War Thunder News

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Have any feedback about these changes? Please follow the link to the dedicated thread

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[h2]Ground Vehicles[/h2]

• 2S38 — elevation angles in the commander sight have been increased from -10…+20° to -15…+75° (report).
  
• 2S38, 9P157, BMP-3 — a bug has been fixed that caused cyclic neutral gear switch while turning at low speed (report)
  
• ELC bis — a bug has been fixed with different armour values in the info card and the armour view mode (report)
  
• Chieftain Mk.5 Marksman — gunner and commander sight magnification has been changed from х8 to х3–10.
  
• Leclerc SXXI — a bug has been fixed where the material of the side skirts was different from Leclerc S1 and Leclerc S2. Side skirts material has been changed from constructional steel to armoured steel.
  

[h2]Aircraft[/h2]

• F-104S, F-104S TAF — a bug has been fixed where flare containers obstructed the drag chute.
  
• Harrier Gr.7, Q-5L — a bug has been fixed that caused unlocking from the target when flying over it in the third person view.
  
• Harrier Gr.7, Q-5L — a bug has been fixed where toggling to the nose camera might cause a laser lock-on reset.
  
• DB-3A — elevation angles of the nose turret have been adjusted.
  
• Kikka — a bug has been fixed with missing rocket engines after respawn.
  
• Kikka — a bug has been fixed where after respawning the landing gear raised only in the visual model and detached at high speed in RB and SB modes.
  
• A bug has been fixed that prevented MG fire from the helicopter in camera mode while using a gamepad.
  
• A bug has been fixed involving different penetration values of the Type 94 gun on the Ha-Go tank and Ki-45 otsu.
  

[h2]Naval[/h2]

• The frequency of announcing a vessel’s turn orders and rudder position reports has been reduced. Phrases regarding a vessel’s roll will now be announced only when it is sinking. Phrases regarding critical roll will be announced as before when the vessel reaches this roll under any circumstances.
  
• The ability to select torpedo sight with mouse or key has been added. The switch is located in:
  
• Menu > Options > Main parameters > Naval battle settings > Torpedo sight controlling with mouse.
  

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• A bug that caused the points in the “Requirements to Candidates” window for the squadron to not fit the height of the window has been fixed.
  
• A bug that caused the “Watch” button to not appear in the window for using a coupon that gives a skin/decal/decoration has been fixed.
  

[h2]Other[/h2]

• A bug that caused some vehicle models to appear in coal black colour in some cases has been fixed (source).
  
• A bug that might make aircraft textures look blurry has been fixed (report).
  
• A bug where the mouse cursor might jump to a second monitor when playing in full-screen windowed mode in naval and helicopter battles when the “alt” key has been pressed or a radio command has been sent has been fixed (report).
  
• A bug relating to the periodic cessation of the battle replay when viewing from the official web page of the game has been fixed.
  
• Hints about pausing the replay of the battle to download the next part have been added. Also download status information has been added.
  

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.

ZTS63 is a Chinese amphibious light tank created on the Soviet PT-76 platform. The vehicle has an 85 mm rifled gun with a laser rangefinder and armour-piercing fin-stabilised rounds.

[h2]ZTS63 (1980), light tank, China, rank V[/h2]
Features:

• 85mm gun with APFSDS rounds
  
• Decent mobility
  
• Light armour
  
• Amphibious
  

Modern amphibious tanks have become especially demanded in the People’s Liberation Army of China due to the growing tensions in the southeastern borders. For a long time, obsolete American-made tanks filled this gap, but they were obviously no longer suitable for the conditions of modern warfare. The Chinese military decided to start their own development by reverse-engineering the Soviet PT-76 amphibious tanks imported in the late 50s. During the development, Chinese engineers improved seaworthiness and reliability of the engine.The tank received a domestic 85-mm rifled gun. Type 63 light amphibious tank entered service with the PLA in 1964, it was intensively used in service and actions. During the 1979 upgrade program, the tank, which by that time was designated as the ZTS63, received improved traverse mechanisms, a laser rangefinder, and other improvements. The production of these vehicles was discontinued by 1983.



The later modification of the ZTS63 will be one of the first rank V armoured vehicles in the Chinese tech tree. Despite the silhouette familiar from the Soviet PT-76, the vehicle offers new combat tactics and will become a good help to move up your armoured setup from the rank IV.

Enthusiasts of Chinese armoured vehicles are familiar with the early version of the vehicle, the Type-63-1 light tank. Unlike the Soviet amphibious PT-76, the vehicle is equipped with a Chinese-made 85mm cannon with punchy HEAT rounds, which most tanks at its rank have no protection against. The later version of the vehicle, ZTS63 (1980) comes armed with an armour piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot rounds with good penetration values, as well as a laser rangefinder. The smooth ballistics of these rounds, coupled with the ability to quickly enter the range corrections, make the ZTS63 a full-fledged sniper that can do deadly damage at long distances.




