• 2S38 — elevation angles in the commander sight have been increased from -10…+20° to -15…+75° (report).
  
• 2S38, 9P157, BMP-3 — a bug has been fixed that caused cyclic neutral gear switch while turning at low speed (report)
  
• ELC bis — a bug has been fixed with different armour values in the info card and the armour view mode (report)
  
• Chieftain Mk.5 Marksman — gunner and commander sight magnification has been changed from х8 to х3–10.
  
• Leclerc SXXI — a bug has been fixed where the material of the side skirts was different from Leclerc S1 and Leclerc S2. Side skirts material has been changed from constructional steel to armoured steel.

• F-104S, F-104S TAF — a bug has been fixed where flare containers obstructed the drag chute.
  
• Harrier Gr.7, Q-5L — a bug has been fixed that caused unlocking from the target when flying over it in the third person view.
  
• Harrier Gr.7, Q-5L — a bug has been fixed where toggling to the nose camera might cause a laser lock-on reset.
  
• DB-3A — elevation angles of the nose turret have been adjusted.
  
• Kikka — a bug has been fixed with missing rocket engines after respawn.
  
• Kikka — a bug has been fixed where after respawning the landing gear raised only in the visual model and detached at high speed in RB and SB modes.
  
• A bug has been fixed that prevented MG fire from the helicopter in camera mode while using a gamepad.
  
• A bug has been fixed involving different penetration values of the Type 94 gun on the Ha-Go tank and Ki-45 otsu.

• The frequency of announcing a vessel’s turn orders and rudder position reports has been reduced. Phrases regarding a vessel’s roll will now be announced only when it is sinking. Phrases regarding critical roll will be announced as before when the vessel reaches this roll under any circumstances.
  
• The ability to select torpedo sight with mouse or key has been added. The switch is located in:
  
• Menu > Options > Main parameters > Naval battle settings > Torpedo sight controlling with mouse.

• A bug that caused the points in the “Requirements to Candidates” window for the squadron to not fit the height of the window has been fixed.
  
• A bug that caused the “Watch” button to not appear in the window for using a coupon that gives a skin/decal/decoration has been fixed.

• A bug that caused some vehicle models to appear in coal black colour in some cases has been fixed (source).
  
• A bug that might make aircraft textures look blurry has been fixed (report).
  
• A bug where the mouse cursor might jump to a second monitor when playing in full-screen windowed mode in naval and helicopter battles when the “alt” key has been pressed or a radio command has been sent has been fixed (report).
  
• A bug relating to the periodic cessation of the battle replay when viewing from the official web page of the game has been fixed.
  
• Hints about pausing the replay of the battle to download the next part have been added. Also download status information has been added.

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.

ZTS63 is a Chinese amphibious light tank created on the Soviet PT-76 platform. The vehicle has an 85 mm rifled gun with a laser rangefinder and armour-piercing fin-stabilised rounds.

Features:

• 85mm gun with APFSDS rounds
  
• Decent mobility
  
• Light armour
  
• Amphibious

Modern amphibious tanks have become especially demanded in the People’s Liberation Army of China due to the growing tensions in the southeastern borders. For a long time, obsolete American-made tanks filled this gap, but they were obviously no longer suitable for the conditions of modern warfare. The Chinese military decided to start their own development by reverse-engineering the Soviet PT-76 amphibious tanks imported in the late 50s. During the development, Chinese engineers improved seaworthiness and reliability of the engine.The tank received a domestic 85-mm rifled gun. Type 63 light amphibious tank entered service with the PLA in 1964, it was intensively used in service and actions. During the 1979 upgrade program, the tank, which by that time was designated as the ZTS63, received improved traverse mechanisms, a laser rangefinder, and other improvements. The production of these vehicles was discontinued by 1983.



The later modification of the ZTS63 will be one of the first rank V armoured vehicles in the Chinese tech tree. Despite the silhouette familiar from the Soviet PT-76, the vehicle offers new combat tactics and will become a good help to move up your armoured setup from the rank IV.

