Graviteam

But has anyone here been having a look at the development of War Thunders tanks? While I don't expect it will be at the level of this, it's looking like it could be good fun, especially since this game has no multiplayer. Could be interesting.
http://warthunder.com/

I'll be first! ;D
This game looks good, but some doubts are cast upon it. It has many tanks and aircrafts and I'm pretty sure, if someone wants to make as bigger as possible, then be prepared to see arcade or smth. or another WOT.
Of course, we need to check it out first. Did somebody already played in this game?

I've played the aviation components, and the historical battles and full-real battles are rather good. They are expecting engangement ranges of up to 10km, and plenty big maps, it seems like it has potential. Shame more people don't play FRB at the moment, hopefully the numbers will rise.

norm, could u prepare a short description how to install the game, what should be d/l to start? I'd like to give it try.
Thanks in advance.

What's FRB?

Finick FRB is the shorthand for "full real battle" Basically it is decided into three teirs of realism. these are how it is broken up for the aircraft. First is arcade, which includes simplified flight models, name tags always on, radar/minimap, and third person view available, teams made up of all nations and re-spawns. Then there is historical battles, which has larger maps, no re-spawn, national teams (so always allies vs axis, no Germans and Americans on the same side), and historical flight models, but with third person view, radar/minimap, and name tags still in place. Full real battles are first-person view only, no radar or name tags, and the historical flight models in place. I expect it will work similar for the tanks.

Lockie- go to http://warthunder.com/ and install from there. Tanks aren't included at the moment, only aircraft, but the first tanks are expected by the end of next month. They plan to have aicraft, tanks, and ships all available, and available to play only against their own types or combined arms with all three. It is free to play, but it does operate off of the usual free to play model of unlocking one's way down a tech tree. (they will be all vehicles that saw service from just before the war to Korea, though, few if any paper panzers like in World of Tanks)

Also, for the tanks here is some footage from the Igromir 2013 confrence, unfortunately it is in russian only, and the recording quality is pretty bad, but it is interesting to see some proper gameplay (this is in the arcade mode) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foTmS4omfoE

I like the sound of this ;D

Hey Whukid! Good to hear from you! :D

Always think of you whenever I see you Late War Skins on one of my games.... ;)

Thanks for the explanation Norm. War Thunders looks very attractive but planes don't turn me on( I have Il2 which I never play).I am really waiting for the tanks to join....

I hope they'll spare us the mumble-jumble mismatch of T26 with JS-3, Maus and all the other tanks that never left the drawing board.

Thank u for the link! As I've understood this game supposed to be as aircraft simulator? And then developers decided to include a tanks and have a plan to include a ships? Three things in one bottle :)
I'll wait when tanks will be included and give it a try. According to the pictures they looks very good.

Something else to look forward to. It's an WW2 fps shooter but with WW2 vehicles playable and free-to-play. A cross between Iron Front Liberation 1944 and Red Orchestra. Looks promising through.

http://awar.su/en/games/iron-clash.html

Thanks Frinik ;D I'm finally done with all the retarded "no communication with the outside world" stuff, so I can come back to the forums once more.

I tried, but I didn't get tanks. :'( I talked to one of our staff NCO's about it, and he said it was because I scored too high on the ASVAB. Now, I'm an LAAD gunner. Not quite as cool, but hey, I get to shoot Machineguns on a regular basis, so I'm content for the moment. On the bright side, the only two places I can be stationed are in the beautiful hills of Camp Pendelton or in the fertile hunting grounds of North Carolina (cherry point). :)

I bought a refurbished Asus G55 for about $880, so now I can truly enjoy the latest Graviteam developments in all their glory. ;D I just have to get around to downloading them :P

OOOOH! You get to shoot 50 cal. MGs all day long???? :) How about Gatling guns, mini guns, vulcans etc????

 By the way how's the sound for the 50 cal. in SF compared to the real one???Good to hear you're with us and can share in all the fun!

One last question Whu; do you get to play America's Army 4 as part of your training? ;D

I don't believe I've heard the .50 in SF. When we go to the range I'll take a video so we can do a comparison.

No, we don't play Xbox 360. For our Stinger training, they put us in this huge dome and we practice with a Stinger mock up with a CO2 tank in place of a missile, and it provides the recoil. Same thing with all the weapons that we qualify with before we go to the range; they put us in what's called an "ISMIT", and we shoot machineguns hooked up to compressed air tanks

Don't even get me started on the army. Those little f*cks get liberty and icecream.... in bootcamp!  >:(

Oh America's Army4 I not available for pcs????

You are in the reserve right?

Nope :) Aktiv duty for the next 3 1/2 years at least

Nope Aktiv duty for the next 3 1/2 years at least

Well at least you'll have your G55 as a faithful companion for your leisure time or furloughs! ;)

Not when I was in the Army(Infantry). ???

Back in the Summer of 81,I went thru what was called OSUT(One Station Unit Training) at Ft. Benning Ga. Sand Hill.
14 weeks with only 1 pass,no ice cream,candy,soda cakes etc... and we were only allowed to visit the PX once a month in platoon formation and only allowed to buy basic toiletries,boot polish and Brasso etc...
If you bought anything other than those items they would be confiscated.

