ELC AMX - the ultimate troll machine

Hi everyone !

It is time to start introducing my minions. First of them and my personal favourite in World of Tanks is ELC AMX - french tier 5 light ... tank ... or is it a tank ? I will answer to this later, now a bit of history.

ELC project was french initiative aimed to create something lightly armored but heavily armed with capability of being transported by air. Sounds like rocket on wheels - doesn't it ?

Development started in 1955 in GIAT Industries which now is known as Nexter company. There were several prototypes created but it never entered service. "Tank " weighted merely 6 tons and depending on version was 4,95-4,97 m long, 2,24 m wide and 1,43-1,58 m high. These numbers are comparable to cars dimensions, I found a photo on Japanese blog http://gamenewstl.blog.so-net.ne.jp which shows this machine in comparison to men - author I suppose.

6 tons of weight seems to be overestimated for something not bigger than Ford Mondeo. Version you see above is 1957  ELC AMX bis ( 1,58 m high ) armed with 90 mm d 915 cannon. There were also another variants like ELC 30 armed with twin 30mmm HS825 cannons and machine guns, ELC 75 armed with four ( 4 ! ) recoilless rifles, ELC Na2 armed with rocket launchers and ELC 90 - armed with 90 mm gun on which we will focus.

As you can see this "tank" has a turret, or almost a turret - because in could rotate 360 degrees only when  the vehicle was stationary - I suppose that one of reasons why it had to worked like this was because both crew members - driver and commander - were placed inside the turret. Just imagine driving in at maximum speed and rotating the turret driving blindly. Or better don't.

Enough of reality - how does it work in World of Tanks ? 

Firstly it is full of surprises.

First of which it can't be more different from its predecessor AMX-40 - aka the DUCK.

Now you know why it is a duck. AMX-40 is heavily armored heavy light tank. No - it wasn't a mistake, AMX-40 is classified as a light in game, but it has exceptional armor for its tier and is very, very slow with one exception - going downhill. And AMX-40 has a very weak gun with below average 74 penetration, ok 110 damage, and bad 0.46 accuracy. Myself I found AMX-40 quite boring to play, because lack of the speed means that you cannot react fast enough to the changes on the battlefield. Sometimes when the team is good, you will not be able to hit anyone, and when the team is poor - you cannot do much against 10 enemies circling you around. When you are top tier you can do miracles bouncing enemy shots - until someone decide to shoot premium ammo - then  you die.

 ELC AMX weights three times less then its predecessor while having stronger engine. Lets look at some technical data.

This thing has specific power 36,98 bhp per tonne - it is about the same as my car ( I know ... :/ ) - not much for a car but definitely a lot in tank terms - "tank", this word still doesn't suite this thing. This little thing can go 65 km/h so you could score a ticket. Traverse speed is 38 degrees per second - not bad either. In comparison to other tier 5 light tanks this tank has worse terrain resistance and it is one of few things against its mobility. Talking about other tier 5 tanks. ELC differs from every other tank you meet in the game. It isn't real light tank - it has no turret in game. You have just limited gun rotation 15 degrees to the right and left. Talking about the gun. It is exceptional for light tank. 90 mm on tier 5 ? It is heavy tank and td's caliber not light. It has massive 170 mm penetration on plain "silver" rounds and 240 mm damage. But just to stop you from killing everyone on the battlefield it has horrible aiming time. It says 2.9 s aiming time - but after each time you move aiming circle becomes so big that it takes ages for it to be smaller, and if you want to snipe remember to wait till it can't be smaller because if you don't you will miss.

So what about the armor ? What armor ? every other tank - even tier one can penetrate you. See yourself :

30 mm is max armor on this tank and this is the gun... 14 mm is the real top armor - don't expect to bounce anything. But be surprised when your tracks eat damage without doing any damage to you.

So to summarize it:

- No armor

- Great mobility

- To small for a tank

- Interesting gun

- No turret

Doesn't seem like a tank does it ? So what ELC AMX really is ? 

It is a sports car with a gun fitted in the middle. It is a Ferrari  disguised as a tank with red paint removed to improve its camouflage value. It is the ultimate troll machine.

This machine is so small that most of tanks can't even lower its gun to hit you when you are near them. This beauty gives as much fun from the game as it is possible. And you don't have to worry when you are fighting with vehicles three tiers higher than you - you can be happy that you will earn more experience from spotting and more damage to be done. It wasn't bad when this beauty was facing tier X tanks - your view range was lacking at this level but still - ELC is to troll. There are tanks with better view range, most of them have better radio, almost every tank has better damage per minute, they have turrets, more hp ... I don't care! I can spot one, circle around another and drawing their attention from my allies which can attack enemies weakspots when he is trying to hit me. ELC is great. Unfortunately I can't show you my replays on YouTube - my computer isn't game-focused and can't handle recording software with good framerate, but there are people that drive  ELC AMX better than me :

Seriously one of the best ELC replays ever by Polish player DominikWrobel uploaded by sirturok666, commentary is in Polish, but if you aren't from Poland just enjoy epic gameplay:

Another Polish player _Sakker_ posted on hallack05 channel:

Of course there is mighty jingles :

Hope you enjoyed it - write in comments if there is something more that can be added about this "tank".

See you in game CiasteczkowyPotwor on EU server.

World Of Tanks - how to eat this ?

