NOTE: This was originally posted on Reddit, where it received lots of support. Later, the post got removed by Reddit’s filters due to one of the links in it being from the VKontakte social media platform. I wasn’t aware, but Reddit does not accept links from this platform. That’s why this is getting reposted here, on The Armored Patrol. The Reddit post’s comments and upvotes are still visible here. I will try to get the post back on Reddit as well.

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Greetings, my fellow tank enthusiasts. 🙂

My name is David and I am an archive researcher of military vehicles. Me and some members of Tank Encyclopedia want to spread awareness about some fictional tanks that are being presented online as “historical” as part of a fan-made project for World of Tanks. It’s surprising to me that only few people have noticed this so far.

Above you can see one of the photoshopped drawings that we’ll debunk in this article

Introduction

As we all know, WoT includes tanks from 11 different nations, each nation having its own independent tech tree. Some fans have also created their own tech tree proposals, hoping they would one day get added to the game. I myself have created such proposals in the past, that part of you guys may be familiar with.

Some of you may have heard of Károly Németh, better known as Karika. If you don’t know him, he is a Hungarian military historian who has visited the archives of the Bovington Tank Museum in the UK, where he found the blueprints of the Straussler MBT, a potential Hungarian tier 10 tank destroyer in WoT. Karika is the author of the historically accurate 2014 Hungarian tech tree proposal, which unfortunately only reaches tier 7.

I am part Hungarian myself, so I have been interested in the possibility of having Hungary added to WoT. Back in 2017, I sent Karika this Hungarian tech tree illustration that I made based on his work. I’ve only recently posted it on my Imgur, where I have other similar projects from 2017, such as tech trees for Romania and the Commonwealth. Later, in 2021, after doing some deeper research through archive documents, books and military patents, I created my newer Romanian tech tree proposal. In case you’re wondering why I, as a Hungarian, have researched Romanian tanks more than Hungarian ones – that’s because there are 1 million Hungarians in Romania, and I happen to be one of them, so both countries’ tanks are of interest to me. Living in Romania, it’s obviously easier for me to access Romanian archives and literature than Hungarian ones.

The newer Hungarian tech tree proposal

Now that I’ve introduced myself, let me get to the point of this post. I’ll show you a controversial project that has been met with mixed feelings from Karika and other Hungarians.

Another user has created a newer 2020 Hungarian tech tree proposal, which he posted here on Reddit and later here on Medium.com. Compared to Karika’s tech tree, which only reached tier 7 with one single branch, this new tech tree has 3 branches which all reach tier 10. At first glance, this newer project looks professional and well-researched; it includes beautiful, official-looking 3D renderings of each individual vehicle. A truly impressive and appreciable piece of work. However, if you do a little research, you’ll quickly notice how almost all of its new vehicles, which did not exist in Karika’s original tech tree, are fictional.

Now, I’m aware WoT already features many made-up tanks. But here’s the problem: the creator of this new tech tree – whether deliberately or not – is presenting these fictional vehicles as historical proposals, using ambiguous language at best. Many people, even outside of the WoT community, have been led to believe they’re real designs. I first read this tech tree proposal years ago and didn’t pay too much attention to certain details, leaving it aside. I’ve only recently reread it, paying closer attention, and was surprised of not having noticed earlier that it includes obviously photoshopped tank drawings.

I may be Hungarian, but I don’t find it alright how some photoshopped Hungarian tanks are circulating around the internet, being paraded as “historical”. The goal of this post is to debunk these fictional vehicles one by one with proof… And boy, do I have proof. Let’s get started.

The two fictional tier 9 and 10 medium tanks (photoshopped screenshot above)

At tiers 9 and 10, the tech tree includes two medium tanks which only appear in one place on the entire internet: the screenshot above, stated to be a scanned page from a Czech-language tank book. Miraculously, nobody knows what book it’s from – it seems to have just popped up out of nowhere. It only contains 4 sentences of information. Yes, that’s all we have about this “tank project”: 4 sentences. That’s already dubious enough in itself, but I decided to do more research.

The Czech language used in the screenshot contains many mistakes and was clearly written by someone who doesn’t speak it, using an online translation engine, as kindly confirmed by multiple native speakers. The word navržených, which appears in one of the 4 sentences, is grammatically incorrect here. Same with the word automatická, which should instead be automatického. I actually noticed another mistake myself, despite not speaking Czech: the Soviet Union is wrongly abbreviated as USSR, while the only correct Czech form is SSSR (easily noticeable with a simple look over Czech Wikipedia). That’s how easy it is to realize the screenshot is fake. You don’t even need to speak Czech yourself.

