Just to clarify, I am strictly talking GROUND battles. You can want new air maps, but let’s be honest: air maps are 90% blue sky, and 10% world’s best SPAA (random trees with hilarious hit boxes).
Now, I understand that War Thunder has its roots in WWII, however, War Thunder advertises itself (intentionally or not) as a modern warfare game. Which is cool and all, except for one thing: majority of the maps do not reflect that. I mean, as hilarious as it would be for Germany to invade Belgium for the third time in the last quarter and a century, it’s not historical. There is too many WWII maps for “modern warfare” and to be honest, there is not enough maps that represent contemporary wars. On top of that, there are not enough maps that do not represent important conflicts post-WWII either. So what I am proposing is a few maps that will help break away from the tired WWII maps, and help bring in some contemporary maps, and bring rise and importance to other wars that make up the bulk of tank history.
TLDR: maps would include (Korea): Pusan Perimeter, Chosin Reservoir, Obong Ni Ridge (Vietnam): Mekong Delta, Hanoi, Tet (South Africa): Rhodesia, Zambezi, The Bush.
Korean War:
Pusan Perimeter: a very important part of the Korean War, where it allowed the UN to stall the Korean advance and to push into Korea up towards the Yalu River.
Despite being called Pusan (or modern day Busan), the map won’t be based in Pusan (a port city). Instead it will be based around the Naktong River, where heavy fighting did take place. A large portion of the map will rely mainly on the natural protection of the Naktong River, however, where one objective is held, it could have a portion of the city of Taegu (Daegu). I envision the map being the size of Tunisia #2 or Red Desert.
Chosin Reservoir: another key battle of the Korean War, and of which would allow China to be showcased in its importance (the only other Chinese centric maps would be Vietnam and 38th Parallel). This map would be smaller, but would also be compensated by the natural protection and environment of the map. In all honesty, this map could just be reskinned from “38th Parallel” with a more mountainous terrain, and given a more “winterised” approach. Replacing the rainstorm with a snow storm (similar to other winter maps) as well.
Obong Ni Ridge: a smaller version of Pusan Perimeter, it would focus more on the nature side of the map rather than the city. With the name, it would feature the Cloverleaf Hill and Obong Ni Ridge which Korea would capture from America and the UN (and would later be recaptured by them). Objective points would be situated on the Ridge, Hill, and on the river near the Korean spawn.
Vietnam War:
Mekong Delta: while not specifically hosting any proper tank battles, the Mekong Delta is probably the best representation of Vietnam. Hosting rainforests, villages, and defensive terrain, what better way to have a “hide and seek” map. While I realise there is not a lot of love for forest maps (Gaijin apparently supports logging industries with how they removed all the trees from Jungle), I believe the “creepy” part of dark jungles would work wonder for ambush attacks, punishing “Hold W” (forever moving forward) players for not talking the time to look around. The dark jungles would also bring use to early NVDs without the need for night maps. On top of that, the natural defence of the river, it would encourage multiple types of play with sniping and holding objectives over mindlessly moving forward. The small Vietnamese villages dotted around would give Russian and Chinese tanks the ability to have their close quarter combat and to help break up the sniping line of sight that Germans and other Leopard players will take advantage of.
Hanoi: a Vietnamese city map. Just take Breslau and make it Vietnamese. Make the river more alive, give it trees, and maybe have some colour.
Tet Offensive: another Vietnamese city map, but make it festive. Run over parade floats with your M-48, fire your cannons to Tet music, enjoy the festive atmosphere of East Asian holidays while half your team leaves after one death and the rest of you are CAS’d into submission, just as Richard Nixon intended.
South Africa
Rhodesia: now we are finally giving South Africa some recognition. What better than to give our favourite African nation some love and recognition. Honestly, this one is pretty easy to do: just grab Kuban, give it some large grass, make the grass more yellow and the sky more blue, and you basically got the stereotypical African landscape that we are all aware of. Throw in some mud huts and there you go: now we can use Eland scout cars in their natural environment. If you really want more, just put random cheetah sounds in, everyone knows cheetahs are the national animal of Africa (sarcasm).
Zambezi: another Southern Africa map, this time with water! Yeah, now we get a river and a use for South Africa (crazy, I know). With this one, you can just reskin Iberian Castle, replace the city with the river, make it extra green around the river, and viola! Zambezi battles!
The Bush: do you disagree with the independence of Namibia? Do you sometimes wish the Germans won the Great War so they could hold onto Südwest Afrika? Do you just want to recreate the independence of your country because there is bound to be at least one guy from Namibia? Well congratulations, I am finally giving South Africa the ability to use their “modern” tanks in a “modern” war. Sure it will be dry, flat, and will have obligatory cheetah sounds in the background (so then you know you are in Africa), but hey, so is Tunisia, and that’s like one of three desert maps, so might as well add a fourth very yellow map that will finally give people a reason to use desert camouflage for the USSR. Don’t worry, there will be at least one tree, because everyone knows, there is at least one tree in Africa with a mad monkey talking about the next monarch.
If you have any further ideas, I would enjoy reading them. Of course these are just nine maps of contemporary wars just so then it isn’t a massive break from WWII to modern conflicts. This game under represents what brought the game from WWII to the modern era, and constantly forgets about the “middle era” from 7.0-10.0 (tanks) and 7.0-12.0 (air). Plus it gives people who enjoy roleplaying Korea and Vietnam some more maps to enjoy instead of just two. As well, it gives South Africa a chance to be represented instead of just being a subtree to Britain. The South African tree is unique, and forcing it to play in European maps doesn’t do it justice, and it will give focus to Russian tanks, since they were involved in the decolonisation of Africa as well.