Enthusiasts of Chinese armoured vehicles are familiar with the early version of the vehicle, the Type-63-1 light tank. Unlike the Soviet amphibious PT-76, the vehicle is equipped with a Chinese-made 85mm cannon with punchy HEAT rounds, which most tanks at its rank have no protection against. The later version of the vehicle, ZTS63 (1980) comes armed with an armour piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot rounds with good penetration values, as well as a laser rangefinder. The smooth ballistics of these rounds, coupled with the ability to quickly enter the range corrections, make the ZTS63 a full-fledged sniper that can do deadly damage at long distances.




Now the light amphibious tank can try deep flanking, long-range camping and will feel more confident against tanks with ERA protection or spaced armour. The Chinese scout does not have any significant armour that would interfere with its mobility, so ZTS63 commanders need to rely on surprise, speed and a good understanding of the battlefield.

The new Chinese light amphibious tank ZTS63 (1980) will appear in War Thunder hangars with the release of the next major game update. Keep an eye on our devblog where we tell you about the most interesting new vehicles and features of the incoming update. Fresh fare tomorrow!

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to spend a romantic evening together in your favorite game, give out gifts and compliments, and, of course, get new decals in War Thunder.

Decorate your vehicles and share your love with others!





"Cyber Cupid" decal.

Complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions and [Assault] mode. Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → Valentine’s Day.

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

During the event you will be able to purchase a trophy with unique 3D decorations for Golden Eagles in the Item shop. In the St. Valentine’s Trophy you will find a naval decoration “Anchor of love”, as well as ground vehicle decorations “Compound bow” and “Teddy Bear with heart”. Upon opening the trophy you will receive a decoration that you don’t yet possess.




Per our tradition, the Premium Mk-IX “Valentine” tank will be available for purchase with Golden Eagles during the celebrations. You can find it in the USSR research tree: it is a compact British tank that was shipped to the USSR as a part of Lend-Lease.

We will soon move to a new game client file structure that will reduce the size of updates and speed up their installation.

Hello!
Today we would like to tell you about the transition to the new file structure in the War Thunder game client that the development team has already planned for in the upcoming major update.

In short: the new file structure will speed up the installation of updates on your computers and consoles, as well as reduce the size of download files!

The goal of the restructuring is to break up a number of heavy game files into smaller ones so that when these files are changed, players on consoles and the Steam client will download smaller volumes. On a PC, for those who update through our launcher, a partial file update system has been available for a long time, but this file structure change will speed up the installation of updates. In fact, players will receive War Thunder updates faster - we save bandwidth for users with slow or unstable Internet connections on Steam, PlayStation and XBox versions, as well as speed up the installation of updates for all players.

There should be no change in the game's load speed: on SSD, the speed will stay the same, on HDD there may be a slight increase or slowdown in the speed of installing files, depending on the history of use and receipt of updates (due to fragmentation of data on a disk).

The new file structure will be applied to the installation directory of the War Thunder client in the next major update. If you participate in dev-server testing (see post here), you will receive a new structure in the first session of testing the update. To switch to the new file structure, you will need to re-download about 15 GB of data (the exact data volume will be known closer to the release of the update), but only once. In following updates, the volume of traffic for consoles and the Steam client will be significantly reduced compared to the current file structure.

In one of the next major game updates, we also plan to restructure the texture data, the heaviest part of War Thunder files. Details about the second stage of the transition to the new file structure will be announced later.

It was a pleasure to see all of your screenshots from last week! There was a great assortment of vehicles that could have been seen in the Battle of Stalingrad, and many vehicles from more modern times! The three most popular and three selected by us will get 300 GE. See the winners down below!


Create a stunning screenshot and submit it on the War Thunder Steam Community Hub with the tag #WTscreen54. You have time until 17.02.2023 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.

Important addition: Screenshot theme - Loving the Unloved!

St. Valentine's day is upon us this week! We wanted to ensure all of our vehicles felt loved this week, especially from nations that tend to be less popular than others.

