HMS Hood was the only Admiral-class battlecruiser constructed for the Royal Navy and arguably one of the most renowned British warships of all time. Soon, captains in War Thunder will have the chance to take command of this legendary warship as it arrives at the top rank of the British bluewater fleet as part of the next major update!

Briefly: A unique British interwar battlecruiser, respected for both its combat capabilities as well as elegant visual appearance.


Features:

• Strong primary battery
  
• Comprehensive protection
  
• High top speed
  
• Large profile
  
• Mediocre anti-air protection

In War Thunder, HMS Hood will become the new crowning jewel awaiting captains at the top rank of the British bluewater fleet. Being the most advanced battlecruiser ever built for the Royal Navy, HMS Hood combines superior firepower with excellent mobility, making it one of the most potent warships available to British captains in the next major update!

Upon arriving to the game as part of the upcoming update, HMS Hood will bring with it the largest calibre primary battery found on any warship in the game currently. Fitted with a total of eight 15’’ (381mm) cannons split between four twin turrets, HMS Hood’s primary battery is capable of dealing devastating damage even to the most heavily armoured battleships sailing the seas in War Thunder at the moment. Furthermore, the ship’s secondary battery, consisting of seven twin 4’’ (102mm) dual-purpose cannons, complements the main guns by engaging enemy destroyers at closer range or incoming aerial threats at longer ranges.



Aside from the heavy guns, HMS Hood is also outfitted with three octuple 40mm ‘pom-pom’ cannons as well as four quadruple .50 cal machine gun turrets for use against smaller vessels and aircraft at shorter engagement ranges. HMS Hood has one final trick up its sleeve as far as firepower is concerned. Namely, captains will also have access to two fixed 21’’ (533mm) torpedo launchers fitted to both sides of the ship’s hull underneath the main deck. While their use in long-range gun fights with other capital ships may be questioned, they will undoubtedly come in handy during a close-quarter brawl.

Fun Fact: Due to its size and formidable armament, HMS Hood not only received the nickname ‘The Mighty Hood’ but it also came to symbolize the might of the British Empire.

As HMS Hood is designed as a battlecruiser, British shipbuilders certainly didn’t neglect the second factor that defines this warship type: speed. Fitted with steam turbines generating a combined power output of 144,000 horsepower, HMS Hood is capable of attaining an impressive top speed of 31 kts (57km/h), thus giving the warship excellent mobility. As a result, HMS Hood doesn’t have to be employed as a battleship necessarily. Instead, captains with a more aggressive tactical approach can choose to join the advance of comparably lighter vessels such as cruisers, and support them with their heavier firepower.



HMS Hood’s protection may appear quite substantial at first glance. After all, the warship is encased in a 12’’ (305mm) belt armour, stretching across all the sections containing vital ship components. However, taking a closer look at HMS Hood’s armour layout, reveals that this thick belt plating covers only a small area around the waterline whereas the areas above and below it possess much thinner plating ranging from 3 - 7’’ (76mm - 177mm). On the other hand, the vessel’s turrets and conning tower remain well protected with 15’’ and 11’’ (381mm and 279mm) of armour respectively, ensuring their ability to effectively absorb enemy fire. Lastly, HMS Hood’s complement consists of 1,418 sailors and officers. With such a sizable crew, HMS Hood is able to stay in the fight even during prolonged engagements, provided the opponent doesn’t score a lucky strike.



The ‘Mighty Hood’ will soon dock in play ports, awaiting seasoned War Thunder captains at the top of the British bluewater fleet in the next major update. In the meantime, keep your binoculars at hand and continue scanning the horizon for more news as we continue telling you more of what the upcoming update has in store for you. Until then, calm seas and happy hunting captains!

• Planned BR changes have been implemented.
  
• Su-22UM3K — a bug has been fixed that allowed the use of FAB-500 bombs on the internal wing pylons.
  
• F-104S ASA — a bug has been fixed where it was possible to fire the M61A1 guns while using the Aspide A1 missiles.
  
• J-8B — a bug has been fixed that allowed the use of PL-5B missiles on the internal wing pylons. The armament system of the jet fighter allows the use of up to 4 missiles at a time.

The current provided update notes reflect the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates and fixes may be not listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving all the time and certain fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

The Pvkv III is an experimental tank destroyer, developed as part of Sweden’s efforts to equip its military with new combat vehicles based on existing platforms. Arriving in War Thunder as part of the next major update, the Pvkv III will reinforce the Swedish mid-ranks with another highly capable tank hunter!

Briefly: A prototype Swedish tank destroyer based on the Strv m/41 light tank, fitted with a 57mm anti-tank cannon.


