Nor will it significantly improve player engagement with the tree.
The British tech tree is in a strange spot. Despite being a major global producer, operator, and exporter of ground vehicles, planes, and warships for the past 100 years, with easily enough tech to have a fully domestic tree the size of the US or USSR, Britain is left in a weird limbo between major and minor nation status and currently has a playerbase about a quarter of the size of the ‘big 3’. This is despite Gaijins recent efforts to expand the tree and improve player engagement, the two most significant of which have been the addition of the South African and Indian sub trees, which have clearly still left player engagement lacking.
With the recent announcement of the rearrangement of the British tech tree (which is overall a very good change to the structure of the tree), it has been confirmed that Britain will be getting a dedicated line for export and Commonwealth vehicles. The Commonwealth is a group of 56 nations, including Britain, accounting for nearly 1/3rd of the countries on the entire planet, meaning a huge, huge variety of completely foreign made and operated equipment will be on the table for addition to the tree.
The problems with the British ground tree do not stem from lack of British vehicles available for implementation. They come from problematic and ahistorical implementation of the current vehicles in the tree, as well as significant unaddressed capability gaps for which there are abundant British and British-operated vehicles available to fill.
The major issues with the British tree, and how to fix them without piling more foreign-operated equipment in, are as follows:
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Mobility mobility mobility from 7.0 all the way to top tier. This seems to be the main sticking point for people wanting more foreign stuff in the tree - ‘British tanks are slow and cumbersome and we never built anything with decent mobility’ - but this could not be more wrong. Once again, there are heaps of options, from 1200hp Chieftains, Vickers Mk 1 Improved and Mk 3 Improved, Vickers Mk 7/2, Vickers Mk 4 early and late, more variants of Challenger 2E for top tier, Ajax, our various 40mm+Javelin IFVs, Stormer 30, Scorpion 90, Saladin 90, Simba 90, Alvis Piranha II LCTS, Leopard C1 (Royal Ordnance IWS), GKN Warrior 105, the list goes on and on. We have SO many fast MBTs and light tanks that are currently not in-game, it is absolutely not necessary for more and more foreign built and operated vehicles to be added to the tree.
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APHE for our 75mm and 6pdrs. New players are driven away from the the British tech tree in droves, because of the vast gulf of performance between the ammo they have to use (solid shot) and the ammo their enemies get to use (APHE). They rightfully start playing and wonder why their shots have to be perfectly aimed for ammo racks and crew whereas the enemy tanks can consistently oneshot them by penetrating anywhere? It’s a truly awful experience for new players. This change is also historical, Britain used large quantities of APHE for both the OQF 75mm and 6pdr, with more than 1.4 million fully fused 6pdr M86 APHE rounds being purchased by Britain over the course of WW2
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Low tier brawler tanks to fill the gap between our cruiser and infantry tanks. The British were by far the largest operator of the Sherman following the US, and we currently have 1 (one) in-game, barring our modified Fireflies. Something like a welded Sherman III and a tech tree Ram II (which we operated domestically) would be much more suitable for players new to the tree then the Cromwells and Churchills, which are fantastic tanks but very much unforgiving one-trick ponies. The upcoming Ram I, a Canadian operated vehicle, is a good example of this being done correctly. It is a much requested, unique vehicle, that uses a degree British tech (the armament), from a close wartime ally that fills a needed gap in the tech tree. Perfect.
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Filling out our mid tier to alleviate the very noticeable late WW2 to early cold war gap between 6.0 and 7.7. There are plenty to choose from, a very capable 6.7 lineup is right there waiting with a tech tree variant of the Centurion mk II, the Centurion mk 3 (32pdr), FV201 P1, and Charioteer 105. Filling out the 6.0 lineup with a few more variants of the Centurion Mk 1 would also be amazing for the tree.
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Filling out our SPAA line between 5.3 and 8.3, and 8.7 and 10.0. Again, absolutely plenty to choose from. From the Sandringham 6 AD for 5.7, to the Fox AA for 6.0, Scorpion S530 for 6.7, and Valkyr H.20 for 7.7.
If there are gaps in capabilities for the British tree (there are currently plenty), there are domestically built and/or operated bits of kit available to fill it.
It has been proven in the French tree that the addition of foreign ‘meta’ vehicles does not meaningfully improve player engagement nor are they particularly valued additions for the playerbase of the tree (as a whole). The ‘best’ ‘French’ 12.0 tank, the Leopard 2A6NL, is also the absolute least played, even behind the Ito-90, with the Leclerc being played 6x more often. Yes, the Leo 2A4NL is seen more, but that is because it is the only MBT currently available to the French tree to support their 10.x lineup (farewell MSC to 11.0).
The British tree is already hosting the most dedicated sub-tree nations out of any tree in-game, is getting rather bloated because of it, and clearly it has not done a huge amount to satisfy the playerbase, can we PLEASE try something new instead: giving the domestically built/operated British additions the chance they deserve?
