Answers variously by Ogopogo, Okinoshima, OhSlowpoke, Ed.Francis, Listy, and Vollketten

Hi guys, thanks for the questions, there is some repetition in the questions and we have either lumped some together as they came in or just referred back to an earlier answer it’s a repeat. Hopefully, we got to almost everyone but if we missed you sorry. The response we got for a Q and A was HUGE, thank you, everyone, but there is so much we’ll have to break the answers into a couple of parts so please bear with us. Let’s hope that WG takes note of the demand for UK lines.

Q1: NOT_SO_NICE_: Please could you ask what the plan is with both the chieftain and the fv215b (heavy)? If a chieftain line is implemented what might it consist of and when could be added to the game?

A: WG has already said that the Chieftain will be added. It’s better to see it head up a whole new line instead of just slapped in to replace an existing vehicle. Better for WG and better for a new line introduction.

Q2: Aditya: So Superconquorer or chieftain or both?

Aditya: Are they a dream or a reality in near future?

A: No version of the Conqueror was or should ever be called or referred to as a ‘superconqueror’ .

Ideally, both should be coming to the game. Please don’t use the ‘superconqueror’ moniker. We don’t need WG inventing another fake name for an in-game vehicle. – Looking at you ‘Matilda Black Prince’- None of us are in the business of inventing names for vehicles. Where we may have a design with no official name a nickname (contemporary) may be suitable and failing that the logical official name could probably be worked out. If that fails then just add an asterisk or the next Mark (Conqueror Mk II* or Mk III) and explain in the wiki that it had no known official name.

This new Conqueror vehicle is a normal Conqueror but with added spaced armor, known as “burster plates” on the hull. These burster plates were actually produced in real life, although not planned to be equipped unless combat was expected.

There is also two possible options, for the turret, one including similar armor plate, covering the existing ‘historical’ Conqueror turret, which was test trialled during weapons firing trials. In addition, there is also a new improved turret.

There is also a possibility for mounting an improved 120mm gun, the L11, information of which has been recently located. This gun should have generally improved performance in every aspect.

Q3: Why does the Cromwell get the 77mm guns? it did NOT have them IRL

A: The Cromwell in game mounts the 75mm HV (Vickers) gun, which fired the projectiles from the American-type 75mm guns, but using a different casing with a more powerful charge.

This gun was intended to be mounted in the Cromwell, and a wooden mockup of the turret and gun mounting was least assembled. They ran into significant problems during development and found they would have had to do some serious work to get it to fit. A choice later to use the 76.2mm ammo from the 17 Pounder (a switch in projectile) eventually led to the “OQF 77mm” which was mounted in the Comet. There are a lot of vehicles that have weapons they were never mounted in real life.

Q4: RAGNAROKBAZIL: Ehat tank is that and look at that small puny tank like the fv304 >> with five crew members yeah sure fv304 can be that small and fit that many crew members >> rita whats the update to the fv304 is the tank getting smaller still? Srriously i want this ansaered by you

A: Hopefully this should answer your question

It is worth mentioning that the increase in the size of the FV304 in patch 9.15 is historically accurate. The current (9.14 and earlier) size is far too small.

Q5: ANTHONY: are there any plans to buff the black prince fire power wise?

BUMBLER: Is there any chance that the Black Prince will get some kind of weapon buff? I’m not saying give it a 20 or 32pdr, but with the 17pdr I would like to point out that it has significantly lower rate of fire than both the Archer (tier 5 TD) and the firefly. It would be nice to see this thing get some kind of aimtime, gun depression, or dispersion buff (yes I know it’s really good already).

WHEELEDTANK: What’s wrong with the 17pdr? It works just fine with the vehicle. The only upgrade would be the 20pdr, which would be both too powerful and not fit in the turret

A: Unfortunately for the Black Prince there wasn’t much in terms of options for the vehicle when it was initially implemented. There was a meteor engined variant planned, which is represented by the top engine in the game, and many such variants of the Meteor engine exist to buff hp/ton. There is no proof that such a vehicle existed in anything other than on paper to begin with so certainly you could make a case to use one of the more advanced Meteor engines (800+ HP versions exist!) to improve power-to-weight.

As with the case of the Black Prince, and several UK Vehicles between T6 and T8 suffer from the same problem with a small calibre, historically quite high-velocity guns being unsuitable due to their low alpha damage. This problem of a bit of a “gun gap” does exist at several tiers in the UK tank line currently, but several guns, both in terms of prototypes and paper designs have been discovered recently and could be implemented possibly into several vehicles if need be. These include modified variants of the 3.7” (94mm) AA gun (not the 32 Pounder) and 4.5” (114mm) AA gun that are suitable for mounting in an array of mid-tier vehicles, and a possible medium velocity 120mm gun that could be suitable in 20 pounder armed vehicles.

