has a good gun and relatively good mobility, plus a really good armor as a bonus (during its testing, one player was able to acquire steel wall with it, when facing the Panzer IC)

Hull armor: 50/38/38
Hitpoints: 140
Hull turnrate: 18-20 deg/sec
Traverse: +25, -15 degrees
Viewrange: 330m
Radiorange: 400-550m
Maximum speed: 40,2 km/h
Gun:
QF 18pdr (42/65 pen, 260/170 dam, 5,45 ROF, 0,78ACC, 5,5s aimtime)
QF 25pdr (44/92/71 pen, 280/180/180 dam, 5 ROF, 0,76ACC, 5,5s aimtime)
Shell range: 1051m
Crew: 6

Armor model:

Birch Gun

The first SPG originally designed in Great Britain. Development started in 1923. The prototype was built on the basis of the Vickers Medium Mark II in 1925. A few prototypes were manufactured, and underwent trials starting in 1925. The project was canceled in 1928 due to lack of interest by the British government.

First and only British SPG with a turret – if that thing can be called a turret at all. It’s basically a cool cabriolet, that made its way to tier 4 od the British SPG branch. It uses the same guns as the previous Sexton, they just fire a bit faster and are a bit more accurate. The HE shells of the top gun are a problem however – while they are sufficient to destroy enemies of tier 2 to 4, they lack penetration to destroy tier 5-6 enemies (the tester fired 6 premium shells at KV-2 and has done 0 damage). The only way to play it is with the AP rounds, with all their joys, such as “that one bounced”, detracks and 0 damage crits. Even that is however better than constant useless dings of the HE shells.

Hull armor: 6/6/6 (yes, practically no armor, how terrible…)
Hitpoints: 190
Hull turnrate: 16-18 deg/sec
Traverse: 360 degrees
Viewrange: 340m
Radiorange: 400-550m
Maximum speed: 45 km/h
Gun:
QF 18pdr (42/65 pen, 260/170 dam, 6,82 ROF, 0,74ACC, 5s aimtime)
QF 25pdr (44/92/71 pen, 280/180/180 dam, 6,25 ROF, 0,72ACC, 5s aimtime)
Shell range: 1051m
Crew: 6

Armor model:

Bishop

Developed by Birmigham Carriage and Wagon in June 1941 on the basis of the Valentine II infantry support vehicle. From 1942 through 1943, a total of 149 SPGs were produced. In general the vehicle was unsuccessful. The vehicle was used for training purposes since 1943.

This arty is based on Valentine. It looks like a KV-2 and Valentine crossbreed in fact. The chassis belongs obviously to the Valentine tank – with a boxy construction on top of it. If you expect a turret however, you will be disappointed – the casemate construction is rigid and the gun itself has a horrible, horrible traverse arc, only 4 degrees! Furthermore, this vehicle has a horrible range of only 499m, which is worse than the tier 2 arty has. When you fight on this vehicle for the first time, you are in for a shock: it’s somewhat slow and huge (this arty sticks out, literally) and with no traverse, it an simply fire only forward. Frontal armor is not bad for a tier 5 arty (60mm), but it doesn’t save this vehicle. The top gun has only one type of ammunition (which kinda sucks in both penetration and damage). Really, not a good vehicle overall.

Hull armor: 60/50/60
Hitpoints: 350
Hull turnrate: 20-22 deg/sec
Traverse: +4/-4 degrees (!)
Viewrange: 300m
Radiorange: 400-550m
Maximum speed: 24 km/h
Gun:
QF 25pdr (44/92/71 pen, 280/180/180 dam, 6,82 ROF, 0,68ACC, 4,5s aimtime)
QF 4.5in How (57 pen, 450 dam, 4,65 ROF, 0,72ACC, 4,5s aimtime)
Shell range: 499m
Crew: 4

Armor model:

FV304

Prototype light SPG developed by Vickers. Development started in 1947. However, the prototype was not manufactured until 1953. The design of the SPG was already obsolete by this time, and the project was canceled.

This is basically not even an arty vehicle, it’s a scout in disguise, equipped with a howitzer and the guy who tested this vehicle had the feeling that it will get a lot of XP for scouting, instead of dealing damage. The vehicle indeed is “original”, but it’s practically impossible to play it as classic arty. It’s possible that the developers ran out of ideas and basically inserted a TD and a LT on tiers 5 and 6 and did set them up as arties, because neither of these vehicles plays as a regular arty.

Hull armor: 25/25/25
Hitpoints: 280 (! that’s less than the tier below)
Hull turnrate: 22-24 deg/sec
Traverse: +14/-17 degrees
Viewrange: 310m
Radiorange: 450-700m
Maximum speed: 72,4 km/h (!!!)
Gun:
QF 25pdr (44/92/71 pen, 280/180/180 dam, 6,98 ROF, 0,66ACC, 4,5s aimtime)
QF 4.5in How (57 pen, 450 dam, 5 ROF, 0,70ACC, 4,5s aimtime)
Shell range: 499m (!)
Crew: 5 (notice the annoying crewmember changes)

Armor model:

Crusader SP

A modification of the Crusader featuring a 140-mm howitzer. Soon after WWII a prototype was completed. However, the vehicle never entered mass production, nor saw service.

