Monday 7 September 2015

"It's a Fake!" - Chinese Fake Edition

Hello warriors,

you know what really grinds my gears? World of Tanks double standards. Take the Chieftain. As you know, it'll be arriving soon (9.11?) and Wargaming went to great lengths to make sure it's completely historical. They contacted Bovington where the Mk.2 Chieftain was supposed to be and much to the "amusement" of some of the developers, it turned out that Bovvies mislabeled their Chieftain and it's actually a Mk.6 - with so much effort invested, Wargaming decided to rename the ingame Chieftain to Mk.6 - and that's it.

Of course, the reason why the Chieftain was implemented in the first place was that its predecessor - FV215b is a Wargaming fake (there was no such project with a 120mm gun anyway). Storm announced some time ago that WoT would eventually get rid of all the fake vehicles (well, except for the E50M because there's apparently no replacement for that - plus, it's not a total 100 percent fake).

Hue hue hue, as it happens, that promise didn't last very long.

Enter Type 59/Patton hybrid, a fake. Or, is it a fake?






Yea, it's a fake. Not a Wargaming one though. Basically, WG got "info" from its Chinese partner (Kongzhong) that such a vehicle existed. What a coincidence! A model that re-uses existing model parts for cheaper production (like the T95/Chieftain hybrid - that's not a fake though, that was actually considered). Naturally, this tank did not come with any historical references, only a short notice that it was considered.

After inquiries with WG developers and Chinese armor experts (everyone's answer being *shrugs* and silence), we can safely assume Kongzhong made this shit up. Alright, fair enough - Chinese market doesn't care. But why on earth would anyone introduce Chinese fakes to the western market? It's not like there aren't better candidates for hightier premiums (*cough* US TD *cough*).

Long story short, it's a fake. It's not a bad tank (based on the testing performed), just made up. Really, Wargaming...why not leave Chinese fakes for the Chinese market?

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