[Wiki] War Thunder Wiki: Short Guides Competition

[TwitchyNGL 588]

Submitting a tutorial here: 

 

[ReachForTheSky 3,825]

Making the transition from Arcade Ground Battles to Realistic Ground Battles

 

The most important difference between Arcade and Realistic ground battles is the lack of enemy markers: enemy players will not have red text above them, the only way to know they are there is to see or hear the enemy's vehicle. Because of this, caution and foresight are important. Just like a real tank commander, you must always be aware of your surroundings, making visual checks for the enemy. Remember, too, that when your own vehicle moves, it is much easier for the enemy to notice you. If you are far from  your own spawn in enemy territory, or there are no team mates nearby, always look around before moving. This is not a first person shooter; you should not be ashamed of 'camping'. In fact, patiently staying still in a good position is a sensible tactic. The key is to know when to move. Your team may need help in capturing an objective, or defending one. If you haven't seen the enemy for several minutes, you should consider relocating. In short, think before acting, and continue to think while acting. There is a time and place to be brave, but never take risks for the sake of it. Consider what you risk, and measure it against the potential rewards.

 

The next most important consideration is the spawn system. You are not limited to three spawns like in Arcade Battles. You have spawn points which can be spent on vehicles. Actions like capturing objectives, taking and dealing damage, and scoring kills or assisting in kills will earn you spawn points. Take note, however, that each time you die, the cost of your next spawn increases. Aircraft are the most expensive, particularly ones with large ordnance. Anti-aircraft vehicles are the cheapest, so it is usually worth having at least one in your lineup. Remember that the most expensive vehicle is not necessarily the most useful at a particular time.

[VolcanicAsh1586 1]

How to set up vehicle Presets in War Thunder:

 

When you get to higher tiers in War Thunder, you will find yourself switching your vehicles a lot, since you have a limited number of slots. Vehicle Presets can help you sort this out, so you won't need to switch your crew slots from tanks to planes if you're playing Air AB/RB instead of Tank AB/RB. Here's how to do it:

 

1) Select the nation you want to make your preset for, then click "presets" which is located underneath your vehicles.

2) On the "preset" menu, click "Add", to create a new preset. You can then add the vehicles you want to use here, by finding the vehicle in the tree and clicking "Choose a Crew". It is recommended to have a Tank and Plane preset, as well as a Naval preset if you wish, for switching between game modes. The game will switch the game mode for you according to the preset you selected as well, which is a useful feature.

3) Rename the presets according to what they have in them, you can order them as well if you wish.

[Mattwd 61]

How to view any market place camoflague skin, 3d decoration,  or decal (that you do not own) in the hanger

 

1. Go to https://trade.gaijin.net/ or click shop in the top right of the hanger and in the drop down click 'Marketplace'.

 

2. Once on the market use the filters and search function on the right side to find what camoflague/3d decoration/rare vehicle you want to view.

 

3. Click the item and select "View in game". 

 

4. Last, click "Sure, show me."

Note: you must be logged into the game client with the same account that you are logged into the market with.

 

Here's what the preview looks like for this T-2 camo:

 

 

 

 

Edited June 16, 2019 by MattWD
pictures were messed up

[Mattwd 61]

How To Contact Gaijin Support

 

1. Go to https://support.gaijin.net/

2. Login to the account you are having trouble with.

3. Select "Submit Request" in the top right.

4. Selct which Gaijin game you are having trouble with.

5. Then select the category of your problem.

6. Fill out the subject field with a very basic description of your problem.

7. Now fill out the message field with a more detailed description of your problem.

8. (Optional) Attach any videos, screenshot or supporting files such as DxDiag to help support solve your issue.

Edited June 16, 2019 by MattWD

[bananaman3 4]

How to effectively use the aircraft lead indicator:

 

The aircraft lead indicator (ALI for short) is a circle that is in front of planes in modes like Arcade Battles, or Custom Battles. Its purpose is to help the player know where to aim in order to hit the enemy plane. It does this by performing simple calculations based on the aircraft's speed, direction, and your guns. The ALI is based on the slowest velocity gun on your vehicle, which is important to keep in mind for vehicles with multiple calibers of weaponry. The issue with the ALI is that it tells you where to aim based on the middle of the enemy plane. This means that if you put your reticle directly on the circle, your shots will only hit the middle to back of the plane, and mot likely miss entirely. In order to score consistent hits on the enemy, you need to aim slightly ahead of the circle. This will make your shots hit anywhere from the front to the back of the plane, greatly increasing your chances if getting a hit. Keep in mind though, that the ALI is based on your lowest velocity gun, so you might have to aim closer to the plane to get hits with your higher velocity weapons.

