More 8.5 leaks - stats of the Leopard, Aufklarungpanzer panther and the soviet light tanks

Well you wanted Leopard 1? Here, catch! By the looks of it, arty is already drooling at the prospects of another paper tank. Its going to be faster than the E50M, more agile, and gasp - a better sniper as it seems, but unless the gun shield works as intended, expect results equal to the FV4202, great on paper - but only on paper. Oh and we get HEAT as prem rounds, not HESH.

The new soviet light tanks offer nothing really interesting. It seems at least the T-60 is quite well armored for its tier, the rest though are average.

The second most cried about german tank to be included in the game on the forums - the aufklarung panzer panther, or the schwere Leopard or whatever you want to call it - well you got it and its as bad as you can expect. A tier 7 Panzer IV-V with the koniche. The first tank in the game that has to rely on ramming as a main weapon, not a tactic of opportunity.

Some more light on the M60 Patton, VK7201 and the Object 907

Yesterday, the following was posted by EU forum's community manager - supercharge

quoting:

"Dear All,


Recently, we have heard many rumors about Tier X premium vehicles. It's quite interesting to read players analysis and find out more about possible parameters of these tanks.
I would, however, like to clarify a few things before it will go any further.

These vehicles are not premium tanks and therefore players will not able to purchase them from the in-game store or gift shop. Also, these vehicles cannot be researched and they won't be included in any branch or Tech Tree.

These tanks are made as a part of special high-level content, on which we are currently working. They will be comparable with other Tier X tanks of their types.
Unfortunately, we cannot share any more details. Please, wait for an official announcement. Thank you!

Special 'hello' to conspiracy theories fans!  

Kind regards,
Supercharge"

http://forum.worldoftanks.eu/index.php?/topic/226431-tier-x-tank-rumors/

This was followed by the leaked screenshots of the above mentioned tanks. I believe we can put some thought in the version that it is meant as high end rewards for contests and Clan Wars, something that was, let's be reasonable here, lacking in the Clan Wars. The gold earned is hardly sufficient and only a handful of mastodonts actually earn from it, the rest get scraps. This might put some more intrigue in it. Notice the bit saying - comparable to other tier X, that means those tanks won't be lacking in some department or another, like premium tanks. So - extra tier X tanks as rewards? What do you think? 

VK7201 SuperLowe - third time lucky

More information was leaked about the VK7201 yesterday - namely well... everything. 

We get the armor layout, the gun stats, the module stats, the vehicle stats like health top speed and so on. 

All I can say is...This may not be such a fail tank after all, if we don't count the horrible looks. The turret is very well protected - the front is 240mm + another 240mm gun shield that covers most of it. Even the neck is well defended from the 120mm thick spaced armor collar that gives a combined 280mm protection, angles not included. It seems the turret can hold its own even against premium shells. Only the commanders cupola is vulnerable(as usual).

Side armor is 160mm thick, not counting the tracks, so you can side scrape with it with ease.

The gun is the same as on the E-100, with the same statistics to boost. Gun depression is -7% which is quite nice.

Fun fact - top speed is impressive - listed as 43 kmph but the power to weight ratio is about 10 horsepowers per ton so don't get excited. Still, downhill ramming with a 120 ton tank at 40-50 kmph? Count me in folks! 

The real cheese now - frontal armor is 240mm, LFP - 240 mm. Basically that means that the VK7201 will be impervious frontally to tanks like the Maus and IS7. The LFP is slightly angled - 20-30% which means that even 260mm penetrating guns will have problems with it. And lets not forget the 160mm side armor which means you can always angle slightly and get 300mm LFP.

Its not all roses though. The engine deck is thin 70mm and 40mm which means that artillery will have a field day delivering fire and brimstone to your poor head. The lack of spaced armor and side skirts will surely help them in this. 

Still I'd say we get a very good defensive tank that will take away the role of the Maus as a brick. As if the Maus was any good at it nowadays....

WoT funnies 3

There are several types of tankers.
The pessimist sees nothing but the endless dark forest of Murovanka.
The optimist sees the light at the end of it.
The realist is aware that the light probably spotted him already.

A Wot player is allowed a mistake only twice in a battle.

The repair kit will fix the first. 

A Stalin 3 brings a Su- 26 to a high level battle.

Mid combat the enemy T-54 asks.

- Su-26 are you shooting gold?

- You can't prove anything! 

An unnamed unicum from a big clan joins a random fight. T95 asks him:

- Dude, do they send you here as punishment or something?

