I tried to search for more information and photos to find out who did the armor upgrade. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be certainty.
In June 1941 Soviets proposed to increase T-50’s armor, but there is nothing indicating if this was carried out or even approved. Usually Soviets kept good records of things, thus it’s hard to see why this information would be missing. I think the only option would be if the upgrade was carried out by an army depot. Even that option is unlikely, since none of the other 12 photographed T-50s, have no additional armor or signs of having it before. That is 12 out of the 48 completed T-50s. It would not be efficient work to only upgrade one tank. Furthermore the proposed armor upgrade does not match the Finnish T-50.
“Finnish armoured vehicles” book doesn’t have anything about this, but strangely enough a Russian book “T-50. The best light tank of the Great Patriotic War (2019)” claims the upgrade was done by Finns. The same thing is said in the article in Tank Archives.
It appears Finnish don’t have their records available online and they can only be accessed in Helsinki. It could be possible to ask from that person running jagerplatoon website as he seem be a regular visitor in there. There exists five photos of what is claimed to be К-11217 abandoned on roadside bank, photographed by Finns. It is the only abandoned T-50 photographed by them.
Glad to see the ingame T-50 armor thickness was adjusted and top speed also reported. This should make it easier to add Niki. The way those ammo racks deplete still remain very random, but that doesn’t seem to be a big issue. It doesn’t seem to have total of 150 rounds in there.
There was a bugreport about T-50 top speed to get it from planned 60km/h to production vehicle 52km/h, but they still haven’t implemented that. Maybe they might not do that at all? This also makes me wonder what they would give to this one. We have just one tertiary source mentioning 37.5km/h and nothing about what kind of conditions that was achieved in.
Yeah we just dont know, some sources suggest 60, some say 52 and some even 63! But armour nerf is already bad for T-50 and now it cant bounce German 50mm. A speed nerf might just bump it down to 2.3 br. I hope it keeps its speed because the gun and turret traaverse it really letting it down and T-50 really relies on mobilty.
It still has as good gun, very good moblity and one of the best armors at 2.7. At 2.3 there are too many sluggish paper boxes. In my view over 50km/h isn’t even that often achieved due to speed losses when going up hills or turning corners. It will be difficult to decide if Finnish T-50 would fit better on 2.7 or 3.0.
Your point of mobility is true. Armour of T-50 is not too good, the front mantlet is a giant consistent weak sopt, same with the cupola. And gun can become tricky when facing shermans and Churchills. I think can be at 2.7 but requires skill.
Probably at 2.7 due to lower mobility and the turret mantlet weaksopt is not covered with any additional armour. Gaijin also likes to remove some shells from captured vehicles, so maybe APCR will be removed? Who knows.
I can’t really remember any mentions about the APCR round in Finnish sources. It could have been that rare.
Definitely T-50 requires it’s own way of fighting if the enemies know to shoot at the turret. If it had turret rotation speed of T-34, it could be even at 3.0, but with this it’s too difficult to get the first shot.
Must have been really poor cranking system if it really had this poor rotation speed or it’s unknown and snail uses it as balance function.
It was hand cranked irl, so the slow speed is there.
I dont understand why the traverse of the T-80 and T-50 are not same, one would think that the T-80 has a lighter turret and only 2 crew would traverse even faster than the T-50.
It depends how well balanced the turret is, how the hand crank is geared and if there is crank wheel for two or only for one. There are certainly faster hand cranked turrets in game.
Early on in Finnish service seems to have remained unpainted or at best had something very fated on it. Could be just the original Soviet paint. 15.2.1942.
Finns have the 6-cylinder inline engine on display in the museum. In WT damage model we still have a miniature V-12. The tank also misses radio and ammo racks don’t seem to match.
Now the Soviet T-50 goes 52km/h. The previous top speed was most likely mix-up from the Kirov prototype, which had a different gearbox. At 3rd gear it goes 35km/h, which is close to the claimed topspeed of Finnish T-50. Perhaps the 4th gear broke?
You can add this book into the sources. It doesn’t really have any extra details, but at leasts it confirms some of the basic stuff, like 14.5 ton weight.
The Finnish armoured vehicles 1918 - 1997, Esa Muikku & Jukka Purhonen, 2003, ISBN 952-5026-33-7
Gaijin sometimes puts a vehicle in multiple trees that are associated with the vehicle. Most likely wont go to USSR tree (as I voted Finnish tree myself), but the i made the poll option available if people want it in the USSR tree.
