Hello everyone,
大家好：
Right. I won't go into the entire convoluted history of the TVP program and will only outline the program in general. TVP means "Tank Všeobecného Použití" (lit. "Tank for General Use") and represents the only post-war development of a new, indigenous tank. It ran from 1945/46 until the 50's when the Soviets stopped it and produced a number of interesting proposals.
是的，我不会在这里把TVP计划整个曲折的历史都讲一遍，只是做个概述。TVP的含义是“通用坦克”，是唯一个战后研制的、全新的本土坦克。该计划始于1945/46年，等到1950年代被苏联叫停时，已提出了一些有趣的提案。
This tier 8 vehicle is the earliest known stage of the program. How it came to be: in 1945, the newly re-eastablished Czechoslovak army was looking for a new tank. The Soviet vehicles were not available in large numbers (same goes for western tanks) and a lot of the early Czechoslovak army armor consisted of captured Panzer IV's, Jagdpanzers 38 (t) and various assorted German leftovers. Not ideal. A demand was made by the military for the Military research institute (VTU) to propose a new tank design. That was in October 1945. By March 1946, VTU proposed a new medium tank (the picture of which you can see above) and has shown it to Škoda and Praga engineers, who were like "what the fuck are you smoking there" (you'll see why) - both made a counterproposal. Of the Praga counterproposal nothing is known, the Škoda counterproposal however is the T 40 medium tank (tier 6 Czechoslovak premium, appearing in next patch most likely).
这辆8级车是这个计划为人所知的最早的一个阶段。它是怎么出现的呢？在1945年，重新组建的捷克斯洛伐克陆 军正在寻求一种新型坦克。当时使用的苏联战车并不多（西方坦克也是如此），在早期的捷克斯洛伐克陆军中，很多装甲部队还在使用缴获的四号坦克、38(t) 坦克歼击车和其他五花八门的德国遗留车辆。这并不令人满意。1945年10月，军方制定了一项需求，要求军事技术研究院（VTU）搞一个新型坦克的设计。 到1946年3月，VTU提交了一个新型中型坦克的设计（如上图），并向斯柯达和普拉加的工程师做了展示。这些工程师都表现出“他喵的你嗑药嗑high了 吧”这样的态度（下面会说到原因），还分别提出了反提案。普拉加的反提案没人知道，而斯柯达的反提案就是T 40中型坦克（捷克线6级金币车，已经上线）。
The question is: why did the Škoda engineers think the VTU staff is on drugs? Let's have a look at the proposal but first as usual - how was this vehicle discovered?
问题在于，为啥斯柯达的工程师认为VTU的工作人员嗑药了？让我们来看看这个提案。但首先，如通常一样，先讲解下是如何发现这辆车的。
Archives, archives
档案
First mention of the VTU concept appeared in - as usual - the book of M.Dubánek, where it was correctly identified as the initial stage of the TVP program. Here I fucked up and for a long time I considered this design (due to its looks being quite similar to the T 40) to be identical to the Škoda TVP, which later became known as T-50 (or T 50). On the other hand, Dubánek fucked up as well - he didn't identify the T 40 as T 40 and referred to it as T 50 so it was kinda chaos. In the end it was possible to separate the facts about the "concept" from the T 40 thanks to the work of J.Tintěra, who found the original drawings for this vehicle in the archives (along with the T 40).
照例第一个提到VTU概念车的是杜邦内克的书，在书中正确地将其认定为TVP计划的初始阶段。很长一段时间内，我把这个搞 混了。我以为这个设计（由于其卡上去很像T 40）和斯柯达TVP是一样的。斯柯达TVP后来演变成了T-50（或T 50）。但另一方面，杜邦内克也搞混了，他没认出T 40，把它当成了T 50。所以说，这多少有点乱。最终，感谢廷泰拉的研究，他在档案中找到了这辆车的原始图纸（同时还有T 40的图纸），终于把这个概念车和T 40区分了开来。
The whole document is heavily damaged by water (the flood about a decade ago damaged the archives and destroyed many important documents, it took years to restore and the process is still not complete). In any case, it got scanned and given to Wargaming. It's quite entertaining to read them (if you read Czech that is), the discussion in them is quite interesting.
整套档案被水浸泡过，损毁严重（约10年前的洪水毁坏了档案馆，摧毁了很多重要档案，这些档案的修复工作已持续数年，至今尚未结束）。不管怎么说，扫描了档案并提交给了WG。阅读这些档案令人愉快（如果你会捷克文），其中的讨论非常有趣。
Vehicle characteristics
车辆参数
Anyway, back to the tank. First of all, this tank is not small. It's about the size of a Königstiger, has a crew of 5 and should weigh between 30 and 33 tons. With that size and that weight, as you can imagine, it doesn't really have a lot of armor.Actually, its armor is mostly identical to the tier 6 T 40:
回头来看这辆车。首先，这辆坦克并不小，大概和虎王一样大。有5名成员，重量应该在30-33吨之间。结合尺寸和重量，你可以想象，装甲并不厚。实际上，它的装甲基本和6级T 40一样。
Hull: 65/40/30mm
Turret: 65/40/30mm
车体：60/40/30mm
炮塔：65/40/40mm
That's... not much, especially for tier 8. In the historical context, it was quite sufficient (or so the designers thought) because it was more than the T-34 had and the T-34 just won the war, didn't it. The entire experience was heavily influenced by the Soviet and German designs with some elements (such as the hatches) "stolen" from the British designs because Czechoslovakia at that point still had a bunch of Cromwells in service.
