[WoWP] Carrier-based Aircraft

US carrier-based birds from World of Warplanes are featured in the video.

Watch here.

[WoT] Feedback on 7.4

Share your impressions and ideas on 7.4 update for World of Tanks which has recently gone live for EU and NA. Full patch notes can be found here. Especially interested in feedback on the new game modes.

 Let's comment! And t(h)anks!

[ALL] WG at E3

Didn't manage to visit E3 this year, however got some pics from the team.

The current show was the 17th.

WG booth was among the biggest ones, comrising a small cinema, 2 gaming zones (World of Tanks and World of Warplanes), VIP zone, and a few press / meeting rooms.

Visitors had a chance to either experience the power of tank battles or the drive of aerial combat. Or both. :)

And even win some prizes from the dev team. )

This bird (P-51 mustang) is only 25% smaller than the real one.

E3 girls.

[WoT] Digging Through Archives: Tiger Tank Tactics Through the Eyes of Red Army HQ

Combat use of Tiger tank (by Germans) as an offensive unit

Battles in Belgorod area have shown that Tiger tank is quite vulnerable to artillery, but for antitank infantry and tank destroyers as well, especially in close combat. The most effective against it are 76mm (and less calibers) artillery rounds fired at Tiger's side armour at a range of 500m or less, especially from an ambush.

Note: 85mm AA gun is able to penetrate side armour from 1450m, front hull - from 1000mm.

In offensive operations Tiger tanks are used by Germans as infantry support and intended as breakthrough armoured vehicles.

Tiger tanks fight in small groups of 5-10 being in close cooperation with field engineers, infantry, and artillery, especially with heavy tank destroyer Ferdinand, groups of submachine gunners, antitank grenadiers; sometimes - as a part of larger tank units, fighting in the front lines.

Note: Tiger tanks organisationally are a part of heavy tank battalions.

When breaching the defensive lines after a series of thorough artillery and aviation strikes, Tiger tanks together with infantry, field engineers, and artillery move in extended line to the battle being supported by aerial forces. Almost in all Tiger groups there are assault self-propelled guns with the ratio to Tiger tanks of 1:3.

Drive a wedge into the defensive line Tiger tanks suppress long-distance targets (dots, mortar nests, etc) that prevent infantry from moving further.

Tiger groups are closely followed by support groups. When the vehicle unit suffers losses from enemy tank destroyers, support groups move forward and engage antitank troops.  At the same time long-distance targets are destroyed by assault guns and mortars. 

When the path is clear vehicles move forward in the designated direction. 

Having crushed the resistance of the main defensive line Tigers continue to exploit a success in the direction of main strike. Medium and light tanks follow the heavies moving into the created breakthrough path as a second line force, carrying tank-borne infantry. Tigers are also usually used on flanks of such pre-combat groups.

For the purpose of effective battle reconnaissance of defensive forces, first-line Tigers take advantage of terrain, showing only their turrets, thus taunting artillery and tanks (especially inexperienced ones). Having spotted fire nests or enemy tanks Tigers engage them from a distance of 1500-2000m.

Note: Tigers can act together with spotting aircraft thus enabling information interchange on the spotted targets (tanks and artillery).

Resume

So as to ensure effective defence against Tiger tanks, it's necessary:

a) to engage them only within effective fire range, avoid premature fire so as not to reveal own position before enemy vehicles come closer;

b) accounting for experience of Tiger tanks combat use it is advised to have mobile antitank groups (ambushes, fire pockets, etc) in direction of the expected main strike. Those groups should be camouflaged and by no means should not reveal their positions precociously.

c) with the aim of ensuring support to antitank troops provide for their cooperation with tank destroyers and mortar groups beforehand;

d) when attacking Tiger tanks and self-propelled guns the firepower of tank and artillery guns should be focused on Tigers, since medium and light tanks won't assault the defensive line without their support.

signed (HQ intelligence section deputy chief)

28 July 1943

[WoBS] Game Room and Museum Aboard USS Iowa

The video game world has become part of history aboard the USS Iowa. The 1943 battleship, which is opening as a museum in the Port of Los Angeles, will be home to Wargaming.net’s World of Tanks, World of Warplanes and World of Battleships games.