• Your screenshot must feature one or more vehicles from the Japanese, Italian, or French tech trees!
  
• You must add the #WTscreen54 tag (title cannot have any other text in it).

[/b]

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.

[/list]



https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2929693474
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2929665603
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2928322615

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2930257837
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2929000737
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2928774102

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

The Sd.Kfz.222 light reconnaissance armored vehicle was one of the most successful vehicles of this type in service with the German land army and saw intense use in combat during WWII.

Features:

• High mobility
  
• 20mm autocannon
  
• Shoots both ground and aerial targets
  
• Light protection

In War Thunder, the Sd.Kfz.222 will become one of the initial vehicles in the German and Chinese tech trees. The main difference from its predecessor, Sd.Kfz. 221, lies in its magazine-fed 20 mm automatic cannon, the real game changer. The early Chinese version comes with a KwK30 cannon, while the German version wields KwK38 with higher fire rate and punchy sub-caliber AP rounds.




The automatic cannon, coupled with the vehicle's good mobility on hard ground and roads, completely re-energise gameplay. The vehicle is well suited for flanking breakthroughs and supporting allied tanks from the second line of attack. In urban battles against lightly armored targets, which are the majority at the initial ranks, a rapid-fire cannon with armor-piercing belt is always more effective than non-automatic guns of larger calibers. Another huge plus for Sd.Kfz. 222 is the ability to shoot down enemy aircraft, thanks to the high elevation angle of the gun.




The Sd.Kfz. 222’s light armor can be pierced by any heavy machine gun, especially in the area of ​​​​the battle compartment. Although this is not the biggest problem at the initial ranks, you'd better remember that this armored car is one of the most vulnerable vehicles in the German lineup, yielding only to gun trucks.

In War Thunder the Sd.Kfz. 222 will arrive with the release of the next major update, among other vehicles, aircraft, features and new locations, which we cover in our Devblog series - so don't miss it!

According to legend, Jimmu, the first Emperor of Japan ascended to the throne 2683 years ago on the first day of the first Lunar month — that was February 11th, 660 BC.

After the Meiji Restoration, the Emperor decreed this day a national holiday; it was temporarily banned after WWII, but was brought back in the mid-1960s.

On February 11th Japanese temples hold festivals, buildings are decorated with flags, and the royal family addresses the nation.





“The Guardian of Japan” decal.

Complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions and [Assault] mode. Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → National Foundation Day in Japan.

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

---

• Fighter A6M5 Ko (Rank 4, Japan);
  
• Premium account for 15 days;
  
• 850 Golden Eagles;
  
• Japanese Pacific Campaign.

• Chi-He (5th Regiment) tank (Rank 2, Japan);
  
• Ki-44-I 34 Shoki fighter (Rank 2, Japan);
  
• 120000 Silver Lions;
  
• Premium Account for 7 days.

---

Don’t miss the chance to purchase the premium IJN Kiyoshimo destroyer, the premium J2M4 Kai fighter and the premium Type 74 mod G/Kai tank for Golden Eagles!

The offer is open until February 13th, 11:00 GMT.

Did you know how easily you can customize War Thunder, or even add your own content to the game? Meet the official content creation tools pack, the War Thunder CDK!

Get the exact tools War Thunder developers use — we’re constantly updating the Content Development Kit to share new features with our content creators. Recently, we released an updated version of the CDK compatible with the Apex Predators update.


Create unique missions! All those amazing and crazy missions in Custom Battle mode you see are created with the CDK. Mind-blowing wall on wall clashes, testing grounds for all War Thunder vehicles, “battle royales” and many more on the Live WT portal.

Learn more about War Thunder CDK

Own locations - from custom hangar pad to unique game maps. Check the player created collections on WT Live!

Your dream vehicles - create your models and get real money if your vehicle is added to the game.


Browse the latest version and complete manuals on how to customize War Thunder in your own way, even beyond the CDK - user-created sights, custom localizations, camos, sound mods. All these are allowed in War Thunder and will help you to enhance your game experience!

