Thanks for your sources. I am still concerned that if the 80 tons goes through that you may be surprised what comes with it.
As far as the 1500 HP engine, it is straight forward math that the HP/ton which is a good measure of part of a tank’s agility goes down from 23 HP/ton for a 65.5 ton vehicle to 18.75 HP/ton for a 80 ton vehicle…that is a drastic difference in performance that would not be good in top tier. Just for a reference, the Challenger 2 TES, which is widely talked about as slow and nonagile in game with armor that falls way below realism (per common sense and “informal” sources) has an engine of approximately 1217 HP and a weight of 74.8 tons which gives a ratio of 16 HP/ton. The baseline Challenger 2 has 1217 HP and weighs 67.4 tons for a ratio of 18 HP/ton. The Leopard 2A7V has 1500 HP and weighs 64.1 tons, so 23 HP/ton. So going from today, we have Leopard 2A7V levels of HP/ton and we would go to Chally 2 levels with the weight change. Gearing factors into this, but that is a HUGE change gameplay wise. I hope the armor gains offset the slowness…the Challenger 2 game reality definitely does not support that in game.
Since Gaijin seems to cherry pick and be inconsistent in what they implement for realistic or real world data, I am still very concerned over what the weight change would do in game. I agree with your reply about both Merkava and Namer video evidence and common sense on their higher armor thickness/effectiveness, but the point I am making is that Gaijin chooses to not be convinced on that even though they should. Again, maybe by some chance your 80 ton argument makes Gaijin increase the armor, but my point is that maybe yet again they ignore the obvious deduction of more and better armor and only inflict the HP/ton decrease on the Merkava 4s. I hate to say it, but that is a real possibility and it would make a bad situation even worse.
My point with the Chally’s from my original post was about this…the Chally users offered numerous realistic and common sense reports about their vehicles and they received a mish mash of “fixes” that many believe made the vehicles worse not better even though the evidence showed otherwise. Gaijin cherry-picks what they want and ignore the rest…so all I am saying is beware what you ask for (reality or not).
Anyway, thanks again for the sources and I hope you get what you want out of this. I definitely would like the Merkava 4s to be more competitive in this game.
While the mobility will go down, that won’t be a problem. The 1500 horsepower and transmission will still keep it up with many vehicles. As my Merkava sits currently, I can actually keep up with the M1A1 Abrams and beat the M1A2. As for the armor, the projected thickness Gaijin had was 750~ on the turret face. That’s all I know. It would make it the strongest turret in-game. The Merkava will be the toughest vehicle in-game up to date. It also has the newest and most advanced armor. SLERA is a super hybrid of ERA and NERA that’s brand new and extremely good. It should be Russian Relikt on crack with mutli-hit capability.
Gaijin has known since the vehicles were added roughly 3 years ago. They just don’t care, which in my opinion, makes these vehicles no better than the removed fake tanks. The Namer was so horribly modeled it isn’t even funny.
Gaijin previously stated that the Merkava couldn’t get an armor buff because the armor coverage for a 65-ton tank was too spread out to be as strong as they were planning to put it. Since they ignored the weight bug reports, Gaijin simply left it with paper armor.
It doesn’t make any sense. Gaijin will only happily turn Mercava 4 into another challenger 2OES/TES, and will not adjust any of its protection capabilities. Unless you can take out any confidential information to confirm its protection. This is Gaijin.
I would rather have the Merkava be the “heavy tank” of Top Tier, being a bit slower than average but being near immune on the other hand… than the current pseudo-MBT we’ve got.
The truth is that they could improve the armor of many modern tanks. It is clear that to a large extent it is much more difficult to give the correct armor to Western tanks than to Russian tanks, since in many the data is secret and it is only possible make assumptions. Even so, the armor should be improved in a more credible way.
That would be nice to see and a reasonable trade. What Gaijin will probably deliver:
80 tons with resultant decrease in speed and agility
550-575mm KE turret
400mm KE hull
With significant breech weak spots
I just do not know what history of Gaijin and this game people are looking at to make people think the Merkava would get that big fix. Has any tank’s armor, especially a minor nation in game, ever received a change of this magnitude in armor in a positive direction? People keep arguing this is what it should be or what I want. Cool, again the track record shows that all I can do is wish you luck with that. Not rooting against you, hope you get what is realistic and what you hope for. Keep fighting.
Always wondered what the in game differences were between those two Mk.4Bs, other a slight visual change or two around the sights and exhaust if I recall.
Random Q for ya (if you by any chance you know the answer to it): Is there anything else that should be different between them in game or are they pretty realistic as is being near carbon copies.
That was the only difference I was aware of (along with the mine protection modification). Honestly they probably should have just made it a modification for the Mk4B given how little differences there are between the two.
I don’t agree with that since you could practically make the mk4b and the mk4m the same because of some modifications. For example: an merkava mk4 crew member told me that he is in a merkava mk4a-b-m which is a merkava 4b with an added aps ( to my knowledge this information is not classified)
