War Thunder News

We’re pleased to announce that the Hungarian aircraft line is going to be added to the Italian aircraft tree in the next major update called Alpha Strike, which continues the development of Hungarian vehicles being added to the game. Let’s dive in and take a look!

[h3]Brief history of the Hungarian Air Force[/h3]
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Initially the Hungarian Air Force was founded in 1918 where it was made up of aircraft left over from WWI. In 1920 however, the Treaty of Trianon was signed between Hungary and the Allies that prevented Hungary from producing and using any aircraft. Despite this, they still opted to rebuild their air force in secret where it was eventually discovered in 1938 that this had been going on.

Hungary fought in several WWII battles including the German invasion of the Soviet Union, and the Invasion of Yugoslavia where their air force took part mostly using German and Italian aircraft. Hungary’s highest scoring Ace of WWII was Dezső Szentgyörgyi, having had 30 confirmed victories against Soviet and U.S. aircraft.

After WWII and the Battle for Hungary in 1945, Soviet influence played a significant role in the country. Hungary was given several WWII-era aircraft that had survived the war, including the Yak-9P, Tu-2 and IL-10 which remained in service into the 50s. This was until moving to Soviet jet fighters such as the MiG-15, MiG-17 and MiG-29 that were used throughout the Cold War. Currently, Hungary’s flagship jet fighter is the JAS39C which has been in service since the early 2000s.
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[h2]Meet Hungary’s Aircraft line! [/h2]

We’ve prepared a selection of interesting aircraft from WWII and the Cold War. Take a look at what’s awaiting you in this line!

Some of Hungary’s WWII aircraft were delivered to the Hungarian Air Force after the end of the war. First up is the famous Yak-9P and IL-10, as well as the Tu-2 bomber. These Soviet classics are going to bring the powerful 37 mm and 20 mm cannons, plus FAB bombing options that can be enjoyed in different game modes!



As for post-war, the Hungarian Air Force operated several interesting aircraft that are coming to the game: the MiG-15bis, MiG-17PF, IL-28, MiG-21MF, MiG-21bis-SAU, MiG-23MF, Su-22M3 and the MiG-29 9-12B! It’s these aircraft that are going to play a key role in enhancing Italy’s ground force lineups and will complement Hungarian tanks that are already in the game thanks to their additional bomb attacking options. In addition to this, they’re going to be fun in air battles thanks to their great top speeds and great air-to-air missile capability!



To top it all off is the JAS39C which is going to become the flagship jet for the Hungarian line! Still in service with the Hungarian Air Force today, this aircraft is going to be the one you’re going to want to get. Fast, maneuverable and the option for different types of air and bomb attack weapons including 6 x AIM-9M’s is exactly what you can look forward to.



This is just the start, as we have plans to implement other Hungarian aircraft in the future as well!

Make sure that you take a look at the addition of Hungarian aircraft in the Italian tree in the next major update called Alpha Strike, which is the first major of 2024, as there’s plenty to research and have fun with. With that, we’ve reached the end of this dev blog — stay tuned to the news where we’ll be unveiling other exciting vehicles that will soon be arriving!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The next major update for War Thunder — “Alpha Strike”!

[h3]Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus (Happy St. David’s Day)![/h3] 
On March 1st, Wales celebrates St. David’s Day! On this day, parades and music festivals take place all around the country, as well as the wearing of the daffodil and leek. We’re joining in by temporarily bringing back the Welsh flag decal for the first time since 2016.


This flag is available for 500 Golden Eagles over the weekend period.

[h3]

When: From February 29th (12:00 GMT) until March 4th (07:00 GMT).
Where: You can find this decal by going to Nickname → Decals → Common → World Flags.

[/h3]

“Wales” flag decal

We’ve got more to talk about regarding the work on improvements and bug fixes to the game over the past 2 weeks! Let’s take a look at what we’ve been working on.

If you’ve found a bug that you’d like to report, you can do so on our community bug reporting platform.

[h2]The Severe Damage mechanic has been implemented[/h2]



We recently spoke about this mechanic in a separate news post here. Briefly, this mechanic rewards both the player who inflicted severe damage, and the player who destroyed this enemy aircraft. A test for this mechanic happened last week and now we’ve enabled it for aircraft in all game modes!

[h2]Some interface improvements![/h2]
In the previous It’s Fixed update, we released a new HUD that was specific to the “Battle” mode for ground forces which featured a better indicator with the number of vehicles destroyed and time left. Thanks for the feedback that you’ve provided on this. We’ve gone ahead and made some cosmetic changes to further improve this HUD.

We’ve now made the animation when a vehicle is destroyed to be more simple, so that it’s not as distracting as before: it’ll now only blink once when there’s a destruction instead of pulsate. We’ve also made some changes to the capture point icon: being directly on a capture point is now indicated, with the icon becoming larger. The colors, outline and background of the capture point icon have been improved in general as well as when capturing a point, to help with readability overall.

