- Yes
- No
This may be a controversial title, but please give me a chance to explain. I am not suggesting removing any of the South African (SA) vehicles, just a reshuffle of the tree. Currently, the SA subtree occupies the rightmost column of the British tech tree, and the rest of the British tech tree is structured as follows:
WW2 era:
Post WW2:
(Note: there are obviously individual exceptions to these rules, and this is not including reserve tier, which is organised independently from the rest of the tree.)
Now there is a relatively large problem with this arrangement- there is no place in the tree for domestic light tanks and wheeled vehicles. Currently the SA subtree is home to the majority of the light vehicles in the British tree, which is fine from a gameplay perspective, but it means a lot of domestic vehicles are missing.
It leaves the tree in an awkward spot. For example, in the WW2 section of the tree, where could domestic wheeled vehicles, like the AECs, Staghounds, Coventrys, etc be implemented? Nowhere!
It’s the same problem with modern light vehicles. There is currently no place in the tree for modern domestic light vehicles like the Saladin 90, Scorpion 90, Fox ARC and many more.
The only two domestic post-war light vehicles are the Vickers Mk 11 and Warrior, which have been squeezed into the Vickers column and ATGM column, respectively.
The solution
I want to make something absolutely clear: the SA vehicles are a fantastic addition to the tree and are generally a joy to play. I am not at all suggesting that they are removed, just redistributed, to create more space to implement light vehicles in the tree.
This would be achieved by moving SA tank destroyers and ATGM vehicles (the G6 and Ratel 20) out of the sub-tree column and into the TD/ATGM column. The same would be done with SA MBTs (Olifants and TTD), these would be placed into the Vickers/Export column, which is in pretty dire need of more vehicles anyway.
This would leave only light wheeled vehicles in the 5th column, with a shed-load of space for new additions. This would then no longer be a dedicated sub-tree branch, but instead a light vehicle column for both domestic and international vehicles, giving plenty of space for future additions.