We trained from 0400 till 1900 every single day except Sundays and were expected to clean everything on that day.
And had to stay within the confines of the barracks area.

We were allowed no vistors,TV or newspapers during those 14 weeks either.

We got one pass the week before we graduated from OSUT to go into town for 12 hours and all most of us did was sleep.

Hey! Sounds like my bootcamp! I guess the saying "The Marines is always a couple decades behind the army" is totally true

It's been awhile since I went thru OSUT.

But I think on our last monthly visit to the PX we were given 1/2 hour to get in buy what we wanted and needed and maybe look at some magazines and then get back into formation.

If you bought candy or sodas you were expected to eat them while in formation before that 1/2 hour was up.
After that all contraband was then supposed to be trashed or was confiscated before we started marching back to the barracks.

Anyone caught with these contraband items back in the barracks area was subject to an Article 15.

Meh. We didn't have the ninjapunch threat. They'd just smoke the shit out of us if you had anything in the squad bay after Liberty Sunday

This sounds like the Swiss schools of my youth.... ;D

the vehicles that will be the first avalible: http://warthunder.com/en/news/294-War-Thunder-Tanks-Tech-Trees-en

Great line-up! But I note with dismay that they cloned WoT by adding fictitious( in the sense of production and deployment) tanks like the Tiger II with the KwK46 and the Panther II and on the Soviet side post WW2 tanks JS-3/4 and T54s ::)

This is precisely what I am afraid is coming; a race to the bottom to please the unwashed masses who want to play an fps with arcade tanks and of course all want a Tiger II KwK46 or the T-54 to fight against T26s and Panzer IIIs....

Another question is how realistically are the tanks modelled ??? I am suspicious of the Russian tendency to balance the tanks to avoid giving one side the real life advantage( usually the German ones)  they actually had. Not to mention the monetary impulse to level the playing field to again please the unwashed masses who couldn't care about realism and just want to shoot them tanks!

I'll try it out but I have a nagging feeling that it's just a WoT in disguise..... :-X

Yes, but a WoT with amazing graphics.

Secretly, I have the same worry. All these Russian Tank games are great, except they seem to be the new propaganda arm for the Kremlin. What better way to indoctrinate the young minds in the West than through their favorite form of entertainment?

This is a great list! Personally, I'd like to test Pz. Kpfw. 35t.

Secretly, I have the same worry. All these Russian Tank games are great, except they seem to be the new propaganda arm for the Kremlin. What better way to indoctrinate the young minds in the West than through their favorite form of entertainment?

That reminds me of an article I read a couple of days ago about the Kremlin which has decided to fund video games that will give a "positive " image of the Soviet/Russian Army". Apparently the Kremlin is upset that games such as Men of War and others which depict the Soviet Army in an unfavourable light. Thus in a country where 35% of the rural population does not have access to modern sewage and usable roads the Kremlin sees fit to invest $ 70 million to support new video games. The first project is about a WW1 Russian aircraft sim which is due next year.... ::)

Well, the matchups will depend on what gamemode is being played, in arcade it will be fairly spread (using a teir system) and non-national teams, where as full real and historical battles would have more of a narrow window of combatants meeting each other. And there was a system of historical missions added in the last patch, senarios that only allow the use of aircraft that historically took part in the battle which will carry over to the tanks, so if there is a mission set in kursk, then you could only select vehicles that took part.

They do go from pre-war to Korea with their trees though, so I am curious to see what will be done for the germans at the higher teirs, there will probably be some paper panzers, so that they can be competitive in Arcade, but if you play full-real, and especially the missions listed above, one needn't worry about meeting them. And also rest assured, there are plenty in the war thunder community that are pushing for as few paper panzers as possible, as they don't want to see this become WoT either.

T-70 vs Pz VI  ::)  ;D  8)

Good to hear Norm!

Mmm, here's hopeing it works out well. I have had some problematic match-ups in past with the aircraft, but beta is beta, and they are still working on match making, and as the player base expands, the more numbers playing can only help the matchmaking, And of course, if there are enough of us, we could always set up our own custom battles with each other. ;)

Does it mean we can play with infantry, AA guns, mortars, mg's etc?

All we know will be released at the moment are the vehiles in the two screenies I linked, but it is thought that things like self-propelled arty, half tracks, and armored cars will be added as playable. I doubt there will be playable infantry, but there should be at least some AI, as they already have them in the air portion of the game right now.

Im afraid its just gonna be a World of tanks 2, just another name but better graphics. Not a sim or sim-like at all :(

It won't be a tanksim without infantry and other military techniques. Anyway, let's see.

PS
As my point, in case of tanksim, there should the condition of the equivalent.
I.e. we've a battle at Kursk. There are two units available for the users:
- Pz V
- T-70
In SF there is a parameter of the `weight`(how much the tank cost). In case of the `Panther` it equals `800`. In case of the T-70 it cost `250`.
It does, if we paly PzV vs T-70, then user who plays for the T-70 must has under control 800/250~3 tanks.
Finally:
1xPzV vs 3xT-70
And I'd double it:
1xPzV vs 6xT-70

BTW
We could check this condition in SF ;)

Then if it's going to be a WoT "deluxe" I am going to skip it. I think I'll wait for this one instead:
http://awar.su/en/games/iron-clash.html

As well there's an Iron Front 1944 revival project going on which aims to improving the AI, remodeling the vehicles( although they are pretty nice already) , adding new physics and ballistics, adding new content and even upgrading it to Bohemia Interactive's new game engine used for Arma3.....