Download the CDK (Wiki article)

• M46, M47, mKPz M47 G, M47 (105/55) — a bug has been fixed where the hull armour values in the armour view mode and info card were different.
  
• T-35 — a bug has been fixed where the armour values in the armour view mode and info card were different.
  
• Gepard 1A2 — a bug has been fixed where the vehicle was unable to fire from the twin cannon when one of the cannons was damaged (report).
  
• T-80UK — a bug has been fixed that prevented fragments from entering the fighting compartment when a small area near the gun mantlet was penetrated.
  
• 105mm GP105 — ATGM distance has been reduced from 5,500m to 5,000m; the weight has been increased from 18.8kg to 19.8kg (report).
  
• A bug has been fixed that affected the ricochet mechanics, allowing shells to pierce armour at blunt angles (report).
  
• Vehicles with external ammo storage (SAM SPAAG, ATGM carriers) have received an adjusted overpressure damage calculation. Hitting the external ammunition isn't followed by overpressure damage to the crew. Vehicle list:Strf 9040 BILL, ASRAD-R, ItO 90M, Pvrbv 551, UDES 33, Lvrbv 701, Roland 1, ItO 90M, Dardo, SIDAM 25 (Mistral), M113A1 (TOW), PGZ04A, M113A1 (TOW), CM25, Type 75 MLRS, Type 60 ATM, Matilda Hedgehog, Ratel 20, Swingfire, Warrior, Striker, ZT3A2, Stormer HVM, ADATS (M113), Strv 81 (RB 52), 2S6, FlaRakPz 1, FlaRakRad, M901, M3 Bradley, M3A3 Bradley, ADATS.

• Kh-23M — controlled flight time has been increased from 25s to 30s.
  
• A bug has been fixed that caused a zoom sensitivity issue in the ATGM camera (report).
  
• AJ37, JA37C — a bug has been fixed that caused a reverse thrust malfunction (report, report).

• A bug has been fixed where a roundoff to the max speed in Arcade battles caused 1 kph difference with the info card limit.

• The active player timer in Ground, Naval, and Custom battles has been increased from 20s to 100s. When the timer expires, a team with no active players drains victory points, and loses the mission (report).

• A bug has been fixed that slowed down any scaling of decals (report).

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.

We would like to present to you the next batch of changes in the “World War” game mode and inform you about the upcoming opportunity to test your skill in historical battles.

More about World War




Operation “Nordwind” has been updated. We have seriously redesigned the vehicle groups and army compositions to give you more tactical options. For example the M18 GMC has been moved from the SPG group (now this group will be designated “Medium SPG”) to a separate group “Light SPG” that also includes its premium version, so you no longer have to choose between the power of the M36 GMC or the mobility of the M18 GMC - both can be used in one battle. The aircraft groups have also undergone a noticeable change - fighters are now divided into separate groups according to the models. A small number of Me 262 A-1a/Jabo are available to the German side in reinforcements and along with significant rebalancing of army and reinforcements this operation can be played out in a new way


Check out the current list of available vehicles.



Right during the previous launch of the game mode in November last year we managed to make some important and noticeable changes that unfortunately we had no opportunity to talk about - now we are correcting this oversight.

We have removed the timer for players to enter battles in all operations. Previously squadron players had a few minutes to prioritize entering the battle during which other players in that operation could only look at the battle on the global map and wait for their turn. In past implementations of player entry into WWM battles via the global battle list - this solution was justified and useful as a huge number of players from the global battle list scored the most relevant battles in a few seconds. Now we let a strictly limited number of players into each operation and the timer for entering a battle no longer makes sense. Squadron players have priority to enter their operation within the first 10 minutes of its start, during which time random players will not be able to join the operation through the main World War menu. Accordingly, if squadron players take all 80 available places in their operation during the first 10 minutes and will play in that composition until the end, no random player will be able to join them as was the case with previous global battle list mechanics.

