Summer is full of surprises, sometimes these are not so pleasant, August ends with an invasion... of pirates!

Modern bounty hunters are not limited to use an old sailboat, but still prefer to travel in groups. So while their appearance may have changed over time, what you can never change, is their insane love for treasure.

Or can you?

Our intelligence reports: large groups of ships sailing under the Jolly Roger closing in on our support depots. Obviously, the sea bandits decided to capture the warehouses and use them as cargo transit bases. So don’t relax, a pirate is not a one-eyed, one-legged bearded man with a need to say “Yaaaaaaarrrr!” these days, he is a skilled captain who will fight for his cargo till the bitter end!

Pilots, prepare to go hunting for the pirates “Black Spots”!




Using aircraft of any nation, destroy pirate ships with torpedoes. Completing the tasks are possible in the special event and in regular battles. To earn one “Black Spot” you need to destroy 30 ships in AB, 15 ships in RB and 10 ships in SB. In this event, the following missions will be used:

• [Ground Strike] Merchant Fleet
  
• [Ground Strike] Crater
  
• [Ground Strike] Pacific Hidden Base
  
• [Ground Strike] Lonely Island
  
• [Domination] Peleliu

All missions are full of ships, which are the main targets.

For every 30 destroyed pirate ships you will get “Black Spot” and a “Treasure Chest” trophy.

The “Treasure chest” contains one of the following items:

• "Destroy 10 units" wager
  
• Random +40% RP or SL booster for 10 battles
  
• Random "Order"
  
• Random back-up vehicle x5 for ranks I-III
  
• Random talisman for ranks I-III
  
• Discount on one of the premium torpedo bombers
  
• "Purse with gold" (10-200 Golden Eagles )
  
• One of the “Pirate Flags”

Collect all “Black Spots” and earn the captured pirate flag - one of the pirate decals!

Summer is full of surprises, sometimes these are not so pleasant, August ends with an invasion... of pirates!

Modern bounty hunters are not limited to use an old sailboat, but still prefer to travel in groups. So while their appearance may have changed over time, what you can never change, is their insane love for treasure.

Or can you?

Our intelligence reports: large groups of ships sailing under the Jolly Roger closing in on our support depots. Obviously, the sea bandits decided to capture the warehouses and use them as cargo transit bases. So don’t relax, a pirate is not a one-eyed, one-legged bearded man with a need to say “Yaaaaaaarrrr!” these days, he is a skilled captain who will fight for his cargo till the bitter end!

Pilots, prepare to go hunting for the pirates “Black Spots”!




Using aircraft of any nation, destroy pirate ships with torpedoes. Completing the tasks are possible in the special event and in regular battles. To earn one “Black Spot” you need to destroy 30 ships in AB, 15 ships in RB and 10 ships in SB. In this event, the following missions will be used:

• [Ground Strike] Merchant Fleet
  
• [Ground Strike] Crater
  
• [Ground Strike] Pacific Hidden Base
  
• [Ground Strike] Lonely Island
  
• [Domination] Peleliu

All missions are full of ships, which are the main targets.

For every 30 destroyed pirate ships you will get “Black Spot” and a “Treasure Chest” trophy.

The “Treasure chest” contains one of the following items:

• "Destroy 10 units" wager
  
• Random +40% RP or SL booster for 10 battles
  
• Random "Order"
  
• Random back-up vehicle x5 for ranks I-III
  
• Random talisman for ranks I-III
  
• Discount on one of the premium torpedo bombers
  
• "Purse with gold" (10-200 Golden Eagles )
  
• One of the “Pirate Flags”

Collect all “Black Spots” and earn the captured pirate flag - one of the pirate decals!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn2q0E5vxqk
We continue to publish series of diaries of Max Lachmann about recording authentic sounds of real military vehicles. This time Max and his colleagues go to France where they find the only remaining “Tiger II” in working order. Before this trip he practices his French skills and in the end gets champagne from a French girl.

We had already recorded a nice collection of World War II fighter and bomber aircrafts for Gaijin, when Pavel turned to Pole Position Production with another request. They needed authentic World War II tanks recorded. Excited by the unique challenge, I couldn’t wait to get started doing the research. It didn’t take long until I understood that one of the best resources for this, with the biggest collection, was at the Musée Des Blindés in Saumur, France. I also learned that they were in possession of the worlds only operable Tiger II, the legendary German tank.



