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1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/a82c09080ad3758ee9b2f30d044205b6.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:300: [[{{Tagline}} Victory is Ours!]] ]]
3
4->''There is a beast, deep inside you.''\
5''It will not die.''\
6''It will fight back!''
7
8''[[http://warthunder.com/en/ War Thunder]]'' is a cross-platform MMO (PC, Platform/MacOS, [=PS4=], Linux), that has to do with vehicular combat between fighters and ground vehicles from pre-World War II, to the jets and main battle tanks that filled the battlefields early in the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. The game involves all five of the major aircraft players in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII: the United States, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union. And over time, many more planes and ships will be added. Open beta testing on the Windows PC began on November 1, 2012, with 200 aircraft and 600,000 players. On May 15, 2014 tanks and other armored vehicles were made playable, starting with the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Later patches gave the United States their own complete tech tree of armored fighting vehicles. A full line of British tanks came in December 2015, and French air and ground forces in 2017. The game was fully released on December 21, 2016. With update 1.77 in March 2018, the game finally implemented the first "modern" vehicles with the American M1 Abrams and British Challenger 1 main battle tanks, with more modern tanks being confirmed to be in the works. War Thunder's developer is Russian-based Gaijin Entertainment, of ''VideoGame/Il2Sturmovik'' fame.
9
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11!!This game provides examples of:
12* AcceptableBreaksFromReality:
13** Arcade mode, suitably enough for the fairly mindless shootfest it's intended to be, features such wild unlikelihoods as [=Bf-109s=] and P-51s on the same team, the Japanese fighting over Stalingrad, American planes bombing Pearl Harbor (!), ammunition reloading in midair and planes withstanding ludicrous amounts of G-forces and damage that should be enough to down a whole flight.
14** Averted in realistic battles, where players can't respawn, are limited to aircraft used by a specific side and must land to replenish ammunition and weapons.
15** ''Very'' averted in simulator battles, where everything follows the laws of physics and there is no videogame-style help for the player whatsoever - not even a chase camera.
16** Experimental and prototype vehicles are included to fill gaps in tech trees and provide game balance.
17** A damaged floatplane on a friendly airfield will respawn in the air when repairs are completed. The same goes for the Me 163 and Ki-200. This removes the severe problem that real-life Me 163s faced when jettisoning their wheeled undercarriage on takeoff: [[EpicFail the risk of the undercarriage bouncing back up high enough to destroy the fighter]].
18** Airfields are significantly closer to the enemy than would be the case in most real-life battles, so as to avoid the boring hours-long flight doing nothing that comes between engagements.
19** Destroyable scenery almost always flies away like a lego brick (even the trees) when you collide with them rather than shatter realistically. They also instantly lose their hitbox when this happens. This is likely so that they won't interfere with the physics engine, which can cause your tank to swerve out of control if your tank hits a rock at the wrong angle.
20** All difficulties of naval use a "crew knockout" system that is sort of like ground forces. Except de-facto its just a health bar system for the different parts of a ship's hull. In reality it would be extraordinarily rare for a ship to be rendered combat incapable by only losing the crewmen (although getting ''new crewmen'' into the ship would have to wait until after the fight was over), which were reasonably well protected so long as the threat to their existence wasn't explosive in nature. However, modeling ship damage accurately and having to wait for the ships to flood would make for some truly protracted (and boring) games.
21** The Sturmtiger added in 2.21 "Fire and Ice" update would take several minutes to reload in real life. Even if you survived that long in a match, the match would be mostly over by the time you reloaded. The developers cut it down to a still very long but more reasonable 40 seconds to make it actually playable in War Thunder.
22* AceCustom:
23** Pilot any plane through enough battles and you unlock the ability to modify it in a variety of ways which can improve its performance. This includes everything from installing a new engine, to polishing the airframe to reduce air resistance, to customizing the pattern of shell types in the plane's ammo belts to optimize them versus different target types. Kind of [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] though in that these improvements are only modest ones. Since 1.33, there are more customization options, but they are linear upgrades most of the time. The upgrades make it seem like every aircraft you get was well used and insufficiently maintained instead of being brand new out of the production line.
24** Several low-tier premium vehicles are simply tuned-up versions of themselves, painted to resemble the vehicle of a real-life operator such as Robert E. Galer's [=F3F=]-2 or President Kennedy's PT-109.
25** Taken to new levels with the E-100 super-heavy tank; a limited number of these were made available to winners of Esport tournaments held by clans of die-hard professional gamers, making them impossible for casual, recreational gamers to acquire.
26* {{Acrofatic}}: The Soviet SB-2M and Ar-2 medium bombers ''can out-turn the Spitfire''.
27** The Beaufighters have very high agility for a twin engine heavy fighter.
28** For a Medium Bomber, the controls on the Ki-49 are ridiculously responsive. One could say that it looks, and handles, like a giant Zero. Patch 1.39 has reduced the G-tolerance of the Ki-49's wings, making it unable to turn or pitch at high-speed without breaking the wing spar.
29** The [=F7F=] Tigercat of Patch 1.43 has been decried as being an American [=UFO=]: It's too fast and turns too tightly for its size. Either that or it's undertiered. Somewhat fixed as it no longer gets airspawn and now will fight low rank jets often.