I'd rather play good WW2 fps shooters which have good armour you can use and play and have user-friendly mission editors than some fancy fps tank game made for teenagers and casual players who just want want big booms, big guns and easy play. :( :(

hehe exactly as you said  :D

Although quietly think of the War Thunder will be slightly surprised  :o

My favorite weapon in Red Orc was the Sov AT rifle. I once hid under a KOed PzIII and potted several of his pals with point-blank flank and rear shots. Good hunting. My next favorite was the JS-2 for lobbing 122 HE into the turret ring of astonished Tiger IIs.

I will give this a try. The line-up is definitely to my taste with an excellent variety of early to late E Front. Graphics look good.

What I long to see is a tank sim with controls as reliable as the finest flight sims. If SF's controls were as reliable as those of IL-2 or Rise of Flight, it would be a world-beater, but too many times the controls do not work as they should in a crisis, and you buy the farm. TVT's controls are more reliable, and you are able to do things in it you can't in SF because you have to compensate for a possible control foul-up in SF. SF has TVT beat in the details, and, with the mods, in variety.

We ought to form an SF company, and eat the unwashed alive!

AFAIK it's possible in `Steal beasts`, but the game has only modern tanks.
SF is completely obsolete and without source code of the game engine, it's impossible to change anything, except adding a new units/objects.

Steel Beasts also is old but unlike SF it's been continuously supported by the developers ( no criticism intended for Graviteam ; they were shafted by their editors in that one...) and upgraded albeit at great expense( in terms of price to have to pay for both the game and updates).....

Hey Alyosha!, did you make it home?  -reminds me of the russian movie "Ballad of a Soldier". ;D

SF has TVT beat in the details, and, with the mods, in variety.


SF AI is also way better than either TvT's or the old R.O.( not sure about the new one). But the maps in TvT MP were great, so large and Zeewolf has made even bigger maps for his mods....

Yes, they Germans never thought of looking under one of their own tanks for a AT rifleman. I had a good laugh. I saw "Ballad" in 1972. Doesn't it start with the protagonist running for his life while being chased by a (mock up) Tiger I?

SF's AI does so many brain damaged things it is often like watching The Keystone Kops, but then it can do something pretty intelligent. TVT is so scripted there are few surprises unless you haven't played for awhile.

I see this movie also,  perhaps in 1972, don't remember exactly.
Well, as my point, movie is always a fiction, allegory. Some kind of the battle a good vs evil. Mentioned movie had excellent scenario and actors playing. As for fake `Tiger I`(suppose it was T-54) it's just a dummy element, same with AA rifle.

TVT is so scripted there are few surprises unless you haven't played for awhile.

Scripted all right with absolutely no variation in the missions. Also the AI could so dumb. I remember once looking for the T34s and then I found 3 of them in a clearing just whirling about in circles.Killed all of them without one even firing back at me... ::).

Unfortunately, almost the same situation in SF with a soviet tanks IS-2. The AI is absolutely stupid, don't want to kill infantry with MG(almost always try HE shell) and try to be close with enemy inspite the very slow reload of shell. Idiotic situation.

BTW
What abt in APOS? Does it has IS-2?

BTW
What abt in APOS? Does it has IS-2?

I wouldn't think so it takes place before the first JS-2 appeared on the battlefield.

Great picture!
(http://i44.tinypic.com/ivzgh5.jpg)

Hi tankers
                 thought I would put iron front 1944 back on and patch it through and see how it goes. All I can say is thank god for steel fury and the modders that have made it what it is today. That is the best ww2 tank sim. Iron front for me is very disappointing for many reasons. As a tank sim
for me it doesn't compare. I know it is a fps as well but it just doesn't do it for me on either tank sim or fps. long live SF     

 To be truthful I considered purchasing Iron Front Lib 1944 since I already own Arma Cold War Assault and Arma II Combined Ops with the excellent WW2 i44 mod but after reading about all the bugs in IFL44 I decided not to purchase it. Apparently there's s project going to on to improve on the game engine and iron out the bugs.
Then I may reconsider.

SF anyway cannot be compared; it's only SP and unlike IFL44 the tanks being the centrepiece of the game are more polished with better and more realistic features. IFL 44 was never intended to be anything other than a combined arms tactical shooter/sim not a tankim.

Yes I know what you are saying. Forgotten hope 2 for me is a much better combo than iron front 1944. Now I know why I took it off in the first place. I was just reading somewhere where they said how great the tank battles were. So I thought I would give it a second chance. Talk about
propaganda!!! 
   

FH2.4 is fun but again the armour is typically BF2 style, no realism just another weapon to be used around what is essentially an fps-shooter. Still fun but MP focused and definitely not a tanksim....

If you have IFL 1944 you might be interested in this:
http://awar.su/en/games/iron-clash.html


It's supposed to be an improved IFL ... I hope it will materialise!