On their website I found a contact form, which I filled out, writing in English, presenting myself and the company, and explaining my purpose. A few days went by before I got the answer, all in French. Since my French language skills comes down to some swearing words, I was a bit puzzled considering my options. Having a few French speaking friends, I had them translate it for me. The problem was trying to answer the email. Initially I wrote answers, that my friends translated, but this quite soon turned out be a too slow process. I then used Google translate to translate my replies, knowing that they would not be perfect but hopefully understandable. This worked for a while, until they finally asked me to call them. I knew Google translate wouldn’t be of any assistance when trying to speak to them. So what to do? It turned out we had a French ex-military connection in our network, Dominique Ruer, and we simply handed the communication over to him. This was crucial for how everything worked out later. He did a fantastic job, communicating with the museum on almost a daily basis, to explain our needs, find out what was available to record, work out budgets, sorting agreements and insurances etc. So after a long process we finally got a nice list of possible tanks to record, which I passed on to Pavel for him to take the decision. He decided on getting the Tiger, of course, along with a R35, B1 BIS, Somua S35, H39, TD M10, Valentine, Hetzer and a Panther.

Due to the number of vehicles to record, we realised we would need a full week to manage, and to have any chance to work around the possibility of bad weather and other technical circumstances that can occur. It is for instance not unusual for these old machines to be a bit tricky to start now and then. So we came up with a timeplan that we sent to the museum before our arrival, that was planned for January 2014. I had the Tiger planned for day 2, since I figured that was the most rare object. By having it planned for day 2 they would hopefully have learned the procedure by then, with all the manouvers we needed, and still have time to fix it for a few days if any technical issues would arise. This time we would bring a camera man from the UK, since our usual photographer was not available, and we were lucky to get the very talented Nick Kelly to help out. And likewise with the Lancaster, we had Eilam Hoffman helping us out, too. I arranged for them to arrive from London to Paris by train, while Bernard flew from Stockholm to Paris, got a rental car, picked up Eilam and Nick, and driving the three hours down to Saumur. Since we understood that the communication would be a problem, we also brought along the immensly helpful Dominique, to make sure we would get the best possible result without the language getting in our way.



We arrived to the museum early Monday morning. The recording area we were referred to use was the road in front of the museum inside the gates. It was a bit small but we did a layout for how the microphones should be positioned to get the most out of the tanks. This time we decided that Eilam should have the onboard recordings as his main responsibility and I took care of all the others. Eilam had put together a big rig of equipment with all different colored cables to make the swap between the vehicles easy. He had three recorders with a total of 18 channels onboard.

We decided to have a start & stop point with microphones in the middle of the relatively short straight were the tanks always proceeded from. In both ends of the straight we put microphones to capture the turnarounds. We had a plan of where to put what mic and started then immediately to rig the first vehicle. Nick had to figure out his filming and picture taking very much by himself and Dominique got the roll as main ”playleader” as he mastered this difficult language. It was very neccesary that the drivers understood what we wanted and did not miss any of our parts in the driving list. The first vehicles took as usual a bit longer until we worked up the skill in microphone placing.

The second day we started with the mighty Tiger II in the morning. It was located in the museum and the sound inside was deafening. The museum personal was very helpful and we even succesfully started the vehicle by cranking. Amazing machine! Second tank on Tuesday was the Panther which also turned out to be a monster.

The weather was not perfect every day and we unfortunately had some rain which makes everything a bit more complicated. No microphone really likes to be wet so we had to run with towels and plastic bags back and forth to keep everything as dry as possible.

All in all the recording days went on fine (but sometimes a bit stressful) and by lunch on Friday all vehicles were recorded succesfully. We then took a tour in the museum and the girls working in the museum invited us for a glass of Champagne. A good finish on a challenging week!

• War Thunder Sound Recordings, Part 1: The Lancaster

Discuss it here!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn2q0E5vxqk
We continue to publish series of diaries of Max Lachmann about recording authentic sounds of real military vehicles. This time Max and his colleagues go to France where they find the only remaining “Tiger II” in working order. Before this trip he practices his French skills and in the end gets champagne from a French girl.

