You keep crying about “fake” vehicles like it’s the end of the world, but conveniently ignore that the U.S. has plenty of real and powerful options across all BRs. Meanwhile, nations like Japan are struggling to keep up — they don’t have the luxury of deep tech trees stacked with multiroles, bombers, and top-tier AAs. So yeah, they should be allowed to receive prototypes or even paper vehicles if it means staying viable.
And let’s not pretend War Thunder is some bastion of realism — I’m out here dodging AAMs in a WWII jet. Balance and gameplay variety matter more than some selective obsession with “historical accuracy.” If anything, War Thunder is the perfect testing ground for these vehicles — that’s the whole point of adding experimental content.
Also, do us all a favor and actually play something other than the U.S. Try grinding through the Japanese tree, or any other non-US nation, and then come back and talk about what they need. Because right now, it’s pretty clear you’ve either never touched another nation, or you’ve spammed one premium for hundreds of matches and think that qualifies as experience. It doesn’t.
You don’t see me asking for production F-23 or XF-108 (infact I am against these as cool as they are), so idk where this bias thing comes from
And US tree does not get special treatment in vehicles, infact it’s not even an accurate representation of the size and variety of US armed forces and defence industry in its “bloated” state. The US vehicles actually flew, or were tested, or at the very least existed outside of mockups and brochures. Meanwhile Japan, Germany, and to a lesser degree USSR get fake vehicles and missiles.
Also I like my Su-25BM. And eventually I’ll get Su-33 and MiG-25
Give me a break. The idea that the U.S. doesn’t get special treatment is laughable. You’ve got more top-tier jets, SAMs, tanks, helis, and lineups than any other nation by a mile — and still complain when other nations get a single competitive vehicle, prototype or not.
And sure, U.S. vehicles “existed” — on paper, in prototypes, or in testing phases — but that doesn’t suddenly make them more legitimate than other nations’ vehicles added under the same criteria . You’re splitting hairs. If a vehicle was built, tested, or just drawn up, it ends up in-game. That rule has been applied across all nations , not just Japan or Germany. Acting like the U.S. is some pure example of only real hardware is total revisionism.
Also, let’s not ignore that Japan, Germany, and others only got “fake” or prototype vehicles because they had massive gaps to fill — gaps the U.S. has never had. And now, when those same nations are trying to stay relevant at top tier, you’re gatekeeping every addition because it doesn’t align with your one-sided definition of what’s acceptable?
Come back when you’ve played a non-U.S. nation from reserve to top tier. Until then, all this talk about “fairness” and “realism” rings pretty damn hollow.
Yeah, they are very misrepresented in game. The V2 and V3 were early ideas to work around the lower power of the Ne-30 engines, by placing them staggered in the fuselage instead of under the wing where they would create more drag.
The Ne-330 engine solved all of these problems, since it produces higher power while also being narrower for less drag when placed under the wings. Complicated fuselage mountings were unnecessary.
Still, in game they all have Ne-330s, despite being configured for the Ne-30.
That going on top of cannon armament that wasn’t planned and on the V3 at least interferes with the air intakes really puts them in a weird place.
F-23 can easily be passed for unfinished prototype, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see that. I honestly hope to, since the 5th gen endless waves of F-35 can be much more interesting with more near-complete aircrafts like it that make their respective nations more unique.
Super Kai sadly had no specific components built as far as I’m aware, so we probably won’t see that. I’d love to be proven wrong, but I doubt it since the whole concept was just done with existing US tech intended to replace older Japanese equivalents.
I don’t know anything about XF-108, so I just wouldn’t know.
It did, at least mostly. Gaijin are cleaning out relics of the past like the R2Y2s and the removed German tanks. Really only the Ho-Ri tanks remain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re next after some ground subtree content.
But past those it’s either just modelling mistakes or “unfinished prototype” situations, so nothing out of the ordinary.
It doesn’t, it’s an excuse to not use prototype naming.
I’d probably agree that “MCV Phase IV Prototype No.3” doesn’t quite roll of the tongue as well, it seems off to have “Type 16” used in the prototype name when the service year 2016 wasn’t known at the time of testing.
