THE REAL TANKS OF WORLD OF TANKS
Wargaming was nice enough to send us on a lovely tour of Moscow that culminated in a trip out of town to the massive Patriot Park, a giant military museum that covers Russia’s military hardware from the Great War up to the modern day. Nestled in between fields packed with MIG jet fighters and Hind helicopters, was a couple of giant hangars packed with the most complete and pristine collection of World War 2 fighting vehicles we’ve ever seen.
If you’ve never seen a tank in the flesh, it’s amazing just how large these steel beasts are – especially if you’ve only seen the tanks ingame in WoT, as many of the journalists in our group had. As an old war nerd, though, these vehicles were like old friends – though I will admit a certain amount of LOSING MY SHIT when I get to lean against the Tiger I for a photo opp.
Seeing the only working Maus tank in existence was also pretty special – this is the largest tank produced during WW2, and it is a monster. In fact, it was one of those stupid engineering ideas that fascinated the German High Command, but was in fact way too large and difficult to manufacture to be even close to practical. But that’s not stopped Wargaming from recently rebalancing the tank to make it a more attractive proposition, especially at the high end of esports – three or even four of these lumbering vehicles was a common site in nearly every match we saw.
Hardly realistic, but certainly dramatic!