KTTC Records
October Tier 10 EU Discounts
Hello everyone,
tier 10 discounts for October will be as follows (30 percent discount, 15 percent credit gain bonus):
1.10.-15.10. – E-100 (E-75, Tiger II)
15.10.-1.11. – M48 Patton (M46 Patton, Pershing
Supertest: StuG IV Changes
Hello everyone,
another interesting vehicle showed up on supertest. This time, it’s StuG IV and it’s a tier 5 premium tank destroyer.
Well, it got buffed on supertest as well. First of all, its gun got buffed or changed altogether, not certain from the screenies. It got changed as such:
- apparently, now limited MM is considered
- gun penetration buffed from 106 to 110
- DPM buffed from 1720,7 to 1860,2
- reload time buffed from 3,836 to 3,548
- ROF buffed from 15,643 to 16,911
- Accuracy buffed from 0,345 to 0,336
- accuracy on the move when moving with maximum speed buffed by 29 percent
- the gun now traverses faster (earlier: 41,7, now 45,9)
- hull traverse buffed from 40 to 44 deg/s
- terrain resistance buffed from 0,863/1,055/1,822 to 0,767/0,959/1,822
The Hammer – 305mm B20 on Panther Chassis
Hello everyone,
today, we are going to talk about one vehicle, that could eventually appear in the game as “EU tree” tier 10 artillery. As you probably know, Czechoslovak branches are planned within that tree and every tree has to come with at least one artillery branch. What you might however not know is that of all the potential nations of the EU tree, there are only two, that can build a complete tier 2 to 10 artillery branches: Czechoslovakia and Sweden.
This is obviously the Czechoslovak candidate. Let’s have a look at it in more details
Between 1946 and 1948, numerous (perhaps more than a dozen) various self-propelled gun projects were developed for the newly reformed Czechoslovak army. The exact numbers are not known and likely never will, as a part of the archive in Prague became flooded at some point and many precious documents were lost. What remains are the scraps of information, that take painstaking effort to piece together.
One of the challenges the Czechoslovak army faced was “what to do with all that collected German stuff” – during the war, Czechoslovak territory became a major strategic location, when it came to tank production (Jagdpanzer 38t and its variants, Marder, Grille, Sturmpanzer IV and others), but also repair. That meant that after the war, large amounts of German vehicles were recovered – either in state of repair from various workshops, or scattered around the countryside. Some the army got rid of immediately (Tiger and Tiger II tanks) because keeping them would be pointless (heavy, unreliable, no spare parts), some got pressed into service (Panzer IV, Hummel, Jagdpanzer 38t and others in limited numbers), but some the army didn’t really know what to do with (Panther).
Using captured equipment was considered problematic (not only because of spare parts, but also morally), it was always viewed as a stopgap measure, before the army could acquire something better and modern. After 1948, the question of “what” became completely clear, as the Soviets started selling Czechoslovakia some amounts of T-34/85 tanks and the license production was being prepared.
In the meanwhile however, numerous projects were prepared to bridge the gap, using whatever the army had at hand. Several of these projects proposed to use the Panther chassis for the heaviest type of artillery, including calibers of 150mm, 152,4mm and even 305mm.
The Vehicle
The project was proposed as superheavy artillery piece by Škoda on 10.10.1946. It involved – as said before – a Panther chassis (in case you are interested, you can read about the Panther itself in Czechoslovak service here) of an unspecified type. It was proposed to mount a 305mm B20 mortar project on it. The mortar at that point was proposed with two shells – a light 160 kg shell with the range of 10 kilometers and a heavy 235 kg shell with the range of 7 kilometers. At the point of this project however, the prototype mortar was not yet built. The muzzle velocity of the 160 kg shell was 430 m/s, the one of the heavy shell was 290 m/s. The mortar could fire in angles from 45 degrees to 75 degrees, but it could depress to 0 degrees for loading. The gun could traverse to 20 degrees on each side of the vehicle axis (40 degrees in total). Historical rate of fire was two rounds per 5 minutes.
The vehicle was built on “standard Panther chassis” (given the composition of vehicles captured at that point, it was most likely Ausf.G). The plans counted on removing a part of the Panther armor, reducing the weight of the entire vehicle to 45 tons. The vehicle was obviously not planned to fire on the move, a massive recoil brace could be deployed from the bottom of the vehicle between the tracks. The vehicle was to carry 9 mortar shells, but the engineers noted that their positioning on the top of the engine compartment (the big “drum”) would have a negative impact not only on the vehicle driving properties and engine lifespan, but also on fuel consumption, which was rated at 350 liters per 100km on the road and 700 liters per 100 km in terrain. The engine, powering the entire vehicle, was Maybach HL230 P30, rated at 700 horsepower, giving the entire vehicle a power to weight ratio of 15,5 hp/t. Maximum speed was listed as 25-30 km/h, theoretically up to 56 km/h. The crew was consisted of 4 men.
The project was relatively short-lived: as early as November 1946, Col.Trejbal (the commander of the Military Technical Institute) replied to Škoda with a letter, rejecting the project, citing the need for unified calibers and vehicles in the future. The project was however to be stored in the archives for research purposes. Škoda then moved their self-propelled guns to other (more perspective) platforms.
