War Thunder News

An incredible jet strike-aircraft with the largest payload weight in the game arrives in War Thunder as part of the “Kings of Battle” major update!

[h2]F-111A Aardvark: A Strike Aircraft for the US at Rank VII [/h2]

Features:

• Enormous payload!
  
• High speed!
  
• Radar.
  
• Guided missiles.
  
• Flares.
  
• Variable-sweep wing.
  

[h2]Meet the F-111A Aardvark![/h2]

The F-111A Aardvark is an American bomber that will become the new king of bombing in War Thunder when the “Kings of Battle” major update is released. This fantastic aircraft features an excellent top speed, large caliber countermeasures, a radar and RWR, missiles, a ballistic computer and most importantly a HUGE payload of bombs and rockets. Let’s dive into the details!

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Interesting: The F-111A earned the unofficial nickname of “Aardvark” due to the shape of its nose, which is shaped similarly to the aardvark animal’s nose.

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To start off, the F-111A was not an attack aircraft from the outset. Originally, it was intended to serve as a nuclear-armed supersonic strategic bomber, but combat in Vietnam forced U.S. Army officials to reconsider the Aardvark’s role on the battlefield. Therefore, the Aardvark was equipped with avionics for the use of guided weapons, which complement the already vast electronic equipment that this aircraft has. In addition to traditional unguided weapons, the Aardvark can also use AGM-12B Bullpup air-to-ground missiles and AIM-9B air-to-air missiles!



However, the role of a high precision bomber is still not the main speciality of the F-111A — this aircraft will provide you with the most heavy-duty bomb carrier in the game. The Aardvark can carry 26 x 750 lb and 50 x 500 lb bombs, as well as Snakeye bombs into battle! The amazing thing is that if you equip all weapon hardpoints with Mighty Mouse rockets, the total number of rockets that can be carried is 456. This is record breaking in War Thunder!

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Did you know? Some of the F-111A’s bomb pylons have a rotating mechanism to compensate for the variable sweep-wings at different speeds.

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Surprisingly, with such a huge payload weight and with the weight of the aircraft itself, the Aardvark still has good flight characteristics. This is thanks to a pair of powerful turbofan engines with afterburning capability, plus its variable swept swing design allowing it to fly at supersonic speeds near to the ground. At altitude with a minimal load, the Aardvark can reach and exceed speeds of 2400 km/h (about 1490 mph)! It’s worth noting however that in its bomb carrier configuration and when all hardpoints are fully loaded up, the Aardvark’s swept swings cannot change by more than 28 degrees — as a result, you shouldn’t expect to be breaking speed records in this configuration.



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Fun Fact: During the Vietnam War, F-111’s flew more than 4,000 combat missions, but only 6 aircraft were lost.

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Such a large payload and good flight performance is complemented by advanced electronic protective systems. This includes a radar for detecting aerial targets, a RWR and countermeasure pods for large-caliber flares and chaff. In addition to this, the Aardvark does not have built-in forward firing guns — instead you’ll be able to equip a 20 mm Vulcan cannon in a special compartment in the bomb bay.

In your matches: Pro-tips when using the F-111A by Alexander, Aircraft Game Designer: “A good aircraft suitable for almost any task. A full load of bombs limits its speed and wing sweep, so you’ll have to think what is more important, speed or the number of bombs/missiles. I wouldn't engage in a dogfight with it; it's better to cautiously stay on the sidelines and carry out a ground attack instead. However, if it does come down to a one on one, then you have a cannon and some air-to-air missiles to use — you can surprise the enemy by controlling the swept wings and dropping ordnance beforehand, as weight won’t be your ally in this scenario!”

Sounds exciting? The F-111A Aardvark will come to the game at Rank VII in the USA aviation research tree as part of the “Kings of Battle” major update! That’s all for now, continue to follow the news on our website for more dev blogs, and until then, enjoy your matches and see you soon!

This Soviet experimental missile tank featuring a 125mm gun-launcher is coming to War Thunder as part of the upcoming “Kings of Battle” major update!

[h2]Object 775: An Anti-Tank Missile Carrier for the USSR at Rank VI.[/h2]

Features:

• Anti-Tank Guided Missiles!
  
• Very low profile (these images are not cropped)!
  
• Very slow reverse speed.
  
• 2 man crew.
  

[h2]Meet the Object 775![/h2]

With the upcoming “Kings of Battle” major update the Object 775 will be added as a missile-firing capable tank, coming to the USSR’s research tree at Rank VI. This tank certainly has many advantages and some… “short”comings in terms of its appearance, which is both ridiculous and quirky — let’s see what this tank has to offer!

