We need to change the requirements for modern MBT armor bug reports

Machinery of War Discussion Ground Vehicle
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As of now, the system appears to be specifically designed to prevent any bug report regarding modern armor to be valid.

This leads to many blatant issues not being addressed or acknowledged just because the reports aren’t “good enough” to the current unreasonable standards.

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Half a year ago, I made a suggestion in regards to how this topic should be handled; but, in spite of the overwhelming and uncontested community support, it has not been addressed by Gaijin and the same issues still remain, so this is yet another attempt of mine at drawing attention to this matter in hopes it will be addressed.

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The requirements are to protect you, the person who may be providing said documents, the volunteer technical moderation team, who would have to review the documents and could be implicated in transmition of said possibly export controlled documents internationally, from very real legal repercussions.

The thing that people don’t seem to realize is, there are many legal military archive sites where you can find relevant information on the internet.

The problem is, it’s very rare for people to want to do the leg work and dedicate a bit of time to finding document titles and filing proper foia requests to get them released to the public if they aren’t already available.

For example, there are a few documents I have specific to the material needs requirements of the xm1 that were acquired from other archives, that I’m currently waiting for a foia response for as far as distribution code class changes.

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I think that guestimating should occur more often when language like “improvement” is posted on all public documents.

5% improvement from M1A2 to M1A2 SEP? Easy. That’s a 37mm improvement to the turret, and ~19mm improvement to the hull.
SEP to SEP2?

I ain’t saying it should be 5% guestimations, or it should be mandatory… just an idea.

Mass and volume used for better guesses as well to bring some parity. [Looks at Ariete and Merkava]

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Then why doesn’t Gaijin use these many websites when creating the vehicles? Maybe because they don’t care about historical accuracy anymore? Or because they don’t exist?

Cough cough Stinger and Mistral bug reports that get consistently ignored because they’d be better than Iglas then.

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However, when we provide these documents, they are more often than not rejected for not being primary sources, hence not being considered to be good enough, etc.

The first leak dramas only happened after months of people attempting to fix issues through these legal sources to no avail, with Gaijin constantly and consistently rejecting these for “not being primary sources”.

Just one relatively recent example; bug report about Merkava Mk.4’s weight (and therefore protection levels);

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/a6U8z3SuHc24

The literal IDF repeatedly and consistently stating that Merkava Mk.4 weighs 80 tons is seemingly not a good enough source for this report, and it hasn’t been since 2022, the first time this matter was reported with these sources.

Instead, classified OEM Manuals are constantly demanded to achieve a change while even literal IDF statements are rejected. Even the bug reporter foresaw this outcome. See the issue here?

It is precisely the “primary sources are required” policy that caused these leak dramas, and why I think we should get rid of this rule to address issues regarding modern MBT armor.

Well educated guesstimations backed up by secondary sources should be more than enough; yet it isn’t most of the times, that is precisely the issue.

No legal source is ever going to give classified information on a present day MBT currently in service; that’s why we should lower the standards/requirements to achieve changes so that we can make valid bug reports just with available information.

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First, videos have never been considered an acceptable source for reports. You’ve been here long enough to know that. Second you don’t need primary sources to make a report, you just need quality secondary sources. Which is something people can’t seem to understand. Third, the current system works fine and doesn’t need to be changed. Lastly, the first leak you were referring to was done to win an argument. It had nothing to do with fixing the vehicle.

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Videos have not been accepted when it comes to speed-related matters, because a video could be sped up to falsify evidence.

But videos have been accepted in other ways, such as for T-90M’s spall liners and others; when they provide information, such as footage or statements from official sources, that can’t be faked via manipulation.

Videos have also been used by Gaijin themselves, such as when they denied Challenger 3 (TD) any form of turret spall liners because these weren’t visible in the internal shots from a video, as well (I believe it was also them who used videos as sources for T-90M’s spall liners.)

The videos on Merkava’s report are from the literal IDF Official Channel and the source of the statements is the interview of IDF Officers on it. There is nothing that can be faked about this.