30** The Hudson Mk.V added in v1.63; a twin-engined bomber that has proven capable of turn-fighting dedicated single-engined fighters ''and winning'' (albeit [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as a lone Hudson was documented having evaded attacks by several Japanese Zeroes for about ten minutes during WWII).
31* AirJousting:
32** Common with beginner players at lower tiers, but this usually ends up with both planes becoming a ball of fire, either by slamming into each other or knocking out each others' pilots and/or engines.
33** Very common at the higher tiers as well in arcade mode in the first couple minutes. Expect to see a hail of tracers, airplane parts, and maneuvering fighters the moment you enter the merge for the first time in a match. This is especially true of Airfield Domination matches that have three airfields to capture. It's not uncommon for players on opposite teams to try can capture the third airfield simultaneously, only for one to succeed while the other ends up being a fireball on the runway.
34* AirstrikeImpossible: Can be done in the Frozen Pass and South-Eastern City maps, which have tunnels; the latter having a long one that wouldn't look out of place in VideoGame/AceCombat.
35* AKA47: The 2017 April Fool's Day event had the "GM-64", which was an AH-64D Apache given a fake German designation. Later, when it was formally introduced in 2019, it retained its original designation.
36* TheAllegedCar:
37** The starting aircraft are mostly biplanes that can barely climb, and have peashooters for guns. But also averted in that those guns can theoretically kill the pilot of an F-86 Sabre with [[ImprobableAimingSkills one really lucky shot]], and the fact that biplanes can out-turn any other plane in the game. It’s also worth mentioning that the premium aircraft you get for free after the first mission if you’re playing as the UK is also a biplane (specifically, Robert Tuck’s Gloster Gladiator), but it has quite impressive stats and is able to put up an excellent fight against Spitfires and Hurricanes.
38** The Panzer IIC struggles to penetrate itself with its stock ammo loadout. Forget trying to penetrate anything heavier.[[labelnote:*]][[LethalJokeCharacter Though the higher speed makes it good for capturing points ahead of the slow heavy tanks and it can shoot out treads to make your enemies sitting ducks for allied fire.]][[/labelnote]]
39** The Soviet starter tank, the humble T-26, is extremely thinly armored, has an extremely slow reverse gear, and has very flat frontal armor plates; however, its ammo racks are in the very floor, making them difficult to hit, and its 45mm 20-K cannon can reliably penetrate and kill any other starter tank, as opposed to the Panzer IIC. It's best used in a sniper role, but is an infamous deathtrap in Arcade Battles, since you'll have a big fat target indicator over your head.
40** Somewhat averted by the Soviet starting planes, which - by virtue of having four medium-speed machine guns when the other biplanes have two slow ones - can make mincemeat out of other starters on most one-on-one fights and even tackle planes several levels higher with a fair chance of winning.
41** The ZIS-30 in the Soviet tank destroyer line counts as this. It's literally an armored tractor with a machine gun and a massive 57mm artillery gun strapped to the top, much longer than the tractor itself, at 2.7 battle rating, the same as the much heavier armored, 76mm-equipped SU-76M that succeeds it. It's got armor weak enough to penetrate with machine guns, is horribly vulnerable to planes and artillery (having its gunner and loader simply sitting on top sticking shells in the breach of the 57mm every time it needs to reload, and only having a gun shield in front of them). On the other hand, it's very fast and maneuverable, its engine can pull it up steep inclines, and its 57mm gun, despite only having 20 shells, can blow up the majority of tanks you will encounter in short order. It's particularly humiliating to the enemy if you manage to score a point-blank kill with the thing, owing to its sheer fragility.
42** Speaking of the ZIS series, the ZIS-12 is literally a potato truck with two autocannons mounted on the rear. Not so bad when every other country has something akin to it, but it's put firmly at the Battle Rating ''3.7'', the same as the near-game breaker T-34 series of tanks and the infamous 8.8 Flak! And no, it's armor is no different than the GAZ-AAA truck it so resembles. At that battle rating, anything so much as whiff in your direction and you're bound to explode. However, it's twin autocannons are one of the best for taking out enemy aircrafts, especially bombers, due to their fast rate of fire and staggered reload (one gun fires until empty and reloads while the other fires). It's comically thin armor also means that on the off chance your opponent doesn't know about overpenetration, he's liable to keep shooting at you in places where he thinks it will ricochet into something important, only to have it pass clean through without doing any damage.
43** Lower tier Japanese tanks are usually shunned because they don't behave like ideal tanks for brawling. Do recall that the lower tier Japanese tanks excel at mobility and ambushing. The original Chi-Ha is tactically restricted to howitzer-style supporting fire, but its later variants can easily deal critical damage to unsuspecting tanks of the same tier from other countries should the victims fail to check their flanks.
44** Also averted in general: If you see an enemy fighter, Google it, and the Wikipedia entry describes it as being "substandard" or something similar, such as the [=LaGG=]-3 or the P-40 Kittyhawk, a smart pilot will still attack it with reasonable caution. Enough instances of [[OneHitKO getting your pilot knocked out or your engine perforated]] will demonstrate why that is necessary.
45*** ''Especially'' the [=LaGG-3=] and P-40. A 20mm cannon at Level 1 and six .50 caliber machine guns at level 2 are enough to make being in front of one very, very dangerous.
