Ooh, it was an over-the-barrel type of thing, I see, very interesting! Thank you for the response. :)
Guessing it’s like a copy of the German one the Germans used on their 37mm PaK?
yes its the same Stielgranate 41
Yeah, would be very cool if they add it. Probably requires some special mechanic though, like when you press key choosing this ammo and wait until it gets loaded.
- Well I dont know for sure either. But we have to look what we have. On the model there was no hull machine gun
from the comparison we see it written that the Tas had 2 machine guns this is from 1943.
But from tank encyclopedia “The above-mentioned 1:10 scale mid-development Tas mockup – which most likely was made sometime around the end of 1943”. So the mockup and the comparison was made in the same year. From the facebook post (of the comparison paper) it writes its from 1943 october 15. It would be good to know when was the mockup made, was it before or after the comparison? But I dont know, wouldn’t a mockup mean the finalised version?
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That I dont know too sadly, from the comparison paper it is 100mm. But who knows. Some say 100 and some 120mm.
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Yes, the 29/44.M was first made as an AA gun, it was made because of high altitude american bombers, if I recall correctly because it could shoot way higher.
Sadly I dont know if they built the guns or not. It would make sense that they did producing it or at least start the production.
One thing I dont understand is the replacement gun. Was it a 75mm L/43 or L/46 cannon?
Wasn’t the 75mm L/43 cannons on the Zrínyi I and Turán III? and the L/46 for the Toldi Páncélvadász?
How could the Nimrod ever be worse than the L-62? At worst, it would be the same, but in reality the Nimrod was much better than the L-62, firstly because of an improved turret and more crew, but also because it had access to Hungarian-developed special anti-tank rounds, as well as the HEAT muzzle grenade which could deal with any enemy tank at close range.
steel-cored AP rounds i think.
1:
I thought of using the dates to figure it out, but I didn’t know when the comparison paper is from (I guessed sometime in the autumn of 1943), so that’s great that you found it is from 15 October. I found this about the date of the mockup:
“The blueprints with all necessary data and budget plans were finished on 3 December 1943. Photos of the 1:10 scale metal mockup of the new vehicle were given to the HTI on 6 December 1943.”
From this we can assume that the mockup was made after the comparison paper, and yes, you’re probably right in thinking that the mockup would probably be either the finalised version, or at least pretty close to it.
However, in the tank encyclopedia specification table, it lists 1 MG for prototype vehicles and 2 MGs for planned serial production vehicles, which implies that the hull machine gun was a later addition, or was planned to return after having been deleted. I think the tank encyclopedia specification table has some mistakes though and earlier on in the article they write: “A second 8 mm machine gun to be placed in the hull and operated by the radioman was also considered although it is not present on the factory mockup.”, which implies they know as much as us and aren’t sure of the hull MG.
So I think we can conclude that the tank encyclopedia specification table was wrong or speculative, and that the mockup was made after the comparison paper, thus the Tas probably had the hull MG at first, then it was decided to remove it, so it would have only gotten the single coaxial MG, however we can’t be 100% sure of this.
2:
Since the comparison paper was from early development, and I think the 100 mm figure is rarer and usually associated with less reliable sources, whereas the 120 mm figure seems more common and I find it in more reliable sources, I feel that the 100 mm figure was probably the early number, and then later they increased it to 120 mm, which would make sense. If this were not true, then where would the 120 mm figure have come from?
So here, I’m inclined to believe that it was initially 100 mm thick, but then they changed it to 120 mm, but again we can’t be 100% sure.
3:
Yeah, I figure they must have gotten further than we know with the 29/44.M in that 1 year since the prototype was made and tested. The information must have been lost, which sucks as it would explain the gun situation of the Tas.
The 75 mm 43.M gun for the Tas was either an L/43 (same as Turan III and Zrinyi I), or an L/46 (slightly longer, same in-game performance as the PaK 40 L/46 armed German vehicles). Some sources say L/43, others say L/46, but I’m inclined to believe that L/46 is the correct length because:
- Where else would the L/46 figure have come from? The Turan III and Zrinyi I were the only other users of the gun, and they had the L/43.
- The sources that say L/43 could have just assumed the length of the gun from the Turan III and Zrinyi I’s gun.
- It would make sense that for the more powerful Tas, they would have tried to give it at least a slightly better 75 mm gun.