So yes, videos (beyond speed-related matters) are accepted and have been used by Gaijin themselves. They just happen not to want to accept them on this report for no reason at all, or maybe because they just want to deny giving Merkava Mk.4 any form of useful armor and the only excuse allowing them to do this is that “65 tons is very light for a tank of its size, therefore that means its armor is made of cardboard”. Prove that the tank weighs 80 tons and that argument is destroyed.

The current system does not work and there are dozens of examples that prove it.

Also, the report made in 2022 included written sources (that also matched IDF’s official statements on their official channel), besides the videos. But nothing was ever heard from the report after it was forwarded.

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  1. This intentionally leaves out and thus hurts nations that have stricter OPSEC rules. Not every nation has such an open archive.

  2. Russia is taken as the standard for openness but it’s unique in that by far it is the most open about relevant information. Elsewhere it’s considered far too revealing. Consequently Russia gets what it claims to have.

  3. Logic is not applied as a gap filler for nations lacking official available information.

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In those cases the videos are being used in lieu of photos.

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It doesnt matter how restoring realistic weight can bring any realistic armor. Not needing to mention the ariete, abrams and ZTZ99A/VT4 can already prove this.

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Hello

I will just clarify here we do not require OEM manuals to make changes as you claim.

We made a full article detailing the issues with modern MBT armour reporting and what is and is not accepted here: [Development] Reports concerning the protection of post-war combat vehicles - News - War Thunder

You will note that as well as OEM level manuals (User manuals, repair manuals, factory manuals, operating manuals, technical manuals etc) our guidelines also clearly state that authored works (secondary sources) such as Reference books on collections of vehicles/aircraft/ships (‘coffee table books’), biographies, specialist books, “expert” opinion publications, industry magazines etc are all accepted when there are at least two of them that agree.

I would also add not only do we not expect users to ever produce or use classified data, we will absolutely under no conditions ever use it in any way: Source Material: Restrictions on Classified and Export Restricted information (“Military Restrictions”)

This is precisely why we created the very article linked above regarding what’s accepted and how its handled. So the claim that only primary materials are accepted is simply not accurate.

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Hello!

I understand that, theorically, you do not require OEM manuals;

I also know that, theorically, enough secondary sources would warrant a change…

However, in practice, this really doesn’t seem to be the case in many cases.

For example, in regards to Merkava Mk.4’s mass (and therefore armor protection);

That bug report from 2022 used several secondary sources, also backed up by IDF statements, but it wasn’t considered to be good enough to warrant a change.

There are even more recent IDF sources backing this up on the latest report:

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/a6U8z3SuHc24

Only backing up further the ones present on the 2022 report… yet it wasn’t enough still.

Merkava Mk.4’s weight matter is important because, currently, since its armor can only be guesstimated, Gaijin’s main premise/logic is that “65 tons is very light for the amount of armor it has; therefore, it must be low density and therefore deficient against KE.”

However, proving that the tank weighs 80 tons, the whole “low density and therefore KE effectiveness” argument just dies down, which should lead to Merkava Mk.4 having the excellent armor it was always supposed to have. Only then would Merkava be a truly accurate depiction of its real life self, and a worthy vehicle to be the pinnacle of a tree’s end of the line, instead of being a decaffeinated baseline M1A1. Gameplay wise, it would also provide a very interesting “heavy tank” dynamic to Top Tier, with lower than average mobility but extraordinary protection.

Another common sense argument is that Namer is currently only 4 tons lighter than Merkava Mk.4, in spite of having no significant additions and is instead missing a 26+ ton turret (the main gun alone is nearly 2 tons already), so… where did all that weight go? Is Merkava Mk.4’s turret weightless?

This logic only backs up what the IDF repeatedly states and what those secondary sources indicate.

When a vehicle is this much classified, it should be expected and acceptable to use logic and well-educated guesstimates backed up by official statements and secondary sources… yet Merkava Mk.4’s armor and mass have been wrong since its implementation ingame. It’s been years, and years also since it was reported, to no avail!