46*** The [=F2A=] Buffalo was decried has being substandard when it came out in real life. But considering the first version fights mostly biplanes, it becomes very dangerous. It's faster, more durable, and has a bigger .50 caliber MG that will blow apart the older wood and fabric planes. Just don't try to out turn them.
47** Special mention to the Po-2. It's not normally available, but that's probably a good thing. It's a BR 1.0 biplane that makes other biplanes look like superstars. With a whopping 84mph top speed, its the slowest plane in the game. It's only gun is a single .30 cal in the back. It has an ok bombload, but even the much maligned Swordfish is over 50mph faster, carries more bombs, and has a forward facing gun. It doesn't even ''fall'' fast. At best you can safely dive in the 120-130mph range. The 5 cylinder radial engine looks like it was ripped off a lawnmower. Good luck trying to gain any altitude with it. Then it becomes an utter LethalJokeCharacter if one manages to use it correctly, seeing as how it flies slower than many other planes' ''stall speeds'', and its rear-mounted MG, with skilled aim, can snipe out the pilots and engines of higher-tiered aircraft slowing almost to the point of falling out of the sky, just to match speed with the Po-2. As of June 13 2015 (or earlier, it's difficult to find the patch) the PO-2 was removed from the standard USSR tech tree and can only be obtained by gift or the marketplace.
48*** As of September 2022, a floatplane version, the PO-2M was added as a crafting event reward. I has all of the same flaws, but with even more weight and drag added by the floats, making its lackluster performance even more horrendous. At the same time, both it and the normal PO-2 got access to unguided air to air rockets that can air burst after a tie delay, so they technically can engage aircraft in front of them now.
49** The U.S. TBD-1 "Devastator" Torpedo Bomber. In terms of practically every thing, it's worse than its successors in the American Bombers line, the PBY-5 and 5a. The payload of air dropped munitions is modest[[note]]Either 12x 100lb or 2x 500lbs and 6x 100lbs bombs[[/note]], while the PBY aircrafts can carry 4x 1000lb bunker busters, and only carries a modest ''two'' guns, a 12.7mm for the pilot and a 7.62mm for the tail gunner (compared to the PBY's forward double 7.62mm turret, tail 7.62mm, and two 12.7mm waist guns, one on each side). The good news is, it can fly just fine at about 85+ MPH without stalling. The bad news is, anything beyond 130+ MPH, starts to be rather interesting for anyone used to similar Battle Rating aircraft, in the sense of deploying the landing gear or even ''using combat flaps''. Doing so risks them being torn right off the aircraft the second they're extended. Make note that speed is entirely possible with the aircraft flying level without diving. Speaking of diving, for being ''improperly'' listed as "Dive Bomber", the one thing it can't do, is properly ''dive bomb'' ground/sea targets. It doesn't have any sort of air brakes. If you go into a standard attack dive with this thing, even with the throttle cut to zero, it can exceed 200 MPH. Guess what happens at 200+ MPH with a Devastator. Good luck pulling out of a dive when the ''wings shear off''. Really the only things the Devastator has over the PBY is that it has a lower stall-speed, better turning ability, and doesn't need as much runway to land.[[note]]And even that is laughable, because at least the waterborne PBY-5 is completely capable of making a safe, wheel-less belly landing in Realistic Battles at 180 MPH. As mentioned above, the Devastator's landing gear rips off above 130 and landing at that speed on its belly tends to be rather more disastrous, with the plane violently torn apart in 3 to 5 pieces thrown in multiple directions.[[/note]]
50** The He 162 "Salamander" is this for jets. It has horrid acceleration and climb, the engine overheats like mad, and the armament is somewhat underwhelming (2 x 20mm MG 151. Not horrible, but unimpressive compared to allies and foes alike). It can turn, to be sure... as long as you only plan to turn once, and then die, as it only turns at high speed, and it loses all of it should you turn. There has been talk back and forth for years about whether its Flight Model is accurate, and if it should be moved to face weaker foes, but so far, it currently sits exactly where it did years ago: at the back of the hangar of most players, collecting dust.
51* AnachronismStew:
52** In general, for the sake of balance, vehicles are grouped by their battle effectiveness rather than the period of their usage by any given nation. For example, Italy and Japan have American ground vehicles like the M4, M24 and M26 tanks in the same battle ratings as other nation's World War 2 tanks. While it's not historically accurate since those nations only got American vehicles ''after'' the war ended, given the atrocious performance of real Italian and Japanese tanks during the war, adding American tanks does give these nations a fighting chance against other nations with historically superior tanks.
53** In a similar vein, some vehicles developed way after World War 2 are grouped alongside [=WW2=] vehicles in battle ratings in order to stand a chance in combat[[labelnote:*]]usually real-life support vehicles that you would [[NotTheIntendedUse never see used the way they fight in-game]][[/labelnote]]. So for instance you might see [=SPAA=]s from the 1960s or even the ''80s'' alongside much older [=WW2=] tanks, or Skyraider attack aircraft fighting late [=WW2=] superprops.
54* AntiAir:
55** The Germans get a flak tank and the Soviets get a flatbed with an anti-air turret fastened onto the bed. They're generally pretty useless (if [[NotTheIntendedUse highly entertaining due to their blinding effects]]) against other ground targets, but both are quite good at stripping the tracks off tanks. The Soviet flatbed has the added weakness of being a WeaponizedCar with next to no armor and the inability to fire directly forward.
