I spent the last couple of hours researching this, and I honestly think the current turret basket on Merkavas is unfair and incorrect.
In real life, the Merkava series (including Mk.4) does not have a traditional enclosed turret basket like the Abrams or Leopard 2. Instead, it uses a large open rotating floor plate / turntable mounted on bearings/rollers. The crew seats are on this platform, which rotates with the turret. The fighting compartment is very open, allowing the crew to easily step off the platform into the rear hull area. This is one of the most unique and important features of the Merkava’s design for crew survivability and rear-door access.
There is no full basket structure with walls. Public sources, IDF videos, and even a bug report from a former Merkava Mk.4 gunner confirm this layout.
Yet in War Thunder we now have a standard turret basket module that can be shot to disable horizontal drive — the same as on Western tanks. Combined with the already criticized ammo and armor modeling, this feels like another unnecessary nerf to an already struggling vehicle.
It’s one of the coolest and most distinctive things about the tank in real life, and it’s completely missing in-game.
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yes which is what the ‘turret basket’ in game is representing, same as the challengers
gaijin believes that any damage to that would still likely jam the turning mechanism
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It’s a shame, really, but Gaijin is defying real life logic in order to add these baskets (the others make a bit more sense, but i mean more so on Challenger and Merkava, which notably DON’T have them.) to them the turret turntable is part of the drive system.
To me, the only real way to justify it is that Soviet / Chinese Carousel autoloaders have their horizontal drives taken out when struck too, or just make the turntable / floor being struck just massively reduce your turrets traverse speed, but not disable it.
This is a game at the end of the day, so at some point you’ll need to make gamifications, as these baskets already are.
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Everything about turret baskets in this game its inaccurate.
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Which for that to work the autoloader would need to have its axis directly connected to the bottom of the horizontal turret drive, which is not the case, is an standalone axis that makes it able to turn on its own, otherwise you’ll need to turn the entire turret to load a projectile to the breech.
they just said that the merkava ‘basket’ is not directly connected to the turret and is on a separate rotation system, just like the autoloaders. if one disables horizontal traverse both should or neither should
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The AZ/MZ autoloader actuator can only rotate clockwise. The motor can only produce a force counterclockwise for braking.
How exactly do you propose they can be separate if the turret is able to rotate counterclockwise without issue?
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I have to say you’re right on this one, however the same logic can be applied to the turret baskets.
Players are trying to make this fair and I don’t see how 1 spall to 80% of my crew compartmemt is able to break my whole horizontal turret rotation. The DEVs themself said it is wrong and unfair but it’s game convention.
The T series are only getting buffs for the last few updates. Plane tracking, reload speed, etc. The reload speed, invisible spall-less armor plates and horizontal drive are a hot topic :D
I’m of the opinion that they’re an overall negative addition. It annoys the target who has to deal with their turret rotation being deleted leaving them either limited in combat capability or totally helpless if any of the drivetrain is also hit, and it annoys the shooter who has to deal with the basket eating spall. Literal net negative to gameplay.
My point only is that there should be balance to the matter. If gaijin wants to give every single western tank baskets they damn well better add it to redfor tanks too. Even if not the autoloader itself, there is still a basket within the autoloader to prevent the crew’s legs from being mutilated when it rotates.
If it was a basket on the first place, it’s a arm connecting to the base for the crew, nothing more than that. Why it’s innacurate is not my fault, I know that’s probably wrong and the lower base shouldn’t have influence over the ring rotation capability.
By having separated rotation axis or axles if that’s the right word to use in this subject:
Like 3 other components manage the turret movement and from the dev server, it looks like Gaijin is planning on adding even more to the abrams. Electronics, driver controls, blowout panel hydraulics, etc.
I don’t think it ever helped me with this, It once stopped a very badly shot heat and died in the process so I still died. There is something that stops spall, doesn’t create more and T series has it all around acting as a turret basket :D
Great idea, let’s remove it’s no spall capabilities, make it the horizontal drive and scrap that idea because it’s in the USSR tech tree 🤭
It has a separate actuator, but that actuator is fixed to the turret. If the autoloader jams, so does the turret. It cannot be entirely separate because then the turret would not be able to rotate counterclockwise.
You just release the brake on the carousel and the turret spins independently, the AZ could jam the turret if the hoist jams with a partially raised shell tray, if it has started to lift but hasn’t cleared the carousel yet.
this is largely the issue for both the autoloaders and baskets, that a single piece of spall completely destroys either is ridiculous, it takes less to destroy them then it takes to kill the crew. both should be harder to destroy IMO. Honestly the baskets would not have been needed if a single piece of spall to the stub extractor resulted in a 40 second repair compared to the 9secs to replace a human loader.
So if you rotate the turret 2 degrees counterclockwise and then fire can you expect a 20 second reload as the carousel is forced to actuate all the way around clockwise? Because I’m pretty sure that’s not how that works.
Why would you be releasing the brake if the carousel was functional? The whole point of it is an emergency measure to decouple the carousel if it jams or the hydraulics fail so the gun can be manually loaded.
(This isn’t how the gun is manually loaded, the hydraulics can be pumped manually which allows it to actuate, this is also how it’s replenished when without power)
