How far can we push time traveling vehicles?

Machinery of War Discussion Ground Vehicle
1

note: this is not a vehicle suggestion, please read the whole post before voting in the poll. I also want to stress that Israel has many many lowtier vehicles that are much more fitting to the time of ranks I-III vehicles than this, I made this poll in order to test the possibility of the addition of vehicles like this, in general, and not to justify lowtier Israel. Seriously, if you are interested in what lowtier Israel would look like check the suggestions page of the older forums or a custom tech tree.

Ingame, there are many ground vehicles from the 80s or 90s that have a BR which puts them fighting against WW2 ground vehicles. This is usually the case due to the vehicle itself being so bad it needs to face WW2 vehicles or be doomed to uselessness (for example: Swedish lowtier ground vehicles). After all, the BR system is supposed to balance vehicles according to their capabilities and have no regard for their time of creation, at least on paper…

What I am trying to ask is, how far can we take this concept?
I represent to you: the Plasan M-LPV:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1004925662395633664/1132991775875792946/2023-07-24_140145871.png?ex=65365351&is=6523de51&hm=479992fc0501db98f5f7bf7f578b3deda1de78d377676dde30ddf0f9cdf5afde&
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1004925662395633664/1132991775544451072/2023-07-24_135841739.png?ex=65365351&is=6523de51&hm=47e2845f9d4ae246a7dfc7020394b54cac3be79e14a4039771c51c8e87cc74c6&
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1004912936277520418/1161793190559494194/sddefault_1.jpg?ex=65399739&is=65272239&hm=daf5be416ed6b0acd99f31e249da26431bb623ca38b9def17afdf2f2077fdbde&=&width=960&height=540

It is an armored car, equipped with a Samson Dual RWS armed with a 30mm M230LF. It has a horsepower-to-weight ratio of 31.02hp/t, and STANAG level 2-3 protection (protection from 7.62mm ammunition).

You might wonder “Why is this vehicle worthy of fighting rank II vehicles?”, well, it all comes down to the armament itself: the M230LF.

The M230LF uses 30x113mmB ammunition, the same ammunition as ADEN/DEFA autocannons so we are looking at an AP-T round with ~40mm of penetration. It has a slow fire rate of 200rds/min. As you can see, this is not going to be the next R3 T20 FA-HS.

https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Samson-Family-.pdf
According to this brochure, many modern features of the Samson Dual RWS can be cut as they are optional and dependent on the ordering customer. This way, the M-LPV will not have high-tech features from the 70s and 80s while fighting WW2 vehicles, keeping the balance more or less. The only thing that cannot be cut is the two-plane stabilization, but similarly to the R3 T20 FA-HS it is quite weak and stops working at high speeds.

Most vehicles at the lowtiers have sides around the thickness of 30mm-40mm, and fronts even stronger than this, which means that the M230LF will not be able to penetrate most rank II tanks from the front and struggle to penetrate them in the sides. If it struggles too much, the addition of the more modern M789 HEDP (shell found on Apache’s M230E-1) is possible, but I suggest against it unless absolutely needed.

TL;DR - The Plasan M-LPV is a vehicle from modern times that has armament so weak it could possibly face early WW2 vehicles. I want to remind you again that this post isn’t meant to suggest the addition of the M-LPV to Israel, but rather to discuss the addition of similar vehicles in general.

What is your opinion about adding to the game vehicles from modern times that will face vehicles from WW2?
  • Yes, I support the addition of such vehicles, as long as their capabilities are on par with similarly BRd vehicles
  • Yes, I support the addition of such vehicles, but only if their technology is on par with similarly BRd vehicles and they do not possess any unfair technological advantage.
  • No, I do not support the addition of such vehicles, but I will consider if their technological capabilities aren’t too far-fetched for their proposed BR and compared to the vehicles around that BR.
  • No, I do not support the addition of such vehicles period, even if their capabilities and technologies are on par, vehicles should only face other vehicles from a similar (or at least a reasonably close) timeline.
0 voters
2

Please feel free to discuss any and every vehicle you feel fits this topic, I want to see as many perspectives about this as possible.

3

I am of the opinion that vehicles should be placed purely on performance and that a vehicle’s production/service date should have zero bearing on BR. It adds many more options for nations who may struggle at the lower tiers. For example, Japan’s AAVP-7A1 RAM/RS would work very well at Rank I or II. Most APCs equipped with automatic grenade launchers would as well. There’s also the BRDM-2, which could work as a direct Russian counterpart to the German 20mm autocannon vehicles. There’s many many more examples but those are the two currently on my mind.

Edit: It would open up a fair few more options for AA as well. Military cars/trucks/or APCs equipped with miniguns would provide decent protection against aircraft due to theie high ROF while also being largely unable to damage ground vehicles. Sure, a single 7.62mm bullet is pretty weak but 100 of them in a single second? That would buzz pretty much anything out of the air.

1 Like
4

The amount of anachronistic vehicles, prototypes and disproportionate amount of captured vehicles present in every game is the reason I’m playing Panzer Corps nowadays instead of WT.

5

Hmh - the whole point of any war game (advertising with realistic vehicles) is to create game play somehow comparable to irl events. Otherwise the availability of specific nations makes no sense as fights with fantasy character (WW2 vs 1980+) could be just fought by blue vs red.

The “problem” of wt is that it is no simulation and had never tried to be historically accurate, so we have a lot of unnecessary (in the sense of historic relevant) Tech Trees (or just Nations via sub trees) and fantasy game play with highly unrealistic battle scenarios.

In addition the game works with BRs based on plain average results and more or less accurate hard facts (speed, gun, armor) but is unable or unwilling to add the soft facts like ergonomics, crew training, quality of scope, etc.

Last but not least the attempts to create “equal” chances with the same player amounts on both sides fighting with equal skills other vehicles with similar combat power / effectiveness is killing the last realism within wt.

Almost everybody advocating for historical game play would like to fight with Tiger IIs vs 75mm Shermans, but not with the number disadvantage they had irl - and nobody wants to fight early T-34s with 37mm Panzer IIIs.

Therefore it doesn’t matter if you add another vehicle to the list as the majority is obviously fine with this kind of game play wt is offering.

1 Like
6

This would suck. While it is already happened with a few vehicles, none of them have broken the aesthetic of lower ranks. Usually be being boxes. Rank I and II should remain as interwar and wartime vehicles, rather than including a large array of postwar vehicles which would break the aesthetic they currently have. Also, whenever a vehicle has to be put that low, then there is usually always an older contemporary that could be added in its stead which wouldn’t be as aesthetic-breaking.

Using the examples given by DMYEugen; why add the AAVP-7A1 when the Chi-Ha does what it does, minus the amphibious capability which would just be a gimmick? Why add the BDRM-2 when the T-40 could be added instead?

While I prefer trees to be complete and get as many vehicles as they can, I don’t see why vehicles that are so poorly armed that they have to go back in time to fight interwar and wartime vehicles should be added at all. The only exceptions should be if it’s needed, which is why the Pbv 301 was added.

1 Like