56** The Germans have several Flak Panzers like the Wirbelwind, Ostwind, [[SuperPrototype Kugelblitz, and Coelian]]. The Soviets now have more decent [=SPAAs=] in the form of the ZSU-37 and ZSU-57-2, the latter of which is even capable of destroying heavy tanks at mid-range. Finally, the Americans have several M3 Halftrack variants mounting pairs of .50 cals, the M19 and the M42 Duster armed with two twin 40-mm cannons, and as of v1.63 the M163 [=VADS=] with a 6-barreled [[GatlingGood M61 Vulcan cannon]].
57** The AI anti-aircraft gunners guarding the airfields on ground strike maps are NOT to be underestimated, as detailed in the SchmuckBait entry below.
58** Update 1.87 introduces the 2S6 Tunguska, which not only uses the newly-added radar mechanic to lock onto and track targets (which was retroactively added to other applicable AA vehicles as well), but is the first vehicle in the game to feature surface-to-air missiles, making it one of the deadliest AA vehicles in the game at the time of its introduction.
59** All but a few low tier boats in naval forces have some form of anti-air AI gunners. A lot of boats and ships also have the ability to fire AA burst shells from their main battery.
60* AprilFoolsDay:
61** In 2013, Gaijin Entertainment released a trailer showing [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic cute, colorful ponies]] as [[JustForFun/PoniesWithPikes the new playable faction of Equestria]]. Then they actually updated they game to include said ponies, each packing four 20mm machine guns, 8 rocket tubes, and 2 half-ton bombs. Oh, and they each flew like a high-speed rocket plane. However, after April 1, 2013, they've been removed and haven't appeared since.
62** 2014 had players fighting a [[GiantEnemyCrab Giant Enemy Snail]].
63** 2015 had ''two'' events, one being an "alpha test" of a new prototype WalkingTank and the other being "[[SillinessSwitch Unrealistic Battles]]" in which players battle each other in bicycle-powered inflatable Sherman tanks firing vegetables at each other. It was a very thinly veiled TakeThat at ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks''.
64** 2016 features the [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Royal Navy]] tech tree, which is mainly composed of sailing ships. [[spoiler: A Kraken that will attack you]] at the edge of the map as well. In addition, all the menu and battle music was changed to sea shanties and ''[[Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean Pirates of the Caribbean]]''-esque music. This actually turned out to be a bit of {{Foreshadowing}}, as Gaijin announced plans to implement playable naval vessels just a few months later.
65*** A meta-example: Gaijin decided to [[LampshadeHanging poke fun]] at accusations of CreatorProvincialism by announcing a job vacancy: [[http://gaijinent.com/en/jobs/director-of-russian-bias-en Director of Russian Bias.]] Likewise, members of the War Thunder forum had their titles changed to Tovarish, technical moderators changed to Tractor Mechanics, and community managers became First Secretaries of the Bias Party. One even has the title General Secretary of the Bias Party!
66*** Gaijin also offered players a chance to buy the [[TheBackwardsR Яussian Bias Advanced Pack]] which contained the T-34-100, T-44-122 and Yak-3 (VK-107) premium vehicles and the in-game title of "Master of Russian Bias." Anyone who had already bought all three of those vehicles individually could also earn the title by using any high-tier Russian vehicle of their choice to kill at least 50 enemy players between April 1 and April 4.
67** 2017 brings us an open beta of Rank IX (the highest at the time was V) vehicles, featuring the Leopard 2A5 and T-90A main battle tanks, and the Mi-35 and [[{{AKA47}} GM-64]] attack choppers. This proved to be another example of {{Foreshadowing}} of future content via an April Fools event, since September 2018 introduced helicopters (including the Mi-35M) and March 2019 introduced Rank VII ground vehicles (including the Leopard 2A5).
68*** Considering Brexit was triggered a few days earlier, Gaijin made a reference to this...by offering a [[http://warthunder.com/en/news/4608-news-a-revolt-in-war-thunder-en/ discounted bundle of British (and American) vehicles]].
69*** Even Thunder Show chimed in for the occasion with its [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-6UWCxJXCc episode]] featuring rather mundane gameplay clips [[StylisticSuck shot from the senders' phones]]. Oh, and the prize? 5000 ''Silver Lions''.
70*** The Shooting Range [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TcbJLHJ6sA episode]] on the same day has also joined the celebration by having its opening narrated in Russian. [[spoiler: Opening the captions only reveals [[CaptionHumor "bli bli bli"]] throughout the intro.]] And it includes the [=XF5U=] Flying Flapjack, [[StupidJetpackHitler some top-secret Nazi spaceship]], a monster truck, and the Hotline section giving out rather ridiculous answers to commenters' questions.
71** 2018 brings Silent Thunder which features modern submarines (Yasin, Virginia, Vanguard), an innovative sonar mechanic, and torpedoes that can be switched to remote-control or self-homing.
72** 2019's Earth Thunder saw {{Flying Saucer}}s slugging it out with [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]], a nod to the community's nickname (UFO) for planes with unrealistically good flight models.
73** 2020 has [[SpaceBattle Space Thunder]] which features manned {{Space Fighter}}s. Keeping up with the theme is an [[SuperPrototype Object 279]] (the ''quadruple tracked'' tank that's famous for having a hull shaped like a flying saucer) crafting event.
