Heat seekers on missiles are now able to react to the heat signatures of jet aircraft engines in various run modes.

Hey guys! We’d like to unveil details of the recent improvement in the mechanics of acquiring the thermal signatures of jet engines by missile seekers. The fact is that the picture of the intensity and distribution of heat from an aircraft jet engine directly depends on its operational mode. So, in non-afterburning modes, the intensity of the plumes of hot gasses in the forward hemisphere of an aircraft is low and comparable to the intensity of the glow of a heated fuselage skin. At the same time, the expanding flame of burning fuel in afterburner modes has a significant luminosity not only in the rear, but also in the front hemispheres of the aircraft.

The lock-on range of infrared homing heads in the forward hemisphere for non-afterburning targets is determined mostly by the heating of the fuselage. The presence of such an intense source of infrared radiation as an afterburner plume significantly increases the possibility of target detection at long distances.


Target acquisition limits of the AIM-9L missile for max and afterburner operational modes



Target acquisition limits for the R-24T missile for targets at various engine modes

We have discriminated the afterburner plume into a separate thermal signature for a more correct calculation for target detection range in afterburner mode. In addition to the increasing of the lock-on range in the forward hemisphere of all-aspect missiles, like AIM-9L and R-24T, with a cooled sensor made of indium antimonide, this allowed us to recreate the limited front aspect capability of the AIM-9D type missiles with a cooled sensor made of lead sulfide, which at short distances allows the detection and killing of afterburning targets on a head-on directions.

Thus, missile IR seekers now more correctly process thermal signatures of different engine modes at different distances and at different angles. In addition, it has become possible to significantly expand the tactics of missiles already familiar to you. Happy air hunting, pilots!

First work-in-progress images of the new location from the upcoming War Thunder update!

The new location for air battles “Pyrenees” invites you to the mountainous area of the Principality of Andorra. Small villages with farm fields are spread upon valleys, ancient castles and medieval abbeys compete for the most picturesque view of the surroundings, and the clear water of the mountain lakes sparkle bright in the green hued highlands. Visit the "Pyrenees" in your combat aircraft, it's so beautiful here!





The winter version of one of the most mysterious locations in War Thunder. Russian winter has come to the abandoned town, but the air raid warning is still heard, disturbing news about the missing people can still be heard on the police wave and military convoys still block the town.





Another winter version of a location beloved by the players, “Ardennes”. Fields covered with snow, white caps appeared on the straw stacks and roofs of the unfortunate town that turned out to be on the path of a desperate German counteroffensive.




The fields of the Maginot Line also welcome winter. The green grassy hills, concrete pillboxes and idyllic hamlets of northwest France are now covered with early fluffy snow. Paint your tanks white, and be ready to battle!

On February 16th, 1967 the Bo 105 multi-purpose helicopter, created by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm, took to the air for the first time. The Bo 105 pioneered a hingeless rotor system, received over 20 modifications and is still widely used in many countries across the globe.

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To celebrate this date, the Bo 105 will be available for purchase with Golden Eagles in the German tech tree from February 16 (11:00 GMT) until February 20 (11:00 GMT).

Nenohi is one of six Hatsuharu class destroyers built for the IJN in the early 1930s. Armed with punchy cannons and even deadlier torpedoes, Nenohi will come to reinforce the ranks of the Japanese bluewater tree as part of the next major War Thunder update!

Briefly: A Japanese interwar destroyer, sporting good mobility and armed with deadly Type 90 torpedoes.

Features:

• Deadly firepower
  
• Satisfying mobility
  
• Premium bonuses
  
• Modest anti-air arsenal
  
• Light protection

In War Thunder, Nenohi will be a new premium destroyer reinforcing the early ranks of the Japanese bluewater fleet in game. Being the sister ship to Hatsuharu, which may already be familiar to some Japanese captains, Nenohi will come to the game incorporating some of the modifications given to the vessel shortly after its completion. Curious to find out what those are? Then join us as we take a look at the details!




Not long after entering service with the IJN, both Hatsuharu and Nenohi underwent substantial refitting in order to address issues primarily concerning their stability. While the familiar Hatsuharu represents the class’ iteration before these modifications were done, the upcoming Nenohi incorporates the changes implemented with the refit. As a result, Nenohi’s primary armament consisting of five 5’’ (127 mm) guns remains unchanged, but what does change is the arrangement of the guns. Namely, while the twin mounts maintain their familiar bow and stern positions, the single 5’’ turret was moved to the stern and mounted where formerly a torpedo launcher was situated.

This brings us to the second notable difference to Hatsuharu, namely the torpedo armament. As previously mentioned, one of the triple torpedo launchers has been removed on Nenohi to make room for the relocation of one of the main battery turrets. This results in the loss of a third of the design’s original torpedo strength. On the other hand though, Nenohi is equipped with a slightly improved anti-air armament consisting of two twin 25 mm turrets instead of the original two 40 mm cannons present on Hatsuharu.




Another difference to Hastuharu is Nenohi’s slightly higher displacement. As the machinery remains identical on both warships, this means that Nenohi can’t boast the same level of mobility as Hatshuharu. Nonetheless, being able to achieve a top speed of around 33 kts (slightly over 60 km/h), Nenohi is far from being labeled as cumbersome. Quite the opposite in fact! With its speed and agility, Nenohi is able to quickly maneuver into position to launch an attack and may just as quickly vanish behind cover. Furthermore, being a premium vessel means that captains will receive additional rewards for all actions performed in battle, thus greatly speeding up their progress on researching the next vessel they seek to add to their lineup!



IJN Nenohi will soon be docking in player ports with the release of the next War Thunder major update. In the meantime, be sure to keep scanning the horizon for more news as we continue sharing the latest on what the upcoming update has in store for you. Until then, calm seas and happy hunting captains!

• The chance of radar lock transfer on nearby targets has been decreased, which means more stable target tracking.
  
• Launch range of R-530, R-27R and R-27T missiles has been slightly increased.
  
• Launch range of R-530F and R-530D missiles have been increased.
  
• AIM-9L - field of view of the seeker has been increased from 2.5 to 3.6 degree, max lock angle increased from 17 to 40 degrees, tracking rate reduced from 36 to 22 degrees per second (report)
  
• Missiles with IR seekers now have separately calculated lock-on distances on afterburner plumes. Afterburner target acquisition range to the front hemi-sphere has been increased for all-aspect missiles. Cooled-cell rear aspect missiles are now able to lock on targets on a collision course.

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.

• 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!