I have ground out all of the US, German, and Russian Tech Trees’ Aircraft, Helicopters, and Tanks and have played around 2000 hours in War Thunder. About two years ago I would’ve considered the Russia to be a bit lacking as a nation with only the Pantsir-S1 and Su-25SM3 with Kh-38MT as their strong suite for Ground RB while for Air RB the Su-27SM was probably one of the worst 13.7 Aircraft. Their tanks were unimpressive and the KA-52 was strong but prone to Aircraft strafing their spawn and would frequently just fall like a leaf towards the ground if you dropped your COL too quickly to avoid SAM missiles.
Lets recap the History of how we got here.
Update 2.41 was when everything started to go downhill to Russia’s current state as it is. The F-15E and Su-34 were the major additions of this update and gave both the US and Russia their new best CAS aircraft and both were roughly equal in strength but this finally gave Russia a proper supersonic platform to launch Kh-38MTs off of and these were still and still are the only Mach 2.0+ AGMs and when you take a subsonic aircraft launching these things to a supersonic jet it gets even more speed and less closure rate to reach its target and this was before SPAAs had a much easier time detecting munitions to intercept them. Also you went from 4 of them to 5 and later 6 since you could now launch IR/TV AGMs with their own seeker. Also at some point the AGM-65D gets a major nerf where your aircraft has to directly face the target in order to fire it while the Kh-38MT had no such restriction nerfing every other nations best IR/TV AGM significantly.
Then comes Update 2.45 with the Su-30SM and F-18C setting record missile loadout counts with the Su-30SM carrying up to 14 missiles with 12 R-77-1 which is still considered one of the best ARH missiles in War Thunder due to its AIM-120 like energy and its MICA-EM like maneuverability. Gaijin later then later compensated other Nations with the AIM-120C-5, an objectively worse missile than the one it replaces which Gaijin refuses to fix it’s AOA because a photo showing an C variant AMRAAM actuating an objectively higher value than the current in-game one is not enough proof. Regardless Russia finally has an actual top tier Aircraft that’s almost a little too good with an ESA radar better and more missiles but lacking engines, countermeasures and flight performance which all slowly become less relevant because Gaijin later buffed the engines and fixed the Su-27 flight model. This all isn’t completely ground breaking for Air but in Ground Russia’s CAS department gets another “needed” upgrade with a second Kh-38MT slinger now replacing the Su-34 with double the ATA missiles when using the typical CAS loadout of 6 Kh-38MT’s and significantly better flight performance and was before Gaijin had nerfed the dual strike and fighter CAS lineups method where using 2 strike and fighter jets had no backup penalty; a good counter-example to this was my F-16C and F-15E lineup i was running for the US.
Update 2.47 was really the beginning of the end with the introduction to Multivehicle SAM systems like the Insane IRIS-T SLM which was going to be the new best SAM vehicle in War Thunder… if not for the fact that LDIRCM got added 2 seconds later which gave all Mi-28NM’s a free pass to kill it. US probably got the best SAM and finally a Humvee vehicle in-game while Sweden definitely got the worst and Gaijin added the CS/SA5 in such a terrible state for all the Chinese players to MALD and lose their minds over how bad and inaccurate it was. LDIRCM was denied to be fixed because apparently one laser hardpoint on a Russian helicopter can counter 16 advanced SAM missiles entirely all on its own.
Update 2.49 was just Russian bias on complete display. The JAGM was added to the dev server which had to be quickly removed in favor of the JAGM-MR because no way was Gaijin going to add a worse hellfire with the same range and less explosive mass to the new AH-64E while giving the Mi-28NM LMURs which are still the only IR Heli ATGM that gets enough explosive mass to one shot tanks. You can still pair it up with the Vihkrs which gives the Mi-28NM the best loadout for any Helicopter at Top Tier with 12 air proximity ATGMs with solid pen and one shot wonder LMUR’s that actually loft correctly which the Spikes still cannot do and Gaijin refuses to do anything with.
