Hey Everyone,
Welcome to Developer Briefing #69!
Soon you will be able to enjoy driving around in the German Puma Sd.Kfz. 234 and the Allied M8 Greyhound, but to really be able to put up a fight against the army of heavy Shermans, we have something special ready for you!
At first we were planning to make the Panzer VIII "Maus" or the Panzer XI "Bullen", but these could not hold the maximum troop capacity we had planned for the super heavy transport vehicles.
This is why we looked further into history and found another, truly special vehicle…
Manufactured by the Grytzenäu und Schtheel company in 1943, many large shipping docks were “purchased” and repurposed to start the secret project named Projekt C. 45 “Tiglioni”, but because this name was already in use. The name of the project, and later on the vehicle was then named: Landkreuzer P. 1000 "Ratte". With her total length of a whopping 39 meters (128 ft) and skyscraping 11 meters (36 ft) height, this is what you can call “a big lady”...
As mentioned before, we wanted the maximum troop capacity for transport vehicles to go up, this is why the Ratte was added by the team. With enough room for 40 members in the tank itself, 6 members mounting the 20 mm Flak38 mounted on the vehicle’s engine its deck, and 4 members being able to mount the 15 mm MG 151/15, you can say you and the other squads will become a dream team in no time!
The Ratte's primary weapons are a dual 28 cm SK C/34 naval gun turret, modified by harvesting parts from a German battleship. With all that weight, and also having the hull of the vehicle being able to carry armour up to 25 centimetres (9.8 in) thick, this is a vehicle that needs to be deployed with the highest strategic care. Once deployed, you can not cross certain bridges or smaller roads, but all hedges will now quake in fear. To compensate for the smaller area of movement, the Ratte can fire armour-piercing rounds with 8.1 kg (18 lb) of explosive filler, and high-explosive rounds with 17.1 kg (38 lb) of explosive filler up to a distance of 40.930 m (44,760 yd).
The benefit of this amazing range, is that you can deploy the Ratte in for example Sainte-Mère-Église and obliterate the opposite team that is hiding in maps like Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Utah Beach, Purple Heart Lane and even Omaha Beach This new gameplay system is called “Cross Map Artillery Support” and works the same way as the Artillery per map, but then across all other maps and servers.
That wraps up this week's tanktastic Developer Briefing!
See you on the frontline!