The Object 775 was born as one of the variants of a promising Soviet medium tank that could fire anti-tank guided missiles. Receiving the Rubin anti-tank missile, this tank could fire these directly from the barrel. In the game, these missiles are quite effective, although they are not the be-all and end-all. This ATGM can penetrate up to 500 mm of armor, which is generally enough to defeat almost any tank with regular homogeneous armor. However, the warhead of this missile is not tandem, which therefore means any ERA protection may be difficult to penetrate with this missile.



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Did you know? The Object 775 was the first Soviet tank that was built with the ability to launch ATGMs through the barrel.

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If you’re wondering — no, our art team didn’t accidentally crop the images in this dev blog to funny proportions. With that being said, the Object 775 is quite wide and noticeably has a remarkably low profile which does give it an advantage, similarly to Soviet ATGM tanks like the Shturm-S. However, unlike this vehicle the Object 775 has a turret, which is the only place where the crew are located. Coming onto this topic, it’s interesting to note that this tank’s crew is only two people, a commander and a driver. Between them is a drum-type automatic loader for 7 ATGMs, which provides an excellent rate of fire.



The Object 775 is surprisingly well protected for an ATGM carrier. The upper and lower frontal parts of the hull converge at a large angle, and the very flat rounded turret will allow you to ricochet enemy shells. The Object 775’s armor has a combination of hardened steel and composite materials, plus some aluminum. The reverse speed is only a measly 5 km/h, and another disadvantage is the lack of thermals, although the regular old NVD is still on this tank.



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In your matches: Pro-tips when using the Object 775 by Tom (Oxy), WT Community Manager (TL): "Normally range is the best spot for these kinds of vehicles, but considering its armour, reload and manoeuvrability it can easily perform well when played as a conventional tank. It’s very capable of baiting shots with the front plate at close range — make sure to keep moving as even weaker guns can get through the optic and cupola, so don’t give them an easy shot!”

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In the “Kings of Battle” major update, the Object 775 ATGM carrier will arrive at Rank VI in the USSR ground forces tree. Until then, keep an eye on our website for other interesting additions to this update that we’ll be revealing to you soon. Until that though, enjoy your matches!

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The Warbond Shop for the “Tropical Storm” Battle Pass season will start on October 25th and will finish on January 24th.

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We’d like to present an assortment of goods that will be available for Warbonds that are earned in the Battle Pass! As usual, we have decals, decorations, camouflages, a new stylish pinup, and six premium vehicles!

Pay special attention to the Swedish Sherman III/IV tank — this steel monster boasts impressive armor for its rank, making it able to hold off plenty of attacks and lead the offensive against enemy capture points!

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The Warbond shop is available to players that have vehicles of rank III and up and is part of the Battle Pass. You can purchase items with the special ‘Warbond’ currency that can be obtained by unlocking Battle Pass levels.

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Open “Shop” → “Warbond shop” to see an assortment where some of the more interesting items can be seen.



[h2]MGB-75[/h2]

Coming in as a British Coastal Fleet boat of rank II, the MGB-75 boasts a powerful 40 mm automatic cannon, 2 20 mm Oerlikon cannons and Lewis machine guns. A formidable boat to be reckoned with!

[h2]H-81A-2 [/h2]

The H-81A-2 is an export variant of the American P-40 for China at rank II. Possessing good speed and able to maneuver well, the H-81A-2 has 2 .12.7 mm guns and 4 machine guns, plus the ability to carry a 500 lb bomb.

[h2]Pz.III N[/h2]

The Pz.III N is a German rank II tank coming in as an all-rounder: good mobility, good armor, and fast reloading of multiple types of shells. The Pz.III N makes for a great medium tank overall.

[h2]USS Frank Knox — first time in the Warbond shop[/h2]

An American rank III Destroyer with decent armor, strong air defense capabilities and powerful and fast-firing cannons! The USS Frank Knox is great for fast and aggressive gameplay. Plus, it’s the first time being in the warbond shop.

[h2]P-47D-27 (USSR)[/h2]

The American P-47D-27, in service with the USSR! This Soviet “Jug” has a rather large ammo capacity and 8 12.7 mm guns and a great combination of FAB 500 and 250 bombs. An overall powerful aircraft in multiple roles!

[h2]Sherman III/IV — first time in the Warbond shop[/h2]

An absolute classic of a tank, the Sherman in Swedish service. Coming in at rank III, the Sherman III/IV possesses a vertical gun stabilzer and a good selection of shells to fire. An overall fun tank to play. Plus, it’s the first time being in the warbond shop.


[h2]“Capricorn Zodiac” pinup[/h2]

For this Battle pass Warbond shop, we’ve got decals that are represented in the trophy for decals from the 2018 Warbond shop, as well as the new “Capricorn Zodiac” pinup, which continues the series of themed decals! In addition to this, the camouflage trophy will provide you with decorations, and will surely amuse car enthusiasts. Player profile icons are also here in a trophy and this time include Soviet tankers, plus trophies that contain random camouflages as usual become available as new store levels are unlocked.