Did somebody manged to start the game with a tanks?

Promotional trailer released :http://vimeo.com/80399893 (http://vimeo.com/80399893)
There is a payed entry beta which I plan to get for chiristmas, which opens in december ($60 for early access to beta before it goes public, as well as various perks such as exclusive vehicle decals an exclusive vehicle, either a prototype T-34 if you buy the Russian one, or a trophy M4 Sherman if you buy the German, or $100 for all of the above). I plan to get this, would you all like if I post some of my reactions to it here?

Sure why not.... I don't think that game is for me but who knows your comments/reactions might sway me!

Hmm, tanks blasting away at each other from 20 meters.  How often did that happen?

On occasion, I'm sure. But anyway, it's a trailer, they supposed to look exciting, and watching a brawl is more exciting than watching a speck on the horizon fire at another speck. Anyway, trailers rarely are identical to gameplay, especially with multi-player games, so we will have to see how it plays out in full real battles/historical battles.

New development by the way, they are going to remove the 20 teir world of tanks esque teir system, over into grouping vehicles into 5 sections, pre-war (1) early war (2) mid war (3) Late war (4) and post war/Korea (5) which should help combat some of the wonky match-ups that some have been worried about (both in the War thunder community and mentioned here.)

I haven't seen any trailers, but the IGN gameplay had the tanks about 400m or so apart, and this was with Russian KV-1's. As long as they ditch the laser arty bullshit, it looks pretty promising

Whukid, in one of my last posts "Promotional trailer released :http://vimeo.com/80399893 (http://:http://vimeo.com/80399893)". It is a bit theatrical, I agree. And I also agree on the arty mechanic, though the IGN gameplay was in the arcade game mode, (the one closest to WoT), so hopefully that will not be in the more realistic modes.

It looks beautiful, everything: nature, tracks, muddy on the hull and soot on the barrel brake.
(http://warthunder.com/upload/image/Comp%201_00001.jpg)

The beta NDA has partially dropped, so you can now see some of the tanks and the arcade mode in action. I can try to grab some footage for you lot in the next week or so.

Would be interesting to have a link ;)

Right-o then, I'll get Fraps re-installed, I may be able to have some rough, uncut footage from tonight's/tomorrow morning's session, or if not then, next Wednesday/Thursday.

Looks like it will have to be next weeks session for footage, still trying to get the recording setup kinks worked out.

I have WT installed but I haven't tried it as air warfare just bores me.... Are we allowed to play the tanks in beta?

I would play WoT if it had a single player mode off-line, all those tank types WoT has would be great. My reason for off-line is I saw some in-game vids of people pushing around dead tanks as shields, so as in counter-strike it's not RL tactics but tactics exploiting the game engine. Head Shot!, came to mind -as a laughing 7 year old in a in jeep armed with a colt .45 kills me through the copula vision slot of my early Tiger 1 at 1500 meters 10 times in a row.

Years ago when my son played WoW, I asked if I would like WoW. He said, "Dad, no, it's NOT about game play, it is a social network".

Finik, the tanks have not been released into open beta yet, they are in closed beta. There is no announced open-beta release date as of yet. From my time playing so far, though, it feels far more realistic and convincing than world of tanks, and this is just the arcade mode. I'm really looking forward to the more realistic modes.

What abt. infantry(AT guns, APC etc)? Will it be included or this will be a battle only - tank vs tank? Some kind of `counter-strike`? I.e. in ArmA u can use tanks, guns, mgs, small weapons. It's more interesting then use only one tank.

No playable infantry or AT guns. But there are some AI AAA guns and such about the map, not tanks only. There is only the one map available at the moment, so we shall see what the others are like.

There's a video made by Sidestrafe ( for those of you who don't knowe him Sidestrafe is an avid gamer who makes high quality gameplay and review videos on his own Youtube production network about various shooters and sims like Red Orchestra, Arma 2 and 3, Battlefield 2 and 3, Iron Front Lib 1944) testing the Panzer IVF2 and giving his impressions... One thing I noticed and disliked; the reticle of the Pz IV is not the real one ; it's an arcadish, crosshair type.... I hope they will offer a realistic mode.

Here's the link:http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3889463/3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yajdS1Jj0Tg Some footage from the same guy. And Frinik, I've said they only have the Arcade mode in the test so far. The two more realistic modes will be coming before too long. This is the least realistic of the three. With your remark about the croshair, I don't know if they will have the historical gun sight for each tank, but there is a lot of support for that idea on there forums. This is early beta, so stuff with certainly change.

There's a reason why games like Iron Front and Kharkov 1942 are played years after their release, basically even if you can't find an online game you can fire up the editor and have fun without much fuss. These f2p's have become a cultural phenomenon and you either have to fork out the dosh or spend unreasonable amounts of time grinding to get a half-decent piece of armour. Is WT offering something over WoT in this regard?

The video seems to offer hope, especially if that's just the arcade mode. The T-34 seems to be a super tank though..

Plustar, there is a mission editor in War Thunder, so you can set up singleplayer missions, using any aircraft with out having to unlock them. There are also scripted and dynamic campaigns. Whukid, I might be bad at driving it, but I wouldn't call the T-34 a super tank, i've been one shot several times with mine. I might be awful with it though. :P

This is great! So, I may create my personal mission and play offline against AI?