- The main source that says it is an L/46 is very detailed and I think it is quite accurate.
The Turan III and Zrinyi I had the 75 mm 43.M L/43 gun. The Toldi Pancelvadasz had a different 75 mm Pak 40/2 L/46 gun.
Its not a copy, it IS german produced, they made the Stielgranate 41 for 3,7 cm Paks, Flaks, 4 cm Paks and Flaks and 5 cm Paks.
I read that it was a copy from a 3.7 cm Pak that the Hungarians enlarged for the 40 mm gun of the Nimrod.
L3/33
The Best Heavy Tank of WWII
L3 is MBT
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Oh, very nice! I guess then tank encyclopedia is outdated. Well, would be great if we could ask Karika about it (person who wrote the encyclopedia page about the Tas), but I am guessing he would probably say the same that in the end it would have had 1 mg. But yeah sadly we can’t be 100% fully sure.
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It may be. Of course it would be better to have the 120mm. But in the end its Gaijins choice.
I have heard (correct me if I am wrong) that because of not being able to produce very thick plates, Hungary bought the armor plates for the Tas. Do you know if this is true/real? -
I too have read that it would have been an l/46. Whats the difference between the Pak 40 and the Pak 40/2? Hmm, I am wondering if the Tas’s replacement gun was the same type of gun as the Toldi páncélvadász’s.
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I feel like a lot of the limited information regarding this tank is spread too widely in too many different and obscure places, in different languages, and is known by different people. I think it would be great if there was some kind of dedicated space where everyone (regardless of language and not specifically for War Thunder) could collect any information about the 44M Tas, making sure it is as accurate as possible. Anything that is found like new sources, blueprints, images, etc. could be shared there and the true story and specifications of the Tas could be pieced together accurately, and false numbers and incorrect information can be identified to make it clear what is certainly right and wrong. This way historians, researchers, enthusiasts, descendants of the original engineers, War Thunder forum members, and anyone else could all combine their knowledge, because I’m sure we all have pieces of information that someone else interested in the topic doesn’t know. Currently, I think this thread is the closest to such a space, but it excludes anyone who doesn’t play War Thunder.
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Well I hope it can be decided with certainty rather than Gaijin just choosing a number. When it comes to buying thick armour plates, I don’t know, I haven’t heard about it, but it sounds like it could be true for the prototype, but after that Hungary would have had to be able to produce the armour plates themselves. I have heard that Hungary struggled to produce thick armour plates in general, but I don’t know specifically about how the armour plates for the Tas were made.
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I don’t know about the differences between the Pak 40, Pak 40/2, and Pak 40/3, but I assume they were pretty negligible. However, the Pak 40 and 43.M were not the same gun. The Pak 40 was a German anti-tank gun, whereas the 43.M was a Hungarian tank gun that was derived from the Pak 40, so was relatively similar, but not the same. The replacement gun of the Tas was a Hungarian 43.M gun, whereas the gun of the Toldi Páncélvadász was the Pak 40/2 L/46, so they were closely related guns, but not the same.
Mounting iirc. The gun itself and performance are identical.
I have read some news from the OI which was passed to developers not too long ago there in the forum. I guess in the light of these that we don’t have a bright future for the TAS.
I feel like the one thing holding back the 44M Tas from being added is probably the main gun situation, but we might actually already have what we need…
There are two questions to answer really:
- Will the Tas have the 75 mm gun, or the 80 mm gun, or two separate versions?
- Do we know enough about these guns to model them accurately in WT?
I will start by answering number 2. We absolutely have what we need to model the 75 mm gun accurately. We might have what we need to model the 80 mm gun accurately, so long as a few assumptions are true. In the spoiler below I outline this in detail:
Spoiler (how much we know about the guns/how to model them in WT)
So of course since the 75 mm 43.M cannon is already in WT, we have all that we need for that gun. Sources differ on whether the 44M Tas’ 75 mm 43.M temporary replacement cannon was an L/43 or an L/46. The 75 mm 43.M cannon already in WT is the L/43 version, so we know the exact in-game performance of the L/43 version. The L/46 version would perform almost the same as the L/43 version that is in-game, except it would have a bit higher penetration and muzzle velocity due to the increased barrel length. Since the 43.M gun was derived from the PaK 40, the L/46 version of it would likely have performance on par with the PaK 40/3 L/46 that is currently in-game on vehicles like the Marder III H. Therefore, whether the 75 mm 43.M temporary replacement cannon was an L/43 or an L/46, we have what we need to model it in WT.
