On August 16th, 1940, 48 volunteers from the US Army performed an official parachute drop for the first time. To commemorate this event, in 2002 August 16th was named the US National Airborne Day.

Airborne forces played a big part of World War II: both in the Pacific and the European theaters. The XVIII Airborne Corps was created in 1942, in 1944 it participated in Operation Overlord, and today it remains as a rapid deployment force, earning the nickname "America's Contingency Corps."





The American UH-1C XM-30 utility helicopter will be temporarily available for Golden Eagles. Its armor is very light, but it’s quite fast and maneuverable — and carries an impressive payload. For distant targets it has BGM-71 TOW missiles, while helicopters that get up close will feel the wrath of its 30 mm cannon and 40 mm grenade launcher!



Play 3 battles using US aircraft (rank III or higher, with an activity of not less than 70%) to receive the “Insignia of the XVIII Airborne Corps” decal.


“Insignia of the XVIII Airborne Corps” 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 → US Airborne Day.

You can find the decal in the “USA → Aircrafts ” tab in the Customisation menu.

We are continuing to improve War Thunder in a variety of ways based on your feedback, and have been making our way down the Roadmap. This time, we are introducing a number of new features that will improve clarity at spawn points while also deterring spawn campers, players who fall while capturing points will be rewarded if their allies finish the job, and helicopters can now be researched by playing ground vehicles - you can unlock them without leaving PvP battles!



When respawning, all players have a brief period of invulnerability which allows them to better react to the situation at the spawn point. If there is a spawn camper nearby - an enemy that tries to destroy a player shortly after they spawn - this period of invulnerability makes it easier to counter such an enemy.

However, sometimes the battle comes to a notably one sided end, where one team has completely won the map and ends up parked outside the other team’s spawn point, attacking vehicles as they spawn in, some of which are still invulnerable. Previously, when shooting at an invulnerable enemy, the shell would pass through the target and the hit camera would not activate, which occasionally led players to think that they had encountered some kind of error which caused their shells to deal no damage.

Now, when shooting at an invulnerable player, the hit camera will activate and clearly indicate that the enemy being engaged is still invulnerable, additionally, an invulnerability marker will appear on the player directly. In replays, this marker will be displayed throughout the invulnerability period and not just when the player is shot at - this will make engagements involving this mechanic much clearer.


Spawn camping in general is always a tricky problem, whether a player is camping the spawn maliciously by driving straight to it at the start of the battle, or if one team has conquered most of the map and inevitably ended up at the spawn. In either case it is not an ideal situation to be in, so we have improved this area of the game for those spawning in - by highlighting spawn campers on the map.

This mechanic is only present for Ground AB and RB. In both game modes, an instance is considered ‘Spawn Camping’ when a player is shot at no more than 20 seconds after they spawn, and have moved less than 40 meters from the spawn point (these parameters may be changed in the future). The spawn camper is pinged on the minimap for a short time (around 5 seconds) to all players, after which the marker cools down - according to the general rules of visibility and detection in the corresponding mode.

In Ground AB, in addition to being marked on the minimap, the spawn camper is also marked for all players in the battle with a new ‘Spawn Camper’ symbol (a broken shield) which will be visible beside the distance indicator, similar to the binocular symbol if a target is scouted.

In Ground RB, the spawn camper is also displayed by a broken shield, similar to the current hit marker and scouting marker. The marker’s position is updated every 2 seconds with a random margin of error relative to the position of the unit.

When scouting a spawn camper, the broken shield marker will be replaced by a binocular icon, as from a gameplay perspective the scouting status is more important, and not to mention a scouted target is highlighted for much longer than one highlighted for spawn camping.


Now the reward for capturing a point will also be given to those who contributed but were destroyed before the point could be completely captured. However, only those who fought for the point to the end will be rewarded - if a player leaves the point before death then they will not receive a reward. Another important factor as well - the reward will only be given if the point ends up being captured by your team, if it fades to neutral then all pending rewards will be reset.