We had already recorded a nice collection of World War II fighter and bomber aircrafts for Gaijin, when Pavel turned to Pole Position Production with another request. They needed authentic World War II tanks recorded. Excited by the unique challenge, I couldn’t wait to get started doing the research. It didn’t take long until I understood that one of the best resources for this, with the biggest collection, was at the Musée Des Blindés in Saumur, France. I also learned that they were in possession of the worlds only operable Tiger II, the legendary German tank.



On their website I found a contact form, which I filled out, writing in English, presenting myself and the company, and explaining my purpose. A few days went by before I got the answer, all in French. Since my French language skills comes down to some swearing words, I was a bit puzzled considering my options. Having a few French speaking friends, I had them translate it for me. The problem was trying to answer the email. Initially I wrote answers, that my friends translated, but this quite soon turned out be a too slow process. I then used Google translate to translate my replies, knowing that they would not be perfect but hopefully understandable. This worked for a while, until they finally asked me to call them. I knew Google translate wouldn’t be of any assistance when trying to speak to them. So what to do? It turned out we had a French ex-military connection in our network, Dominique Ruer, and we simply handed the communication over to him. This was crucial for how everything worked out later. He did a fantastic job, communicating with the museum on almost a daily basis, to explain our needs, find out what was available to record, work out budgets, sorting agreements and insurances etc. So after a long process we finally got a nice list of possible tanks to record, which I passed on to Pavel for him to take the decision. He decided on getting the Tiger, of course, along with a R35, B1 BIS, Somua S35, H39, TD M10, Valentine, Hetzer and a Panther.

Due to the number of vehicles to record, we realised we would need a full week to manage, and to have any chance to work around the possibility of bad weather and other technical circumstances that can occur. It is for instance not unusual for these old machines to be a bit tricky to start now and then. So we came up with a timeplan that we sent to the museum before our arrival, that was planned for January 2014. I had the Tiger planned for day 2, since I figured that was the most rare object. By having it planned for day 2 they would hopefully have learned the procedure by then, with all the manouvers we needed, and still have time to fix it for a few days if any technical issues would arise. This time we would bring a camera man from the UK, since our usual photographer was not available, and we were lucky to get the very talented Nick Kelly to help out. And likewise with the Lancaster, we had Eilam Hoffman helping us out, too. I arranged for them to arrive from London to Paris by train, while Bernard flew from Stockholm to Paris, got a rental car, picked up Eilam and Nick, and driving the three hours down to Saumur. Since we understood that the communication would be a problem, we also brought along the immensly helpful Dominique, to make sure we would get the best possible result without the language getting in our way.



We arrived to the museum early Monday morning. The recording area we were referred to use was the road in front of the museum inside the gates. It was a bit small but we did a layout for how the microphones should be positioned to get the most out of the tanks. This time we decided that Eilam should have the onboard recordings as his main responsibility and I took care of all the others. Eilam had put together a big rig of equipment with all different colored cables to make the swap between the vehicles easy. He had three recorders with a total of 18 channels onboard.

We decided to have a start & stop point with microphones in the middle of the relatively short straight were the tanks always proceeded from. In both ends of the straight we put microphones to capture the turnarounds. We had a plan of where to put what mic and started then immediately to rig the first vehicle. Nick had to figure out his filming and picture taking very much by himself and Dominique got the roll as main ”playleader” as he mastered this difficult language. It was very neccesary that the drivers understood what we wanted and did not miss any of our parts in the driving list. The first vehicles took as usual a bit longer until we worked up the skill in microphone placing.

The second day we started with the mighty Tiger II in the morning. It was located in the museum and the sound inside was deafening. The museum personal was very helpful and we even succesfully started the vehicle by cranking. Amazing machine! Second tank on Tuesday was the Panther which also turned out to be a monster.

The weather was not perfect every day and we unfortunately had some rain which makes everything a bit more complicated. No microphone really likes to be wet so we had to run with towels and plastic bags back and forth to keep everything as dry as possible.

All in all the recording days went on fine (but sometimes a bit stressful) and by lunch on Friday all vehicles were recorded succesfully. We then took a tour in the museum and the girls working in the museum invited us for a glass of Champagne. A good finish on a challenging week!

• War Thunder Sound Recordings, Part 1: The Lancaster

Discuss it here!

The Live.warthunder site has received a major update! The changes are as follows:

• The speed at which pages load has been significantly improved.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the feed to scroll to the top, after opening a publication in a full view window.
  