World Of Tanks - probably you know what this term means, if you don't know and you are a busy man then ignorance is your strength. But if you want to face the best time eating thing computer industry has invented then feel free to follow the link I placed at the beginning. Everything you want to know is written on common Wikipedia  and on World Of Tanks Wiki.

From my point of view I can say more words about free to play model this game introduced. Creators says that it is free to play game, but to be precise its model business is freemium  because it has built in micropayments. By using real money you can buy premium features for this game, sometimes called "gold features", because "gold" is currency you can buy with real money in contrast to "silver" which can be earned by you in game.

First and most popular is premium account which allows you to earn more "silver credits" and experience from each battle. It is easily the best choice if you want to advance faster in game to highest level tanks, like if you want to get famous Maus as fast as it is possible and not lose much credits in game, because you have to pay with silver credits for ammunition, equipment and repairs of your tanks. On low level tanks - say up to 5th or 6th tier (there are tiers from 1 to 10) you will not be losing much money and each game will bring you profit if you play well, on higher tier battles (with better tanks) battle lost will definitely make you loose credits and on top tiers even battles won might force you to subsidize your mighty Maus with silver credits. But I recommend you not to rush for the top tier as fast as possible. Stay on lower tiers - like 4th, 5th - and LEARN TO PLAY. Exactly. World Of Tanks is team battle - it means that in normal battle 30 people from all around the world is gathered in one place in cyberspace, divided into two teams of 15 players and want to have fun and put their tank skills to the test. Don't be the one who will spoil the game for the rest of your 15 people team and make the time they spent on researching modules for their tanks and training crew skills thrown away. Pick up tank line or lines you feel good at, play them as long as it takes for your crew to get to 100 % and get one bonus skill. Feel how it is to be the one who changes the outcome of the battle. There is currently over 30 maps implemented in game, each of them has two starting points, with at least few ways to get from your base to enemy base, each of them require different tactic form each of 5 class of tanks you can choose. So lets count 30*2*(lets say two)*2= 120 , this is minimum amount of battles you have to spend on one tank assuming that you play only once with each map configuration. But one map is often played 3, 5 or more time in a row. It is your own business to stay longer on lower tier vehicles and learn to play - it will give you much more satisfaction.

Another features paid with real money are premium tanks. They don't have to be researched from first tier - you can just buy even 8th tier tanks and play them. They give you bigger profits (silver credits), most of them fight with tanks not as strong as regular tanks. Tanks are chosen to battle according to matchmaking which for most tanks allow them to battle with tanks 2 tiers lower or 2 tiers higher than their tier. Some premium tanks fight only with tanks at tier not higher then theirs and some only with tanks one tier higher. There are also some premiums that have normal matchmaking. Don't rush now to buy the most expensive tanks you can get - be aware premium tanks are usually weaker than their tier regular tanks.

There are also premium consumables and ammunition. But to be fair they can be also purchased with silver credits, to be precise for a lot of silver credits. I usually carry few premium shells for outcome changing situations, but I advise you not to use them as much as possible. Why ? Because you will not be good player if you always be shooting premium shells. Premium doesn't guarantee that you can penetrate tank armor is just gives you better chance. Some tanks have armor that is hard to penetrate even with premium tanks, and some tanks can be angled in such way that everything will bounce. With regular ammo you have to think where to hit them to penetrate, you look for weakspots. Knowledge you gain playing with regular ammo will give you an advantage when facing stronger and more skilled opponents. An you will face them.

To summarize you can have the highest tier tanks with gold ammo, gold consumables, but this doesn't guarantee that you will win. Your skills and your team skills can do that.

It is up to you whether you want to spend your money on the game or not. From my point of view it is entirely possible to enjoy this game without spending money on it. See you on the battlefield - CiasteczkowyPotwor on EU server.

War around us

History of technology is unfortunately also history of warfare. During peace, army consumes a lot of each country budget - you can imagine what happens during state of war. More money for armament means more money for research to make "our" tanks, planes, guns ... better than "their".

Lets look around and think for a while - how many of your devices was invented by armies of the world as a civil side effect ?

Computer ? Yes of course !

Colossus first ever programmable computer was created by UK Army to help in cryptoanalysis of high level German messages - to be precise in cryptoanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Some say that Colossus was created to break German Enigma code - which is not true. Enigma code was broken by Polish cryptologists who designed and created device called "bomba" (eng. "bombe") which was developed by allies forces into Bletchey Park "Bombe".

Of course there was ENIAC - the most known computer, and first general purpose computer - or was it ?

Maybe later ... but it was created and used by and for US Army to calculate artillery firing tables.

Because of armies and wars you can read this text and play World Of Tanks.

You may say that even without wars computer would be invented and so on. And you are right, but conflicts just speeded it up at the expense of milions of people ... in both world wars it is calculated then even 100 000 000 people were killed. And there were another conflicts...

What is going on ?

Hi everyone,
I decided to create my own blog devoted to :

1. History, especially WWI and WWII, development of armament and technology
2. World Of Tanks - my favorite time eating thing, especially tanks, that give as much fun as this game can - my "minions"

Website will be reworked in few weeks - I need some time to sort my information and make videos from replays.

See You soon !

Test

Testing for including youtube movies

Youtube video you can see above was taken from Mighty Jingles channel - definitely the best World of Tanks ( and not only ) channel you can find - lot of action, fun, and food for thought from country where Monty Python was born.