Create a gap between ww2 and cold war vehicles and tech

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
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1222

Premise: I strongly disagree with historical matchmaking or similar ideas and I think the BR system is great. But this particular claim is not correct. The first test drive of the Maus was on 28th December 1943 at Alkett’s proving grounds. In the summer of 1944 Hitler cancelled all work on all super heavy tanks, although work on the Maus and its competitors continued clandestinely after that order, in limited fashion. All development work for the Maus took place completely before 8th May 1945, making the Maus definitionally a WW2 vehicle.

The arguable only thing that took place after the German surrender was assembly, done by the Soviets, where they mated a hull with a V1 turret (so in any case all wartime pieces, in fact the V1 is called like that because it was not meant for the production run). However WW2 did not end with Germany’s surrender, it ended with Japan’s surrender, and even more importantly, the Cold War did not begin the exact day after the end of hostilities. The Maus reached Kubinka well before the start of the Cold War.

1223

No, it would have never been in production. Like I said, work on superheavies was cancelled in the summer of 1944.

I know the meme is that Hitler wanted mega gigantic tanks at all costs, but the reality is more nuanced.

1224

The first test drive of the Centurion was in 1944.
The first test drive of T-44-100 [the tank prototype for T-54 program] was in early 1945.
M26 would keep getting modified and the M60 isn’t even the final iteration of the design principles of M26.
M46 is a heavily modified M26. M47 is a heavily modified M46. M48 is a heavily modified M47.

The rabbit holes of tank design go on for eons.

1225

Correct. To me these are very obviously WW2 designs. They had postwar histories of course. But the requirements issues for them were created during the war. Engineers worked on them during the war. Tests were conducted during the war. Hell, the intention was that they would fight in the war. No one knew when exactly the war would end.

Just think about this - the design requirement for the T-54’s protection was “frontal immunity to the long 88”. How do you call that, if not a WW2 design? The moment the war was over, they would not have to worry about the long '88 again.

Of course these vehicles had postwar histories, but so did the Panzer IV, which went so far as to see actual combat during the Cold War! Is it a Cold War vehicle? To me, clearly not, since its design and development took place before and during the war. Ditto the M26.

T-34-85s and Shermans also fought in Korea… I could go on.

Now, let’s look at the Maus. The totality of Maus development took place before May 1945 (and most of it before summer 1944!). In this way it is very unlike the Centurion, the M26, the T-54, who stayed in very much active development for years and years after the war ended - the Maus is stopped cold by the time the Allies are doing the Normandy landings.

The Soviet tests were not aimed at developing the Maus and its design but at finding out what it could do, and whether they could incorporate any lesson for their own independent work. Britain did something similar by actually overseeing a postwar production run of Jagdpanthers so that they could be tested. That does not make the Jagdpanther a Cold War vehicle.

1226

I will never understand why this concept is so difficult for people to grasp.

I’m a big motorsports fan, right? Now, an interesting aspect of Formula 1 and MotoGP is that drivers and riders have a huge role in car and bike development.

But why would that be the case?

They are athletes, not engineers. Sure, some will be technically savvier than others, but most don’t even have formal higher education in technical matters. Formula 1 and MotoGP teams (especially the former) have engineers, aerodynamicists, engine specialists, wind tunnels/physical modelling, computer modelling, and simulators.

And yet, no car and no bike drives or rides itself.

It is impossible to separate the performance of a car or bike from the athlete using it.

Likewise in WT, it is impossible to separate vehicle from player, since no vehicle plays itself against a standardised opponent.

Balancing by stats is the only correct methodology in a PVP game. PVE is a different matter. There simply is no alternative that works as well at keeping lobbies populated on all sides of a fight.

1 Like
1227

I don’t remember where I read this exactly, but I stumbled onto a phrasing of this that’s been etched in my mind ever since.

“It’s far easier to build a gun that can cut through a Maus, than it is to find a European bridge that can hold the weight of the Maus”.

Well, I don’t know about the others, but the Jagdtiger can very consistently pen the right turret cheek of the IS-3 from frontal aspect (the commander’s bulge, I think?). That’s where I shoot all IS-3s with the JT.

1228

Ironically, the easiest way to achieve such a gap is to restoratively buff the ammunition types which have chronically underperformed in penetration and/or are just unnecessarily inconsistent in their post-penetration damage.

APCR rounds in some cases are missing hilarious amounts of penetration. For example, the 76mm M319 APCR round actually penetrated more (~330mm) than the M331A2 APDS (300mm) point-blank, but the latter would retain more pen at range due to a smaller round having less drag.

APDS rounds once chronically underperformed the same way in penetration, but then they quietly got corrected, although at steep cost to their post-penetration damage nobody asked for.