For those who aren’t familiar with the USS Iowa, The ship partook in every major battle in the Pacific during World War II except one, because it was damaged in a typhoon and had to go back and have some repairs done. Bob Rogers, director of media relations and spokesman for the Pacific Battleship Center discusses the illustrious 70 year history of the battleship aboard the vessel in the exclusive video below.

WG.net is looking to do two key projects; one is a gaming center below deck, where people who come on to the museum and have an opportunity at the end of the tour to get to play some of the Wargaming products. The other one is a bridge experience, where we want to work with the museum to create a mock simulation of what it would be like if this ship was in battle and being attacked be warplanes.

In the ship’s below-deck digital theater, WG will offer a window into the past.  A virtual video experience from the bridge will recreate the ship’s role in supporting the American landings at Okinawa, Japan, in 1945. Visitors will see the ship’s impressive turrets as its 16-inch guns rotate and fire at their targets.

In addition, Wargaming is developing a game room on board that will put visitors in Grumman F6F Hellcat warplanes to defend the USS IOWA from attack by Japanese Zeros. There will be 15 stations to defend from.

Full text and videos here.

PS. Latest poll results (votes / %):
Biggest impression of World of Tanks 7.4 public test ?
new game modes  - 1024 (50%)
front transmission of E50/75 - 454 (22%)   
new French tanks  - 340 (16%)  
new premium tanks - 80 (3%)  

smth else - 127 (6%)
The new poll is up. 

[WoWP] MMOFTW Best Hybrid MMO Award

World of Warplanes is among the E3 awardees here:

And a bonus interview with Victor Kislyi over here.

[WoT] Transmission Response from Mr. Doyle

I'm very proud that we were able to get an official response of highly-respected researcher in the field of German WWII tanks - Mr. Hilary L. Doyle regarding that "transmission thing" with E-series (namely front drive for E-50 & E-75). What's more important, this statement doesn't go against our suppositions.
 

"Firstly, in this case Overlord is completely correct.  Any engineer or logical person can see that these sketches do not make sense.  But he must avoid shooting the messengers!

We have talked about the philosophy that Tom and I adopted after the success of our “best-seller - the Encyclopaedia of German Tanks” (Arms & Armour Press, published in 1978).  We try only to report the facts that we find them in original documents.  As time has gone on we have become even stronger in our determination to avoid speculation.  There are more than enough charlatans prepared to sell snake oil concerning German Panzer development and users.  The “facts” are actually far more interesting and there is still plenty of new material to be unearthed but of course this involves really hard and expensive research that the home based enthusiasts is not prepared to do.

In our Panzer Tracts No.20-1 “Paper Panzers” on a single page we summarised of the “facts” available on the E50 and E75 proposals.  Most important are the five general requirements of a next generation of Panzers

Of course, behind our summary I have collected some seventy pages of original documentation.  Most are original calculation sheets on possible drive train and suspension ideas.  My drawings are based on the sketches attached.  Clearly, these first thoughts and proposals on future Panzer requirements were never given any priority and as the war situation deteriorated.  To me the “real“ engine/transmission package designers from Maybach never actively got involved and the armour designers certainly had not considered how a rear drive might be mounted.  What we see are proposals “that are the best ideas since sliced bread” being pushed by fringe companies and they certainly had no authority to  design the necessary new armoured hull.  Overlord should try to address his doubts to the inventors that made these sketches in 1944.

Any additional information published on E50 or E 75 besides that in Panzer Tracts No.20-1 and Spielberger's  Band 8 Special-panzerfahrzeuge  is merely fantasy and should be labelled as such. 