• A redesigned hashtag tip has been introduced.
  
• A mention input tip has been introduced.
  
• Features of the blacklist have been changed: users added to the blacklist will be unable to comment on publications, nor reply to comments, from the member that added them to the blacklist. Also, there will be no notifications for ‘mentions’ from users in the blacklist.
  
• The reputation for hidden or deleted posts will no longer be shown in a user’s total reputation count.

• Limitations on posts have been changed:
  • 2 posts can be made per hour, but with every 15,000 reputation points, this will increase by 1.
    
  • 10 posts can be made per day, but with every 1,000 reputation points, this will increase by 1.
• For pictures, camouflages, locations, missions and models, it is now possible to add up to 10 images for each post.
  
• A markup editor, which allows for easier text editing within a post, has been added.
  
• A mention input tip has been introduced.
  
• For all post types, the maximum description length has been increased to 6,000 characters.
  
• Added the ability to specify the description text that appears in the feed card through the use of tags. When using the tag (available in the markup editor), all text before the tag not exceeding 1,000 characters will appear in the feed. All text after the tag will feature in the body of the publication. If the tag (livecut) is not present, text will be automatically truncated (first 600 characters).
  
• Added the ability to restore a post after it has been removed (before closing the relevant browser tab, or moving to another page)

• Removed the restriction on the number of comments allowed in a post.
  
• Removed the limit on the number of dislikes allowed for comments.
  
• The way in which comments are displayed has been updated. They are now shown in a tree-view format.
  
• The maximum amount of characters allowed for comments within a post has been increased to 6,000.

• Removed sorting by "Hot"; the default sorting method is now by "Date".
  
• The number of columns in the feed has been reduced to three on wide screens, and two for narrow resolutions.
  
• Improved the loading speed of posts while scrolling.

• Profile banners have been reset due to changes in profile design.
  
• Changes have been made to avatar and banner minimum dimensions.
  
• Fixed a bug relating to non-resettable counter notifications.
  
• Profiles now display all of a user’s publications, independent of selected language.
  
• A user's own posts are now displayed in the subscriptions feed.

Discuss it here!

The Live.warthunder site has received a major update! The changes are as follows:

• The speed at which pages load has been significantly improved.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the feed to scroll to the top, after opening a publication in a full view window.
  
• A redesigned hashtag tip has been introduced.
  
• A mention input tip has been introduced.
  
• Features of the blacklist have been changed: users added to the blacklist will be unable to comment on publications, nor reply to comments, from the member that added them to the blacklist. Also, there will be no notifications for ‘mentions’ from users in the blacklist.
  
• The reputation for hidden or deleted posts will no longer be shown in a user’s total reputation count.

• Limitations on posts have been changed:
  • 2 posts can be made per hour, but with every 15,000 reputation points, this will increase by 1.
    
  • 10 posts can be made per day, but with every 1,000 reputation points, this will increase by 1.
• For pictures, camouflages, locations, missions and models, it is now possible to add up to 10 images for each post.
  
• A markup editor, which allows for easier text editing within a post, has been added.
  
• A mention input tip has been introduced.
  
• For all post types, the maximum description length has been increased to 6,000 characters.
  
• Added the ability to specify the description text that appears in the feed card through the use of tags. When using the tag (available in the markup editor), all text before the tag not exceeding 1,000 characters will appear in the feed. All text after the tag will feature in the body of the publication. If the tag (livecut) is not present, text will be automatically truncated (first 600 characters).
  
• Added the ability to restore a post after it has been removed (before closing the relevant browser tab, or moving to another page)

• Removed the restriction on the number of comments allowed in a post.
  
• Removed the limit on the number of dislikes allowed for comments.
  
• The way in which comments are displayed has been updated. They are now shown in a tree-view format.
  
• The maximum amount of characters allowed for comments within a post has been increased to 6,000.

• Removed sorting by "Hot"; the default sorting method is now by "Date".
  
• The number of columns in the feed has been reduced to three on wide screens, and two for narrow resolutions.
  
• Improved the loading speed of posts while scrolling.

• Profile banners have been reset due to changes in profile design.
  
• Changes have been made to avatar and banner minimum dimensions.
  
• Fixed a bug relating to non-resettable counter notifications.
  
• Profiles now display all of a user’s publications, independent of selected language.
  
• A user's own posts are now displayed in the subscriptions feed.