One final thing for the Black Prince and not an upgrade in game terms would be the addition of a second turret module. The one fitted on the remaining example at Bovington has a turret originally part of the design on the Centurion development fitted (both projects were closely related) so the in-game turret module name is wrong. It was intended to mount the Centurion turret onto this hull too although it was never done. We don’t know which Mark of Centurion turret this would be but either way, the armour would be worse than it has currently. A new turret would therefore only be a new stock turret and actually make it worse in armour terms in-game although stats such as traverse or depression (-8 on the BP current turret, -10 on the Centurion turret) could be buffed.

Q6: Anon: Are there any known British Scout LTs? I don’t believe any of the current LTs get Scout status.

A: Last I heard publically WG were reviewing light tank match-making and maybe extending light branches to tier 10, the British tree will be fine with this outcome.

Q7: THEGRIPPINCHANNEL: Anything about British Autoloaders?

A: There are numerous autoloader designs covering various the 76mm L5, 20Pdr type B, and 120mm L11.

Q8: CHAD1233: When are we getting the Tetrarch in the British tree? It’s my favourite tank!

A: The A.17 Tetrarch in a regular tree has to be different from the premium version and thankfully will be when we get it. So yes.

Q9: KALLECRASH: How come the British never heard of “sloped armor”?

A: How about looking at the front of just about every tank for a sloping glacis plate? Yes, many have a vertical (or nearly) drivers plate but this simply confirms to how someone appears when seated and it usually thicker to compensate for the lack of angle.

Box shapes are simple to produce, they reduce the amount of time required to design and construct a vehicle and are more space efficient internally. Contrary to popular belief about sloped and angled armor, angles are effective for protection but do not solely replace thickness. The other consideration would be the transportation of a vehicle and the maximum gun. Sloping sides reduce the size of the turret ring a vehicle can have and therefore restrict the gun size. Take two equally sized tanks for length and width, one with sloping armour and one with ‘square’ armour, the angled one will have to have a smaller turret ring and less internal volume for crew, ammunition etc. The squarer one can also mount a wider turret and consequently a wider gun. Sloped armour versus vertical armour is generally not a cut and dry topic.

Q10: RENO STEFAN: I’ve noticed that most British tanks, mostly the one I saw in game, have a tendency to use letter ‘C’ as their first letter in their name. AreIs there any reasons behind that..?

A:

David Fletcher explains this very well in this video. Post Churchill tank it’s as much tradition as anything for C names.

There are plenty of odd exceptions for a variety of reasons not to be confused with the firm of Vickers which preferred ‘V’ names. There’s a short piece on some other ideas for British tank names here http://ritastatusreport.blogspot.com/2015/04/on-british-tank-names.html

Q11: BUMBLER: It’s well known that the Valentine struggles when it is not top tier. The 6pdr and 75mm are formidable guns, but the Valentine has terrible gun depression and gun handling with these weapons. It really needs to have its fantastic gun depression from the 2pdr to be able to take full advantage of its low profile. Did the Valentine historically use the Little John Adapter and is there any chance of WG giving the Valentine the Little John Adapter as on the Matilda?

A: The Littlejohn Adapter was tested and trialled on the Valentine tank (with the 2 Pounder Mk-X). It is certainly a possibility that the gun could be added to the Valentine at wargaming’s wish, although it seems unlikely, given their stance on rebalancing via ‘adding’ new weapons to existing vehicles. There are other options, including a 12 Pounder gun, which was a UK Prototype tank gun of intermediate performance between the 6 pounder and 75mm.

Ed Francis has also recently discovered a number of photos of Valentines, including one mounting an unknown gun that looks like a very long barreled 2 Pounder which we have yet to identify but may also be an interesting option.

Q11: XAVIER: Are there enough vehicles to make a fleshed out light tank line? Are the FV300 series and FV100 series viable options?

A: Yes very much so, from about tier 5 upwards the UK can make (assuming you have no issue with a couple of vehicles which were only designed and not built) probably 2 full (that’s to tier 10) light tank lines with a good smattering of premiums.

Q11: XAVIER: Why do you think the Chieftain has bad armor for WoT but it’s great in other games like War Thunder and Armored Warfare + the fact that it was the best armored tank on the planet when it was introduced?

A: That ‘fact’ isn’t a fact. The front hull is well angled but not as thick as most sources including BAe at times state. The turret front is very thick and very well sloped. The rest of the tank, sides and rear is fairly rubbish in armour thickness terms. As a consequence, Chieftain is likely to be a medium tank when we finally get it.