74*** Gaijin has "designed" a [[https://warthunder.com/en/news/6672-new-revolutionary-war-thunder-controller-en universal controller]] optimized for the game.
75*** There is also a special [[https://warthunder.com/en/news/6666-shop-special-stalinium-bundle-en Stalinium]] bundle, a nod to the meme of the same name.
76*** And then there's a [[https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/481541-update-010420-4pr1l-f001s/ joke changelog]] overdosed with references to community [[InJoke In-Jokes]] such as the inclusion of the Mirage fighter and the constant complaints on the English Electric Lightning's in-game performance (the latter has an item with a [[TakeThatCritics not-so-subtle jab at the complainers]]).
77** 2021 crosses right into ReferenceOverdosed territory, with events such as:
78*** The appropriately-titled [[VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077 Warfare 2077]], which pits futuristic land and air units against each other over the D, E, and F points; the last one a nod to the "Attack the D point" meme.
79*** Another event, [[WesternAnimation/TaleSpin TailSpin]] incorporates CelShading and anthropomorphic animal pilots themed after the early-nineties cartoon. The game also retitled itself "War Toonder" in accordance to this game mode.
80*** In a nod to the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Suez_Canal_obstruction recent obstruction at the Suez canal]], the ''Ever Given'' can be seen grounded in naval maps.
81*** The War Thunder wiki joins in on the fun by adding [[https://wiki.warthunder.com/Bob_Semple an article]] on the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank Bob Semple tank.]]
82** 2022's Worm Thunder is a thinly-veiled ShoutOut to VideoGame/DuneII.
83* ArbitraryWeaponRange:
84** Air-dropped Torpedoes have been changed in a recent patch to not cause any damage if they land too close to the target ship.
85** Some Artilllery SPG's wth proximity fuzes (like the Bandkanon and Type 75) have a 300m arming distance, meaning you'll do next to nothing with them if you fire from within that range.
86* ArrowCam: More like tank-shell-cam, but still. In Arcade Battles, a display in the top right shows the path your shell took when striking an enemy. As the display can be used to more precisely aim follow-up shots (and gives very precise detail on damage inflicted) to strike specific components, it can be quite useful.
87** After dying, a similar (but full screen) tank-shell-cam is played of the kill shot, showing where it came from, where it penetrated and what damage it did. This gives the player an indication their own tank's weaknesses and what tactical mistakes they made to get killed.
88* ArtificialStupidity: The AI-controlled ground vehicles are easy to distinguish from player-controlled vehicles since they travel in pre-programmed routes to specific points, have poor accuracy (when they do shoot), and make no effort to use cover or angle themselves to defend against incoming fire. They are basically fodder for any player, and even a player riding a starter tank can blow up a higher-tiered AI tank with ease, as they're just so easy to outsmart.
89* ArmorIsUseless: Normally averted, but sometimes armor is just so thin or poorly angled that it might as well not be there at all. For example:
90** Unarmored vehicles in the first rank or so of Ground forces can be deceptively hard to put down. This is because most people carry primarily (or exclusively) AP rounds which just sail right through the vehicle and out the other side. By contrast, many of the early tanks have paper thin armor that only serve to prime AP shells. This has been mitigated to an extent with the addition of the [[CriticalExistenceFailure Hull Break]] mechanic, which causes a OneHitKill to any lightly-armored vehicle hit by a powerful enough gun.
91** At first you might think that all the Soviet armored boats might be a case of CreatorProvincialism, until you realize that this trope is in effect instead. Very few of these boats have armor thick enough to do much against machine guns much less auto-cannons. The ones that get anywhere close are sluggish due to all that armor which makes them vulnerable to torpedoes and bombs.
92** Played straight among Tier V heavy tanks as their thick steel armor can be easily penetrated by sabot and [=HEAT=] ammunition used by less heavily armored opponents of similar [=BR=] rating.
93* AscendedMeme: War Thunder's social media and website is rife with references to memes about the game.
94** Nods to such memes and in-jokes are usually found in their AprilFoolsDay events.
95** An example outside of April Fools: The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ojZ-Wdle9o first teaser]] of the Drone Age update (2.19) pokes fun at the incidents relating to leaks of classified documents on their forums.
96* AttackDrone: Armed drones were introduced into the game in late 2022, first represented by the Orion (Russia), Wing Loong I (China), and the MQ-1 Predator (USA).
97* ATasteOfPower:
98** The second part of the tanks basic tutorial lets players control a Panther II tank, which has a Battle Rating of 7.0 (10.0 being the highest).
99** Also the case with the 2017 April Fool's event, which let players control the Leopard 2A5 main battle tank. Fast-forward to update 1.87 in March 2019 and the Leopard 2A5 is added to the game for real and is arguably the most powerful tank in the game as of that update. The same April Fool's event included the Mi-35 attack helicopter, which was added to the game for real with update 1.81 in September 2018.
100** You can take the majority of premium vehicles for a test flight/ drive/ sail. Even the ones that are supposed to be late-game content.
101** August 2020 saw the Tank Biathlon event, based on the real-life Russian Tank Biathlon. The event allowed players to take control of top-tier Russian and Chinese MBT's such as the T-80U, T-72B3, and [=ZTZ96A=], even if the player was nowhere near high enough in the tech tree to have access to these tanks (the T-72B3 not having been officially added to the game at the time).