[WingalingDragon 239]

How to creat a lineup for simulation EC battles:

 

Sim Enduring Confrontation (EC) battles occur within a range of Battle Ratings (BR), unlike other modes where you are matched based upon your highest BR.  Sim EC also utilizes a Spawn Point (SP) system which will charge points for the spawning of higher BR vehicles.  If the range is 3.7-4.7 (EC3), then anything BR 3.7 and below will cost zero SP while also having no lockout timer.  Additionally, anything above 3.7 will cost SP and have a lockout timer that spans all similarly oriented aircraft of that same BR.   So if you have two fighters on your lineup at 4.0, and you die in one of them, they will BOTH have a 5 minute lockout timer.  The higher something is within the BR range, the longer the lockout will become.  Bearing these facts in mind, the BEST way to create a simulation EC lineup is to bring one aircraft type of each BR within the range. 

 

For EC3, you would want to have one 4.7, one 4.3, and one 4.0, any excess slots should be assigned to aircraft 3.7 or below (you can bring in lesser BRs outside of the range, like a 3.3).  If you have fighters and bombers mixed you could repeat BRs again, and they will not share a lockout timer (dying in a 4.7 fighter will not lock out your 4.7 bomber). However, the higher BR stuff will always cost the most SP and you may not have it available.  A good Sim EC lineup will consist of various fighter types for each BR within the range so that you can respond to different circumstances (a good turner, a good climber, a good interceptor, a good ground pounder).  So, don't be like me and jump into an EC3 match with a lineup of ALL 4.7's!!!! If you do that, the game will force a stock "loaner" plane onto your lineup and you will be stuck in it for a while.  Take your time to get your lineup set up, once you join an EC match you cannot change anything about your lineup for that match until it concludes (no switching sides, no switching planes, no modification research, nothing) no matter how many times you leave the match and rejoin.

 

 

[WingalingDragon 239]

How to join a simulation EC battle:

 

Simulation Enduring Confrontation (EC) mode is unlike most War Thunder modes.  It is rarely appropriate to "queue" for battle.  Instead, you'll want to find a specific lobby to join.  This is not immediately obvious at first, but I will walk you through it step-by-step.  Queuing up for an EC match by hitting "to battle" normally results in poor outcomes (putting you in rooms inappropriate for your BR line, putting you in rooms that are nearly out of time, or even an empty room devoid of activity, etc).  To remedy this, you'll want to hand pick your room.

 

Start by clicking the events and tournaments tab in top right of the hangar.  Once you open that window, look on the left side to select "Air Simulator Battles".  Then, in the lower left corner, look for the server selection.  Open the server selector and enable as many locations as you can stand (I reccomend at least three out of four) otherwise you may have trouble finding lobbies for specific ranks and nations.  Even with multiple servers enabled, it can be difficult to find a particular game like a French EC3; so be flexible with what lineups you want to play.  Next, hit the "room list" button next to server selection.  You will see a list of all currently running EC lobbies. With your lineup selected, qualifying games (that you have appropriate BR for) should be highlighted.  The number to the far left of title "[3], [4], [5], etc" is the BR tier, EC1 (1.0-2.0), EC2 (2.3-3.3), EC3 (3.7-4.7), etc... After clicking on all the rooms, take note of the amount of players and the time remaining for battle (EC lasts for 3 hours max) to ensure you don't join an empty lobby with 5 minutes left.  Once you find your room, hit "Take part for team ___" and good hunting! o7

 

REMEMBER! you can leave an EC match at any time, you can come back at anytime if the match is still running... however, you WILL NOT RECEIVE FULL REWARDS until the match concludes.  Do not be forlorn if you play for 45 minutes and earn minuscule rewards... the full experience will show up once the match concludes to determine a victor! You can literally take a bomber, run five minutes to a base, obliterate it, and log out... you'll get the full exp later that day!

 

 

 

[CernoPrico 67]

I made this tanking guide 5 years ago, its a little bit outdated as it does not have the newer shells like Sabot added and the pictures of the maps are very old, but it still shows people the basics 

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tF96FETvlBva7x8d01zAHO45O14SxBk0DFcFZiq-apg/edit?usp=sharing

 

[HJohn 155]

The basics for using Crew XP Points

 

Thought id make a video for leveling crews as that's a feature that affects your battle performance 

 

 

 Hydropneumatic Suspension Controls

Made a short video for finding the Suspension Controls

 

 

Bomb Bay Door Control

A quick video for finding the bomb bay's door control

 

 

Edited June 29, 2019 by HJohn

[Hannibarca 1]

Understanding Battle Rating and the matchmaking system

 

As you maybe have already noticed, in War Thunder, tanks and planes are assigned with a "battle rating". To put it quite simply, the battle rating of a vehicle represents its power-level. When looking at the I.D card of any vehicle, the small number in the lower right corner is the battle rating. As you can see, the values are always either X.0, X.3 or X.7. At the beginning of your War Thunder experience, it is quite unlikely that you will know the battle rating of a tank or plane by heart, but don't worry ! You will slowly learn them along playing the game, but you don't even have to ! You can always check the Battle rating ("B.R" for short) at any time, even in battle !