We have removed the restriction (ban) on random players entering the battle based on the imbalance of sides in the battle. Previously this restriction (ban) didn’t apply only to squadron players - they could stand in full against a less prepared opponent in battles with any numerical superiority. Random players in this situation were forced to look at this battle only on the global map, waiting for the next one or looking for a new operation. Now the system of searching for an operation by players balances the amount of players in the operation by not connecting players in the operation itself in which the chosen side is already outnumbered. Thus unbalanced battles can still occur in operations with difference in numbers of participants for each side (which could not be compensated by random players looking for an operation through the search menu) but all players in an operation can play all the battles of that operation and they no longer have to spend most of their time searching for the right battle.

We have been actively collecting your questions and comments in the forum section for WWM and have compiled a summary of them with detailed answers.

In the previous paragraph we mentioned several times the new operation search mechanics that should distribute random players from the general search queue to suitable operations without allowing the number of players in them to overflow and become unbalanced. Under real life conditions we found flaws in this system that were not revealed by synthetic tests which in some cases led to ignoring our given constraints on the maximum allowed number of players in an operation and allowed imbalance. The system has been redesigned by taking into account the detected features and is ready now for a new test.

Also, after quitting an operation and trying to find a new operation, the player has been removed from the player list of the operation only after 10 minutes (the maximum allowable time of inactivity in the operation) due to which such “dead souls” could accumulate in the player list of operations. Now when joining a new operation the player will be removed from the list of active players of the previous operation and the maximum time of inactivity has been reduced to 5 minutes. The activity of the player (not the commander) in this case is the presence of the player in the window of the selected WWM operation or in any of its battles.

Thus the list of the players in operations should be more up-to-date that will allow the operation search system to find a more appropriate operation and the system itself has become noticeably better in technical terms.



We have received a huge amount of comments from operation commanders that their work in the WWM between seasons wasn’t rewarded in any way, even though it was very difficult and important. It is hard to argue with these arguments so we have added a Silver Lions reward for commanders at the end of each operation. The reward will be calculated at the end of each operation based on the sum of the mission points of all players in all battles of the operation and distributed evenly to all commanders of that operation based on their activity (more about commanders activity). The additional reward multiplier is different in case of victory (1.1) or defeat (0.9). For example if there are two commanders with an activity of 25% and 75% and the sum of all players points in all battles of the operation is 100000 they will receive 0.25 * 100000 * 1.1 = 27500 and 0.75 * 100000 * 1.1 = 82500 Silver Lions respectively for their efforts in command. According to our calculations a full playable operation (1.5-2 hours) will bring their commanders about 250,000-500,000 Silver Lions.

At the same time, we are wary of creating many rash operations whose commanders would like to get an easy reward without putting any effort in it. Therefore from now on the creation of WWM operation is a paid service. Its cost will currently be 70,000 SL that will be deducted from the player who has declared the squadron for a WWM operation at the time the squadron will enter the operation. Placing the squadron in the opponent’s search queue in case of an early withdrawal from the queue will not result in a waste of game currency.

At the same time we are well aware of the situation of a quick victory over the enemy (primarily when its commanders are inactive). In such cases the winning team may not have enough time to score enough points in battles to make the requester commander's operation balance positive. Therefore for him the operation reward will be recalculated additionally to compensate the expenses: if his calculated commander reward will be less than the activity times the operation creation costs - it will increase to that value. For example in the case of a quick victory over the enemy in which only 20,000 mission points have been earned in battles if there are two commanders - 80% activity for applicant and 20% activity of second commander the commanders rewards will be calculated as follows. Calculated reward for applicant will be 0.8 * 20000 * 1.1 = 17600 SL which is less than the product of the activity by the creation cost of the operation (0.8 x 75,000 = 60,000), so his reward will be raised to 60,000 SL. For the second commander the reward will be 0.2 * 20000 * 1.1 = 4400 without any additional recalculations. Expenditure compensation applies only to the requesting commander as it is aimed only at compensating expenditures not at increasing the reward in quick operations. Spend compensation is proportional to the applicant commander's activity in order to avoid attempts to transfer game currency through it.

