I’m honestly happy it isn’t, since it is important for Thailand as a nation as I said. Sure it’s less repetition for the veteran player playing another nation, but it’s important history behind a paywall for the player interested in Thai aviation. I’d understand if it’s some niche aircraft, but in this case it seems too important to not be techtree.
But I also think there should be a system to make aircraft you’ve already played somewhere else cheaper to research and spade the more you have, since it does severely hurt people’s motivation to play new nations. I wanted to suggest something like it for about half a year now, but it’s just impossible to sell “how about you make less profit” to Gaijin… It would probably never be implemented like that.
Because their’s not that many as they mainly use existing air frame and mod them like hell to extend their service life, I suggest reading fully on what the Thai air force had in service.
I feel like for this an F-86 could be best. It lines up with the 8.3 ground lineup including the premium Type 74, and both Japan and Thailand operated multiple different blocks (F-25, F-30, F-40).
So either a Thai F-86F-25/30 or a Japanese F-86F-25 could work for a nice 8.3 CAS premium, and could even include unlockable (and purchasable) camos for the respective other nations air force.
Yeah, seems weird what we got honestly. No A-37, no L-39 and no T-50, but the unique planes we did get are also just very poorly implemented.
The F-5T was washed down, the Alpha Jet is specifically the variant before the new cockpit and F-16 is having a full blown identity crisis.
We’re witnessing a scenario where players who have never even touched the Japanese tech tree—let alone seriously invested time into it—are now somehow being given a platform to dictate what happens to it. That’s right: individuals with zero meaningful experience with the nation are calling for the removal of vehicles they’ve never flown, never studied, and clearly don’t understand in context. And the most infuriating part? Their voices are being heard, and acted upon.
How is it fair, or even logical, that players who have no attachment, no investment, and no understanding of a nation’s progression or challenges are given such influence? Why are they the ones being catered to, while those of us who actually grinded, researched, and flew these aircraft are sidelined?
We’re talking about the R2Y2s—iconic aircraft that, while based on blueprints, filled a much-needed gap in the Japanese jet line. They gave Japan a fighting chance in the mid-tier jet matches. Their removal leaves a void that won’t just affect casual matches, but also squadron-based events, progression routes, and tech tree balance as a whole. And who decided this was the right move? Not the players who play Japan. Not the ones who know how these vehicles handle. No—this decision seems to be fueled by complaints from those who have absolutely no stake in the matter.
And it’s not just anecdotal—look at the poll I created. The majority clearly supported keeping the vehicles. These are players who use them, who value them, who understand their role and limitations. Yet somehow, that majority opinion is brushed aside in favor of loud minority voices who simply dislike the idea of a blueprint vehicle, regardless of balance or gameplay impact.
This isn’t just about one vehicle. It’s about principle. It’s about community-driven decisions being overridden by those who don’t contribute to that part of the game. It’s about players of Nation X being drowned out by complaints from Nation Y—even when Nation Y has no skin in the game.
So here’s the real question: why are we letting people who have never flown the aircraft, never studied the tree, and never engaged with the nation’s gameplay loop decide what stays and what goes? Why is their discomfort more important than the actual gameplay experience of the dedicated playerbase?
It’s frustrating. It’s disheartening. And honestly, it’s damaging to the integrity of nation-specific tech tree progression in War Thunder. If this trend continues, what’s next? Will we start pruning every blueprint vehicle, regardless of how they affect balance or fill progression gaps? Will every nation now be at the mercy of outsiders who simply don’t “like” a certain model existing?
Players who actually play Japan should be the ones whose voices matter most in this discussion. We earned that say by putting in the time, by learning the nation’s strengths and weaknesses, by experiencing what works and what doesn’t—not by throwing around opinions rooted in hypotheticals and gut reactions.
If community feedback is going to be the guiding principle, it needs to be qualified feedback, not uninformed noise. Otherwise, the game is being shaped not by its passionate core players, but by passersby with pitchforks.
And this, does not only count for Japan, it counts for all of them.
I know, it would be an easy addition to the TT with some slight changes to the model, yet Gaijin doesn’t put in the effort for such well needed additions to a nation like Japan.
There’s not really a main nation in that sense, all are generally treated as full nations with the closest to “main” being the one that’s the default selection when starting the game. In that case I’d say it’s probably best to just use the one with the most vehicles.
If you select another nation, it’s displayed the same way the “main” one would.
Personally I hope that this makes Gaijin less afraid of combined nations like this, since choosing which “deserves” to be the main one is something I’ve seen quite a few arguments about.
Man, the implementation of basically all the Thai fighters (get it lol) was really trashy, wasn’t it?
The Harrier got split into two fictional sub variants, the F-5T doesn’t have the proper 3D model and is missing a lot of stuff, Alpha Jet TH wasn’t done properly, and then there’s a bunch of missing stuff. Add onto that the F-16A being a horrendous mishmash (as well as two missing F-16 sub variants), and you have a recipe for a half-baked disaster (not to mention Gaijin ignoring some of Japan’s domestic stuff that could also fill out gaps).
If they’re gonna do a sub tree, why can’t they just do it to make a majority of players happy :(
This is even funnier considering the “early” Harrier is set up somewhat conservatively with AIM-9P Thailand used around the time they operated them, while the “late” uses the dual rail AIM-9L that these aircraft could and did carry, but specifically in Spanish service before being bought by Thailand.
Unfortunately important history hasn’t been a thing gaijin has cared about. I mean look at the Finnish Subtree, aside from the BT-42 its still missing the most important vehicle from the Continuation War being the Sturmi or any of its unique vehicles. At least gaijin made the Hungarian vehicles more or less TT vehicles with a few older BP vehicles being prem. Its just sad that they more often than not dont really care about a vehicles importance to a nation or for actually fixing lineups.
Was gonna say I recently saw this in the Japanese ground thread where someone claimed that the O-I and J7W1 were made to prop up games and movies and they actually never existed.
Yeah, looking at subtrees now I’m just disappointed.
When they were first announced with South Africa I was really excited about the concept, then immediately confused by the implementation. And now over the years I feel like they’ve shown more and more that subtrees are the perfect example for a great concept with absolutely horrible implementation.
They could work, they could be really great, but right now they just seem like cheap band-aids that somehow manage to hurt all nations involved.