 

Now you know how to check for any vehicle's B.R and you even know what it is. But why is it useful to know that ? Because you can now understand how the matchmaking of War Thunder works ! Let's take an example : the mighty Pz.Kpfw. VI Tiger H1, the world-wide known German tank. The B.R of the Tiger H1 is 5.7. In War Thunder, when you are searching for a battle, the game will always match you with tanks or planes that have a minimum B.R of -1 from yours or a maximum +1. Regarding our Tiger, it would mean that it will be matched with tanks with minimum 4.7 B.R and maximum 6.7 B.R and of course, every B.R in between these two values. As you will be creating your first "line up", do not forget to check the B.R of each of the vehicles you want to play, to make sure that they have around the same B.R ! You wouldn't want your 5.7 Tiger to fight a 7.7 M60, would you ? Because it would be out-gunned and out-armoured. As a rule of thumb, to avoid defavorable match-ups, try having the least difference of B.R possible between your line up, 0.7 at worst ! The ideal situation being where all your vehicles share the same B.R value, but it is not always possible. Also, the game will always account for the highest B.R of the line-up. So if you thought your 5.7 Tiger tank would feed on lesser tanks in your 5.7, 4.0, 4.0 line-up, you will be placed in a 6.7/4.7 match, which is most likely to not end well for your 4.0 tanks ! And obviously, keep in mind that even if tanks were taken as an example, the exact same principle is applied to planes !

Edited June 18, 2019 by Hannibarca

[Buldozer_CZE 15]

What is hull break and how to achieve it?

Hull break is a ground vehicle specific game mechanic, which allows an incoming shell to destroy a vehicle, even when damage to modules, or crew wouldn´t be sufficient to do so, meaning the vehicle would be operational after shells impact, if the hull break wouldn´t occur. In order to hull break a vehicle, 3 requirements must be fulfilled:

1. Vehicle´s armour is thin enough.
2. Caliber of incoming shell is at least 75 mm.
3. Vehicle absorbs enough energy from the shell´s impact. or explosion.

But how to achieve hull break reliably? Fullfilling first two requirements is very straight forward. Just shoot really thinly armored vehicle with big enough gun. The bigger the gun, the better. But the third one can sometimes be a little tricky. Simplest way of delivering enough energy to the vehicle is to shoot it with HE, HEAT, or HESH round, which explodes on it. This should give you reliable kill, either via killing crewmembers, detonating ammunition, or hull breaking.  Hull breaking a vehicle with AP (and similar) round require a bit more fines. All that matters is energy transferred from the shell to the vehicle. If the shell passes through the vehicle without hitting anything, hull break will rarely occur, because the vehicle didn ´t absorb enough energy. Highest amounts of energy will be transferred, when the shell strikes something big and heavy inside the vehicle, like cannon breach, engine, or transmission.

Hull break is often the fastet way of destroying a vehicle and knowing, how to achieve it reliably can save your live on the battlefield.

[CEO_OF_WAGNER 5]

Here is a short video tutorial on how to hullbreak light skinned tanks in tank rb! I got a new monitor recently and the quality on obs and it was conflicting hopefully the video still is good enough.

 

[best_pilOt 1]

Little video that i make about how to activate a Order.

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by best_pilOt

[FrogTheSpy 1]

VERY QUICK GUIDES ON ALL SHELL TYPES

 

Guide on AP and APHE shells - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=045tHte4Abk
 

Guide on APCR, APDS and APFSDS shells - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTlgj3_b4ac
 

Guide on HEAT, HEAT-FS shells and ATGM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAHR2SL2wjI

 

Guide on HESH shells - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcds67IGQsY

 

Guide on HE and Shrapnel shells - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Grot9wx-56g

 

Guide on Smoke shells (Utility) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Inc7F2Qgi64

[Hunting_Fox 264]

Found this competition a week ago, and decided to join by making multiple video's. Will be releasing one each day and adding them to this post here:

For the first tutorial, I explain how to purchase a skin from the Gaijin Marketplace

For the second tutorial, I explain the basics of the War Thunder chat

For the third tutorial, I explain how to use the [Private] chat mode

For the fourth tutorial, I explain how to easily perform a belly landing

For the fifth tutorial, I explain how to install a user made hangar!

