The Schildkröt review

• A 5 ply with reverse 1.5mm sponge,
• ITTF Approved Schildkrot
• 5 Star Cool rubber in Red and Black

A high quality, value bat designed to assist the improving player in their stroke development and match play ST HANDLE ONLY

Note: Picture may look nothing like the real thing...

Review 1 - by Der_Echte:

I know. EVERONE has been waiting to see the full review of the infamous Schildkröt 900 like an 8 year old boy who has to go to the bathroom something terrible and is just holding it the best he can, but whose mother has sent him to the corner for a “timeout” to delay his trip to the loo. You all have to understand the logistics involved in performing this review. You simply just don’t acquire a REAL 900 model real easy like. The national spy agencies of several major countries have failed for years end. Then you have to factor in the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the welfare of the individuals involved in testing, and of course the special equipment and facilities needed to do a proper test.

How did I get a hold of one of 900 models? Well, if I told you, then you too would do the same and we wouldn’t want that, would we?

Schildkröt is known in the TT world for making incredibly slow (think why they use a turtle for their marketing) premade rackets that play like you are pulling your head inside your shell. Well, Schildkröt WAS the laughingstock of the TT world, but no more since they busted out the ultimate weapon - the 900 model after years of secret research and testing at considerable cost, materials, injury to personnel, and major collateral damage. Now, when the Schildkröt player holds the 900 in his or her hand, it is the opponent who must stick his head into his shell and hunt a hole in a hurry. Schildkröt wants everyone to “Fear the Turtle” in a major way. When you hear someone utter that slogan, just leave the TT hall. It is for you own good.

Well, enough of the lame excuses. Let’s see how this dog barks.

Schildkröt’s marketing machine says:
A 5 ply with reverse 1.5mm sponge, ITTF Approved
Schildkrot 5 Star Cool rubber in Red and Black
A high quality, value bat designed to assist the improving player in their stroke development and match play
ST HANDLE ONLY

Der_Echte’s real No-Shit Observations…Are you kidding me??!! The 900 model has more offensive capabilities than the war departments of most major powers. It is cloaked in secrecy and myth befitting of the wildest of Cold War shenanigans. Just 5 Stars? Get real. Anyway, Schildkröt just HAD to make the packaging Plain-Jane, so that rival spies would not intercept them from reaching the Chinese national Squad.

Speed: Fast with a capital F. Supersonic on the low end, impulse warp speed on medium strokes, beyond Mr. Sulu and CPT Kirk’s comprehension on power shots. There is not a piece of TT equipment to compare it to. You have to use the Enterprise or similar space ships.

Control: Possible only with some seriously extreme training, the right technique, and a fortune of Personal Protective Equipment. Control is always relative, so it is hard to define. If you manage to get the racket angle correct, the ball will move out and ricochet off the table like a bat outta hell.

Spin: The ball moves too fast for any camera of any make of any ultrafast shutter speed to detect. With the 900, just like the rest of the Schildkröt lineup, I suspect you don’t generate any measurable levels of spin. The 900 model simply doesn’t need it. If your shot misses the table, it will likely hit your opponent. That is pretty much all you need to finish the point or the match. On serves, you have to hit the ball with your thumb or wrist to land it on the other side. But don’t worry. If you move into position for the return, there is NO returning your counter.

Thickness: The blade is exactly 6.9 mm thick, including the 15% foreign materials. In the history of 900 article, you read that they used Titanium, Enriched Uranium, Fastidium Weave ™ (one of the materials they invented), and a newly discovered treatment to stiffen steel and for the rubbers, nano-ground BTY Bryce combined with Alien skin grafts taken from Aliens incubated from leftover experimental stem cells all slow-cooked to perfection inside a mini scale nuclear reactor.

Tackiness: Not important. I suspect it is entirely devoid of any tackiness, just like any other Schildkröt premade.

Weight: Under negative 1400 grams (Varies by batch) The energy emitting and advanced geometric properties give this beast its negative weight.

Price: 10 British Pounds. That is for the regular series. The REAL costs in developing this monster are incalculable.

Durability: Very suspect. There are entirely too many unstable radioactive and experimental materials used. Also, what kind of glue would hold this shit together for any length of time? You also have to consider that numerous national spy agencies with legions of spies with a free license to kill are out to get their paws on the REAL 900, so durability is not expected to be so much, just like the premades.

Throw Angle: Lower than anything you have ever used. Laser beams don’t have such a low throw angle.

