The Maus That Roared

Edit: to "smart" people thinking this is an April's fool - republished it, it's after midning here, no - it's a serious article. Happy?

Hello everyone,

one of the iconic vehicles of the Third Reich and the testament to Dr. Porsche's ingenuity is the Maus, mostly because it is (and probably always will be) the heaviest tank ever built. Most people know the vehicle itself, but there are other (less known) vehicles (in two cases derivates, in one case a different vehicle) bearing the name Maus. Let's have a look at them.

Sources I'll be using: H.Doyle: Panzer Tracts (20-1, 6-3)

Maus II

Maus II - as the name suggests - was the followup on the Panzerkampfwagen VIII "Maus". Basically what happened: the history of Maus development itself is quite complicated and covered sufficiently in other sources. The development took place mainly in 1943, with 1944 being the trial year for the two manufactured Maus prototypes.
In March 1944, as Ferdinand Porsche was trying to get the Maus production on track (it didn't have to high a priority and there were numerous delays, a lot of them being at Krupp facilities), Krupp designed an improved turret to the original Maus hull, designated "Maus II Turm" (Maus II turret). It was to be armed with the 128mm KwK (presumably KwK 44 L/55) and the 75mm L/24 gun above (!) the main gun, with a breech redesigned by Krupp (the 75mm served for close support). This turret required a larger turret ring, which was discussed between Krupp and WaPrüf 6 in April 1944. Other changes included an improved ventilation system, cartridge fume extractor and a different (slightly narrower) rangefinder. Krupp also proposed the frontal turret armor to be sloped instead of rounded.
In May 1944, Krupp was asked to make a mockup and in August, in the last mention of Maus II project, Krupp representative stated they are working on a mock-up, based on the existing Maus I turret model. After that, all the traces disappear and that was probably the end of Maus II. Here, you can compare both the "regular" Maus and Maus II turrets:

World of Tank wise, Maus II would provide a historical tier 10 alternative to the regular Maus. Balance-wise, those are quite similiar vehicles, but the Maus II turret is better armored. Why the hell did Wargaming go for the completely fake Failowe (AKA 72 ton project which itself is extremely dubious "stretched" to double its weight), I have absolutely no idea.


15cm und 17cm SturmGeschütz auf Fahrgestell Maus ("Jagdmaus")

SturmGeschütz Maus was the alternative program to the SturmGeschütz E-100 (often - incorrectly - referred to as Jagdpanzer E-100). Amongst the modellers, this vehicle is known (also incorrectly) as "JagdMaus".
Both project originate at the same point in time. On 9th May 1944, a meeting was held between Porsche and Krupp, where Ing. Schmidt from Porsche presented sketches of the 150mm L/63 and 170mm L/53 Sturmpanzers based on Maus chassis, developed by Krupp in cooperation with Porsche, that were to compete for the superheavy Sturmpanzer contract with the Adlerwerke and their E-100 - based Sturmpanzer.
In May, the discussions continued with the 150mm variant being favoured over the 170mm. Porsche tried to "smuggle" a Flakaufbau (anti-aircraft miniturret), but that was denied, as it was planned for the superheavy vehicles to be escorted by AA tanks (Flakpanzers).
The plans never reached any serious stage however. In May 1944, there were only rough sketches and conceptual ideas (none of which unfortunately survived, the picture of the model above is only a modeller's impression, how it could have looked). One of the issues of the design was the height - the tall Maus chassis and the superstructure simply made a very tall vehicle, despite the fact Krupp mounted the observation equipment into the superstructure. The ammo capacity of 85 rounds was planned.
By the end of the May it was decided the E-100 chassis would fit the project better (we can speculate it was the height issue). A mockup was ordered, but it never really happened. On 10th of July, Adolf Hitler personally stopped the development of all superheavy vehicles via Albert Speer (the Maus project itself was worked on until August) and that was the end of both superheavy Sturmpanzers.

Tiger-Maus

The Tiger-Maus design history is confusing. It's a prime example of how terribly mixed up the German panzer history was and how different designs influence each other. The basic story is (in layman terms) following (I'd like to thank Zarax (EU) for helping make sense of the intertwining projects):

In March 1942, Germans are no longer meeting a disorganized and devastated Soviet tank troops of 1941. Some seriously tough tanks are encountered, namely the T-34, KV and the KV-2 heavy vehicles, which - although relative rare, horribly unreliable generally a (in the words of S.Zaloga)tactical failure, cause a scare. By that time, Hitler (and the industrialists) start to actively play a role in Panzer development - him specifically by ordering (influenced by his personal friend, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche) all sorts of retarded ideas, mostly in the "we need it bigger" direction.
On 5th March 1942, Krupp recieves a directive that it is to inflate the earlier concieved 70 ton Panzer projects (the Löwe series) to 100 tons, so the new supertank is ready at the latest in Spring 1943. Later in March, Porsche recieves the same order and that's how the Maus development actually started. The "Löwe" line is developed in parallel to a certain extent (the last known heavy Löwe variant - with turret set in the middle - is from May 1942), but in September 1942, the Löwe development is cancelled and onwards goes the Maus.

