Interwar tanks?

Machinery of War Discussion Ground Vehicle
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20

Updated the American section with an easier-to-read format, new information, and more vehicles; including:

  • T7, M1, M2A1, M3, M3A1, M3A1E1, and M3A1E3 Scout Cars
  • M3A1 Command Car
  • T11, T11E1, T11E2, and Tucker Tiger Armored Cars
  • Christie’s M1919 and M1921 Convertible Mediums, M1931 Convertible, M1921 and M1922 Amphibians, LWMGC (Christie) 75-mm and G.C.2
  • CTM-3TBD, CTMS-1TB1, and MTLS-1G14 Marmon-Herrington tanks
  • Iranian TH-310, TK-5, and TK-6 armored cars

I removed the T5 Combat Car and the CTL-3 and derived versions of it, since they’re only armed with cal. .30 machine guns. I also added a few missing variations of vehicles.

21

Redid the German section with an even easier(?)-to-read format with specific information about each vehicle. Also added a lot that my dummy brain forgot, namely:

  • The Steyr and the Sd. Kfz. 222, 231 (6-Rad), 232 (6-Rad), 231 (8-Rad), 232 (8-Rad), and 233 armored cars.
  • Pz. Kpfw. 38 (t) and its derivatives.
  • A few other miscellaneous vehicles, including the prototypes for the Pz. Kpfw. II and the Stu. Gesch. III, the 4,7 cm tank destroyer based on the Renault R35, and the 7,5 cm Stu. K. auf Pz. Kpfw. 38 (t).

Additionally, they’ve been expanded to encompass, at least most, of the production changes and production series throughout each of the vehicles.

A few interwar-based tanks have been left out. I deliberately ignored vehicles such as the Hummel or Wespe self-propelled guns, since there is no way that they would be anywhere near rank I or below which the entire thread is about. For the same reason, the 5 cm L/60 Pz. Kpfw. III and the 7,5 cm L/43 and L/48 Pz. Kpfw. IV and Stu. Gesch. III aren’t on the list, despite being based on or directly being effectively the same superstructure as their original interwar designs.

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They should differently add ww1 and interwar tanks, it will help decompress low tier of most nations by a lot and give us something new and interesting, the game game needs some refresh, and ww1 and interwar tanks would be amazing in that regard.

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I totally agree on adding more interwar vehicles. I think to add WWI vehicles, it would be good to test it as an aprif fools event first before adding the WWI vehicles.

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Excellent work on the research! We’ve already seen WW1 tanks added so why not?

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This list isn’t up-to-date, since I shifted focus into First World War vehicles and a few combined WW1-interwar megatrees. Some of the vehicles listed here are blatantly incorrect, such as the late modification of the Renault otsu, and the listing is a hodgepodge of the older list with no detail and the later lists with brief detail.

If I redo this, I’ll just merge it with my First World War vehicles list along the same format as there.

Gaijin introducing WW1 tanks doesn’t mean much, since it was an April Fools. They probably don’t want to touch the earlier tanks yet since it would be difficult to balance, without letting it play out in live first.

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We already have many inter-war tanks.

Though I really hope Gaijin opens up a lower BR spread starting at 0.0 which could be the existing WW1 tanks. Then 0.3 and 0.7 could be used for more inter-war vehicles.

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27

We have late interwar tanks. Nearly all of the early 1930s tanks are absent, and the A1E1 and the char 2C bis are the only 1920s tanks. The only outliers are the I-Go Ko, which is a late 1933 model (stepped front, late model cupola, but no improved suspension or hull machine gunner-driver placement swaps introduced in the 1934 productions), the BT-5 built in 1933, the T-26-4 and the SU-5-1 which were both built in 1934, the char 2C which we have the 1930 modification of, and the strv m/31 built in 1933.

Everything else is 1935+.

M2A2 Light? Introduced in 1935. M2A4 Light? 1940. M2 Medium? 1939, only scratching into the interwar period on the technicality of the T5 Mediums finding their origins in 1936 with the first prototype being produced in 1937.