Still, in hopes of identifying the “book”, I contacted multiple Czech tank experts, including the people at Valka.cz and RotaNazdar.cz, two well-known military researcher communities which include archive researchers. They all told me the screenshot is “definitely photoshopped” due to the Czech language mistakes. They went as far as contacting two Czech historians and book authors about this: Martin Dubánek and Jiří Tintěra. So far, they haven’t responded, but we can safely say their responses won’t be any different.

Another dubious detail is the unprofessional language register used in the screenshot, which is not that of a trained book author. Of the 4 sentences, the second one simply says “according to Czechoslovak archives, [the tank] was designed in 1948”. This is not how a professional writer cites a source. I have read many academic tank books/articles; whenever an author cites an archive, he/she cites the full name of the state institution (e.g. “National Archives of the Czech Republic”), along with the name of the archive funds, folder, etc. The formulation “according to Czechoslovak archives” is very ambiguous and sounds like it was written for some video game article. Besides, it may indicate that the person who photoshopped the screenshot intentionally avoided citing a real state institution to perhaps avoid any confusion which could lead to legal issues.

According to the screenshot, the drawings are made by a certain D. Kozár, about whom I haven’t found anything at all on the internet; probably a made-up name to avoid citing a real illustrator (and again, avoid legal issues).

In his above-linked Medium.com article, the tech tree’s creator shares a Wikipedia link where the screenshot had previously been uploaded; it has since been deleted, I wonder why.

The tech tree’s creator himself uses very ambiguous language in his Medium.com article. When describing the tier 9 tank, he seems to hint at its fictional aspect. However, he then goes on to say the tier 10 is “a way better choice than something fictional”. He states the screenshot “probably” comes from a book by Czech author Martin Dubánek, without naming the book itself. He also states that “D. Kozár’s turret drawings are probably original, but the upper illustration […] isn’t an original engineering drawing” (so he’s aware of this). Despite this, he wrongly claims the drawings to be “blueprints” in his Imgur “historical accuracy chart”, linked in his Reddit post (the chart containing numerous other errors, as you will see below). For some reason, he also seems to say that the “T 51” (by which he means the TVP T50/51, I assume) is “more fictional” – not sure what he means, seeing as the TVP was a real project.

Who has photoshopped the screenshot, and for what reason?

Now that we know for sure the drawings are fake, the next question is who has photoshopped them and why? I have done some deeper research to attempt finding this out.

In his Medium.com article, the user names a “source” for these fictional medium tanks (“source” being a very optimistic word): a link (which is now non-functional) to a discussion on a Hungarian WoT forum. I have managed to find the discussion archived on Wayback Machine (may take a few seconds to load). If you don’t speak Hungarian, just use Google’s page translation feature. As you can see, one person stated back in 2021 that the screenshot had been sent to him “years ago” by a friend. So, it turns out the screenshot existed some years before this tech tree proposal was published in 2020. This indicates that someone else has photoshopped it, and the tech tree’s author just found it. It’s not his own work, therefore.

Still, I have found some other interesting details. On page 50 of the same forum discussion – which is from August-September 2020, so the same period this WoT tech tree got published on Reddit – you can see its creator discussing the screenshot with the aforementioned Hungarian historian Karika, who states he suspects it to be a hoax. Note that, if you’re using the Google page translation feature, Google automatically translates Karika’s username to “Hoop” in English. He mentions having shown the screenshot to multiple acquaintances and no one was able to identify the “book”. He also notes some funny errors found in the unrealistic tank drawings (see below). Furthermore, he mentions how Hungary didn’t have any tank industry post-war, nor did it possess any of the guns indicated in the screenshot (among many other problems he describes). Last but not least, he told the author of this new tech tree project how it is not worth it to create a WoT tech tree out of “myths and half-truths”. Here and here you can see two much later comments from the same discussion (one of them by Tank Encyclopedia member Zinoviy Alexeev, another by a Hungarian user) also saying the screenshot is most likely fake.

Karika’s highlights of the hilarious errors found in the so-called blueprints. Note how the turret ring is at the very rear of the turret, despite it moving away from the hull when the turret rear is rotated towards the sides. It should have been more central, if the turret was to be rotatable at all. The lower picture shows what the turret should have looked like in order to be rotatable.