Q12: ATOMICEMU: I remember seeing claims about the Chieftain turret having to cool for a year after casting. What was the exact technology? Was it just slow cooling to reduce stress in the material, or was it more complicated, like tempering or hardening certain parts during the process?

A: The 12 month cooling period is mentioned by Simon Dunstan in his works on Chieftain and there is indeed a reason to control the cooling of a large casting as it is something highly dull/important to do with the formation of a crystalline structure in the metal.

Paul Hazell ‘Armour Theory and Design’ explains: “….castings are notorious for containing porosity and generally possess low toughness values. Some improvements in casting steels occurred in the 1970’s where it was shown that cooling the metal in such a way that heat was extracted on one surface led to improvements in properties. This process resulted in columns of grains extended from the chill surface completely through the casting thereby giving the casting microstructural ‘texture’. The end result was a casting that had superior ductility and ballistic performance than conventional castings. (Papetti, 1980)” p.179

Whether or not this was done I don’t know, but MoD data relating to Chieftain turret front protection suggests that the casting was still considered “weaker” than homogenous rolled armour. This suggests that although some controlled cooling would obviously have taken place, the ‘12 months of cooling’ could be misleading or possibly inaccurate. In either case, it did not make the steel some uber-Krupp-esque super steel.

Q13: OKINOSHIMAFUSETSUKAN: I’ve heard that WoT’s British gun penetration isn’t an accurate representation of IRL British tank performance? From your research which guns don’t have their real penetration, and what should they be?

A: It is difficult to blame WG for incorrect numbers on UK Tank guns. Most sources you’d find for UK Tank guns aren’t even British, to begin with. Generally speaking, most websites and books have UK guns as a sidenote, and they are generally American sources and are not primary source documents. Most; if not all of the UK guns are undervalued by common sources. Many sources show the @30 degrees values, and treat them or incorrectly state them as @0 degrees. Others, it is not clear where the information was gathered from and information gathered makes it quite apparent that most of them are incorrect.

A quick example of this is the 6 Pounder Mk V (L/50), which in game has 110mm

Penetration with Silver and 180mm with Gold. In real life, there exists a number of 6 Pounder rounds;

AP – 137mm (although unlikely to penetrate more than 114mm due to ‘shatter effect’)

APC – 116mm

APCBC – 125mm

APDS – 180mm

Another example is the 17 Pounder (Mk VII in game), which compares unfavourably with the real life counterparts, it’s silver and gold performing at 171mm and 239mm in game, compared to;

APCBC – 190mm

APDS – 271mm

In WoT, base gun penetration numbers are based on penetration versus “flat” homogeneous plate @ anywhere from 0 to 100m (WG changes these numbers for balance reasons, some guns are based on point blank numbers in real life, while others appear to be based on the @100 meters). The values above are not sourced from an existing book but rather straight from the UK Ordnance Board documentation and original “Critical Velocity Charts” which are primary source documents. All numbers are penetration at point blank, versus a flat plate.

Q14: ARMANDO RODRIGUES: we have heard some people saying we probably only know 30% of anything ever designed in the UK with the rest still buried somewhere in the archives, realistically how much of this is true?

A: It’s not far from the truth. It’s hard to know how much is left unknown but there’s been a huge leap in knowledge in the just the past 2 years for the UK. There’s a very large number of vehicles and projects which have yet to be published that we know of, just as a hint of what else there may be.

Q15: MARK VARRY: Since WG has been on Aussie kick lately thoughts on a AC3 Sentinel with 25lbr and/or a Valentine CS making it in game?

A: It is disappointing that WG chose not to undertake an Australian line branching into the UK line at the Centurion. 2 of the Sentinels have already been used and while it is great to see some Australian armour there were paper designs better suited to premium status than vehicles which were actually produced and could have been introduced as a line in their own right.

Q16: MARK VARRY: Any news on a Vickers Valiant?

Q: XAVIER: Do you know if WG has any plans to add the A38 Valiant as a British Premium heavy as a replacement for the Excelsior? (which I imagine will be removed from the shop b/c pref. mm)

A: Well I hope not. There are better premium-ish vehicles to replace the Excelsior. But that assumes they are going to remove it and not fix the model. The correct armour scheme of the excelsior is an improvement over the current model, which, along with a better engine, muddles the issues. As for the Valiant, there’s more than one design perhaps best suited to being a regular vehicle in due course rather than wasted as a premium.

Q17: FASTESTCLASSIC: Do you think the Chieftain would be plausible as the top tank of another “mini-branch” starting from tier 5-6 , leading up to Chieftain prototypes at tier 8 and 9, and ending at tier 10 with the Mk. 6?

A: That’s a closed question leading to just a yes/no answer but in short’ yes’. The Chieftain is due afaik to head up a new line, Preceding tank/s are very likely to be from the development directly or indirectly