Recently, the experience in War Thunder’s naval mode has become increasingly frustrating, especially for players progressing through the Silver Lion tech tree. The 6.0 battle rating has practically become an insurmountable barrier.
First of all, one absurd issue is that at 6.0 BR, some tech tree ships don’t even have basic armor-piercing (AP) shells unlocked by default—they have to be researched separately. This means players are entering high-intensity battles using clearly inferior ammunition, which is almost useless against heavily armored targets.
At the same time, this BR range frequently faces battleships and various premium ships. These vessels not only have overwhelming firepower and heavy armor, but are often fully equipped from the start in terms of modules and ammunition. The result is simple—tech tree players are completely outclassed in both offense and defense.
What does this look like in actual matches? Very straightforward:
You can’t penetrate them, but they can easily sink you. No matter how skilled you are, it’s extremely difficult to compensate for this kind of mechanical imbalance. This is no longer a matter of “skill”—there is simply no room to fight back.
This design leads to several consequences:
- New or non-paying players are driven away at higher BRs
- Overall naval gameplay experience deteriorates
- Matches lose fairness and competitiveness
If a game’s progression relies on such obvious imbalance, it can hardly be called “balanced.” The developers should seriously address this issue, at least in the following ways:
- Make essential shell types (such as AP) available by default instead of locking them behind research
- Improve matchmaking to prevent cruisers from frequently facing battleships
- Reduce the performance gap between premium ships and standard tech tree vessels
Overall, the current naval environment is extremely unfriendly to tech tree players. Rather than a “challenge,” it feels more like a one-sided stomp. If no changes are made, the naval mode will continue to lose players.
It seems there are no more players left for naval battles…
Bit more complicated than that; many people just don’t look at the naval forum.
6.0 is that weird transitionary area that also exists to a lesser extent at 5.0.
Cruisers like the Cleveland and Fargo struggle against many of the battleships they can see (at range at least) whereas the Hippers and Graf Spee can hit well above their weight.
Conversely, 6.0 is where battleships start becoming very common. While I agree HE shouldn’t even be the stock shell, I’d also argue improved rudder shift should be stock for all ships so they’re not easy punching bags
What nation are you playing? I’m at 5.7 for Italy, and I’ve had no issues
Then again they do start with HE, but I’ve easily gotten the APHEBC fairly quickly
I play Italian as well, jumping directly from 5.0 to 6.0, I can’t fight with anyone at all, I can’t penetrate anyone’s armor.
Try researching APHEBC first, thats what I do and its helps
Currently, naval battles are completely a case of the big fish eating the small fish: battleship > cruiser > destroyer.
I’m currently researching hard on it. I’ve already played 6 arcade battles with the 6.0 heavy cruiser, losing 5 and winning 1. My K/D is 0/6. That’s right, it’s as absurd as it sounds. I can’t kill any real players, which is why I still haven’t completed the first research module…
Also try going for softer targets if you can. And use HE for hitting the top of targets to knock out the crew. It takes a bit longer but even for bigger ships it works.
Yeah thats hard. Idk why but sometimes you just get into ruts like that. Hopefully it gets better for you. Maybe try doing RB so you can get more RP
In 6.0, all soft armor targets have disappeared 😭, I can only try to attack the side of AI players to sink them, because the damage HE does to AI targets is also negligible… while the opponent’s battleships can silence me with a single salvo, this is completely unplayable, and the battleships are all at 6.3…
Pain… 😭
But if you have some use GEs to buy the APHEBC.
I personally hate to buy something you can get for free, but sometimes its really worth it