War Thunder News

The Mustang is a legendary American propeller fighter aircraft, and the one we’re presenting today was in service with the Chinese Air Force. It’s going to be the aircraft reward for the upcoming Battle Pass season!

[h2]P-51C-11-NT Mustang: A Premium Fighter for China at Rank III[/h2]

Features:

• High speed!
  
• Good rate of climb.
  
• Possibility of using bombs.
  
• Mediocre weaponry.
  

Vehicle History
[expand]
American Mustang fighters began appearing in China in 1944, flown by pilots of the Chinese-American Composite Wing (CACW), which was under the direction of the ROC Air Force. The first P-51s that China received were the B and C modifications, and towards the end of the war more modern modifications appeared. Later on, American Mustangs became part of the PLA Air Force, but in 1953 they were finally written off due to wear and tear of parts and for being obsolete. P-51s remained in service the longest at Flight School No.7, where future pilots practiced taxiing them off of takeoff airfields.
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[h2]Meet the P-51C-11-NT![/h2]

When it arrives to the game, the P-51C-11-NT Mustang is going to be a fighter for China and the aircraft reward for the new Battle Pass season that’s starting on April 24th. All-in-all this premium World War II propeller-driven aircraft will be a great addition to the early ranks of the Chinese aircraft tree when it arrives. Let’s take a look!



In-game, the Chinese P-51C-11-NT Mustang is a transitional modification from earlier variants to the more advanced ones. Let’s take a look at the details. This variant has received a high-altitude Packard V-1650-7 Merlin engine, which significantly exceeds the earlier variants of the Mustang that had Alison engines in almost all aspects; most importantly it increases the altitude ceiling that this plane can fly. In battles at its rank, the P-51C-11-NT will be one of the fastest aircraft thanks to its high rate of climb and ability to conserve energy, perfect to attack from higher altitudes and then fly back up using the boom-and-zoom tactic. This new fighter differs from the Japanese P-51C-11-NT premium by its dorsal fin design, which helps solve the problem of insufficient stability of the aircraft in full control mode.

In terms of weapons, unlike later variants of the P-51, the armament of the P-51C-11-NT is only 4 x 12.7 mm machine guns. While these weapons are good enough in air duels, destroying bombers and even attack aircraft will most likely require multiple attacks and extra precision while shooting. Regardless, despite taking a bit to destroy, enemy tail gunners won’t be happy to see you — be sure to aim well against them to show who’s boss! Additionally, there’s good news if you enjoy ground battles, as this aircraft can separately carry either 2 x 100, 250 or 500 lb bombs!



At the time of release, the P-51C-11-NT will be the second premium aircraft at rank III in the Chinese aviation tree. With this reward, you’re going to have an excellent plane to learn the ropes of aircraft and of course research the lower and mid-ranks of the Chinese aviation tree faster.



That’s today’s blog done! Keep an eye out tomorrow, as we’re planning to tell you about the tank reward for the upcoming Battle Pass season. Until then, have fun flying!

Welcome to the Inferno Cannon event, the second ground vehicle event in War Thunder’s new event cycle! This is your chance to earn decals, a decoration, trophies with rewards and the Chinese PLZ 83-130 by participating in ground battles.

[h3]When: From April 24th (11:00 GMT) until May 8th (11:00 GMT), earn mission points in Ground Battles, unlock stages and receive rewards![/h3]

[h2]PLZ 83-130 — an Event Vehicle Tank Destroyer for China at Rank V[/h2]

The PLZ 83-130 is an experimental variant of the Chinese PLZ 83 self-propelled artillery vehicle. Instead of using a 152 mm howitzer this vehicle uses a 130 mm Type 59-1 cannon, which in itself is a copy of the Soviet M-46. It’s this cannon that’s made this vehicle a true tank destroyer! Choose your attack positions wisely and take advantage of the high velocity of your powerful shells to guarantee a hit.




Among the rewards in the event is also this chest, where, when opened, brings the chance to receive one of the following items:

• 50,000 - 100,000 Silver Lions
  
• Silver Lion and Research Point boosters
  
• Random Wagers and Orders
  
• Universal Backups (1 - 3)
  
• A random camouflage for a vehicle you own
  
• 1 day of Premium Account
  

[h2]How to get all rewards[/h2]
Each stage can be obtained for 35,000 mission points, where every new stage obtained will give you a new reward.

[h3]Please note: After finishing a stage, you need to collect the reward manually. To do this, click on your name in-game, go to “Inferno Cannon” and click the “Get Reward” button.
[/h3]

You’re able to earn mission points in Ground Battles at Rank III or above in Arcade, Realistic and Simulator Battles. The number of mission points to complete a stage depends on the game mode and the maximum Rank of the vehicle that you use in battle. There’s a multiplier for earning mission points, which is shown in the task description in-game.  

You can also earn mission points by using event vehicles that are Rank I and II. Event vehicles that can be used have the name of the event that they were obtainable in on their stat card.