One of the linked armor reports: Community Bug Reporting System

I just can’t get Gaijin’s refusal to apply these changes even though the bug reports should rhetorically be up to the standards. That’s why I think maybe they expect only OEM Manuals to finally apply a change; because nothing short of that has worked so far on, for example, this case.

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For the main battle tank, the more relevant it is to the new era, the more difficult it is to obtain information, why Gaijin is reluctant to relax the information source for the new era vehicles

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This report was rejected 2 years ago. The developers believed that this weight was based on added additional anti-mine protection for the Merkava 4 series which is not present on the models in game, but can be seen on some tanks in real life.

This report contains only videos. Which are not accepted as statements / sources. Only written material is accepted as a valid secondary. Videos can be used as supporting sources, but this report was solely on the basis of two videos.

These sources alone also tell us nothing about protection or how it should be improved in game.

These two reports sadly are not reflective of the overall system and the many reports that have been implemented via secondary sources. I understand it’s frustrating when a report does not go through, but standing on just two examples to claim the entire system only accept primary sources is simply incorrect.

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I see. At least we finally know now why these reports have kept being rejected all along…

You see, this is a part of the problem. Why has it taken 2 years of spam for us to finally learn why the developers were rejecting the reports? If we had known eaelier, even as soon as they made the decission, we would have known way earlier from which approach to keep working.

And I will just say; the reason of the developers is nonsensical because we DO have that anti-mine protection ingame, on Merkava Mk.4 LIC; and it does not add 15,000 kg… it adds 3,000, as it makes sense;

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This kind of stuff is why I am so disappointed and bitter even sometimes.

After 2 years of rejected bug reports, it turns out the developers were rejecting them because they didn’t even know the features of their own game. They didn’t realise, at any point, that this mine protection was ingame and that it didn’t just add 15 tons because it makes no sense for a plate to weigh like a T-50? If we had known this earlier, we would have been able to get to work way earlier.

That would be because this tank, as well as many others ingame already, is fully classified. It was put in service on the mid 2000s and continues to be the workhorse MBT of a military power in 2024; of course we are not going to just find a source stating “it has 550mm KE on the hull and 700mm KE on the turret”.

That’s why many of us believe that, for these cases, Gaijin should be more open to well-educated guesstimates, even if based only on common sense. Because I don’t know what sources exactly they base on to claim that Merkava Mk.4’s armor is barely Leopard 2A4-level; but I think such notion is straight up comical.

For example; without angle, Merkava Mk.4’s 170mm thick UFP provides only 110mm KE, 50 of these being RHA.

That means the 120mm worth of composite provide 60mm KE, which means… the composite has a 0.5 KE multiplier, for… whatever reason. They just deduced the thing’s composite is worse than the first iteration of Chobham (That one was 0.61 ingame?). If I knew how to datamine, I would be able to be more accurate on the multipliers, but you get the idea.

That’s the issue; in order for us to make Merkava Mk.4 not have cardboard armor, we must provide sources specifically stating KE values; meanwhile, it appears the developers can just assume, out of nowhere, that this armor is worse than the very first NATO composite put in service 20 years before this tank was designed.

They know we won’t be having any sources anytime soon, we all know it. In such scenarios, wouldn’t it be better if we could just sit back, think, use common sense and logic, and make well-educated guesstimations that make sense for a present-day MBT instead of always assuming the absolute worst and going for the worst possible values until proven wrong when this could not possibly happen?

And this is part of the problem too. The sources are just rejected even though they literally are:

-IDF officer statements.
-On a video uploaded by the IDF.
-On the official, verified IDF channel.

Just because of the format, and even though the statements correspond to those found in every source on earlier bug reports?

So… you see: the 2022 report was rejected because the developers thought the secondary sources and videos were attributing the extra 15,000kg to a system that weighs 3,000 kg; and, later, they reject another report linked to that one and which has the same figures just because it’s “merely” official IDF statements on the official IDF channel.

At times like this, it just feels like they will find any reason to reject these and do nothing about them.