In addition to this interface improvement, we’ve added an additional window to let you know if you’re sure you want to enable the ability to research helicopters with ground vehicles. This has been added because players have accidentally enabled this option without knowing, causing many to become confused as to why no research was going towards their ground vehicles. This additional window will help to avoid these situations.

[h2]Scouting made better[/h2]



Also in the previous It’s Fixed, we made some changes to active scouting on ground vehicles, and since then there’s been another improvement.

You know those times when you were going to scout an enemy, but right before pressing the scout button, the enemy you had in your sights was engaged by an ally and destroyed. Since you scouted right at that moment, your active scouting gets a lengthy cool-down as it was counted as a miss.

We’ve reduced this timer if this occurs: if an enemy was destroyed less than 1 second ago, your active scout will not be counted as a miss, which means you’ll be able to scout again after 6 seconds — the same amount of time for a successful scout — rather than 45 seconds.

[h2]Tracer rounds and a stealth belt for some Swedish aircraft![/h2]



Several Swedish aircraft had no tracer rounds in their belts, which meant there wasn’t a separate stealth belt as it was not needed. This made shooting difficult for these aircraft, so we’ve decided to add the type 5876 armor-piercing tracer round to the existing belts for the Akan m/55 cannon, and a separate stealth belt to this gun as well on the following aircraft: SAAB-105G, SAAB-105OE, AJ37, AJS37, J29D, J32B, J35A, J35XS, J35D and SK60B.

We’ve also expanded the range of belts available to the GSh-30 cannon. All Mi-24 helicopters and Su-25 aircraft will now be able to use stealth belts.

[h2]That’s not all[/h2]
The full list of improvements can be found in each separate update note. Here’s some others: Aircraft without horizontal stabilizers no longer receive severe damage from any type of hit, gun stabilization in the rear hemisphere of a tank has been corrected, and the correct grid square is now announced in voiceover when an artillery strike is made.

• Update 2.33.0.145
• Update 2.33.0.135
• Update 2.33.0.132

[h2]Today's update: Update 2.33.0.156[/h2]

[h2]From the Roadmap[/h2]

• The Severe Damage mechanic carried over from the previous Roadmap has now been added to all gamemodes for aircraft.
  

[h2]Ground Vehicles[/h2]

• A bug with the gun stabilizer which caused them work with a delay when moving the gun horizontally in the rear hemisphere has been fixed.
  
• VT-4A1, Black Night — a bug causing the APS launchers to sometimes make an extra rotation when activated has been fixed.
  
• A bug where leaving a fighter during an air event in Ground Arcade Battles caused ground vehicle markers to appear to a spectating player has been fixed.
  

[h2]Aircraft[/h2]

• F-111A — missing limitation on wing folding when attaching underwing 20 mm cannons in the Dynamic Campaign mode has been fixed.
  
• For the Akan m/55 gun, the type 5876 armor-piercing tracer round has been added to the ammunition range. A stealth belt for the Akan m/55 gun has been added to the following aircraft: SAAB-105G, SAAB-105OE, AJ37, AJS37, J29D, J32B, J35A Saab, J35XS, J35D, SK60B.
  
• Mi-24P (all variants), Su-25 (all variants) — a stealth belt has been added to the GSh-30 cannon.
  
• A bug where aircraft without horizontal stabilzers received severe damage from any hit has been fixed. (Report)
  

[h2]Naval Vessels[/h2]

• A bug where the reload time for main caliber guns increased up to 2 times when a feed elevator was destroyed has been fixed.
  
• A bug where the aiming indicator remained visible while torpedoes were being reloaded has been fixed.
  

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• The new “Battle” mode HUD has been improved:
  
  • The destroyed vehicle counter animation has been simplified;
    
  • Indication of when a player is at a capture point has been added;
    
  • The color of the font, outline and background of the capture points has been changed so that they are similar to the spatial HUD (font and outline to black, background to white) for better readability of capture point progress;
    
  • Thickness of the outline for a capture point has been reduced for better readability of the capture progress.
    
• A confirmation window when enabling the “Researching of helicopters playing ground vehicles” option has been added.
  
• A bug that caused crew qualifications to not be updated in the crew window after purchasing an expert or ace crew has been fixed.
  
• A bug that caused an unobtainable camouflage to be shown in the modification window after unlocking all camouflages for a vehicle has been fixed.
  
• A bug where flag tooltip background in the customization window could have been smaller than the flag itself has been fixed.
  

[h2]Sound[/h2]

• A bug causing the voiceover to say an incorrect grid square and number when calling an artillery strike has been fixed.
  