The Buk-M3 is effectively worse than the Pantsir-S1 because its a massive Multi vehicle SAM, is susceptible to notching and multipath for the missiles, the radar is completely useless and its far better to just trash your TADS and use the AESA radars on the TELARs anyways in a constant ACM SRC mode, and in a meta where more nation get access to FnF helicopters which fly low and have DIRCM you have to just return to basics in the still best SACLOS platform in War Thunder. It is worth noting that despite the statcard of the Buk-M3 saying it has a max range of 70km it effectively has more range and speed than the SAMP/T’s missiles in testing and still have had no changes to their performance since the update which go subsonic after 20 seconds. For the average guy flying high in a jet thinking its still 2023 and the Pantsir-S1 is the only SAM system he’s facing its a nightmare to deal but for your average game you’re looking at several helis raining 10+ IR ATGMs at ground targets that you’ll likely not be able to fully intercept and you still can’t intercept the heli itself because its multipathing. This whole meta of DIRCM Helicopters immune to the new IR and ARH missiles ruined Ground RB by forcing everyone out of their Multivehicle SAMs back into their old Basic SACLOS SAMS at which Russia conveniently still has the best of and then the SM-SV was added later lol. Also, while other Nation’s SACLOS SPAA’s were notoriously bad at destroying Aircraft from a distance due to their reach of only 12km maximum with SACLOS guidance which was the whole reason why Multi-SAM vehicles significantly helped these struggling Nations that struggled to intercept fast maneuvering targets but the Pantsir-S1 still is the only SAM system to reach past 12km with up to 20km distance which makes it both good for dealing with Helicopters and Aircraft alike where every other Nation has to choose whether to take out their inferior SACLOS SPAA for dealing with Helicopters or their IR/ARH SAM systems for Aircraft.
Update 2.53 introduced the BMPT. I don’t think I even need to explain what is wrong with this as ever other forum post has already covered this. Spookston must feel like an oracle taking a look back at his video of vehicles that shouldn’t be added to War Thunder. The SU-30SM2 also got added this update which just made Russia’s best jet even stronger and is genuinely the most overpowered Top Tier jet flying in Air RB and Air SB right now bar none. Su-30SM players will say that the Rafale is actually better because MICA-EM but I don’t ever see Rafale’s Iron Doming and Airfield camping the Blue For teams in Air Sim effectively killing the only advantage Eurofighter and F-15E’s had in BVR. Also Su-30SM2 can turn its radar 240 degrees and only the JAS-39E and EF-2000 (AESA) can do at 200 and 180 degrees respectively and they only use AMRAAM’s not 50G R-77-1’s
Update 2.55 Currently puts Russia so far above any other nation it’s not even close. The Pantsir-S1 was already the best SPAA even after all the Multi Vehicle SAMs were added due to the hoard of IR ATGM helicopters plaguing ground and Gaijin decided it wasn’t good enough at 12.0 which is still in my opinion too low for this vehicle (Pantsir-S1) so they decided to add the Pantsir-SM SV because the Buk-M3 was underperforming (true). Gaijin literally just gave the nation with the best SPAA an even better one with improvements like it being tracked for better mobility, a 90 degree SRC radar zone that even the SPYDER with its hemispheric ESA radar doesn’t get, smoke grenades incase it’s loadout of 48 Iron Dome interceptors wasn’t enough to shoot down everything in the sky, and on top of all of that its best Missile is Hypersonic at 1,700 m/s being faster than most nations APFSDS darts, though the downside is it’ll not detonate without a radar lock. It is a crime for this thing to remain as low as 12.7 and despite the A-10C moving down to 11.7 the fact it can face this thing is just absurd.
The current state of Russia in War Thunder is so absurdly overpowered that it’s genuinely probably the most overpowered it’s ever been. The only thing that isn’t completely broken is it’s MBT’s but aside from that you have the BMPT ruining every lobby it faces, the Pantsir-S1 and SM SV that’ll shoot down every munition you throw at it and intercepts planes out of the sky faster than everything else can in-game and is the only thing that can deal with the DIRCM heli horde easily, the best DIRCM Helicopter that instakills with its LMURs and swats incoming jets out of the sky with APDS belts and Air detonating 50G pulling Vihkrs, the best CAS Aircraft which can take as many missiles as an F-15E while carrying 6 Kh-38MTs, still the best ATGM in game. How is this even considered balanced? Some nations like Germany can get away with some things like being able to swat down Mi-28NMs by using Brimstones that are laser guided to get past the DIRCM bubble but they don’t get away with anything exceptionally game breaking and right now Russia pretty much doesn’t have to worry about anything that they ruin at Top Tier for other nations with overpowered CAS, unkillable BMPTs, and overpowered SACLOS SAMs.
Here’s what I would change to make Russia less OP than it already is:
Pantsir-S1 12.0 → 12.7
Pantsir-SM SV 12.7 → 13.0
BMPT and BMPT-72 (Remove from the game permanently or make as an event vehicle)
Su-30SM2 13.0 → 13.3
Su-30SM 14.3 → 14.7
Su-30SM2 14.7 → 15.0
What do you think?