I'll get a bit offtopic here: this is where the "Failowe" comes from in Yuri Pasholok's mind. Basically, there historically there were three "branches" of the German superheavy Panzer development: the Maus branch, starting with a VK100.01 project by Porsche, moving on to the Maus and ending with Maus II with the new Krupp turret. Second branch is the E-100 branch by Krupp (later Adlerwerke), being a direct competitor to the Porsche Maus project. This branch started with the Krupp E-100 proposal, the Tiger-Maus and ends with the Adler E-100. Third - blind - branch is the Löwe branch. This branch is older than the Maus or E-100 branches (the earliest Krupp VK7001 - Lowe predecessor - proposal is dated at 27.2.1942) and never exceeds 90 tons (which is the last Lowe project from May 1942, armed with a 150mm L/40). This branch gets completely cancelled (the last remnant of it - the turret - gets, as mentioned, cancelled in September 1942) and from that point onwards, there is only one superheavy tank program, for which two companies (Krupp/Adler and Porsche) compete with their projects. Yuri Pasholok believes that by disinterpreting one line in Panzer Tracts 6-3E (1st page), he "proved" the existence of a 120 ton unspecified Löwe offshoot, that actually "survived" the Löwe cancellation and later "competed" for the Maus/E-100 contract (the model itself is an early Lowe mutant with turret in the back). It's a complete crap and for historical materials, I will link you to Zarax's article on the matter.

Back to the Tiger-Maus. The whole Krupp Tiger-Maus 150ton tank concept came to be in September 1942, shortly before the Lowe turret development cancellation. Krupp was basically "taunted" into making a competing concept to Porsche's Maus - a 150ton tank powered by a proposed HL230 1000hp upgrade. The design was made very quickly and in November 1942, it was discussed within the Panzerkomission (a civillian committee of industrialists and tank designers).
It was to use the Tiger(H) components, hence the name - including the engine and drivetrain, but there were worries about the insufficient horsepower to weight ratio. The Tiger-Maus was to reach only 20km/h top speed too and its terrain passability (specifically climbing ability) was questioned too. Additionally, there had to be a new final drive and steering unit designed, as the old Tiger one limited the speed further to 13 km/h. Possible engine upgrades, discussed in November 1943, included the Daimler Benz MB501 and MB503 1200hp gasoline engines and the MB507 1000hp one.
In the end, the Krupp hull weighted 122 tons and was to be powered by a 1200hp MB507 engine. The armament was the 150mm L/37 gun and a 75mm L/24 secondary cannon in a 47,5ton turret, making the vehicle nearly 170 ton heavy. On 1st December 1942, the project was named "Tiger-Maus".
During the further development, significant changes were made. By shortening the chassis (and widening it for better ground pressure), the proposed weight dropped to 130 tons and the drivetrain components were taken from Tiger II. The engine used in the end was the Maybach HL230 with 700hp. The armament remained the same, the vehicle had a proposed crew of six. The vehicle had the advantage that it used many existing components and could be quickly produced - the 130t design was ready on 8th December 1942.
It was recieved very favourably at first - but then, arguably F.Porsche's friendship with Hitler played a role and the decision to develop this vehicle further was overturned. On 15th December 1942, Krupp recieved an order to stop the Tiger Maus development, allegedly because the German military wanted to avoid the dual development fiasco of the Tiger and Porsche's Maus was scheduled for development instead of the Tiger-Maus. Krupp representatives even met with Hitler personally, but without success - on 31st December 1942, the Tiger-Maus development was stopped.

The Tiger-Maus later turned into the E-100 project by Adler, but that is a story for another time. There are no original Tiger-Maus drawings unfortunately, so we can only guess how it could have looked. it probably resembled the later Adler E-100 project, there are some rumors however that the design might have had the turret set more to the back, even to the point of resembling the Porsche Maus. Personally, I doubt that.

What is NOT a real project

This is a model of a "Flak Maus", armed with twin 88mm guns. While it looks cool, it wasn't made by the Germans, it was made by some modeller, it's a complete fake, there were no plans for such a vehicle.