Features:

• Quick-firing 57mm cannon
  
• Light protection
  
• Exposed fighting compartment

In War Thunder, the Pvkv III will be a new tank destroyer awaiting players at rank II of the Swedish ground forces tree in the upcoming update. Being based on the same chassis as the all too familiar Pvkv II, the new Pvkv III features a smaller, yet no less deadly 57mm cannon while retaining the chassis’ signature good mobility and compact size.

The main and virtually only difference tankers will note on the Pvkv III coming from the predecessor is the tank’s main weapon. Namely, engineers outfitted the Pvkv III with a smaller 57mm cannon instead of the 75mm one found on the Pvkv II. As a result, tankers will be faced with a trade-off when taking the vehicle out into battle. They will lose some of the signature penetrating capability featured by the Pvkv II’s 75mm cannon in favor of a higher rate of fire.



Make no mistake however, the 57mm will still pose a significant threat to most opponents on the battlefield and will especially come in handy in close-range engagements where its higher rate of fire will allow tankers to suppress advancing enemy forces and more rapidly react to shifting frontlines. On the other hand, the Pvkv III’s effectiveness against more heavily armored opponents, especially at longer ranges, will somewhat be inhibited by the gun’s smaller caliber.

Pvkv III also possesses the same protection as its close relative. As a result, the Pvkv III is highly susceptible to enemy fire and best kept outside heated firing lines during engagements.



Meet the Pvkv III as it arrives to the mid-ranks of the Swedish ground forces tree as part of the next major War Thunder update. In the meantime, be sure to stay tuned to the news as we continue to keep you posted on all the latest developments surrounding the upcoming update. Until then, happy hunting tankers!

The VCAC MEPHISTO is a French wheeled anti-tank destroyer, developed on the basis of an amphibious APC design in the late 1970s by the Renault company. Arriving in the top ranks of the French ground forces tree as part of the next major update, tankers will have the chance to take command of the nimble and no less deadly VCAC MEPHISTO!


Features:

• Powerful HOT missiles
  
• Excellent mobility
  
• Small profile
  
• Light protection

In War Thunder, the VCAC MEPHISTO will be a new wheeled anti-tank missile carrier arriving to the top ranks of the French ground forces tree as part of the next major update. Exceptionally mobile and equipped with a considerable number of deadly HOT missiles, the VCAC MEPHISTO is sure to mix things up for French tankers as it becomes the first tank hunter of its kind in this nation‘s research tree.

The VCAC MEPHISTO is based on the VBA VTT wheeled armored personnel carrier and as such, features superb mobility thanks to the vehicle‘s low weight of just 13.8 tons, a 220 horsepower diesel engine and all-wheel drive. All these factors combined allow the VCAC MEPHISTO to reach a top speed of up to 92 km/h on paved roads while its relatively good power-to-weight ratio enables the vehicle to conquer even less hospitable terrain types without greater struggle. Furthermore, the VCAC MEPHISTO also inherits its amphibious capabilities from the base APC chassis. As a result, the vehicle can cross even deep bodies of water at a maximum speed of around 13 km/h, thus giving its aspiring commanders more tactical options.



Once the VCAC MEPHISTO has maneuvered into position and has set its sights on hostile units, its commanders will have a four-barrelled, fully rotatable anti-tank missile launcher at their disposal to engage the enemy forces with. From the stock, commanders will have access to the HOT-1 missiles, followed by researchable modification of more capable HOT-2 ATGMs. Tankers should also not be worried about only having four missiles in the launcher as there‘s another eight spare ATGMs stored inside of the vehicle.



Naturally, being based on a light APC‘s chassis means that the VCAC MEPHISTO doesn‘t boast incredible protection characteristics. In fact, the vehicle‘s armor is only capable of shielding the crew and vehicle modules against rifle-caliber fire and shrapnel but fails to provide more substantial protection against more substantial threats such as autocannon fire or missile strikes. Therefore, instead of relying on the armor for protection, aspiring commanders of the VCAC MEPHISTO should take this matter into their own hands and utilize the chassis‘ excellent mobility to stay out of harm‘s way.



The VCAC MEPHISTO will soon arrive to rank VI of the French ground forces tree as part of the next major update, also becoming the first wheeled missile carrier to become available to French tankers in the game. In the meantime, stay tuned to the news to receive all the latest information about the upcoming update and some of the additions and features it will bring with it. Until then, happy hunting tankers!

In this digest we would like to tell you about our continuing work on improvements and fixes in the game.





We have already talked about the customization of suspended weaponry presets in the devblog. With the release of this update new features are now available for the Mirage F1C, Su-22UM3K, MiG-23MLA, https://wiki.warthunder.com/F-104S.ASA, J-8B, A-10A Thunderbolt II (early) and A-10A Thunderbolt II (late). For each suspended node you can select a different weaponry option from those already researched while taking into account the ammunition weight.