Supertest leak VK7201 Lowe in HD

HD screenshots of the a number of tanks leaked from the supertest. Its nothing we don't know of already, they are just in HD. Anyway - here's one of the freshly dubbed FailLowe.

Now, what can we discern from the screenshot?

First one seems to be the classic Lowe Turm - same mantlet, minor cosmetic differences. Gun does look like the 150mm KWK. The Turm might be buffed a bit in terms of armor, can't know that yet. Its not a 100% copy paste though, the shape seems a bit different in HD.

Looking down, we can spot differences of more obvious maneer. The turret has an armored collar, similar to the one the Maus has infront of th engine grills. The difference, is that this collar protects the lower turret front and looks considerably thicker.- at least 100mm.  Looking up though, there are a number of bumps - hatches for the crew most likely that might be a penetrable target, same as the similar hatch on the E-100. Gun depression would probably be...depressing. With a rear mounted turret and a collar for it, I expect no more than 3-4% tops.

The frontal armor seems improved. The slope is increased, can't say how much and how thick it is. If it will be any good at tier 10, we can't say until we see the numbers. The beak seems to have an extra plate wielded on. Its probably about 250mm thick, similar to the FV215.

A noticeable lack of side skirts of any sort, means that arty will have a field day with it, and anyone with a decent gun will do damage to the flanks. Sidescrapping might not work as advertised despite the rear mounted turret.

World of tanks 8.5 - the T-80 Light tank

Now now calm down please! We are talking about the T-80 LIGHT tank, not the T-80 MBT!

Its the natural progression of the T-60 and T-70 light tanks, ending in this tier 4.

The T-80  should be more of the same, but bigger. First and most important difference - 3rd crew member. That can mess up people who thought of keeping the same 2 man crew - you get a gunner in that thing and a bigger turret. Needless to say that means it will likely house bigger guns - the 57mm ZyS should be the top cannon. Apart from that, its slightly bigger than the T-70, but with the same top speed of 45kmph and engine. Maneuverability of the whole series (T-60 T-70 T-80) is quite questionable.


The armor schematic, if this photo is true to it is again where the fun begins.

















With the front being UFP 35mm at 60% and 45mm at 30% LFP its neither good, nor bad. You certainly won't impress a Panzer 3.  Side armor features a bit of spaced armor, 25mm thick that can be a life saver but otherwise its not impressive.

Now the turret though, is decent - The frontal turret is by the looks of it 60-70mm thick and well sloped.

All this turns the T-80 into a strange vehicle. The extra armor won't help much, though it might be able to hull down quite well - the tank is fairly short 2.2 meters, compared to 2.5 for Panzer III and Matilda. It certainly won't be a speed freak, which leaves its use questionable if you are dropped into a higher tier game.

Patch 8.5 The T-70 light tank

While it was not officially announced, if you look at the russian tech tree you will see that the  T-60 is followed by the T-70 and T-80 light tanks in a small LT branch. Considering that they are all quite similar, small tier tanks, I see no reason for them not to be included in the same patch. Therefore its time to seee what the T-70 can offer?

At tier 3, the T-70 of real life was an upgunned and up-armoured T-60. It maintains a crew of 2 - commander and a driver. Weight is allmost twice that of the T-60 but the engine remains the same and so does ground clearance - this means that this tank will be no race car and the top speed of 45kmph will be there just for show. If they give it a bigger engine with say, 100-120 horsepowers, things change.

Armour wise its 35-45/45(there is spaced armor on the sides) 35 hull and 60/35/10 for the turret. Combined with a decent slope thats more than enough to retire the T-127 and the french prewar tanks in one go. In terms of offensive power, expect the two 45mm guns and Zys-19. Its possible but very unlikely they'd give this tank more. The 45mm and the Zys-190 are sufficient on tier 3 - anything more would push the tank too high in the armor+gun combo which might make it imbalanced. Even like that other light tanks will struggle with it frontally. Its

Patch 8.5 new Soviet light tank T-60

Ahem, so - for patch 8.5 we will get new russian light tanks. First of those is the T-60, likely to be followed by T-70 and T-80. Back on topic now.

In the Tech tree listed in the Media section of WoT's sites, the T-60 is listed as a tier 2 tank, and truth to be said - its the only place where it fits.


Here is what is known about it from the web.

The original tank has a crew of 2, top speed of 44 kmph and a meager 70 hp engine, providing 12 hp/ton ratio. Its also quite small - barely 1.75m - the size of a Panzer I. There is more to this comparison with Panzer I by the way - since in terms of well...everything, the T-60 is more or less a russian version of Pz I.

