Re: Royal Equestrian Armored Division

[RoboRed]

Mmm...dat 20-pounder. I have the AT version of that gun on my AT 15. Wonderful gun.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Not related to WoT, but to tanks in general :

Some of you may have heard of electrothermal-chemical propellant for rounds, in order to increase the velocity of projectiles while using the same amount of propellant, by (roughly the idea) drastically optimizing the way in which the propellant is ignited and explode in the chamber.

You may also be aware that some people have been talking for a while now that to defeat the (frankly insane) armors being fielded today on the most modern tanks, to increase the caliber of tank guns from 120 to 140mm.

So, I was thinking... If in fact such monstrosities were to become the new standard for tank guns, replacing the 120mm/122mm standard, how do you think tank design would evolve ? Would we see a revival of super-heavies, or would we see something going in the completely reverse direction, keeping just enough armor to ward off RPSs and IEDs and ditching all the rest in exchange for speed, maneuverability, active/passive counter-measures and sensor equipment ?

Or something else maybe ?


Or do you think the idea of fitting these guns as standard issue on MBTs is unrealistic ?

[Vergil]

Literally playing tier 7 alone because Robo isn't here.

I am the sad.

[RoboRed]

Dude, were I not at a LAN party right now...

I haven't played a proper game of tanks in almost 2 weeks. I haven't even had a game in my T29 yet. I probably won't have a moment for tanks until maybe Thursday. I am sad.

[Vergil]

Dude, were I not at a LAN party right now...

I haven't played a proper game of tanks in almost 2 weeks. I haven't even had a game in my T29 yet. I probably won't have a moment for tanks until maybe Thursday. I am sad.

=(

[Fuzzy]

Not related to WoT, but to tanks in general :

Some of you may have heard of electrothermal-chemical propellant for rounds, in order to increase the velocity of projectiles while using the same amount of propellant, by (roughly the idea) drastically optimizing the way in which the propellant is ignited and explode in the chamber.

You may also be aware that some people have been talking for a while now that to defeat the (frankly insane) armors being fielded today on the most modern tanks, to increase the caliber of tank guns from 120 to 140mm.

So, I was thinking... If in fact such monstrosities were to become the new standard for tank guns, replacing the 120mm/122mm standard, how do you think tank design would evolve ? Would we see a revival of super-heavies, or would we see something going in the completely reverse direction, keeping just enough armor to ward off RPSs and IEDs and ditching all the rest in exchange for speed, maneuverability, active/passive counter-measures and sensor equipment ?

Or something else maybe ?


Or do you think the idea of fitting these guns as standard issue on MBTs is unrealistic ?

Yeah, it's entirely realistic. Today's current MBT's not only have absurd armour but they also have amazing suspension weights. The British Challenger 2 can take up to an 80 ton load on its suspension and has operationally deployed with up to 75+ tons of mostly armour mounted on it. Presumably just in case it gets hit by a comet or something.

But because of that, they can incorporate the larger guns no problem. Indeed, the M1 Abrams had an experimental varient called the M1 CATTB that mounted a 140mm Smoothbore gun. The French also trialed a 140mm gun on an early varient of the Leclerc combined with an autoloader while the Germans also thought about a 140mm gun mounted on a varient that the Swiss were interested in acquiring.

Superheavies will absolutely not occur ever again for the simple reason of deployability. The vast majority of warfare is conducted as expeditionary movement now by nations that could afford a new tank. Thus you need to be able to get them from A to B. This is directly why the UK is the only user of the C-17 Heavy Airlift in Europe, as it's one of only three planes that can transport a modern battle tank and even then only one tank at any given time. As such, going above 75 tons (the weight limit of the C-17) is utterly impractical unless you want a C-5 Galaxy of massive Anton, which is beyond plausability for just a single vehicle.

Down from that, the heaviest transport aircraft in military terms is the A400M Atlas that the UK, France and Germany are acquiring. This can carry up to 35 tonnes. So the idea of large vehicles being developed is effectively impossible, on account that while we might be able to make them...they couldn't actually deploy anywhere. Not without taking weeks by ship and even then you need to have a friendly port that has large scale RoRo capability, often difficult to find outside the 1st World.