We do not need to dream up E50 & E 75  designs since  Porsche and Daimler-Benz  outlined a possible tank design for the Indian government in 1955 which incorporated many of the E50 & E 75 ideas. This also did not get off the proposal drawing board but two years later, as part of one of the consortia bidding for the Standard Panzer (later Leopard), Porsche used these ideas once again.  See the attached drawings." (see those HLD watermarks on the pics)

Once again many thanks to Mr. Doyle, whose works were a good source on many of German tanks in-game, and WG.net military expert Chieftain.

[WoT] Tier 10 Meds and TDs Announced

Following the announcement of tier 10 TDs and Meds, presenting you the new tier 10 German MT - E-50 Ausf M with rear drive layout.

Unlike Leo 1 (we keep it in mind), it has neither been finished nor seen any kind of action. However its armour fits tier 10 concept better (Leo has got 70mm front hull and 35mm sides which makes him similar to BatChat).

Note that the turret is closer to the front, the overall profile will be a bit lower (-10cm), other minor visual differences from tier 9 E-50 are on the blueprints. 

[WoWP] Nice Video For Tutorials

"This one is truly amazing,real pilots with real kills.Based on the Allied campaign in France.Watch every second!"

Might be useful for WoWP. :)

[WoT] The Notorious Transmission Thing

In this post I have gathered some (not all) of the info gathered from various sources (including Serb's and Storm's posts on RU forums).

It's obvious that the hull size and design of E-50/75 is similar to the one of King Tiger, which leaves nearly no space for rear transmission layout declared by Jentz and Doyle in their reconstruction blueprints. 

The real archive blueprints are still not public and probably will never be. 


Serb: Rear engine layout (which results from intakes), the design of leading and rear wheels (plus the absence of hub drive casing) make the rear-drive for E-50/75 impossible. In the generally accepted configuration and design provided by Doyle and Jentz at least.


There is no evidence in the form of engineering blueprints, based on Doyle's hull geometry, that could demonstrate the possibility of moving the transmission  to the rear. The above does mean that with quite high probability Jentz and Doyle actually presented the two mutually exclusive theses on the same page.

Consequently the conventional front-drive design is considered to be more viable, without denying possible intentions of engineering rear-drive E-50/75.


More evidence by Serb is to be presented.

Storm: It's known that French AMX 50B was a successor of German tanks in terms of design. Still the hull of Tiger II is 6.4m (it's ~7.3m), while AMX 50B is almost 1m longer (7.35m). That allowed French engineers to enable rear-drive for that very vehicle, while E-series were almost of identical size with KT. The difference was mainly in armour thickness and slope.

If we cut 1m from AMX 50B hull we are getting the following:

That leaves very little space for driver or engine compartment. There was no way the turret could be in the center of the hull.

Added Panther II turret, leaving the suspension, AMX 50B hull decreased by 90cm:

Looks somewhat horrible. 

With the current front armour values of E-50 (upper 120@60, lower 120@60) and E-75 (upper 160@60, lower 130@60) the made adjustment doesn't look drastic and is not supposed to lead to noticeable performance decrease. However if the performance of either of the above drops, the necessary buffs will follow.

Edited (June 7):

Regarding the nerf thing, let's do some math.

Assuming that transmission is about 25% of the vertical projection of E-50/75 (I bet this is overestimation), internal module has 33% chance of being damaged and engine's (Maybach HL 295 Ausf. A) chance of fire is 15%, we get the following:

(0.25*0.33*0.15)*100%=1.2375%

And this accounts only for penetrating shots, while even at high tiers pen chance is not even close to 100% (for front hits ofc). It would be more difficult to do the same from the side.

So how many shots do we need to set a tank on fire:

100/1.2375=80.8 shots

80.8 rounds with average damage of 300 (it might be low for high tiers) will inflict 24242 damage which is enough to destroy E-75/50 how many times?