Hope you enjoy it!

Greetings,

so yesterday WG EU announced that there is a Tier VIII Premium ISU-152K with a BL-10 gun  making its entrance in Supertest,

It is important mentioning as well that this information was not shared with the EU Community Contributors, instead, they published this information on the WoT forum yesterday at 12:10 PM, only a day later, at 3:44 PM the first Community Contributor noticed what was going on.

It is now 8PM as I’ve sat down to write this and not a single response from the EU Staff has been given (effective as of article publication) of why they did not share this information with us so we are left for guessing, are they being incompetent or are they trying to sneak this vehicle as quietly as possible afraid of mass discontentment?
The latter sounds more plausible given that the totality of only 5 players that bothered to comment in the forum have all expressed a negative reaction, this also corroborates my usage of the word “sneak” as it very much shows that the EU forum has had better days and it is fairly dead now.

But why are people upset about the ISU-152K?

Well first things first, statistics:

Since their forum publication, full statistics have been leaked (and they seem to have given us initial incorrect reverse speeds):

Statistic differences for the “TLDR” readers:

	ISU-152	ISU-152K
HP	1200	1200
Penetration	260 / 292 / 90	286/329/90
Damage	750/750/950	750/750/950
DPM	2666.4	2469.9
Reload	16.877	18.219
RoF	3.555	3.293
Shell Velocity	1050	1100
Accuracy	0.393	0.393
Aim Time	3.26	3.26
Gun Elevation	-6/+18	-5/+11
Gun Traverse	16	20
Turret Traverse Speed	27.1	18.8
Hull Traverse Speed	21	22
Power	700	600
Power/Weight	14.23	12.72
Speed	+43/-12 km/h	+40/-12 km/h
Terrain Resistance	1.0/1.3/2.2	0.9/1.0/1.8
Weight	54.4t	52.6t
View Range	350	360
Signal Range	625	730

“All in all, the ISU-152K is very much like its tech tree ‘relative’. The differences with the researchable TD are subtle: the horizontal firing arc is a bit wider, the armor penetration of the gun is a bit higher—at a cost of slightly lesser mobility and a slightly longer reload time. You don’t have to adjust to this vehicle as its play style is familiar to the majority of tankers: an ambush TD with high one-time damage.” – WG’s statement

And now with that out of the way…

For those who are new or don’t remember, the Standard ISU-152 used to have a 152 mm BL-10 gun which was removed back in 2017 in the 9.20 patch and replaced for the D-4S on the basis that its penetration values were OP and for historical reasons.

Now, 3 years later, we see the BL-10 gun with the same penetration values as it did before but with overall better penetration than the D-4S making a return to tier VIIIs but instead as a Premium vehicle and people are really not having it!

Let me know in the comment section what do you think, I would love to read it.

Greetings,

Following up with the promise on the Cavalier that I would be further browsing the veracity in vehicles that Wargaming has added in recent times I came up with a very old issue, Wargaming’s World of Tanks lifelong inability to develop smoothbore and recoilless rifled guns.

It got reminded about this subject that has been occasionally talked over the years and made its appearance in Q&As while taking a look at the LHMTV that was introduced in the summer of 2019.

The LHMTV  was designed with a hydropneumatic suspension just like the S-Tank which is something that it doesn’t have in World of Tanks and its armour is way over buffed as you clearly can’t have 60mm armour on such a small vehicle that only weighs 4 tons.

But the biggest mishap in the LHMTV in WoT is actually its gun, this vehicle was designed to have equipped a 120mm recoilless BAT gun as its primary role is reconnaissance and totally not meant to be trading fire unless it had no other resort:

Instead of the recoil being absorbed by the breech and recuperators sending the gun backwards, the hot gas is ejected out the rear at the same velocity equalizing the recoil, Newtons 3rd law, simple science.

120mm recoilless BAT gun

 

Wargaming, for many years now, has refused to add recoilless and smoothbore guns.

The excuses/reasons given as far as back in 2013 in Q&As by Serb on Recoiless Rifles was due to their the penetration inflation;

Recoiless Rifles’s typically use HE, HESH, HEAT – these also have typically very high penetration offset by relatively low velocity.

A somewhat valid argument given that the guns were moderately more realistic with their historical penetration back in those days but the parameters and development standards have decreased as years drove by and at the present time, they frequently make up damage, aiming and penetration values, which makes the original point irrelevant.

On the Smoothbore guns, the argument that it “is too modern” has been given, an example:

The idea that smoothbore guns are too modern is also hogwash as many smoothbore guns were developed and used in WW2.

The 8cm PAW, as an example.

They were however somewhat inaccurate and also suffered from low velocity, but this is not an issue for shaped charge rounds which do not lose penetrating power over distance.  As tanks and combat ranges progressed, most wanted long-range fire and accuracy and rifled guns of the period were better for this, with later computerized systems and ballistics, the smoothbore once again came into play, able to fire both HEAT more effectively (you can fire HEAT in a rifled gun, just not as reliably and later APFSDS which prefers smoothbores.

Perhaps their argument could have been made on the basis that shaped charge is “too modern” but shaped charges have been in World of Tanks since forever not to mention that WoT now goes up to the mid 70’s in terms of technological armoured development and reactive armour has been around since 1955, the point is once again irrelevant, null and void and in all honesty and respect, a load of bollocks.

To conclude, are they too lazy to develop something new and over their heads with a much -community- disagreed upcoming New Balance?  Do they think, we, the community, are stupid enough to accept their unplausible arguments or they are actually being honest with us and simply do not understand how Recoiless Rifles and Smoothbores worked in practice throughout the history of their development?  You decide.