Despite this, there are two exceptions. One good and one bad. The USA is developing something called the GCV. Effectively a multirole massive infantry carrier similar to the abysmal Bradley and carrying the same problems all over again. ie - It does a bit of everything, but isn't particularly good at it while also having the slight problem that one design varient came to 85 tonnes. Only the USA could feasible work these things, but it'd be more of a drain than an aid. As such, I don't see this design going through.

The good one is the Israeli Namer APC. Essentially a main battle tank (Merkava) with the turret chopped off and converted to carry men in possibly the heaviest armoured APC around at about 60ish tons. Israel however has not as much worry about deployability, on account of all their enemies being rather at their doorstep.

[RoboRed]

snip:

asdfasdfasdhjladkaskj

Things are starting to wind down, so I maaaaay be back in a bit...

The British Challenger 2 can take up to an 80 ton load on its suspension and has operationally deployed with up to 75+ tons of mostly armour mounted on it. Presumably just in case it gets hit by a comet or something.

I lol'd.

[Valikdu]

Look what I've met.

Super tester inside:

That gun hits hard, btw.

[Harmony Ltd.]

The British Challenger 2 can take up to an 80 ton load on its suspension and has operationally deployed with up to 75+ tons of mostly armour mounted on it. Presumably just in case it gets hit by a comet or something.

I lol'd.

I have the mental image of the enemy launching a British Comet on the Challenger with a catapult.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Okay, I fired on the World of Tanks just now...

6 first games of the day. 6 utter victories completely humiliating to the enemy team.

I am starting to freak out a little.


I just hope it's going to last 9 more games so I get my 250K credit bonus for today.

[Harmony Ltd.]

7th game, seventh victory.

Seriously, who are you and what did you do of World of Tanks ?!

[Harmony Ltd.]

At last ! A crushing defeat !

I was starting to worry...

[Harmony Ltd.]

I remember there was talk about it wasn't impossible that at some point wheeled vehicles might get included in the game (like the AMX 10), and this got me thinking about how it would influence gameplay for a vehicles to be wheeled instead of tracked.

Here's what I got so far :

- Wheeled vehicles are easier to "track". Not because of a fixed percentage thingy, but because wheels represent a bigger, easier to hit target than tracks, and aren't as hard to damage as an all-metal track might be.
HOWEVER
- When "tracked", wheeled vehicles repair their wheels 50 to 100% as fast as a tracked vehicle of the same class.

- 8% mobility penalty on soft terrain, compensated by a 20% mobility bonus on non-soft terrain


Basically, wheeled vehicles are supposed to be light and agile, and don't carry much armor, if any at all, so they have to be good at what they're supposed to do : zooming around the battlefield, scouting around and taking pot-shots at the enemy's flanks and rear.

[Vergil]

7th game, seventh victory.

Seriously, who are you and what did you do of World of Tanks ?!

I love this weekend

[Harmony Ltd.]

Do not worry, all is well !

I had a series of games with Hawkeye, and I can guarantee you that high tier games are still as crappy as they usually are - at least when I'm scouting for them.


On a side note, I can't wait to get out of the AMX 12t.


Still, I managed to nail myself a T29 with it... though it was due more to the incompetence of the driver AND the gift from heaven that are autoloaders than any talent of my own.


Oh, and on the subject of autoloaders, let's wait for Hawkeye to tell us how much he love them.  

[Fuzzy]

News, as FTR points out, Serb came on in a bad mood and took it out on his playerbase, calling them idiots.

How professional.

As ever, I'll translate past the language barrier of Serb-Language to English

- Q: “SerB, last year (the idea of winning Golden Joystick) caused enthusiasm amongst players (unlike this year), what do you think about such a fundamental change in player attitude?” A: “I don’t care” (later he says that people are “celebrating” WoT GJ loss too early and they need to chill out and he closes with “Whine, whine never changes”)

We don't care that we support dictators who caused genocide and you're only whining about that.

- AMX-30 does fit the WoT timescale and it is possible it will be introduced as 2nd French top medium

We had a revelation and remembered the French exist.

- it’s not sure whether the hemispherical T-54 turrets will be available for the 100mm frontal armor hull only. There is an option to implement the optional 120mm frontal armor hull too, that one would however limit the speed of the tank

We want to buff the T-54 again.

- there are no plans to rework the 10-caliber rule (SS: shell flies only the distance of 10 its calibers after the armor is penetrated)

We want Russian tanks to continue to have this game mechanic advantage.

