Dear players,

We have another round of questions and answers for you, with War Thunder producer Vyacheslav Bulannikov!

Aviation

Q. Do you have any plans for the USN Naval variants of Phantoms in the Naval aircraft branch? F-4B, F-4J and F-4S? So far we have only seen the addition of the USAF variants.

• Yes, we have such plans.

Q. With the expansion of Rank VI aviation, missiles are an ever increasing key element to combat. Given some aircraft now have a progressive choice of 2-3 missile options, is it possible we could see some basic form of “stock missiles” such as AIM-9B and R-3S?

• We do consider some options for high-rank missile combat jets.

Q. Some nations in game, such as Germany, Japan, Great Britain and the USA could support almost an entire line of floatplane aircraft with many examples not yet featured in game. Since they are increasingly more relevant in naval battles for quickly capturing zones, will we see more floatplanes and flying boats in future updates?

• You hopefully will.

Q. Will we see an expansion into Rank VII for aviation this year?

• Stay tuned to our official news.

Q. Do you plan to add a voice warning system (‘Bitching Betty’) in aviation?

• Yes, this might be an interesting addition to high rank combat audio.

Q. Are you planning to add the IL-40 and its modifications?

• Yes, there are such plans.

Q. Is it possible to implement in bombers (and other aircraft with unused crew) the crew mechanics of the tank/naval types, with the replacement of each other? It is known that for medium/heavy bombers, the crew did not only get along with the first/second pilot and gunners. A bombardier, navigator, radio operator, flight engineer, etc. could still be on board. If the pilot/gunner was incapacitated, these crewmen could replace them, keeping the aircraft's combat effectiveness. Sometimes it is a great pity when a four-engine jumbo is deprived of its pilot with a single well-aimed shot, and it is immediately counted as a frag, or the gunner is knocked out, and the upper hemisphere immediately remains defenseless.

• The game already partially uses this mechanic, in planes with dual control: to shoot it down by knocking out the pilot, you need to hit both pilots, if only one of them is knocked, the aircraft continues to fly. As for the turrets, consider that the gunner's knock-out also reproduces the possible destruction, or malfunction, of the weapon or the turret equipment, so that further use of this gun point becomes impossible.

Ground Forces

Q. With the addition of the South African subtree, does this mean we might still see a British light tank line with vehicles such as the Scorpion, Scimitar, FV721 Fox, Alvin Saladin and Ferret.

• Yes, new light combat units from Great Britain are planned.

Q. Certain tanks have destructible elements of their visual model, such as side skirts. Historically, vehicles like the Tiger II, Jagdtiger and others often went into battle with certain parts removed. Has it been considered to allow customization of such elements in the hanger to allow individual tanks to differ more in battle since their removal is already present in the model?

• Such customization options are not being considered at the moment. We believe current customization variants to be various and sufficient, including “combat” customization, where tanks receive different hit marks from enemy shots.

Q. Why don’t wrecked tanks cool down during a game? Long after a tank is destroyed, it remains “hot” as if it's still active, and becomes confusing when using thermals.

• Most tanks are destroyed by fire, so over the course of an in-game battle, they do not have time to cool down. Also, metal structures are heated up considerably by the sun, without any fire. As for the thermal radiation of the engine or hot exhaust gases, they disappear after the destruction of a tank.

Q. Do you plan on implementing the VCC 80 Dardo for Italy? If yes, is it possible to also implement the Spike LR ATGM as this vehicle used such weaponry (as a replacement variant for the TOW)?

• Yes, there are such plans for it. As far as guided weapons - an ATGM like the Spike will be a very unpleasant and unbalanced weapon if it has all of its actual combat capabilities. Players could already see this in the 1st April event when a technical issue with the TOW missile on the Swedish vehicle caused it to have (for a short time) similar capabilities as the Spike (over-the-horizon firing, trajectory lock and redirection on the flight). In this form, without the mass use of active protection on tanks, the weapon would be way too powerful. Therefore, as an option, we are considering the implementation of a “reduced” functionality on these missiles; for example, with only target lock before launch and no correction and redirection during its flight.

Q. Did all vehicles in the game receive voluminous armour? Can the interaction of voluminous projectiles with vehicles without this mechanic cause any problems now?

• No, not all vehicles have it yet, but we are working on it and with each major update we will release new vehicles with voluminous armour. You can define voluminous armour if the tooltip indicates “armor dimensions at point”.

Q. Are you continuing to develop the functionality of suspended armour?

• Yes, we regularly introduce vehicles with different options for additional protection.

Q. In the British tech tree, we currently only see the Challenger 2 as the top-tier vehicle. As you are aware, they had no other tanks. Will there be an option to add tanks from the Commonwealth?

• Not all Challenger 2 variants are available for use in game, and as we continue to see new variants and prototypes with different turrets, the Challenger will continue to serve in that capacity.

Q. Why is there no 3BM60 top APFSDS for the T-90A and T-72B3? After all, there is the Leopard 2A6 with DM53, as well as the M1A2 Abrams with the M829A1. Are there any restrictions that prevented the introduction of this projectile?

• We are rather cautious about the introduction of more powerful ammunition in top-tier battles, each such projectile is a precedent and the devaluation of armour in general. However, the current efficiency of the top Soviet vehicles (except for the T-80U) is still noticeably inferior to the western ones, so the reduction of the BR and the new mechanics of the high-explosive damage somewhat improved the situation, but not enough. Therefore we consider the introduction of the ЗBM-48 “Svinets” APFSDS projectile as one of the measures, in tungsten variant to start from.

Naval Forces

Q. Currently torpedo tubes can be detonated and almost instantly kill a ship. This specifically hurts Japanese destroyers the most and makes them much harder to play as they feature an easy external ammo rack of sorts now. Do you have any plans for this part of the damage model in terms of refining how it works to make Destroyers with torpedoes less likely to explode?

• This issue is going to be fixed and the explosion chance will be significantly reduced.

Q. War Thunder Warfare 2077 showed an interesting controllable UAV for the Hydra, is it possible this mechanic could also work for ships with catapult aircraft modeled could be tested?

• It is very interesting mechanics for us and we consider various applications both in naval and ground battles.

Q. Do you plan to introduce Naval Enduring Confrontation (RB) in a permanent mode, like helicopter confrontation (AB) or air confrontation (SB)? I would like to see this mode more often, the last test showed its best sides.

• No, we plan to continue the events as intermittently held.

Q. Will there be projects for series H battleships for Germany in the game? They were laid, but were soon dismantled. The battleship Bismarck will not be able to withstand Yamato and Iowa on equal terms. We would like to see the H-39 project.

• We consider as possible the addition of similar ships, those that were laid down, but were not completed in reality.

Helicopters

Q. Are more helicopters planned to expand the Italian Helicopter tree?

• Yes.

Misc

Q. With the new hanger, is it possible to consider an “instant test drive” that launches you immediately onto the map at the base? The location seems to be really interesting and nice for exploration.

• We have plans to change the tank test drive, but this is unlikely to be a seamless implementation, it has its drawbacks. The current hangar as a map for a test drive has them too.

The War Thunder Team