For the sixth tutorial, I explain some things about aerobatic smoke

And for the seventh and last tutorial, I explain how to change aircraft loadouts mid match!

Edited June 29, 2019 by Hunting_Fox
added all the videos!

[XI_FINCHY 2]

A guide on how to set up engine controls for aircraft with multiple engines, these controls can be useful putting our engine fires or for just shutting down a single engine. 

 

 

[MustangBR 1]

A simple guide on how to perform a controlled flat spin,which can be used to get out of sticky situations in defensive flying

 

Edited June 26, 2019 by MustangBR
Formating

[Meowzah 1]

I will be making a few video tutorials, which I'll be adding here by editing this post.
 

1. How to controlled Flat Spin and Inverted Flat Spin : 

2. How to approach Bombers : 

3. How to utilize rudder - Rudder tips : 

 

Edited June 28, 2019 by My_tail_is_gone

[SameOldSvS 1]

How to Evade enemy shells

I noticed that not a lot of players do this Tactic so there you go you need to use your mouse to look behind you and keep an eye on the enemy guns and lets say you are with saber vs mig the only thing you can do is out roll him and what I like to do against good players that will play energy I will just play risky make my self look like easy target give him my six and what I do next is look at his shells and try to dodge them until he runs out of ammo and in other cases the enemy will try to use air brake to keep up with you and never loses your six so what you want to do here is look at your speed try to evade lets say never drop under 650KM/H with saber because it will be heavier and harder to evade so if he uses air brake you can look at him and tell or when he cuts Throttle you can just out run him and force headon after because you have the better guns with saber and if he didnt take the headon it will be the same thing over and over and it takes alot of practice to learn defensive flying not only with jets even with props  other advise use -G it makes your oppenined confused because he will expect you to pull G and go up but when you roll and then use -G he will get confused and mess up all the shots or at least that's how i do it 

Edited June 27, 2019 by SameOldSteven

[Renamed63415 30]

Here's my submission to the topic!

https://youtu.be/xHmBv0RS6AA

 

Quote

This video demonstrates the various shell types in War Thunder ground battles and how each category of shells react to objects that are not solid (immovable), explaining how chemical warheads act, and how to use chemical warheads without wasting the shots on said objects.

 

[hachersk_Anon 3]

Kind of a niche topic I've realised now but hey ho

 

https://youtu.be/kxWhI8VTd14

[benboy24 1,127]

Tutorial on how you can use the ingame protection analysis tool:

 

[BiasedSnail 26]

Tutorial on how to create a custom battle!

 

 

[WarriorMuti 1]

#1 What happens when you angle your armor and how to properly do it in War Thunder?

 

 

 

#2 How to look at your battle results in War Thunder.

     At the main menu; there is an envelope "✉" button at the bottom right corner. When you click on it, a new window will open. You can see a couple tabs at the top of it. Click "Battles". Here you will see your last battles with their detailed results. Like: total silver lion gain or loss, victory or defeat, what made you gain or lose silver lions. Etc. 

 

 

#3 Understanding the vehicle status diagram in War Thunder.

       Vehicle status diagram is made to show you your vehicles crew and module condition at the given moment in a match. It will show you the module damage you've received, your crew's condition and how many members you have in your tank. Also it will show you if your tank is on fire.

      For Modules:

•                If the module's color is bright yellow: That means given modules are damaged a little bit. Meaning you don't need repairs to keep using them.
•                If the module's color is bright yellow to dark red: That means given module is severly damaged. You can keep using the module but it has great chance of failure. You must repair.

•                If the module's color is black with red outline: That means the module will not be able to do it's duty. You have to repair.

If one of the last 2 conditions met, the diagram will show the damaged part in red at the left of your diagram. As shown below.

     For Crew Members:

•               If the crew member's color is white to dark red: That means the member is alive but injured. Meaning he will do his job but slower. You can't replace this member.

•               If the crew member's color is black with red outline: That crew member is dead. He will not be able to do his job.

 

•              Also the diagram can show you if one of your crew member is getting repleaced with a circle type timer.

•             There is a white circle around the icon of the gunner. That gives you an idea about the time he will be repleaced.

 

Thank you for participating the learning the basics! Now go get 'em!

 

 

Edit: Typo. 

 

Edited June 30, 2019 by WarriorMuti