Commanders!
One of the changes that await you during the next season will be the launch of a new Contract Mission campaign, naturally with a new prize. Overall, we are pleased to say that many of you liked the changes we’ve made to the Contract Missions system in the Moscow Calling season and we will be keeping the mechanics the same for the upcoming season.
In short, the campaign will consist of two stages:
- First stage contract will allow you to obtain a unique vehicle, the Stryker ADATS Tier 9 Premium Tank Destroyer directly (we will not be reintroducing blueprint collection), replacing the ZUBR PSP
- Second stage contract kicks in after the first stage is completed, will be repeatable and will consist of the same missions, but the main reward will change to a very special Seasonal Loot Crate
Three mission categories will be available:
- Easy Daily Mission (small amount of contract progress, possible to complete in a battle or two)
- Medium Daily Mission (average contract progress, possible to complete in a few battles)
- Hard Weekly Mission (significant contract progress, requires skill)
The missions will remain the same as they are in the Moscow Calling season and the vehicle contract will be doable within a reasonable time span, although – since we have upgraded the main prize from Tier 7 to Tier 9 – we made the contract itself a bit more difficult (not the missions, just the contract).
The Seasonal Loot Crate was upgraded as well and will (apart from skins, camouflages and temporary Premium vehicles) include the permanent versions of Contract Mission vehicles from previous seasons:
- K1A1 Tier 7 Premium Main Battle Tank (you can now unlock its components without collecting their blueprints)
- ZUBR PSP Tier 7 Premium Tank Destroyer
This way, you’ll have the opportunity to receive them in case you missed them during the previous campaigns.
Let us discuss the main contract prize now – the Stryker ADATS Tier 9 Premium Tank Destroyer.
As you might have realized, the vehicle is a combination of two systems:
- Stryker chassis (that you all know and love)
- ADATS turret and missiles
In real life, such a vehicle does not exist, although it is a fairly realistic combination – the ADATS turret was offered for a wide variety of platforms and was actively installed on a vehicle that is kind of like a cousin to the Stryker, the Canadian LAV-III. In this configuration, the vehicle was called MMEV, but since the upcoming season will be American-themed and all the progression vehicles in it will bear the Made in USA mark, we wanted to give you something American and have decided to use the Stryker chassis instead.
Before we continue, the usual disclaimer:
This is just an initial idea that shows how we’d like to set the vehicle up in the game. These numbers are therefore all but certain to change after a number of thorough rounds of testing.
With that being said:
The chassis will be a basic Stryker one – no upgraded armor and the Caterpillar C9 450hp engine to propel its 17 tons forward, offering solid mobility and agility for its type, even though the vehicle will be fairly fragile.
What will make it really interesting will be the ADATS turret. ADATS stands for “Air Defense Anti-Tank System,” describing its purpose very well. The system is intended to engage both air and ground armored targets. It was developed in the 1980s by a Swiss company called Oerlikon-Contraves and was offered as an interesting hybrid that would be able to deal with both Soviet tanks and helicopters or attack planes. Unfortunately for it, it came too late – only Canada would actually accept it in service and the end of the Cold War meant the end to all attempts at its large-scale introduction. The ADATS missiles were quite large but, more importantly, extremely fast (Mach 3 or even more) and were certain to be extremely destructive to any Soviet armored targets, even though this thankfully never had to be tested in real combat.
In Armored Warfare, the essentially unarmored turret will be armed with six ADATS missile launchers. The Stryker will be able to launch all six in relatively rapid succession (2s between launches) with each of these missiles carrying a HEAT-MP warhead. The missiles will be fairly standard ones:
- Penetration: 900mm
- Damage: 760
The trick to them will be their high flight velocity, making the achievement of hits easier than usual. The ADATS missiles will be some of the fastest guided missiles in the game.
But that’s not all. In addition to the ADATS launchers, the vehicle will carry two unguided rocket pods. Unlike those on another Armored Warfare vehicle (MTLB S-8), these unguided rockets will be fairly accurate and will be useful for close range defense against softer targets. The basic rockets will have the following properties:
- Penetration: 340mm (kinetic warhead, treated in the game as APFSDS – cannot be intercepted, for example, by standard APS)
- Damage: 200
- Capacity: 14 missiles, one fired each 0.3 seconds
- High velocity (990 m/s)
It’s worth noting that initiating the reloading process will trigger a long reload that will see the entire pod worth of rockets replaced even if only one missile is missing from the rack.
Additional upgrades will be available to the most dedicated Stryker ADATS players, including:
- Partial reload mechanism (the reloading time is reduced if not all missiles were fired) at the cost of slightly longer reload time overall
- Another type of unguided rocket (HEI-SAP with lower 100mm penetration but higher 250 damage per shot along with a bonus chance to set the enemy on fire)
- Reduction of the time between ADATS ATGM shots by 50 percent
In summation, the Stryker ADATS will be a very powerful long-range ATGM launcher vehicle with additional means of close range defense. Even though the unguided rockets will not be capable of dealing with high-Tier frontal MBT armor, they will be more than sufficient to keep those pesky AFVs and LTs on their toes.
We hope that you will enjoy the missions and the vehicle and will see you on the battlefield!