- there are no plans for near future to bring a tier 8 British premium heavy into the game

We don't care about the British despite there being loads of ideas and them being the only nation without one.

- according to SerB, World of Tanks gameplay adheres to “fair play” principles

According to Serb, World of Tanks works as intended when Russians are by far more powerful

- for now, more than one arty branche per nation is not planned, but principially possible

Russia has no more SPGs to put in so we don't care about any other nations getting things that actually saw service.

- big maps, smoke shells and smokescreens, rocket tanks (RBT-5), new equipment and new crew skills: “when it’s done it’s done”

Maps that let anyone other than Russians dominate are not important to us.

- JT88 to recieve lower frontal plate nerf (120 to 100mm)? “If needed”

JT88 will recieve a lower frontal plate nerf.

- the composition of the 8.9 German TD branch is final

We couldn't be bothered researching a Tier 10 that wasn't made up.

[RoboRed]

- it’s not sure whether the hemispherical T-54 turrets will be available for the 100mm frontal armor hull only. There is an option to implement the optional 120mm frontal armor hull too, that one would however limit the speed of the tank

We want to buff the T-54 again.

That. Thing. Does. Not. Need. A. Buff.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Managed to get 15 victories today as well and got my 250K credit bonus, though it was starting to get hard toward the end.

There's just so much you can do at tier 4 when your gun has only 60mm of penetration, your armor is paper thin and you're thrown in tier 5 and 6 games.

Amusingly, I made more today with all my games, including the defeats, playing the Pz 3 than what the 15 victories bonus brought. Admittedly, I've got premium for a week at the moment.

[hawkeye92]

VK4502B. Day four of the grind, still fairly early on.
14 games, 12 losses, 1 mediocre win and 1 spectacular fail of a win.

This is officially my second worst day of WoT ever, with easy potential to get even worse. Funnily enough the worst day ever was playing the VK4502A. Consider yourselves warned.

[Harmony Ltd.]

How much XP do you need to get to the Mighty Mouse ?

[hawkeye92]

How much XP do you need to get to the Mighty Mouse ?

116,000 xp.
Since Saturday I've made 76,000 and I'll probably be at 90k tonight if I can get thirteen more victories in it (ha!), so I'll probably manage to scrape together the xp before the Maus comes off of the offer. Something I'll need because it's the difference between 4.6 and 6.1 million credits. I'm at 3.7m at the moment so credits should be OK too assuming the fifteen victories a day until the Sunday after next.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Worst come to worst, just buy a Tier 8 premium for your credit needs :v

Anyway, but kind of related : Thinking about it, I have never touched back my AMX40 since I obtained the ELC. And I think I'll do the same thing with the AMX 12t once I'll get my hands on the AMX 13 75.

[RoboRed]

I haven't even touched my AMX 12t since I got it. Several reasons:

1) I have this horrible luck of the maiden voyages of all my tanks going horribly wrong. (yeah...bad, wussy reason, I know...)

2) Scout matchmaking - rather difficult to do any proper platooning.

3) Initial grind is going to be a pain.

4) I'm working on getting the rest of my med lines to at least tier 6 before I start focusing on a line again. Thus far, I still need to get my Type 58 and Cromwell. And I'm not 100% sure, but I think I'll automatically have the 3002M once 8.8 goes live on the NA servers, since I already unlocked the 3001H. Also, I'm trying to get the T20 from my Sherman Jumbo.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Yeah, scout matchmaking is... stressful to say the least.

You have all those "pro players" (read : raging assholes) screaming at you once you do the tiniest of errors (dude, I have had less than 900 battles so far, and this is my first Tier 6 tank ! Give me a break !) ; and when you do it right as a scout, then it's the rest of the team that fall apart like a wet tissue blown in the wind.


And if only more than 15% percent of arty players actually knew how to play as arty...

[Vergil]

We interrupt this program to remind you that this game can, in fact, still be fun sometimes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paHUnuTfEKo

Also those are now the mods I have settled on.

[Harmony Ltd.]

Using the enemy itself as cover ? Fucking brilliant.

[Fuzzy]

Some news...and Wargaming is steaming off the edge into complete ineptitude today.

- SerB likes the WT E-100 model

Good for you, Serb. Pity it NEVER EXISTED.