Hopefully this is true with the tanks too.

Lockie I suspect the mission editor allows you to make user-made missions but only to play online against other players....

Any word on when tanks will get turned into an Open beta? Quickly tiring of airplanes

No announcement as of yet, I will pass it along when it comes. It's likely in January/early February. (surmise, don't take this as fact)

[edit] Here is some footage of the "realistic mode" (this is the intermediate of the three modes). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Ve_rm3Ir8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Ve_rm3Ir8) As always, beta is beta, and all is subject to change.

Only 60$ and u'll become a happy owner of the M4A2 with 505th Heavy Tank Battalion insignia!  ;)
Buy (http://online.gaijinent.com/story.php?title=War-Thunder_M4A2-Sherman_Advanced-Pack-1&_ga=1.82485782.1861962969.1388603783) it now!
(http://802616162.r.cdn77.net/img/screenshots/B59CBA67-427C-4ECB-AE15-CAA33BB0F4D9/big/2.jpg)

Oh no!  Lockie has turned into a salesman!

I need to sale 100 Shermans and I'll get free my lovely insignia of the 505 Schwere Panzer-Abteilung!  ;D
I'm thinking, may be I should buy 100 Shermans to get free insignia, still hesitating  ???

 Lockie try buying some brands of cereals often they give you free decals in the box as a surprise.... ;D

OK, but I need invitation in european country, i.e. Switzerland to get such ability :) Ukraine is still not in the Europe  :-[

Europe ain't all it's cracked up to be.  Once you get there you'll have to pay the salaries for two sets of politicians.  Those from your own country and those for the EU government in Brussels.  And then you have to send money to Greece. ::)

Sounds good for me!

 :D You'll fit right in.  Gotta convince a few people first though.

It's better then to pay money to the gangster family and be completely unprotected against their lawless actions.

PS
It becomes offtop. So, in case another reply of this source, I'll transfer some replays to the General Discussion.

If I may regale you all with two stories of a pair of rather good kills of mine from this evening's play session. I was driving a Tiger, and had set myself up in a good over watch position. A T-34 mod. 1942 drove into my field of fire, about 500 or so meters off. I take my first shot, which hits him, but merely damages him. He continues on, right to left, at a fair clip. Second shot loaded, and I fire. I hit his engine deck again, do not kill him, but set him on fire. He is now moving along at maybe 40 km/h (rough guess) with a trail of smoke and flame at this point. I'm a bit miffed about having not finished him off, and am about too look for a new target, when I see him fall off of a 20 foot or so ledge, into a gully I can't see. I watch his smoke trail move down the gully a short ways, when the fire cooks off his ammo rack, and sends his turret flying up out of the pit! Worth a good laugh that one was.

The second. I was in an Su-85, and I set myself up in a similar position to the one I had been in. I see a tiger out in the field below me, about 600 meters off. I take a shot at his side, which goes into his tracks, damages them, but does not immobilize him. He turns towards me, to evade fire coming in from his front, and I think to myself "damn, how am I going to penetrate this guy now?" With a new shell loaded, I aim roughly at his tracks, in the hope of blowing them off, so my team mates will be able to knock him out more easily. I aim at his right tracks, he is at about 550 or 500 meters now, and take another shot. The shot goes a bit wide of where I aimed, and hits him, and some how, penetrates! I still haven't worked out how, my guess is it went through the driver's view port or perhaps hit the turret ring. In any case, that shot knocked out his remaining crew members, and put that tiger out of the fight, as it rolled to a halt. Luckiest shot I've pulled off in any tanking game.

Norm , how do you get to play the tanks? I have WT installed but all I have are the damned planes which don't interest me at all. If I want a flight sim I can play IL2 which is probably better than this....

They are not publicly released (open beta) yet. Those who have access to the closed beta, including myself, can play with tanks twice a week. The tanks are expected to go public (open beta) some time in january/febuary, no date has been announced yet. You can get access I believe still by purchasing one of the two tank packs, which will get you closed beta access and an exclusive vehicle (a captured M4A2 or prototype t-34). Other wise, you will just have to wait till the public (open beta) release comes along, again, some time in January or February.

Soviet techniсs.
(http://s5.postimg.org/r8n1ph1xv/ussr_tank_tree_eng.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/r8n1ph1xv/)

You can get access I believe still by purchasing one of the two tank packs, which will get you closed beta access and an exclusive vehicle (a captured M4A2 or prototype t-34

MMMMM paying for one of these .... ;D Thanks I'll pass and wait for a public and free Panzer III auf J or IV F1/F2  ;)

Aye, perfectly reasonable. Panzer III is quiet a nice machine in this game, had a very satisfying Tiger kill in one the other day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCehwwgJRIw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCehwwgJRIw)

had a very satisfying Tiger kill in one the other day

You killed a Tiger with a Panzer III??????? :o

That's one of those occurences that bothers me about those types of games.

That's a game. There should be a compromise. In reality even IS-2 wasn't good against Tiger I.

And also it sounds a little ...fratricidal.

And also it sounds a little ...fratricidal.