Another popular fake is the "Sturm Maus" or "Sturmmörser Maus" (not to be mistaken with Sturmgeschütz Maus, which is historical) - a Maus chassis with a 380mm rocket mortar, used in Sturmtiger. Again, it's a complete fake, but it does look cool:

Music poll results

Hello everyone,

around a week ago, I made a poll about what the World of Tanks players listen to. 1673 people answered and let me tell you, the results kinda surprised me. The most surprising fact for me is that while 23 percent of people don't listen to anything at all (how can you stand it?), 20 percent actually listen to the ingame soundtrack. Don't you find it a bit... dull, generic?

Either way, it seems that a lot of World of Tanks players are rockers, because 26 percent of all players listen to rock/rock'n roll and 30 percent to metal. Rock on! :) 12 percent listen to dance music, 7 percent to house and - surprise - 8 percent listen to classical music.

What people generally don't listen to: pop music, hiphop (thanks god its era is over, I hate that shit), country music (well, no surprise there) and nation-specific music (what, no chalga?!).

15 percent of players listen also to something else (what?).

Thank you for participating :)

1.4.2013

Just to be clear, I consider "official" trolling on 1st April totally retarded - what's the point of trolling someone when everyone knows you're gonna get trolled that day? This post is thus free of any troll attempts... well, at least attempts from me :) Nah, just kidding, I skipped all the troll answers. TBH, I don't somehow think it's even funny.


- at this moment it is not decided whether the client physics will be optional as a whole, or you'll be able to tweak them by switching off parts of it (such as: suspension - yes, physics object destruction - no, etc.), still too early to tell, experiments are ongoing
- unlimited ignore list won't come and it won't be made client-side, because there would be a problem if you switched computers
- chat won't be separated from combat commands ("don't screw up - you won't get chatbanned")
- low tier arty balance is working normally according to SerB
- when the arty branches are expanded to tier 10, the top arty MM spread will generally change to match the one of the tier 10, but it's too early to tell how exactly will the arty MM look and how much will the top arties get their stats changed
- more tier 8 premium meds won't come anytime soon and in the long run - unknown for now. Soviet premium T7 med is still planned, but no details.
- it's not yet known what will happen to premium arty when the arty branch is expanded to T10 (connected with MM spread changes), but devs might find a solution without buffing/nerfing the premium arty
- skill MM not planned ("dear moderators, can you permaban people asking this?")
- SerB states that unspecified members of an unspecified royal family are playing World of Tanks (SS: earlier it was mentioned that it's a prince of Jordan or something)
- an ammo rack can actually be destroyed by setting a tank on fire (the shell that sets the tank on fire also damages the ammorack, which then drops to 0 by the flame damage), but it's very rare
- it is not planned to make a forum ban extend into the game and vice versa, but a unified account ban for all WG projects is considered
- the observer mode in training rooms is not planned to be made accessible to public, as far as SerB knows
- various servers in RU cluster have different power - the best servers are RU1 and RU2, the newest is the weakest
- smoke (generated by tanks) will be implemented at some point, SerB wanted it from the start, but visibility recalculation connected to dynamic elements has not been implemented yet, it's being worked on. It will be a server-side thing (SS: in order for hackers not to abuse it), server will simply consider smoke an "obstacle" and will not send data to the vehicles behind it
- top vehicles for the T-34M/A-43 branch? "no comment for now"
- the clanwars interface will most likely not be implemented into the game itself, according to SerB, the functions themselves are more important
- new chat system will be first tested on WoWp, might contain a fuction to purge the whole ignorelist at once
- weather effects have nothing to do with Havok
- T10 arty changes will most likely not be published before proper patchnotes
- during the arty T10 patch, there will be no "free" vehicles with 100 percent crews, or free garage slots
- USB authenticator to make accounts more secure will most likely not be developed
- the "distance travelled" in debriefing is not planned to be rewarded when reaching a certain number (SS: there was a suggestion it would reduce camping)
- it's "not excluded" that the British arty "speciality" will be high penetration of HE shells
- if I understand it correctly, British arty branch will have both high-alpha and low-alpha vehicles, there will also be very mobile and slow vehicles
- VK2801 owners will get no compensation for the XP requirement reduction

Indienpanzer stats

Source: http://forum.worldoftanks.ru/index.php?/topic/765592-indien-panzer
Thanks to FrankyK for bringing this to my attention.

Please note this is a RUSSIAN leak. So much for "amagad evul EU testers are leaking...."

31.3.2013

Overlord on the recent EU supertester sacking:

Well, it was a tough decision. Many suffered because of few. Personally I have always been for EU/NA supertest, but things have gone out of hand recently. On RU side things are much smoother. 

