Hi there War Thunder users, I thought that I would talk about the addition of an Australian tech tree into the game. I will say now that I myself am Australian and am just throwing shit at the wall to see if it sticks, y’know. I will do my best to be as unbiased as possible. (Also on a side note, this is quite long as I do go in depth about the vehicles used, but it would be greatly appreciated if you read a majority of it.)
I have looked around recently at past discussions about the logistics of adding an Australian tech tree. Most players and forum users I have talked to/viewed talking about this are somewhat divided on the topic. All of the people that disagree with the idea of an independent tech tree come to the conclusion that it would be an unoriginal combination of both US and British vehicles. While this would be true to an extent, Australia has also had their hand at developing their own aircraft and ground units and collaborating with other countries to develop such vehicles. However the same can be said for Israel.
I will focus more so on the Royal Australian Air Force and give examples on what the tech tree could potentially contain.
Post WWI until the end of WWII, the RAAF did rely on exports from the USAF and RAF (but mainly the RAF) to fill their requirements. Most notably the RAAF made use of aircraft such as the Supermarine Spitfire, P-40 Kittyhawk/Warhawk, Bell P-36 Airacobra, Bristol Beaufighter, and P-38 Lightning; along with many more British and US exports.
At the same time the RAAF was utilizing these types of exports, the RAAF was sourcing aircraft from the CAC (Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation). The aircraft produced by the CAC at that time consist of the CA-1 Wirraway (already in game in the GB tech tree), CA-12 Boomerang (already in game in the GB tech tree), CA-11 Woomera, CA-17 Mustang (reassembled P-51 Mustangs sent to Australia, later greenlit for production in Australia as the CA-21 Mk.24), and CA-15 Kangaroo. (Many more trainer aircraft were produced and could also be implemented into the game).
After WWII and entering the jet age, the RAAF continued to use exports from Great Britain and the US such as the De Havilland Vampire, Gloster Meteor, Martin B57 Canberra, and De Havilland Sea Venom.
However CAC developed their own jet aircraft based on the North American F-86 Sabre. The CAC CA-27 Avon Sabre program was greenlit by the USAF after the failure and cancellation of the CAC CA-23 program (I will explain this aircraft soon). The CA-27 was redesigned F-86 built specially for the RAAF using an altered airframe from the original sabre, as well as an upgraded engine, the Rolls-Royce Avon R.A.7. In theory, the CA-27 would have twice the trust to weight ratio of the F-86.
The CA-27 Avon Sabre would not have been possible however, without the failure of the CAC CA-23 program. The controversy surrounding the cancellation and failure of the program was immense (I linked a video explaining the program and the aircraft and I do recommend that you watch it as it was an extremely interesting concept and aside from my current post, a well produced documentary on the aircraft [u]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjiqdSwMxT8[/u] ). The CA-23 was an intended supersonic, twin seat, twin engine, all weather fighter as a replacement for outdated units in the RAAF.
Entering the Cold War era, the RAAF used export variants of the Dassault Mirage IIID, Mirage IIIO(A) and Mirage IIIO(F) variants. These aircraft were the main units used by the RAAF until the Vietnam War, when the RAAF purchased 24 F-4E II Phantoms and 24 of the iconic F/B-111 Aardvarks. After the Vietnam war, the RAAF made the purchase of 2 variants of the F/A-18 Hornets (soon to be in game), the F/A-18 A and B variants, with 57 of them seeing use.
In the present day, the RAAF utilizes the F/A-18 Super Hornet E and F variants, The E/A-18 Growlers and the F-35 Lightning II. (these are all not coming to the game any time soon but still mentionable.)
Thank you for reading all of this if you did and please do give your opinion on this, I would like to hear other peoples points of view on this.
I was also able to find a concept for an Australian air tech tree made by the user TigerH1_gamingYT. It is a tad difficult to read at first but it gives an understanding of how a tech tree could work.