The current provided changelog reflects the major changes within the game as part of this Update. Some updates, additions and fixes may not be listed in the provided notes. War Thunder is constantly improving and specific fixes may be implemented without the client being updated.

In this blog we’ll be talking about the most advanced variant of the Buccaneer that will soon be taking to the skies in War Thunder: meet the Buccaneer S.2B!

[h2]Buccaneer S.2B: A Strike Aircraft for Britain at Rank VII[/h2]

Features:

• AIM-9L missiles.
  
• Laser-guided bombs.
  
• Internal Countermeasures.
  
• Large payload.
  

Vehicle History
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Initially intended for the Royal Navy, the RAF showed little interest in the Buccaneer until the cancellation of both TSR-2 and the RAF’s own version of the Aardvark, the F-111K, led to a decision to adopt the Buccaneer into service to fill a gap in capabilities. This coincided with the gradual retirement of Aircraft Carriers from the Royal Navy freeing up aircraft that could be provided to the RAF, as well as new build aircraft to the S.2B standard. This variant would initially see an enlarged “bulged” bomb bay and the capacity for Martel Anti-Ship missiles.

Operation Pulsator, supporting British forces in Lebanon in 1983, would see a further significant upgrade for the Buccaneer, introducing internal countermeasures to the aircraft for better self defence. AIM-9G and AIM-9L capability was also added, a notable improvement over earlier AIM-9Bs on earlier S.2s.

Despite its age, the Buccaneer would however still prove its worth as late as the 1991 Gulf War, acting as a laser designator aircraft for Tornado GR.1s to deliver their laser guided bombs before early TIALD pods became available for operations. Later in the conflict, Buccaneers would themselves take part in direct bombing attacks.

Initially not planned to take part in “Operation Granby”, a handful of Buccaneer S.2Bs from No.12, 208 and 237 OCU were rushed over to the Gulf, hastily repainted in “Desert Pink” and equipped now with AIM-9Ls and Pave Spike pods. The pilots that would operate them dubbed themselves the “Sky Pirates” and were famous for their skull and crossbones flag and colourful nose art adorning many of the aircraft that took part.

The Tornado would however fully replace the last Buccaneers in service shortly after the Gulf War, covering all roles that it had previously maintained. The last Buccaneers would bow out of service with the RAF in 1994, 36 years after the first Buccaneer took to the skies.

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[h2]Meet the Buccaneer S.2B![/h2]

In the next major update, the RAF’s Buccaneer S.2B variant will be joining the Strike aircraft line of the British tree, taking its place at Rank VII and filling a noticeable gap. This variant of the Buccaneer addresses many of the shortcomings of the previous variant, improving both defensive and offensive capabilities. Let’s take a look at what’s on offer!

Firstly, the S.2B has both internally mounted countermeasures and also more of them in total. Unlike the previous version, you won’t have to use valuable wing stations in order to have protection from missile threats. This means you can instead use those pylons for more strike weaponry, or the expanded Sidewinder arsenal this variant offers with both the AIM-9G and L available.

Interesting: Buccaneers in the Gulf War that were originally based in RAF Lossiemouth, flown by the “Sky Pirates”, were aptly named for their Scottish heritage after Malt Whiskeys adorned on the side of the aircraft.

The other key focus of this Buccaneer is its precision air-to-ground loadouts. Armed with a Pave Spike targeting pod, the S.2B can deploy Paveway II bombs as well as the regular conventional bomb types found on the previous variant. This gives a noticeable level of flexibility, allowing you some degree of standoff against more dangerous targets from a far, all while retaining the capacity to come in afterwards with conventional bombs and take full advantage of the CCIP system onboard. Lastly, the S.2B offers Martel anti-ship missiles for larger targets that really require a sizable strike!

In your matches by Scott, Community Manager: “The Buccaneer is a real personal favourite of mine thanks to its distinctive character. The S.2B rounds off the aircraft family nicely as a perfect CAS choice for many ground lineups surrounding the Challenger Is, and offers some significant improvements over the existing variant available in the tree. The internal countermeasures widen your strike options and mean you don't have to choose between Sidewinders and Flares/Chaff anymore. Whilst you still should not directly seek out combat with other aircraft, having that extra defence and the all-aspect offence really improves your chances in tricky situations. Use your Paveways to deal with SPAA/SAMs and keep out of harm’s way as much as possible, following up with your standard bombs. Armed with both guided bombs and AIM-9L missiles, it can strike hard, keep itself reasonably well defended and still make it home safely for tea!”

This improved Buccaneer variant will shortly be joining the ranks of the British tree, bridging the gap between the earlier Buccaneer S.2 and Tornado GR.1. As always, stay tuned to the news to see what else we have lined up for the next major update in War Thunder. Until then, enjoy your battles!