Pz. Kpfw. III Ausf. B? 1937, but we have the 1938 modifications in-game that installed smoke launchers and an improved towing cable. Ausf. E? 1939, but again the later 1939 modifications that installed smoke launchers and an observation port for the radio operator-hull machine gunner. Pz. Kpfw. IV Ausf. C? 1938 tank with the late 1939 modification in-game. Pz. Kpfw. II Ausf. C? 1938 tank with the 1941 modification in-game. Pz. Kpfw. II Ausf. F and Pz. Kpfw. IV Ausf. E? Both war-time productions. Sd. Kfz. 222? 3rd series production started in 1939, with the later 1942 modification in-game. Nb. Fz.? 1936 Krupp productions. Even the Pz. Kpfw. 35 (t) were produced in 1936, as the earliest tanks in the German tree.

BT-7? 1937. BT-7M? 1939. T-26? Also 1939. T-28? Earliest model we have is the 1936 production. T-60? War-time tank, and a 1942 production rather than the original run with lighter armor.

Britain is even worse than Germany. A13s? 1939, they hardly even qualify as interwar. Tetrarch? 1938. Daimler? War-time. Matilda II? 1937 tank, but we have the 1939 modification with the BESA instead of the original Vickers machine guns. Though, they also have the earliest tanks in the game, that being the A1E1 and the Mk. V.

Ha-Go? 1935, but we have the later 1937 model with the 7.7 mm machine guns. Ke-Ni? 1938. Chi-Ha? 1938. Ro-Go? 1935. Everything else is war-time.

Italy? M 11/39, and only barely. Nothing else. Everything else are war-time vehicles, though both the L 6/40 and the M 13/40 have links to interwar tank projects.

France? The bulk of their interwar vehicles are 1938 or 1939 modifications. R.35? We have the rare 1939 modification that rearmed the tank with the SA 38. H.39? Same thing, albeit less rare since SA 38 were prioritized for them. D2? Later 1937 productions instead of the original 1935 productions. S.35? The only tank in its original 1936 form (that isn’t also hidden) in the tree. AMC.35? 1938 tank, despite the name. AMD.35? 1937. AMR.35 ZT 3? 1938. SAu 40 and Lorraine? 1939. B1? We have the 1937 bis and the 1940 ter, we don’t have the original 1935 tank.

Strv m/38? 1939. Finnish Vickers? 1938, and the modified T-26E are from 1940.

China and Israel aren’t even worth mentioning.

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28

I didn’t say it was perfect, just that we do have some.

I’d love to see the A9 and A10 as the new reserve tanks. After all the recent buffs the A13 could easily go to 1.3 and the A13 Mk II could go to 1.7. The Tetrarch and the Daimler could both go up to 1.7.

Then you could have something like the Medium Mk III as a 1.0 TT and the A7E3 as a premium 1.0. I’d also love to see the Vickers Light Mk VIC as a new 1.0 though that’s certainly not interwar. Maybe even a Matilda Mk I as a 1.0, even if Gaijin adds the .50 Vickers version it’ll still be terrible but heavily armoured for the BR.

The problem with a lot of interwar vehicles is the guns. There’s a reason why the French 1.0’s was previously removed. If Gaijin add a 0.0, 0.3, 0.7 then we could fit more of them in.

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The Medium Mk III would be too weak since they share the same crappy gun as the A1E1 but with none of the flesh armor crew that makes the tank at least somewhat survivable, and which manages to be even less armored than the A1E1 to the point that rifle-caliber machine guns could have a chance to penetrate it, frontally, at point-blank range.

Though, the A7E3 would be workable due to the 2-pr. gun and it not being ridiculously slow like the A7E1 and A7E2. The Light Mk VIC should also work well since the 15 mm BESA would perform better than the cal. .50 Browning, but the cal. .50 Vickers is such a crappy heavy machine gun that the Mk V and earlier Mk VI wouldn’t work at even 1.0. In contrast, the Vickers would work on the Matilda I since that ridiculously slow tank would have 60 mm of frontal armor.