A large number of usable items are also available in the store: boosters, universal backups, wagers and orders, test drives of premium vehicles — even talismans are obtainable at the highest levels of the shop!

Check out the full assortment of available Warbond items for the current Battle Pass season and the terms for purchasing them in the game by opening the Battle Pass window or “Shop -> Warbond Shop”!

As we mentioned in the TAN-SAM-1C dev blog, we’d like to talk about photocontrast mode! This means today we’ll be talking in detail about some of the upcoming improvements to IR missile functionality in War Thunder and what this means for IR missile gameplay.

[h2]The technical background of IR seekers[/h2]
Infrared homing heads are widely used on air-to-air missiles and ground based anti-aircraft missiles. They combine the benefits of using effective missile guidance trajectories, are also cheap and do not irradiate the target with any radiation. On the surface, making the heat source of your enemy the main target for a missile has some key advantages. On the flipside however, it does have some downsides that can be found within the main principle of how a target’s thermal radiation is captured, as the target must emit infrared waves for this to work. The higher the intensity of the radiation, the better. The range at which target lock on and tracking actually works greatly depends on this. In addition to this, a missile going for a heat source can be easily deceived by false sources of infrared radiation, such as flares.



Slower aircraft that have piston and turboprop engines emit a small amount of heat and the radiation from a jet engine is almost invisible from the frontal aspect in many cases. An infrared homing seeker head can detect a target like this at fairly modest distances. The same IR seeker of a MANPADS can capture a small helicopter from a distance of only 2-3 kilometers at most. However at this distance, you’re prone to being shot at quite easily, even by unguided aircraft rockets. Anti-aircraft missiles with an infrared seeker in those particular conditions can often hit a target as it exits from its attack run. However in this case, it relies on someone being there to launch them at this very moment.



[h2]The use of photocontrast mode [/h2]
These shortcomings with the use of IR seekers as part of military air defense were especially relevant in the 1960s, when the development of IR seekers did not yet make it possible to confidently isolate a useful thermal signal from a target in the forward hemisphere. This is when the idea of using the visible wavelength range for target tracking came about. The Strela-1 was one of the first air defense systems to use a photocontrast homing head for targeting. This made it possible to capture and engage targets on opposing courses and ensure the protection of troops even before the target launched an attack. A photocontrast channel also has its own drawbacks to consider. The target can only be engaged during the day and in clear weather conditions, and the background behind the target must be uniform.



The use of combined dual and triple-band homing heads helps to smoothen out the shortcomings and makes a missile defense system function in all-weather and in day and night conditions. In difficult weather conditions, against low-flying targets and at night, guidance in infrared mode is used, and when launching from a long distance and against weakly emitting targets, photocontrast mode is used. It is also recommended to use photocontrast mode against targets on a collision course when they use countermeasures, to which the photocontrast channel is less sensitive compared to the infrared one. A dual-band seeker of this kind is equipped on the 9M37M missile system of the Strela-10M2, which is already present within the game. The use of an IR channel made this missile all-weather compatible, whilst the photocontrast channel provides the ability to capture a target and fire at it from long ranges, even exceeding the maximum flight range of the missile.

[h2]Photocontrast mode in War Thunder[/h2]
Within War Thunder, the photocontrast channel will be present on missiles that are a successor to the Strela-1 system. Namely the 9M37M missiles of the Strela-10M2 SAM, as well as on the Japanese Type 93 SAM. With the release of the “Kings of Battle” major update, the Type 81C SAM will also benefit from this improvement. In game, you’ll have the ability to switch between three modes: photocontrast, infrared and automatic, which is enabled by default. In automatic mode, the seeker will perform a lock on in the most appropriate mode. However, you must take into account that after launch, it will not be possible to switch between modes. If the target was locked on in photocontrast mode, but evaded by going lower to the ground, then target tracking will fail and the missile will miss its mark.



You can look forward to these improvements and many others in the upcoming major update “Kings of Battle”! Until then, enjoy your matches and see you soon!

The J35A Draken was the first supersonic jet aircraft to enter service in Western Europe. Taking to the skies on October 25th 1955, the J35 was in service between 1960 to 2005, however it did not participate in any real combat.

[h2]The J35A Draken is available for Golden Eagles![/h2]

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When: From October 25th (10:00 GMT) until October 27th (07:00 GMT).
Where: Sweden > Aviation > Premium vehicles.

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[h3]About the aircraft[/h3]

• The J35A Draken boasts amazing maneuverability, and has no rivals in this area! Being able to reach a high top speed very quickly, the J35A can gain altitude easily as well. This aircraft is also equipped with a radar and can carry 4 x RB24 air-to-air missiles, as well as 12 x m/56D rockets, allowing you to use it in air and ground battles!