do you know what TTS stands for?
its a thermal tech upgrade on the m60 but there’re earlier variants than the a3 iirc
none had real thermals though afaik. thats what set it apart from earlier M60’s
ah righto. im not a huge m60 fenatic so I dont know much on them
IDK about you, but gen 1 IRL thermals looks far more crisp than what War Thunder’s giving me.
ID targets out to 2300? Gen 1 in-game can’t do that. It’ll show a bright dot at best.
Translating tank displays to digital LCDs requires a doubling of resolution for realism anyway.
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glasses
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While i in general agree with the proposal to update the thermals to be more true to real life there are some points you bring up that i have some questions about and am confused about.
I took the M60A3 TTS into a test drive and looked at the target that is ~1200m away while zoomed in and got this:
At 1400m and zoomed out i can barely even detect it.
I would not personally be able to tell if that is an Abrams, a Leopard or a T-serries tank at 1200m and certainly not at 2300m as you say. Or am i misunderstanding your use of the term “ID” ? Are you using it more as “detect” ?
Additionally if you compare that in-game image to what you claim it looks like i do not see that level of clarity. I might be completely misunderstanding what you are trying to say and i hope that you are able to clarify for me.
I would recommend having images of the IRL thermal and the in-game thermal side by side so that it would be easier to understand the differences and what you mean is currently wrong with the in-game counterparts. Currently all images in your post are from other games or IRL but no in-game images from war thunder to show the differences and incorrectness of it. This makes it hard to understand what it is you want changed and in what direction.
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I honestly don’t know how this suggestion got allowed.
The images contradict the statements.
Like how does this in-game image look anywhere as good as the quoted Raytheon image.
Yeah detect would be a better word rather than using ID. When it comes to finding side by side images however I had scoured for ages and couldn’t come up with anything.
I will say though that this suggestion had been prior denied as I was meant to make changes to it so why it now got accepted I don’t know. I was editing it slowly over time to improve upon it but again. I simply cannot find early images of thermals other than those depicted in games that have specifically used museums and ex-crewman for images, videos, prior knowledge on the systems
I did a quick video using photoshop and Nvidia freestyle to better show off what I mean using gen 1, 2, and 3.
video comparison https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35wenAFz2RA
I think it shows my issue with it all and its just simply there not being visible pixels as if you were staring at a the screen itself which without those I feel that the resolutions are better than they actually are when in reality they are correct.
So it would be better for them to add in a post effect of some sort to show the pixels which would make the thermals in game just look better overall.
examples of what each would look like if they had pixels
better example to show that I was wrong but this is still not perfect because this is looking head on at the enemy instead of side on. definitely can see the pixel difference but with a side on view can still most likely ID it as a T series just not the exact one.
My screenshot was not side-on of that Tiger 1, it was rear aspect to the Tiger 1.
See, you couldn’t even identify the tank let alone which direction it was facing in-game.
The only reason I know it’s a Tiger 1 is because I had to travel 1.3km in that custom match away from it to get the range needed.
Either way, real-life thermal solutions use different displays which offer higher fidelity than LCD panels per pixel.
Partly because such displays have blending.
So in-game simulation of thermal solutions need to have double resolution to allow for 4 LCD pixels per “pixel” of thermals.
Ideally, it would be 3x so there is 9 LCD pixels per “pixel” of thermals to better simulate the displays in tanks.
As for finding images of generation 1 thermals, they still produce them. Not on tanks, but they are still produced for industry purposes due to their affordability over more advanced solutions.
Especially since gen 3 requires active cooling.
one thing that you seem to have glossed over is the fact that IRL many of these TVD systems were not screens but rather TVD incoprtated into a sight. something like how a gunner would look into a periscope and see the thermal version of what he would be seeing in his (seperate) day sight scope
and this is why the sight resolutions are so low irl
what? I was talking about the image I posted not yours lol.
if you want me to talk about your photo. get a better photo.
you’re using several heat sources behind one another in comparison to a heat source that has nothing anywhere near it. you’re using a terrible image to compare thermal of 1 tank from 1400 metres away.
this is just outright incorrect. thermal imaging technology has far surpassed generation 1. It’s not just resolution to determine the generation but the actual sensors in side them, they are far better at detecting heat sources now than whatever the hell gen 1 thermals could do. They are also far cheaper nowadays as well, you can buy a 600x512 thermal camera for around 500ish. prices will vary from 200-700 due to the sensors inside them but the worst possible thermals now that get sold are most definitely better than 1970-80s thermal technology
very good point, I did forget that.
I would’ve suggested a seperate sight all together which would be nice but I was keeping it in line with how war thunder currently is for simplicity sake. everyone knows what gaijin is like and making aiming even harder with realistic gunner sight position turned on they would most likely not want at all.
the T-72b3m is a good example of the thermal sight just being on the exact opposite side of the turret.
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I would however, like to see this implementation for simulator battles alongside fixed zoom states as these sights have irl rather than a smooth zoom range
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There’s a lot of potential in improving thermals in War Thunder, but the current idea of “Reworked Thermal Resolutions” oversimplifies the problem and doesn’t cover how thermal imaging works in reality. Pixel count does not define thermal performance, and treating it like that creates issues while still being unrealistic.
I also want to point out that this is a heavy subject and I cannot explain the basics of thermal imaging in this forum post since it would be wayyy too long and I’ve already spent hours on it. With that being said:
A proper thermal rework should be divided into two main categories:
1. Imager Specific Factors
These are properties of the thermal sight itself and should vary by vehicle and system.