The earlier BESA-armed Guy and Humber armored cars would make good additions. While it is a popular suggestion, I don’t think any of the Boys-armed armored cars would do well, at all. The Sd. Kfz. 221 already barely performs well at 1.0 and that can penetrate more than three times what the Boys AT can.

Any addition of earlier interwar tanks would have to have the BRs bumped up by 2.0, at the minimum, to accommodate them, but would optimally be increased by 3.0 or 4.0.

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A1E1 is 1.3 not 1.0, and the Medium III actually had pretty decent mobility. Which means it can flank, something the A1E1 can’t do.

31

I know the A1E1 is 1.3. It is also objectively the worst of the four multiturrets, alongside the Ro-Go, and a large part of that is because the gun is terrible. The only reason I can summarize why both it and the Ro-Go are still at 1.3, instead of 1.0, is because neither of them were played enough in the first place to trigger whatever Gaijin considers the threshold to move tanks around.

Sure, the Medium Mk III will be more mobile, but it’ll also be torn apart by any automatic cannons or heavy machine guns, or even just normal machine guns at a close enough range from the side or rear. Would it work in War Thunder? Sure, even the Mk. V can work at times, but is it 1.0 material? Hell no. It would be one of the worst tanks in the game if it was added right now. The British 1.0 benchmark would be the Cruiser Mk I, which is everything the Medium Mk III is but it at least has enough armor to withstand rifle caliber machine guns and has an actual workable gun.

32

The armour of the Medium Mk III is identical to the Cruiser Mk I (A9) - 14mm. Which is also the same as the Cruiser Mk III (A13). The Mk III actually has better minimum armour at 9mm compared to 6mm on the A9. Finally the Mk III has a crew of 7 instead of a crew of 6 on the A9. You might be thinking of the Medium Mk I or Mk II which was only 6.5mm or 8mm.

Top speed of the Mk III is 48km, compared to 40km of the A9. Power-to-weight is also very similar the Mk III is 11.25hp/t while the A9 is 11.54hp/t.

So basically you get a worse gun, but a little bit more survivability and better top speed. The gun is bad, I absolutely agree but it’s a similar situation to say the Churchill at 3.3 compared to something say like the AC I Sentinel at 3.0. The 2-Pdr in the Churchill is terrible because you can’t flank but it’s decent on the AC I thanks to the ability to flank even in an uptier unless you go up against something like a KV-1.

I have also been suggesting for the A1E1 to go down to 1.0 for like 4-5 years now. I might be the only person that does. Compared to the Medium Mk III the A1E1 loses the mobility but gain more armour and an extra crew.

I forgot to say it earlier, but I also agree if Gaijin adds more WW1 and inter-war vehicles the reserve/1.0 BR needs to be shifted up to 2.0 for more breathing room. I’ve said that in many places too. Something like the original French tanks would be great as hypothetical 1.3 or 1.7 tanks in this new format.

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I was thinking of the Medium Mk III, not the I or II. I thought the Cruiser Mk I had 14 mm all-around, but I can’t find wherever I pulled that information from so you’re probably right.

Though, it still isn’t 1.0 material. The gun is bad, even when taking into account flanking or whatever maneuvers it can do relative to the A1E1. The 2-pr. is better than it and about every other reserve-rank gun is, aside from similarly horrid guns like the Japanese 37 mm. The A13 doesn’t even need to be replaced as a reserve, it’s perfectly balanced at its current rank. The only reserves that do need to be shuffled are the Japanese ones, with the Chi-Ha replacing the I-Go and either the Ke-To or the Ke-Nu being added to replace the Ke-Ni, or the Ka-Mi just being made the new reserve; and the Soviet ones, where the BT-5 should be moved up and replaced by the BT-2. The APDS should also be removed from the strv m/31, but that wouldn’t require shuffling the tank anywhere.

The Medium Mk III and the Cruiser Mk I should both be reserved for if the BRs are expanded backwards, which is how I planned to display them when I was putting together a hypothetical WW1-interwar British tree. The disparity difference between the early, mid, and late interwar tanks also necessitates the movement of the BRs by 2.0, at the minimum, to add any resemblance of balance, and a further two BRs for early and late First World War tanks if those are added, too. Having something like the Medium Mk II facing something like the M2A4, or any of America’s dozens of CULT OF THE MACHINE GUN™ tanks, would be ridiculously unbalanced.

