Monday 6 April 2015

06.04.2015 Stream (ended)

Happy Monday, I hope everyone is having a nice start of the week.
Will be streaming for the next hours some World of Tanks, depending how things go, will be doing Tank requests or Viewer platoon. No beer today... :P

http://www.twitch.tv/ritagamer2

06.04.2015 Q&A

Storm confirms: 9.7 will not come tomorrow: "you have to wait a bit more" - likely until next week. The 9.7 test will be resumed shortly (not test 4 but still test 3).

- Ferdinand is doing fine on tier 8;
- Storm confirms, Ferdinand will not be made tier 7 despite its unhistorical elements (gun, engines): "The vehicle is alright. No need to screw around with it."
- Storm reacting on how players spam about skill MM: "Enough with writing this under every topic twenty times. We do not plan this. Repeating it many times will achieve nothing except annoyance. Sorry :((("


And because there wasn't much for today:

Source

Wargaming's New Building on Cyprus

Hello warriors,

in case you wondered what Wargaming does with the money from World of Tanks (apart from SerB's space program), here's one of the things. In 2013, WG ordered a building on Cyprus for 20 million Euro. It was supposed to be ready in May 2014, but it is still not finished, although it should be soon. This is how the future building of the company looks now (compared to the project). Its height is 75 meters and the developer claims that the building is very energetically effective.


SHERMAN M4A1 "SQUIRREL"

Check you this Sherman M4A1 getting some street cred:





"Artillery" BT-7 on supertest

Hello warriors,

a new vehicle appeared on the supertest - the "artillery" BT-7 premium Soviet tier 3 light tank. Basically a BT-7 with a 76mm gun.


Description:

Between 1934 and 1935, the design bureau of the Kharkov steam-engine plant developed an artillery variant of the mass-produced BT-7 light tank. The 76,2mm KT-28 gun was installed in a new, larger elliptical turret. Apart from that, a part of the vehicles received new radios. 155 artillery BT-7 were produced in total and they participated in the fighting on Karelian peninsula and in Manchuria during the first stages of the Second World War.

Tier: 3 LT
Hitpoints: 220
Engine: 500 hp
Weight: 13,5 tons
Power-to-weight: 37,04 hp/t
Maximum speed: 51,6/20 km/h
Hull traverse: 45 deg/s
Turret traverse: 37,5 deg/s
Terrain resistance: 0,767/0,959/1,822
Viewrange: 290
Radio range: 300

Hull armor: 20/19/?
Turret armor: 15/15/?

Gun: 76,2mm KT-28
Damage: 110/164
Penetration: 37/38
ROF: 14,551
DPM: 1600,9/2386,4
Reload: 4,123
Accuracy: 0,575
Aimtime: 2,3s
Depression: -5


Armor:

Nahkampfkanone II

Source.

This self-propelled gun was one of the most interesting Swiss-made armored vehicles, despite the fact that it was never accepted in service. It was not totally original per se - it was more like an assembly of existing solutions invented by other parties and it was by no means bad, the program was cancelled for economic reasons, not design ones.



The requirements for the NK2 were laid down in March 1943 with the real design work starting on 28.1.1944 when the SPG parameters were finalized as such:

- 75mm gun or 105mm howitzer
- maximum depression: -14 degrees
- maximum elevation: +26 degrees for the gun or +38 degrees for the howitzer
- telescopic and periscope sights available

In the end, the NK2 ("close combat gun") project took a while to develop, as many as 4 variants of the vehicle were considered. In January of 1946, a single prototype was made - the only one of the four that would be actually built. It weighed 24 tons and was armed with a 75mm L/49 gun. Its frontal armor was 70mm thick and its maximum speed was 50 km/h. The vehicle had a frontal transmission that resembled the American design actually, but was of the Wilson type (clearly influenced by the Czechoslovak-made Panzerwagen 39). The hull was in turn heavily influenced by the French (partially cast, partially bolted with curves). The crew consisted of five men - commander, loader, driver and two gunners, a legacy of the main weapon being originally an AA gun. The vehicle was propelled by a 12-cylinder Saurer 16 liter CV1DL engine, producing 300 horsepower. The suspension was a mix of Czech (drive sprocket, support rollers), American (roadwheels) and German (Panzer IV-style idler) influence.

Even though the self-propelled gun concept was becoming somewhat obsolete, the vehicle turned out to be quite good, especially considering the fact that Switzerland was not exactly experienced in tank design at that point. The vehicle was assembled and tested in Thun, where it is currently located as well. Unfortunately, after two years, the project was cancelled for economic reasons. The Czechoslovaks offered Switzerland the 15-ton G-13 tank destroyer, which was already mass-produced. The NK2 mantlet by the way comes from a G-13 as well.

Lessons learned from the conflict in Ukraine for the Czech Army

Author: Army General Jiří Šedivý (retired), former chief of staff of the Army of the Czech Republic
Translation: Silentstalker

Source.

Hello warriors,

here’s an article from a Czech NATO magazine, written by the former Czech army chief of staff. I hope you find it interesting.
The leadership of the AČR (Czech Army) has been working on the new concept of the army development for quite some time. It's rather complicated to to find a simple solution that would lead to a consensus regarding the army development direction. Only a few years ago, the situation we found ourselves in was clear, as were the development trends. But it all has changed recently.
Today, two threats are noticeable. The one widely known is that of radical Islam, represented especially by the Islamic State.  The IS represents much more brutal form of Islam, even though Al-Qaeda and Taliban were no “peaceful organizations” either – murders happen daily. Despite all that, the Islamic State is something new. This organization is attempting to behave like a real country in all respects. One of their first steps was to arm their combatants with as good military hardware as possible, including armor and artillery. The vehicles were mostly captured in the initial fighting in Syria and Iraq. It is not clear what kind and how many other weapons were later purchased for the money from illegal oil trade, from kidnapping and blackmail.
The most important discovery is that to prepare our army for the war on terror as we know it from Afghanistan is to prepare it for the war of yesterday.  Even the terrorists know that it’s very difficult to fight against heavy weapons if they want to keep their captured territories for some time and therefore they too have to obtain weapons of reasonable quality. It is up to the allies to destroy the terrorist weapons as fast as possible, especially the heavy equipment such as tanks, artillery and such. Not so long ago first news appeared about the use of chemical weapons – even though they were quite primitive. Despite that, it’s a very serious signal.
Ever since 2014, the previously calm Europe experiences confusion about the Crimea situation, but also about the situation in eastern Ukraine. The Russian annexation of Crimean peninsula was unprecedented, as was the unacceptable interference in the conflict in eastern Ukraine by giving their weapons and even soldiers to the separatists. There are many pieces of proof supporting this claim.
Due to the fighting with Islamic State but especially due to the battles in eastern Ukraine, the question of using heavy equipment in conflicts became actual again. What are the lessons the Czech army should take from the conflict?
.......
We, as a former member of the Warsaw Pact still equipped with a large number of Soviet armor should be interested in how well did the Soviet vehicles in Ukrainian and in Russian service do in battle.
.....