The bigger question is what about the 80 mm main gun. Now we know that it would have been the 29/44.M DIMÁVAG L/58 cannon. This gun was an upgrade of the 29/38.M L/48 AA gun, and the 29/44.M L/58 AA gun was built and tested around October 1943, but it was deemed not yet ready and so they developed it further, expecting to start mass production of the gun in the summer of 1944. I can’t find much about what happened regarding this gun afterwards, it seems that mass production may have been delayed until 1945 and it is unclear whether any more 29/44.M L/58 AA guns were made. It seems like no 29/44.M L/58 cannon was made into a tank gun.
Therefore, you’d think that we can’t model the 80 mm gun of the Tas in WT as we don’t know exactly how the tank gun version would have performed when mounted on the 44M Tas. However, considering we have the data on the performance of the 29/38.M L/48 AA gun and the 29/44.M L/58 AA gun, and considering that usually (such as in the case of the legendary Tiger’s 88 mm main gun) when such an AA gun is converted into a tank gun the performance remains practically identical, we may actually be able to model the 80 mm gun of the Tas perfectly adequately.
The Tiger I’s 88 mm KwK 36 was a conversion of the 88 mm FlaK 36. The performance of the gun remained the same after it was converted to a tank gun from an AA gun. The 88 mm FlaK 36 AA gun was supposedly related to the 80 mm Bofors model 1929 AA gun (the same AA gun that the Hungarians modified and used as the 29/38.M L/48 and 29/44.M L/58) since both guns had related development and were apparently quite similar. As such, the 80 mm 29/38.M and 80 mm 29/44.M can be thought of as similar Hungarian equivalents of the 88 mm FlaK 36, and if the performance of the FlaK 36 remained the same after it was converted into a tank gun, we can assume that the same is true for the 29/38.M and 29/44.M. On top of that, with many tanks in WT that have a gun that was a tank gun conversion of something else (e.g. AA gun or anti-tank gun), the converted tank gun retains the stats of the original gun that it was converted from.
For the 80 mm gun of the Tas to be successfully modelled in WT, the following assumptions must be true:
- The 80 mm gun of the Tas was a tank gun conversion of the 29/44.M L/58 AA gun.
- The 29/44.M L/58 gun would perform practically the same when converted into a tank gun from an AA gun.
- The 80 mm gun would have fired shells that we know enough about, be it the old shells from the 29/38.M L/48 AA gun, or new shells that we can find out enough about.
- The performance figures we have for the 29/44.M L/58 AA gun and any associated shells are accurate and wouldn’t have changed on the Tas for any reason.
My insights on these assumptions (share yours if you have any):
Spoiler
- I think this is basically 100% confirmed. Almost every source that writes about the 80 mm gun says exactly this about what gun it is. One source mentions other potential 80 mm guns.
- I think this is likely to be true. Sources assume this too; none of them say that the performance of the gun would have changed during conversion. We should also consider how this was exactly the case with the Tiger’s 88 mm KwK 36 gun that was converted from the 88 mm Flak 36, and performed the same. I think this is a reasonable assumption to make unless any contrary evidence is found.
- I’m not sure whether this is true. I haven’t seen confirmation of exactly what shells the 29/44.M L/58 AA gun/80 mm gun of the Tas fired. I think we have enough information to model the old shells that the 29/38.M L/48 AA gun fired (e.g. 29/35.M páncélgránát), although there may have been new shells for the 29/44.M gun as one source talked about new shells like the 29/42.M and 42/44.M shells having been made. Firstly we need to know what shells existed and what shells the gun fired. Once we know the shells it fired, we need to see if we can find enough information about said shells, or if it could fire different, potentially weaker shells that we do know enough about.
- I think this is quite likely to be true. I haven’t come across any reason why the performance figures wouldn’t be accurate.