LATER EDIT: Someone in the comments on my original Reddit post states to have read long ago that the tech tree’s author eventually found out the screenshot was photoshopped in Russia for an alternate history scenario. In a comment from 2022 (see here), the tech tree author confirmed it was photoshopped by someone. In the same discussion, he even linked a VKontakte Q&A article of Karika and a Russian community, in which Karika debunks a bunch of other fictional Hungarian tanks, like we do here. So, it turns out the tech tree creator received the official confirmation that the screenshot is a hoax, which Karika had already told him back in 2020, before he published his tech tree on Medium.com. The question, then, is why he hasn’t edited his Reddit and Medium.сom tech tree articles to include a disclaimer acknowledging these tanks are fictional. Same goes for his Imgur “historical accuracy chart”. He kept them all the same, still presenting the photoshopped drawings as “blueprints”.

The tech tree also features three fictional tank destroyers, promoted as historical vehicles

If you thought these two medium tanks are the only fictional vehicles in this tech tree – well, bad luck. At tiers 7 and 8, its author proposes two (!?) versions of the Tas rohamlöveg, a tank destroyer widely known to be fake (see its Tank Encyclopedia article written by our Hungarian historian Karika). For this very reason, its Wikipedia article has been removed.

What’s the story of this vehicle? Long story short, it originates in the 1980s as a speculative design. During World War II, Hungary developed a (real) medium tank called the Tas. Only 2 incomplete prototypes were built. After the war, much information on the project was lost. In the 1980s, the son of one of the Tas developers speculated that the second prototype was meant to become a tank destroyer, and made a mock-up. Later research revealed that both prototypes were intended to become standard Tas medium tanks, and that the alleged TD variant never existed (even if we could speculate the Tas developers had such an idea at some point – that’s pure speculation as long as no reliable source states otherwise). It is, therefore, a fictional vehicle, as clearly stated by Karika.

Compared to Karika, however, the author of this newer tech tree again uses very ambiguous language instead of concise words. In his (otherwise beautiful) 3D template, he merely states the Tas rohamlöveg to be “based on the idea to make an assault gun on the Tas chassis, but no surviving documentation exists”, making it sound like it was a real project whose documents were lost. In his “historical accuracy chart”, he merely calls the vehicle a “reconstruction”. He tries his best to avoid calling it “fictional”, unlike Karika, who doesn’t seem bothered by it.

Despite the Tas rohamlöveg being fake, I wouldn’t mind it being added to WoT, since many made-up tanks already exist in the game, and this one at least has a “story” to it. Hell, it also looks awesome. What’s confusing, however, is that the creator of this tech tree proposed two (???) versions of it, stretched over two different tiers. He invented a second variant that never existed, which he called “Tas rohamlöveg B”. Isn’t this vehicle already fictional enough? According to him, the reason behind this is that two unofficial drawings/mock-ups of the Tas rohamlöveg exist (see picture below).

The two unofficial drawings of the Tas rohamlöveg. Source: an article of Karika’s. Note what Karika says about the upper drawing.

The obvious answer is: so what? There might as well have been three different drawings. What would you have done – propose three fictional tank destroyers?

Well… it turns out he did just that. His third fictional TD is unrelated to the Tas rohamlöveg, however. You see, at tier 10, he proposes the Straussler MBT – a real project, albeit one that only existed on paper. It was actually designed for the British army by British citizen Nicholas Straussler. His origins were Hungarian, however, hence it being proposed as part of the Hungarian tech tree, which I don’t see any problem with.

But here’s the dubious part: as we have already seen, due to a lack of Hungarian tank candidates, the tech tree’s author has duplicated the Tas rohamlöveg over 2 tiers. He has done the same with the Straussler MBT. At tier 9, he proposes a fictional vehicle he calls the “Straussler MBT prototype”. How can a vehicle that only existed on paper have a prototype? There is no mention of any “Straussler MBT prototype” in this Tank Encyclopedia article, which was written two years after this tech tree was created. I’ve contacted a Hungarian tank researcher who confirmed such a vehicle never existed. But again, the tech tree’s creator wrongly calls it a “blueprint design” in his chart.

 

The fictional wheeled vehicles in the tech tree (more photoshopped drawings)

The tech tree includes a third branch, this time of wheeled vehicles. It starts at tier 4 and ends at tier 10. Tiers 8, 9 and 10 are based on APCs (armored personnel carriers).

The tier 10 – again – comes from one single screenshot (see below), this time seeming to come from a Russian “book”. We don’t seem to have other information available about it. Here you can see our historian Karika, who, as early as 2020, told the tech tree author that it’s most probably edited because he hasn’t seen it anywhere else. Russian tank researcher Zinoviy Alexeev (Tank Encyclopedia member) confirms here that it’s fictional. Despite this, the tech tree’s creator claims it “existed in blueprints” and was “designed by engineers”.

