Sorry to turn this into another WOT related post, but again we need too. I must also stress this is just me thinking out loud for a few moments, it's not what will be happening, it might not even be the answer, but it's just some ideas I've had following on from the news.
On Rita's blog, including the Q&A several questions have been answered by Storm or SerB regarding the Caernarvon and the Action X turret, which they freely admit is a fantasy made up combo. Two of the quotes are:
- Storm confirms that the Action X turret on Caernarvon hull is a WG fake, but there was no other way to increase the armor of the turret
- The solution for the Caernarvon (fake top turret) is not good but for now WG sees no other solution
There are more, however I think you get the gist of it. That's what this post is about.
To put it simply the change from the standard to the HD model for the Centurion turret has not treated it kindly, reducing her armour by quite an appreciable amount. This in turn has had a knock on effect to the heavy tanks that use the turret. As you can see WG don't see a way out, the simple answer is because they are not well read in the field. This is by no means their fault, there's too much research to cover for even a small group.
However there are options, one that would get a premium tank out of it, and would be mostly historically accurate.
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| Gratuitous Conqueror picture |
At the moment we have three turrets in game, across several vehicles. The Centurion turret, the Conqueror turret and the improved Conqueror turret that I found.
Whilst I'm on that last point, as I discovered that turret I'm sure there's some law from the days of empire that allows me to name it, right? Well I've going to name it after my wife, and a friend has already worked out an acronym to allow me to do it: C.L.A.I.R.E: Conqueror Late Armour Improvement REdesign. The closest it's got to a name in the documents is a description of it, where they call it "unorthodox turret". I should point out that the above naming idea isn't popular amongst all the historians I talk to.
The later turret is currently meant for some "Super Conqueror" at tier 10. Regular readers will know that I've long argued for placing it as the elite turret on the tier nine Conqueror, with the current upgraded turret as the stock one. But doing so leaves us with an issue, as Wargaming want to use that as a tier ten tank. Well there is one other option. The files talk of a 1949 dated two man turret with an improved ballistic shape. This was achieved by removing the gunner, and giving that roll to the commander. With the gunner removed it allowed the current Conqueror turret design to be narrowed, meaning the armour improves quite a lot. As you can't change the number of crew in a tank when changing turrets this later one Wargaming could happily invent as there's no pictures or armour values.
So with the Conqueror solved, we come to the Caernarvon. Here's where we can make a premium. Turn the FV221 into a tier seven heavy tank premium, and replace it with a FV201. Hang on you're all yelling, isn't the FV201 already a tier seven premium? Yes, and no. Wargaming have modelled a very specific variant, which could easily be called the A45 as the premium. Every single document I've seen has the FV201 with a 20 pdr. The in game version has the 17 pdr.
Now we come onto the advantages of this; Firstly the hull of the FV201 is already modelled and secondly one of the complaints levelled at the Caernarvon is that its fire-power is woeful. Well documents talk of fitting a 4.5 inch gun to the FV201, and it's a high velocity weapon as well. Equally if you still want more than three gun options then there's the FV202 AVRE with its 6.5 inch demolition gun. But what of the turret? Well we know what the FV201's turret looked like, externally very similar to the Centurions. But I've never seen an armour schematic, possibly because it wasn't fully designed. Again this leaves Wargaming leeway to alter the armour values as they deem fit.
The ideas above are just thoughts I've had, and might not even work under closer scrutiny. But as an idea it bares a closer look, I think.