So what about number 1? Historically, the Tas was designed with the 80 mm gun in mind, but after it was tested, it was decided that it wasn’t ready yet and needed further development, and thus it wouldn’t be ready on time for the testing of the prototype of the Tas. Due to this, the 75 mm 43.M was chosen as a temporary replacement gun for the prototype, and had it been finished, the prototype would have mounted this gun (at least until the 80 mm gun was ready). The Allied bombing raid destroyed the 44M Tas before it could mount either gun. Clearly the 80 mm gun was more powerful and preferred over the 75 mm gun which was seen as a temporary replacement. Therefore, the 44M Tas is one tank with two guns available. Both guns are eligible as they were both built as at least a functioning prototype.
The question is, do we add the 44M Tas with the 75 mm gun as it would have existed as soon as it is built, and in the form that it would have been the easiest to make, or with the 80 mm gun as it would have existed a while later once the intended gun is ready?
Alternatively, how about adding a version with the 75 mm gun and a different one with the 80 mm gun? Well, technically there was only ever one version of the 44M Tas, there were no separate 75 mm and 80 mm ‘variants’, and from what I understand, even the prototype vehicle that was being built was eventually intended to replace the 75 mm gun with the 80 mm gun when it was ready. If it is added as two separate vehicles, then the gun would be the only thing that changes, and it would technically be the same vehicle at two different points, rather than two distinct variants of a tank. In a way it could be like the T-44-85 prototype and the T-44-122 prototype, except the different guns are swapped on the same chassis, rather than each gun being built into a separate chassis. Or it could be like the Char 2C bis, which was a regular Char 2C with a new turret and gun temporarily, before it was converted back into a regular Char 2C.
On top of this, adding separate 44M Tas ‘Prototype’ and ‘Production’ versions might not work, since we don’t actually know whether the prototype vehicle that was being built would have been changed before being accepted into service. For example, the Turan III and Zrinyi I ‘prototypes’ were accepted into service without further changes. On the contrary, early tanks like the Turan I, early Toldis, the Csaba, etc. were changed a bit from their prototype forms before entering production. Considering how the early war tanks were changed from their prototype forms, but the later tanks weren’t, chances are, with how the war was going, Hungary would have rushed the 44M Tas into production without any real changes. Besides, they did spend over a year developing it, and it used conventional, proven components (e.g. engine, transmission, MG, radio, even the suspension design was based on a successful example). I think it is safest to just assume that the Tas would have been accepted for production without any significant changes, therefore I don’t think it makes sense to add separate ‘prototype’ and ‘production’ versions of it, not like we know how a ‘production’ version would have differed anyway.
So really, I don’t know what gun the Tas should get. The logical options are as follows:
- Adding the 44M Tas with only the 75 mm gun
- Adding the 44M Tas with only the 80 mm gun
- Adding two separate versions, but the only difference between them is the gun
Personally, I can see all 3 of these options working. Option 1 can be justified with “that’s how it would have been completed and been the easiest to mass produce and get into combat”. Option 2 can be justified with “the prototype would have eventually gotten the 80 mm gun, that’s how they planned to produce the tank, and that’s what the original design was”. Option 3 can be justified with “the Tas would have used both guns at some point, so why not add it in both forms so that both guns can be used at separate BRs”?
If someone has a reasonable explanation for why one of the guns may not be eligible for addition to War Thunder, then please provide it, because that would make the gun choice much easier.
I think for now, the 44M Tas should be added with the 75 mm gun, because we have the stats we need to model it in game already, and because it should be the least controversial gun choice to add considering the completed 44M Tas would have immediately mounted this gun. However, I don’t think the 80 mm gun should be ruled out. If enough information is collected to accurately model the 80 mm gun in WT, and it is established that the 80 mm gun is eligible for addition to WT, then it can be implemented then.
Having laid this out, I just need your opinions on the matter, and a vote:
- Add the 44M Tas with only the 75 mm gun
- Add the 44M Tas with only the 80 mm gun
- Add it in two separate forms, one with the 75 mm gun and one with the 80 mm gun
I learned a lot about this tank by watching a video in Spanish (my language) on a military vehicles channel. According to what was said in the video, the Hungarians during their visit to Germany could only see the Panthers but nothing else and only with that information they created this tank, simply incredible. +1
either the 80 or both, honestly. We have the gunner optic for the 80mm gun and a shell blueprint for an 80mm aphe. As the 75mm was only ordered but never mounted, i think the case for the 80mm is strong.
Wait even the 75 mm wasn’t mounted? I delete my vote then.