Four Years of Blogging

Hello, everyone! It's been another year (technically two, since I forgot to do anything last year, oops). My blog continues to ramp up its readership, with 2,161,945 page views (compared to 879,901 last count) with 1381 published articles (up from 700). The demographics changed a little bit. The US is still at first place by a long margin, but the UK is neck to neck with Germany over second place. Russia, who used to be just barely hanging onto the top ten sprung up to a confident fourth, beating out Canada (still in fifth). Poland continues dropping, from fourth down to sixth. France is down from sixth to seventh, Austria and Finland switched places, a close race for eight place, and South Korea knocked the Netherlands off the charts to grab onto tenth place. 

World of Tanks related sites continue to dominate my referrer list, but organic searches are doing well too. My presence seems to have been felt on Reddit with more hits from video game and military history communities. I'm picking up steam in print media as well with citations in Armoured Champion and The Changing Nature of Warfare, 1859-1991: Perception and Reality. 

Content from Wargaming.net partner Warspot joined my traditional World of Tanks History Section lineup this year, bringing more bird's eye view coverage of various vehicles and weapons. I probably should have come up with a tag for them, but my oversight was corrected by my friends at the Tank and AFV News blog who dutifully keep a list of these translated articles.

Finally, there were some minor layout changes like collapsing long articles behind a "Read More" link and a wider content area to allow for "extra large" images and tables with readable font sizes! 

That's it for this year! Thank you for reading my blog and stay tuned for the big five year mark!

Shooting Backwards

One of the advantages of a tank over a self propelled gun is the ability to fire in a 360 degree arc. While firing forward is the typical use case, firing backwards can have some unexpected challenges. For example, the low bore axis of the L-10 gun and protruding muffler on the T-28 were a bad combination.

"Testing the L-10 gun in the cylindrical turret shows that the gun depression when facing the rear can be, at best, 0°, unlike the -4° or -5° that the gun allows for. The state of the L-10 on the provided prototype of the conical turret is the same."

...

"12 shots were fired at an angle of depression of -3° from two vehicles. While shooting towards the rear, the gases damaged the deflection plate above the muffler. The muffler on one tank shifted by 15 mm. In one case, the plate was hit by the shell. Damage from gases was also observed at elevation angles of +2°. Given the current design of the deflection plate and muffler, the L-10, characterized by its low bore axis, cannot shoot backwards not only at an angle of -3°, but even +2°.

In addition, when shooting across the side air intakes with an active fan at a depression angle of -3°, the fan slowed down for the duration of about one second."

Kirov Factory Prototypes, March 1941

"Report on the progress of experimental tank armament work from February 20th to March 20th, 1941

Object 220 KV-4 100 mm

The experimental prototype is awaiting the arrival of the V-5 engine from the subcontractor factory. Assembly of the second prototype has not started due to a lack of finished parts. The factory already began producing parts for the second prototype. The parts are in the initial stages of mechanical production. Since the plants are highly loaded with mass production parts, it is likely that the full set of parts for the prototype will not be finished in March. The turret for the second prototype is currently at factory #92, where designers from both factories are working on installation of the gun and combat equipment.

The Amazing Strv 103

The Strv 103, also called the S-Tank, is Sweden's trademark tank. A lack of turret, fixed gun with an autoloader, active suspension, three driver positions (one per crewman), these are only some of its unusual features. Swedish tank designers managed to surprise the world. However, the Strv 103 didn't come out of nothing, and a significant portion of the components that went into the tank came from experimental vehicles. How did Sweden assemble this industrial "Lego set"?

World of Tanks History Section: Star Over Kharkov

An enormous breach formed in the Soviet-German front after the encirclement and defeat of Paulus' 6th Army at Stalingrad. Another breach formed soon after, as a result of the Voronezh-Kastornaya Operation in January of 1943. This second breach was very tempting for the Soviets as it opened up a route to liberate Kharkov and the Donbass.

At the same time, Manstein was desperately holding onto Rostov-on-the-Don, saving the German 1st Tank Army. Even the tried and true German technique of shortening the front to increase the concentration of forces wasn't enough to resolve this crisis. The only weight that could tilt the scales in the Germans' favour was the injection of new forces.

Mysterious British Tank

The Soviet Union had an extensive network of intelligence agents in Great Britain, who were able to recover a great deal of information that the British weren't willing to hand over themselves. Sometimes that information was accurate, sometimes not so much.

Heavy Tank Costs

"To the Chief of the BTU, Military Engineer 1st Grade, comrade Korobov

Following decrees issued by the Government, the Kirov factory is building a series of experimental vehicles without having any contracts for them. Letter #6109 sent on November 15th, 1940, asked you to send these contracts. Letter #2239/s sent on February 20th, 1941, repeated the request. Nevertheless, we have not received any contracts from you.

I am sending you a report of the approximate cost of experimental works performed by the Kirov factory in 1941 regarding Objects ##150, 220, 221, 212, and KV-3, for the sum of 5,350,000 rubles in total. Please send us the information to issue bills regarding these projects.

Blocking Detachments

Hollywood likes to show Red Army blocking units as ruthless killers that machinegunned down anyone who took a step back from the front lines. In reality, their job was a lot less bloody and a lot more mundane:

"Top Secret

To the Military Council of the Central Front

The commanders of the 21st Army lost control over their forces. As a result, there is an increased number of military personnel retreating haphazardly without orders. A difficult situation was created at that point of the front.

On August 16-17th, the operational staff of the Front organized detainment of those retreating along roads.

76 mm M7 Gun Trials

"Conclusions

The conclusions of trials of American armour piercing-tracer M-62 shells against armour described in table #17 and illustrated in the graph shows that:

1. The penetration quality of American 76 mm AP-T shells can, under favourable conditions (angle/distance), effectively penetrate targets (tanks, SPGs, bunkers) with armour up to 120 mm thick.
   The penetration quality of domestic 76 mm AP-T shells (blueprint #2-09038) allows for effective penetration of only 100 mm of armour under identical conditions to American 76 mm AP-T shells.

Char B1 ter: Pointless Modernization

In 1936, only two years after a decision was made to put the Char B1 into production, work on its modernization began. Mostly, it entailed improving the armour and armament. In April of 1937, the first modernized tank, indexed Char B1 bis, left its Renault assembly plant. It was destined to become the most numerous medium tank in the French army, although many of its parameters put it in the heavy class. Nevertheless, even before it entered production, discussion about a deeper modernization that would create an even heavier vehicle began. This vehicle was called Char B1 ter.