Helicopters in War Thunder are at their best in ground battles, but until now the most convenient and consistent way to research a new helicopter was in the PvE game mode. As it was important for many players to fight against other players, we decided to open up helicopter research as an option when playing ground vehicles, so that tankers could expand their lineup with helicopters while playing their favorite game mode.

In each nation’s helicopter and ground vehicle tree, there will be a switch that allows you to choose which branch you want to research before going into battle, with the switch toggled on, all of the research points you earn in ground battles will go towards the selected helicopter instead.



Before, when wanting to file a complaint about another player, in the complaint window, players had to describe what was said and the reason, so that our Game Masters who evaluate in-game chat reports could make a decision on whether or not this player deserved an in-game chat ban for a specific period of time. Now, when a player wants to file a complaint against another player for malicious in-game chat messages, all in-game chat messages of the malicious player are attached in the report window - there is now no need to describe the reason for the complaint being made.

We have also added a new category of complaints about in-game chat messages that do not contain profanity or direct insults to other players. This new category is called ‘Hate speech’. Players can now use this new category whenever needed, and our Game Masters will investigate any reported messages and will take action if deemed necessary.

We won’t stop here. We will continue to move further along our roadmap: check what parts have already been completed, and have a look at the changes we’ll be introducing in the future!



As always we are keenly awaiting your feedback - let us know what you think about these changes, and most importantly, have a good game!

In this digest we would like to tell you about our continuing work on improvements and fixes in the game. You can find information about all updates that have been released in War Thunder in the website special section.




We recently published a YouTube Short dedicated to secrets of vehicle passability on different surfaces. You’ve noticed in the comments that in some cases vehicles don’t behave according to the types of surface under their wheels. And you were right! Earlier we had already discovered errors in properties of some surface types, and so we tried to release the fixes as fast as possible.

Now solid and dry surfaces, such as most types of ground and meadows on the maps, will allow vehicles to reach higher maximum speeds, while unsteady surfaces like snow or sand will become less friendly to wheels and to a lesser degree — for tracks.

Some of these fixes require an update in the maps, which is planned to roll out as a part of one of the next major updates.

We’d like to thank all commenters — you’ve made War Thunder better!



We’ve carefully inspected your reports about boosters not giving out expected bonuses, and corrected the way they work so that such issues won’t rise again. For example, Air SB or Helicopter PvE boosters didn’t give out bonuses in the final time interval.

Now rewards for helpful actions will be boosted by all boosters active in the past, and not only those active in the moment that the rewards are calculated. For boosters that ended their effect before the rewards for helpful actions were given out, the bonus will be calculated based on how much time in this interval they were active.

For example, if the player activated a booster for +500% for 30 minutes and spawned 1 minute after entering a session with 10 minute intervals, then the first two intervals he’ll receive +500% bonus, while for the third one (21-31 minutes since entering) the bonus will be +450% because the booster was active for 9 out of 10 minutes.

We also reworked single use boosters in all modes: now rewards for game time and activity time are boosted by all boosters in the session, and not only those active at the moment rewards are calculated. For boosters with a shorter duration than the player’s session, the effect is also calculated based on how much time in the session they were active.

For example, if a +500% booster for 30 minutes was activated in a session that lasted for 35 minutes, then the rewards for the session will be boosted by 429%. The session time is counted between the player entering the session (not spawning) and the death of the final vehicle or the end of the mission.



We reworked the rewards system a bit to favour players. Earlier damaging the outer elements of a ground vehicle, such as optics, barrels, mounted or external armour, was considered an effective action, even though no real harm was done to the enemy. And they were rewarded, while hits with no armour penetration weren’t. That could’ve seemed unfair, so we’ve expanded the list of rewarded actions: now it includes all hits, even those that don’t penetrate, from all guns whose rate of fire is less than 1 shot per second.



Some achievements grant you valuable prizes, such as decals, decorations, camouflages, and even vehicles. Now you can check out how your rewards look, right from the Achievements menu. That includes the Summer Extreme event that’s all the rage right now! It’s nice to see what you’re working towards, isn’t it?