102* ATeamFiring: Most air battle maps feature enemy and allied AI-controlled ground units such as pillboxes, tanks, artillery guns and ships. Of the hundreds of shells they fire none of them seem to actually hit their target.
103* AttackItsWeakpoint: Out of rockets and cannon shells for that bomber? Shoot its engines and watch it spiral back to the ground.
104** Tired of getting shot by a bomber's machine gunners? Simply shoot them and knock them out.
105** Let's just say that this is about the ''only'' way you're knocking down most bombers unless you're flying a specialized bomber-hunter with heavy cannons and/or air-to-air rockets. This was completely changed in 2018, as now anything with 20mm/25mm/30mm (or higher!) will destroy bombers by "sneezing" in their general direction. This is somewhat realistic to real life.
106** Shooting the cockpit has a high chance of killing the pilot, which results in the plane going down, and you saving ammo for other planes.
107** Anyone in the Ground Forces will tell you that this is essential for dealing with enemy tanks - their damage model is as detailed and accurate as in the air combat so even in Arcade mode, a tanker will still have to do as the real ones did and aim for vulnerable points such as viewports, turret rings, and any flat or lightly armored surface. For tanks that have a hull-mounted machine gun port, this is almost always a weak point. There's even modeling for such [[ImprobableAimingSkills ridiculously improbable shots]] [[https://youtu.be/i12HkvhUEHQ?t=810 as shooting down the length of an enemy gun barrel]].
108** In addition they also have to try to hit important things inside the enemy tank. A shell that over-penetrates and does minimal damage to any internal systems has little to no effect on a tanks operation, so it's important to aim for things like the crew, engine, or ammo rack. Knowing the anatomy of a given tank is ''very'' useful when trying to kill it.
109** Some tanks only have anti-armor shells available to them, meaning they will over-penetrate almost all the time. The only way to mitigate this is to intentionally aim for enemy crewmen, engine and ammo, as killing all but one crewmen or igniting the ammunition will still destroy the tank without causing massive structural damage.
110** The ammo rack is universally a weak spot for all tanks, as igniting it either causes a fire (which will slowly consume the tank) or can explode the tank in a single shot, especially if the enemy tank packs HE ammo. Thus knowing the ammo placement of tanks can be essential in dealing with them (especially tanks that pack rockets or missiles, as these technically count as ammunition and are completely unarmored).
111** Hitting the engines compartment(s) on boats and ships can not only damage the engine but leave it at the risk of drowning. A still ship is much easier to hit with artillery.
112* AttackOfThe50FootWhatever: April Fool's 2014 had players conducting an air raid against a gigantic snail.
113* AwesomeButImpractical:
114** The two rocket planes, the [=Me163=] Komet and Ki-200 Shusui, are the fastest planes in the game by a fair stretch going at almost 1000km/h, but have so many drawbacks they're essentially useless. First, you have only 4-6 minutes of fuel at most, most of which you'll spend getting to the fight in the first place. Second, while they have a pair of formidable 30 mm cannons, the amount of ammo they carry for them is laughable. Third, with just a single landing skid and no real flaps or airbrakes to speak of, they're very difficult to land, with you far more likely to end up being spread over the entire length of the tarmac. Fourth, their fragile wings are very prone to getting torn off in high speed turns, making high speed dogfights very risky. And finally, to add insult to injury, even if you do manage to land the damn thing, the lack of actual landing gear means you'll come to a ridiculous lurching stop, resting on one wing.
115** Base rushing at the team level can certainly count, especially for players trying to earn their double XP bonus for the day (although the double XP daily bonus was removed in patch 1.47). While, it may seem like a worthy tactic that will end the match quickly, it often results in half the players on the winning team barely getting any points, and thus, any experience. This gets particularly frustrating for some when the match in question leaves them stupidly close to an aircraft or upgrade they want.
116** Torpedoes, which theoretically let you get very accurate one-hit kills on ships but come with the caveat of requiring you to fly thirty meters above the water at less than two hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, making you a sitting duck for the ship's anti-aircraft guns and any enemy fighters wandering past.
117*** Even the improved torpedoes that let you fly higher and faster still have an enormous lead distance to hit a moving target. Even in realistic, dive bombing is often a better choice as destroyer flak can be quite deadly.
118** The KV-2 Soviet tank from Ground Forces. It has a 152mm howitzer as its main gun, making it capable of one-shotting most tanks with HE rounds. Unfortunately, the gun takes over 30 seconds to reload, it's one of the slowest tanks in the game, it turns horribly, it can't rotate its turret at any sort of usable speed, and its turret is very, very tall. It's nicknamed the "Tower of Stalin" due to it being essentially a castle on tracks in terms of size, armor, and movement speed.
119*** However, in Arcade matches it's a beast when in the right hands. It also makes for hilarious [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxqRUMS05EI Youtube videos]].
120*** As well, a KV-2 can do exceptionally well in Simulator Battles if it finds itself on a map where it can get up close and personal, such as the city on the Poland map. The close ranged fighting negates most of the difficulty in aiming the 152mm gun and the slower pace of the mode usually allows ample time for the KV-2 to reload.