Edit: Forgot about Germany’s reserve. The early Pz. III are the bottom of the barrel, but there’s not really anything that would fit between the Pz. III B/E and the Pz. III F if the former were stripped of their reserve status.

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Both the BT-5 and A13 need to go up. They’re very similar vehicles, with pros and cons for both. The A13 is an amazing tank, incredibly slept on.

I’ve only been focusing on British vehicles because that’s where my knowledge is.

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Sure, they’re similar, but the BT-5 is the better tank out of the two. There’s no reason the A13 needs to go up since it’s well-balanced against the other reserves. It may have the best solid shot out of all of them, but the Russian 45-mm is still the better gun and its only other advantage in its mobility is balanced by how fragile it is.

Compared to the M2A4, which is the benchmark for reserves, it has 3 mm of penetration over it, better firing angles, slightly better agility but the difference is almost too miniscule to really point out, and access to APHE; while being the slower tank and having far worse armor. You’re exaggerating how amazing it is.

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36 degrees of turret traverse, -15 degrees of depression, shoulder stabilizer, smoke grenades, etc. I could go on. The A13 has all the best qualities of both the M2A4 and BT-5, the only thing it lacks is armour.

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The M2A4 is shoulder-stabilized. The BT-5 isn’t, but it also has the best gun of any of the reserve tanks.

the only thing it lacks is armour.

It is also the slowest tank between all three of them. Its gun is on par with the others, the 3 mm of penetration it has over the M2A4 and the slight acceleration advantage it has over the M2A4 isn’t really worth mentioning. For its BR, the 20-K gun is also arguably better than the 2-pr., since the 45-mm APHEBC can get through about anything at that rank, while having better angular performance and overall penetration than the uncapped APHE used by the 2-pr.

The only qualities worth mentioning are the firing angles and the smoke grenades, neither of which makes it far better than the other tanks. It has its own drawbacks compared to them which balances out what it does well.

38

A13 against M2A4:

  • M2A4 has no APHE.
  • A13 has a better reload.
  • A13 has better depression.
  • A13 has a far better traverse speed.
  • M2A4 has an AA MG.
  • M2A4 has better armour.
  • A13 has smoke.
  • A13 has 4 crew.
  • M2A4 has better forward and reverse speed (latter is by only 1km).
  • A13 has better hp/t.

A13 against BT-5:

  • BT-5 has better APHE.
  • A13 has better APCBC.
  • A13 has a better reload.
  • A13 has a shoulder stop.
  • A13 has better depression.
  • A13 has far better turret traverse.
  • A13 and BT-5 have very similar armour.
  • A13 has smoke.
  • A13 has 4 crew.
  • BT-5 has better forward and reverse speed (former only by 3km).
  • BT-5 has far better power-to-weight.

What’s your point here? The 3 vehicles are very similar. The A13 is fast, but not as fast as them and easily makes up for that in other categories.

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My point is exactly that they are very similar, which is why the A13 is perfectly balanced alongside them the other reserves. Some of the values you stated also aren’t worth mentioning.

The A13 has a better reload compared to the M2A4 by literally a decisecond, it has a better acceleration by 2 hp/t, and the M2A4 has a better reverse speed by 1 kmh. None of those values have a large enough difference between them that they’re worth mentioning as true differences, except in the most technical sense, since in practice it doesn’t change anything about them in battle where human reaction speed would make the decisecond the A13 has over the M2A4 difficult or impossible for most people to actually take advantage of, the hp/t difference wouldn’t be too meaningful due to how both quickly both would reach their top speeds, and the difference in reverse speed would be similarly insufferably slow when trying to reverse to safer positions.

Also both the A13 and the M2A4 have four crew. The A13 just happens to have three of them sandwiched within the turret, while the M2A4 has them evenly divided between the hull and turret.