The Mortar
The mortar project itself however lived on
The prototype was actually built and tested in late 1948 and early 1949 with following properties:
B20:
Caliber: 305mm
Barrel length: 5500mm (L/18)
Shell weight: 160 kg
Explosive within shell weight: 42 kg
Charge weight: 10,2kg
Shell velocity: 430 m/s
Range: 10 km
Elevation: 40-75 degrees
Weight (ready to fire): 9,3 tons
Weight (transport, with carriage): 16 tons
After some modifications, the project evolved into its ultimate stage, the B32, before it was scrapped and Soviet weapons were purchased instead. More about those can be found here.
In World of Tanks
In World of Tanks, as mentioned above, this would be the ultimate artillery vehicle of the EU tree (Czechoslovak artillery branch). While it is known that theoretically, there is a rule that each separate tree has to have its own artillery branch, the unwillingness of Wargaming to introduce new artillery kinda makes the future of this rule uncertain. The artillery balance in the game is a fragile one and introducing such a massive gun could upset it.
On the other hand, from balancing point of view, it’s completely possible to simply nerf the alpha and splash to appropriate levels of GW E-100 (a bit more perhaps) and to keep the rate of fire to a minimum. On the plus side, this vehicle could be fairly mobile (for a SPG), which I imagine could come in handy in CW and such. And, of course, hits from a 305mm mortar would make some unicums cry, so that’s a bonus as well :) In any case, this is a hot contender for the (only) tier 10 EU tree artillery, along with the (somewhat problematic) Swedish Bkan project.
As a bonus, this project could even be upgraded if needed (with the B32 mortar for example, but that is unhistorical).
Supertest: T-34-3 Buffed
on supertest, T-34-3 (tier 8 premium Chinese medium tank) was buffed. This is NOT the final version apparently, but it’s a good indicator of what will happen. Stats for 100 percent crew.
- DPM increased from 1694,6 to 1821,1
- reload time buffed from 13,808s to 12,849s
- reate of fire buffed from 4,345 to 4,67
- accuracy buffed from 0,441 to 0,403
- accuracy on the move (when moving at maximum speed) buffed by 25 percent
Supertest: Panzer II Ausf.D
Hello everyone,
new tier 2 “premium” tank appeared on supertest. It’s Panzer II Ausf.D (…because, you know, there is not enough clones already). It’s very likely a reward tank, but what for – that is unknown. It’s even possible we are looking at New Year’s gift tank, it’s a perfect candidate (German, lowtier, crap).
Statistics for 100 percent.
Description:
Fast modification of Panzer II, intended for light divisions, based on cavalry units. Panzer II Ausf.D had a completely new hull and suspension, the turret was borrowed from Panzer I Ausf.C. The suspension included 8 doubled roadwheels of large diameter with individual torsion bar suspension without support rollers. The tanks with improvend suspension elements and with new drive sprockets recieved the designation of Ausf.E. According to various sources, 200-250 Ausf.D and E vehicles were built.
Tier: 2 Premium
Hitpoints: 210
Weight: 11 tons
Engine power: 140 hp
Power-to-weight: 12,73 hp/t
Maximum speed: 55/20 km/h
Terrain resistance: 0,863/1,151/2,014
Hull traverse: 45 deg/s
Viewrange: 320
Radiorange: 359,8
Armor – hull: 30/14,5/?
Armor – turret: 14,5/14,5/?
Gun: 20mm KwK
Penetration: 23
Damage: 11
DPM: 1373,5
Shells in autoloader: 10
Time between shots: 0,214s
Reload time of the autoloader: 2,87s
ROF: 124,863
Accuracy: 0,53
Aimtime: 1,4s
Depression: -10
Turret traverse rate: 44 deg/s
M56 Scorpion
Hello everyone,
just a quick update on the M56 Scorpion and how it is doing on supertest. Scorpion set of characteristics (including pictures) was leaked earlier, when the vehicle was introduced to the supertest server.
The feedback from supertesters about this vehicle is that with current characteristics, it sucks even against tier 9 vehicles, let alone tier 10′s. The developers allegedly agree, they too are unhappy with the vehicle performance. Current line of thinking is that this tank destroyer will definitely have limited matchmaking – it’s allegedly even possible it will not see tier 9 and 10 tanks in battle at all. This is however extremely preliminary at this point, further tests and tweaks are being conducted.
- Ruineberg on Fire will be completely removed. It will be replaced by a winter Ruinberg version.
- developers are still working on bigger maps
- new motion physics will not come in 9.4, but later
- Storm states that it is necessery to find a balance in the amount of bushes on maps. Too few are bad, but there are sometimes too many “shooting bushes” out there.
- once upon a time, long time ago, there was a map called “Savannah”. Developers decided not to implement it, because arty was dominating on it and there was nowhere to hide.
- the Chaffee Race mode is also temporary, just like the soccer and Karl modes were, there will be a medal and the Chaffee will be handed out for free
- Storm states that some FPS loss reports reported lately could not be proven on computers of the same configuration