121** The British FV 4005 has even the KV-2 beat, with a whopping ''183mm'' cannon firing HESH rounds that can and will disintegrate whatever you point it at. The downside? A comically long reload time clocking in at 39 seconds stock, and paper-thin armor surrounding the gigantic turret, which houses the ammo and most of the crew.
122** The Hs-129B-3 in ground forces. It's a plane that mounts a 75mm Tank Cannon. It would be great for killing player tanks... if it were not so underpowered horsepower wise that it nearly falls out of the sky every time it tries to turn. Hitting anything with the cannon can be quite difficult too. Unlike the similar PBJ it lacks bombs to use as a backup.
123** It's possible, though quite difficult, for a bomber (or a bomb-carrying fighter) to drop a bomb and have the resulting explosion destroy a pursuing enemy aircraft behind them. Popularized by Youtube gamers such as WebVideo/TheMightyJingles, it's common to see bombers attempt to fly low to the ground to try to sucker any fighter behind them into falling for this tactic. While it does take a high degree of skill, timing, and quite a bit of luck to actually pull it off, the results can be completely worth it.
124** The Maus is a 188 ton steel behemoth whose thick armor and powerful 128mm gun made it the definition of a MightyGlacier. However, it has atrocious mobility even for a heavy tank, is a huge target for bombers and its rate-of-fire is pathetic. Also, unlike other German heavy tanks, the Maus faces off against Cold War era vehicles whose sabot and [=HEAT=] rounds can punch through its rolled homogeneous steel armor as if it were cardboard. Eventually, the unviability of the Maus lead to it being removed from the game's tech tree and could only be obtained as a premium vehicle. However, in recent years it has been frequently re-added to the tech tree as a temporary unlock, allowing players to work towards owning one for themselves.
125*** As a whole, Rank V heavy tanks like the Conqueror, M103, and IS-3 suffer from the same problems as the Maus. While they have thick armor and gigantic guns, they also suffer from low rate-of-fire, large profiles and poor mobility. Also because of PowerCreep and [=BR=] compression, these heavy tanks end up facing off against more advanced opponents armed with the ubiquitous sabot and [=HEAT=] rounds that can punch through their steel armor as if it were cardboard. In many ways, this mirrors the real world obsolescence of heavy tanks in the 50s and 60s.
126** The Sturmtiger added in the game's 10th anniversary fires enormous 380mm high-explosive rockets which can potentially destroy two or more tanks with one hit if they're close enough, though takes almost a minute to reload and only carries about a dozen rounds. Plus the weapon has such a huge muzzle that it's entirely possible to [[AttackItsWeakPoint shoot down the barrel and hit the round inside]] and detonate it, destroying the vehicle from the inside out. Additionally, the ballistics of the rocket can be difficult to master as well, leading to people blowing a hole in the ground a couple dozen feet in front of themselves and missing the target entirely.
127* BackwardsFiringGun: Damage to the breach of the tank's cannon can cause it to misfire. Attempting to fire with a damaged breach has a fairly high chance of causing the shell to explode in the breach, instantly killing the crew.
128* TheBackwardsR: Two notable examples have appeared in the game; first in 2016 as part of the game's annual AprilFools shenanigans, players could earn the title "Master of Яussian Bias" (as an act of LampshadeHanging towards players who accuse the developers of CreatorProvincialism). Later in June 2021, promotional artwork for Update 2.7 had an image of a Soviet [=MiG=]-23 and the title "Яed Skies".
129* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: An aircraft that has no hope of escaping from a swarm of enemies or making it back to an airfield can opt out to [[TakingYouWithMe ram another opponent]] so that no one gets credit for shooting it down.
130** A dying tanker may call in artillery on themselves to take out a nearby attacking enemy.
131* BigBulkyBomb:
132** Both the British and Soviets have this; the British Wellington & Lancaster bombers can carry the 2-ton HC "Cookie" bomb while the Soviet Pe-8 can carry the FAB-5000 which [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin as the name implies]] weighs in at 5,000 kilograms and is the largest single bomb in the game. Both bombs are so massive that the Wellingtons and Pe-8's carrying them have to have their bomb bay doors removed in order to accommodate them.
133** Version 1.77 brings the SC 1800 "[[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Satan]]" for the Luftwaffe, which weighs in at close to 2 tons and is the largest bomb in their inventory to date.
134* {{BFG}}: Several of these:
135** In tanks, the Soviets have their legendary 152mm howitzers on the KV-2 and SU-152 which can one-shot almost anything, even ''modern-day main battle tanks'', albeit at the cost of a painfully slow reload. The Object 120 also has a 152mm gun, but it's so long it effectively ''doubles'' the overall length of the vehicle. The largest-caliber (conventional) gun on any ground vehicle however has to go to the British [=FV4005=] Stage II; a post-war tank destroyer built to face Soviet IS-series heavy tanks armed with a whopping 183mm rifled gun. The German [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Sturmtiger]] added as part of the game's 10th anniversary however wields a fearsome ''380mm'' rocket mortar which fires colossal high-explosive rockets meant to level ''small buildings''. Needless to say, very few vehicles have the means to [[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi repel firepower of that magnitude]].
136** Several ground-attack aircraft have had quite sizable cannons shoehorned into them for use as tank-busters; the American PBJ-1H and German Hs 129 B-3 have had 75mm cannons fitted into them. The Italian P.108A Serie 2 however has them both beat with a ''102mm'' nose-mounted cannon, the largest gun installed in any aircraft in the game to date.