[h3]Stages change every two days at 11:00 GMT on April 26th, 28th and 30th, May 2nd, 4th and 6th.[/h3]

[h2]Rewards are given when you complete a specific number of stages[/h2]

• For 1 Stage: trophy with a random reward
  
• For 2 Stages: “Born to Hunt” decal
  
• For 3 Stages: trophy with a random reward
  
• For 4 Stages: “Missileman patch” decal
  
• For 5 Stages: trophy with a random reward
  
• For 6 Stages: “Anti-tank rocket launcher (China)” decoration
  
• For 7 Stages: non-tradable coupon for the PLZ 83-130
  

[h2]Discounts on purchasing stages using Golden Eagles[/h2]
Unfinished stages can be purchased for Golden Eagles, but if you’re significantly close to completing a stage, its price will now be significantly reduced.

Let’s say you have earned 85% of the required mission points to complete a stage, then the price of purchasing this stage will be halved. If you’re near the finish line for a stage and are at 95% progress, then the price will be reduced by five times. For example, if you’ve scored 30,000 mission points, then the price for unlocking this stage will be 449 Golden Eagles. If you’ve scored 33,500 mission points, then you’ll only need to pay 179 Golden Eagles. Remember to keep this in mind if you cannot complete a stage on time!

[h2]The Upgrade for coupon [/h2]
When you complete 7 stages, you’ll receive a non-tradable coupon for the PLZ 83-130, where using it will immediately activate the vehicle onto your account. If you don’t want the vehicle and would like to sell the coupon on the Market, you’ll need the “Upgrade for coupon” item.

The “Upgrade for coupon” item can be earned in parallel with the stages throughout the event from April 24th (11:00 GMT) until May 8th (11:00 GMT) for 600,000 mission points.

After receiving the “Upgrade for coupon” item, you can convert a non-tradable coupon for the vehicle into a tradable one and sell it on the Market. The tradable coupon can be sold after 6 days from the moment it’s created.

To make a tradable coupon, select the “Coupon PLZ 83-130 (China)” in your inventory and click the “Modify” button.

The “Upgrade for coupon” item is valid until 11:00 GMT on May 11th. Until this time, you can use it or exchange it for War Bonds. Afterwards, it’ll disappear from your inventory.

You can track the progress of completing stages and receiving the “Upgrade for coupon” by clicking on your Nickname > Achievements > Inferno Cannon. If you don’t manage to complete a stage on time or would like to purchase a stage, until May 11th from the Achievements window, you can purchase each stage with Golden Eagles which will give you the corresponding rewards.

Welcome to the naval reward for the upcoming Battle Pass season: USS Flagstaff. This is an amazing hydrofoil with a turret from the M551 Sheridan tank!

[h2]USS Flagstaff: A Premium US Motor Gun Boat at Rank III[/h2]

Features:

• Hydrofoil!
  
• Very high top speed.
  
• Good maneuverability.
  
• 152 mm gun!
  

Vehicle History
[expand]
USS Flagstaff was one of two experimental hydrofoils that the US Navy ordered to study the design’s feasibility in the late 60’s. These boats received the PGH name — Patrol Gunboat Hydrofoil. Both boats were designed by aeronautical engineering companies: the PGH-1 Flagstaff by Grumman and the PGH-2 Tucumcari by Boeing. Soon after they were put into service, both went to South Vietnam, however not for long as the repair and maintenance of them in the field turned out to be too difficult. After a period of service in the Pacific Fleet, USS Flagstaff was leased to the US Coast Guard as there was a request for a speedboat to combat maritime drug trafficking. Here the boat did not take root for similar reasons, as maintaining a hydrofoil boat turned out to be too expensive and technically difficult. In 1978, USS Flagstaff returned to the fleet and was soon dismantled for metal, and the idea of mass construction of hydrofoil boats was recognized as untenable.
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[h2]Meet USS Flagstaff![/h2]

Aircraft designers are joining the navy! That’s because USS Flagstaff was developed by engineers from the aircraft manufacturer Grumman... it too has wings: underwater wings! This one’s fast and agile, comes with premium bonuses and a turret from the M551 tank. It’s the naval reward for the upcoming Battle Pass season starting on April 24th, so let’s take a further look!



USS Flagstaff is both a competitor and close relative of the USS Tucumcari motor gun boat, which you may already be familiar with. Both of these boats were developed within the same program and served side by side during the Vietnam War. USS Flagstaff has the same blistering speed and excellent maneuverability, being able to quickly accelerate to 94 km/h in Realistic Battles, and more than 120 km/h in Arcade Battles. USS Flagstaff is heavier than USS Tucumcari, but is only slightly inferior to it in terms of maneuverability. It’ll still be easy to pass between trickier areas such as small islands and rocks, and at speed it can even jump small shoals. Perfect for getting to capture points in shallow water!

