And yes - there are figures for the crew inside the pdf - adjusted to scale of the tank and yes Wargaming is banking hard on Girls und Panzer popularity.
Oh and it seems those guys are responsible for the models http://worldofpapertanks.com/ site is under construction though, and the forum is in russian only.
Some kind soul leaked all the japanese tanks in elite configuration.
I don't know, on one hand - not much to look at - non-existent armour and they are not exactly fast. Well, we will see them in test server next week. STB-1 seems to have quite the DPM...7.5 RoF with 390 damage - not bad - thats 3k you got there. About the rest - well I have to see them first. Except the Renault...thats the 3rd Renault we see ingame with a different paintjob. I know the Ft-17 is the granddad of all tanks but come on now...
I know what you are thinking, they don't look impressive at all in terms of protection. Only the gun shield might do some good and bounce a shot, rest is extremely vulnerable. Still, by the looks of it they'd both have very respectable gun depression, so terrain will be your best friend. Until we see the other stats of course, its only a speculation.
First japanese tank in the game folks! And yes, I got it - I gave Serb some of my hard earned(not) monies.
So, Chi Nu Kai
First jap tank. That alone gives it some collector value but collector value alone is not enough.
The Chi Nu Kai is best described as...average. No serious weakpoints, no serious flaws but no great advantages either.
In terms of protection, the tank is very similar to the Panzer IV - some frontal armour - very weak sides. Like - 75mm HE penetrable sides. The Chi Nu Kai has a chance to bounce a shot on the mantlet on occasion but that's it. So, no - its nothing like the Matilda IV or the Churchill. At 480 HP, it lacks the advantage of the T-25 too - its barely stronger in the health department than regular tier 5 tanks.
Mobility wise at top speed of 38 kmph and 11 H.p/ton, the Chi Nu Kai feels sluggish. Its not outright slow, but its sluggish, especially at turning. That sort of delegates its purpose - hang back and snipe.
Which brings us to the gun...
Gun wise the Chi Nu Kai has a 75mm with above average pen and damage - 125 and a bit less RoF - 12. That dictates its tactics - peek-a-boo and sniping from a distance. Those extra 15 mm of penetration help it a lot, especially versus KV tanks. One more thing is the Prem shells. The Chi Nu Kai has an AP prem shell, not APCR. It has 155 penetration compared to the 158 of the Panzer IV APCR, however since its AP -it benefits from higher normalisation. Of course it still falls short to the 170-180mm pen. of prem shells for Tier 5 meds of other nations.
To sum it up - the Chi Nu Kai is not bad, but its not good either. It handles a specific play style - less agressive than average, which does not fit most players. Its decent credit earner however and it has a crew of 5 with all basic qualifications, which makes it great for training japanese crews.
As expected - the STB1 is pretty much an up-armoured Leopard 1. However, even an up armoured Leo is still only a Leo in terms of protection.
The internal gun shield is (as expected) not included in anyway. Still, the turret is quite flat and glancing hits to the sides or the mantlet can bounce off. Its better than nothing. Same goes for the hull - a few extra mm -hopefully enough to make sure that Fv 4202 HESH can't penetrate you reliably but that's it.
Still, its fast, well armed and hopefully decent in terms of soft stats. I'd wager the difference between STB-1 and the Leopard 1 will be similar to that between the T62A and the Object 140. One more thing - if schematics are already appearing, that means progress on the line is quite good and we can expect it before New Years. I don't know about you, but I already have a Chu-Ni-Kai to train up some japanese crewmen.
The patch is coming out in a few days so you better get ready for it. We'd all get a shiny new tier 2 as a reward for the Golden Joystick aaand a ton of paper TDs to shoot with HE.
Anyway. Now about the japs. With 8.9 basically at our doorstep, we can think about 9.0 and the japanese tree.
Now the tree as a whole follows some basic guide lines. The tier 3 is the Chi-Ha which we already know.
Next one is the Chi-He - very similar with a longer gun.
The following emerged about the Tier 7 - the Chi-Ri.
Its a 75mm autoloader with 3 round drum. The gun is a japanese copy of L/70. Now some may think that 75mm L/70 is a bit too shabby for tier 7 but I am not one of them. The tank will be the slowest tier 7 - capped at 45 kmph and not very well armoured, but on the other hand - its the maneuverability that counts. 3 round 75mm drum is not so bad as you might think. you will get 3x130 dmg and much faster reload times - If you have 12 RoF, the drum should be loaded in 10 seconds (less with modules and skills). Much better for pop and shoot than the 6 round drums of T71 and AMX 13-75. Of course if it has a poor engine and moves like a lame duck...
For the tier 10 - the following armour schematic emerged from FTR. I believe the best bit is the gun shield.
Its two part with outer and inner gun shield thats running a very respectable 300+mm when combined. However, the other tank with internal gun shield - FV4202 does not have it modeled so I'm a bit skeptical whether the STB-1 will get it done(and how).It is possible, since the STB-1 has an external gun shield, that WG can simply boost its thickest instead...but we will see. There are still 2 months of 2013 left - plenty of time to release the japs. With the 2nd global campaign coming in a week, we certainly will be busy.
One more thing. With the purpose of the T7 combat car now being revealed ( Golden joystick reward) I can make a reasonable assumption that the New Year's eve Reward tank will be Vickers MK6