 - there are vehicles (guns) that have the strange property that when you aim them at the enemy, the aim circle doesn't immediately start shrinking. This means that the gun is so inaccurate the aim circle was actually bigger than the screen

- Storm regarding the IS-7 speed buff: "dynamics will remain the same"

- there will be some vehicle based on the 38t suspension introduced into the game

- it's possible we'll get a Waffentrager German TD branch

- Leopard 1 will have a historical crew composition

- there will be no dynamic tank names apparently

- SerB on interenet tough guys who wanted to play tough, threatening him on internet: "They are very tough on the internet, but meek during personal meeting"

- Char B1 is doing fine statistically

- SerB regarding new premium vehicles: "There will be such premiums as we consider necessery. Wait for announcements"

- regarding the British turret TD branch: "Wait for announcements"

- "Official WG efficiency rating?" "Yes - that's the winrate, because the point of the game is to win."

- the 3-man platoons and companies confirmed to be available without premium account in 8.5

- another arty hardcap (3 arty per battle) is not planned, "wait for the tier 10 arty"

- there will be an SMS confirmation for phones linked to accounts about password change

- there is a MM mechanism, that balances the times when you play (tier-wise) as the top team player and as the bottom one

- AMX-13/105 is not implemented because it has too advanced rangefinder and electronics

- tank "aging" will not be implemented (SS: as in - a tank with 50 battles gets faded paint, with 500 gets rusty etc.) - "too much work for questionable profit"

- free XP won't be convertible to credits

- arty is not going to lose the green line in satellite mode

- Russian D-25T won't get heat shells
- Jumbo Sherman won't get the 90mm M3 gun
- IS-3 and Panzer V/IV - fixed in 8.5 are minor
- 8.5 test? "when it's done it's done"
- future tank branches will not be announced in advance, because people would whine when the patches don't come on time. Writing that the schedule is just an estimate would not help, people would still whine.
- US light tank branch re-work? "wait for announcements"
- the RU251 light tank is not yet configured properly for supertest
- Ratte will not appear in the game even as a decoration
- what is the role of AMX40? "thick-armored light tank"

EU Q&A "how to" + another round of "the game"

Hello everyone,

today, we are going to have a look at how the Russian Q&A developer thread works and how to use that knowledge, when asking the questions in the official EU thread.

As we all know, the EU Q&A system is incredibly clumsy. Partly, it's because the questions get translated to Russian and then back, partly it's because the answers then get translated to other languages as well, which is retarded and pretty much eliminates the possibility to ask any complicated mechanism questions the Russians ask (and sometimes it's REALLY complicated mathematial stuff for example about the distribution of the shells - interesting too, but NOT easy to translate, let me tell you that), because somewhere in the translation line there's a person that will the answer already once translated to English translate to a third language and in like 50 percent of all cases, you get a different meaning. Trust me, I know what I am saying, because I did exactly this myself last year: RU-EN-CZ. It doesn't work, the person doing the EN-CZ HAS to know the wording of the Russian answer, otherwise you'll screw it up. It requires a lot of doublechecking too, maybe that's why the whole damn thing is so slow.

Anyhow, the rules on the EU site are quite vague and looser than the RU thread itself, without any punishment too. Is that a good thing? No. Why? Because the same people, who answer the RU thread will answer the EU questions too - and naturally apply the RU rules. So, basically, what happens is that when you ask on EU forum a question that would be considered stupid on RU forum, what you get is a) a *facepalming* developer thinking "what the fuck is this shit" b) a clueless player who has no idea he asked a stupid question and then scratches his head as to why his question was not answered.

What is even worse: on RU forum you KNOW your question was "bad" when it gets deleted (there is a dedicated moderator only for that thread, purging the really stupid stuf), or SerB tells you you are an idiot and gives you a 14 days of read only ban (a standard RU punishment for wrong questions), while on EU server you have no idea why your question was not selected: was it bad? Was there no time to answer it? Was it illegal or just stupid? You never know.

The essential thing therefore is to realize that even when it is not written anywhere expressively, the same basic rules from RU thread DO apply for the EU posts. Let's have a look at them.

There are five basic post types the developers hate: bojan, vajn, OVM, suggestions and reposts.

Bojan - in SerBspeak it means a retarded question. There can be any number of these and the term itself is very, very broad. I'll get to various types later.

Vajn - that's a Russian transcription of the English word "whine". Basically any posts like "AMAGAD tankX sux buff it nao!" is considered whining. Any cries for buffs, nerfs, rebalances and such stuff are punished with a 14 day read only ban and they are NEVER answered, ever. Developers never change parameters of tanks based on forum outcry, it's absolutely pointless to suggest that. Whining can be about anything: game mechanics, maps, etc.

