South African vehicles in War Thunder are interesting, most are quite old in the game’s history but there are a few that need changing, whether that be a buff, a nerf or rebalancing.
Most of these are correcting inaccuracies.
The vehicles that I see need changing soon are:
- Concept 3
- Ratel 90
- Ratel 20
- Eland 90
- Rooikat Mk.1D
- Rooikat 105
- Rooikat MTTD
- Rooikat ZA 35
- Olifant Mk.2
- TTD
Starting with the Concept 3, it’s a decent light tank but not the most uptier proof as you have no other light tank until 6.3.
So I suggest giving it either APDS, a LRF or a CRF but raising its BR to 4.7. Now some of you might say “it didn’t use APDS during testing” or “South Africa never used APDS on their Comet tanks” but the Concept 1, 2 and 3 all used APDS to simulate what the naval gun would have looked like. Some might remember that the Concept 3 had a Laser Range Finder, now this might be a bit OP so they (Gaijin) could just give the Concept 3 a Coincidence Range Finder.
The Ratel 90 and Eland 90 don’t need major buffing from what I can see, but they do need to be made accurate. In War Thunder the Gunner loads the gun from Ready Racks behind his and Commanders waist, I have heard several Eland and Ratel crewman say that the Commander loads the gun from the actual Ready Racks in the rear of the turret (the rack behind the Gunner’s head and the centre rack behind the Commanders back). The Concept 3 has a similar problem where the rounds by the Loaders legs and main round storage at the back of the turret are the Ready Rounds, with the rounds by the Loaders legs being the 1st stage Ready Rack and the main round storage at the back of the turret are the Ready Rounds.
Next we have the Ratel 20, which really only has an incorrect reloading speed. the F2 auto cannon (in-game called the GI-2) was dual feed by 2 75rd. magazines and you can switch between the magazines in 2 seconds or less with the flip of a switch. So I say the reload should be 2 seconds and it’s at a BR where its cannon does little to most things it fights so this change would only be a good change.
Now we get onto the Rooikats, the Rooikat Mk.1D is over BRed with a long reload and weak gun, so to improve this we can decrease its BR and give it a 5 second Ace and 8 second stock reload. Britain has no real lineup at 8.7 and the Mk.1D is overshadowed by the Vickers Mk.11 which is at the same BR, better gun and same reload times, the Mk.1D may be more mobile but the Mk.11 has enough mobility to largely fill the Mk.1D’s roll.
The Rooikat 105, Rooikat MTTD and Olifant MK.2 only really need a better reload to remain competitive,
the Rooikat MTTD has an autoloader yet only 6.7 second reload, I’ve also seen many official docs that said it had a 5 sec reload. The Rooikat 105 is better than the MTTD in almost every way but I think it and the Olifant Mk.2 need a 6 second reload and the MTTD should stay at its BR to have somewhat of a lineup at 9.3. (I’m going to be making a suggestion for a replacement for the Rooikat 105 soon, so keep an eye out)
The Rooikat ZA 35 is pretty accurate but in War Thunder it uses optic searching when the radar is down whereas IRL it had a FLIR to help with target spotting and the Commander sight has NVD.
The TTD needs some of the biggest buffing. To start the TTD has armour that can’t even stop 3BM42 but it says in Xray view it has 600+ mm of armour protection on the turret and almost 500mm of armour on the hull, I’ve seen some reports of an estimated 750-800mm of kinetic protection yet it can’t even stop 3BM42 from the front. Next is the reload, it is painfully slow, compaired to its competitors (Leopard 2A4, T72, M1, Challenger Mk.2, Mk.3 etc.) with 8.7 second stock reload and 6.7 Aced is just pathetic so a 5-6 second reload is good Aced. Unfortunately the mobility can’t be buffed on the TTD but the Loggim (production tank from Project Loggim) is said have gotten a 1 400- 1 500hp engine but I don’t know much about that, also the autoloader was implemented on the Loggim’s design with the Loader still being kept as an extra crew member and as the backup loader.
That about sums up the things that need changing, as you can see it’s mostly ground vehicles but there aren’t enough aircraft yet to also include them.
I will also include updates for when things are changed.
Edit 1: For this “update” I wanted to also say that a few things I missed or didn’t know prior to creating this forum.
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The Eland 90 and Ratel 90 could have a faster reload and a short rapid fire, for the faster reload it could (by good crews) fire 15-18 rounds per minute, the short rapid fire would be done mostly by the Commander who would hold 2 rounds between his legs and quickly put a new round in, fire and while firing the Commander get another round ready between his legs, load the gun, fire and repeat. Most cases IRL this would be a bad idea as you don’t want to quickly tire yourself out, but it’s possible, my uncle (who served as a Commander in the mid 80s on Elands) got good enough to do this for up to 10 rounds.
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The Rooikat 105 currently in-game is from 2018 and should have 2nd Gen thermals. Originally I thought that the Rooikat 105 used the GS 65 and CS65 sights, then I found the GS72 and CS72 sights that looked similar to the Rooikat 105’s sights but still slightly different, so I found a sheet that said it used a later sight system but did not state what model. (I can’t find it again for this forum :(. I think the Rooikat 105 should get 2nd Gen thermal, 5-6 second ACE reload but be moved to 10.3 or 10.7.