In the past I’ve made some videos discussing vehicles from the game World of Tanks and talking
about whether or not they are fake. Although there are plenty more vehicles in that game we
will continue to cover in future videos I felt it was only fair that we look at other games as
well. For today we will be talking about the fake or misleading vehicles from the game War Thunder.
Overall it's fair to say that Gaijin, the games developer, is less guilty of delving into fantasy
than their Wargaming counterparts but that's not to say they haven’t done it in the past.
To organize this video I decided it would be best to create a list of all the fake and paper
designs in the game. We’ll be starting with the least realistic tanks and ending with designs
that may be real but are not necessarily an accurate representation of the real project.
To start this list off we have to talk about the Panther II. Although this vehicle has since been
hidden from the main tree it remained for years as a German medium tank. Many will no doubt try
to argue that the Panther II is actually a real vehicle, which is true, but the one ingame is
completely inaccurate. The hull is pretty much the only part of this tank that isn't entirely
fantasy with the schmalturm turret and 88mm gun never being intended for the Panther II. As we
discussed in my video about the Panther II these components have been incorrectly added to the tank
due primarily to one author's mistake with some original documents. For the full story you can
watch my video on that topic but what that means for the tank ingame is that it is not what the
true Panther II would look like. Most likely the Panther II would have looked more like the Panther
F with a slightly different turret like this one shown in World of Tanks. The night vision
system it has ingame is also a bit on the fake side although an argument can be made that later
Panthers did get them so the Panther II in theory would have received them as well. Regardless,
I think we can comfortably label Gaijin’s interpretation of the Panther II as a fake.
Next up we move on to another of the hidden vehicles known as the Tiger II 10.5cm. Much
like the Panther II this tank is based on some real world designs and proposals but what we have
in game is more fantasy than fact. Also like the Panther II most of the issues with it are found
in the turret. For one thing the proposal to use a 105mm gun was never pursued with the gun never
being accepted. When you factor in the need for an additional loader as well as a larger breech
into a mostly unmodified turret we can start to see why this never got off the ground. This is
before we even mention the added rangefinder which further takes up precious space in the vehicle.
In fact if you look closely the breech already slightly clips into the rangefinder before you
even depress the gun so how this tank manages 8 degrees of gun depression is anyone's guess.
Last but not least this tank features a massive increase in horsepower to 900hp from the original
700hp of the Tiger II. Without the game specifying which engine the tank uses it is hard to say for
certain but most likely it would be an upgraded form of the Maybach HL230 which the Tiger II
already used called the HL234 featuring fuel injection to supposedly reach 900hp.
Keep in mind that according to an interview with Kniepkamp after the war this was done without the
air filter or any exhaust muffler so the final power rating was agreed to be 850hp. As with the
Panther II Gaijin’s Tiger II 105 is essentially a work of fiction. I will actually be returning to
this topic in the near future because there's a lot more to it than we can discuss in this
video so make sure you’re subscribed for that. The next, and likely most controversial, on my
list is the Ostwind II. Added as a replacement to the Flakpanzer 341, more commonly known as the
Coelian, this anti air vehicle is just the Ostwind but with an additional 37mm mounted alongside the
original. The controversial part of this comes when you dig into the history surrounding this
machine. There is some mention of a single example being made at Ostbau but despite quite a bit
of digging I have not been able to turn up any additional information regarding this prototype.
Even if this is true and the vehicle was built the one shown in War Thunder is inaccurate
as it is said that the only modification made to the original Ostwind turret was to enlarge
the front opening to allow both gun barrels to fit. What we see instead are two separate
slots cut into the turret with one for each gun. Considering Gaijin used the same source material
I’m using right now for some changes made to the Kugelblitz I know they must have seen this so the
choice to portray it differently is strange. I will admit this particular example is a bit more
of my own opinion regarding the vehicle but I feel that without more information I cannot confidently
say whether or not this design was real so until we can learn more about this vehicle I feel it is
arguably a fake tank. The vehicle it replaced ironically has more documentation with several
photos showing a mockup turret on the Panther hull although in fairness none were actually produced.