OVM - OVM is a shortcut used by SerB for Очень Важное Мнение - "Really Important Opinion" in English. What it means is that SerB (and any other developer) will nearly always ignore your opinion on ingame matter, especially when it comes to statistics. The typical case of OVM is when Player A says: "I played 5000 battles with a tank and measured accuracy for each shot, according to my measurements the shots fly all over the place" (just an example). SerB's typical answer would be "skipped your OVM" - because ANY statistics ANY player ever makes are ignored, always, they are considered that player's opinion, because developers build (and balance) the game on statistics from millions of players. Ergo, one player cannot prove anything statistically from definition.

Suggestions - those are automatically ignored (and banned for in RU thread) because there is a different section for them. Devs don't even read them, they skip straight away as soon as they see it's a suggestion, so don't bother.

Reposts - this is evident. People who ask the same questions that were answered before over and over are banned and told to read the previous answers. While there are no bans on EU server for this kind of stuff, I do have the feeling the Russian developer will ignore questions that were answered a million times already on the RU thread. This is my personal opinion, but from what I could tell, sometimes the developers don't realize how little info the EU server gets (after all, they answer questions every day) and then when obvious stuff gets asked, they start considering the Europeans idiots.



And now the important part: how to utilize this all.

- You do not ask "when". Ever. Developers have a strict policy of not answering "when" questions. The answer will always be either KTTS ("when it's done it's done"), or the question will not be answered at all. "When" questions are answered only in exceptional circumstances, when the developers themselves (!) feel the public should know about a certain plan (for example the latest revelation that 0.8.6 will contain T10 arty). It's also pointless to ask in broad timeframes, in which case SerB usually starts trolling: "Will the tank XXX come in 2013 or 2014?" "One of them".
There is a way around it however. I have noticed that when you formulate the question differently, you might get a same result, even if the answer is not as accurate. The proper wording thus is: "Is there a chance that XXX might appear until the end of the year"? Those get answered.

Wrong: When is the tank XXX coming? (answer will be "when it's done")
Right: Is there a chance the tank XXX

There is another way how to get the "when" answer - and that is the wording "Does it make sense to wait for..." - so if you ask "Does it make sense to wait for tank XXX" and the answer is "yes", that usually mean it won't take a year to implement it. Yes, these wordgames sound stupid, but it works.

- Never ask for buffs and nerfs. This always get ignored.

- Never start any question with "Everybody knows, that...", that will most likely get ignored, because SerB has the opinion that most things that most people consider common knowledge are in fact different from what they appear to be.

- Never make any suggestions. This one is bit tricky. First and foremost - by suggestion I mean pretty much anything, from suggesting "shell drop" or "shell mass" to details of a certain tank. The first type will always get ignored, either as "bojan", or as OVM. Pretty much any suggestion you also make (no matter how clever you think it is) was posted before. Russian server has more players than EU - many more - and some are genuinely smart people, they come up with all sorts of stuff... and they all get banned if they post it in the RU thread. The only type of suggestion I know is worth pursuing are tank details. For example, when you have a book that says that tank XXX has armor thicker and it's a reliable book (I am speaking Doyle-level, not "Tanks for Kids"), you can bring it up. Even so, the Q&A thread is not the way to do it, but you can veil it so: "In book Y, page X, it is stated on schematics Z that tank XXX has the frontal armor 2mm thicker in the game, I'd like to ask how it is, dear developers. Here I present you a scan from the aforementioned book."
Be warned however - in 95 percent cases, the devs will simply reply "our version is historical, sod off"

- Don't ask about obvious and daft stuff. This concerns mostly various plans to "improve" gameplay, that are obviously total crap (for example adding clutch) - remember, if the developers wanted the game to be more complicated, they'd have done so in the first place. So things such as "clutch", "fuel", "engine overheating" and such stuff have ZERO chance of implementation and you are only wasting your time.

- Don't ask very complicated questions. They don't have to be even long (even on RU server, very long questions in Russiang get ignored, because developers don't have time for that), asking "why is tank XXX unhistorical because... *insert two pages of quites*" is the best way to get a "It's historical according to our sources" laconic answer. The same goes for questions about the ingame mechanism formulas - some are known (for example those posted on WoTwiki for spotting range), but most contain a secret element, so all you'll get is "that's classified" or "that's complicated".

- Be polite. The developers are not machines. They do react on politeness. I have seen a case when Storm said "You know, your question is really good, but you're rude so fuck off". Starting a question with "Dear developers, I'd like to ask...." is a good idea. Starting with "Yo fucknuts, check this out" - not so much.

So, this is it. It's not that complicated, but one has to know what to ask. One more thing: I am fairly certain EU questions are not answered by SerB or Storm, but by one of their underlings (my best guess: Marschig), so do NOT expect any slips/deeper insight (by that I mean that occasionally, when in mood, SerB starts to explain motivations, why did they do that and that and what would happen if it was different), that's unfortunately reserved for Russians.