这可算不上厚，特别是对于8级车来说。考虑到其历史背景，这还是相当可以的（至少设计师是这么想的）。因为这比刚刚赢得战 争的T-34厚，不是吗？整个设计受到苏联和德国设计的严重影响，有些元素（如舱盖）则“偷师”英国设计，因为当时捷克斯洛伐克仍有一大堆克伦威尔在服 役。
So, that's one turret, but what about the second turret. A regular vehicle needs two turrets after all!
这只是一个炮塔，但第二个炮塔呢？毕竟银币车需要两个炮塔！
Here I proposed to cheat. Basically the file contains multiple drawings of the same tank but the turret is a bit different on each drawing - they were clearly meant to be identical but everything is drawn by hand as a concept, there are bound to be slight errors. This wasn't liked very much by Wargaming and so the vehicle will have a turret from... T 40. Whether it will be stock or elite I can't say and it really doesn't matter because both turrets have pretty much the same armor and look visually quite similar (one has a bit different cupola, a shot trap on the bottom of the frontal plate and that's it).
在此我曾提议造假。简单讲，文件中有同一辆坦克的多张图纸，但炮塔都有一点不同。显然应该是一样的，但作为一个概念，这一 切都是手画的，必然有些小错误。WG并不是很喜欢这个，所以这辆车有了一个来自T 40的炮塔。我没法说哪个是白板，哪个是顶级。这实际上无关紧要，因为这两个炮塔的装甲几乎一样，看上去也非常相似（其中一个有个稍微不同的车长指挥塔， 前方底部的窝蛋区更小些，也就这些点区别）。
Mobility - here things are starting to get interesting. The requirement was 20 hp/t so we are looking at 600 and 660hp Škoda diesels (yea, those were planned, again - T 40's 700hp diesel). Hell, maybe it'll even get the 700hp diesel from the T 40, that would be one hell of a ride (by the time I am writing this text, the balancing parameters are not yet determined, it'll be done on Monday probably) - 700hp would give it 21,2 hp/t, that's almost an overkill. Why? Because of the firepower.
机动性
从这里开始事情变得有趣了。当时要求有20 hp/t的单位功率，所以我们开始寻找600或660hp的斯柯达柴油发动机（是的，这些都有计划。再说一次，T 40有个700hp的柴油发动机）。妈蛋，或许会有来自T 40的700hp发动机，这就太鬼畜了（在我写此文时，尚未决定平衡性参数，或许会在周一完成）。700hp的话，单位功率就是21.2hp/t，这简直 太过分了。为什么？因为还要考虑到火力。
So, the vehicle was to be armed with a whole bunch of guns, but two are the main ones:
这辆车可以装一大堆主炮，但主要的有两门：
- 88mm L/74 (adapted German FlaK, cca 200mm penetration)
- 105mm L/63 (another modified FlaK, also cca 200mm penetration)
- 88mm L/74（改装自德国的高炮，约200mm穿深）
- 105mm L/63（另一种改装的高炮，也是约200mm穿深）
Breech would be semi-automatic. Now, I have serious doubts these guns would fit the turret (and clearly the Škoda engineers thought the same since they proposed the much more reasonable 88mm L/56) but it was in the VTU proposal and so Wargaming modelled it. The following guns exist as models:
都采用了半自动炮闩。现在我非常怀疑这些炮能否塞进炮塔（显然斯柯达的工程师也想到了这点，他们提出了要合理得多的88mm L/56），但在VTU的提案中就是这样的，所以WG也按此建模，为以下主炮都做了模型：
- 88mm L/56 (this one is historical and appeared on one of the VTU proposals, probably a sudden moment of clarity - or withdrawal symptoms)
- 88mm L/74
- 100mm D-10T (unhistorical, this gun appeared in TVP plans much later on but why the fuck not)
- 105mm L/63
- 88mm L/56（这门炮是历史的，出现在一个VTU的提案中，或许他们突然清醒了过来，或者不嗑药了）
- 88mm L/74
- 100mm D-10T（不历史，这门炮很晚才出现在TVP计划中，但他喵的为啥不上）
- 105mm L/63
So, what's the historical depression? Well, it's -12/+30, hue hue hue. I seriously doubt this is physically possible but it's there. The 105mm gun model looks pretty ridiculous (think of L/100 Panther, just bigger) and I have no doubt the tier 8 TVP will - despite its (lack of) armor - be a hilarious vehicle to drive.
那么，历史俯角呢？好吧，是-12/+30。噗，我非常怀疑这是否符合物理法则，但就是这么写的。105mm炮的模型看上去非常可笑（想象一下装L/100的黑豹，只是更大些）。虽然装甲就是层纸，但我毫不怀疑8级TVP开起来会很欢乐。
For full stats, we'll have to see next week.
至于这辆车的完整数据，我们下周就能看到。