Armament consists of 20mm autocannon in the real tank, with 37mm Zys-19 as planned replacement, so expect that in terms of guns as well as the 20mm and 23mm autocannons.

Armor will depend on which model we get. In the original T-60 - front will be 20mm, sides 15, rear 10 with turret 15/15/15.


The modernised  1942 version will have 35mm front,  25 sides,  and a 25/25/25 turret, which considering the slopes of the tank might be too much for tier 2.

In all likely hood we will get the original T-60, probably with a better engine as top, something close to 100 HP. This,combined with the autoguns will turn it into a Pz I by any other name. Giving it 1942 armor stats though, might make it a bit too powerful for tier 2, yet not strong enough for tier 3.

WoT funnies 2

Yesterday I unveiled my 1:1 KV-2 model in my yard. It gave me +100% to Nice neighbours.

In a family where the father was a tanker, he had to take care of the baby for the weekend. Finally the mum is home and goes straight to the crib.
Mother: - Aaaaaw who's my good boy!
Baby: - Bo!...Bo!
Mother:- Honey I think he just said his first word! Come quick!
Baby: - Bo!... Bounced off!
Mother: RICHARD COME HERE THIS INSTANT!

KV-2 is a very interesting tank. You can often ammo rack a racing T-50-2 from 300 meters away, yet miss completely a Hellcat trying to ram you to death.


By the time my AT-2 reached combat, I was already the top tank of the team....

RU server statistic for the british TD's week 2.

The win rates remain mostly the same as the last ones. Clearly gold shells are not as prevailing as people thought, and shooting commander cupolas is not as easy as it seems. The moving bunkers of the british Td line, continue to enjoy higher than average win rate with the AT7 reaching a whooping 58%. Most people should have learned how to deal with the new machines by now... or so we thought. On top things look differently. The FV215b 183 is struggling to keep a win rate above 50%. While it is obviously a primary target for everyone looking for expert medals and due to the gun hype, same could be said of any new tier 10. It seems it was mostly hype, with very little proper bang.


The new german light tanks line seems to be all in the 50% bracket, give or take 0.5% so any fears of the new Leo, Luch, Pz II G and Pz IC getting nerfs/buffs is unfounded.

Well except the Pz I  which has a win rate of about 48% across all 3 servers.

WG's plans for 2013

Right then, by now I believe everyone has sobered up from New Year's Eve.


So what are Wargaming's plans for 2013? The claims are for 6 to 10 patches, 2 already out. Now what will those bring us?

At least 2 new maps
Mexico and Savannah, screenies of those appeared ages ago. City maps too (Stalingrad?) and some more Asian for the horror of all Dragon's ridge lovers. Special maps for Clan wars capital cities are planned too, but unlikely to appear in 2013.



7/42 Company battles.
They will bring a new mechanism of forming companies(with a queue) and a few more gimmiks like company stats.

Second German Med line. in 8.5

- VK 2001 DB
- DW
- VK 3002 DB v1
- Aufklarerpanzer Panther
- Indienpanzer
- Prototype Arbeltsgruppe А
- Leopard 1

VK 3002 DB is also there in its current form. There is a surprise planned for 8.5 too. Obviously I don't know what is it. Wouldn't be a surprise if I did right?

Second Soviet Med line in 8.6
Probably ending with the Object 907 as top. It will likely contain the Soviet rear turret meds. Can't be sure yet. T-50-2 MIGHT be replaced with the MT-25 in 8.6 too(emphasis on might)


Artillery tier 9 and 10 and British SPG
Not anytime soon! Expect them in the autumn at best.


The French line won't see any major additions.
No 65t AMX...or AMX 30...sorry folks.

 A Japanese tree is in the works, but very unlikely to arrive before New Years of 2013. 
Well thats not exactly news...

Certain mods will be "bought" from WG and included in the game.
That is also old news by now. I'd say Jumbo's crosshair mod and XVM are the best bets.

Replay mechanism will be changed.
Replays will be hosted on a WG server and changed in behaviour - the whole battle will be recorded from each player's viewpoint, so yes you will be able to see exactly how your KV-1 failed miserably to kill a Hothchkiss. There might be restrictions to this either by the player himself or the devs.

Supertest leak Aufklärungspanzer Panther

Oookay take a deep breath and...well behold?

So yes - thats the new tier 7 german scout. If you think the chinese tanks were copy pasted, take a closer look here - panther hull, VK2801 turret with leopard turret as stock and the 10,5mm derp probably 75mm and(take a deep breath) the 75mm koniche as top gun. 850 HP engine. I mean...really?