And now:

Let's play the answering game. In first post, I posted my guess on how the answers in the EU thread will look. Now, I will continue with some more.

SqTH: Do you plan to let us set-up the default zoom when switching from 3rd person view to sniper mode ?
(When switching to the sniper mode for the first time during a battle, the zoom is always to the max)
Answer: Actually, I think you have it wrong. The sniper zoom stays on the same magnification you ended with in last battle.

amashi: are you going to implement first person infantry running along the tanks?
Answer: No (btw, this is typical "bojan", you'd so get 14 days RO on RU forum for this)

TheSaBoT3UR:
1-Why does short 7.5 gun sound changing when we change turret on panther? because acoustic? or historical?
2-How wg balance tanks? There is a AMXfoch 155 with %53 win rating and Jagdpanzer e-100 with %47 win rating, does that mean they are balanced for wg? ( asking same question for t57)
3-is spotting system gong to change? ATM scouts spotting us from a hill and going down in a sec, There is 0 chance to hit them and can people do same irl?
4-Is developers really going to answer questions here? if they arent why they are not changing this forum`s name to Pray room?
5-Gold ammos were historical, And they are clearly OP  , If wg really want to make historical game - real fights why there is no HardCore game mode?
6-There is a contest says suicide fast as u can on turkish forums, is it joke?
7-Why Maus cant use his 2. gun? it isnt going to be useless, We can track people or kill people from back with good dpm.Why OP Foch-T57 can use gold ammo but maus cant use 2. gun?Because it is german tank ?

Answer: 
1. Here, SerB would answer "Uzhas kakoy" (in EN "what a tragedy")
2. SerB would answer "everything's normal with them" I think. Personally, I believe Jpz E-100 will recieve a buff in the same patch the German TD's come out (also, Jpz E-100 recieves a buff in 8.5)
3. Camo system is going to change, spotting no (not sure, but this could be considered a "bojan")
4. Idiotic question (remember the "not be rude" rule)
5. OVM  (followed by 14 days RO)
6. Not a question to developers
7. Multigun mechanism will be implemented, but not anytime soon

This is a typical set of questions that would just invite SerB's trolling. THINK before you post.

simeoncho: since ESL is a real big thing and soon we will have 7/42 company, have you eny plans to make 1vs1 maps  for 1vs1 and 3vs3 fun cups ..
Answer: No

SMGJohn: Will the driving experience change when the active suspensions are introduced with Havok for example climbing difficult terrain that usually get's you stuck or higher overall speed over bumpy terrain?
Answer: That's actually not a bad question. My guess on an answer would be "no", because the independent suspension is calculated client-side and nothing calculated client-side should have the effect on the game movement itself (for example, if the ride is smoother thanks to it, it allows to pass the railway tracks more smoothly, thus actually influencing the game). My guess would be that the answer "no" will be combined with some sort of patch, smoothing out the ride overall for everyone, independently on Havok.

RedBear87: Do you already have all the vehicles for the Chinese TD and SPG lines? I know about China receiving SU-76M, SU-100 and ISU-152 from the USSR but these vehicles would fill only tier IV-VIII and I'm completely clueless about Chinese SPGs, could you give us some infos about planned/possible vehicles? Also, can we expect them to appear somewhere during 2013?
Answer: Some. I believe the SPG's are not ready yet. TD's are based on the heavy tank designs, so expect Object 704 and ISU-like stuff. KTTS, not 2013. Guys, don't ask about exact dates, you won't get the answers.

MrCaffeLatte:  (here I have to use numbers for the questions - making your questions comprehensible and easy to differ makes them more likely to be answered)

1) Concerning matchmaking -
When you click 'battle', is your battletier decided regardless of what tanks are available at that time (hence sometimes experiencing long waiting periods even though there are 100+ tanks in some tiers which you could be matched with), or is it decided based on what tanks are available at any given moment?
I'm not expecting an answer for the follow-up question, but I might as well ask. If the former is the case, can the battletier you are assigned be 'refreshed' by exiting and re-entering the queue?

2) Concerning the auto teamkilling sanction system -
Does getting rammed by other friendly tanks (and consequentially damaging them in some circumstances) contribute towards your 'damage log' which may make you turn blue or get banned? Is this contribution significant?

3) Concerning the 'spam reports and you'll get investigated/banned' response on the 5th Jan 2013 RU Q&A (which I could understand thanks to SilentStalker) -
If you are investigated for continually 'spamming reports', does the investigation also involve examining the actual 'spammed' reports one has made? I would assume that to have grounds for banning a player, that player's reports would have to be investigated and so the 'spammer' may be more effective in exacting 'justice' than the player who is frugal with his ingame reports (albeit at the risk of a ban).

