Tank ram

Red Army tanks could have the ability to ram other, similar sized tanks.
Particularly when "Not One Step Back" is activated in Prop War tree.
Maybe it could do damage or immobilize the tank for a period of time.

Never heard of anything like that happened in WWII. Normally when your tank is so close your tank dies too.

Ramming tanks was mostly Soviet propaganda.  I don't know of any credible stories of it actually happening.  I figure it could maybe work as a propaganda tree action.

I've heard stories about T-34's and KV's ramming enemy tanks. It probably happened in a life or death situations (facing a heavier tank, ran out of ammo, turret ring jammed, engine on fire, brakes damaged...), but I doubt it was common practise. Wasn't limited to the Soviets either.

Anyway, about this ingame... no. Immobilising vehicles is one of those annoying abilities we like to keep limited to the PE ATHT. Also, with tanks phasing through each other I think it would look rather ugly.

Usually, this is what you do in World of Tanks when you run out of ammo  ;D

That happened in Prohorovka. 156 german tanks against 650 t-34 tanks... because the t-34 couldn't penetrate a tiger on the front armor from a distance more than 300 meters they drove onto them...

walki1 wrote:
That happened in Prohorovka. 156 german tanks against 650 t-34 tanks... because the t-34 couldn't penetrate a tiger on the front armor from a distance more than 300 meters they drove onto them...

Thats a myth. In fact soviet tanks were slauthered at long range while they drove into a soviet tank ditch accidently.

Killar wrote:

walki1 wrote:
That happened in Prohorovka. 156 german tanks against 650 t-34 tanks... because the t-34 couldn't penetrate a tiger on the front armor from a distance more than 300 meters they drove onto them...

Thats a myth. In fact soviet tanks were slauthered at long range while they drove into a soviet tank ditch accidently.

Tanks generally had to advance towards each other and keep moving after the initial rounds were fired to avoid artillery as well as to see better through the smoke that would have been pluming up from burning armour. T-34s had very bad vision and it wasn't uncommon for a T-34 to find its self lost amongst a German formation amidst the smoke and confusion.

It's hard to claim something is a 'myth' when the only people who really know are those who fought there. If you rammed a tank, you did so when you were staring death in the face, it wasn't something you did with a mechanically sound tank. I doubt ramming a Tiger would have done much other than maybe damage the drive or track, but it would have been enough to stop the Tiger from advancing any further.

Anyway, this topic has answered, so I'll lock it.

octodecoy wrote:
Ramming tanks was mostly Soviet propaganda.  I don't know of any credible stories of it actually happening.  I figure it could maybe work as a propaganda tree action.

In 1943 the schwere Panzerabteilung 503 reported that more and more soviet tanks are trying to ram their Tiger tanks because of the uselessness of their guns against the Tiger tank.
Otto Carius reports same at his book "Tiger in the dust".

And sometimes soviet tanks had rammed enemies without planing to ram because they cant see form inside their tanks...