You’ll find the full list of improvements in a separate update note — there are lots of interesting things! Third person camera no longer jiggles after watching a replay, the “Attach Rope” message doesn’t get in the way of towing, and in the battle results window there’s now a button that takes you right to the replay.

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

• An invincibility indicator has been added for recently spawned players. Invincibility info will also be added to the hit camera in one of the next updates.
  
• A spawn camper marker has been introduced. If a player tries to attack an opponent that spawned no more than 20 seconds previously and moved no further than 40 metres, they get a special marker for 5 seconds, visible to the enemy team on the minimap. In Arcade battle this marker hovers above the spawn camper similar to a scouted vehicle.
  
• A bug has been fixed that prevented sparks from hitting the detachable elements of ground vehicles.
  
• A bug has been fixed where after ramming a destroyed vehicle in the commander’s camera view, the game switched to the 3rd person view with a popup message that the commander is unconscious and commander’s camera is not available.
  
• A bug has been fixed that caused the reloading animation twitching on vehicles with animated reloading.
  
• A bug has been fixed that caused the crosshair to diverge from the circle aiming marker, when an ATGM carrier with a launcher on the top moved onto an inclined surface .
  
• A bug has been fixed where the collectable repair kit in [Assault] mode didn’t replenish the ammunition of machine guns and auto cannons.

• Mirage 2000-5F, Mirage 2000D-R1 — a bug has been fixed where it was possible to use NVD without researching or installation of the corresponding module.
  
• Tornado F.3 — a bug has been fixed where it was possible to use NVD in the 3rd person view without researching or installing the corresponding module (report).
  
• A bug has been fixed where the custom FOV settings (zooming axis) in the cockpit or virtual cockpit reset after switching to the 3rd person view or gunner’s camera.

• Emile Bertin — name of the 152 mm AP round has been corrected, its weight has been reduced from 58.9 to 58.8 kg. Ballistic parameters were corrected which slightly affects the armour penetration capabilities.
  
• The type of the shells of auxiliary calibre guns on French battleships have been corrected.
  
• The distance of the shallow waters warning message for larger ships has been increased.
  
• A bug has been fixed where AI ships were unable to fire the main guns (report).

• Ability to spend all RP earned in ground battles to research a helicopter has been added.
  
• Now the reward for successfully capturing a point will also be given to players who participated in its capture but were destroyed on the point itself before the end of the capturing process.
  
• Reward for useful actions in aircraft SB and helicopter PvE missions now takes into account not only active boosters at the time of reward calculation but also the boosters that have been activated for some time after the previous calculation (report 1, report 2).
  
• The time in battle reward now calculates both boosters active by battle end and boosters that were active for some time during the battle.
  
• Now rewards will be given for any hit on the enemy even without penetration and damage except for hits from automatic cannons and machine guns.

• The ability to preview prizes (decals, decorations, camouflages and vehicles) has been added to the achievements menu. Including for the “Summer Extreme” event.
  
• A bug that caused the reticle of the aircraft cannon to extend beyond the top of the screen on extra wide monitors has been fixed (report).
  
• A bug where after watching the replay using the camera [2] (standard one) the 3rd person camera in battle remained with a jiggling effect, has been fixed.
  
• Players who left a session are not replaced in the team list by players who joined an ongoing battle. Previously it appeared as if the battle started with an unequal team roster (report).
  
• A bug that caused the counter measures firing setting to disappear when mounting a custom set of suspended weaponry.
  
• A bug that caused the “Attach Rope” message to appear in the air event after pointing the aim marker at the armoured vehicle requesting a tow has been fixed.
  
• A bug in the amount of ammo on the selected machine gun for J1N1 in the X-Ray view has been fixed.
  
• A button to view a replay has been added to the battle results window.
  
• An option to disable the displaying of the player names in the battle kill log has been added to the “Battle Interface” game settings.
  
• A new category of complaints has been added, “Hate Speech”. Now when filing complaints related to replicas in chat all messages of the specified player will be automatically attached to the text of the complaint.

• A bug that caused the air defence icon of enemy airfields to change after destroying enemy bases has been fixed.
  
• The location of some helipads on the locations “Stalingrad” and “American Desert” has been changed to avoid direct visibility from the game area.