Answer:
1) Personally, I don't think the devs will answer this one properly, because it involves internal mechanism, which is not public. Either way, I don't know the answer, sorry. My guess would be it's the latter, seems more logical, but that's just my OVM.
2) Yes. Insignificant.
3) Again, this is something you won't get answer to, devs nearly never answer questions about the sanction system in order for players not to abuse it. In your case, if the answer was "yes", it would actually encourage ticket spamming, so I'd say no, but you won't get told

AnderSP90: SU-152 Taran as the Russian's T10 turreted TD? It would make for such a unique TD (like a T10 hellcat)!!
Answer: No, this was rejected.

Asemah: Did you really think/research about the so called VK2801(DB) for the potential Tier VII German Light Tank before you decided to use the Aufklärungspanzer Panther as the tier 7 Light Tank?
Answer: the answer to this is most likely "no", because I believe the developers think that the tank is fake, but can't guarantee.

skag1: In the media/renders section, there is a render of the STZ-5-NATI BM-13-16 Katyusha. Was MLRS type of vehicles at some point intended to be implemented in the game?
Answer: That was April's Fool 2012

Listy: 1: Has there ever been a legitimate 15 kill game? Even in testing?
2: What are the plans (As in release patches, even if its penciled in with a big rubber next to it) for the:
a)Firefly
b)Matilda A11
Answer: 1. - devs won't know this, nor they will care, not a developer question 2. - far KTTS (as far as I can tell, Firefly is supposed  to come with the lendlease branch, but no ETA there)

PuchaczTrado: Will the WOT premium account be shared among World of Warplanes and World of Warships when those game will reach some open beta phase?. I heard that free XP will be shared, what about credits?
Answer: Okay, here I don't know. I think the answer will be "not yet decided".

Trakais: When can we expect a proper end-game content?
By that I mean functioning Global Map Clan Wars. At the current state there in practically no point in grinding tier X tanks due to
- frequent downtimes of Global Map
- Global Map isn't rewarding, players get more gold by simply playing ESL
- problems with connecting to Global Map battles
- frequent bugs with chip movements, yesterday tons of clans couldn't even put chips after "patch"
Is there any chance PzIII/IV could receive a buff? According to (some link) it is one of the worst (if not the worst) tier 5 tanks, its WR is ~48% and it struggles with fulfilling any distinct combat role.
Are the mudguards on E-50Ms' sides considered as spaced armor?
 Answer: this is another question that will be skipped, trust me.
 1) What endgame content?
2) We are working very hard bla bla bla bla
3) OVM, vajn, 14RO

Gnomus: 1. How many people in WG is working on Clan Wars?
2. CW has been at beta for over 2 years. Is there any aproximate time when it's going to be official version? At the moment it's often broken after updates and every problem/ticket is just passed with "it's in beta" comment with no real support.
 Answer:
1. Hard to guess the answer, I think SerB would start trolling here or say "enough"
2. KTTS (sorry, absolutely no idea)

 j_gagarin: Will we see sometime at end-battle statistics what critical damage we did to a tank? (crew dmg, tracks, ammo rack etc)
Is it because of automated fire extinguisher script that one-button repair/med. kit. was scraped when only one module/screw member hit?
 Answer: 1) - no, 2) you will be able to buy a gold automatic repair kit/med kit for credits

SzaloniChemik: Are multiple gun vehicles (M3 Lee, B1, Churchill) mechanics still developed? If yes, then when we can expect that to be implemented (of course I'm not asking for solid date, just ETA - this year, next)? Maybe there is something that you can share about how this mechanic will work right away (will we have to choose which gun we want to operate, can we change it during battle, etc.)?
Answer: Yes, KTTS (it will most likely not come this year)

Arkean: Will you change the servers to be together as one real cluster so people on cluster 1 and 2 can platoon/play TC together?
Answer: bojan, suggestion - for this you'd get banned on RU forum.  The answer is most likely no, if they could do that, they'd have done it already

Goblin_5: 1. The developers have many times mentioned that the garage info screen won't display all stats because they don't want people to crunch numbers. So would it be possible to add figurative 'values' for some of these stats. For example:

Camo: poor - low - average - good - excellent

Other stats to consider would be acceleration, terrain passability, climb ability, on the move accuracy and ramming ability. This would give players some indicative about what their tank can and can't do without resorting to third party software and then being angry when that data turns out to be inaccurate. It would also decrease the amount of rage when people find out that their house sized tank can't hide.

2. Would you consider it possible to have small articles about mods? Modding is a rather big part of the game and WG having, lets say monthly, highlights about good mods would make more people aware of them and also show what mods are kosher so to say. This would reduce the anxiety about 'banned' mods and encourage budding modders to try their hand at it.