The obviously photoshopped drawings of the proposed tier 10 wheeled light tank. Notice how the turret contours look different compared to those of the hull.

The tier 8 comes from another dubious drawing on Wikimedia Commons. It’s funny how its author is given as “Unknown, scanned”. It appears to be armed with a machine gun, so it wouldn’t work at tier 8, anyway. The tech tree’s author doesn’t mention its armament at all, but claims it was produced and even tested. Not sure what his source is. Note how both the tier 8 and 10 vehicles were mentioned in the past on this Wikipedia article, but have since been removed. Again, I personally asked a Hungarian tank researcher about it. Apparently, it’s possible it existed, but it was, indeed, only armed with a 14,5 mm machine gun (tier 1 caliber in WoT).

The tier 6 “Hunor armored car” is also known to be fictional. It seems to have been invented by two authors called Lajos and Ottó Haris, who – according to Karika’s articles – are notorious for mixing history with their own imagination. It’s claimed to originate from around 1943 and to have had a mock-up, but the wheels you see in the drawing below were only patented in the 1950s (see redditor u/B_i__‘s comment on this post). Karika looked through archives and found nothing about it. He also mentions how Hungary couldn’t even afford creating such a vehicle (see his Q&A article with the Russian community). But again, it’s promoted as a “blueprint” in this tech tree.

Fictional drawing of the tier 6 “Hunor armored car” by controversial authors Lajos and Ottó Haris. For some reason, the turret is that of the German Sd. Kfz. 232 (6-Rad).

Only tiers 4, 5, 7 and 9 of the branch seem to be real for sure, but are highly problematic. The tier 4 is the Toldi III, which already exists in WoT as a tier 3 German premium since 2015, so it cannot be duplicated. The tier 7 was designed for the British army, not the Hungarian one (like the Straussler MBT). The tier 5 Csaba armored car was armed with a small 20 mm cannon with 20 mm of penetration from 100 m against 60-degree-sloped armor, so it’s tier 2-3 material.

It doesn’t end here. The tier 8 medium tank is also fake.

Another fictional tank in the tech tree is the tier 8 medium tank. Its story is the same as that of the Tas rohamlöveg tank destroyer: in the 1980s, before we had photographs of the (real) Tas mock-up, the son of one of its developers created a speculative mock-up that is now known to be inaccurate, as explained here by Karika. That’s what this vehicle is based on. Funnily enough, the tech tree author mentions this himself in his Medium.com article. Still, in his “historical accuracy chart”, he wrongly calls the vehicle a “blueprint design” for some reason.

The real Tas mock-up created during World War II, when the vehicle was being developed. Its photographs were only discovered in the 1990s.

The outdated Tas mock-up from the 1980s, before we had photographs of the real one. In the tech tree proposal, this fictional vehicle is proposed at tier 8 and is, for some reason, called a “blueprint design” in the author’s “historical accuracy chart”.

My solution to fix the up-tiered tanks of the tech tree

Alright, we have now accomplished the goal of this post (debunking some tank myths). I have decided to also include this extra subsection for you, World of Tanks players: let me show you how some other vehicles in this tech tree have also been up-tiered to fill the gaps (and present you my solution to fix this):

We have already seen how the Tas rohamlöveg and Straussler MBT have been duplicated and stretched over 4 different tiers to make up for the lack of other candidates. Well, the same has been done with the Zrínyi TD, which is proposed in two versions at tiers 5 and 6 (where it’s severely underpowered). Historically, the Zrínyi did exist in two variants: Zrínyi I (long 75 mm AT gun) and Zrínyi II (short 105 mm howitzer). Back in 2014, Karika proposed the Zrínyi at tier 4 as one single vehicle, having both of these guns as researchable modules, since the two vehicle variants are otherwise identical. This makes more sense than this newer proposal to split it into two vehicles at tiers 5 and 6, with no researchable gun modules. The author of this newer tech tree even proposes the 105 mm howitzer variant at tier 6. Um…what? Howitzers of this caliber are used on tier 4 TDs in WoT, such as the Hetzer, SAu 40 and Sav m/43. At tier 6, tanks already get 152 mm howitzers or 100-130 mm long guns with high penetration. A small 105 mm howitzer would never work at this tier; imagine facing a tier 8 Tiger II or O-Ho with that.