That's run of the mill for games such as WoT and War Thunder.Players can adopt or get the tank they want and fight other tanks with the same country of origin even if its historically inaccurate.These games are fps with tanks and realism plays very little role...

That being said the modelling and physics/FX look very good, the maps also but they seem to be on the small side. My doubts are with the ballistics and the accuracy of the penetration and armour thickness values.I suspect they have been tweaked to level the playing field a little....

Guys, there is only the arcade mode available to test right now, hence the lack of national teams. If you select to play the simulator or realistic modes, you will not have German on German or Russian on Russian, the teams will always be national. You will only play with non-national teams if you choose to.

And as to how I did it, it was a flank shot at about 20 meters range. I found in steel fury that I could consistantly kill Tiger 1s with T-34 mod 1941 and 1943, if i got close along side, and aimed just above the track, just behind the drive sproket, and the round will usually penitrate and disable the tank in one or two shots. In the match with the Pz.III, I was in a defensive position, guarding a road that I knew the other team will be coming up. A tiger came up the hill, and did not see me to his left. I aimed at that spot, and the hit went through and damaged his transimition and killed a few  crew. I took a second shot and  knocked out his crew and finished him off.

But guys, please remember, that the fratricide is only in the ARCADE game mode, if you choose any of the others, Fratricide is not the objective.

That's a silly compromise.  In reality the IS-2 had a good chance but the Pz III had almost no chance.  There's no reason to change that just because it's a game.

Again, Tanker, Arcade mode, the penetration and ballistics will behave more realistically on the more realistic game modes.

As explained by Norm the circumstances make sense.If he was barely 20 metres away from the Tiger I and aimed at a weak spot on the less armoured side of the Tiger then a kill at 20 metres isa entirtely plausible.The 50 mm shell of the Panzer III could punch through 80mm of steel at 500 metres...

As for the JS-2 it would stand reasonable chances against a Tiger at any distance provided it got to shoot first! Considering the long reload times; 19 to 25 seconds, depending on the model ,and only 28 shells available I think the crews would not want to fight a duel with a Tiger but rather ambush /surprise one.

True. The update that came out before last nights session increased penetration for the tiger to be even more accurate to reality, so god help you if a Tiger is firing at you with any sort of range advantage.

I must say, for all the faults of the arcade mode, the realistic modes seem to be pretty decent as far as air combat goes. I have high hopes for the ground release.

I have tried playing the aircraft part and I get lock ups and freezes... :(. My desktop is up to snuff and can play Arma 2, Crysis and  BF3 at high settings.

Huh. What graphical settings are you running on? Might be worth having a look around on their forums for an answer.

Res 1980 X 1020 Res. Vsync turned off and only multisampling AA. My system is good enough with an Intel i7 860 , quad core 2.8 ghtz processor, 8 gbs of RAM and an ATI HD7750 1 gb gddr5 memory. I can play Crysis , BF3 and Far Cry 3 at that res and these are demanding games...

Huh... Well, I'm afraid I'm not much of a tech guy, so it would probably be best to try on their forums or contacting their support...

KV-85 looks cool!
(http://warthunder.com/upload/image/1000x700/Is-1_hd_1.jpg)

PS
To say the truth, I'm not sure this is KV-85 :)

I think Lokie that this t-34 last modification. :D

I think this is IS-1. There were built abt 100 units.
(http://milday.ru/uploads/posts/2011-07/1309616547_8888.jpg)

It just IS-85 (IS-1)
(http://s25.postimg.org/fqv9z6l5n/85_1.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/fqv9z6l5n/)(http://s25.postimg.org/4fsmateaj/85_2.jpg) (http://postimg.org/image/4fsmateaj/)

They have rotated out the later war vehicle, and put in some early war stuff for testing (all arcade mode so far, please remember) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikriz9MYecY (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikriz9MYecY)

It just IS-85 (IS-1)


What's the difference between the IS-85, the KV-85 and the IS(JS)-1????

KV-85 = chassis KV-1C + new turret(IS-85) with 85mm cannon

completely new tank IS-85(original name until the tank "IS-2")=IS-1 (After the tank "IS-2")

ok but if the KV-85 used the chassis of the KV-1 what chassis did the IS-85 use?

Plz, give me a chance to answer! :)
The chassis was the same as for KV-1, but there was a HUGE difference.
A new tank had a name JS-1 (Josif Stalin), the old one had a name KV (Kliment Voroshylov).
Guess what the the name of the tank had a principal favorite option? ;)

Kliment Voroshylov whom Stain had murdered.... Ok so it's clear; depending on the political wind the tank could either be the KV-85, the JS-85 or the Josef Stalin 1.....

K. Voroshylov died a long late after Stalyn in Dec. 1969
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kliment_Voroshilov

You are absolutely right! I guess I had Kirov in mind when I said that! :-[

Right, this should be the sort of gameplay you guys are more interested in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDqqoShE3TI

Played some of the new big map mode. Hnnnnnn sooo good.

Really looking forward to trying it out. Certainly not on the same level as Steel Fury, but for what it is, it looks to me like its shaping up to be something excellent.