Discuss it here!

This year, we made the decision to introduce a tank-mounted rocket launcher to the US lineup; the Calliope. Following this, this addition in-game was received warmly by many players, and so, due to its success as an interesting and unique vehicle, we are planning to introduce similar vehicles, with unguided rocket armament for other nations too!







The first USSR self-propelled rocket launcher will be the BM-8-24. It will be available as a premium rank 1 ground vehicle. The BM-8-24 is an RSZO rocket launcher, mounted on a T-60 chassis. The T-60 tank hull specific to this design has a group of guide rails mounted upon it, with 24 x 82mm M8 rockets, which are a serious threat to other lower ranked ground vehicles.

See video of this vehicle in action here!

The light tank base provides the launcher with good general mobility and maneuverability aspects. Outwardly, the launcher looks very unusual, but don’t let its appearance put you off – before you is a dangerous enemy capable of launching 24 rockets at a target at any moment.

ASK THE DEVELOPERS

Please keep your questions on topic and in either English or Russian. More information here.

This year, we made the decision to introduce a tank-mounted rocket launcher to the US lineup; the Calliope. Following this, this addition in-game was received warmly by many players, and so, due to its success as an interesting and unique vehicle, we are planning to introduce similar vehicles, with unguided rocket armament for other nations too!







The first USSR self-propelled rocket launcher will be the BM-8-24. It will be available as a premium rank 1 ground vehicle. The BM-8-24 is an RSZO rocket launcher, mounted on a T-60 chassis. The T-60 tank hull specific to this design has a group of guide rails mounted upon it, with 24 x 82mm M8 rockets, which are a serious threat to other lower ranked ground vehicles.

See video of this vehicle in action here!

The light tank base provides the launcher with good general mobility and maneuverability aspects. Outwardly, the launcher looks very unusual, but don’t let its appearance put you off – before you is a dangerous enemy capable of launching 24 rockets at a target at any moment.

ASK THE DEVELOPERS

Please keep your questions on topic and in either English or Russian. More information here.

'[Air Domination] Britain' will be available in AB 'The Hardest Day' will be available in RB / SB. You can join the event through the 'Events & Tournaments' tab in the main menu.

The Hardest day is the name given to a major air battle of the Second World War. The encounter took place during the Battle of Britain on the 18th of August 1940, between the British RAF and the German Luftwaffe. With the planned invasion of Britain in progress, following their rejection of all overtures for a negotiated peace, the Germans considered that a successful invasion would only be possible with air superiority. Hence, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (High Command of the German Air Force) were tasked with making this a reality.

With the RAF Fighter Command as their primary target, and following a series of attacks on convoys and airfields throughout July and early August, the Luftwaffe made an all out effort to gain the air superiority they believed was needed to secure a successful invasion. On the 18th of August, a series of air battles took place that were considered to be amongst the largest aerial engagements in history at that time. Both sides suffered heavy losses, however, the British were able to outperform the Luftwaffe by a ratio of 2:1. In the aftermath, both nations lost more aircraft on this day than at any other point during the campaign. For this reason, the 18th of August 1940 became known as “The Hardest Day”.

The War Thunder Team

Leave your feedback here!

'[Air Domination] Britain' will be available in AB 'The Hardest Day' will be available in RB / SB. You can join the event through the 'Events & Tournaments' tab in the main menu.

The Hardest day is the name given to a major air battle of the Second World War. The encounter took place during the Battle of Britain on the 18th of August 1940, between the British RAF and the German Luftwaffe. With the planned invasion of Britain in progress, following their rejection of all overtures for a negotiated peace, the Germans considered that a successful invasion would only be possible with air superiority. Hence, Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and the Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (High Command of the German Air Force) were tasked with making this a reality.

With the RAF Fighter Command as their primary target, and following a series of attacks on convoys and airfields throughout July and early August, the Luftwaffe made an all out effort to gain the air superiority they believed was needed to secure a successful invasion. On the 18th of August, a series of air battles took place that were considered to be amongst the largest aerial engagements in history at that time. Both sides suffered heavy losses, however, the British were able to outperform the Luftwaffe by a ratio of 2:1. In the aftermath, both nations lost more aircraft on this day than at any other point during the campaign. For this reason, the 18th of August 1940 became known as “The Hardest Day”.

The War Thunder Team

Leave your feedback here!