Bonus reward based on the results of the WWM operation was always there but has been displayed only in the message with the results of the operation so few people guessed about it. Now at the end of the operation all its participants who made any contribution will be shown a pop-up window with details of personal achievements and bonus reward which will be calculated from the sum of the Silver Lions earned in all battles of the operation and is in case of victory 30% of this amount and in case of defeat 10%.

For commanders the operation results window will also show the sum of all players' points in all battles of the operation and the commander's personal activity, the parameters from which the command reward will be calculated.

All these values are also duplicated in the message with the operation results and you can always return to them to re-examine them.

This is the name of a special type of squad of ten whose participation is only allowed in WWM battles. In the past, any change to the battle group would reset it back to a normal four man squad by making it almost impossible to use. We have corrected all the problems we found and are happy to announce that you can now play WWM battles again with as many as ten squads of comrades!



Tank armies in WWM differ markedly from infantry armies in both quantity and quality of available vehicles as well as some game mechanics. Infantry armies move noticeably slower than tank armies, but are faster to entrench, making them ideal for creating and replenishing front lines. Tank armies on the other hand are needed for breakthroughs and encircles although no one prevents them from being trenched on important parts of the front.

By entrenching a tank army, the commander deprives himself of an important offensive and quickly maneuverable unit which he can not move in this state and has to wait again each time for a long entrenchment time in case the front line moves. The long entrenchment of a tank army is now reflected in the new mission mode - Onslaught / Defense In Depth.

When attacking an entrenched tank army, be prepared to do more than just storm the enemy fortifications and seize a strategic point - now you have to do it twice! When you capture a point on the first line of defense, the mission combat area expands and shifts, a new capture point appears deeper in the rear of the defenders and the attackers must make another decisive dash to capture it and win the battle.

One more point inspired by your ideas and wishes. Many of you have been playing War Thunder for a long time and have many friends with whom you play together from time to time. But at the same time you and your friends can be in different squadrons for some historical or game reasons. You can play WWM together in a squad but what if one of you is the commander? We added the mechanic of inviting other players from your contact list to the operation (similar to inviting a squad). Sending an invitation is available in the operation window for squadron players with the rank of Sergeant or higher.

• Current and maximum number of air armies has been added to the airfield panel.
  
• A hint about the impossibility to raise an air army if the army limit has been reached has been added on the airfield panel.
  
• The maximum number of the respawn scores has been reduced to 300. There are no more rare vehicles in operations on which you can respawn outside of the vehicle allocation for a significant amount of respawn scores (over 1000) and air and AAA have a significantly lower price (100-150 scores) so the former respawn score limit becomes severely overstated.
  
• The damage model for trucks used in convoys adds a second crew member to the passenger seat who can replace the driver if necessary.
  
• The damage model of trucks used in convoys has been replaced by a closer research tree model. Previously these trucks had an increased chance of fire and a more fragile damage model overall.
  
• AA Defence and Air Raid missions have been reworked:
  
  • now, the AI vehicles that are not the mission objective and whose destruction doesn’t reduce the number of defender points don’t appear in the mission;
    
  • now, when attacking an infantry army, infantry platoons from the army will be replaced in missions not with SPAAGs but with anti-tank guns as in the Advance to Contact / Defense missions;
    
  • now, when attacking an artillery army, the AI vehicles will not fire at the aircraft.
• In all asymmetric missions, in which the loss of attacker points occurs with the time of the mission, a timer to the end of the mission has been added under the team points, the value of which corresponds to the timer in the statistics window of the mission.
  
• In all modes the marking of AI-controlled vehicles which are mission objectives has been removed. Thus, it will become impossible to determine the approximate location of the targets by the arrows on the edge of the screen.
  
• In the Column / Column Interception missions when the convoy advances, the old spawn points of the defenders will not be deleted but remain active along with the newly added ones.