Power: Even Superman would get his fool self kilt standing in front of one of the drives of the 900 without advanced training and PPE. You land a drive. It bounces of the table, tears through anything in its path and comes to rest somewhere in the Asteroid Belt. Milliseconds later, you hear the sonic boom and see the vapor trail.

Ball Feeling: Like the regular Schildkröt lineup, there is absolutely zero ball feeling, except dead. With the 900, the only feeling you get is world domination.

Who this bat is for: Anyone who wants destroy his opponent, the TT hall, and anything else in the path of the ball.

Match Performance: No one has completed an entire match using the 900. The opponent can only dodge the drives for so long before getting laser tagged and defaulting the match.

Summary: You have to calculate your chances using the 900. On one side, you dominate the world using it, but you have to go to sleep sometime and then the thousands of dangerous international spies have an easy time getting it away from you. I feel it is best to use it like I did – for a moment or two, then give it over to the commander of the next space shuttle mission to be released into outer space like the dozens of tools and equipment that invariably slip from the hands of the space walkers.

Review 2 - by Speedplay:

Since this legendary set up once again has been mentioned, I thought I would share my knowledge and experience about it. I know, I've not nearly enough talent to use this set up, let alone to review it, but never the less, I'll give it a go.

First, the legend, there are many about how it was created. Some say it was during the Nuclear breakdown at Tjernobyl, other claims it was KGB who made it up while experimenting with a secret weapon and some claims it was the Chinese who invented it for their National squad.

The legend I have heard, and believe to be the true one, is the one that starts at NASA 1967. While experimenting with different kind of rocket fuel, one of the chemist tried a strange rubber mixture as fuel. It was very unstable in it's liquid form, impossible even for NASA to control! So, they had to cool it down and get in in a compact form. Then they used it (About 247gm) to fuel a rocket. The rocket was intended to land on the moon, but they used way to much, the rocket over shot the target by light years! It went straight out of our own galaxy and has never been heard of since then. But, one of the scientist got hold of the rubber and for some crazy reason, he glued it on to his table tennis bat...

Review, rubbers: This is wild, this is crazy, but most of all, it is totally out of control! Too say it is fast is the understatement of the century! I've used Couga, in max thickness, but compared to Schildkröt, Couga feels no different then Super Block. The difference in speed is so great, so there really isn't any point in comparing them, it would be like comparing a snail with a rocket.

With such great speed, it should off course be impossible to keep it on the table, but it really isn't because the Schildkröt rubber has the spin to match it. I tried the regular bounce the ball on the blade thing to create heavy spin, unfortunately, I missed it on the way day, so the ball went down to bounce on the floor, but it didn't! Why? Because the spin it generated was so huge, so it drilled it's way downwards! At 2.78 metres the ball melted by the heat it created, otherwise, I don't know if anything could have stopped it from continuing downwards.

Short game with it, there simple isn't any! There is no way you can use this rubber to keep it short, as even the slightest touch will fire a projectile! So if you intend to use this rubber, make sure you go for topspin to help it land on your opponents side of the table, a chop might very well send the ball into orbit around the Earth.

Sensitivity to incoming spin, should be huge, but it really isn't, cause the spin you can create with this rubber is so twisted, so every ball that comes at you can be treated as no spin as you will have no problem over power it with your own spin.

This is the Schildkröt rubber, the most twisted invention in the history of TT and be aware, I tried it in the 1.2 version. I hear the Chinese National team uses it in 2.0, but they have found some material to slow down the blade, which must dampen the effect of the rubber.

My advice is, stay clear from this rubber unless you are truly skilled. This is not for beginners and this is not a fun toy for an EJ wannebe, this is the real deal, the holy Grail of TT, but it can also be a lethal weapon in the wrong hands. This is actually one rubber I want the ITTF to ban as I'm actually afraid of playing against it...

Review 3 - by Der_Echte:

Where can one start in reviewing this ultra secret and über schnell OFF +++++ effort from the folks bearing the badge of the fearsome turtle. The 900 model is shrouded in secrecy and myth throughout each stage of research, development and secret underhanded under the table distribution. It is an enigma of top high end powerful speed and fleeting control. The goal was to suddenly and dramatically change the image of the firm while entrenching itself as THE defacto supplier of pro level equipment, thus ensuring the rest of the TT EJs (Like Speedplay and such) would buy the stuff like there is no tomorrow. You see, Schildkröt had been making all these slow crappy premade paddles pimped by famous TT champions that were so slow, that some of their models were bought up by NASA for research of Black Hole properties. They simply had to do SOMETHING to shed their real core identity.

