I asked Gemini AI if War Thunder bias was real and this is what it said

Game Discussion General Discussion
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No opinions just the facts:

Functionally, yes, the current state of War Thunder exhibits a measurable bias that favors Russian ground vehicles over their American counterparts. While developers attribute this to “asymmetric balancing” rather than political intent, the technical outcome consistently disadvantages the US tech tree in the following verifiable ways:

1. The “Burden of Proof” Disparity

This is the primary technical driver of the bias.

  • Russian Equipment: Gaijin frequently accepts manufacturer brochures, “stated” capabilities (propaganda), and design goals as absolute fact. If a Russian document says a tank should have 800mm protection, it is modeled with 800mm protection.
  • NATO/US Equipment: Gaijin requires unclassified, primary source military documentation to prove capability. Since modern US specs are classified (e.g., specific DU insert densities), they default to “export” or “worst-case” values.
    • Result: The M1A2 SEP v3 receives the same hull armor values as a 1990s M1A1, despite weighing tons more, because players cannot legally prove the composition of the new armor.

2. Asymmetric “Domain” Balancing

The game attempts to balance US Air Superiority against Russian Ground Superiority, which ruins the experience for US Tank players.

  • The Pantsir-S1 Problem: Russia possesses the only SACLOS SAM (Pantsir) with a 20km range and high-fidelity radar. The US equivalent, the ADATS, is capped at 10km, has a struggling radar, and is classified as a “Tank Destroyer” (costing more spawn points).
  • The Logic: Developers buff Russian ground AA to counter excellent US CAS (F-16C, F-15E).
  • The Reality: If you play US Tanks without flying, you are punished with inferior ground AA and cannot counter Russian CAS (Ka-52s/Su-25s), while Russian tanks are protected by a “No-Fly Zone.”

3. Selective “Realism” (Damage Models)

  • Spall Liners: When Spall Liners were introduced, the T-90M received them immediately, drastically increasing survivability. The M1 Abrams (all variants) was denied them for months, despite prototypes and logic dictating their presence.
  • Ammo Detonation: Russian autoloaders (T-72/T-80/T-90) have a programmed chance to “black hole” shots—absorbing spall without detonating ammo. US blowout panels are modeled, but the huge turret ring weak spot is modeled with an artificially large hitbox, allowing even WW2-era autocannons to disable a top-tier Abrams frontally.

4. Visual/Quality Bias

Regarding the models.

  • Russia: Top-tier T-80BVM/T-90M models often appear “factory fresh” with straight ERA blocks, clean mudguards, and intact side skirts.
  • USA: The M1A2 SEP and Abrams variants are frequently textured with rust streaks, “saggy” TUSK ERA bags, and missing side skirts (unless the modification is researched), reinforcing a visual narrative of “worn out” vs. “state of the art.”

Conclusion: Whether intentional or a byproduct of flawed sourcing policies, the technical reality is that Russian vehicles currently enjoy superior damage models, looser sourcing requirements, and dominant anti-air capability compared to the US tree.

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ragebait

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Lol no. Unless of course you classify anything you disagree with as “rage-bait”

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dawg just give up, no hard proof or source stated. only word

sound like trust me bro

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The sources are most likely a bunch of random posts pulled from this forum and reddit, highly reliable.

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ew reddit users, that would explain his post

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drlll

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This is a very poor use of LLM. It is most likely referencing/ aggregating arguments that have already been made on the forums in the past. The accuracy of these arguments are dubious at best.

Just as a finite point in regards to NATO equipment / developer double standards.

We can take a look at the Rafale and how the developers have treated it over the past year or so. The initial flight model was buffed based on a marketing brochure that was not even connected to Dassault and HUD footage from an airshow. The marketing brochure material was thrown out so the only thing that the Rafale was buffed on was the HUD footage.

Previously I had submitted a bug report regarding the Su-27 and it’s energy retention and used airshow footage + and a turn time claim made by Sukhoi in the voice over + HUD footage. The response I received is that the sources were not valid and Gaijin does not use HUD footage to make flight model changes.

The Su-27SK manual is also publicly available and is representative of the export version of the Flanker. Myself and other English speaking players have attempted to use it as a source and a tech mod has rejected reports because according to him, the Su-27SK manual does not apply at all to the Russian Su-27s. The actual bug report that got the Flanker turn performance improved had to be submitted multiple times and in different languages just to get developers to look at it.

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AI - Confidently incorrect.

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Not bad bro!

It would be great if you could do this for prop BRs (Air RB up to BR 6.0)…

Cya!

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Its impressive how wrong it is. Not surprised in the slightest.

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There are 2 options:

  1. The AI analysis is correct
  2. The AI analysis is wrong

If we have the common understanding that such tools work with publicly available data & opinions based on searching the web, the only logical conclusion would be that all posts, threads or other data regarding the question are biased.

That is a main weakness of such tools and the web in general - the more rather questionable data are published, the more likely it is that such AI tools come to conclusions based on these data.