Another good video of the Kursk map, with some good narration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql8dYQj90Hw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql8dYQj90Hw)

It 's still beta right? Which means the armour part of WT is not yet open to all???

Yep, I'm afraid it's still in closed beta for a little while longer, but they are will be opening more of the next month or two. If your keen enough, there is a second pack that will get you access, as well as 2,000 of the golden eagles premium currency, and two tanks on open beta release, the T-26e and Sd.Kfz. 140/1 for $20.

Thanks Norm but I am not paying anything for a free-to-play mmo like WT, WoT .
I am not passionate enough of either game to pay for it.

That being said there`s a very promising modern tank free-to-play coming up whose link I will post from my home pc....

Yeah Armored Warfare.

Right on Flanker15  ;)( does your moniker refer to the Soviet jet?)!

Armored Warfare looks quite impressive!
http://www.gamespot.com/videos/embed/6417825/

I've been following that one my self, hoping it will go down more the realism route that WoT ( I enjoy WoT for a bit of Arcade fun, but hopefully Armored warfare won't be the same thing). All in all, its a good time to be a Tread-head!

I have a good feeling about A.W. but to be honest you can never rely on first impressions nowadays. At least it's made with the Cry Engine which means top notch graphics and physics/effects! WT strikes me as another WoT but with better graphics and may be better gameplay but very removed from being a sim by any definition....

Well, A work in progress is a work in progress. Out of curiosity, now that there are the more sim type modes beginning testing, what makes you say that? I don't know how much WoT you've played, but even in the mere arcade mode Ground Forces feels miles beyond World of Tanks.

I'll eat my hat if AT doesn't turn out to be a modern WoT clone but yeah WT:GF is the most sim like of the 2, with actual damage models and engine performance and stuff.

As I've understood tanks became already available?
http://warthunder.com/en/news/508-CBT-streaming-allowed-en
We are happy to announce that Ground Forces CBT testers are allowed
to broadcast the CBT gameplay starting from March 28th 8am GMT!
(http://warthunder.com/upload/image/tank_920.jpg)

Still closed beta, I"m afaid. They are just allowing live-streams on sites like twitch like now.

I purchased a starter package and have access to the Beta GF  :D
I'll say one is good and even very good  ::)
Pantera massacre at a distance of 1600 m

But there is nothing better to shoot a few tigers with Su152  ;D 

I have posted a howto here:

http://theantisocialgamer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/war-thunder-cbt-tanks-howto.html

Some interesting vehicles added today, the GAZ MM with a 25mm AA gun for the Russians, and a Sd.Kfz. 6 a 30?mm FlaK gun for the Germans.

He came also stronger armor SU-85M  :D

It is a work in progress, and as someone mentioned earlier "the rendering is superb" in a SFK42 post.

Then you can fly ground attack planes above the Kursk defense map and contribute a verse to the big play.

To me, an effort has been made to combine weapons system and it is a step forward toward their "full war" concept.

The only missing player right now would be the infantry.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3954395/Warthunder_Ground_Forces_Open_#Post3954395

That's it it's finally coming! War Thunder Ground Force free-to-play Beta I here! MMMMMM sounds very arcady to me but I will give it a go nonetheless as I want to see how far they have pushed the balance realism versus arcade.. ;)

Downloading the 1.41 patch that allows you to play Grounds Forces.Damned!It's a 4.9GB thingy!!!!! ::)

I hope to see report from u with pictures ;)

I will do my best Herr General!

Tried the tutorial and not overly impressed like WoT or Panzer Elite Action you have some a circle ahead of your gun which is indicates where you are aiming. Tried playing a round and the game crashed because of corrupted files and I ended up waiting for another update 700 mbs to correct the problem.... Can't say I'll be spending lots of time on that one. Especially since I got Red Orchestra Heroes of Stalingrad for free on Steam....

Well, again, the gunsight view is much better for aiming, but I have been enjoying my time with it. Do be sure to play with the sim battle mode. So far my biggest dissapointment with the beta release is that we only have the one large map at the moment, and are stuck playing on the four little ones made for arcade... :/

Been playing WT:GF since it's release.  As a raw, initial offering in open beta, it's actually quite good.  Teething troubles and kinks are to be expected, but overall it's a very good product.

Things to note:  particularly for the crowd that plays games like Steel Fury with mods, Simulator Mode is really the only mode to be interested in when playing WT:GF.  Arcade Mode is too much like World of Tanks and defeats the purpose, while Realistic Mode (which, BTW, isn't all that terribly realistic) is only a bit less so.

The Kursk map is the one map that everyone in the WT forums - who plays in Simulator Mode - wants to play.  It is huge!  They need to put in more maps like this.  There are other maps, but they are much smaller and are more suited to playing in Arcade Mode.  Gaijin will be releasing more large, historical maps like Kursk in the future.

The T-50 is the "low tier" seal-clubbing tank of choice so far.  That thing is a beast!  Players either love it intensely (Russian tank drivers), or loathe it deeply (German tank drivers).