3. Uparmoured T-34 for the USSR?

4. Stug III Ersatz for the Germans?

5. Any chance we might see some of the T95 medium tank models in the US tree? Of course meaning the ones with rifled guns.

6. What is the status of the 'super platoons', or has this mode been scrapped altogether?


Answer: 1. I think the answer will be "no" and "use common sense - big vehicles are hard to hide"
2. We are working very hard to pick mods we like and implement them bla bla bla
3. T-34M? That's planned.
4. Not for now.
5. No comment
6. That was never on table, so it couldnt be scrapped

Elnorka:
1. Do you plan introduce some daily/weekly/.... achievments? e.g get 2 top guns, destroy 50 tanks
2. Will be there some special signs on tanks for free as reward for something? e.g for destroy 10 000 tanks you get sign "weapon of mass destruction"
3. Any closer info about EU tech tree, i am mainly interested for CZ/SK branch. Can i suggest my real name and hope that it will be name for crew
4. Is plan for new crew skills?
5.  Which part of game Havoc physics affect the most?

Answer:
1. I think the answer is no, because that would actually give extra rewards beyond what we have now, which is what the devs don't really want to do. Would be nice tho
2. No
3. Well, let me tell it like this: the supertester leak was a Czech, the Czechout affair, Czech section being a shithole... do you REALLY think there will be a Czech tree? I don't. Also, suggestion... ugh. The real answer will be "as a part of the EU tree"
4. When some suitable are found
5. Not sure what the question means

Hokum15: There is apparently a bug in side skirts on tanks (http://forum.worldof...ns-side-skirts/) the effect is that shots which should bounce due to extreme angle are instead resulting in penetration of the tank hull or overmatching rather than bouncing as they should. Will this be looked into?
Answer: something like this appeared on RU server too, will be investigated

St0ne_Monkey: How many 8.something updates will there be.
What will the major game alterations of the next main update 9.0 be.
Answer: 8.5, 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.9, wait for announcement (my guess: tier 10 arty in 8.6)

Mourning76: Will CW get a major overhaul this year and will the changes be new content that can be earned/unlocked? Or will it involve new mapoptions (like ransacking and espionage which were added earlier this year)? Or both?
Answer: Yes, wait for announcement (some stuff was being supertested, not sure what)

Glandolin: 
1) can we expect new maps in next patch or 2?
2) Are you going to add new tank branches in near future?
3) Are you going to implement more "fun" little things to make WoT more interesting? like Historical Battles, or lets say ... Special battles (no base, just destroy all 15 enemy tanks?)
4) how about some "unlocks" ? something to customise out tanks a bit, but not for gold or credits, lets say ... you survived 100 battles with a single tank so you get a sticker "Not going down that easy" on in? just to add more randomness and make the game more enjoyable
those are the real ones I want to hear answers to, but I would like to ask as well: Are you going to change anything about folowing tanks anytime soon? (Matilda, T49, M18 Hellcat, T-50-2 KV-1S, SU-26)
 Answer:
1) Yes (two winter ones)
2) Yes (well, the German medium one *trollface*)
3) No
4) Options are being considered
5) If needed

rzaba: are you planning to release EU or one of European national trees in 2014?
Answer: We'll see (hard to tell - devs won't say exactly anyhow)

mr3awesome: Is there a chance that the Sherman Firefly might appear in 2013?
Answer: My guess is "no"

My god, this is tiring.... anyway, we'll see how accurate I am :)

30.3.2013

The biggest news of the day is the sacking of the EU supertesters I suppose. That will make a few people... unhappy (check the previous post).

Anyway as for today's news:

- it's possible the shell velocity for each shell and gun will be made public (disclosed, for now it's secret)
- regarding the IS-3 model "fix" from the unofficial patchnotes: Wargaming fixed the "overhang" above the mantlet
- the US premium TD will be implemented, but not fast - Storm states they have no patch to put it in, as all patches already are full (SS: as in they have their content decided)
- the point in the 3001, 3601 etc. tank names (SS: earlier VK3601, now VK36.01) was added because it's historical (SS: the first number indicates the prototype weight in tons, the second is the version of the prototype)
- ST-I model was checked, it's correct
- Durchbruchwagen is still planned for tier 5, will be implemented later
- premium tanks tier 9 and 10? "No"
- the details about the tier 10 "reward" tanks (Object 907, M60, Failowe) will be published later
- the fate of Panzer IV Hydro is not yet decided
- the XP needed to level up the light German tanks will be reviewed, wait with XP decisions until the patch test
- you can't get a defender medal by killing a capper after the base was fully captured
- water does not diminish the effect of a HE shell, it's also not planned
- there is a hidden parameter "quality of the suspension" in the game, that affect the vehicle performance