War Thunder News & Announcements


Welcome to Firebirds!
Meet Firebirds, War Thunder’s second to last 2024 major update!

Immediately worth mentioning is that the F-117A has joined the ranks as a squadron vehicle, providing brand-new stealth capability to the game! Several jet aircraft including the Tornado GR.4, Su-34 and F-15E Strike Eagle have entered the fray, as well as several cockpit remakes and two brand-new helicopters. As for ground vehicles, Firebirds focuses on lighter vehicles and filling gaps, including the Skink and T77E1 SPAA for the US, Ram II and Scimitar for Great Britain, the PLZ05 for China and three Dutch Leopards for France. Dunkerque takes center stage for naval, while the Abandoned Factory map has received a visual update, providing a freshened experience for tankers. Test flights have been greatly expanded with more enemies, options and new airfields, and lastly the game has seen a large amount of updates to graphics & effects, including Ray tracing, new afterburner visuals, LERX vapor and much more.



There’s many fixes, new vehicles and other features — take a look at what we’ve included in this major update.

Please feel free to leave your feedback on this Major update in the feedback thread here.

Ground Vehicles: SPAA & Lighter Vehicles Take the Spotlight
Firebirds sees the addition of several lighter vehicles to fill many roles in several trees. First off is the Scimitar, Luchs A2, ICV (P) for Great Britain, Germany and Japan respectively, and the BMP-2MD squadron vehicle for Sweden, giving their respective nations more diversity in multiple lineups at their ranks. We’ve also supplemented the US’s SPAA line with the T77E1 and Canadian Skink, giving this nation some additional anti-air capability across more Battle Ratings. The USSR now has the Object 140 premium tank, Israel the Sabra Mk.1, Great Britain the premium Ram II and China the PLZ05. Several nations have the Osa-AK added to their SPAA lines, and France has received three Dutch Leopard variants to give top-tier lineups more options.


Object 140 (pack)






T77E1
Scimitar








PLZ05
Luchs A2




USA

Germany

USSR

Great Britain




Japan

China

Italy

  • Osa-AKM




France

  • Leopard 2A4NL
  • Leopard 2A5NL
  • Leopard 2A6NL



Sweden

  • BMP-2MD (Squadron Vehicle)

Israel



Aircraft: Stealth Technology Enters War Thunder with the F-117A!
Something special and unique has come to the game in the Firebirds update! Please welcome the F-117A, a squadron vehicle aircraft with a lower IR and radio signature thanks to its stealth technology. For other nations, the Su-34 and Tornado GR.4, both featuring the brand-new to the game “Grom-2” guided bomb and “Brimstone” guided missile, plus the famous F-15E Strike Eagle, all providing supreme CAS capabilities. Three new jet premiums, the Thai AV-8S Harrier for Japan, JA37DI for Sweden and the Su-22M4 for Germany provide these nations with some additional research options. We’ve also given several aircraft cockpits an update — check the full list below!


F-117A OCIP II (Squadron Vehicle)






F-15E
Su-34








Tornado GR.4
Mirage 2000 RMV




USA

Germany

  • Ju 87 (all variants) — cockpit model has been updated.
  • Su-22M4 WTD61 (Pack)



USSR

  • Su-34
  • BB-1 — cockpit model has been updated.
  • Su-2 (all variants) — cockpit model has been updated.

Great Britain



Japan

  • AV-8S (Pack)


China

  • Mirage 2000 5EI


France

Sweden

  • JA37DI
  • JA37DI F21(Pack)



Israel

  • F-15I Ra’am



Helicopters: South African Super Hind & Cockpit Updates!
Another South African helicopter enters the fray — meet the Super Hind for Great Britain! This squadron vehicle brings with it the devastating tandem warhead Ingwe missile, capable of striking fear and devastation into enemy tanks. The USSR now have the modern Mi-8 AMTSh-VN, a powerful beast with Ataka missiles, a premium Pakistani Mi-35M for China and lastly cockpits for the OH-58D and A-109EOA-2 have been updated with a ton of detail.


Super Hind


USA

  • OH-58D — detailed cockpit has been added.

USSR

Great Britain



China

  • Mi-35M (Premium)
  • OH-58D — detailed cockpit has been added.

Italy

  • A-109EOA-2 — detailed cockpit has been added.





Naval Fleet: The Formidable Dunkerque Takes Center Stage!
France’s top tier naval capabilities have been greatly extended with the addition of the Dunkerque Battleship, featuring two turrets with eight 330 mm (13 inch) guns and excellent armor! Great Britain now has HMS Repulse with 381 mm (15 inch) guns, comparable to the HMS Renown already in the game through a previous event. Closed beta testing of the French Coastal fleet has ended as well, meaning you can research any of these boats without needing to have a pack or complete tasks.


Dunkerque



USA

  • USS Bagley

USSR

  • Pr.253L

Great Britain



Japan

Italy

  • MS 444
  • RN Francesco Caracciolo






France

  • Dunkerque
  • Closed beta testing of the French Coastal fleet has concluded. The ability to research these vessels is now available to all players.




Locations & Missions: Visually Updated “Abandoned Factory” Map!
We’ve given Abandoned Factory a makeover! This map has been visually updated in almost every aspect. The aim of this graphics update was to give the map a more up-to-date look and a greater “abandoned” feel with the addition of more foliage and broken structures.











Additionally, with no new location in this major update, we’ve taken the time to improve some of the older maps as well. Please check the full details in the changelog.

Airfields & Test Flights: Greatly Improved To Provide A Better Experience
In Firebirds, we aimed to greatly improve airfields and test flights. We’ve not only improved aspects inside of them, but have also added several new options. Firstly within the test flight itself are more enemies to shoot at as well as bases to bomb. Airfields now feature better and richer details such as a taxiways, a control tower, hangars and finer details such as aircraft skid marks at each end of the runway. These new airfields are also available in standard, high-ranked Air battles.











Three new options have been added to the test flight menu! One long-awaited feature is the ability to spawn in the air instead of just the airfield, with altitudes ranging from 500 m to 7 km for planes and up to 2 km for helicopters. You can also choose several location types and the rank of enemy targets, and carrier-based aircraft can select an aircraft carrier or airfield to spawn at. Additionally, you can choose a hostile air defense zone to spawn at — in these areas SAMs and SPAA will attack your aircraft, allowing you to test out defense ranges and your evasive skills.




Graphics & Physics: Beautiful Visual Upgrades and Moveable, Non-Playable Vehicles
Firebirds brings with it a wide variety of upgrades for graphics and effects all across the game. From new afterburners to LERX vapor on aircraft, to new rain and snow effects for maps, to more dynamic fires on ships and debris from destroyed vessels floating on the water, there’s an update everywhere you look! Tracer visibility has also been greatly improved, helping you to better aim your shots (or draw a love-heart in the sky!). We’ve taken great care to ensure that these new graphical improvements don’t impact game performance. There’s plenty more, with the full list in the changelog.

Train carriages and most non-playable vehicle map assets were previously completely static and could not be pushed. In Firebirds, we’ve made it so that train carriages can be moved around with ground vehicles, which will provide new gameplay elements through this new form of soft moveable cover. Cars located on all maps have received new destruction physics, allowing them to deform and not necessarily stay in place when destroyed.









More Graphic Settings & Ray Tracing Comes to War Thunder!
War Thunder now has a Ray Tracing solution that doesn’t cut corners. We have all maps in ray tracing structures, and it can perform a range of graphical features based on it! The following Ray Tracing options have been added to the game. A description of each one is mentioned in the major changelog.

  • Ray Traced Shadow Maps (RTSM)
  • Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion (RTAO)
  • Ray Traced Reflections (RTR)
  • Ray Traced Water Reflections
  • Ray Traced Translucent reflections











A new graphics API option (Direct3D 12) and new anti-aliasing options (FSR 3.1, DLAA, XeSS and TSR) have been added to the graphic settings menu. Additionally, the graphic settings menu has been given an overhaul! We’ve added in-game screenshots and clearer descriptions for each setting, allowing you to see exactly what each one changes.



Following the Roadmap: Portable Ammunition Boxes
Boxes of ammunition can now be built in ground battles, with these boxes allowing you to replenish ammunition outside of capture points anywhere on the map. To build, simply press the default key shown on the hotbar in-game and place the ammunition box down when it turns green, meaning it can be placed. There’s a small construction time, but once done a physical box and ammo icon will appear! From here, you can drive near it and your ammunition will start to replenish.



Only specific vehicle types can build ammunition boxes. They include: Tank Destroyers, ATGM carriers (stat card type, not any vehicle with an ATGM), all SPAA vehicles and ground vehicles with additional rockets and bombs (Calliope, M26 T99, RBT-5, Cromwell V (RP-3), Matilda Hedgehog, Magach Hydra).

Following the Roadmap: Profile Expansion!
Your player profile is the perfect place to see the stats and details of your account that you’ve accumulated over the years. We’ve improved this area to make it feel more personal. The profile menu is now fullscreen and all important aspects are shown on the main page. Please bear in mind this is only the first stage of profile improvements, more will be coming down the line — we’re working on some cool things.



Shot Replays: See Where Your Shots and Enemy Hits Landed Post-Battle
Ever wondered where your vehicle took a hit or where your shots landed on an enemy? We've added a new feature that lets you see exactly that! Simply click the "Hit Analysis" button to simulate the incoming and outgoing shots from your previous battle. Each shot is individually labeled, showing the type of projectile used and the range it was fired from. This feature works for all vehicles and all ammunition in the game.



Awards: New Awards For Your Efforts
Ever shot down a nuke aircraft after they dropped the bomb? Or have you gained enough spawn points for your nuclear aircraft but didn’t manage to drop it before the battle ended? We’ve added two new awards, “The end is near” for shooting down one of these aircraft that has already dropped their nuke, and “One minute to midnight”, awarded for completing a mission while in a nuke aircraft without the nuke detonating. Each award will give you some Silver Lions.






The end is near
One minute to midnight



There’s plenty more to see!
That’s it for this news, but be sure to check out the full list of changes in the provided changelog, as there’s many bug fixes, improvements and additional vehicle changes not mentioned here. Let us know what you think and be sure to leave your feedback on our forums and official social media channels — we’d love to hear.


Due to spatial constraints, the full changelog cannot be listed below.
Please see the full changelog here.



New locations and missions

  • Aircraft test flight logic and locations have been updated. Now there are multiple locations as well as air spawn points available. Rank of targets presented in the test flight can now also be changed. Respawn logic, similar to the one present in tank test drive has been added for targets. Airfield models have been replaced with the new ones in all test drive locations.

Location and mission updates

  • Abandoned Factory — the location has been visually reworked with new assets, redrawn ground textures and new effects.
  • Flanders — adjusted the rock cover in square E7 where players could safely fire at the northern team’s spawn and its passages.
  • Abandoned Town — in square C2, the mountainside where players could get stuck has been removed.
  • Sun City (all missions) — play area in the location has been increased. Detection area at spawn points has been increased.
  • Finland — positions on rocks near the northern spawn in the adjacent area of ​​squares B4 and B5 have been blocked.
  • Second Battle of El Alamein — positions allowing fire on the northern team spawn on the hills in squares C5 and B5 have been blocked off.
  • Aral Sea — density of bushes on lines 1 and 2 have been reduced. A bug where bushes did not disappear when destroyed has been fixed.
  • Wagons on maps are no longer static. They can be moved by a ground vehicle and from explosions.
  • South Africa — the collision models of large islands, blurred shore textures and flying trees have been fixed.
  • Karelia — the detection zone in the bottom spawn point has been fixed.
  • Eastern Europe, European Province — incorrect destruction of fences near bridges has been fixed.
  • Vietnam (the ground forces map) — the incorrect rendering range of trees in the aircraft part of the map have been fixed.
  • Maginot Line (winter) — trees that had incorrect settings and ones where their visual model did not match their collision model have been removed. Additionally, the tree destruction model that led to an incorrect behavior when receiving damage has been fixed.
  • All locations — oak trees that had trunks that behaved unnaturally when receiving damage have been removed.

Economy and research

  • The mechanics of new vehicles have been extended to the requirement for the number of vehicles to unlock the next rank. If there are few vehicles at the current rank (less than 5 or 6, depending on the type of vehicle and rank) and a new vehicle is added there, this new vehicle will not increase the requirement to unlock the next rank for 28 days from the moment of its release. For example, in this update, when adding the Sabra Mk.I to rank VII of Israel’s ground forces tree, the number of vehicles required to unlock rank VIII will remain equal to three (based on the number of “old” vehicles and vehicle groups at this rank), until the Sabra Mk.I is no longer considered new.
  • F-4F KWS LV — Battle Rating in all modes has been reduced to 13.0.
  • Leclerc, Leclerc S2 — both have been moved from rank VII to rank VIII. The OFL 120 G1 APFSDS round, which was previously located at tier I in the modification research window is now available by default. Silver Lions and Golden Eagles spent on researching this modification have been refunded.
  • Vextra 105, AMX-40 — both have been moved from rank VI to rank VII.

Interface

  • A new full-screen player profile window has been added.
  • The in-game shop for “Rookie trophy” now displays the exact drop chance for each item.
  • The ability to move the range scale horizontally has been added to the sight settings menu. The scale is moved by dragging it with the mouse cursor.
  • The ability to delete a custom sight preset has been added to the sight settings menu.
  • The sorting in the lists for selecting a sight preset and selecting a reticle has been changed, now player-created files are displayed first.
  • The ability to enable and configure the display of the type or name of the shell in the sight has been added to sight settings menu.

Game mechanics

  • In Ground Battles at night, illumination shells that periodically fired over the map by mission logic have been disabled.
  • Saving of player shots and hits received by the player to the replay log with the ability to separately play back each hit in the protection analysis after the battle has been added. The server point of impact, angle of impact and state of the shell are saved in this log, and then the result is played back in the shot animation using this data. Currently only direct hits are logged, hits by close explosions of shells, rockets, missiles and bombs are not.
  • Following the Roadmap: Added mechanics for building boxes of ammunition with vehicles classed as Tank Destroyers, ATGM carriers (type listed in the stat card, not any vehicle with an ATGM), all SPAA vehicles and ground vehicles with additional rockets and bombs (Calliope, M26 T99, RBT-5, Cromwell V (RP-3), Matilda Hedgehog, Magach Hydra).

    • Building and destroying boxes: Building boxes takes some time, during which the player must remain stationary next to it. The movement of the vehicle is not blocked. Boxes have a full damage model and can be destroyed by a hit or ram. The ability to destroy boxes is only available to the enemy and the player themselves. To avoid bad behavior, allies are not able to destroy the player’s constructions in all game modes.
    • Additional box details: The number of built boxes depends on the number of vehicle weapon groups, from one to three: a separate box for artillery weapons and separate one for each additional group (SAM / rockets). For tanks with rockets and bombs, only one box can be built — the one for additional weapons, while the ammunition of main weapon can only be replenished at capture points, as before. Each built box contains as many shells / rounds as the player had at the time of respawn in battle, and will allow you to replenish the ammunition up to this amount. Only the player who built the ammunition box can replenish ammunition from it. After running out of shells in the box, it will automatically be destroyed. When enough damage is dealt to the box, the ammunition in it ignites, with the fire not only destroying the box, but also showing its position with a visual effect and causing damage to exposed vehicles if they fall into the radius of its destruction. Ammunition boxes can be rebuilt as many times as you like (including after they are destroyed), but there will only be remaining, unused shells inside. This means that at the beginning of the battle, the player could receive potentially double the amount of ammunition, which can be used at their own discretion through changing positions and replenishing ammunition from portable boxes.
    • Arcade Battles replenishment changes: The mechanics of replenishing ammunition from boxes logically and technically conflict with the mechanics of arcade reloading of additional weapons, which activates after the complete use of additional weapons in Ground Arcade battles. In addition, the mechanics of arcade reloading blocked replenishment of ammunition for additional weapons at the capture point. The mechanics of arcade reloading have been removed, since replenishment of ammunition from boxes and at capture points are, in our opinion, more understandable with universal game mechanics.

Graphical

  • New Graphics API options:

    • Direct3D 12 (beta): A more modern graphics API, which allows us to do optimizations and add new features, not available for Direct3D 11. This includes the use of FSR Anti Aliasing, Ray Tracing and more in the future. It also helps to optimize existing features, like rendering the scenery is less demanding on the CPU.

  • New Anti Aliasing options:

    • FSR 3.1: The Anti Aliasing (including the native one) and upscaling solution from AMD. Works under Direct3D 12 and Vulkan (currently available for Linux only), on all capable GPUs. Opens the door for frame generation in future updates.
    • DLAA: DLSS is now updated to the latest version. Has a Native upscaling option, which is also known as DLAA. Opens the door for frame generation in future updates.
    • XeSS: The Anti Aliasing (including the native one) and upscaling solution from Intel. Works under Direct3D 12.
    • TSR: The next generation of TAA Anti Aliasing we already had in the game. Has the same performance but better image quality.

  • New feature:

    • Ray Tracing (beta): War Thunder now has a Ray Tracing solution which doesn’t cut corners and works for all objects and map elements. It has allowed us to implement a wide range of high-quality graphical effects based on it. Ray tracing is currently available only for NVIDIA GPUs.

  • New Ray Tracing options:

    • Ray Traced Shadow Maps (RTSM): Replaces traditional shadow maps, for pixel perfect and physically accurate shadows. Works for sun shadows and also for dynamic lights, for high end GPUs.
    • Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion (RTAO): Replaces traditional screen space ambient occlusion for physically accurate ambient shadows.
    • Ray Traced Reflections (RTR): Replaces probe and screen space reflection techniques. Enabling physically accurate reflections and also reflections of objects off screen.
    • Ray Traced Water Reflections: Replaces planar reflections used on water. While planar reflections were already good looking, this improves them, as the distortion is based on actual wave geometry.
    • Ray Traced Translucent reflections: Replaces probe based reflections on translucent glass surfaces for accurate reflection of the world.

  • The afterburner effects for aircraft have been updated.
  • New effects for ground vehicle movement depending on the surface and type of vehicle have been added.
  • The effects of rocket boosters for aircraft have been updated.
  • A new system that physically and correctly simulates wind flows on the location, taking into account obstacles has been added. It allows for improved behavior of particles, which are now able to bend around the landscape, buildings, and other objects in the scene when moving.
  • New system of vehicle contamination during battle has been added. The system of interaction between the environment (dust, dirt, water) and vehicles has been reworked. Now different parts of the game location have different effects on the appearance of ground vehicles.
  • LERX Vapor effects have been added.
  • New rain and snow effects have been added.
  • The dynamics of the visual spread of fires on ships has been changed.
  • When anti-aircraft missiles are destroyed in the air, there is now a chance for the engine compartment to continue moving purely visually.
  • New effects for launching anti-aircraft missiles on ships and anti-aircraft missile systems have been added.
  • During rain, the effect of water jets is shown from some objects, such as roof slopes.
  • Physical behavior of all sparks in the game from shots, explosions, shell hits, fires, etc have been improved.
  • When ships sink, debris will begin to float to the surface of the water.
  • New visual effects when a ship is flooded have been added.
  • Physics of debris and particle behavior in explosions and impact effects have been reworked.
  • Visual effects for sliding aircraft fuselages and wings on different surfaces have been added.
  • Tracer visibility has been increased.
  • The visual effect of flaming fuel spillage from fuel tanks of ground vehicles has been improved.
  • Effects for targeting smoke have been improved.
  • The effects of rocket explosions in the air have been reworked.
  • Aircraft movement effects on different surfaces have been improved.
  • Visuals for destruction of non-playable vehicles (cars, trucks) on maps have been improved.
  • Trees lose branches when damaged so that after falling on the ground they obstruct less vision.


Welcome to the 146th War Thunder Steam Screenshot Competition!

Thanks for submitting your awesome screenshots this week! The heavy-hitting cannons can be a challenge to use against smaller targets or at longer ranges, but the reward for landing a knockout makes it worthwhile! The three most popular and three selected by us will get 300 GE. See the winners down below!

Let’s begin the 146th edition of our competition!

Create a stunning screenshot and submit it on the War Thunder Steam Community Hub with the tag #WTscreen146. You have time until the 22nd of November to submit your screenshot.

After that date, 6 winners will be selected (3 of which will be the highest rated by the community and 3 selected by our judges), each of which receive a reward of 300GE.

Terms:

  • Your screenshot must feature snow, or a winter camouflage.
  • You must add the #WTscreen146 tag (title cannot have any other text in it).
  • Artists may only win by popular vote once per four screenshot competitions.
  • Screenshots need to be compliant with the War Thunder rules.
  • You need to be the author of the screenshot.
  • Screenshot needs to be new. You cannot use those which have previously been published or used in other competitions.
  • We will only accept raw screenshots from the game. You cannot use any editing software nor any other visual enhancements (like Nvidia Ansel filters).
  • You can use filters and settings built into War Thunder.
  • You can use the replay functionality built into War Thunder.
  • Rewards will be delivered to the author's account within 14 working days.


And now, time for the winners of the competition’s 145th edition – High Caliber!

Winners selected via community votes:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3363518748
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3362988175
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3362831220

Winners selected by our judges:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3363268519
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3363893722
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3363392785

Each winner will get 300GE! Congratulations and see you next week!
Today, we’re taking a look at motion blur in War Thunder — what it is, how it’s implemented in the game, and what challenges we were facing. War Thunder goes to the movies!

What Is Motion Blur?
In a video game, images are created from scratch, each frame displays a single point in time.
Real cameras or even our eyes don’t work like this. Taking a picture takes time, and over this time the world doesn’t always stand still. If an object moves while we’re taking the picture, it will appear in all those places at the same time on the final image. This is what we call motion blur.


Actual screenshot from War Thunder (Seek & Destroy trailer)

Explanation Of The Basics
To simulate the effect of motion blur, we need to know how every pixel has moved since the last frame. This requires all animations and moving effects to report their current and old positions. It can be one of the hardest parts of making this feature work. But thankfully we already had this working for anti-aliasing techniques. The few animations that didn’t support this became very easy to spot because motion blur turned them into a big blurry smudge. So we fixed them quickly!

For a starting point, we used a proven technique for implementing the effect, you can read more about that here. Basically we check where a pixel was in the last frame and where it is now, then we blur this pixel along the line in between.


Clean separation of foreground and background

To make calculations more efficient and smooth out some edges, the line is also blurred in the forward direction extending the line past the current pixel position. To speed things up further we make some decisions together for bigger blocks of pixels based on their general direction.

Each pixel’s distance from the camera also needs to be considered to let us blur the background and the foreground separately. The blurred line of a background pixel can sometimes pass behind a still standing, sharp object in the foreground. Other times we need to keep the background sharp while a foreground pixel is blurred on top. When two objects blur together in a single pixel, their individual speed is also important because sometimes neither must stay sharp.

Technical Challenges In War Thunder
Of course we needed to make some tweaks to shape it to our needs. To decide how to blur a pixel we need to know its speed. But what if there’s no single answer because there is more than one thing visible in the same point? Without special care, transparency is invisible to the algorithm.

In War Thunder, we have glass cockpits and colored light bulbs attached to planes flying over trees while breaking the sound barrier. So we needed to treat glass surfaces somehow. Here, we have completely different speeds all on the same pixel. The glass is steady but the forest behind it is very fast.

We ended up using a similar trick as with the background-foreground separation. If we see something through glass, we treat that as one category, while directly visible objects are another. We don’t blur one category on top of another but we allow mixing within categories.

This way we achieve images where the background is blurred through the glass but the glass itself can maintain its sharp silhouette.

Note: at the time of writing this post, special treatment of transparency is only enabled if Motion Blur is maxed out.


Blurred background through sharp glass


Blurred background through sharp glass


Limitations
Since we only have a single known speed for each pixel, fast moving transparent objects won’t be blurred, only the background objects you can see through them. This also means that reflections on such surfaces can only be blurred based on the background.

To create a perfect effect we would need perfect information. Even if we know a pixel’s screen position in both the past and the current frame, we don’t know what path it took between the two. We just blur it in a line, as if it was moving straight, which is almost always good enough. One important exception is the wheels of vehicles. Here, one point on the wheel can move to the opposite side in a single frame’s time. Assuming straight movement here is far from reality.

For the time being this issue is not solved, wheels will need a custom method for correct motion blur that works on different principles.


Foreground motion blur with overblurred wheels

Is It Realistic?
Motion blur is visible not only for fast moving objects, but also if the camera itself moves. On film this is a very common effect, but in our natural vision the eye usually locks onto objects keeping the world more steady for us. Video game motion blur is cinematic — it looks like a real movie made with real cameras. But it’s not like seeing the world with your own eyes.

To better simulate human vision, we added an option to disable motion blur caused by the movement of the camera. This will still blur fast moving objects like planes flying by, or exploding debris, but will keep the image sharp when you’re just looking around.


Camera blur off, only the turret is moving


Turning the turret with full motion blur

Is Motion Blur Good For Our Games?
We hear this question a lot and internally had conversations about this as well. Some say it gives the feeling of motion and makes the experience more immersive. While others say it makes it harder to aim for moving targets, it removes clarity that’s important for competitive play. Well, they are both right. It’s a matter of taste and what you want from the game. If you’re most interested in winning and climbing the ladder, it may not be for you — feel free to turn it off. We’re completely fine with that. But if you’ve already won and you’re making a highlight reel from your replays, or just want to feel the speed as you’re flying, you can max it out and use it for a movie quality effect.

Comparisons

Before

After


Before

After


Before

After



We’re constantly working to improve your experience in War Thunder, this time by removing griefers and exploiters. We rely on our team of Game Masters who look at statistics, as well as on reports from players that they carefully go through. You can use the replay service on our website as well as in-game reports to report players who have violated the Terms of Service and the License Agreement of the game to us.

Banned accounts
Since October 22nd, we’ve issued punishments to 25,013 accounts that were found to have violated the rules. Specifically, 23,872 were banned for different time frames for breach of paragraph 2 of “Annex #1. Game Rules” in the Gaijin Terms of Service namely for teamkilling (including intentional ramming). 1,190 were banned due to breaching paragraphs 3.2.3 and 3.2.4 of the End User License Agreement (EULA) namely in exploiting game flaws and manipulating the game mechanics.

For transparency, we’re publishing the lists of 2,728 players who have been issued a ban of 1 week or longer (up to the permanent ban), the remaining 22,285 players have been suspended for a shorter amount of time as a warning of appropriate severity. These lists will be available for two weeks after the publication of this article.

List: https://wt.link/FairPlayNovember2024


Recommendations
We’d like to remind you to abide to the rules to keep up the friendly and competitive atmosphere in the game.

As always, we also recommend that you set a strong password for your account and enable two-step authentication in your profile security settings. We have the following 2FA options available: email, SMS, TOTP (Gaijin Pass/Google Authenticator), and Telegram bot, which we suggest trying if SMS 2FA messages are not reaching you.

We’d also suggest that you turn on 2FA for the email that is linked to your account for additional security. This will protect your account from fraudsters. And remember, don’t break the rules and never share your account information with anyone!

The War Thunder Team


Today we’ll take a look at some more improvements coming to the Firebirds major update: mud on ground vehicles and improved naval effects such as better fires.

Dirtier Ground Vehicles
With the release of the Firebirds major update, you’ll notice an update to various effects related to mud, soil traces and the nature of your ground vehicles getting dirty. In particular, the effects of mud from under the wheels have been improved, with many bugs and inaccuracies fixed. The effect itself has become more saturated as well!



But that’s not all. Ground vehicles have always been able to get covered in mud, snow and sand, but we’ve now worked to make this mechanic more elaborate and realistic. Before the Firebirds major update, the surface of an entire map consisted of one material; either sand, dirt or snow. But now, the areas of the surface you drive on can have different materials, meaning ground vehicles can get covered with different types of mud at the same time. In addition to being able to clean off dirt in water as normal, you can now fire your main caliber gun and use the physics of that to “shake and blast” that dirt off. Pretty awesome!

Setting Up Radars Before Battle
Previously before each flight, you had to manually set the required operating modes of aircraft radars which was inconvenient. In the Firebirds major update, you’ll have the opportunity to configure aircraft radars before the battle, and for each game mode, you can choose your own set of settings. Select a vehicle, be it an aircraft, helicopter, SPAA or naval vessel that is equipped with a radar with search mode and go to the test flight settings screen. From here, you can set the mode of the radar, radar search mode and radar scope scale. The same settings can be made at the beginning of the battle in the respawn screen and in the “Settings” menu. Radar settings are individual for each vehicle, and can be set for each vehicle that has a search radar.



Naval Fires Improvements
Naval battles have also changed significantly. Surface vessel fires have been visually improved and divided into three categories: critical, which can cause imminent destruction, dangerous, which can cause little damage but can lead to serious consequences, and cosmetic, where the damage from fires is small, important compartments and modules are out of danger, and the battle can continue to be fought.

Today we’ll be going through some more new features and improvements coming to War Thunder in the Firebirds major update!

Improvements To Custom Sights
In the Firebirds major update, we’re expanding the functionality available in the “Sight settings” menu. It’s now possible to add the name of the shell you’re using to the sight and configure it in the same way as other elements can be within custom sights. You can move it to wherever you want, change the text and background color in different channels, change the size and font, and set the preferred name of the shell used — either its type or short name. In addition to this, the range scale can now be moved horizontally with the mouse cursor!



We’ve also improved the existing functionality of configurations. The sort list now puts player-created or downloaded configurations at the beginning, and a created or downloaded configuration that you no longer want can be deleted without leaving the game.

Analyze Your Hits From Your Battles
It’s now possible to see hits that you made or received during a battle as they actually happened, without needing to replay them manually in the Protection Analysis menu. You can view hits from a replay by clicking on the “Hit analysis” button when leaving a battle, or find the replay in the replay list (navigate “Community” > “Replays” from the hangar) and click the button from there.



Recorded hits are divided into two groups, where you can switch between both: either hits made by you, or hits from enemies. Each hit has time stamps, the name of the ammunition used and vehicle, and on the menu on the right, you can see the range and details of the projectile and vehicle. It’s also possible to save individual shots from the hit analysis menu to a file and play them from there, allowing you to both share them with your friends or attach them to bug reports. Please note that not all hits are saved. Some hits are filtered by gun caliber, so the list will not have a scattering of machine gun hits, as this can interfere with finding the exact hit that you wanted to see.


The first soldiers joined the ranks of the FRG Armed Forces on November 12th 1955. Until the mid-1990s, they served only on German territory, but then began to participate in international peacekeeping missions and major military operations. The number of people in the German Armed Forces exceeds 180,000 people.

The Pz.Sfl.Ic and the Panzer IV/70(A) are temporarily available for Golden Eagles!
Both vehicles are temporarily available for 1,000 and 2,980 Golden Eagles respectively.

When: From today until November 15th (07:00 GMT).
Where: Germany > Army > Premium vehicles.

About these tanks

  • The Pz.Sfl.Ic is fast, maneuverable and stealthy which is ideal for reconnaissance and getting to capture points. Armed with a small but formidable 50 mm PaK38 cannon and also having decent armor protection, the Pz.Sfl.Ic is also able to destroy most enemy vehicles at its rank.




  • The Panzer IV/70(A) is a tank destroyer armed with a 75 mm PaK42 gun. In addition to this, it also has impressive armor penetration with its PzGr 39/42 round and boasts good armor protection too. This compact and highly accurate firing tank destroyer is ideal for long-range defensive gameplay.



Get the “Bundeswehr chevron” decal!


“Bundeswehr chevron” decal

When: From today until November 15th (07:00 GMT).
Task: Task: Play 3 battles using German vehicles at rank III or above to receive the “Bundeswehr chevron” decal!

Additional details:

  • You must use a minimum of rank III.
  • Your activity must not be below 70%.
  • You can complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions, mode and Helicopter PVE battles.
  • Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → Bundeswehr Day.
  • You can find the decal in the “Germany -> Tanks” tab in the Customisation menu.


Today, the People’s Liberation Army Air Force of China celebrates its 75th anniversary, being founded on November 11th 1949. The modern PLA Air Force consists of five branches. In addition to aviation, it includes ground air defense forces, airborne troops, radars and other support units. The PLA Air Force has more than 3,500 aircraft and 400,000 people in service.

The J-7D is temporarily available at a 50% discount!
In honor of the PLA Air Force’s anniversary, the J-7D is temporarily available at a 50% discount

To get to the Gaijin Store through Steam, go to the in-game hangar > Shop > Online Store!

When: From today until November 18th (14:00 GMT).

J-7D Pack -50%
Was: 69.99 Now: 35


  • J-7D (Rank 7, China)
  • Premium account for 20 days
  • 2500 Golden Eagles




About this aircraft

  • In air battles, the J-7D relies primarily on its impressive speed and rate of climb, where it can easily catch up with an enemy and disengage from combat. It’s armed with a powerful 23 mm cannon and can take a number of IR-guided missiles. It has flares for use against air-to-air missiles, and for hitting ground targets has rockets and small bombs.


Get the “PLAAF Flag” decal!
Available for this day!


“PLAAF Flag” decal

When: From today until November 14th (07:00 GMT).
Task: Play 3 battles using Chinese aircraft at rank III or above to receive the “PLAAF Flag” decal!

Additional details:

  • Your activity must not be below 70%.
  • You can complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions, mode and Helicopter PVE battles.
  • Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → PLA Air Force Day.
  • You can find the decal in the “China -> Aircraft” tab in the Customization menu.


On November 11th 1918, Germany signed the Armistice of Compiègne with Entente, ending World War I. It allowed Poland to declare its independence for the first time since the 18th century. In modern Poland, Independence Day is widely celebrated as the most important national holiday. It’s accompanied by a military parade in Warsaw, the laying of flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the raising of flags throughout the country.

Lanovski’s P-47M-1-RE Thunderbolt is temporarily available for Golden Eagles!
Lanovski’s own plane is available for 6,090 Golden Eagles!

When: From today until November 14th (07:00 GMT).
Where: USA > Aviation > Premium Vehicles.



About this aircraft

  • The Lanovski’s P-47M-1-RE combines all the advantages of the famous Thunderbolt fighter, adding an even more powerful engine and improved maneuverability. Its armament consists of eight 12.7 mm Browning machine guns and up to two tons of bombs. This fighter was flown by Witold Lanovski, a Polish pilot who served as an instructor in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and then flew combat sorties in the last year of the war as part of the U.S. Army Air Force. He shot down at least six aircraft, including four when he served in the 56th Fighter Group, 61st Fighter Squadron.


Get the “Winged Hussars” camouflage for the Mi-24V!
We’re once again returning the Winged Hussars camouflage temporarily for the Soviet Mi-24V!



When: From today until November 14th (07:00 GMT).
Task: Play 3 battles with an activity above 70% while flying the Soviet Mi-24V to receive the “Winged Hussars” camouflage for this helicopter! This camouflage can only be obtained in random battles against other players.


Get the “Kotwica” decal!
Available for this day!


“Kotwica” decal

When: From today until November 14th (07:00 GMT).
Task: Play 3 battles using British or US vehicles at rank III or above to receive the “Kotwica” decal!

Additional details:

  • Your activity must not be below 70%.
  • You can complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions, mode and Helicopter PVE battles.
  • Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → Poland Independence Day.
  • You can find the decal in the “Holidays” tab in the Customization menu.




Welcome to the 145th War Thunder Steam Screenshot Competition!

We loved seeing all of your screenshots last week, thank you! This week, large caliber submissions! There is much to pick from- planes like the Kingcobra, or all-time classics such as the KV-2. The three most popular and three selected by us will get 300 GE. See the winners down below!

Let’s begin the 145th edition of our competition!

Create a stunning screenshot and submit it on the War Thunder Steam Community Hub with the tag #WTscreen145. You have time until the 15th of November to submit your screenshot.

After that date, 6 winners will be selected (3 of which will be the highest rated by the community and 3 selected by our judges), each of which receive a reward of 300GE.

Terms:

  • Your screenshot must feature a vehicle with a large caliber.
  • Aircraft and Coastal Vessels: 35mm or greater, Tanks and Ships: 130mm or greater.
  • You must add the #WTscreen145 tag (title cannot have any other text in it).
  • Artists may only win by popular vote once per four screenshot competitions.
  • Screenshots need to be compliant with the War Thunder rules.
  • You need to be the author of the screenshot.
  • Screenshot needs to be new. You cannot use those which have previously been published or used in other competitions.
  • We will only accept raw screenshots from the game. You cannot use any editing software nor any other visual enhancements (like Nvidia Ansel filters).
  • You can use filters and settings built into War Thunder.
  • You can use the replay functionality built into War Thunder.
  • Rewards will be delivered to the author's account within 14 working days.


And now, time for the winners of the competition’s 144th edition – Piston Powered!

Winners selected via community votes:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3359442219
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3359166849
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3359124423

Winners selected by our judges:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3360769445
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3359888738
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3360035670

Each winner will get 300GE! Congratulations and see you next week!
With the Firebirds update, War Thunder has support for Ray Tracing (RT) and is capable of doing several RT based visual effects, like shadows, ambient occlusion and reflections. In today’s blog, we’ll be taking a closer look at the details!

How does this work?
For RT to be used, we need to build and maintain a so called “Bounding Volume Hierarchy” (BVH). BVH is a triangulated representation of the whole world where all RT effects can work on that. Many games cut corners on what to include in BVH and what fidelity. Like only using less detailed models, removing everything at a relatively close distance. But that has a price. With such approach, it’s impossible to get accurate shadows.

With War Thunder, we decided to go for the real deal, so we can employ a wider range of effects in the long run. In War Thunder, almost the whole battlefield is accessible for RT effects at the same fidelity that is rendered in the game, so all of those effects can be physically correct and accurate.



Doing this has a price as the BVH building process makes use of as many CPU threads as possible, so a modern CPU is recommended.

Now we have BVH ready, we can start tracing rays in it and get some effects out of it. We have three main effects available at launch.

Ray Traced Shadow Map (RTSM)
This replaces texture based shadow mapping and instead traces rays from every point on the screen onto the surface of the sun. As it’s using the whole surface of the sun, and not just the center point of it, shadows get a physically correct penumbra, depending on the shadow caster object’s distance, as one would expect.




The result is physically correct and pixel perfect shadows from the sun.

On high end GPUs one can also try shadows from dynamic lights. It enables hard, pixel perfect shadows from all dynamic lights, like explosions, muzzle flashes and the like. This is a very demanding feature, and aimed for high-end GPUs.




Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion (RTAO)
Ambient occlusion is a technique used to simulate object features blocking the ambient lighting, like the sky itself — a sort of ambient shadow. That’s why it’s darker under your bed.




Traditionally we do this with screen space techniques like SSAO or GTAO. RTAO is a ray traced version of these screen space techniques, and can correct errors, typical to screen space techniques, like when something casts ambient shadows outside of the screen. Screen space techniques can’t deal with that, but RTAO can. Similarly to when something casts ambient shadows, which is occluded by another object. Usually in these cases, you see shadows where it should not be, or vice versa. RTAO fixes all of these issues.

Ray Traced Reflection (RTR)
This is the most complex feature. RTSM and RTAO is really just about shadows, but with RTR, we’re visualizing BVH itself. In a mirror, you basically see what is in BVH and we’re working hard to make it match the rendered image closely as possible.

Again, even before RTR, we had reflections. Probe based and screen space reflections were used, but just as with SSAO, they have their limitations. Actually very similar. Handling out of screen or occluded objects for screen space, and positioning issues with probes. RTR has the whole scene to trace, so naturally it can reflect objects from any location.

There is another complication for RTR, namely surface roughness. A rough surface like concrete has reflections which are very soft and blurry, while gloss surfaces like glass or flat water has mirror like sharp reflections. Additionally, there’s everything in between. Simulating this is actually one of the hottest topics in computer graphics.

Our approach is rendering noisy reflections based on roughness, and using a so called denoiser to get physically accurate reflections.

The effect is sometimes obvious, like in the case of mirror like reflections.




Other times, it’s less obvious but makes the rendered image just more correct, making it look natural. If you look at these shots, take a look at the vehicle and its surroundings. On the non RT one, it is basically glowing in the shadow, as the building which should block the sky from the reflection on it is not on screen, so screen space techniques can’t know the sky should be blocked. On the RT version, this blue tint is gone, as BVH has the building, regardless of it being on screen or not, and blocks the sky correctly.




Again RTR is fixing the issues traditional screen space and probe based reflections have.

A sub feature of RTR is reflections on translucent glass surfaces. In these glass surfaces, you can now see an accurate reflection of the world, instead of the probe we used before. The result is accurate reflections again.

And finally another sub feature is reflections on water.

Our water reflections are using planar reflections in the game, which is a very accurate way to have reflections, and then it’s distorted based on the waves. With RTR water, the reflection rays are shot out correctly, based on the wave normal vectors. The reflection itself is simply more correct, as it’s not just distorting a 2D image, but actually use different reflections per pixel.




The difference is sometimes larger, sometimes smaller.

RT performance
Ray Tracing is heavy lifting, but there are many scalability options to make it more accessible.

First of all, all three options can be enabled/disabled independently, meaning you can use only the effect which you are care about the most if you have an older RT capable GPU.

Then there is the quality levels. In general, RTSM with dynamic lights is for the latest high end GPUs. Normally it’s not much more expensive than just sun shadows, but in the middle of the action with many fires and explosions, it can become very demanding.

For RTAO, low quality is using a lower internal resolution for the calculations. This is however the same resolution as with the screen space techniques, but without the screen space errors. Medium gives you higher resolution and high gives better de-noising. This is really only visible in certain circumstances, but we wanted to give you the control over it.

For RTR, low is a good tradeoff. It lacks RT shadows in reflections, improving speed considerably. Medium has RT shadows in reflections. Both low and medium is using a so called checkerboard rendering to double performance by tracing half the number of rays. High disables this checkerboard rendering, but the denoiser actually does a great job hiding the checkerboard pattern, so the difference is small. Again, it’s up to you to decide.

RTR also has a control to render at full or half resolution, both for water and normal surfaces. The difference is mainly visible in mirrors, and look good on half resolution even if you don’t have a beefier GPU.

Finally the RTR translucent glass reflections can also have RT reflections inside the reflections on high, or not on medium. This usually impacts performance slightly as these surfaces are not very common in the game.

For an optimized setting, where you get a good tradeoff on performance/image quality we recommend using the Medium RT preset. Pushing beyond further improves the quality of the effects but at greater price in performance. But if you have the latest top of the line GPU, go for it! :)

When using RT effects, we recommend using an upscaling anti aliasing method, with a preset that suits your graphics card. Like DLSS, FSR, XeSS or our TSR. With these upscalers you can achieve great performance and image quality. Balanced presets are usually a good middle ground for ray tracing, but on an older GPU, there’s nothing wrong in going for the performance preset if you want to enjoy the RT benefits.

We’re committed not just to add more RT features in the future, but also to improve the performance of existing ones, so stay tuned for future updates.

At launch, RT effects are supported on Nvidia graphics cards. Making it work on both AMD and Intel cards is a priority for us. It’s working with our internal builds, but not ready for release, we need to iron out some issues specific to these GPUs. It will be ready soon, along with the current generation consoles.


The Esports III Trophy is now complete, with camouflages created by the authors on WT.Live! This new wave of additions includes 20 camouflages for different vehicles: 9 aircraft and 11 ground vehicles. We’re continuing to showcase mid-level vehicles with unique creations by our artists.















Aircraft
Ground Vehicles



  • Ta 152C-3 “The Sun”
  • Tempest II  “Northern Basilisk”
  • F8F1-B “Golden Jackal”
  • Me 262 A-1 U4 “V Blacklist”
  • Venom FB5 “Eldrich Master”
  • Do 335B-2 “Vampire”
  • G.91 R4 (GER) “Scorched Steel”
  • A2D “Orange Splinter”
  • N1K2-JA “Ryuutachi”



  • STB-2 “Empress of the Fallen”
  • OF-40 “Sunset”
  • AMX-30 “Gendarme”
  • M103 “Cosmo Black”
  • Raketen JPZ 2 “Jupiter”
  • BTR-80A “Acid Lander”
  • IS4-M “Glycon”
  • AMX-50 Surbaisse “Vouivre”
  • Leopard 1  “Electric Hazard”
  • Strv 103 “Honey Bear”
  • Type 87 RCV “Rebecca's Momento”





Like the previous Esports trophy, the new trophy can be obtained by simply playing regular War Thunder battles. In the future, it’ll also be possible to obtain by participating in Esports events in War Thunder tournaments with an increased chance! PlayStation and Xbox players can purchase the trophy in the Item Shop for Golden Eagles.

Read more on our Wiki.

To open it, you’ll need to purchase a key on the Market (income is shared with the authors of the camouflages). You can either activate the coupon on your account, or trade it on the Market to get Gaijin Coins (GJN). A trophy can be sold as well!

To unlock the trophy, you'll need an “Esport” key that can be purchased on the Market for GJN.








Read more about the Market and Gaijin Coins on our Wiki.













Air Superiority Anniversary, the Competitions Continue!
Air Superiority tournament sponsored by Thrustmaster, this weekend, from 13:40 GMT, Twitch Drops will once again be accompanying the final stages of the last Major Esport event of the year! Here’s a sneak preview of the BO7 matches on Saturday 9th November.



Watch the tournament and get Twitch Drops also on the official English, German, French and Russian War Thunder Esport channels!

FOLLOW



The “Air Superiority” pack, soon to be gone!

In this pack:

  • "Flanking Snail" decal
  • "Slick flanker" title
  • 300 Golden Eagles


Let’s have a look at the Mirage 2000D RMV, an upgraded version of the strike variant of the Mirage family of aircraft and one of its most modern variants currently in service.

Mirage 2000D RMV: A Strike Fighter for France at Rank VIII
At a glance:

  • Top speed of Mach 2.
  • Access to advanced missiles.
  • Large caliber laser bombs.
  • HMD

Vehicle History

In an effort to modernize the Mirage 2000 and extend its service life, Dassault launched the ‘Rénovation Mi-Vie’ (RMV) program in 2015. As part of the program, the Mirage 2000D RMV received updated avionics and was enabled to carry GBU-48 and GBU-50 guided bombs. Although demonstrator had been built by and exhibited at the 2017 Paris Air Show, the conversion of the first operational aircraft to the RMV standard started in 2019, the first aircraft was delivered 2021 and test flights were conducted shortly afterwards by the Air Force. The Mirage 2000D RMV subsequently entered service in 2022 with 55 aircraft being upgraded to this standard.  




Meet the Mirage 2000D RMV!

The Mirage 2000D RMV is on its way to the top rank of the French aviation tree in the Firebirds major update, becoming the most advanced strike aircraft available. Building on the airframe of the Mirage 2000D, the RMV modification brings with it key upgrades to the Mirage’s strike capabilities, further increasing its effectiveness against ground targets. Let’s take a closer look!




Representing a direct upgrade of the Mirage 2000D-R1, the RMV modification inherits much of its key characteristics from its predecessor. As such, the aircraft maintains superb flight characteristics, thanks to its delta wing design as well as the powerful SNECMA ATAR M53 afterburning turbofan engine. This combination in particular enables the Mirage 2000 to retain excellent maneuverability, representing a signature feature of the Mirage family of aircraft.

Unlike the R1 variant which precedes it, the Mirage 2000D RMV is specially outfitted to accommodate the installation of the more advanced GBU-48, GBU-49 & GBU-50 guided bombs, which most prominently feature GPS guidance in addition to the traditional laser guidance system.




Apart from these new weapon options, the Mirage 2000D RMV also retains some more familiar faces in its arsenal, such as conventional 250 kg bombs, MATRA rockets or the BGL-400 and BGL-1000 laser guided bombs. Lastly, the aircraft can also be equipped with the new CC-422 gunpod which houses a single 30 mm DEFA 553 cannon. All in all, these upgrades further increase the Mirage’s lethality against ground targets and thus make it a must-have in any top tier Ground Battle lineup. 



That’s it for this one! The Mirage 2000D RMV is on final approach and is expected to arrive in the Firebirds major update. In the meantime, make sure to keep a close watch on the news for other dev blogs that we’ve got planned!

Please note that this vehicle’s characteristics may be changed before it is added to the game.


On November 10th, 1888, outstanding Soviet aircraft designer Andrei Nikolaevich Tupolev was born. He designed over 100 types of aircraft, including the Tu-2 frontline bomber, which was widely used in WWII, the Tu-4 strategic bomber, and the first Soviet passenger jet aircraft, the Tu-104.

The Tu-1 is temporarily available at a 30% discount for Golden Eagles!
This Soviet premium bomber is available for 3,416 Golden Eagles!

When: From today until November 11th (07:00 GMT).
Where: USSR > Aviation > Premium vehicles.



About this aircraft

  • The Tu-1 is fast but fragile. It features two 23 mm forward-firing cannons as well as two 45 mm cannons. Additionally it has bombs and torpedoes, including three powerful 1,000 kg bombs capable of destroying any ground target. While working on the Tu-2, Tupolev wanted to make a truly multi-purpose aircraft capable of escort, interception and attack, which is how the Tu-1 project began. Work on it was completed only after the war, and the prototype did not go into production, since it was inferior in characteristics to jet aircraft.




Today we’ll be taking a look at the Renown-class Battlecruiser, HMS Repulse, coming to Great Britain’s Bluewater fleet research tree!

HMS Repulse: A Battlecruiser for Great Britain at Rank VI
At a glance:

  • 381 mm (15 inch) guns!
  • Good mobility but mediocre protection.
  • Weak air defense capability.

Vehicle History

The development of a new type of ship for the Royal Navy, which was to become an improved version of the Revenge class, began in late 1914. Despite the high pace of work, both ordered ships did not make it in time for the famous Battle of Jutland. The lead ship of the class, HMS Renown, was enlisted into the fleet on September 20th 1916, while the second ship, HMS Repulse, entered service a little earlier in August. The only battle that HMS Repulse participated in during the First World War was the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight. From the first months of the Second World War, HMS Repulse was actively used in combat, participating in the Norwegian Campaign. In 1941, she went to Indochina, where she joined up with the battleship HMS Prince of Wales. In December 1941 both ships were sunk by Japanese aircraft in the South China Sea. The place where the ships sank has been discovered and well studied, and the remains of the ships are recognized as a military burial site.


Meet HMS Repulse!

The Battlecruiser HMS Repulse will be one of the best ships in Great Britain’s Bluewater fleet tree when it arrives at rank VI in the Firebirds major update. HMS Repulse is the second and final ship of the Renown-class, with the lead ship of this class, HMS Renown, already in the game. What are the differences between the ships and what are the strengths and weaknesses of HMS Repulse? Let’s have a look!




In the game, HMS Repulse will be coming in its latest 1941 upgrade. The immediate and most noticeable difference is the composition of the auxiliary weapons and the absence of a radar — after all, HMS Renown as we know was significantly rebuilt in 1944. Instead of 114 mm universal guns, HMS Repulse carries three-barreled anti-mine caliber mounts with 102 mm BL Mk IX guns, as well as single 102 mm Mk V guns, which can fire at aircraft. The engine and transmission are also different, with the max speed of HMS Repulse being 28.4 knots (52.6 km/h).

Interesting: The motto of HMS Repulse was “Qui Tangit Frangitur”, which in English means “Who touches me is broken”.



One key advantage of HMS Repulse is its powerful main armament: six 381 mm guns (15 inches) in three turrets, with two turrets located in the bow of the ship and one in the stern. A well-trained crew can reload the guns in 30 seconds, so the density of Repulse’s broadside salvo is quite high! These beefy guns can fire excellent semi-armor piercing shells, which are inferior to armor-piercing ones in terms of armor penetration at short and medium distances, but cause incomparably greater destruction due to the larger amount of TNT.

Did you know? HMS Repulse and HMS Renown were often referred to as HMS Refit and HMS Repair, due to the enormous amount of time spent on repairs and modifications.



In terms of protection, HMS Repulse is ambiguous. The armor belt hides most of the engines and transmission, but its thickness does not give it a chance to survive for long under fire, even from cruisers, not to mention battleships. The main caliber gun magazines are also almost completely unprotected, leading to a catastrophe if these areas are hit accurately. On the other hand, the elevators and main battery turrets are protected much better. In general, getting involved in long-range firefights will not be to the advantage of HMS Repulse — it’s better to rely on the relatively good speed to control the engagement distance, and utilize Repulse’s maneuverability to reduce incoming damage.



That’s it for today’s dev blog! HMS Repulse, being a complex and interesting ship, will come to the game in the Firebirds major update, coming soon — everything is nearly ready. See you!

Please note that this vehicle’s characteristics may be changed before it is added to the game.


War Thunder Mobile is now in its second year! Featuring realistic vehicles, this game has now reached more than 10 million players. Not tried it yet? Then join us! The game can be downloaded on iOS and Android for free.

In honor of the release of the “Steep Dive” major update in War Thunder Mobile, we’re continuing to do joint-events where you can get vehicles in both games by completing tasks in War Thunder Mobile. This time, the list of rewards has been expanded with an aircraft!

Rewards in War Thunder
All tasks need to be completed in War Thunder Mobile to receive these rewards in War Thunder.

Bf 109 C-1 in a Unique Camouflage


  • Research or purchase 4 aircraft in War Thunder Mobile.

This variant of the legendary Bf 109 features a more powerful engine and two additional 7.92 mm machine guns in the wings. Double the firepower!

M4 in a Unique Camouflage


  • Take 1st place three times in your team in a tank battle.

The M4 Sherman is a true classic of medium-tier tank battles. Featuring a 75 mm gun and good armor-piercing shells, the M4 Sherman has good hull and turret protection at the front.

Hatsuzuki in a Unique Camouflage


  • Win 3 battles.

The Hatsuzuki destroyer (Japanese for “New Moon”) is one of the heaviest ships of this class and is distinguished by its excellent armament of eight 100 mm main guns, numerous 25 mm anti-aircraft guns and 610 mm torpedoes.

Player Icon


  • Complete 5 battles.

“War Thunder Mobile” Decal


  • Complete 10 battles.


Rewards in War Thunder Mobile
All tasks need to be completed in War Thunder Mobile.

Bf 109 C-1 in a Unique Camouflage

  • Research or purchase 4 aircraft in War Thunder Mobile.


M4 Sherman platoon

  • Take 1st place three times in your team.
M4 Sherman platoon: M4 Sherman, M10 Wolverine, M24 Chaffee, M16 MGMC.

Hatsuzuki

  • Win 3 battles.


Player Icon

  • Complete 5 battles.


Nickname Decorator


  • Complete 10 battles.


War Thunder players can log into War Thunder Mobile with their Gaijin account. War Thunder Mobile players will simply need to link their existing Apple ID, Google Play ID, or Facebook ID to their Gaijin account. If you’re already playing War Thunder Mobile using your Gaijin account, then you’re all set!


The Firebirds major update brings with it an array of improvements to the aviation portion of the game, specifically test flights, airfields, cockpit models and graphical features. In today’s dev blog we’ll be diving in and taking a look at them, so let’s get started!

Greatly Improved Test Flights!
Introducing the new Test Flight for aircraft, coming in with a range of improvements. You can now choose the terrain type for the test flight itself, from Western Europe, Eastern Europe Winter, Desert, Mountains, Jungle or Middle East Mediterranean. Previously you were only able to spawn on the airfield, but that has changed! Before going into a test flight, you can now select a spawn point: either on the airfield as normal, or from 500 m to 7 km in the air for planes, and up to 2 km for helicopters, or at an enemy air defense zone to test out your evasive maneuvers. Naval-based aircraft can now also choose between spawning on an aircraft carrier as well.

Airfields themselves have been greatly improved too. There’s new airfield buildings, light indications on the airstrip and even aircraft skid marks at each end of the runway. The test flight itself now has a much more diverse range of targets for you to test out your weapons against, and from different eras. Static and moving ground vehicles, from trucks to tanks, enemy aircraft at different altitudes, bases to bomb, different types of ships, and active air defense systems. When selecting the target rank as “High”, surface-to-air missile capable vehicles will attack you with missiles and ping you with radar.

Original test flight settings are still available, such as gamemode, time of day and weather, unlimited fuel or ammo, configuring gun targeting distance and vertical targeting, fuel amount and ammo belts, secondary weapons and countermeasures.



Cockpit Models Update
We’ve upgraded several cockpit models for some planes and helicopters. For planes this includes the entire line of the Ju 87 Stuka dive bomber including the cannon variants, the Soviet Su-2 attackers and lastly the BB-1. For helicopters, the US and Chinese OH-58D as well as the Italian Agusta A.109EOA-2 cockpit models have been updated.



RWR Indication and New Screens
For fans of jet aircraft and modern helicopters, there’s some really important improvements to the immersion while in first-person cockpit view. The indication of warning systems (RWR) is now displayed in the cockpits exactly as these systems would work in reality on specific models of aircraft. Threat markers and signs of their status (for example locked on, launch, new threat, etc) can differ for the third-person camera and cockpit view. For a full list of onboard RWR models and their functionality in first-person view, take a look at the Firebirds major changelog once it releases!



For those who fly in first-person view, the Firebirds major update will add a radar screen and RWS screen to the JAS39A Gripen, a multi-functional display (MFD) for the Platan optical-electronic system in the Su-34 cockpit, and authentic digital indicators for multi-functional displays, as well as a HUD for the F-15E.



Air Combat Graphical Effects
When taking your aircraft out in air battles in the Firebirds major update, you’ll definitely notice improvements in terms of graphical effects! For example, the afterburner flame effect for jet aircraft and the effect of rocket boosters have been updated. Brand-new LERX Vapor effects on different surfaces of the aircraft’s wings when gaining altitude and performing maneuvers will now appear, as well as new effects when aircraft slide on different surfaces such as concrete, snow and sand.

That’s not all, as the effects of air-to-air missile and anti-aircraft missile explosions in the air have been reworked. After the explosion occurs, in some cases you’ll be able to see how the engine motor of the missile continues to move along the flight path for a brief time.



Today we’ll be taking a look at the Osa-AK family of air defense missile systems that will be put into four different in-game nations at once.

Osa-AK (Germany & Great Britain) and Osa-AKM (USSR & Italy): An SPAA at Rank VII
At a glance:

  • Can carry six missiles.
  • Can launch two missiles at one target.
  • Almost powerless against ground targets.
  • Amphibious.
  • No armor to speak of.
  • Large in size, making it a big target.

Vehicle History

In 1960, the development program for the autonomous “Osa” air defense system was launched, with several research and production enterprises joining the work. After lengthy development and testing, the first systems entered service in the USSR in only 1971, when there were agreements signed to further develop the Osa. In 1975, the Osa-AK modification appeared with six launch containers and improved search and tracking equipment. Soon after, to increase the effectiveness against helicopters, the Osa-AKM modification appeared with improved missiles and a more advanced radar. The Osa family of air defense systems is still in service with the Russian Armed Forces.




Meet the Osa-AK and Osa-AKM!

The workhorse of the army’s air defense systems is coming to War Thunder in the Firebirds major update! The Osa will arrive to four nations at once: the Osa-AKM to the USSR, the Romanian Osa-AKM to Italy, the Osa-AK GDR modification to Germany, and the Indian Osa-AK to Great Britain. Both variants of the vehicle are identical in combat capabilities, but will differ in camouflage and radar antenna model. Let’s take a closer look!




The Osa is a wheeled air defense missile system with six launch containers, each capable of launching the 9M33M3 surface-to-air missile. This missile is quite maneuverable and has a launch range of just over 10 km, with the radar capturing and tracking the target and the gunner guiding the missile to the target through an optical sight. Due to the long operation of the cruise engine, the missile speed is almost constant over most of its trajectory. An interesting feature of the Osa is its ability to launch two missiles at one target — this makes the probability of hitting a target higher, however you’ll have to wait a couple of seconds between missile launches. For low-flying targets, the missile first goes up and then hits the target from above through “top-attack”!

Did you know? “Osa” in English means “Wasp”. Its NATO designation is “Gecko”.



Angled upwards, the SAM launch containers feature missiles that require a lengthy arming distance. Additionally, the missile warhead is fragmentation, which in short means you can try to attack armored vehicles, but only light ones and only at extreme distances. Against tanks and light reconnaissance vehicles nearby, the Osa is powerless, lacks armor, is large in size and the wheeled chassis has low power. Oh and by the way, the Osa is amphibious, paving the way for some interesting tactical opportunities!



The Osa-AK and Osa-AKM vehicles will be available for research in the Firebirds major update — don’t miss the dev blogs we’ve got coming to be the first to know all the news. Have fun in your battles!

Please note that this vehicle’s characteristics may be changed before it is added to the game.


The Firebirds major update brings with it a host of improvements to several locations and a complete graphics update to the Abandoned Factory ground battles map!

Abandoned Factory Visual Upgrades
Welcome to the updated Abandoned Factory map! One of the most beloved locations amongst players for ground battles has been completely transformed visually. Our artists have replaced all the soil textures with new, clear and authentic ones, and the models and textures of buildings and almost all elements of the environment have been changed. Grass and small vegetation have been updated, making them denser, and bushes have been reduced in size to better match the size of ground vehicles.






Despite being significantly updated in terms of visuals, the performance of this location has not changed much when using the same in-game graphics settings as before.

Improved Effects
On Abandoned Factory and other War Thunder locations, dust clouds from tracks and wheels caused by ground vehicles in hot weather have been improved. When it’s raining, you’ll see realistic puddles and streams of water flowing from the roofs of buildings and the surface of objects. By the way, for Abandoned Factory, we’ve separately worked on the sky effects in cloudy weather, meaning the clouds have become more realistic.



Push Objects That Were Previously Static
The ability to interact with various objects in the game has also been updated. For example, in the new Abandoned Factory and other locations, you can now push carriages on the railroad tracks, giving you the chance to freely make your own passage or to make it difficult for your opponents. When driving into cars and trucks, they’ll be realistically crushed under the tracks of your tank.



Airfield Overhauls
There’s also great news for pilots! We’ve significantly improved all airfields for aircraft in Test Flights and missions for high-ranked aircraft. The runway slabs have been completely reworked, with the textures becoming sharper and the airfield environment improving significantly. There’s new buildings, a reliable light signaling system, and positions of anti-aircraft missile systems for protecting aircraft. There’s even aircraft skid marks! To improve the airfields, we consulted with current pilots and think they’ve turned out pretty well.






That’s it for today! The updated Abandoned Factory location will come to the game in the Firebirds major update. Follow our website for more dev blogs that we’ve got planned, as there’s a lot of interesting things ahead!


On November 6th, 1942, the twin-engine He 219 night fighter took to the skies for the first time. Being the first combat aircraft with ejection seats, it participated in battles during WWII from June 1943 and quickly demonstrated its effectiveness against the British Mosquito. In total, less than 300 He 219’s were produced before production ended in May 1944.

The He 219 A-7 is temporarily available for Golden Eagles!
The premium German He 219 A-7 is available for 2,980 Golden Eagles.

When: From today until November 8th (07:00 GMT).
Where: Germany > Aviation > Premium vehicles.

About this aircraft

  • The He 219 A-7 is an advanced modification of the He 219 with enhanced DB 603E engines and six cannons, with a total ammunition amount of 1,000 rounds. The MK 103 cannon’s armor-piercing belt can penetration medium and even heavy tanks, while the MK 108 and MG 151 can handle anti-aircraft vehicles. The He 219 A-7 also performs well as an interceptor, thanks to its mentioned powerful forward-firing guns, plus survivability.