An interesting vehicle, based on the famous Crusader British tank. The real question is, how come it’s so slow? Only 14 km/h? Well, if you look at some of the screenshots, you will understand:

See that seat? That’s drivers seat and it’s facing backwards. The whole hull is backwards in fact, so this arty can go as fast as 45km/h when driving backwards! Therefore, it can (and has to) run away from scouts backwards, while shooting at them from the move (yes, that works, if you manage to hit and drive at the same time). But that’s where its advantages end. The top gun of this arty has one of the lowest damage and penetration characteristics on its tier, while rest of the vehicle’s stats remain mediocre. Interestingly enough, the golden HE shells have a huge splash (4,5m, compared to the 3,15m of the regular HE), but there is not much sense in buying it. Well, basically it’s a fast tank (when going backwards), with a huge gun.

Hull armor: 28/28/20
Hitpoints: 350
Hull turnrate: 30-32 deg/sec
Traverse: +19/-20 degrees
Viewrange: 370m
Radiorange: 275-550m
Maximum speed: 14 km/h (45 when going backwards)
Gun:
QF 4.5in How (57 pen, 450 dam, 5 ROF, 0,72ACC, 4,5s aimtime)
BL 5.5in How (70/75 pen, 900/900 dam, 2,14 ROF, 0,72ACC, 6,5s aimtime)
Shell range: 1326
Crew: 5

Armor model:

FV207

An SPG variant on the basis of the А45 Conqueror. It was planned to mount either a 105-mm, 140-mm, or 152-mm howitzer in a closed armored cabin. The vehicle existed only in blueprints.

Tier 8,9,10 vehicles are kinda similiar in their layout. First of them is the FV207 – it is also the slowest one. Just like on the previous case, the gun has quite a low penetration and when it comes to other parameters, it kinda resembles to top gun of Lorraine 155 51. The vehicle’s biggest advantage lies in great gun traverse (44 degrees altogether!). In general, this vehicle is pretty good and the tester had no specific complaints about it.

Hull armor: 50/50/50
Hitpoints: 430
Hull turnrate: 18-20 deg/sec
Traverse: +22/-22 degrees
Viewrange: 330m
Radiorange: 550-750m
Maximum speed: 29 km/h
Gun:
BL 5.5in How (70/75 pen, 900/900 dam, 2,4 ROF, 0,72ACC, 6,5s aimtime)
BL 6in How (90/258/90 pen, 1250/750/1250 dam, 1,82 ROF, 0,72ACC, 6,5s aimtime)
Shell range: 1405
Crew: 6

Armor model:

FV3805

A modification of the Centurion featuring a 140-mm howitzer. A total of 2 prototypes were built in 1956. The development of the FV3805 was discontinued in 1960. The vehicle never saw service.

This tier 9 arty is very, very well balanced. It is reasonably mobile, reasonably accurate and has good gun traverse angles. It’s a very good vehicle, that allows you to be on top of the battle damage in almost every battle. The tester’s impression was that it’s the best British arty, even better than the tier 10 one.

Hull armor: 50/50/50
Hitpoints: 450
Hull turnrate: 20-22 deg/sec
Traverse: +25/-25 degrees
Viewrange: 340m
Radiorange: 550-750m
Maximum speed: 40 km/h
Gun:
BL 5.5in How (70/75 pen, 900/900 dam, 2,5 ROF, 0,7ACC, 6s aimtime)
BL 6in How (90/258/90 pen, 1250/750/1250 dam, 1,94 ROF, 0,7ACC, 6s aimtime)
BL 7,2in How (92/97 pen, 1750/1750 dam, 1,46 ROF, 0,82ACC, 7s aimtime)
Shell range: 1354
Crew: 5

Armor model:

Conqueror GC

A proposal to mount a 234-mm howitzer on the chassis of the Conqueror. Existed only in blue prints.

Conqueror GC is not a very well profiled and ambiguous vehicle. On one hand it is quite inaccurate (when tested, the tester couldn’t hit a standing WZ-111 at 500m with fully aimed circle, all 3 shots missed), the gun is also the slowest reloading in the game. On the other hand, this vehicle has awesome armor (even better than the one of some tier 10 meds!), which makes it really problematic to deal with for light tanks, it’s also quite mobile and with such a long reload time, it allows you to drive around half of the game map before you reload. As a bonus, it’s probably the only top arty, which can install Improved ventilation equipment.
All in all, it’s not a bad vehicle. The shells have huge splash (11,1m), allowing you to “carpetbomb” more enemies at once and installing rammer and ventilation somewhat compensates the long reload time and horrible gun inaccuracy.

Hull armor: 152/50/76
Hitpoints: 530
Hull turnrate: 24 deg/sec
Traverse: +30/-30 degrees (!)
Viewrange: 350m
Radiorange: 750m
Maximum speed: 34,4 km/h
Gun:
BL 9,2in How (117/117 pen, 2200/2200 dam, 1,04 ROF, 1,1ACC, 8,5s aimtime)
Shell range: 1007
Crew: 6

Armor model:

Conclusion

British arty is not for everyone and only the most hardcore arty players will be able to survive the horrible tier 5 and 6 vehicles (or pass them entirely with free XP) to reach the trio of good hightier arties. Another annoying thing in this branch are the changes in crew numbers, forcing you to shuffle your crews around, not allowing them to train consistently and properly.

I am sure many people noticed the trend with new Wargaming branches that the lowtiers tend to be bearable, mid-high tiers tend to be pretty horrible with only hightiers catching up the pace. I guess this is an arguable matter, but to me, it seems intentional (you know, to not make, but at least push a bit the players to skip some vehicles with free XP). Still, if you survive this, you might get to a decent set of arties, but somehow… I don’t think many will.

Source: Edrard, wot-news.com