Now the light amphibious tank can try deep flanking, long-range camping and will feel more confident against tanks with ERA protection or spaced armour. The Chinese scout does not have any significant armour that would interfere with its mobility, so ZTS63 commanders need to rely on surprise, speed and a good understanding of the battlefield.

The new Chinese light amphibious tank ZTS63 (1980) will appear in War Thunder hangars with the release of the next major game update. Keep an eye on our devblog where we tell you about the most interesting new vehicles and features of the incoming update. Fresh fare tomorrow!

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to spend a romantic evening together in your favorite game, give out gifts and compliments, and, of course, get new decals in War Thunder.

Decorate your vehicles and share your love with others!

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From February 14th (12:00 GMT) until February 17th (7:00 GMT)

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[h3]Play 3 battles (rank III or higher, with an activity of not less than 70%) to receive the “Cyber Cupid” decal.[/h3]



"Cyber Cupid" decal.

Complete the task in random battles, except for Enduring Confrontation missions and [Assault] mode. Track your progress in the hangar by clicking Nickname → Achievements → Holidays → Valentine’s Day.

You can find the decal in the “Holidays” tab in the Customisation menu.

[h2]St. Valentine’s Trophy with 3D Decorations[/h2]
During the event you will be able to purchase a trophy with unique 3D decorations for Golden Eagles in the Item shop. In the St. Valentine’s Trophy you will find a naval decoration “Anchor of love”, as well as ground vehicle decorations “Compound bow” and “Teddy Bear with heart”. Upon opening the trophy you will receive a decoration that you don’t yet possess.





[h2]Temporarily on Sale: MK-IX “Valentine” [/h2]
Per our tradition, the Premium Mk-IX “Valentine” tank will be available for purchase with Golden Eagles during the celebrations. You can find it in the USSR research tree: it is a compact British tank that was shipped to the USSR as a part of Lend-Lease.

We will soon move to a new game client file structure that will reduce the size of updates and speed up their installation.

Hello!
Today we would like to tell you about the transition to the new file structure in the War Thunder game client that the development team has already planned for in the upcoming major update.

In short: the new file structure will speed up the installation of updates on your computers and consoles, as well as reduce the size of download files!

The goal of the restructuring is to break up a number of heavy game files into smaller ones so that when these files are changed, players on consoles and the Steam client will download smaller volumes. On a PC, for those who update through our launcher, a partial file update system has been available for a long time, but this file structure change will speed up the installation of updates. In fact, players will receive War Thunder updates faster - we save bandwidth for users with slow or unstable Internet connections on Steam, PlayStation and XBox versions, as well as speed up the installation of updates for all players.

There should be no change in the game's load speed: on SSD, the speed will stay the same, on HDD there may be a slight increase or slowdown in the speed of installing files, depending on the history of use and receipt of updates (due to fragmentation of data on a disk).

The new file structure will be applied to the installation directory of the War Thunder client in the next major update. If you participate in dev-server testing (see post here), you will receive a new structure in the first session of testing the update. To switch to the new file structure, you will need to re-download about 15 GB of data (the exact data volume will be known closer to the release of the update), but only once. In following updates, the volume of traffic for consoles and the Steam client will be significantly reduced compared to the current file structure.

In one of the next major game updates, we also plan to restructure the texture data, the heaviest part of War Thunder files. Details about the second stage of the transition to the new file structure will be announced later.

It was a pleasure to see all of your screenshots from last week! There was a great assortment of vehicles that could have been seen in the Battle of Stalingrad, and many vehicles from more modern times! The three most popular and three selected by us will get 300 GE. See the winners down below!

[h2]Let’s begin the 54th edition of our competition![/h2]

Create a stunning screenshot and submit it on the War Thunder Steam Community Hub with the tag #WTscreen54. You have time until 17.02.2023 to submit your screenshot.

After that date, 6 winners will be selected (3 of which will be the highest rated by the community and 3 selected by our judges), each of which receive a reward of 300GE.

[h2]Important addition: Screenshot theme - Loving the Unloved![/h2]

St. Valentine's day is upon us this week! We wanted to ensure all of our vehicles felt loved this week, especially from nations that tend to be less popular than others.

[h3]Terms:[/h3]

Your screenshot must feature one or more vehicles from the Japanese, Italian, or French tech trees!
You must add the #WTscreen54 tag (title cannot have any other text in it).
• Screenshots need to be compliant with the War Thunder rules.
  
• You need to be the author of the screenshot.
  
• Screenshot needs to be new. You cannot use those which have previously been published or used in other competitions.
  
• We will only accept raw screenshots from the game. You cannot use any editing software nor any other visual enhancements (like Nvidia Ansel filters).
  
• You can use filters and settings built into War Thunder.
  
• You can use the replay functionality built into War Thunder.
  
• Rewards will be delivered to the author's account within 14 working days.
  

[h2]And now, time for the winners of the competition’s 53rd edition - Stalingrad![/h2]

[h3]Winners selected via community votes:[/h3]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2929693474
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2929665603
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2928322615

[h3]Winners selected by our judges:[/h3]
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2930257837
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2929000737
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2928774102

Each winner will get 300GE! Congratulations and see you next week!