Notes on Thermal Imager Generations
There are no exact definitions of thermal generations, but they are usually described like this:
- 1st-generation thermal imagers are single (or very few) element detectors, usually with a two-dimensional mechanical scanner to generate a two-dimensional image.
- 2nd-generation systems typically use a linear detector array, scanning in one direction (horizontal or vertical).
- 3rd-gen imagers are staring arrays, usually with a 2x2 micro-scanner to increase the resolution without increasing the number of elements.
Some companies claim to have developed 4th-gen detectors, but I have yet to see a definition of that (the detectors are structurally similar to 3rd-gen detectors, just better performance afaik).
Same Generation ≠ Same Image Quality
The generations DO NOT define the resolution nor the quality of the final image. Measuring the performance of a thermal imager by the detector generation is ridiculous. Here are images from two different 1st-generation thermal imagers (with the same thermal resolution/performance in-game).
I found this quote on a forum while researching:
I had opportunity to talk to ex-Soviet/Russian tanker… …his description of Agava-2 was “when you look in it, it is hard to understand if it is broken or should work like that”.
That cannot be said about other 1st-gen systems like WBG-X, which further proves my point that generation is not equal to image quality, and it shouldn’t be that way in War Thunder. Thermals should vary within generations.
A Simple Way to Define Thermal Performance
Thermal imaging performance should not be purely balanced by generation or by resolution. In the real world, sensors are evaluated using the Johnson Criteria, which relates sensor resolution to how much “usable information” an image can provide.
The Johnson Criteria defines how many pixels across a target are needed to:
- Detect that something is present (D)
- Recognise its general shape or type (R)
- Identify fine details (I)
War Thunder doesn’t have formal detection or identification mechanics; the player interprets the image. However, the sensor still determines what information is realistically visible. The Johnson Criteria provides a baseline to set realistic thermal clarity, and shows why some older or lower-resolution thermals can look better than newer ones.
Of course, resolution is still a factor to consider and implement, as it defines the “upper limit” of detail, but contrast (ΔT), noise, optics, and processing determine what the player can actually see. Using the Johnson Criteria as an internal reference would be a simple way to summarise the factors and base thermal performance in reality, instead of incorrectly assuming that generation defines resolution and performance.
Different Wavelengths
I do not believe this fits the game as it would require a lot of effort and most likely eat performance since you basically have to render multiple different “worlds” simultaneously.
2. Exterior / Environmental Factors
These are shared battlefield conditions affecting all thermals equally.
What Is Actually Visible Through a Thermal Imager?
Thermals do not detect “heat”; they detect heat differences (ΔT). The usefulness of a thermal image is therefore entirely dependent on how different objects heat up and cool down over some period of time.
Material Heating and Cooling Behaviour
Different materials store and release heat at different rates:
- Man-made objects (vehicles, buildings, roads) absorb and release heat quickly
- Vegetation, soil, and water heat and cool much more slowly
- Vehicles generate localised hot spots from engines, exhausts, tracks, and friction
This causes vehicles to stand out during periods of high thermal contrast, such as midday or shortly after movement.
Time of Day Effects
Thermal contrast changes predictably over the day. During midday, man-made objects are significantly warmer than vegetation, producing strong contrast. During the night, vehicles cool faster than vegetation, while recently active vehicles remain visible due to heat gained from friction, etc. During dawn and dusk, object temperatures meet, forming what we call Thermal or Infrared Crossover. Vegetation, terrain, and vehicles can appear nearly identical.
This is an important, well-documented limitation of thermal imaging and is independent of sensor generation or resolution.
A high-resolution thermal provides little advantage when ΔT is low; older or lower-resolution systems can perform very well under high-contrast conditions, and player-perceived thermal performance can vary dramatically without changing the sensor.
Why This Matters
These effects are key principles of thermal imaging. Modelling these effects would make thermals actually realistic, which they should be in a game where they are a very important aspect of gameplay and AFV performance, and because bullet ballistics vary depending on temperature and altitude, I feel these effects should be implemented as well.
This would add much-needed depth and authenticity while keeping gameplay intuitive.
What Gaijin Should Do
Instead of a resolution-only rework, I propose these changes/features:
Imager-Side
- Remove dependence on alleged generations
- Introduce sensor quality based on the Johnson Criteria
Environment-Side
- Implement ΔT-based contrast
- Make the environment thermally dynamic (time of day effects)
Conclusion
Thermal imagers are incredibly complex and their complete performance can’t be defined by their resolution. This is a relatively simple way of making them a lot more realistic and authentic. Sorry for the ultra-long message, but there are so many parts I didn’t even include.
Please update your suggestion (or remove it and I will make a new one based on this message).
I already touch on the actual thermal performance and how environmental factors effect the thermal signatures of objects and vehicles in another suggestion which got passed to dev Reworked Thermal Signatures - #3. What I didnt touch on was distance to recognize/ ID. With how the forum people run this stupid place i had to split the suggestion up.
Your info on the resolution and generations is rather nice
How have I missed these suggestions?!
Great to see it has been forwarded, although I would also like for the time-of-day effects to be considered. Since D/R/I isn’t even consistent between manufacturers (most use stanag 4347), I think NETd would be another way to compare performance between different sensors. Either way, thermals need extensive rework ._.
War Thunder Historical Sights Spreadsheet
I have a lot of the footage of the early Abrams TIS and AN/VSG-2 for the M60A3 TTS. If you need more references, take pics from there.
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