In total you can create up to 20 custom weapon presets. You can create and edit weapon variants in the hangar before a flight. In battle, you will be able to select between already created presets which will allow you to easily and quickly select before re-spawning using the most useful in the current situation the weaponry preset.





We are continuing to improve our game’s big new feature - the hard-kill active protection systems featured on the Challenger 2 Black Night and T-55AMD-1. We have doubled their repair speed in case you have damaged it in the battle and also speeded up by a quarter the replenishment time of the APS at captured points. And of course we have fixed some minor bugs like the icon of the APS replenishment staying on the screen after a death.





This issue might be faced by every pilot in battles of high ranked (and also very fast) aircraft. Markers! Such an important part of the game interface of the AB and RB modes sometimes behaves unpredictably - a marker for the enemy might appear only at close range or conversely can be displayed at a perfectly acceptable and correct distance.

We worked hard on this mechanic and now marker behaviour will become much more predictable. Even an inexperienced crew will spot the enemy at distances of 4 km and an experienced ace crew will surely spot the enemy and report it even from 8 km.

Also keep in mind tactical tricks: the crew sees the enemy better in the direction of its view and very poorly behind. Therefore “sneaking up” on some fighter from the rear hemisphere or preferably under his belly is still a great tactical trick.




We have fixed a bug that prevented aircraft missile seekers warm-up with the “Drop/launch” button, forcing you to activate your missiles with another button “Seeker lock-on”. All good now, seekers warm up easily with the same button you regularly use to unleash hell on your enemies.




The design of this lineup of the Swedish vehicles included an armoured bulkhead between the engine and the main combat compartment. It could cover against shrapnel but it didn’t work against overpressure mechanics. We have found the cause of the error and fixed it. Now such vehicles like Strv 103-0, Strv 103A and Strv 103С will feel a little more protected.


And only between players that use the Steam client, where it was simply impossible to delete a player from your friends list.

Well it’s not up to us to judge the reasons for breaking your friendship but now this feature works correctly.



For this digest we have prepared a large set of useful fixes and game improvements. Be sure to read the full list below - there are many interesting things.

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

• A bug has been fixed where the reload indicator of the hard-kill active protection remains after a respawn when a previous vehicle was destroyed while reloading the protection system rounds.
  
• Repair time of the hard-kill protection has been halved.
  
• Reload time of the hard-kill protection rounds has been reduced by 25%.
  
• Vickers Mk.7 — a bug has been fixed with overestimated repair time for optics.
  
• M50 — a bug has been fixed that resulted in overestimated recoil impulse of the recoilless rifles.
  
• Centauro I 120 — a bug has been fixed that resulted in overestimated recoil impulse of the 120mm main gun (report).
  
• Challenger 2 TES, Challenger 2 (2F) — the stabilizer has been added to the Enforcer Remote Weapon Station (report).
  
• Strv 103-0, Strv 103A, Strv 103С — a bug has been fixed that resulted in overpressure damage to the crew when the engine compartment is destroyed.
  
• Machbet — a bug has been fixed that prevented automatic range setup from laser rangefinder.
  
• AMX-10RC — a bug has been fixed where HUD indicated stabilizer mode is on when the vehicle lacks stabilizer.
  
• M4A3 (105) — calibre of the smoke round has been fixed (report).
  
• Search-and-track radars with plan position indicators now have 360 deg. lock-on capability. This option allows locking on target without moving a turret to its direction. This update is available for:
  
  
  • VEAK 40
    
  • Chieftain Marksman
    
  • AMX-30 DCA
    
  • ZSU-23-4
    
  • ZSU-37-2
• ZSU-23-4 — several radar modes have been added in 30° and 90° sectors. Actual radar features variable searching sector in 30…90° range.

• Kfir C.2, Mirage F1C, Su-22UM3K, MiG-23MLA, F-104S.ASA, J-8B, A-10A Thunderbolt II (early), A-10A Thunderbolt II (late) — custom weapon setups are now available.
  
• A bug has been fixed with AAM seeker warm-up by pressing the “drop/launch” button (report).
  
• A bug has been fixed that prevented SPI set in the air for aircraft with optical lock-on (e.g. MiG-27K, Jaguar GR.1A, etc.).
  
• AD-2 — a bug has been fixed that required the Tiny Tim modification to be researched for opening the 2,000 lbs bombs.

• Groza — firing angles over the ship’s bow have been corrected.
  
• Admiral Hipper, Prinz Eugen — firing angles have been corrected at the bow’s davits.
  
• IJN Ikoma — circulation angle has been reduced.
  
• IJN Syonan — the type of the main calibre guns have been corrected.

• Flickering of some objects (trees, etc) at high graphical settings have been fixed (report).
  
