Fixing the Panzer 35t Tank in HD
Hello everyone,

to my eternal shame, despite being a Czech vehicle fan, as you well know, I don’t play Panzer 38t or 35t much. I don’t generally sealclub, that’s one reason, but the truth is, I am really not that much into Czech tanks, that have German crews (waiting for the Czech branch). But yesterday, I decided to give 38t a shot after a year or so.


Imagine my surprise and “joy”, when I found out that historically, both 35t and 38t are completely FUCKED up. Well… let’s have a look at them.

As you probably know, Panzer 35t is the Czechoslovak LT Vz.35, used by the Wehrmacht forces. To that end, it was somewhat modified. What is wrong with it historically:

- the 20mm guns are completely unhistorical, they are there for the balance purposes I assume

- the top turret is fake (unhistorical), there was never such a thing as “Verstärkterturm” on Panzer 35t

- the top gun is partially fake, it wasn’t present until the advanced prototypes during the war

- stock engine has somewhat wrong designation

- elite engine is fake

- tracks could use different designation

- radios are problematic but noone really cares about those anyway

Considering that this vehicle is scheduled for rework when it gets remodelled to HD, here’s what could be done with it to keep at least some historicity. Basically, there are three variants, all of them revolve on turrets, one is somewhat unhistorical and I think it’s unnecessery.

- for starters, I’d drop the 20mm’s. They don’t belong to this tank anyway, leaving us with the 37mm’s only (the XP price would have to be compensated somewhere but whatever). Next, the engine.

- the T-15 engine is completely unhistorical, the stock engine should better be designated as T-11/0 with 120 horsepower (T-11 series had several stages, this is the one used by the original LT Vz.35). Now, we run into a bit of a problem. The stock engine has (historically correct) 120 horsepower, the top engine the vehicle series ever used was the Škoda T-11/2 135 horsepower engine (this engine appeared during the war on T-12 and T-13M prototypes). I suggest removing the top engine and replacing it with a 135hp T-11/2, compensating the mobility decrease by increased traverse rate and decreased terrain resistance to effectively leave the level of mobility the same

And now, the grand finale, the turret. Here, we have basically three options.

- option one is to rename the elite tracks to T-11 and replace the fake turret with a “T-11″ turret. T-11 was basically an upgraded version of the LT Vz.35, intended for export. The major user of this vehicle turned out to be Bulgaria (as “lek tank Škoda”) 

This is how it would look:

The advantage is, the turret wouldn’t have to be remodelled. The T-11 turret is from the outside practically identical to the LT Vz.35 – however, the problem is, it has the very same armor layout as the stock turret. It had improved ergonomics due to the presence of the new more advanced gun and so, unlocking this turret wouldn’t result in an improved armor, but rather in improved rate of fire. Here, the problem is the gun. Historically, the visual model would be kept, but the gun would have to be renamed from the KwK 38(t) to Škoda A8 (or ÚV Vz.39) and its performance would have to be nerfed to the stock gun level (while increasing its ROF significantly and perhaps tweaking soft stats like accuracy, although that is not entirely historical). This setup (with stock engine) would then be completely historical, as used by Bulgaria in WW2. On the downside, the turret wouldn’t have improved armor anymore and the 20mm’s would be gone.

- option two is to close both eyes and introduce the T-13M turret. The problem is, if you do that, then you have an unhistorical hull (T-13M hull was modified and looked differently, it also had more armor than the “stock” LT Vz.35).

The advantage of this setup would be the fact that the top engine would be historical (T-11/2 that is) as this vehicle used it. The turret also had improved armor – increased from 25/16/16 to 30/25/25. It also carried the gun that is already in the game (Škoda A7 aka KwK 38 (t)). The elite tracks would then have to be renamed to something as well, T-13M possibly (to make sure the players know the suspension and turret belonged together). The major disadvantage here is that the new turret would have to be remodelled visually, as it looked different.

- option three is to go all out to add the T-12 turret instead, turning the elite vehicle into a pseudo-T-12. T-12 was another LT Vz.35 based prototype, but it had one very distinctive feature: it carried a 47mm gun A9 (and as you can imagine, this is a serious upgrade). It’s the same gun as the current elite gun for Panzer 38t by the way. The performance of the gun was as such:

Penetration (at 30 degrees):

52mm at 100m

48mm at 500m

41mm at 1000m

35mm at 1500m

That means the ingame performance is roughly historical. As you can see, this would be a MAJOR buff. The engine for this variant (T-11/2 135hp) is historical as well. The turret would have to be larger however and it would also have to be remodelled. Naturally, such firepower on tier 2 would have to come at mobility cost (historically, the T-12 was also heavier – original LT Vz.35 weight was 10,5 tons, T-12 had 10,95 tons), which could be nerfed even further by introducing a third engine (Škoda Diesel, 120hp, failed due to low reliability) of the T-12D project.

Personally, I’d prefer the first “T-11″ variant, because it was actually fighting. At first glance, it’s a nerf, but everything could be tweaked by soft stats to keep the level the same. The T-13M variant makes probably most sense due to module continuity. The T-12 variant is a “let’s go wild” option. In any case however, Panzer 35t needs some serious overhaul. Next time, we’ll have a look at the Panzer 38t, which is even worse.