The main feature of the USS Flagstaff is its interchangeable main gun. You’re able to pick between the M551 Sheridan tank’s turret with a 152 mm gun, or a 40 mm Bofors automatic cannon to be mounted at the front. Both guns are very well positioned and allow for targeted fire at full speed during maneuvers. The short 152 mm cannon fires high-explosive rounds, where the first hit will likely be fatal to a boat or cause serious damage to a destroyer. The 40 mm Bofors does less damage, but fires automatically and is good at aiming at ranges. It’s worth noting that USS Flagstaff is slightly larger than USS Tucumcari: it’s longer and higher above the water when maneuvering forward, making it more stable when firing. The main gun is complemented by 4 x 12.7 mm Browning machine guns in two twin mounts, and an 81 mm mortar at the stern. This can be useful in attacks on stationary or slow targets, however you’ll need to stop the boat to fire, otherwise it becomes almost impossible to hit anything.



In terms of protection, USS Flagstaff’s armor is slightly similar to that of the USS Tucumcari and in practice can be penetrated by any caliber, including rifle calibers. Because of this, definitely try to avoid enemy fire as the USS Flagstaff will only survive when maneuvering around.



That’s today’s blog done! Tomorrow, we’ll continue talking about another vehicle reward that’s coming to the new Battle Pass season in War Thunder, starting on April 24th. See you soon!

In the War Thunder Roadmap for Spring-Summer 2024, we promised to talk about new effects for damaging ground vehicle crews as well as healing them. We also mentioned that these changes will be based on player voting. We’ll being going through our proposals today and would like you to take the survey — let’s jump in!

[h2]Additional effects on vehicles when armor is penetrated [/h2]
Most of us have experienced situations where penetrating lightly armored IFVs and APCs with large empty areas causes the shell and its fragments not to destroy or disable any crew or modules. This could also happen to tanks that are penetrated by shells with a narrow damage zone as well. When this happens, the shell and its fragments pass close to crew members and modules and sometimes even hits them, but is usually not enough to cause sufficient damage to stop the enemy from being able to fire back, at least for a short time.

We understand that this can be frustrating for the player who fired the shot, as from their point of view they did everything right. The enemy vehicle was hit, perhaps even close to vital modules, but they were subsequently unlucky.

We’re proposing three ways to solve this problem and plan to implement them in parallel. Let’s take a look at them.



The first way is to introduce a more detailed damage model to specific vehicles. There’ll be new types of modules, ranging from electronic modules for air defense vehicles, machine gun ammunition, electrical equipment, as well as detailing and correcting guidance modules such as the drives. This is labor intensive and painstaking work however, as it cannot be implemented for all ground vehicles in the game at once — each vehicle would require separate manual work. In particular as part of this task, we’re currently separating and detailing the elevation and traverse drives of the M1 and Leopard 2 series tanks with the addition of a hydraulic drive supply tank, where disabling this part will also disable the guidance drive.

The second way is to introduce new logic for damaging crew members and modules, which will reduce the likelihood of the situations we’ve described above, as hits will be effective even in these cases. Here’s how it’ll work. Any hit to a crew member causes a stun effect. When stunned, the camera will shake and sparks will be shown on your screen for a short period of time, about 1-2 seconds. Dealing damage to the gunner (or commander in vehicles with duplicate controls) causes a few seconds of concussion. It also causes the camera to shake, a ringing effect in your ears, and a temporary drift with a variable vector (a change in direction) is added to the gun aiming, which you’ll need to compensate for manually. In this case the initial aiming point when armor is penetrated moves away at the moment of receiving damage (taking into account the favor killer mechanics) to a random distance and direction within approximately 1/4 of the screen.

The third way is additional sources of fire in the fighting compartment, where damage to internal modules in this area may cause them to start an internal fire. Several things can burn and smolder inside a vehicle: crew clothing, wiring, machine gun ammo, plus rubbish and oil on the floor. In this case the fire can go out on its own, unlike an engine or fuel tank fire, and the damage it causes will be less than the damage caused by an engine or fuel fire.

[h2]Healing of wounded ground crew members[/h2]
Due to numerous requests, we’re also considering the possibility of introducing healing for injured ground crew members. How do crew injuries currently affect gameplay? When calculating the repair time, active crew members that have been skilled are taken into account (knocked out crew are considered not skilled). The percentage of remaining health is linearly converted into a repair time multiplier in the range from 0.5 to 1. The average value is calculated for the entire crew in the vehicle.

For calculating reload time, only loaders are used. In their case, the percentage of health is converted into a reload time multiplier from 1 to 1.25. A loader who has taken maximum possible damage but is still conscious has a reload penalty with a parameter value of x1.25 from the normal reload time. If they’re knocked out, the penalty increases to 2x. If there’s several loaders, the average value for all of them is calculated. For conscious crew members, skilled crews are taken into account.

We want to go with the simplest and easiest-to-use implementation for the healing of wounded ground crew members: the automatic healing of the crew. If the crew does not receive any damage within a given time, their health is restored to the minimum level required to remove most of the penalty for the crew to perform their duties. If any damage is received during the healing process, it stops and the countdown to the start of the healing process starts from the beginning.

[h2]Take the survey![/h2]
We’ve created a survey with a few yes or no questions that you can take. Be sure to complete it and submit it to us!

[h3]Please note that the survey will be available until April 19th 13:00 GMT.[/h3]

[h2]Graphics[/h2]

• A bug that caused shell craters on the ground to display incorrectly has been fixed.
  
• A bug that caused snow to only be visible when the camera moved 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.