That being said; the whole point about its weight is to prove that its armor isn’t just cardboard as they seem to believe. If they are going to “fix” the tank by increasing its weight but not its protection because no source just hands them specific values… then it’s better not to even bother. I can already see them making the tank be 80 tons but also with the 10.0-level armor it currently has.

Anyway, thank you for at least stopping by and communicating. As I said above on this comment, lack of transparency and communication regarding the rejection of these reports are a big part of the problem, so I am glad at least you came and bothered to reply and explain.

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Smin, since we got you, can you explain to us at least for once whether they are planning on updating us with actual updates of say the Abrams turret ring, since such suggestions were considered passed to the Developers?

With as many new technologies as they have been programming and bugging and fixing, it would be nice to at least have some extra stops on the roadmap to grant us an idea of when/if these fixes are going to take place. Keeping people in the dark while they scramble through loads of photographs and other leg work to talk such vehicles is beyond flustering and enraging for some. And they’re not wrong to feel that way.

Or at the very least, tell us when or if that a suggestion has been pushed off the list for other priorities.

Please and thank you.

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I don’t believe anyone has asked me before about the status of this report in order for me to answer. A simple PM to me or any Technical Moderator would suffice. Spam isn’t at all required.

It’s also part of the reason we moved to the dedicated report site. Now whenever a report is closed and responded to by a dev, the answer is shared and posted in the original report with the status change to it being closed. It’s simply that this report was on the old forum.

The Devs are well aware of the equipment and that was factored in when coming the conclusion. There are additional packages available to Merkava which is what lead them to this conclusion.

That’s precisely what the Devs do already so long as their is a minimum baseline level of information that provides reasonable levels of workable material: [Development] Reports concerning the protection of post-war combat vehicles - News - War Thunder

These reports however don’t provide even that.

There are numerous videos that have been submitted in the past by serving and former serving crew, as well as officials that have had conflicting or erroneous materials that don’t correlate with other known and confirmed details. As such, they are not reliable enough by themselves and must be supplemented with other secondary sources. Once again, exceptions cant be made “just this once” otherwise we have to accept this kind of source for every modern tank, which opens the floodgates to low quality conflicting reports that will clutter up more time and resources to have to respond to them all, despite the majority of them not having anything practical to make any changes.

We appreciate it can cause frustration when a report is not accepted. But there has to be a baseline minimum of what can be accepted.

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Could you link the report in question please?

Then I can see if there is a status update.

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Of course! I am not and would never blame any of this on you- quite the opposite, YOU, Smin, are, along other staff members, someone who always does their best to communicate and being down here on the line to deal with all of these matters. <3

My point is- when a bug report is rejected, ideally the rejection would include the reasoning by default, as it’s the case already sometimes; “Hello, we don’t believe (X) report’s information is applicable because of (Y) reason/s, thank you for your time”, etc. Without the need for us to harass CMs or Mods on their PMs, hahah.

In the new platform it is that, indeed, many times responses are shared- however, not always. Sometimes things remain as “acknowledged”, “forwarded as suggestion” or straight up “not a bug”, etc, with no clear reply on the matter for months or years.

For example: Community Bug Reporting System

May I ask then, which amount/kind of non-standard equipment would make the tank weigh 80 tons? Specially considering it’s the figure the IDF always provides- it should be equipment present on the tank every time or at least rather often.

In this case, the videos are backed up by secondary sources; the issue is just that the developers consider that the 80 ton figure provided everywhere isn’t about the tank itself, but, presumably, about the tank with a series of seemingly non-standard equipment. All of their reasoning is even more uncertain and convulted than just accepting the secondary sources that back up the videos.

And that is the issue; sometimes, not even the baseline minimum is considered… and, sometimes, we should question whether even this baseline minimum is still too high when it comes to vehicles of this nature (fully classified).

This would be one of the most recent ones!

https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/hn6WHPVB7r3K

It was made and acknowledged 7 months ago, but there’s been three Major updates ever since (and countless patches) and nothing has changed yet; not to mention this issue had been reported multiple times in the past over the years ever since 2018. This report is just the most recent and comprehensive one.

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