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.

On August 15th, 1920 the Polish forces delivered a crushing counterattack against the Red Army during the Battle for Warsaw. This decisive moment in the Soviet-Polish War is commemorated in Poland as the Armed Forces Day — with a military parade and placing wreaths on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.





To commemorate the holiday, the P-47M-1-RE Thunderbolt fighter, decorated with a camouflage of Witold Łanowski, a Polish pilot who fought for the US Army Air Force, will be available for purchase for Golden Eagles from August 15th (12:00 GMT) until August 18th (12:00 GMT). This is an exceptionally fast aircraft that’s great at climbing and maneuvers and especially shines at high altitudes. It carries eight 12.7 mm machine guns as well as suspended weaponry: rockets and bombs up to 2500 lbs total!



Play 3 battles using American or British vehicles (rank III or higher, with an activity of not less than 70%) to receive the “Poland Armed Forces Day” decal.


“Poland Armed Forces Day” 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 → Polish Armed Forces Day.

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

Your screenshots from last week were excellent! Going into battle with your friends is much more fun than having to go into battle alone. 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 #WTscreen80. You have time until 18.08.2023 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.

• Your screenshot must include a damaged or destroyed player vehicle.
  
• You must add the #WTscreen80 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=3015986072
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3015525175
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3017566348

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3017141193
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3017055368
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3017947012

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

On August 12th, 1912 a document was signed that marked the beginning of the first air force of the Russian Empire. Later this date was used as the basis for holidays celebrating aviation: in the Soviet Union the Air Fleet Day has been celebrated on August 18th since 1931, in 1992 it was moved to the third Sunday of August, and since 2006 the Air Force Day is celebrated on August 12th.




The MiG-17AS fighter in the Cuban Air Force paint will be temporarily available for Golden Eagles. It is a fast and maneuverable aircraft with very powerful cannons and payload that can include two air-to-air missiles.



Play 3 battles using Soviet aircraft (rank III or higher, with an activity of not less than 70%) to receive the “Russian Aerospace Forces Day” decal.


“Russian Aerospace Forces Day” 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 → Russian Air Force Day.

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

• A bug has been fixed where after respawning in tank battles, in another vehicle from the player's lineup, there was only one crew member in the tank, as well as gun aiming and turret turn were disabled.

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’re pleased to announce the end of the closed beta testing of the French bluewater navy and present a new French Premium heavy cruiser to boost your first steps in the mastering of the French ships!

• Price: 54.99
  
• Suffren-class, Dupleix, 1942 (Rank 4, France)
  
• 2000 Golden Eagles
  
• Premium account for 30 days

Features:

• Improved protection
  
• Linear layout of the main turrets
  
• Good speed

The French heavy cruiser Dupleix belongs to the Suffren class, which is already familiar to French navy testers from the cruiser Colbert. Rapid-firing 203mm main guns, good sailing performance and solid air defense capabilities are complemented by reinforced armor. Let’s see in detail.

So, the main difference between Dupleix from Colbert, aside from her premium status, is a modified and improved armoring. While Colbert could only offer the captain a narrow 50mm armor belt along the hull, the Dupleix is slightly better protected. The plates of the main armor belt are 60 mm thick and, most importantly, cover a much larger area. On the sides of the hull in the central part of the hull, the plates descend below the waterline, the sections covering the main guns magazines at the bow and stern have an elongated profile. Internal protection of the boiler rooms has also been improved. Of course, this armor is not able to withstand most armor-piercing rounds even from light cruisers, but Dupleix can count on more stable protection of vital modules when being hit by cruisers’ HE and even semi-AP shells at acute angles.




The auxiliary guns have also been slightly changed. The Dupleix is armed with the same 90mm guns as the Colbert, but here they are placed in four twin mounts instead of eight single mounts. Anti-aircraft artillery is represented by four twin mounts of 37 mm cannons, a pair of quadruple Hotchkiss guns, as well as 13.2 mm Brownings for short range combat. Like her sister, the Dupleix also has a torpedo armament of a pair of three-tube launchers in the central part of the deck.




