Now before anyone says anything, yes, I play WOT and WOWS (World of Warships). Now this was brought up on the forums over there as a question and one that I would like to happen. Now I want your opinion. I have absolutely no sway with Wargaming and this is simply to satisfy my curiosity.

If Wargaming was to publish books on their subjects using the research they used for the games, would you buy any or all of them? I figure that, if they were to do this, they would publish on specific classes and ships. Now without knowing how deep they delve or how detailed they get, would you be interested at all in buying these books?

Just so I could answer here as well, I would buy some as long as they stick specifically to their research and not add any info about any ships, tanks or aircraft they created or "advanced to" (I forgot what Nick Moran actually called this but what they would basically do is try to figure, from an engineering standpoint, what that country might do to the ship or tank later; what would be feasible and what they might actually do, kinda like the Jp.Pz. E100. Completely fake tank but Germany might have made a Jp.Pz out of the E100). If they do it well I'd love to buy some of those books. That's just my opinion.

I am sure there would be some sort of interest in the nautical What-if if it were to be published. There were proposals and concepts that were drafted and never....as you mentioned and we have all seen with the armor world, the What-if can be a inviting subject. For the modeller it can be a nice break from the conventionality of the norm. Free reign if you will...as long as it might be functional within the real world. Otherwise things somewhat transition to almost a MaK or Sci-Fi realm. There have been some incredible creations in and around the paper panzer....why not ships?

I agree with that sentiment. But like I said, I wouldn't want to see something completely dreamt up by the developers, like the JP E100 or WT E100. But paper ships I would like. If there was something put down on paper by the actual engineers of the time I wouldn't mind seeing it being put into a book. Maybe a good volume would be about paper or experimental designs.

Maybe what they could do is hire subject matter experts to write them, so that we get a book based on their proper historical research rather than be continually wondering whether what we are reading is fact or derived from someone's creative imagination. I wouldn't buy much on Ww2 German armour that wasn't by a select few authors, for example, as I have a reasonable idea of who has produced reliable work and who hasn't. One area that is underdeveloped is Soviet kit, so perhaps finding some of the Russian researchers and producing English language books by them would be a good gap to exploit.

I would personally have no interest in books about what might have been but that's probably just me. Actual design projects from the period would have some interest but I prefer things that were built, issued and used.

They could do that, but the whole premise as well is to use the research that Wargaming researchers found and developers used. People such as Nick Moran (he's the only one I know but there are others. One for the Japanese research and I suppose others for the some other countries). To put outside research that other writers have already used is, to my eyes, rewriting an already published book under a different label. I know Wargaming has a spotty reputation (I don't use it as a source either) but for most of the vehicles there are a lot of documents out there. I was watching a video of a Q&A Nick Moran did and he was explaining the research that goes into the game and it's pretty in depth. Most of what goes on pretty much comes from the National Archives when it comes to US vehicles. Like I said, I feel like they should definitely exclude anything that Wargaming developers outright made up to fit in 10 tiers. Only include whats documented. If that includes experimental subjects, great! Include them as long as there's even just a mention in an official document but nothing that didn't come from official documents or original Era research. When it comes to the WWII armor, I can reasonably believe what they have when it's early WWII (so like up to tier 6 in the game) but as soon as the later years come up you can start to figure the the vehicles are more experimental/fake (so past tier 7 save the Tigers and Panther). But the research they do is real. Yeah I'd want to verify it and make sure that they say explicitly that all the info in the book came from actual documents and real research and not from their deb's minds but I think it's reasonable to suspect that they might do that.

TLDR: Why inject falsehoods when you can easily win over much of a very large base of model builders and the non-builders wouldn't know anything different by doing it right and true?

Well you asked for my opinion😀

I have no idea what info the researchers have dug up for their games or from what sources it came but info from a single source is not always reliable (think of all those veterans who think that every German gun was an '88') and Allied intelligence reports on enemy kit was not always correct either. Proper research is proper research and it matters not to me the purpose for which it was undertaken if the outcome is good solid facts. It helps if it is well written too but given the number of people who have been able to hunt around in NARA records over the decades, there must be less studied sources that would be worth a look and which would give them a market edge.

I have no basis for knowing how good or bad the standard of their research is and on that basis I'd be unlikely to buy but then I'm probably not in their target market so there is no reason they should care about my opinion. I imagine that the tiers to which you refer are some artificial way of grouping tanks together for game purposes, so I can't comment on that as I have enough to do without spending time and money on hobby things which have no tangible output. I like to have a finished model (or at least one that shows some progress) after spending hours on it!

Maybe one day there will be a large enough draw for the subject, or, even one single individual willing to compile all of the information into one book of what-if/what could have been ships. The materials are there. A quick search and read around yield proposed ship designs and classes from pretty much all of the players with a narrowed search of just WWII. German H-class, Japanese B-design, US Montana and so forth. The list would not have to consist of just the designs that never made it to the docks after designs, such as in the case of the British Weapons Class destroyers....there were 4 made out of 20 planned. Ship designs showed how all class developments and modifications changed as the class was built over time and even changes that were made while under construction. Radar, propulsion....armament upgraded on one design was often seen on various designs. So even further than defining something like the proposed H-class Battleships of the German navy of WWII, where there was plans drafted after their research and experience of something like the Bismarck class, it is not a stretch of the imagination to figure out the possible final modifications to lets say the Weapons Class destroyers by the time they might have been building the 10th or 15th ship.

Maybe you will get lucky, and an author will float down this river at some point and give you the book you are looking for. I doubt we will see a formal ship model created on a proposed design that didn't make it off the drawing board any time soon but that wouldn't stop someone who was interested from trying to build it if they really wanted too.

To address the last part of your post, yes the "tiers" used by Wargaming is a way of grouping the tanks/ship/aircraft in a such a way that players can take the vehicles and 'battle' each other in the specific vehicles' tier range. To explain it more simply, say I have a M18 Hellcat. In the World of Tanks game, it's a tier 6 tank. The tier range that the Hellcat sees is ±2 tiers. So it'll see tier 4-8 vehicles. But tier 4 vehicles, for the most part (there's different range metrics depending on the "class" of vehicle, ex. Heavy tanks, light tanks, etc... For the most part all classes but light tanks see ±2 tiers while lights see +3/-2 I think), will not see tier 8. It's a whole discussion for another day.

The tier system is completely artificial with no regard to historical "matchups." So you could have Tiger IIs fighting E100s. All the tier system is used for is to match players by taking specific tiered vehicles and putting them together.

I expect Wargaming have quite abit of data, it would be great to see it in a reference work.

Just because they don't use it in their game doesn't mean they can't publish a serious factual book.

The Cheiftans Hatch series on Youtube are informative and really don't have anything to do with the online game as such.

Scientifically based projections of development and "what if" would make an interesting read I reckon. There are plenty of totally historical books around but a what if could be quite thought provoking.

Bring it on I say, I've used the Flames of War books as a reference for years be great to add another resource