Ok ok, let's be reasonable here first!

We wanted the Aufklarungspanzer Panther...I guess we simply did not know the thing we wanted in the first place.  Here's a model of the thing which shows what would be the stock configuration if things stay the same.

In a way the dev's had a cruel joke with us this time. They delivered EXACTLY what we wanted. No more no less.

Right then - about the Aufklarungpanzer Panther in detail. Ahem well do you have a Panzer V-IV? No? Well you can read up about it on the wiki and you will know exactly what to expect, since the Panzer V-IV is the same thing - a Panther hull with a Panzer IV turret, while the Aufklarung is a Panther hull with VK2801/Leopard turret. The difference is that one is tier 6 the other is tier 7. Of course this MIGHT change...but don't get your hopes up yet.

Anyway, if we use the Pz V-IV as reference, things don't look bright. Yes the tank will be mobile, since its going to be lighter than a panther with about 7-8 tons and with 100 horsepowers more. However that does not translate into scout like mobility - A T71 will be able to fly circles around it. The choice of guns is...rather stale if you ask me. The 105mm derp gun is a tried and tested one, but on Tier 7 it starts losing some of its oomph. The 75mm konich? No, just NOPE! Its a pay to win gun on the VK3601 and it WILL be the same on the Aufklarung, unless they change it. I mean - 65 dmg per shot? Really now?

Now on the other hand if you give it APCR as normal ammo you get a scout that significantly outguns the normal Panther I, hell it will outgun the heavy tanks too!

Oh yeah - the last fun fact. Gun depression on the V-IV is barely -3 +17. Same as a chinese tank. That means the Aufklarung will handle very poorly in hills. Needless to say - its a much, much bigger target than the other scouts too. Hopefully they will give it more health, however with the Panther one sitting at 1200 HP, they can't give the Aufklarung more than say - 1000/1100.


All in all, not everything is bright in the new german line.

WoT funnies

For the record the jokes are mostly translations.

- Dude how mad is she at me?
- Let me put it this way, she named her KV-5 radioman after you.

Prokhorovka battle. T50-2 rushes the base and kills 3 arties
T50-2: Paskuchi!
He kills another:
T50-2: Dimitru!
He kills a fifth.
T50-2: Burda!
IS 3 knocks out his engine. With only 2 HP and no steering the T50-2 crashes in a KV-2
IS-3: Here's harakiri and kamikadze for good measure!

Prebattle chat

xxx: Man I really want a T26E4
yyyy: Me too I have it unlocked but did not touch it.
xxxx: What do you mean unlocked? Its a premium!
yyyy: Thats why I did not touch it :)



Westfield assault - attacking team.

KV-2: - I propose a blitzkrieg!
player1: Sure!
player2: Ok!
KV-2: Oh shit, I thought I was in my cromwell. Ok I propose a slow-and-steady krieg!.

RU server statistic of the british tank destroyers.

A week later and the first stats of the new british tank destroyers were released for the russian server.

The initial results are...interesting to say the least. As it seems the FV215(b) 183 is not the beast of armageddon - the average win rate is only 50% which is hardly impressive for a newly released tier 10. The Fv215 hull which has already shown itself as a rather poor gun platform on the FV215 heavy tank does the same for its tank destroyer version. Things change when you look down the line though. The slow pokes are taking names with ease. The AT series, starting from the AT2 all the way up to the Tortoise lives up and even above expectations. It seems the heavy armor scary DPM and high health of the new tank destroyers is a bigger bite than most can chew, especially on mid and mid-high tiers where accurate guns are still quite rare and the weak points of the new TDs are not so easy to hit as people thought initially. In contrast to that - the Churchill gun carrier, Alecto, valentine AT and Universal carrier 2pdr are alll in the acceptable 50% win ratio - its the moving bunkers that break the mold.

Supertest leak the Leopard 1

Now hold your horses and don't get too excited. This is not a modern version of the Leopard 1, as much as we wish so. Actually though I'm not sure, this looks like the 2nd Leopard 1 prototype(Disregard that, I do believe we are looking at Leopard 1 A2), not even the real thing. I could be wrong of course. Anyway the differences between the ingame Leopard 1 prototype and Leo 1 can't be that great. What I can see is a much thicker gun shield that would be more at home on a US high tier tank destroyer. Apart from that, hull armor can't be that different, so don't expect anything nice on that end. The weapon would still be the british 105mm L7, with HESH as the premium ammo as rumours go.  I'd say our best bet is to look at the british medium tanks when trying to speculate about the Leo. Compared to its t9 predecessor, Leopard 1 will probably get more horsepowers, giviing it faster acceleration with the same top speed, stronger turret front combined with good gun depression AND better RoF. Whether the RoF will be better than that of the FV4202 is still an enigma. Leopard 1 was a tank designed with the idea that you will hit first, and leave no room for retaliation - so accuracy and aim time should be on par with the E-50M, or even better.

