It is true. We Romanians failed defending Stalingrad. Why? Because Germany sent a lot of tanks to Bulgaria, a country which did not even attack the Soviets. And that they did not really care about their allies in that crucial moment. We lacked anti-tank ammo; the Hungarians normal rifle ammo.
ALSO THE ONE WHO MADE THE VIDEO DOES NOT KNOW WHERE THE BALKANS ARE. WHAT A NOOB.

Hi folks ! Erwin0859 there. At the demand of someone everyone here on TAP know and love, I’ve translated a branch proposal about a potential 2nd US arty branch, called “light branch”. It’s gonna be long, so having something to eat meanwhile might be a wise decision, especially during well-deserved holidays ! Anyway, have fun reading all this, and feel free to share your thoughts about it, no matter if about the content or the article itself 😉
For the sake of clarity :

• every gun name will be written in italic (except picture captions). Example : 122mm SERB Mk. I L/666 (Serguei’s Energetic Ray Beams)
• every tank name will be written in bold. Example : SerB’s IS-4 “Ekrazatator”
• TN means “Translator Note”
• And every link here will be opened in a new tab if you click on them

Original article in French : click here ! (Credits to ndiver for the article)

This thread results directly from the Swiss tech tree made by anodjl (in French), since two Swiss artilleries are in fact American ones. In order to identify their positions in the Swiss tech tree, it was naturally needed to see which position they could have in an American branch.
Nowadays, the current US artillery branch is classified as a “heavy” branch, starting from tier VII, and based on medium tanks obviously linked to the Second World War.
The proposed branch, linked in a way to the Swiss one, is classified as “light”, so in other words, based on light tanks, new light projects and even some air-transportable ones which are, if we except the first two ones, post-WW2 vehicles.
All the presented vehicles have been built for real (so there are no never-left prototype/blueprint stage cases), and there are still some left in museums, military bases, arsenals… when they aren’t still in service.
This branch’s characteristics would be as follows :

• light (less than 30 tons for the heaviest)
• mobility (good pivot speed) without being super fast
• accuracy from tier IV to tier VIII (a split less for tier IX and X)…
• … but low firepower (for the M107 and M110, with big guns, big splash ranges but low alpha damage)
• kinda low rate of fire (so few low-damage shots but with a good probability of hitting their target)
• a turret from tier IV to tier VIII (no 360° turn for the tier VI though), pseudo-turret on tier IX and X

As a result, we would have two US artillery branches, with clearly opposed characteristics, and their own gameplay compared to the other artillery branches from the game. In addition, all of these proposals are dating from before the end of 1969, which is a kind of time limit for WoT.

Short resume of post-WW2 US arties’ history

At the end of WW2, the US artilleries based on light tanks were based on the M24 Chaffee light tank : the M37 (currently tier IV), as well as the M41 (currently tier V).
http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/2016/04/1453851415-t76.jpg
Above : the T76, prototype of the M37
http://wiki.gcdn.co/images/b/b4/M37_Aberdeen.png
Above : the M37
Continue reading “US light artillery branch proposal” →

Before the historical article, I would like to point out that I am not posting about the Japanese WoT eSports fail (that adult movie actress removing her clothing and giving it to the „losers”). This blog was not made for NSFW articles and my moral conduct tells me to not show you lewd pictures, pictures that are honestly useless IMO and that do not bring any new, useful info with them. I cannot post that guys. I can do better. And WG did a really stupid move by adding this to eSports. This is the biggest fail I have ever seen, followed by the removal of forum downvotes (and the new like system)! WoT is played by a young audience too and things like that are just showing off how much WG cares about the “kiddies”.
Second note: Vlad, my translator, is extremely busy and he cannot translate historical articles for a month (estimate). Please forgive him. This is the last translated historical article for now but I promise there will be more in the distant future. Moreover, we will still have historical articles from other sources.

http://static-ptl-ru.gcdn.co/dcont/fb/image/2mount.jpg
The problem of warfare in the mountains is as huge and unconquerable as the mountain ridges themselves. And however the efforts of commanders fare to exclude maneuvers between snowy peaks, sometimes the circumstances force them to send troops to places where not everyone would go to even at peaceful times. But not only infantrymen. Some two hundred years B.C. the Carthaginian commander Hannibal crossed the Alps with his war elephants, suffering huge losses.
During the ’40s there were already specialized mountain troops in existence – even artillery. And inventors discovered a whole direction of military thought for themselves: the development of special mountain tanks.
Wheels, tracks… feet
At the end of 1940, Yerevan (Seb: capital of now Armenia) resident Emin Aramovich Ter-Grigoryan sent a tank project to the GABTU. The inventor named his creation after himself and wrote: “I offer a new concept of a universal cross-country tank, which has exceptional terrain passability and does not know of any obstacles, crawling through mountains like a four-legged animal”.
Ter-Grigoryan invented an incredibly elaborate chassis for his “Emin”. Besides the wheel and track chassis, which should be used on relatively even ground, it also had “feet”. Judging by the author’s drawings they represented some kind of motorcycle forks which were able to move in and out of the body at any angle. If, for example, the terrain became unsuitable for wheels, the feet were to be extended so the tank would move on its’ tracks. Mound ahead? No problem, lift the foot, cling with the wheel and drive up. A pit? If the feet can reach the ground, the tank can stand on them and continue moving. Ter-Gregoriyan’s machine could handle any landscape.
The inventor wrote: “Using eight pedals, the driver could execute quite complicated operations”: An interesting one would be turning the “Emin” into a reconnaisance post. One should choose a tree with a dense crown, approach it and stand on the feet so that the body was covered by branches.
http://static-ptl-ru.gcdn.co/dcont/fb/image/1mount.jpg
Continue reading “Bizarre armor projects of the '40s. Mountain tanks” →