For a lot of people it has been happening that long. Personally I’ve been experiencing it for over a year now (just look at when I made this topic). At the time of making this thread I was finding reports of the same issue for over a year before then. So this issue definitely has been happening for a long time.
I’m using fullscreen windowed and it still occurs.
I’m sure it’s an issue with the game engine. Aces of Thunder uses the same engine and I’ve been experiencing the issue in that game too but a lot less frequently.
I specifically have to be in fullscreen (windowed probably will let me do it too but I’m not playing windowed) in order to be able to alt-tab without freezing. Fullscreen windowed causes the freeze. No idea why.
Still not fixed btw, gaijin too busy making money from China to care about game breaking issues.