I think that WT:GF is definitely worth your time.  For the record, Steel Fury with the NTA mods is still my tank game of choice, while it's not as "pretty" as WT:GF, it still looks good, and plays more realistically.  Specifically, however, I hasten to add that the actual tank handling in WT:GF is more realistic, especially in regards to hull traverse.  I've always felt that tanks hull traverse in Steel Fury is far too efficient.  They all just whip themselves around very quickly, even on soft terrain.  WT:GF models this aspect much more realistically in Simulator mode, with some tanks with poor flotation taking an eternity to turn around, which is historically acceptable.

fair enough. I am glad to hear that War Thunder plans to add vehicle interiors, but it will likely be a while.

WarThunder is fun and isn't pay-to-win much to my delight. However the game modes are very limited at the moment. Do they plan to add extra modes? But I suppose there's only so much you can do with tanks only (and the occasional AI planes)

Hopefully some more modes would be implemented, don't know, though. Would love to see some multi-stage attack/defense maps. The most pressing issue at the moment I think is a better implementation of the combined ground forces/air forces, and more large maps on the scale of Kursk. The little arcade ones grow tiresome.

Played the Kursk map for 2 rounds and not impressed even in simulation mode. The gun sights reticles are just crosshair for all tanks absolutely no effort to be realistic, there's no tactics just a general melee on the battlefield and every man for himself. It' like Call of Duty on tanks! With the gun play the way it is there' no time to adjust your reticle or even ambush it's just a shooter on tanks....  It's clearly it's not for me.... I can play fps which are more suited to my taste than this.

I mailed the devs about adding in historical reticles etc  and they confirmed its on the 'to do' list.

They want to eventually have as much detail in the tanks (gunner view only) as the cockpits of the planes.

They also would like to have crewable positions like in the bombers.....but that is more a wish than likelihood

I was hoping for WT to be WoTkiller. Sadly it isn't. I'm not convinced of oneshot kills, in a multiplayer game. It's ok in Steel Fury. But it just doesn't work in WT. My dream would be multi in Steel Fury. That would be ballsy. Platoon of KT, one JgdTig and 2 Elefants... All controlled by human brains.

Mmm, that would be an ideal thing.

Actually, I don't understand how possible to make fight i.e. Pz.6 II vs T-34/85  ??? KT has a superior over soviet tank, it goes without saying.
There is only one way for such confrontation - Operation Star, Graviteam. But it'll be no tanksim anymore, it is tactics.

Not sure I'm following you there, Lockie, you mean in WT? The fellow in the T-34/85 has to play smart, and get to a position where he can hit the Tiger from it's weaker points. It goes with out saying that if you take a King Tiger head on in an 85 your dead, but play to your strengths.

T-34/85 has no chance vs Pz6II. This duel will not be equal.

But how often during the war was it 1 T-34/85 vs 1 KT? Probably never, Thats what he mean. If there is a platoon of 3 KT they are going to face probably 10 T-34/85 =)
And that is pure tanksim!
Wot style is one vs one and there are even odds :D

It was very situational.  On the wide open steppes, with great ranges, the odds favor the 3 KTs versus the 10 T-34.  In restricted visibility with cover and low ranges, the odds shift towards the T-34s.

I think I'm getting bored, will likely quit before unlocking the Tiger (which requires an insane amount of grinding haha) Maybe I'll revisit when they offer more modes.

Hi All,
I am playing war thunder at the moment. I am enjoying it a lot more than WOT the whole game seems to flow a lot better and as for eye candy it beats WOT hands down.
There is a group of around 15 of us playing in realistic and simulator battles  (I play arcade for a bit of none serious fun) and we have a ball.

I have heard that the dev team will be making interiors for the tanks which will come in time you may have noticed when you turret blows off you see the insides of the turret this is just the start of the interiors.
All in all it’s  not to bad and a bit of fun.. Maybe I will see u on the battle field

O_Smiladon

ps hope all is well with you lockie

I may give it another go although i have got so many free games recently ( Red Orchestra 2, Sniper Elite 2, Iron Front Lib 1944 Lite) I can't decide which to play. :o

Give it another go when they add some more maps.

Give it another go when they add some more maps.

Sounds like a good suggestion!

I've been trying the new map on the Dev server, Carpathian. I'ts quite pretty, 4 square KM, with rolling hills, patches of Forrest and trench works, and the ruins of a castle. Looks like it provides a nice mix, some good cover and concealment, but also long sight lines.

How?!

How?!

????????? ???

All of those for free?!

Yes Sir!  ;) I picked up Sniper Elite2 2 weeks ago when it was free for 3 days on Steam.Red Orchestra 2 along with the expansion Rising Storm - both SP and MP - I picked them up on Steam for free back in May when Tripwire Interactive offered them for free for 5 days. As well Origin offered BF3 for free for 4 days at the beginning of the month so I picked it up for my son Nikolai as I already own the game but he is not allowed to play my account. I also picked up Dead Space for free on Origin 6 weeks ago. Iron Front Lib 1944 Lite( low textures only MP no SP campaign) is still available and if you are interested I can give you the download link. As well I got the game Lost Alpha, a stand alone game based on the famous Stalker series of game, based on the very popular game Stalker the Shadow of Chernobyl made by a Ukrainian company...I also have the link if you want.

My advice: always cour Steam Origin and Ubiplay and Gog.com because they always have nice classics for free or on offer or even future game betas on offer!