Following that on my list is Gaijin’s portrayal of the E-100. Although the E-100 was indeed a
real project which we already covered on this channel, the one in War Thunder is
highly inaccurate. As with the other tanks we’ve discussed this primarily is because
of the turret it's equipped with. In reality no turret was ever selected for the E-100 and even
though the Maus turret it’s equipped with would technically have been available it would not have
worked as it was too heavy. Although some of the original drawings do seem to indicate a Maus style
turret these were really just placeholders with the most likely candidate for the turret if the
tank was finished being a lightened version of the Maus II turm. The armor thicknesses
may not be accurate but the turret shown on World of Tanks E-100 is much closer to what would likely
have been used by the tank. So although it may seem on the surface to be a logical combination
the tank ingame is actually made less realistic by being portrayed with the turret from the Maus.
Next up is one that's a little more on the fence as to whether it can be considered a fake tank or
not. The Tiger II sla 16 is the only tank outside of the Ostwind II so far to still be available
for purchase ingame. Despite this, however, there exists little evidence that any of these
vehicles were ever built. The proposal to use the engine was indeed real and there seems to have
been some testing done with experimental engines including in the chassis of a king tiger. However,
this engine was a project between Porsche and Simmering, and with the most likely available
test hull being one of the Jagtigers with Porche’s suspension it seems unlikely that
a normal King Tiger hull would have been diverted for this test. So although there is some basis in
reality the Tiger II sla 16 as shown ingame is more along the lines of a “what if” tank than a
true portrayal of that project historically, at least from the information I could find.
I’ll leave it to you guys in the comments to discuss why the only
tanks on this list so far have been German but we do have a few more tanks to cover.
You can argue that some or all of the tanks I already talked about were paper designs,
but the remaining tanks are undeniably riding that line with some teetering more to one side
or the other. Probably the best examples of this are the Ho Ri prototype and Ho Ri production.
I mention this briefly in my video about the Chi Ri that there were indeed some designs
drafted up of a tank destroyer built on the Chi Ri chassis. However as these were never
built in any form that we know of it's odd to label one as a prototype and the
other as a production version. Both seem to be based on the wooden mockup of one of the
potential layouts with the rest of the design aspects being estimated or made up entirely.
We see a similar situation with the Italian SIDAM 25 Mistral which was a proposed upgrade package,
but seemingly was never actually built outside of mockups. The only photo of this vehicle not
taken from Arma shows only one launcher compared to the two it features in the game. Some of these
were reportedly ordered but it seems that none were ever produced. Although this definitely
isn’t an outright fake tank I still thought it was worth mentioning in the
context of this video considering the questionable nature of its existence.
The last tank on my list might surprise you since the T28 has become a well known tank
in recent years. Although it is technically a real vehicle this two track version of the T95
is not a separate tank. If you haven’t watched my full video on the T95 I recommend you do so
since it can explain a lot of the misconceptions about this vehicle's designation, but I’ll give a
short version for you here. Essentially during the development of the T95 the designation was changed
several times with it being referred to as the T28 or T95 depending on when you look at the project.
Although you can see real footage of the tank with the outer tracks removed this does not change the
vehicle's designation and this was only really intended for transporting the vehicle. In theory
you could likely operate the vehicle in this way in combat, but the increased strain on the
suspension would almost certainly result in issues for the tank. Like the Mistral this tank is not
quite fake, but I would argue the way it is shown in game is unrealistic bordering on pure fiction.
Although perhaps in the future we can come back and do a full video considering the historical
accuracy of War Thunder as a whole that gets a bit outside of the scope of this particular video.
As I’ve mentioned in the past I personally have nothing wrong with fictional tanks being added
to games especially if they are properly labeled as such. Unfortunately, many of the examples we’ve
looked at today, particularly the German ones, have almost undoubtedly contributed to the immense
amount of misinformation surrounding German tank designs especially in the mid to late war period.
To their credit many of these have been mostly hidden from the game now but clearing the record
about exactly what was wrong about their portrayal still felt important enough to me to warrant
a video. Overall most of these tanks aren’t entirely fake but the way they are portrayed
in the game is more fiction than reality. If you think I missed any questionable or outright
fake tanks let me know in the comments and maybe I can cover that in a part 2 to this video.
I’m sure the comments on this particular video will get quite spicy as in my experience war
thunder players don’t like any mention of the inaccuracies in the game. Thanks as always to
my channel members who support the content and to all of you who come back every week for my
new uploads. I’ll see you here next friday for another installment of fake tank friday.