There are also 6 links in this topic you can read to understand everything better.
Just keep in mind to not believe in everything other people write. There’s usually a large group of people in every topic, who repeat lies or overall spread false information without any proves or checking anything.
And there is often smaller group of people, who post screenshots and prove how they tested everything step by step.
You should ignore the first group, take the second group seriously, but it’s always best to double-check everything yourself.
When you spend more time on the forum, you will start recognizing names and patterns.
I already did in my previous message. But if you want video proves, not just text, then I have two videos saved on my channel:
First I got severe damage, then I cut less than half of the enemy wing, which gave me a critical hit.
And before you say I used a vessel to attack plane, and that plane was a bomber, so maybe it works differently in fighters and air battles, I also have second video:
First I got severe damage and then a critical hit from destroying less than half of the enemy fighter right wing. It was of course completely random situation, fighters wings are very small, so it’s really hard to cut less than half of his wing in this situation (and cutting more than half of his wing wouldn’t give me that critical hit!).
To be honest, I don’t recommend shooting at severely damaged planes, it’s usually just a waste of time and ammo. But these videos proves, you can get severe damage and then a critical hit.
All parts that can give you old destruction have critical hits disabled. When it’s disabled, it’s disabled. Severe damage doesn’t change anything here, it’s not related to severe damage.
It’s not easy, there are only two instant kill conditions left in the new system: sniping the pilot and tearing off the tail. Nothing else will instantly kill the plane.
If you use jets and missiles (or just very good guns) you will see instant kills more often than when you use propellers and especially bad guns. That’s because in the game missiles (or good HE ammo) explode. So the explosion itself can tear off the tail or kill the pilot, you don’t need direct hits (like with weaker guns).
I play propellers, and the number of instant kills decreased significantly after the devs changed the system. I heard in jets it’s about the same number as before (maybe slightly less instant kills).
In War Thunder in almost all situations, losing more than half of your wing means you will die. But almost all doesn’t mean all. And yes, there were situations in the old system, where you could be counted as destroyed, but still be able to fly (even without one wing), land and repair. I personally never saw this as a big problem, especially it was a very rare situation, but for some players it was a huge deal. That was one of the reasons why the new system with severe damage was implemented.
This is something that was already explained many times in my posts. All parts that previously meant instant destruction condition have critical hits disabled. This has nothing to do with the severe damage. You often see this “connection”, because most previous destruction conditions became severe damage in the new system. But it’s not severe damage that causes this problem. If let’s say 90% of plane parts have critical hits disabled in the new system, you just won’t get them. It doesn’t make any difference when you shoot these parts (before or after the plane was severely damaged), they just have critical hits disabled.
We are getting here into the details. I never said I understand every single detail about the new system. I find stuff by my own tests and reading posts with proved and explained tests of other players. I’m not a dev, I don’t have access to the game source code, so I can’t check every detail easily.
I’m pretty sure you will get 1 critical hit from the destroyed aileron and rudder. In theory that should be 2 critical hits, but keep in mind you can only get 1 critical hit on the same enemy. All next critical hits will be changed to regular hits* (*there is a timer on that, but I don’t want to complicate this explanation too much, as it doesn’t change anything in 99.9% of situations).
Destroying flaps is something I don’t fully understand. Maybe it depends how the flap is positioned on the plane (it takes more or less than 50% of the wing), but I don’t know. It’s really hard to figure out such details.
From what I heard killing gunners is not counted as critical hit nowadays. And there are different opinions about how it worked in the old system (we can’t test this anymore).
If the fire destroy the part that can give you a critical hit, it will be a critical hit. But usually fuel tanks are located near the center of the plane (for better balance). So the potential fire in this area won’t give you critical hits in the new system. But in the old system, critical hits from fire were very common.
I hope everything is clearer now. I really recommend you to read those linked topics, because a few players there managed to understand the new system very well. You can also ask additional questions there. I also strongly encourage you to do the tests yourself. And once you get your results, it would be great if you write your findings and conclusions in the forum.