So if a bot farm would spam thousands of posts every day & for a longer time period (like: U lose weight whilst drinking ice cold beer as your body needs more energy to warm it in your stomach that the beer has) we would see in a few years AI recommendations for reducing weight by drinking beer 😂

In other words: The more nonsense in the web, the more likely is that public opinions can be altered with that. AI is just as smart as you want it to be.

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Anyone who cites an LLM as a source of truth has to either be rage-baiting or deeply misguided.

Neural Networks and machine learning can be a valuable tool in science. Note the phrasing I used: NOT LLMs.

What is Gemini? An LLM.

What do LLMs do? They use probabilities to predict the next word in a given context.

What do we use neural networks/machine learning for in actual science? We train a specific software to interpret results from a specific sensors based on known results to help improve that SPECIFIC sensor’s analytical qualities. It’s basically like fitting a calibration curve but with ridiculous complexity.

Alternatively, we do machine learning to find the coefficients of some kind of empirical approximation to obtain results not unlike we already did with QSAR and… linear approximations for a very specific use-case (like organic molecules in biological systems. Take the constituent atoms outside of that specific scenario and the model promptly breaks down).

Just like your gemini breaks down.

The primary use-case for LLMs is in auto-complete for boilerplate code, semantic analysis of a given text and auto-generating nonsense sentences for low-effort entertainment.

Fun exercise: Grab your thesis, feed it to an LLM and ask it questions about what your undergraduate research was about. Guaranteed it will mess up even with paid models.

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I think Russian tanks look newer due to how short of a life span they have irl, while the Abrams has been around the block, at least that’s the only logical conclusion

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Just to prove a point of how abysmal asking AI about WarThunder is…here is part of the logical argument to down-tier the Yak-3U from 5.7BR to 5.0BR in Air RB.

Screenshot_20260209-173443
Screenshot_20260209-1734431080×2361 195 KB

One can ask the same question about the Ta-152H and get just as formulaic of an answer.

Screenshot_20260209-173741
Screenshot_20260209-1737411080×1455 309 KB

There is no analysis here.

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Don’t you know AI will suck your balls dry to please you? If I asked “Is bias in War Thunder false?” it would probably agree with my question and to the same as if I asked “Is bias in War Thunder real?”, unless with a use of a very specific prompt and personalization for the user, I don’t see this as another very biased post as well, biased prompt just like.

See example:

Is it true?

image
image682×1319 168 KB

Is it false?

image
image682×1359 176 KB

Point one; burden of proof disparity: ‘Russian’, specially Sovietic equipment are not represented in-game based sonely on brochures, there are cases I can’t lie, specially with equipment not tested which does exist in War Thunder, but this applies to any other nation; be it brochure or tested. Gaijin does require unclassified equipment for both ‘Russia’ and ‘NATO’, praising this magical pony that is USSR in the “Russian bias is true” people won’t help the situation, and as western technology is truly superior, for sake of balance is fair not being in the game. War Thunder isn’t the realistic-seeking game anymore, is a subpar “realistic” vehicle combat game at the moment, most aspect, specially for ground vehicles and naval vessels lies within balance and not actual data.

Point two; asymmetric domain balancing: Pantsir-S1 is not a problem anymore, the anti-air power are fairly distributed between the nations, Germany holding the best at the moment in terms of performance but not something far compared to the others, shows that the AI you used have very outdated information, less credit for your post, simply waste of data. Developers never buffed from what I can remember specifically ‘Russian’ anti-air systems, as I said before, the anti-air power is fairly distributed in the nations. If you play US without using an airplane have greater chances of winning if you stick to the objective, since the objective is in the ground, despite close air support being the pain in the ass when comes to ground battles experience, is mostly a support asset, but there’s cases where it comes so overwhelming that becames the main force, this doesn’t happen in every match and isn’t exclusive for USSR.

Point three; selective realism: Selective realism or just lazyness, to be honest this is subjective or just working in the game for the “balance” they want instead of making this truly realistic vehicle combat “simulator”, I see Gaijin as a company that (rightfully) seeks profit, given that their flagship is a free-to-download game, they will milk the hell out of War Thunder, Premium vehicles taking the best advantage of this situation with prioritized changes most of the time and better performing vehicles than tech tree variants or counterparts in some cases, there are very good exceptions to this case but mostly you’ll find: T58 being better than most battle rating 8.7 american vehicles in terms of stats and BMPT-72 being worse when compared to BMP-T.

Point four; visuality/quality bias: This is stupid.

In conclusion, check the images attached above, I believe that you described the situation the way you see instead of asking the AI using a neutral prompt without showing your position, the image one describes that, as if I think bias is true, it will agree with me in some way, if I say I think bias is false it will agree with me as well. And for both images the source used was Reddit, this is self explanatory given the quality of the toxic waste from r/WarThunder.

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Not saying you’re wrong but you are genuinely asking the dumbest free AI on the market, you realize that, a ChatGPT account is free bro.

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i asked ChatGPT to describe Gaijin
Imgur

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Ah. For Russian equipment, some for parade work for sure, but think of all that was sitting in random hangars/storage from Soviet times. American stuff, some has definitely been beat to shit and proven but some are also just unscathed.

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We just need to ban people who keep posting AI slop alr.