Besides APDS, all HEAT, HEATFS, and HESH rounds have hilariously inconsistent post-penetration damage which prevents them from becoming mainstay munitions. While APDS got nerfed a few years ago when the pen was increased to correct levels, HEAT was first neutered all the way back in 1.67 to prop up sales of the IS-6 when that was new. HESH got butchered in 1.71 after people used that en masse once HEAT got nerfed to clap the IS-6. Even though we now have modern tanks that are damn near immune to both round types, we still have those old postpen nerfs for no justifiable reason.

HESH also acts purely like HE in regards to fuse sensitivity, even though testing on armored cars shows plainly that it has fuse sensitivity more like APHE would, which makes sense as it needs time to pancake upon impact to actually work. HESH also should frankly either spall much more or just overpressure-kill any vehicle if the round impacts an armor plate thinner than its “penetration” value, be it by explosive force or pancaking. 90mm HESH in Korea left T-54 crews’ ears bleeding and crews totally deaf - which means they would be incapable of continuing to fight due to inability to coordinate and make the tank move. Ingame that round does nothing to any T-54.

If all of these were un-nerfed in pen and postpen, then the historically-correct opposition of the late-WW2/early-postwar armor monsters would be more than capable of dealing with them. Some which would become able to frontally pen even the toughest ones with ease would go up in BR.

3 Likes
1229

There is. It just depends how the game is set up.

I don’t want to see post-war SPGs running around in my WW2 era BR range.

In Sim you get a whole range of vehicles and some are clearly much worse than the best you could play.

RB doesn’t need to be different, except reward players for using inferior vehicles.

If my Strv m/38 with post-war APDS knocks out a or disables a T-54, with a shot to the sides, that shouldn’t just grant me God Mode and a bunch of SL, that should have some actual consequences on the match.

Like a respawn penalty that puts one guy out of the match for some time.
But there are endless possibilities how unequal vehicle performance can be made equal for the sake of immersion.

Playing the underdog is actually quite fun, but it also should be viable.

1230

Yeah, if any penetration was actually going to disable a vehicle instead of causing mild inconvenience, a WW2 SPG firing HEAT-FS wouldn’t need to be at such a low BR where it can’t even fight 1943/44 heavy tanks.

APHE in WT is what makes small calibers even viable in the first place and overpressure APHE made medium to large calibers APHE so much stronger than solid shot or APCR that the whole game meta revolves around it.

A team of M48s would lose 9/10 times against a team of T-54s in WT. While reality would favor the M48 with its high velocity 90mm APCR.
Which in WT knocks out 1-2 crews at best while 100mm APHE is instantly lethal when it enters the tank.

1 Like
1231

Yes. Like I said earlier in the APHE thread, something as mobile and reactive as the M41 would never be at its current BR if it was more lethal.

Though I do have to point out that it’s still not historical matchmaking, some things simply won’t perform well in tank vs tank because that’s not what they were meant to do IRL.

Sim is basically abandoned. The difference in playerbase size is enormous. Of course there are many reasons for that. But their unbalanced brackets are not a cool trait that should be emulated, especially because they follow no rhyme or reason at all - they’re not historical (Puma time travels), they’re also not based on performance, etc etc.

The hardest thing to do in PVP is control people’s behaviour.

No amount of incentives will make people queue up in a Pz 38t vs a KV1. It’s just not fun. 8 out of 10 will queue up for the KV-1.

In other words, asymmetric balance. It’s a solid idea in many game modes, but people in WT leave matches on the spot if they dislike the side of the map they’re on, how do you think they’ll react to a “respawn penalty”?

The problem with thinking of alternative systems is that they all sound wonderful on paper so long as you assume people will cooperate and behave as intended, to really test this you have to ask yourself, what happens when people refuse to play along with the idea?

The beauty of the BR system is that it doesn’t rely on people’s good faith. “If you spawn this vehicle here, you will have a fair fight”. There, done.

This is imho something they should explore in a coop PVE mode. Though of course they have no interest pursuing that.

In a PVP context… People want to do well.

Agreed.

1232

Since the community voted to not even officially test historically-correct APHE, the only thing we can do now is buff all currently inconsistent rounds up to the same postpen level of solid AP at least. For the most part solid AP is pretty damn consistent, at least in my experience.

90mm M304 APCR would be enough to handle a Maus with ease if it was unangled with 320mm pen and solid AP-level postpen spall. 90mm T44 and 105mm T29E3 APCR would be borderline overkill with similar spall and 373/381mm pen, respectively. Postwar 90mm M332 APCR with 390mm pen and M332A1 APCR with 425mm pen would be beyond overkill for WW2 anything. The T34’s T17E1 APCR would be beyond overkill at 453mm pen. And then the M103 is missing APDS with 546mm pen…

The British would have a bit of an issue given that 17-pdr APDS pens 270mm, 20-pdr APDS is borderline overkill, and there is no proper equivalent to the US 90mm really that isn’t also fully-stabilized. Unfortunately they never put the 32-pdr on much I guess, and the missing APDS on that would be even more potent than the 20-pdr.

