[UPDATED] Supertest: T 54D, Tier IX German Medium Tank [5 Oct ’23]
2 min readA new tier 9 German medium tank appeared on Supertest this morning:
IX 🇩🇪
T 54D
The T 54D is a Tier IX German medium tank. Based on the classic T-54, the model received massive screens for the frontal hull armor as well as for the entire turret. Additional screens also appeared along the sides of the tank’s hull.
The 100 mm D-10T gun has been replaced with the British L7 gun, boasting high penetration (268 mm) and projectile velocity, good accuracy (0.33), and aiming time (2.3 s). The price for this unconventional layout is the mediocre gun stabilization in motion and low traverse speed.
Such a serious increase in armor protection affected the vehicle’s weight and, consequently, its mobility, making the T 54D’s specific power (12.9 h.p. per ton) and maximum speed (45 km/h) lower than those of the T-54 or T 55A.
Historical Background
UPDATE: Some folks in the Tanks Encyclopedia Discord were able to dig something up on this vehicle since yesterday!
The T 54D appears to represent a real concept design for a T-54/T-55 armor upgrade package, developed by Blohm & Voss as a private venture in 1992 (one of several armor upgrade packages they designed around this period, along with ones for the Leopard 1A4 and M48 Patton):
To quote the source:
In 1992 Blohm + Voss announced that it had developed, as a private venture, a new passive armour system for installation on the former Soviet T-54/T-55 MBT
This armour package is of modular construction and mounted on the turret, hull sides and glacis plate with special shock absorbing mounting brackets.
Source: Jane’s Armoured Fighting Vehicle Retrofit Systems 1993-94
It is not yet known where this vehicle will appear in the game, though some have suspected it may be a future Battle Pass reward vehicle. Given its characteristics, I’d personally say this looks a bit more like a regular premium (not to mention we already have two German tier 9 Battle Pass reward vehicles [Kunze Panzer and Kpz 3 Pr.07 HK], as well as the Kpz 50 t from the now-discontinued Ranked mode), but only time will tell. Stay tuned for more info!
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