I downloaded and played
World of Tanks over the weekend, after taking an almost 2-year break. The new graphics and overhauled maps are really nice. The audio seemed improved, too. But boy, was I bad. "Rusty" doesn't even cover it.
I did the
new player tutorial, which they hadn't implemented yet when I started, and it's not bad. It gives you the basic controls and introduces some basic battlefield concepts like flanking the enemy, aiming for weak points, and using bushes for concealment. Of course you mop up the enemy team of computer-controlled tanks in the tutorial and then get crushed like an empty beer can against real players in a real game, but that's PvP for you. For completing the tutorial, you get a couple of newbie tanks in the American, German or Soviet tech trees with trained crews, 500 in-game "gold" currency, and 4 days of Premium game time, all for free, so that's alright.
I drove my
British Cromwell medium tank first, which was one of my favorite vehicles back when I was playing regularly, and I was hopelessly lost. Its combination of quick-firing gun, thin armor and excellent mobility is ultimately how I take this game by the horns, but it's also "hard mode." I really need to know the maps, know the enemy vehicles, and be on my game. I could have been worse, but I was pretty useless.
So then I switched to my
German Dicker Max tank destroyer (aka "10.5cm K gepanzerte Selbstfahrlafette", but don't ask me to pronounce that) and had much better success.
I ended up 3-3 on the day, which wasn't bad considering how much I was flailing about.
From
an article on the Dicker Max I found online:
Development of the GpSfl IVa proceeded though with delay. By the time an evaluation pilot vehicle was being actively manufactured, the north of France (including the capital city of Paris) had fallen to the Germans. As such, the requirement for a bunker-busting vehicle dwindled to naught. By January of 1941, the Krupp concern had completed two pilot vehicles for testing though its future would seem in doubt at this point. Its fortunes changed when, in June of 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union through "Operation Barbarossa" and, while initial progress was excellent, a formulated Soviet response eventually introduced the famous T-34 medium tanks and, perhaps more importantly, the IS (Josef Stalin) heavy tank series in the IS-2.
The IS-2 was a monster of Soviet engineering combining thick armor protection reaching 120mm (4.7 inches) and a powerful 122mm main gun in a traversing turret. The vehicle had the capability to engage all manner of German types at range and posed an ever-growing threat as production and availability of the series increased. 3,854 of the type were eventually produced and these were followed by the improved IS-3 models which entered development in late 1944 though failing to see action in World War 2 altogether.
With this new threat, GpSfl IVa development continued though now under the direction that it be tested and completed as a self-propelled tank destroyer.
Purely coincidentally, a pair of IS-2s were among the enemy vehicles I damaged in one battle, although they were the Chinese variant rather than the Soviet original (the game isn't historical about matching vehicles against each other - it's pure, ahistorical anarchy most of the time). One of them ended up blowing my TD to Kingdom Come, but I gave better than I got.