Supertest leak - the Leopard 1 Prototype

It seems the supertesters are already busy preparing for patch 8.5. This is going to be a new tier 9 for the German tech tree - the Leopard 1 Prototype.


What can we expect? Top speed of 65 km, very thin armor and the british 105mm L7 gun. Prem ammo will be HESH.

Oookay so how does that package translate? A flanker tank with the speed to actually close in and use the high damage of the HESH rounds? The FV4202 is certainly anything but a fast med. 65 kpmh will put the Leo 1 on par with bat chats.
 Arty bait? Time will tell. There are no side skirts to absorb splash.

My hopes are for a fast med tank with good sniper abilities and moderate hull down options. Now of course we might get a piece of scrap but...too soon to say.

Supertest leak the M60 Patton

Oh, sorry I meant the 105 mm Gun Full Tracked Combat Tank M60.

Well then, at least for this one there can be less speculation than the german paper prototypes.

What can we expect from the M60?

You will get the same top speed of 48kmph, and pivot turning.
The real one had a 750 hp Continental engine (15hp/per ton), I imagine a chance of fire 20% like the other continental engines ingame. M68 gun which we already know and love. Gun depressin and elevation at + 19 -9 which is quite good.

The turret - gun mantlet is 110mm with 180mm front armor which creates a decent hard spot of 290mm armor. where they overlap...which is about 3/4s of the turret front. The rest however, will barely protect you from T8 heavy tanks.

I'm not sure what step will the devs take with this tank since while it was a significant improvement in the real world, in World of tanks, the M48 Patton already offers much of the same - namely the M68 gun, a bigger engine, and allmost the same armor.

Supertest leak the Indienpanzer

It may not look like much, but looks are often deceiving. This is a leak of the new  Indienpanzer, as part of the 2nd German med tank tree.

It should be a tier 8 tank, starting from the DB, probably leading to Leopard prototype as tier 9 and Leopard 1 as T10 meduim.


It seems to be sporting a version of the lowe turm, a big mantle piece(though it does not seem as thick as the original). The gun looks rather thin, probably under 105mm. The armor is supposedly weak, however the frontal slope looks like 68 degrees to me, which means more than doubled value of the actual armor. The tank is supposed to have an ungodly engine too.

I'd say a tank not too different from the DB - it will be faster and with  a bit more bouncy bits than Panther II (the turret and frontal slope would see to that) but with a weaker fast firing gun(so no long 88).

A new tier 8 german flanker?

 

Supertest leak the VK7201 Lowe tank

Recently an image was leaked from the World of tanks supertest, that showed a (supposedly) new german tier 10 Heavy tank - an upgunned, uparmored version of the VK7201 Lowe with a rear mounted turret.

Not much is known about it for the time being (well, nothing really) though the drawing below of a Lowe version seems to be one of the sources. So what do we know, or believe we know about this tank? Its all speculation drawn from the drawing, the screenshot and what we DO know about the existing ingame Lowe tank premium tank.

First of all, the gun does seem to be the 150mm KwK, taken straight from the E-100. Whether thats good or bad news remain to be seen. It will be quite hilarious if that gun can shoot faster in the cramped Lowe turret than in the huge E-100 house-for-a-cupola-because-we-want-it-huge. Doesn't mean that the Lowe turm is bad though. It keeps the trademark huge gun mantle which means the front will be quite bouncy even without increasing the armor of the tank to do the job. The rear placement of the turret though, leaves gun depression as a wild card. Old Lowe has -6 +17. This one might have a bit less depression because of it.

The frontal slope seems the same on both the new and the old Lowe - 55 degrees, which if the increased armor rumor is true, will give us at least adequate UFP. The image quality is poor so I'm not certain, but it seems the new Lowe lacks the traditional Lowe's frontal weakspot with the flat area of armor. Can't be certain though.


So where does that leave us?

We get a heavy tank with a rear mounted bouncy turret and a really big gun with (slow reload). Sidescraping and hull down tactics will likely be your best friend. Its unlikely the new Lowe will get more than 2500 hit points at best.