Russia would struggle a bit, given 85mm BR-367P and 100mm BR-412P just wouldn’t pen all that much - both might pen a Maus side but that’s it AFAIK. 122mm 3BM-7 APDS would be similar to 20-pdr APDS in pen, but lower RoF on an arguably more-armored platform.

All 90mm HEATFS would be sufficient to clobber most superheavies into next week, guaranteed. Though nearly all platforms with that would go way up now that they do actual postpen damage. If I had the choice to be countered in my superheavy by HEAT go-karts or M109 & Co Artillery, I’d pick the latter any day of the week.

2 Likes
1233

Seconded.

1234

With correctly performing ammo I would punt this thing up to probably 7.3 minimum. The HEATFS ones, 7.7 is likely. And this is coming from someone who very much enjoys using Bulldogs.

I’m aware truly historical matchmaking will never be practical because history itself isn’t balanced at all. 17-pdr APDS, 90mm M304 APCR, long 90mm T44 APCR, and unstabilized 20pdr APDS would all be fair contemporaries for the likes of the T95/Maus/IS-4M/IS-3.

I’d personally place the KT105, Panther II, T29, T34, T32, T32E1, Caernarvon Mk.2, Conqueror, AMX-50 Surbaisse, AMX-50 Surblinde, IS-6, T-10A, T-10M, IS-7, and most 90mm HEAT dispensers all well above the superheavies. All of these pair strong armor with far better mobility than the rolling bunkers.

1235

Of course mobility is hugely important in influencing the match. But I’m not convinced about them going below current 6.7 vehicles.

Let’s think this through for a moment.

They removed the Maus as “unbalanced” but I have to say that it seems pretty balanced to me currently at 7.7. It can and does get positive K/D and WR when played correctly, but it’s hardly immortal.

With buffed APCR and HEAT-FS, many more guns in the game would be able to deal with an unangled Maus, and a few even with a handled one. Particularly French and American guns.

Problem. What happens in matches when Germany and the USA are on the same team? How do USSR/China/Sweden/Japan deal with a Maus that’s been lowered in BR as part of these general changes?

Then there’s the T28 (yes, the game calls it 95 but it’s wrong as we know). That is on the American team, obviously. How do Soviet, German, minor nation guns deal with it in this context?

1236

I wholeheartedly agree with his opinion.

1237

I miss the old times of warthunder, where it was just vehicles from the nations that actually were in the war… Back then, it was just 2nd World war, with perhaps a few oddities here and there, like premiums or prototypes…
But despite the few oddities, you could pretty much memorize the strengths and weaknesses of your own and enemy vehicles. It was, in a way, obvious, in how you should approach every foe.

Nowadays? We see “traitors” - same vehicle in a different nation tech tree. (Sherman tanks)
We see vehicles from nations that did not took part in the war - and the fact that now you have to keep in mind the stats of these… vehicles, just makes it jarring. (Sweden tech tree)
We see cold war era vehicles duking out with mid war WW2 vehicles… (Sweden’s Ikv 103) Which also makes it jarring for folks looking for WW2-inspired battles.

Now, yes, it is interesting to see how would these vehicles - that never saw action - would fare in combat, but for most folks, it looks out of place…
I think some of you may know alt-history strategy games, which could answer the questions of alt-history world war 2 (Hearts of Iron 4 comes to mind), but these are generally lengthy event chains, wars of ideology and the related stuff - Context (unless you play as the villain and go for, basically, world conquest) - and war thunder, devoid of this Context, in turn, seems odd. Jarring. Weird.
Maybe less so, if you imagine that your supreme leader has been doing silly lend-lease, diplomacy, license buying and selling (would explain the shermans), but, I think most folks coming here are looking for something serious, don’t they? (Kudos for the few trying to see how their map painting goes to the tiniest detail in WT)

Ultimately, I would like to see some historical-inspired matchmaking, perhaps as event battles that you can see some logic of, meanwhile, I guess randoms can be left as randoms.

6 Likes
1238

how is this fair for 7.7-8.3 vehicles

further, how is this fair for 6.7-7.3 vehicles

1239

They could always add the one where a crew member sticks out of a roof door using a Carl Gustaf.
Personally, I would add the visible crew members in tanks that use the ATGM outside the vehicle, such as the Marder, the improved BMP-1, BTR-82AT, Warrior, etc. And add crew members with anti-tank weapons in vehicles without them, but which in reality carried them inside.

1240

Sakeen(3.3), Firecrest(2.3), SeaFire Mk.47(5.7) vs yak-23(8.3)
image
all of them flew in 1947

4 Likes
1241

No gap needed, lads. Have some Tiger II slapping in a 7.0 - 8.0 match: