• Display of destroyed wrecks of ground vehicles which in rare cases might look like serviceable vehicles has been fixed.
  
• A bug where the effect of flying dirt might appear in the air in ground battles in different locations has been fixed (report).
  
• A bug which caused the aircraft icon to remain dark and not highlighted when activating an air event in ground AB although the player was waiting for the start of the air event has been fixed.
  
• A bug that caused event icons to me mistakenly displayed active at the beginning of the game session has been fixed
  
• A bug that caused the reload time not to be displayed when hovering over the icon during the initial preparation of the UAV has been fixed.
  

Fleet

• HMS Glorious — torpedo firing order has been changed. In manual control, torpedoes are fired from one side in order rather than from the other.
  
• IJN Hatsuharu — “Torpedo Mode” modification has been added.
  
• A bug has been fixed in the boat tutorial where the frame over the the furthest target was shown black.
  

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

Today the world remembers the valor of the Allies in their daring landing in Normandy as a part of Operation Overlord. The success of D-Day allowed them to liberate France in mere months and hastened the end of World War II. To commemorate the largest landing operation in history, we are temporarily returning for sale for Golden Eagles vehicles that stormed the beaches of Normandy!

From June 6th (12:00 GMT) until June 12th (12:00 GMT) Achilles (65 Rg.), Stuart VI (5th CAD), P-47M-1-RE, and Typhoon Mk.Ib are available for GE!

The British Achilles tank destroyer with the insignia of the 65th Anti-Tank Regiment) is outfitted with a powerful 17 pound gun. The Stuart VI Light tank of the 5th Canadian Armoured Division can be found in the US research tree: it is quite mobile and deadly if it gets close to the enemy. George Bostwick’s P-47M-1-RE Thunderbolt — is a versatile American fighter that is great at both high altitude combat and dealing with ground targets. Finally, the Typhoon Mk.Ib is one of the main strike aircraft of the Royal Air Force: it feels at home on low altitudes and is best suited for dealing with German Fw 190 fighters.

Also don’t miss the decal, tournament series, and historical events dedicated to the anniversary of D-Day!

The Vijayanta medium tank comes to the game in the La Royale update. Meet the first Indian tank in War Thunder!

Vijayanta, medium tank, Britain, rank V. Premium.

Features:

• IR-searchlight
  
• High rate of fire
  
• Deadly HEATFS rounds
  
• Low protection
  

In 1961, the Indian government and British Vickers-Armstrong company signed an agreement to build a tank factory in the Avadi area near Chennai (formerly Madras) to assemble Vickers Mk.1 tanks for the Indian army. The first tank that in India received the name Vijayanta (“victorious”), left the assembly line in 1965, and soon the Indian plant mastered the independent production of tank components. During service life, the Vijayanta tank was upgraded and received a new fire control system. The production of the tank continued until 1989, after which the Vijayanta began to be replaced in the army by the Russian T-72M1.




The first Indian tank in War Thunder, the Vijayanta, will become a new Premium vehicle in the British ground vehicles tech tree, and it will be added to the game with the release of the La Royale update. This is an export version of the British Vickers Mk.1, which received an IR-searchlight, side skirts and, most importantly, the HEATFS round for its accurate and fast-firing gun!

Vijayanta is armed with an excellent Royal Ordnance L7A1gun, which is highly accurate and has a two-plane stabiliser. Unlike the British Vickers Mk.1, the Indian Vijayanta received an M456 high-explosive anti-tank round with armour penetration up to 400 mm. The tank easily copes with the armour of any enemy on the battlefield, and a fully trained crew increases the tank's rate of fire to a fantastic 5 seconds between shots!



In terms of protection level, the Vijayanta differs little from its British ancestor and any armour piercing round of enemy tanks is dangerous to it. The dense crew seating and vulnerable layout of the ammo racks inside the tank also make it uneasy to survive hits. However, the side skirts that the Indian tank has, still slightly reduce damage from close explosions and increase protection against enemy HEAT shots.



Vijayanta will become a Premium tank in the British armoured vehicle research tree and will significantly speed up the progress of any armoured vehicle from rank I to VI. And while you are waiting for the La Royale update, write to us, what other Indian armoured vehicles would you like to see in War Thunder?

On June 6th, 1523 Gustav Vasa ascended to the Swedish throne and declared the secession of Sweden from the Kalmar Union. Since then, Sweden has maintained independence for 500 years! And on June 6th, 1809 a constitution was adopted that abolished absolute monarchy and paved the way for modern democracy. So this date is celebrated as the National Day of Sweden for two reasons!

From June 5th (9:00 GMT) until June 8th (9:00 GMT)

Play 3 battles using Swedish vehicles (rank III or higher, with an activity of not less than 70%) to receive the “500 Years of Swedish Independence” decal.


“500 Years of Swedish Independence” decal

Complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions and mode. Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → 500 Years of Swedish Independence.

You can find the decal in the “Holidays” tab in the Customisation menu.

Welcome to the 70th War Thunder Steam Screenshot Competition!

The screenshot submissions from last week were fabulous! Who doesn’t like a good sunset? The three most popular and three selected by us will get 300 GE. See the winners down below!

Let’s begin the 70th edition of our competition!

Create a stunning screenshot and submit it on the War Thunder Steam Community Hub with the tag #WTscreen70. You have time until 09.06.2023 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:

• This week is your chance to showcase a vehicle that you really enjoy playing!
  
• You must add the #WTscreen70 tag (title cannot have any other text in it).
  
• 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 69th edition - Sunset:

Winners selected via community votes:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2981482154
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2982474570
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2981342433

Winners selected by our judges:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2981641441
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2981754518
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2983541751

Each winner will get 300GE! Congratulations and see you next week!

La Royale is almost completed! Today we show some visual improvements and new mechanics that will make War Thunder look even better!

Missile incoming


For the La Royale update, we not only updated flight physics for most anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles, but also completely redid the flight effects for all missiles in the game. So, for example, the jet flame and smoke effects of missile engines have improved, and for supersonic missiles the “Mach diamonds” effect has been added. For multi-engine missiles we added authentic effects minor engines run, as well as adjust their positions.



Some wire-guided ATGMs now have a wire trailing behind them. Missile tracers were also completely redone. Check this out!

Fragmentation!




Hit marks from high-explosive shells will be more realistic. Thus, direct hits of HE rounds and their close detonations now leave on the armor not only an impact mark, but also traces of fragments with their shape depending on the material of the part where the fragments hit. Works for artillery as well!


Also, there are new hit marks from the fin-stabilized armor penetration rounds, with the ‘star’ of the fins around the penetration hole if a tank was hit orthogonally.

Heat it up


The radiator has become a functional module in the damage model of armored vehicles. A damaged radiator emits streams of white steam from boiling cooling liquid. The engine will continue to work, but due to overheating it can quickly fail. It is high time to shelter and repair!

Air beauty


War Thunder aircraft are also receiving some visual improvements. All jet pilots will see new afterburner effects. The visual effects of flares have been updated, now they fire off with the effect of beautiful smoky arcs, it looks really better now! Also, we implemented a unique ejection system for the Ka-50 and Ka-52 helicopters: explosive charges fire off the main rotor blades, and the pilot's seat is pulled out by a special rocket catapult. This is a must see!

On June 6th, 1944 over 150,000 Allied soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy under heavy fire from German fortifications. Opening a second front in Western Europe was one of the most important events in World War II and led to the Allied victory in less than a year.

D-Day historical events

From June 2nd (12:00 GMT) until June 7th (7:00 GMT)

Participate in 6 events with historical presets of ground vehicles and aircraft. In air RB in addition to the mission, an mission is also available for more dynamic gameplay.
“D-Day” decal

From June 2nd (12:00 GMT) until June 7th (7:00 GMT)

Play 3 battles using American and British vehicles (rank III or higher, with an activity of not less than 70%) to receive the “D-Day" text decal.

"D-Day" text decal

Complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions and mode. Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → D-Day.

You can find the decal in the “Holidays” tab in the Customisation menu.

D-Day Tournament Series
Register right now and from June 2nd through to the 8th participate in tournaments of aircraft, naval and ground vehicles. 14 tournaments with a combined prize pool of 163 000 GE, and also a special “D-Day” decal and “Normandy Ace” title. Join the official eSport Discord community.

Go to the tournament website

The first Sunday of June in Canada is dedicated to celebrating the country’s armed forces. Canada participated in both World Wars, and by 1945 it had the fourth largest air force and fifth largest navy in the world. Since then the Canadian Armed Forces have participated in numerous operations across the world — usually as a part of international coalitions.

HMCS Haida temporarily available for Golden Eagles

From June 2nd (9:00 GMT) until June 5th (9:00 GMT)

As part of the celebrations, HMCS Haida will be available for purchase with Golden Eagles. It is a Tribal-class destroyer of the Royal Canadian Navy, which served through WWII and the Korean War where it destroyed the first of two North Korean trains in January 1953. This premium Rank III destroyer in the British research tree is equipped with powerful main and secondary calibre guns, exceeds among its peers with superior anti-air defenses: its six paired 20 mm cannon turrets are also ready to light up stealthy torpedo boats.

From June 2nd (9:00 GMT) until June 5th (9:00 GMT), play 3 battles using British vehicles (rank III or higher, with an activity of not less than 70%) to receive the “Canadian Armed Forces Day” decal.


“Canadian Armed Forces Day” decal.

Complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions and mode. Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → Canadian Armed Forces Day.

You can find the decal in the “Holidays” tab in the Customisation menu.

Meet the Bretagne-class Lorraine battleship, the pinnacle of the French bluewater tech tree in the upcoming La Royale update!

Lorraine, battleship, France, rank V

Features:

• 340mm main guns
  
• Very capable AA artillery
  
• Mediocre protection
  

France's latest dreadnought, the battleship Lorraine, will be the top ship in the French bleuwater fleet research tree at the time of the release of the major La Royale update!

A dreadnought is about guns and armor! Lorraine is good in guns: despite the fact that we chose for the game one of the later upgrades with the top main turret dismantled, commanders will have access to 8 340mm guns in four twin-barrel turrets arranged in a line, so Lorraine fires full broadside. The selection of shells is not quite common for rank V, there are no semi-armor-piercing rounds, so high-explosive fragmentation shells are supplemented by two types of armor-piercing shells - with and without a ballistic cap. Semi-armor-piercing shots are available for 138mm auxiliary guns - there are 14 such guns, 7 casemates per side. Impressive firepower!




It should also be noted that the air defense artillery is powerful and well allocated: 8 75mm cannons begin firing at distant targets, 14 40mm Bofors are activated at medium distances, while approaching aircraft meet 25 20mm auto cannons. Such protection against aircraft for early battleships is very rare.

As for the protection of the ship, one could hardly call it brilliant. Due to displacement restrictions, the shipbuilders had to sacrifice armor. The thickness of the main armored belt is from 220 to 250 mm, the thickness of the armored deck reaches 40 mm. The main turrets are protected relatively well, there is 300 mm of armor at the front. Lorraine is capable of surviving cruiser fire, but enemy battleships at short distance could easily pierce this French lady, so always maintain a good distance from enemy The modest crew of 1187 members also does not play in favor of the survivability of the ship under enemy battleships fire.




The heavy and majestic battleship Lorraine will be the pinnacle of the French navy in the La Royale update, which is almost ready. This ship will be the first to be explored by participants in the closed beta test of the French navy, make sure to purchase early access packs to be among them and significantly speed up your research!

The Air forces of the Ottoman Empire were founded on June 1st, 1911, and by the end of 1916 they commanded 90 aircraft. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, paid special attention to the Air Force of his country, and his adopted daughter Sabiha Gökçen became one of the first female pilots of military aircraft. Today the Turkish Air Force enlists over 50 thousand people and has over 500 aircraft.

Т129 temporarily available for Golden Eagles

From June 1st (9:00 GMT) until June 5th (9:00 GMT)

To commemorate this day, during the event the Turkish helicopter T129 ATAK will be available for purchase for Golden Eagles. It is a modification of the Italian A129 Mangusta with a more powerful engine, equipped with L-UMTAS and CIRIT missiles. This maneuverable helicopter is also outfitted with a thermal imager and a 20 mm autocannon capable of destroying both ground and air targets.

From June 1st (9:00 GMT) until June 5th (9:00 GMT), play 3 battles using aircraft of any country (rank III or higher, with an activity of not less than 70%) to receive the “Turkish Air Force” decal.


“Turkish Air Force” decal.

Complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions and mode. Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → Turkish Air Force Day.

We present details on the revised physics of guided missiles with line-of-sight guidance in the La Royale update.

We continue to refine the physical model of the weapons in the game. Today we would like to talk about the new reworked physics of missiles guided by the three-point method guidance, that is, guided using line of sight, which we have prepared for the La Royale major update.

The current physics of line-of-sight missiles affects the missile's skyplane acceleration directly, bypassing the simulation of controls.


Skyplane of a missile


The current simplified implementation of the physical model allows the missile to go beyond the available overload and hit targets with which the missile should not have enough maneuverability available.

The new physical model for line-of-sight guidance missiles is similar to the physical model of homing missiles and operates on the missile's control surfaces.

The updated physics model of missiles requires much more accurate autopilot tuning compared to the old physics model, and even compared to homing missiles. Generally, the autopilot of each such missile is a compromise between the dynamic error of the real missile trajectory from the kinematic trajectory and self-oscillations of the missile around the kinematic trajectory with a sharp change in the direction of the line of sight.



Animated dynamic error of lagging the real trajectory from the kinematic one



A dynamic error, unlike a miss due to insufficient G capability, exerts throughout the entire trajectory of the missile, while insufficient available overload capacity appears only when approaching the target, when the necessary overload increases sharply.


Animated dynamic error of lagging the real trajectory from the kinematic one due to insufficient G capability

The dynamic lag of the actual trajectory from the kinematic occurs not only when launching against a moving target, but also with a moving carrier. This must be taken into account by the player when launching from a high-speed carrier: it is worth trying to reduce the angular velocity of the line of sight to reduce the dynamic error.


Animation of the trajectory of a line-of-sight guidance missile when fired from a high-speed carrier


The use of a new physical model allows you to correctly implement the control over the missile's engine and control surfaces, which allows more accurately modeling the design features of the missiles in the game. So, for some missiles, engine control was implemented that allows significantly better control over a missile at low speed compared to aerodynamic controls (flaps, rudders, etc). We have implemented this feature on the following missiles:

ATGM

• SS.11
  
• 9М14М-2
  
• MILAN
  
• MILAN-2
  
• HOT
  
• HOT-2
  
• HOT-3
  
• 302 ATGM
  
• HJ-8A
  
• HJ-8C
  
• HJ-8E
  
• HJ-8H
  

SAM

• Roland-1
  
• Roland-2
  
• Roland-3
  

We have implemented a new physical model for the majority of the line-of-sight guided anti-tank and surface-to-air missiles. Here is the list:

ATGM

• SS.11
  
• 9М14М-2
  
• MILAN
  
• MILAN-2
  
• HOT
  
• HOT-2
  
• HOT-3
  
• 302 ATGM
  
• HJ-8A
  
• HJ-8C
  
• HJ-8E
  
• HJ-9
  
• TOW
  
• I-TOW
  
• TOW-2
  
• TOW-2A
  
• 9М17P
  
• 9М17М
  
• 9М133
  
• 9М133М-2
  
• 9М133FM3
  
• 9М112
  
• 9М113
  
• 9М117
  
• 9М119
  
• 9М114
  
• 9М120
  
• 9М120F1
  
• 9М220O
  
• 9М123 (helicopter)
  
• 9М127
  
• 3М7
  
• GP105
  
• HJ-73E
  
• GP125
  
• MGM-51B
  
• MGM-51C
  
• MP ACRA
  
• Type-79
  
• ACRA
  
• ZT3A1
  
• ZT3A2
  
• Rb53
  

SAM

• MIM-146
  
• Roland-1
  
• Roland-2
  
• Roland-3
  
• RB-70
  
• RB 70 Mk.2
  
• BOLIDE
  
• 9М331
  
• 9М311
  
• 95Ya6
  
• VT-1
  

The listed missiles will be transferred to the new physics with the release of the La Royale major update. Old physics remains for the 1st generation ATGMs with wire guidance, as well as for some 2nd generation missiles.

Based on the feedback from the YouTube community and from content creators, as well as after analyzing the occupancy of players in sessions of specific ranks, we have decided to make changes to how the matchmaking works and will implement them in the near future (without additional announcements).

Additional settings will be added to ground RB in sessions of BR 9.3 and above that will make battles of top ranked vehicles more intense but will slightly increase the average waiting time of finding a battle. When a player selects a session and joins the queue, the matchmaking system takes many factors into account. Now the number of players in battles on large maps will on average become larger than before, although waiting times might somewhat increase. We’re also looking into an option to change matchmaking settings depending on the number of users in the game; this will possibly let us achieve a more comfortable waiting time for the battle to start, as well as improve matching quality, leading to more players joining battles.

Similar changes have already been made in air RB in March this year. We hope you will appreciate this improvement in ground RB as well, and after the implementation of these changes we will continue to monitor matchmaking closely and will make necessary adjustments in real time if necessary.

SURVEY

The Freccia VBM is an Italian IFV with a rapid fire cannon and fire-and-forget anti-tank missiles Spike-MR. Meet the new top tier in ground battles in the upcoming La Royale update.

Freccia VBM, light tank, Italy, rank VII

Features:

• 8 Spike-MR fire-and-forget missiles
  
• Good mobility
  
• Target tracking
  

The Italian Freccia VBM wheeled fighting vehicle will join the top-tiers in ground battles as the first to the game carrier of the Spike fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missiles!

The Freccia VBM is reminiscent of two other high-tier vehicles from the Italian tech tree: from the Centauro tank destroyer, the vehicle received a wheeled chassis with a maximum speed of about 108 km/h; and the turret is a modified version of the Dardo IFV with the already familiar fast-firing 25mm Oerlikon cannon.




The main difference of the new Freccia VBM is the Spike-MR guided missiles with a tandem warhead and own homing heads. The gunner has to simply lock on the enemy vehicle and push the fire button: a smart missile will find the target itself, even when fired into the sky at a high angle. A tandem warhead is able to overcome the protection of, in general, any tank in the game, while the automatic target tracking makes it possible to fire at moving targets. The missile has an electro-optical infrared seeker and focuses on the brightest thermal signature in the lock-on area, so hiding from the Spike behind the ESS doesn’t work. Conventional smoke grenades, however, allow to safely leave the line of fire.




The research and mastering of the Freccia VBM is very comfortable. The vehicle receives ATGM immediately after purchase, already at the first research tier the commander has access to the armor-piercing belt of the M791 APDS rounds, which work perfectly against light vehicles and helicopters, so you can safely focus on improving mobility of the vehicle. At higher tiers of research, APFSDS belt is also unlocked with the best indicators of armor penetration at angles.



Like all light vehicles, the Freccia VBM relies on speed far more than protection. Despite the fact that the engine and the crew are concentrated in the front of the vehicle, the rear troop compartment should not be exposed to enemy fire, since the anti-tank missile ammo is stored there.

In this digest we would like to tell you about our continuing work on improvements and fixes in the game. You can find information about all updates that have been released in War Thunder in the website special section.

Please note that we are currently in the middle of testing the next major update La Royale. It will last until June 1st, 7:00 GMT. Learn more about participating on it on our forums.

Please feel free to leave your feedback on these changes in the dedicated "It’s fixed! №76" thread

Naval Hit Camera

We intended to release this improvement in the La Royale major update, but decided to hurry up with it to make your naval battles more comfortable ASAP. Now when you damage an enemy, the hit camera will display a dynamic water line, showing the depth, trim, and heel of the opposing ship. And then you’ll make your next volley based on that information. Knowledge is power!

Incognito Mode

We added an option to hide the players’ nicknames that will likely prove useful to the streamers and vloggers. The necessity for such an option arose due to the game’s cross-platform multiplayer that allows people with Gaijin.Net accounts to participate in the same battles with Steam, PlayStation Network, and Xbox Live users. Our partner platforms have their own rules regarding what’s acceptable in nicknames, and sometimes the players’ nicknames contain words that streaming services might have an issue with.

Now if you choose to replace other players’ nicknames with numerical UserIDs or automatically generated names, such an issue won’t even be a possibility. You can do that by going into the “Main Parameters” menu and then “Privacy and Confidentiality”.

Note that this renames the players only for you: our moderators and GMs will be able to find violators of the rules even with their nicknames changed.

Hold Your Fire

We disabled automatic fire for the main calibre guns of blue water ships. This decision was made for two reasons.

First, the automatic behaviour of the main calibre sometimes got in the way of players who switched temporarily to another weaponry group: after they returned to the main calibre, they were disappointed to see that it was turned in a direction they didn’t expect. WIth AI disabled, the main calibre should always point in the same direction as you left it.

Second, some unscrupulous players used the AI to take over the main calibre permanently, effectively putting the ship on autopilot while they were idling on the secondary calibre. That was unsportsmanlike, and unfair to the players who actively participated in the naval battles.


That’s Not All
You’ll find the full list of improvements in the separate changelogs that we have released during the past couple of weeks — there are many interesting things there. Animation of depth bomb replenishment should now work correctly, the errors that prevented players from choosing countermeasures on aircrafts were fixed, as well as several button conflicts on gamepads, and finally, battle tasks will now be displayed in the correct order: from easy to special ones.

Once again, many thanks for all your bug reports that you submitted using our special service.

Update 2.25.1.131



Ground Vehicles

• Incorrect animation of the scout UAV reloading in RB mode has been fixed.
  
• Incorrect displaying of the visual model of fired shells in replays has been fixed.
  
• Absence of animation of the digging icon when raising/lowering the blade in online battles has been fixed.
  

Naval

• Automatic firing of the AI-controlled main calibre turrets on blue water ships has been disabled. When switching to the second and third cannon group the main cannons remain aimed wherever the player was aiming when changing.
  
• A bug in replays that caused shots from blue water ships to be displayed with a delay has been fixed (report).
  
• Missing depth bomb replenishment animation has been fixed.
  
• HMS Enterprise — A bug that caused the actual amount of ammunition of the main calibre turret to be less than the player selected before battle has been fixed. The ammunition of the 152 mm single-shot cannons have been increased to 240 shots.
  
• Gun Vertical guidance speed for the 36 cm/45 Type 41 cannon has been increased to 8 degrees per second.
  

Interface

• Display of the required level for the Battle Pass has been added to the description of the challenges.
  
• A bug where when editing selected suspended weaponry when adding/removing a Flares/Chaff block in the modification window, the availability of the choice of Flares/Chaff wasn’t updated has been fixed.
  
• A bug where the progress of the selected achievement relative to the previously selected mark wasn’t displayed in a battle has been fixed.
  
• A bug where battle tasks for RB were displayed in battle in the “Personal Tasks” window in SB mode has been fixed.
  
• The battle task window no longer shows medium battle tasks until the reward for the easier one has been taken. Medium battle tasks can not be performed without getting reward for an easy task.
  

Other changes

• A bug where there were no armoured vehicles in the hangar on the special transportation trailer has been fixed.
  

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

WWII era experimental light tank Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A. featuring perfect mobility comes to the game in the La Royale update.

Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A., light tank, Germany, rank II

Features:

• High mobility
  
• 37mm gun
  
• High-density internal compartment
  

The long-awaited replenishment of the WWII tank line-up! Meet the German experimental light tank Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A., which will appear in the game with the release of the major La Royale update. The fastest representative of the Pz.Kpfw.38 series!

Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A. was created according to the program of the new (n.A. - neue Art, “new type”) reconnaissance tank of the Wehrmacht. One of the conditions of the program was the requirement for the speed of the scout, at least 50-60 km/h. The tank created by BMM surpassed the army requirement - the new engine and improved chassis allowed the ank to speed up to 67 km/h.




The modified turret houses the 37 mm KwK 38(t) gun, which is already familiar to tankers from previous modifications of Czechoslovak tanks. In addition to armor-piercing shells, the gun can also fire sub-caliber shells, which will allow the tank to penetrate all light and most medium tanks at its rank, but its power is no longer enough for heavy tanks.

Thanks to its good dynamics and low profile, the tank is perfect for capturing points and scouting. Unfortunately, at rank II, one can no longer hope for armor. All tank guns here easily pierce the little Czech. The layout inside the fighting compartment is very dense, so an enemy projectile has a high chance of hitting several crew members and important modules at once.




The nice little Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) n.A. along with dozens of combat vehicles from other playable nations will be waiting for you in the big La Royale update. The patch is coming really soon!

Friends!

Ten days ago we asked you to share your key suggestions and complaints about the game in a special survey. As a result, we received 14,562 player submitted entries - many of them being very constructive. It is a very impressive number! Some submissions made a few pages of well organised bullet points. We are very grateful for such active support for the project and a desire to help us make War Thunder better!

It is very difficult to process such a great amount of information. But we managed to isolate most of the repeating points and are already working hard on them.

Economy and progression


More than 90% of feedback entries touched issues with economy and progression. The majority of them were: repair costs and the ability to pay for it by being active in battles and performing specific actions. Including rewards for assisting enemy kills, kill-to-death ratio, point capturing in a team, repair and other help to teammates plus many others. A separate layer of concern was expressed about the time needed by new players to progress all the way up to the top-tiers.

About one third of players are concerned with the current BR distribution and methods of assigning BR to a vehicle. As well as about the BR ranges of vehicles in battle.

At least 4% of players also paid special attention to such topics as the need to purchase modules, the possibility to have free - perhaps lengthy but free - repairs, and many suggestions in not modifying or significantly rebalancing premium vehicles.

All in all, we understand these concerns and will try to encompass ideas on most of them in the upcoming economy roadmap we promised to publish by June 14th.

Gameplay


About 10% of players also took time to share their ideas and observations about various gameplay issues in War Thunder. We are still assembling the full picture of those thousands of points, but have already focused in some of the most repeated ones:

Locations. Especially their size and how susceptible they are to being shot-through in Ground battles. It is a very important topic. We have tried to study our maps over a long time, creating special tools like ‘heatmaps’ of deadly shots together with the player system of likes and bans. With the game growing and many new vehicles added many maps demonstrated either new issues, or older ones became too significant.

We are already engaged in reviewing and ‘polishing’ all locations - and it is sure to be part of the upcoming game improvements.

Many of you spoke about the inconvenience of night battles. Though we already tried to make some improvements there - like lowering their appearance probability, addition of illuminating shells,- it turned out not to be enough. We will also look into new solutions here.

Some other given complaints were about aviation streaks in Arcade Ground battles, ideas how to improve voting mechanics for favourite maps, and ways to improve the survivability of stock vehicles both in ground and air battles.

The was a separate pool of ideas related to PvE modes and ways to improve their gameplay and attraction.

Naturally we received literally thousands of ideas on specific vehicle models, modules, weapons and features. It is impossible even to list them all here. Which is actually good - since War Thunder is a game about military vehicles, so it is expected they are in the focus. We are carefully studying all feedback and will try to look at it from a fresh point of view.

As mentioned, we are still in the process of analysing all of the survey entries and picking up more and more points from these worth examining and doing some extra to work on them. Currently the survey form is closed, but we will continue to make similar general broad feedback polls on the game in the future again. We will also continue to actively listen to your feedback on the forums. Our plan is to conduct such intensive ‘general questions and suggestions’ sessions at least once every 3 months.



Some of your suggestions can be put in the game quite quickly - and War Thunder game design and development teams are already working on them. Some will require a more complex approach, and we will plan for them in our roadmap. We will also cover more about these in the news for the game. So since we are planning to release a large economy and progression changes roadmap by June the 14th, we hope to meet many of your wishes on the above mentioned issues there.

By the way, we have just published a detailed Q&A for video content creators, you might find the answers interesting and relevant to some of your points in them (link).

Conclusion

Once again, thank you for taking the time and effort to share your thoughts! We have always tried to pay attention to your feedback, but getting such a massive pool of information from players all over the world - is a limitless source of inspiration and motivation for us. Do not be upset if you don’t find your exact points in the summary above - it comprises the most repetitive ideas, but we do and are studying them all. We will work diligently to look at issues from various viewpoints and try to improve as much as possible to allow you to continue to enjoy War Thunder for many years to come.

In this month's Pages of History you'll find yourself in the center of events that happened at numerous battlefronts. Two of the more important Pacific battles, the landings in Normandy, and the beginning of Operation Barbarossa — participate in battles using the vehicles that were used in these historic events and receive prizes!

From June 1st until June 30th you’ll be offered 8 tasks consecutively. Completing each will reward you with a trophy, completing all of them earns you a unique player icon.

Reward for completing all 8 tasks

Nikolai Gastello
When Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Nikolai Gastello was already a squadron leader and an experienced pilot with 9 years of flight experience. Two days after the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, on June 24th, 1941, Gastello downed a Luftwaffe plane using just the turret of a DB-3f resting on an airfield.

On June 26th the aircraft that Gastello piloted was hit by flak in the fuel tank and caught fire; Gastello flew his flaming bomber into the enemy. He received the Hero of the Soviet Union title, and his valor became an example for other Soviet pilots.

You can immediately purchase the profile icon for Golden Eagles until July 3rd, 11:30 GMT without completing tasks. Click Nickname → Achievements → Pages of History (June).

Trophy reward for each task
Completion of each individual task will bring you a trophy with one of the following rewards:

• 20-50% RP booster for 3-10 battles;
  
• 20-50% SL booster for 3-10 battles;
  
• 3-5 universal backup vehicles;
  
• 1 day of premium account;
  
• A random camouflage for ground vehicles (out of the selection of camouflages currently obtainable in game for completing tasks, or purchasing with Golden Eagles).
  

Other terms

• Tasks are available from 11:00 GMT until 11:30 GMT on the final day of each task.
  
• Tasks can be completed in random battles, except for “Assault” mode.
  

June 1st — June 4th
Battle of Midway
The most important sea battle of the Pacific Front in WWII happened in early June of 1942, half a year after the Pearl Harbor attack. The US delivered a crushing defeat to the Imperial Navy of Japan, having sunk all four enemy fleet carriers. After Midway Japan no longer had resources to advance and was forced to defend itself until the end of the war.

June 5th — June 8th
D-day
On June 6th, 1944 the largest landing operation in history took place. Over 24 thousand paratroopers were dropped behind enemy lines to ensure safe landing of another 130 thousand Allies from the sea. By the end of the day five infantry and two airborne divisions landed on the coast of Normandy, opening the second front in Western Europe.

June 9th — June 12th
Battle of Sultan Yacoub
During the Lebanon War the Israeli army tried to push through to the Beirut-Damascus highway but met fierce resistance from the Syrian forces. An Israeli tank battalion was encircled by the enemy who avoided direct combat while using infantry, artillery and aviation to destroy Israeli tanks. Almost all artillery forces of Israel came to rescue; thanks to them, most soldiers were able to escape — but the tank losses were high.

June 12th — June 15th
Battle of Villers-Bocage
A week after landing in Normandy, the British forces advanced to the small town of Villers-Bocage where they unexpectedly encountered parts of the Wehrmacht. Having caught the enemy off guard, the Germans used their Tigers' superiority to destroy tens of British vehicles, having lost only a couple of tanks. However, later on, while pursuing the enemy, they fell into a trap and suffered more losses.

June 15th — June 18th
Operation Battleaxe
On June 15-17, 1941 the British Commonwealth forces attempted to lift the siege of Tobruk and push the Axis from East Cyrenaica. For the first time since the start of WWII a significant German force had to fight on the defensive — but Erwin Rommel planned the defense well. The Allies lost almost 100 tanks and three dozen aircraft and had to retreat.

June 19th — June 22nd
Battle of the Philippine Sea
On June 19th, 1944 Japan went into the Battle of the Philippine Sea with its largest air carrier force. But the inexperienced Japanese pilots were no match against well trained Americans and their state of the art anti-air defenses. Japan lost over 600 aircraft in the battle and almost never used air carriers since: there weren’t enough airplanes left for defense.

June 23rd — June 26th
Battle of Raseiniai
On June 23rd, 1941 parts of the Red Army that were stationed in Lithuania tried to hold off the invading German forces. Due to lack of planning and supplies they failed at their task, and almost all Soviet tanks were destroyed. One of them, however, managed to stall the German advance for almost an entire day: the KV ran out of fuel in the middle of the road but kept sniping the enemy until the end.

June 27th— June 30th
Fire ram
On June 26th, 1941 a downed bomber piloted by Nikolai Gastello performed a flaming ram on a German panzer column. This heroic deed was widely publicized by the Soviet mass media, and pilots who followed in his footsteps were called “gastellovtsi” in his honor. Overall, over a thousand fire rams were performed by Soviet pilots during the war.

• In the “Main Parameters” menu in the “Privacy and Confidentiality” tab, a new setting “Hide player nicknames” has been added. This setting allows to hide nicknames of players in battle or change nicknames to numeric UserID values. This option is helpful for streamers who may meet players in battle with nicknames from other platforms (Steam, PSN, Xbox etc.), which in accordance to their rules may contain inappropriate symbols or words, and therefore may in rare cases, cause blocking on streaming services.
  

Aircraft

• Tornado IDS (1995) (Italy) — a bug has been fixed which prevented countermeasures from being selected in the custom secondary armament set if it initially did not include countermeasures when creating the set.
  

Interface

• The “Activate” button has been removed from the “Battle tasks” window, since the tasks are activated upon being received or purchased.
  
• When played from a gamepad, the "Personal Tasks" button in spectator mode duplicated the "Forward" button, therefore, in the default layout, it was changed from "R1" to "LT".
  
• The “Personal tasks” button has been added to the statistics window in battle.
  
• Now, the “Personal tasks” button is not displayed in battles with disabled achievements, such as “Custom battles”.
  
• The store progression bar has been removed from the “Battle tasks” section in the right side of the hangar interface, since store progression depends on the Battle Pass level.
  
• A bug has been fixed where a special task was displayed in the “Personal tasks” window, although the player has not yet completed the required Medium Task.
  

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

Content creators addressed us with their questions and feedback - we read and answer!

Hi all! Lately we have received a huge amount of feedback from players and have been hard at work analyzing, processing and preparing to answer your questions. The most heated discussion came from questions on the economy, and we will definitely answer these too once we’ve had time to look through them all! In addition to dozens of thousands of feedback messages from players, we received a long list of questions from our War Thunder content creators from YouTube, Twitch and other platforms. While we are still analyzing requests and suggestions from players, today we’ll answer some questions from our creators, maybe you’ll find answers to your questions here too. Let’s go!

Vehicles


Q: We are concerned about the comparatively low efficiency of the post-penetration effect of low-caliber HEAT rounds, for example on such vehicles as Ru 251, AUBL 74, leKPz M41, AML-90, PT-76, T92, etc.
A: We’re planning to rework certain aspects of shaped-charge jets for lower caliber rounds. These rounds do have a very narrow post-penetration jet, and there are lots of real world examples of instances where lightly armored vehicles remained mobile and even in fighting condition after taking a hit from HEAT. Because of this we don’t plan on making these particular munitions overly powerful, but in regards to destroying modules and incapacitating crew in the path of the jet we are planning some changes that will make their damage more consistent.

Q: Light vehicles might be very die-hard, being able to absorb 3-4 rounds, because fuses are unable to arm.
A: This is a big topic for players and a common talking point inside our team as well. There are several possibilities we’re considering but they will take some time to develop. We're keenly aware of this issue though and will introduce a solution if and when we can.

Q: Is it possible to make 3D decorations physical so that they can detach from vehicles when hit?
A: Great idea! We’ll look into how complicated this would be to implement, and if it is indeed possible we’ll aim to make them destructible and prone to catching fire as well.

Q: Is it possible to refine the reloading mechanics, when the loader is knocked out during a gun misfire, then the reload cycle starts again?
A: Absolutely, it’s a good point to bring up, especially for vehicles with a very long load time. We have a solution in mind for this one - we can try to save the reload progress after a certain percentage of the reload cycle is reached, say 80% for example. At this stage the round is already in the breach so there’ll be no need to start the entire process over. Also for two-part ammunition, the loading process could be split into two stages, so the cycle won’t reset to the start if one part of the projectile has been prepared and the loader gets knocked out.

Q: Do you plan to increase the mobility of heavy tanks and slow SPGs in the RB mode, like it is in the Arcade?
A: No this one isn’t in our plans. RB is where vehicles should behave as authentically as possible, low mobility is just a real-world drawback these kinds of vehicles have.

Q: Do you like the idea of giving free back-ups when purchasing top-tier Premium vehicles?
A: We do! We’ll consider including an initial amount of free backups with high tier premiums in the future to incentivise players to stay in battle.

Q: There are still turret desync bugs.
A: It’s a complicated issue to solve but an important one, we’re currently working on a fix.

Q: Is it possible to get rid of the desync of server and client?
A: Unfortunately in any network model, including ours, desynchronization between the server and client is sadly inevitable. This is a con for sure. The pro however is that these desyncs usually do not affect the gameplay for all players which is important. The War Thunder networking model (State Sync) was chosen to be the most cheater-proof (in contrast to lag-compensation models like in CS), and, more importantly, it allows us to implement relatively realistic physical interactions. The shortcoming of our model is that there is the possibility of minor (and more rarely major) desyncs, as all clients see the ‘possible present’ of other players, instead of recordings of the past. The lower a player’s ping, the less often desyncs happen, but they will still happen anyway.

Q: Any chance to fix the bugged spotting, when vehicles are invisible for no reason?
A: This issue comes from the server’s anti-cheat algorithms. We do our best to sync them with the game render, but in a dynamic environment with huge open spaces and various client pings, it’s unfortunately impossible to maintain perfect synchronization.

Q: Damage by excessive pressure needs more calibration, and also damage of high caliber shells of ground vehicles needs to be increased.
A: For improvements like these we need some more precise examples as there’s a lot of factors involved here, often issues in this area are not reliably reproducible, so we’d appreciate any replays or recordings of issues you’ve found so we can investigate them more effectively. It’s easiest to do this in the hangar.

Q: Please fix the bug that doesn’t allow you to turn over the tank if it’s turned upside down and lies on top of the turret.
A: Ah yes, it's very rare but annoying when it occurs, we’ll look into a fix.

Q: Do you have plans to create a tutorial on mechanics of top tier vehicles, such as anti-aircraft missile systems, drones, etc - with an option to customize controls for such mechanics?
A: Yes we do! We’re planning various tutorial elements for our more modern systems.

Q: Due to the difference in the vehicle generations, there are big problems on Rank V, particularly on BR 7.0-8.0, where there are tanks with APFSDS and stabilizers and without them.
A: Indeed, the technology jump in this BR range is problematically abrupt, we’ll pay special attention to this area in particular and come up with some solutions.

Q: The Killer-Hunter feature is toxic and requires a 2-3 sec delay to make it possible for the commander to take over or react somehow.
A: A delay here would make sense, we’ll consider this.

Q: Currently graphics can noticeably influence player skill: for example, an enemy tank can be almost invisible in deep shadow until it fires. Locations are full of decorative elements that overload players’ attention. Is it possible to brighten up the shadows and lose some greenery and decorations on the locations?
A: It’s a tough question that requires more complex solutions and precise fixes rather than a sort of ‘global update’ to the graphics. The thing is, we can’t just make a game where pro players have their own minimalistic graphics mode, while more casual players have a different one (since that’s just not fair). Dumbing down the game graphically so it’s purely structured around competitive gaming also isn’t an option - our game has and always will be oriented towards a wide spectrum of players with different tastes and preferences, so on this one we’ll have to look at more specific elements that could be improved.

Q: Upgrading helicopters through PvE is too long and hard, and their stock versions are often almost unplayable in other modes.
A: We’re currently trying to figure out what to do with the mode, we’ll announce our decisions at a later time.

Q: Remove volumetric damage. It makes certain tanks too well-defended, track fenders and side skirts absorb hits.
A: Volumetric damage brings many tanks closer to their correct level of protection (Tigers and Panthers for example), and this can’t be achieved without maintaining our current realistic armor model. However, as with every complex system it’s hard to perfect across the board. We need your reports here - you can send us your replays or record anomalies in the hangar. In all cases where volumetric (and every other damage system) isn’t working correctly, we will fix it - or at least we’ll do our best to. We appreciate that volumetric was a big adjustment to tank battles as it wasn’t present from the start of the game and thus required some adaptation, but we believe this more realistic armor model adds to War Thunder, so we’ll work hard on improving it as much as possible.

Q: Decrease the numbers of all convoy AAA in EC and/or give them less accuracy.
A: We’ve fixed this one - already in production.

Q: For Air sim float plane spawns. Instead of spawning all the way back on the map and taking 25 mins to get to the battle, have it be able to spawn at any AF or spawn on the fleet with your float planes. Suggesting when spawning on any AF of course you spawn in the air, and if you spawn on your fleet have it spawn you on the water next to your carrier.
A: We’ll think about this one, the current system was chosen based on player requests. However there are not many floatplanes and they’re almost universally slow, so it probably won’t negatively impact immersion too much if they spawn in the air closer to the action.

Q: I would like to see if WT naval arcade could be made a bit more arcadey to attract more people to the mode, mainly by making rangefinding faster so it might be more fun to play. Maybe also add what ammo to shoot at which target so people have more of an Idea when to use AP or HE and SAP.
A: We agree here - We’ll try to do something to make the mode more approachable, and will likely start with rangefinding.

Q: The attack drones should be removed, they don't bring anything new to the table (helicopters and planes do the same) except that they are much harder to hit/kill. With that there aren't really counters against them except hightier AAs.
A: We’ve spent a lot of time gathering examples and analyzing feedback regarding drones, we’re going to move them up to a higher BR where they can be more easily countered by advanced AA systems.

Q: Suggestion to stop helicopters (and other aircraft) from firing their weapons after they are considered ‘dead’ by the game, as it’s not enjoyable to die to a player you’ve already beaten.
A: In reality, ‘destroying’ an aircraft (in terms of inflicting damage that makes the aircraft uncontrollable) doesn’t make it harmless. We do like this ‘last chance’ aspect to gameplay (There's a beast deep inside you, it will not die.. It will fight back!) It’s a system that goes both ways, firstly it is realistically possible - and it might make a player's day to get a kill with a doomed aircraft. However we do see the issues it brings, especially with misleading kill messages. We need to do a bit more thinking on this one.

Q: Suggestion to allow phasing through teammates at the start of the match to prevent blocking, in the same way air realistic has after just taking off.
A: We can’t see a way to do this one for ground vehicles - players inevitably will exploit it (when spawning, players will deliberately try to drive through each other to end the cooldown while taking up the same space, which will cause a lot of issues unfortunately).

Other


Q: Add the ability to report racists, homophobes and similar to customer support
Allow me to send a report to customer support with a screenshot of in-game violation and possibly even a copy of the replay file.
A: Good idea, we’ll add an easier way to report such instances. Each in-game report already has a chat log attached. Creating an automatic screenshot or something along those lines though is much harder and can introduce difficulties. We’ll try to show the chat log to the user submitting a report to streamline the process.

Matchmaking


Q: Please add more maps to the top tier Air RB (12.0 BR). Even smaller maps. Some maps are very rare.
A: Currently we have 10 maps at this BR. Certain maps will appear more rarely if players have them banned. We’ll aim to add more maps at this rating. For smaller maps though, players often request less of this for top tier jets (usually words like ‘claustrophobic’ are used).

Q: For me, the big problem is the size of the maps on the Air RB. It happens that prop planes are thrown on a simulation map. Please remove large maps from Air RB on low and medium tiers.
A: Agreed - big maps can become boring sometimes when populated with slower aircraft with a lot of downtime between engagements. When we implement a way of displaying which maps appear at which BRs (see below) we’ll adjust the appearance of large maps at the lower tiers. Regarding smaller maps for top tiers though - see the request above. We’re trying not to add smaller maps to fast jet battles and will try to introduce less instances of this, however currently many players do still ask for them.

Q: I’d like you to increase the chances of going into battle on a vehicle of maximum available for this battle BR. I once performed an experiment and found out that I got into battles using the highest BR vehicles only in 11-14% of cases. Sure, overcoming hardship is valuable, but not that often: it’s demoralizing.
A: Ultimately, the session consists of players within your BR spread who are currently in the queue, there’s no additional factors that directly put you at a certain battle rating. On top of this regarding ‘full uptiers’, only 4 players on each team have the possibility of being at the top BR, so even if you are at a lower BR relatively in a match, you won’t be fighting a team entirely comprised of vehicles more advanced than yours.

Q: Add an unlimited amount of bans/5 bans.
A: The problem with this one is that we already have situations with the current one ban system, where some maps are rarely ever played. Adding additional bans (5 bans for sure) will lead to situations where all available maps are banned from the current queue, meaning matches won’t be able to start at all, or only after significant waiting times.

Q: Add some way to vote for map/map preferences.
A: This is something we want to think about more. We are willing to have some kind of voting system in place, but at the same time it’s important for players to have a variety of maps too, especially as certain vehicles are inevitably more suitable for certain styles of map.

Q: Add BR limitations for each map and show it to players.
A: Good idea - showing the BR range for a map in the map preferences window would be very useful, we’ll try to implement it.

Q: My biggest and worst problem in WT is maps in Ground RB is that I don't want to play small maps in top tier battles (things like Berlin - Finland - Cargo Port - Alaska - Small Fulda - Small Maginot Line... etc).
A: We also don’t like all of the maps at high ranks as well, although players’ opinions differ (Many players like Finland or Berlin at high ranks, but at the same time many also don’t), but as suggested above we’ll introduce a way to show the BR limitations for maps. The enjoyment a map brings is often very subjective, but in instances where a particular map is noticeably widely disliked we will pay it extra attention.

Missions and locations


Q: In Tank RB we often get Battle mode with points already captured, and that demotivates the players from moving. I think this mode should go.
A: These scenarios can foster a more sedentary style of gameplay, we’ll probably reduce the chance of these maps appearing in the rotation, and likely remove some of them.

Q: I’d like the developers to manage the maps in a way so that modern vehicles won’t appear in WWII locations like Berlin.
A: We partially agree on Berlin (and maybe Rhine too) but not generally. We’ll try to remove the most obvious elements from maps that specifically relate to a certain timeframe to make them more universal, and we’ll think about introducing a modern version of Berlin too, that could be interesting.

Q: Do you plan to exclude night missions from rotation in case the player doesn’t have night vision and thermal sight modules, or maybe introduce an option to disable those missions?
A: We have decided to make night battles optionally available, we’ll announce exactly how this will be implemented a bit later.

Q: Collision models of various obstacles, garbage and other things should be either removed, replaced or reworked.
A: We’re working on it! Collision with even small objects can be jarring sometimes in certain circumstances, any examples you have of such issues with screenshots and descriptions will really help us improve this area as quickly as possible.

Q: It would be great to increase the duration of session creation to increase the number of players in battles and make them more intense. I think that waiting for 20 more seconds in the hangar and not ending up in an 8v8 battle on a large map is worth it.
A: We’ll think about this one - Unfortunately there’s no universal solution regarding a bracket of queue time that would apply to every situation, but some additional matchmaking options could improve the situation.

Q: Are there any plans to additionally reward the top 5 players at the end of the battle?
A: We do have plans along these lines for sure, but we’re just not sure if rewarding the top positions is the healthiest way to go: it’s tempting and a good reward, but it creates unhealthy competition for those 5 places (meaning that players may be compelled to grief or get the way of those in the lead).

Q: European Province: The city part is done well because it is separate small location. The open terrain around can be shot through the hills and there is also the possibility of shooting from one spawn to another.
A: Indeed, we’re aware of the problems here. We will aim to fix the instances where it’s possible to engage from spawn to spawn in some of the higher BRs.

Q: Surroundings of Volokolamsk: Very large location with a huge unused space. If your flank is clean then you are either too lazy or don't have enough time to react to the other one. I think it is necessary to leave only a small version of it.
A: It’s certainly a large location with a lot of empty space - we’ve already changed the rotation settings for this map, now it’s only available in ground RB and only from the session rank of 9.7 - also please note, a session rank of 9.7 means that these are battles for vehicles between the ratings of 8.7 - 9.7.

Q: Red Desert: Huge spaces with shots from covers on the top of rocks. Maybe you will remove this location from the rotation?
A: At the moment this map is only available from 9.7 and above so the huge spaces can be crossed relatively quickly by the faster vehicles at this tier, Red Desert is also still in the top 5 most liked locations from our map “like” system. However we will keep an eye on its overall popularity among players.

Q: El Alamein: Positions on the tops of the cliffs make it difficult to play. Line A and line 8.
A: You’re right, we’ll fix them.

Q: Battle of Hürtgen Forest: Now in the rotation we have the larger version where the activity of the players is lower than before. I propose to return the old version with 3 city capture points.
A: We don’t see a decrease in activity in this arrangement, but the capture points really do need to be redone, we’ll improve them.

Q: Mozdok : The location is either for the fast tanks which can take up positions at the beginning or about “standing at one point” as the respawn points are located opposite each other and are shot through. There is no goal to capture the point, no goal to leave the position. Can this mission be removed?
A: It’s possible, we will yes. The mobility of the tanks that see this map do make its layout quite unsuitable.

Q: Fields of Poland: the situation here is better than with the “European Province” although the expansion doesn't look justified everywhere.
A: Perhaps we can remove the forests around the edges of the map and replace them with fields to deter players from focusing on the outskirts.

Q: Port Novorossiysk : the teams capture their points being fully defended, and then meet up in front of a huge open area that makes them afraid to advance, so they just stick to the corridors. We need a full rework of the central point, with safer passages from both sides. The fact that you can effectively fire from across the river also contributes to the stalemate, making the players stay on line 7 with zero kills.
A: We see your points, but have to disagree on this one - from our data and heatmaps (and also personal experience!), the map has a good intensity of action, it often only takes one or two tanks from either team to funnel in behind enemy lines to break defenses. We’d also highly recommend some smoke shells for this map too if your tank carries them, as the sightlines are quite narrow it’s possible to block one entirely with a single shell, allowing your team time to advance.

Q: Sinai: a great map, but positions on spawn points on A1-A2 get in the way: it’s hard to get to the player who camps there. Would like for those positions to be removed on Sands of Sinai as well.
A: Thank you for bringing this one up, we’ll look into it.

Q: Ardennes: there’s a lot of excess space from А1 to С3, same as in the opposite corner on G8.
A: It may seem like empty space, but we see these routes are often utilized by players.

Q: Poland, Abandoned Factory and Eastern Europe: examples of good maps. I’d like to see a new location in the future update that is similar in size and junction layout to these maps and hear the player feedback.
A: We’ll try to introduce a map along these lines in one of our next updates, probably at the end of the year. We’re actually working on something quite similar to what you’ve described at the moment.

Q: Vietnam: have you considered partially draining the swamp on point A? Many players avoid it since it’s so hard to move around there.
A: Yes this is possible, that’s a good point.

We’d like to thank all of our players and creators who’ve submitted comments and suggestions for the development of the game. In this text we’ve responded to the feedback we managed to sort and take into account, we appreciate everything you’ve sent us - even if it hasn’t directly appeared in this text. We’d also like to remind you that this is only the beginning, and we have a lot of work ahead of us! We plan on continuing to promptly share our upcoming plans with all of you, along with regularly answering your questions.

Welcome to the 69th War Thunder Steam Screenshot Competition!

You submitted many beautiful screenshots last week, well done everyone. The three most popular and three selected by us will get 300 GE. See the winners down below!

Let’s begin the 69th edition of our competition!

Create a stunning screenshot and submit it on the War Thunder Steam Community Hub with the tag #WTscreen69. You have time until 02.06.2023 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:

• This week, we would love to see a picture of your vehicle during sunset!
  
• You must add the #WTscreen69 tag (title cannot have any other text in it).
  
• 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 68th edition:

Winners selected via community votes:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2978991661
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2979089582
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2978566315

Winners selected by our judges:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2978205254
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2978701085
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2978292717

Each winner will get 300GE! Congratulations and see you next week!