Now, here’s my solution to fix this: instead of having 2 versions of the Zrínyi at tiers 5 and 6, with no researchable gun modules, merge them into one single vehicle at tier 5, with the 105 mm howitzer as the stock gun and the long 75 mm as the upgrade. Would play like a StuG III G. What about the gap left at tier 6, then? Well, Hungary actually has another historical candidate that works there: the Szebeny TD, armed with an 80 mm AT gun, which for some reason has not been included in this tech tree. As explained here by Karika, the illustration you’ve just seen is actually inaccurate; the Szebeny was supposed to be a turretless TD similar to the Zrínyi, making it a perfect fit for this branch. At tier 7 we then have the Tas rohamlöveg (as one single vehicle, of course – not two). Obviously, the main problem remains: we still have no candidates for tiers 8, 9, 10 and 11 (except for the Straussler MBT at tier 10).

Conclusion

Being Hungarian myself, I’d really want to see Hungary in WoT someday, but not like this. Not with a tech tree in which half of the vehicles are fictional, duplicated or up-tiered. Archives should be researched in hopes of finding some (real) Cold War-era tank projects which can fill the gaps we have at tiers 8, 9, 10 and 11.

As you’ve seen above, only few people have so far noticed how many of the vehicles in this tech tree are fake. Most others, however, have not. Look how much support its Reddit post gained back in 2020: over 230 upvotes, and comments like “you should work at Wargaming’s research center”. That’s because many people don’t do their own research and just end up believing unverified information they find on the internet. Now you see why I found it necessary to create this debunking post. It’s unfortunate, seeing as the tech tree project is otherwise very beautiful, with its 3D models and everything. The tech tree project isn’t dead, either. Another user (u/Karosi16) has been promoting some of these fictional vehicles on YouTube in more recent times, but he actually admits that part of them are fake, which is good. Creating fictional tanks isn’t wrong in itself; what’s wrong is when you start presenting them as historical. Had the tech tree creator actually admitted these tanks are fake, this post wouldn’t have been needed at all and he wouldn’t have misled hundreds of people.

If the creator of the tech tree ever reads this post, I hope he doesn’t feel personally attacked because that’s definitely not my goal. My only goal is to debunk tank myths, regardless of who the person promoting them is. And it’s not the first time I do so, either. Let me show you another example: as I’ve already told you, Romanian tanks are also of high interest to me. Multiple people have told me they’ve found this “blueprint” of the (real) Romanian Mareșal M-06 tank destroyer. However, after doing a little research, I found out it’s a fictional drawing created for a contest, as acknowledged here by its author who never intended to spread misinformation about the otherwise historical Mareșal M-06 tank. Case easily solved.

This fan-made Hungarian tech tree is definitely not the first one to promote fictional tanks as “historical”. Before the Polish tech tree got added to WoT, for example, multiple photoshopped “blueprints” were circulating around the internet, presented as real vehicles, such as the “53TP” and “B.U.G.I.” tanks. These were actually later added to WoT, but even Wargaming admitted they are fictional.

Sidenote: the aforementioned historical accuracy chart contains errors not only for Hungarian tanks, but also for tanks of other nations (among others, the Polish “B.U.G.I.”, “40TP” and “DS PZInż”, which are called “proposals” or “blueprints” despite them being fictional). If you want a more accurate overview of every WoT nation’s historical accuracy level, I recommend this work by Tank Encyclopedia member Malice, which partially also contains sources.

What you can expect from me in the future

I’d love to research Hungarian archives myself, but since I don’t actually live in Hungary, I don’t have access to them. My knowledge of the language is also very limited, which doesn’t help either.

However, I am for now continuing my research on Romanian military vehicles, since I actually live in Romania (and I’m part Romanian as well). The archive research I’ve done so far has been little, since I haven’t had much time. I’ve found some digital documents in the Federal Archives of Switzerland which contain interesting information about an episode of Romanian tank development. I’ve also found Romanian archive documents by contacting multiple other researchers, with whom I’m in touch. However, I have a solid plan to temporarily move to the Romanian capital of Bucharest over the next months, so I can do more serious archive research myself (I’ve already discussed getting accommodation). Hopefully, we can find some previously unknown tank projects there. 🙂

My interest for World of Tanks is not as high as it was in the past; I’ve moved on to other things in my personal life. However, my passion for military history remains, so if I do find new tank projects, you may see a future updated Romanian tech tree article of mine, despite me rarely playing the game these days. I’ve already found some new tank candidates in books and archive documents, which could be added.

Many thanks for reading this post. Moral of the story: please be careful whenever you see tank “blueprints” on the internet, especially now that we also have AI. 🙂

Lots of love to everyone.

– David