• A bug has been fixed that resulted in decals removal from vehicles by the application crash.
  
• A bug has been fixed that prevented removing friends from the friend list of the Steam version of the game.
  
• “Awards” button in the “Achievements” menu has become brighter.
  
• A bug has been fixed where icons and names of vehicles in local and server replays of the Realistic and Simulator battles were displayed only for players from the left column of the statistics chart.
  
• A bug has been fixed where enemy aircraft markers were displayed at shorter distances than stated in the crew skills.
  
• Position of the sun, moon and stars now correspond to the actual latitude/longitude.
  
• Time delay of placing marks on the minimap has been reduced from 30 to 1 second.

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.

• Battle chat is now available again for both teams. Please be advised: to avoid violations of the communication rules, there is a message send delay that is set equal to 30 seconds. We will continue to monitor the situation, and, if the number of violations in battle chat increases, we will have to disable it again.

The current provided update notes reflect the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates and fixes may be not listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving all the time and certain fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

We have another round of battle rating changes for May! Please view our forum thread to view the table and leave feedback.

View the changes here

Leave your feedback here

Meet the latest selection of historical decals that you can get for your vehicle until the 10th of June. You will be able to distinguish your vehicles in the battle with exclusive designs: the “Spitting Viper” for Israeli ground vehicles, the fearsome “Shark” for Chinese aircraft and also the moustached tiger, of course for German tanks.

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You can find these decals in the “Weeks latest” section in the customization tab, after which they will be available to their owners in the thematic sections of vehicle customization.

Tasks can be completed in vehicles of rank II-VII.

• The requirements for the decals may be checked in the “Weeks latest” section in vehicle customization or in the Achievements → Decals → Weeks latest.
  
• Tasks can be completed in random battles and events, except “Enduring Confrontation” and “Assault” missions.
  
• Decals received earlier have been temporarily moved to the section “Weeks latest” and will be moved later to the thematic sections.

Some of the decals were created by Colin 'Fenris' Muir, Jej 'CharlieFoxtrot' Ortiz, Ricardo "BlueBeta" Lo Verso and Branislav 'InkaL' Mirkov.

Previous decals have been moved to their respective sections for the appearance of vehicles:

• "Griffin" badge of VF-831, USS Antietam, 1951 → USA.
  
• Insignia of the 3rd S-Boote flotilla of Kriegsmarine, (S57) → Germany (fleet).
  
• "Ace of hearts'' personal emblem of G. A. Kogrushev, 168th IAP → USSR.
  
• Emblem of Guards Armoured Division, Great Britain → Britain (tanks).
  
• Emblem of 1st Tank District, Northern Army, JGSDF → Japan (tanks).
  
• "Stork" emblem of the 37o Stormo, Italian Air Force → Italy.
  
• Emblem of the 2/33 Savoie Reconnaissance Squadron, FAF → France.
  
• Emblem of the Armoured Battalion Norwegian Army → Neutral countries (tanks).
  
• Emblem of the Armoured Brigade Finnish Army → Neutral countries (tanks).
  
• Emblem of 107th Squadron, IAF → Israel.

• Dardo, VCC-80/30 — the incorrect animation of the HE-IT round on the info card has been fixed (report).
  
• FV102 Striker — armour penetration values on the info card have been corrected (report).
  
• 15 cm Pz.W.42 — armour penetration values on the info card have been corrected.
  
• T-80U, T-90A — targeting angles in the TKN-4 commander’s sight have been adjusted from -5/+10 to -20/+30 degrees. Source: Изделие 478Б. Техническое описание и инструкция по эксплуатации, 1985.
  
• LVT(A)(4) — the name of the vehicle on the info card has been corrected (report).
  
• Begleitpanzer 57 — the automatic loader has been added to the ATGM launcher (report).
  
• Т-72M2 Moderna — a bug has been fixed where a reload time was overestimated .
  
• Phòng không T-34, Phòng không T-34 (USSR) — different visibility values have been equalised, visibility of both vehicles are now set to 120% (report).
  
• IS-4M — AA machine gun is now controlled by the gunner.
  
• T29, T30, T34 — AA machine guns are now controlled by the gunner.
  
• Merkava Mk.4B — material and thickness of the spare tracks on the turret have been fixed.

• MiG-21S — a bug has been fixed where in some situations the texture of pylons remains on the detachment line while the pylons are detached.
  
• AD-2 / AD-4 (all versions) — icons of the 1,000 lbs bombs have been corrected in all weapon presets.
  
• S-13OF rocket — the weight has been corrected to 69 kg. Source: “Неуправляемая авиационная ракета С-13ОФ - Концерн «Калашников»”; and others

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.

• Fixed incorrect display of the real value of the "Bomb activation time (sec)", which could occur after switching the game difficulty mode.

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.