Reinforced armor obviously affects the mobility of the cruiser. Nevertheless, Dupleix can accelerate to quite tolerable for its class 32 knots (almost 60 km/h).

Purchase the Premium heavy cruiser Dupleix in the Gaijin online store and welcome aboard the ships of the French fleet in War Thunder!

• Attempts to attack allied ground vehicles from aircraft in ground AB now scores in the automatic punishment program to determine whether a player should be banned or kicked from session. At the same time, damage to allies is still not applied. Similar mechanics have been working in aircraft AB for a lengthy period.
  
• Private messages after a battle ends now contain detailed reward information for hits to allies, and bonus rewards for results of the mission.
  
• When activating a tradable coupon for a vehicle, the player now receives backups for it along with the vehicle. The number of backups depends on the rank of the vehicle.
  
• Data cards on Market vehicles now contain their status (Premium or event vehicles), their ranks, as well as the number of gift backups for activating the coupon. Vehicle status and its rank now can be used as keywords to search for vehicles in the search menu.
  
• The French navy is now available for research for all players.
  
• The Dupleix heavy cruiser (pack) has been added to the French bluewater fleet tech tree.
  
• CV 90105, CT-CV 105HP — ATGM Falaric 105 have been added to ammunition
  
• Saetta P-494 — a bug has been fixed which prevented the “Blue” camo from being applied.

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.

This is one more step along the War Thunder roadmap and a lot of important steps across many locations of the game. Today, we are going to tell you about the improvements to locations within the game based on your feedback. Fixes of overshots, imbalanced positions, vulnerable respawn zones and other improvements which we promised in our big roadmap that we released in June. We are committed to continual refinement and always welcome your feedback to further improve our maps.


Let’s start with some good news for those who drive near the “A” point of the map. Vietnam has changed - but how? The swamp has dried up and the road to point “A” has become noticeably faster, with the location itself looking more contrasted to make your eyes feel more comfortable. We have also improved the minimap on this map.

Before:


After:


Eastern Europe now has a lot of new natural shelters and landscape changes, which means moving between capture points will be much more secure. These changes have mainly affected the suburbs — the city is still recognizable to those familiar with it.



El Alamein has been improved: effective positions on the tops of mountains as well as several zones have been corrected that were unavailable in the SB version of the map. And Jungle has been thinned down a bit so that battling on the map doesn’t turn into a tedious round of looking for a moving bush. We have also blocked some known passages outside the playable map zone.




One death isn’t a problem in most of the game modes within the game. Although, this can’t be said about death instantly upon respawn. Of course, if the enemy team honestly pushed through your defense and reached your respawn point - this situation is a bit different. We are correcting obvious positions which can get on the nerves of the enemy, even at the very beginning of the battle.




We are regularly making small tweaks to locations — the most attentive of you may have noticed that your favourite positions after the next update may have changed, such as a moved bush or a tree may have “grown” in a new place. Here are a few more of them, where we’ll show them with screenshots.

There was a house close to the spawn point on Iberian Fortress that, according to our analysis, made for an exceptionally effective position for one team within the match. We've removed the house, so that there is now one less point on the map from which a shell can fly towards you unexpectedly.

Before:


After:


Much more complex changes have taken place on the map Seversk-13 — we have towed away police cars that posed a problem: even after being destroyed, they left behind an invisible collision model which shells hit. And on Jungle, which we told you about in the beginning of this blog, has had some small changes: we also worked on the shade of vegetation and some other visuals.



The most noticeable changes have taken place on Sun City. The architecture of the whole city has changed very noticeably — objects, buildings and the environment as a whole have become more diverse and modern. We have improved some textures and didn’t touch the sun — it continues to shine.


While we've worked diligently to refine and improve the maps based on your feedback, we recognize that in the process, some new bugs or issues may inadvertently arise. We genuinely value and appreciate your continued feedback in identifying these challenges, as it aids in our ongoing commitment to enhance your experience in War Thunder. Feel free to let us know about any balance issues and bugs you may find on War Thunder maps - we will continue similar work to improve map balance in the future.