I would like to (re) make a suggestion, for a nice light tank for France. The AMR 35 ZT-1
The AMR 35 ZT-2 was an up-gunned version of the ARM 35. The AMR 35 was a light reconnaissance vehicle that was initially forbidden to engage tanks. because of the French doctrine regarding the AMR branch of the vehicles, the first AMR 35 was armed with a 7.5 mm machine gun only, to eliminate the temptation of engaging enemy tanks. the doctrine soon changed and the AMR was suddenly allowed to carry heavier armament. initially, the 13.2mm was mounted in a new enlarged version of the Alvis-1 turret called Alvis-2. The 7.5 mm armed version received the variant designation of ZT while the one with the 13.2mm Heavy machine gun was called ZT-1. The 13.2 mm was a compromise of the armament, it offered a bit of anti-tank capacity while been still more efficient against the soft targets. the 13.2mm was capable of penetrating most walls behind which the infantry might hide (in urban conditions) and even penetrating the tanks at short distances, the 20-round magazine and high fire rate allowed it to clear the infantry. but the large magazine was making the gun unable to fit in the ALVIS-1 turret, as the magazine was too tall. the solution was to enlarge the turret and rotate the gun to the side. which gives the turret this odd shape.
from 1938, 80 AMR 35 ZT-1 was built and put into service in France. They fought against the Germans during the battle of France of 1939-1940. many were destroyed, and some were captured. but due to the lack of firepower and protection, the Germans saw no interest in the AMR 35 and decided to scrap them.
Firepower
Armed with the 13.2mm Hotchkiss mle 1930, the AMR 35 ZT-1 was capable of penetrating about every tank of the middle of the 30s. the 13.2mm auto-cannon with firepower comparable to the 12.7mm M2HB, the tank will feature a good chance to penetrate lightly armored vehicles at short range, but at the difference of the 12.7mm, it carries a small magazine and not belt-feed. the magazine of 20 rounds is not that bad but is far from the 200 rounds of the American heavy machine gun. the tank carries 1220 rounds which is more than enough to fight a whole battle. of 1220 rounds, most are stored in 37 magazines of 20 rounds each, while the rest are in storage boxes.
Mobility
this tank mobility will be comfortable. for a French tank, it will feel like a fast boy. the top speed is 60 km/h but it would be difficult to reach with the power of his engine. an average speed of 40 km/h is going to be much more common. this will make this tank feel rather good on the battlefield and allow it to hope to flank and get up loose. which his armament and armor who is slightly lacking, this is a good thing.
Protection
the protection will not be his best asset. the tank is only having minimal protection against LMG. this makes it rather vulnerable to almost every gun including the HMG at a fairly long distance. the crew of 2 men is also very small. this also makes it very small which is a good asset to allow this tank to hide more easily.
Although it might be a fun little vehicle to drive around, I think the 13.2mm gun to be too weak for War Thunder. Like Laffy 80AM proposed with the same gun, it will inherit the same issues: at long ranges it will struggle to penetrate anything that it doesn’t have a 90 degrees weak armor plate perpendicular to your aim and at close ranges you either have to ambush people and hope they’ll pass near your location while you remain unnoticed or they’ll hear/see you closing in and most of the enemies will try to finish you off before approaching.
Also survivability will be a weak factor, if the enemy turns their gun on you and you’re not in the position to be able to incapacitate him or even kill him before shooting at you.
The .50 cal is only barely sufficient on the M2A2 since it has just enough penetration to get through 30 mm armor plates at a perfect angle, and is on a platform that has the extremely good mobility to flank and get to the weaker areas. The ZT-1 is a massive downgrade, and that’s not even mentioning the inferior fire rate and magazine size of the 13.2 mm. France needs more low rank vehicles that are actually somewhat capable of handling equal tier vehicles instead of more 0.7 vehicles like the ZT-1 trying to get by at 1.0.
That being said, the 13.2 mm is massively underperforming ballistically in-game, so it shouldn’t be as underwhelming as it is currently, but this still won’t save it in all likelyhood.
Isn’t it good enough - smokes, ess, remote turret, add on armor, looks even even better, i think it could be even a bit higher than 1.0, standard M113 is fine too. Also Israeli zelda 1 and 2 (M2HB+ 2 x 7mm mgs)
Namer with just M2HB would be hard to destroy by first panzers with heat shells.
M2HB can destroy panzers from back for example.
31 mm of penetration is very good against planes and enough to destroy tanks and spaags. 60 tons of mass would be enough to squish low tier tanks to death, many of them wouldn’t be able effectively fight back or escape at all. In this case 2.0 seems fine…
But jokes aside M113 is really funny vehicle and well enough balanced, i really want it zelda/bardelas is just like 60 mm hvms bardelas in game, just remember about cage added on armor and fact that instead of turret there is just M2HB while 2 x 7,62mm mgs are on the back just the same. Only one spaag better than standard m113 is stuart which is exceptionally extremely effective spaag in WT with huge amount of ammo for M2HB and fast firing 37 mm gun. However zelda 1 and 2 have additional mgs giving them more firepower against planes when it comes to fire density.
Also on beginning i mentioned IMI M113A4 - name is unknown, but such name fits very well. What do you think should be br for it 1.0 - 1.3 or maybe 1.7
Most likely it has all modern technologies on that remotely controlled turret, maybe even thermals and LRF.