No one really knows exactly where the initial design and research took place, but my guess it that an insider from Area 51 (The ultra-high security and secret place where the US Govt harbors all captured UFOs and Aliens) (Hey, you all knew that anyway – you all watched the X-Files, but you know, some people (like me) are entirely uncivilized savages who don’t watch much television) snuck his TT mate inside the compound to conduct his tests in relative safety from outside visibility/accountability. (No one would sue him if his tests injured a few aliens, eh mate?)

Research, development and testing took several years. Schildkröt wanted to get this one right. They wanted a bat so fast, it would blow by everything on the market by the most astounding of margins and catch the eyes of the pros to make them salivate. The researchers used every material known to man and had to invent several of them along the way. Out of the hundreds of combinations tried out, the staff settled on Titanium, Enriched Uranium, Fastidium Weave ™ (one of the materials they invented), and a newly discovered treatment to stiffen steel to make up the 15 % foreign material inserted into the Hinoki wood. That is the stuff of the blade. It came in weighing a negative 1342 grams! How did they do that? Well, we really don’t know, but it might have something to do with all those free electrons constantly being shot out of the Uranium core and also possibly due to some alien new life geometrics driven geometry. (They did that Area 51 for sure) For the rubbers, they simply combined the source of Bryce rubber molecules with skin grafts of Aliens hatched from unused stem cells, all processed slowly in a small scale nuclear reactor.

For the testing phase, they brought in several expensive BTY Amiscus robots to feed the balls. That was a bad move as the test player (someone named Steve Somethingortheother) ricocheted the balls off the table at 12,000 kph and busted several of the machines straight off. They should have stuck with Newgby. They come much less expensive and the supplier was much closer. This experienced caused the staff to require all participants in the testing phase to wear cumbersome Personal Protective Gear, like lead underwear, Integrated Ballistic Armour vests, Oakley eyewear (Hey it looks cool and the military uses it), Radioactive gloves (to counteract the radiation from the blade/rubber), and new generation Kevlar woven bandanas which look cooler than the ones worn by Speedplay. (Hey, it was for their own safety for crying out loud) The test participants had to undergo rigorous physical training to meet the physical demands of both the PPE and the 900. They ended up going through Army and Marine Boot Camp, Special Forces, Airborne, Pathfinder, Navy SEALs, and Delta Force training just to be available for two weeks each of testing. That is the longest any of them lasted. Jack Bauer expressed interest in the project, but a sudden 24 hour national crisis took his immediate attention.

Now the staff finalized their product, but had to figure out how to slip these Titans of TT bats to the Chinese team. The solution they came up with involved packaging them as ordinary pre-made bats. The CTTA was advised to look for the 900 on the cover typed in Courrier font, instead of the normal Donic print. The Chinese team got a hold of 5 of these bats and had their rising players take turns using it. Details are not so definite, but it is rumored that the high radiation made it through the CTTA approved PPE suits and ruined the careers of over a dozen promising players. Balls hit out also caused 8 eye injuries to provincial coaches standing to close to the court. Their ballistic eyewear apparently wasn’t up to standard. That was both a curse and a blessing. A curse for those in hope, and a blessing to the established players on the National team – they had a dozen less top stars at their heals for a spot on the team, thus giving Ma Lin and WLQ a shot at Olympic Glory. The president of the CTTA kindly asked Schildkröt to call off the project and arranged compensation to Schildkröt through a lucrative manufacturing agreement.

It is rumored that Schildkröt failed to successfully recall all of the 50 production bats in circulation. So, be careful out there when you break out a 100, 300, or 900 series Schildkröt ™ bat. Be on guard for the symptoms. The sure thing to look for is the sonic boom and the caved-in wall on the other side of the gym after you hit your first powerloop. Schildkröt wanted to get everyone to “Fear the Turtle” and I think they may have succeeded in ways they never intended.

So, if you are around a TT hall somewhere in the world and hear an over 40 gent wearing something like a futuristic cross between a Hazmat suit and advanced Riot Police Gear tell his opponent that he had better "Fear the Turtle" if he knows what is for his own good, then you should immediately evacuate the building. Winning the matches is not worth being in the hot zone of the collateral damage.

Further discussions may be found in the table tennis forum here