- it’s possible lendlease Soviet Lee and Sherman will come in forseeable future

Because the British haven't been waiting a year for the Lend Lease Line already then.

- T-35 will not come this year or the next apparently (SS: odd)

No multiturret for two years then.

- there were historically fast (agile) French tanks for tiers 1-4
- FCM 36 might appear on tier 2, SerB will check it out
- tier 8 French medium premium tank? “We’ll see later”

Serb continues to be ignorant of the French entirely.

- Object 261 acting like TD too overpowered? “Don’t drive in front of Object 261″ (no plans to change it)

We don't mind out Russian TDs being OP as heck.

- it’s completely possible that some nations won’t have hightier light tanks and some will, for example the British have nothing suitable for hightier scouts, but SerB states that they didn’t dig around Bovington for that yet

In one swift move they show their completely amateur level knowledge of British tanks and openly admit they did no research whatsoever. How about the FV301, AV-R, TV-15000, FV101 Scorpion and the Scorpion 90 then, eh? One of them's only had over THREE THOUSAND IN SERVICE. :p

- it’s possible Tetrarch will be sold, but “not necesserily as a premium tank” (SS: Tetrarch was planned a long time ago to be a British regular light tank)

Implying the Tetrarch will not become a British tank. As it should be. Given it IS a British tank.

- unlockable hulls will most likely come next year, as the amount of modelling needed for that is huge

[hawkeye92]

Why aren't I surprised the Soviets get the LL vehicles first? They got the British tanks at the start of the game years before the British were around.

It's rather amusing though considering the British acknowledge that the Lend-Lease was a pretty major contribution to the war while the Soviets actively played down theirs, saying that Soviet equipment was far superior.

I made it to 90k xp tonight on the VK4502B, but with only nine victories (half of those at low tiers), I give up on today's 250k of silver. I think today probably beats my previous worst day overall.

[Fuzzy]

It only gets worse:

- according to SerB, Browning M2 .50cal HMG is too weak for regular vehicles

No it's not.

- the model that was most troublesome to make was the Object 704 – WG had to go to Kubinka to re-measure it

Glad to see they go to that much trouble just to make a lesser known Russian TD correct when you've got iconic historical vehicles like the Churchill completely wrong still.

- SerB states that the FV4202 will not be changed (SS: in real life it had much inferior armor than it has in game), the only change planned is to introduce its historical gun as stock gun (SS: 20pdr Type B)

What. Just...just WHAT. They've PROVEN that its Action-X turret was far stronger! For crying out loud. does he not understand the concept of test platform? It had many turrets, the one that happens to be left on it right now was an unarmoured one! And what about the fact that the commanders hatch is WAY smaller in real life? Or the fact that it was confirmed to have an internal mantlet that doesn't exist in WoT? And yet all they do is force British players to shell out even more credits to buy a second L7? What in the absolute blithering hell, WG?

- it seems that the unlocking of new hulls will be tied to the suspension (SS: there won’t be another new “hull module”, new hull will be tied to suspension – this is a pretty retarded idea, I’ll write a post about it)

I agree with SS' added bit in brackets. This makes no sense at all.

- Löwe won’t be changed/made into a regular vehicle and added into a German heavy line despite the fact it would fit perfectly (SS: sorry, no Krupp line), because “it’s a popular premium vehicle”. SerB later states that such a thing did sort of happen with the Type 59 – WZ-120, but that was a special case, because the Chinese didn’t have enough tanks

What they mean by that is that the Chinese had Russian style tanks and they just don't give a damn about the Germans.

- there will be no additional differences between Object 140 and T-62A added, as the vehicles were much alike in real life too

Further confirmation that they only added it because it was a Russian tank when there are dozens of iconic tanks that were built in their thousands from non-Russian nations waiting to be implemented.

- IS-3 turrets will recieve changes, especially the top one

IS-3 is getting a buffed turret, allegedly. Apparently some tier 10's were penetrating it.

[Harmony Ltd.]

- according to SerB, Browning M2 .50cal HMG is too weak for regular vehicles

No it's not.

What about Russian 14.5mm HMGs ?  


Oh, by the way, you talked about rocket tanks earlier. Does this mean we can hope seeing something like the M50 Ontos sometime in the future ? => http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M50_Ontos

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