Hello everyone,
today, a few new vehicles were confirmed by SerB to be implemented into the game. Let's have a look at them, shall we?
Previously,
it was confirmed by Storm that the tier 7 "light" German tank will be
the Aufklärungspanzer Panther. Well, I really hope Wargaming dropped
that idea, because today it was confirmed that the tier 8 light tank
will be the Spähpanzer Kette RU251 prototype.
Spähpanzer Kette RU251
(Tier 8 LT)
Basically,
it was a light scout tank prototype from 1963 by Hanomag, armed with a
90mm gun (it's unclear at this point, what kind of weapon will it have
ingame, as SerB said it will not have the 90mm Bord K), designed to
replace the ageing German Bundeswehr fleet of M41 Walker Bulldog tanks.
If the hull looks familiar to you, well, that's because it is connected
with the Kanonenjagdpanzer hull. It's designation is a sort of an enigma
to me, because while several sources claim the builder of this vehicle
was Hanomag, RU stands for Ruhrstahl, which eventually became Rheinstahl
and then Thyssen Henschel if I remember correctly. Either way, this
vehicle never reached production stage. This site says:
The
Spähpanzer Kette was designed to replace the Germany Army’s old
American M41 light tanks in the reconnaissance role. Its development
began in 1960 and a prototype was completed in 1963. It mounted a
Rheinmetall turret armed with the 90mm Bordkanone as used in the
Jagdpanzer Kanone.
By the middle of the 1960s the Leopard tank was in
production and it was decided that reconnaissance units did not need
their own specialist vehicles. The development of the Spähpanzer Kette
was dropped without any further vehicles being built and its role was
given over to the Leopard. With hindsight, this may have been a hasty
move as the wheeled Spähpanzer Luchs was eventually developed to take
back this role from the Leopard.
Performance
statistics are unknown, as far as I can tell, the maximum intended
speed was estimated to be around 78 km/h, armament was either some sort
of 90mm gun, or possibly the 76mm from M41.
SG-122
(SPG)
SG-122
was classified as a medium SPG (SAU - Samochodnaja Artilerijskaja
Ustanovka), built on the chassis of the captured Panzer III and StuG III
vehicles. These vehicles were produced in Mitisshtinskij
Mashinostroitelnij Zavod No. 37 by the end of 1942 until the half of
1943. It was armed with the 122mm M-30 howitzer. It is not clear how
many were manufactured, but it is estimated that 8 pieces were made from
the StuG tanks until the end of 1942 - plus 2 test vehicles based on
captured Panzer IV and III tanks. Two of these vehicles were tested in
December 1942 and compared to SU-122. The production was ended because
there was enough Russian equipment to arm the troops and thus there was
no need to convert captured tanks. It is estimated that 20 were made in
total.
ZIS-30
After
the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Soviets were literally
desperate to stop the armored onslaught of the Wehrmacht. On 1.7.1941,
an order was given to the automotive factories to quickly develop
lorry-mounted weapons and other desperate stopgap measures. The
factories were supposed to use 37mm, 57mm and 85mm cannons. The projects
were to be ready in 15 days. One of the projects developed in Gorky
factory no. 92 involved mounting a 57mm ZIS-2 gun on top of the T-20
Komsomolec artillery tractor. By the time this project was introduced
however, the T-20 tractors were no longer manufactured and in order to
get a testbed, the vehicle had to be confiscated from a regular
artillery unit. The cannon was mounted on the rear end behind the driver
and was protected by small thin armor plates - when preparing to fire,
these plates rolled down and served as space for the crew to stand on.
The cannon had a very limited traverse rate and it had to be aimed by
turning the vehicle. The crew was practically unprotected, the only
cover was provided by the gun shield. The amount of ammo carried was
also very low and the vehicle had to be practically followed by an ammo
truck, that caried spare rounds and also the rest of the men, needed to
fire the bulky gun.
The prototype passed very short series of
tests and by 21.9.1941, series production was started. 101 vehicles
were made until 15.10.1941 - after that, there were simply no more T-20
tractors available and the production stopped. Other versions, carrying
45mm and 76,2mm guns were developed, but those never got to be produced.
The vehicles fought on the Soviet western
and southwestern front and as many as 20 brigades were equipped with
them. Despite its many flaws (low speed, low armor protection,
unreliable drivetrain), the vehicles were considered successful and
archieved some victories.
Spähpanzer Kette looks great. Although I prefer WWII tanks, I have nothing against that beauty in game.
ReplyDeleteA couple of odd questions I hope you may have insight on. Do you know why there is no english language option on the RU client? (besides is being a russian game, lol) Or if there is, how can I get to it? And is there any hint that the T-35 (or others) is coming to other servers?
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the Awesome work you do!
Official option? No. But from what I heard, it is possible to copy the English language files into the RU client. No idea what files though, ask around forums, mate. T-35 - no clue, all we know is that the model is ready and that it'll be introduced AFTER the multiturret mechanism is implemented. My guess? Fall 2013 at the earliest.
DeleteIt looks good, but they are creeping a little far into the 1960's armored environment. If they add a vehicle close to the JagdPanzer Kanone, they are not that far from the T-64's, Chieftains, etc. I am not sure I believe them when they see they will not introduce composite armor vehicles.
ReplyDelete