Though for the ICV (and similar names) I really don’t mind it, considering it is the prototype of the Type 25 ICV, and this sort of just makes clear it’s not just a misnamed production vehicle.
This is what I was getting at, Im pretty sure all the vehicles had a “production” version in game so it serves to distinguish. With the T-80U, there is only 1 in USSR, and other prototype have their own designation or an Object+number.
I don’t mind prototypes and I’m all for unfinished prototypes like the JF-210 or 26DMU to enter the game eventually, but I think such rules need to apply equally for all nations to be fair. Now, we can get such vehicles sooner for nations with less to offer, but when setting a hard limit it needs to apply for everyone equally.
I do think they can make up such fundamental differences through subtrees, where one nation with a ton of stuff eventually equals out to multiple nations with similar amounts of stuff spread across. Though I also want them to fix subtrees then, since currently I think their implementation harms just about as much as it adds for all involved nations.
I doubt the F-2 will be a replacement for a 12.7 plane, but I’m also hoping it gets replaced in some way.
But also I want it fixed. F-16AJ itself is a paper design, but the one in game isn’t even the F-16AJ, but another F-16 variant purely made up by Gaijin. It is complete fiction as it is now. Even if it is hidden from research at some point, I’d still hope it could at least be made as accurate as possible.
Wasn’t there any specific components for the F-23 made, or did development really just stop at YF-23?
I understand it’s not the same plane, personally I’d love to see both assuming they pass as at least unfinished prototypes.
Yeah, though I’d personally say for War Thunder level modelling it’s enough to have unfinished prototypes with many components tested and performance outlined to enough of a degree that it wouldn’t need to be pure fiction.
Personally I’m really interested in such designs, but there seems to only be two types of games out there, the full-on historical ones that avoid even completed prototypes and those that go all in on napkin fantasies and straight up fiction. So with War Thunder openly accepting even incomplete prototypes from the start, while also at least intending to represent them as accurately as possible, that’s what I’d say is the ideal middle ground I was looking for.
But there’s also some things that Gaijin do that I think are very concerning, namely the pseudo-historical ideas behind vehicles like the F-16AJ. This actually has me doubt their ability to handle such vehicles properly…
For the F-16AJ, Gaijin try to act as the “historical game”, by making what is otherwise an at least clearly defined historical design into their own ahistorical what-if fantasy. Then they take this fictional version of it and try to sell it as more historical than even the real design was, speaking of prototypes when there never were any.
In fact, the whole addition was based on a confusion with an unrelated US prototype, which Gaijin thought was an AJ prototype. And probably my biggest issue with it is how they handled finding out about this. Which is completely ignoring the info, sticking to a blatantly misinforming article they wrote to try and pretend it’s more historical than it really is.
They literally did the game company equivalent of breaking moms vase, gluing it together wrong and insisting it was always that way instead of having it fixed or buying a new one.
That and the seemingly inequal treatment for different factions. It’s a PvP game, there shouldn’t be exceptions for any factions, but instead fair and clear rules that apply to everyone equally. Balance can be made by setting priorities in what to add first, as well as subtrees once they figure out how to make them not suck.
Honestly I’m not sure there are even credible sources to back the idea that the V2 and V3 were real proposals or considerations. A big point of R2Y2 was specifically being able to occupy the central fuselage with a large fuel tank, as the jet engines around that time all had poor fuel efficiency. This is not possible with V2 and V3 layouts, or at least V3 particularly. I’ve personally never seen a good source that speaks of anything but the V1 configuration.
I mean, it was added because the F-2 wasn’t going to be added anytime soon. Think it was based off of the YF-16A that had Radar missiles, but not sure. Its on the same level of “meh” as the Swedish T 80 U and that heli.
From what I understand they were less actual designs and more just ideas for what would’ve beeded to happen if the Ne-330 engines hadn’t just fixed all the issues of the Ne-30. So more of a “We’d have to do X” thing than anything else.
But I don’t really remember where I read that, I think it was the old forum, so take it with a grain of salt. There is still a chance they’re more like J7W2 made up post war.