137** In naval forces, you have the battleships of Update 2.0 "New Power" packing arguably the largest guns in the entire game; the [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarOne WW1]]-era dreadnought-type vessels fielded by the US, Russia, Japan, and Britain each were tied for largest-caliber primary armament with each battleship mounting [[MoreDakka numerous turrets]] armed with 12-inch (305mm) guns. This was later superseded by the Japanese superdreadnought Hyuga, which brought her 14-inch (356mm) guns to the game in the "Hot Tracks" update. These were later quite literally blown out of the water with the addition of the Japanese battleship Mutsu in 2024's "Alpha Strike" update with her eight 16-inch (410mm) guns arranged in four turrets.
138* BiggerStick: Though not always the best, players packing a more advanced fighter does have an advantage over those that don't. Also averted in that biplanes can knock down jets with a well placed shot.
139** Same goes for the tanks. While generally medium tanks can curb-stomp light tanks, heavy tanks can curb-stomp mediums etc. (especially in Arcade mode, where hiding isn't an option since all tanks have identifying markers over them at all times), this is not always the case. It is entirely possible, for example, for a single light tank such as a T-50 or an M5 Stuart to wipe out entire platoons of German Panzer [=IIIs=] and [=IVs=] in one game. Just don't try to get into a slugfest with heavier tanks when you're playing a light one; exploit your superior mobility and [[AttackItsWeakpoint know their weak points]].
140* BlindIdiotTranslation: The English version's text is almost always comprehensible, but is often written with bizarre phrasing and choice of words. For example, it says "In the case of damage, reparations can be made at a control point", which would make slightly more sense if the tanks were financial ledgers.
141** Reparation ''does'' have a definition that matches the usage, however, it's an archaic usage at best, and it doesn't work with the 's' added at the end.
142** Other text snippets meant as advice for tankers are also quite bizarre. Examples are "Do not stand near the bomb" (presumably referring to the arcade battles' airplane bombs land near opposing tanks yet not exploding until 10 seconds later because of the arcade-mandated delay fuse) and "For firing heavy armored targets composite shells are recommended".
143** "FPE". Fire Prevention Equipment on tanks... doesn't prevent fires. Instead they are fire extinguishers.
144* BombWhistle: Every bomb dropped by an aircraft will have this trope applied to them. It's also played realistically as the sound will become louder or quieter depending on your distance from the falling bomb (which can allow targeted ground vehicles to make a desperate attempt to flee the blast zone before impact). In arcade ground battles, all aircraft bombs have a time delay so they won't explode upon impact with the ground.
145* BossWarningSiren: An air-raid siren will blare out if someone flies with a nuke-carrying aircraft in ground battles.
146* BoringButPractical:
147** American planes generally eschew the autocannons common on German and Soviet plans in favor of craploads of [=12.7mm=] Browning [=M2s=] - i.e. the P-47's ''8'' [=M2s=]. This gives them great sustained damage due to the weapons damage and reliability even if that means they lack the pure burst damage of something like a [=Yak-9K=].
148** Bombers tend to be slow, not very maneuverable, and can take a minute or more to reload depending on the plane and your crew levels. However, they're best and safest way to damage ground targets in Arcade Battles, particularly bases, pillboxes and armored vehicles. A competent bomber pilot can earn a head-start for their team that the enemy can't possibly recover from.
149** The [=12.7mm=] pintle-mounted machine guns on ground vehicles may seem unflashy and redundant compared to their main weapons but they're invaluable when it comes to easily shredding lightly armored ground vehicles and aircraft. Even against tougher opponents, they can disable the main gun and tracks, turning enemies into sitting ducks to be destroyed by bigger weapons.
150* BottomlessMagazines:
151** In arcade mode it's more like bottomless ammo reserves. The magazines themselves do run out, but all you need to do then is to break off for about half a minute while the guns reload from a HammerSpace reserve. The same applies to bombs, taking about one minute to reload on bombers, while fighters equipped with bombs take a few minutes. Realistic and Simulation battles avert the trope: players must land in order for ground crews to reload their weapons.
152** Averted in all modes for Ground Forces tanks, where players must stop in a friendly control point in order to replenish their ammo. Still averted for machine guns and autocannons mounted on aircrafts, as you usually get enough time for one reload during each flight. Bombs and missiles don't have enough time to reload in arcade ground battles though.
153* BribingYourWayToVictory: A few examples include:
154** Golden Eagles, the premium currency, which have several uses.
155*** Convert Free Exp to rapidly increase your rank in a selected military. (Getting to Rank 20 may take a year or two.)
156*** Convert to Silver Lions. (vehicles prices start getting prohibitively expensive at Rank 5.)
157*** Buying Premium vehicles that are fully upgraded and earn 100% XP and 2x Silver Lions. They also have the added bonus of allowing you to "skip" directly to another vehicle tier.
158*** Accelerate Crew Training. (Translation: Buying XP for a Green and Incompetent crew instead of taking the very long route of grinding kills for them.)
159*** Recruit additional crews beyond the regular five allowed. (The 4th and 5th crews only cost Silver Lions. The 6th and above crews cost Golden Eagles.)
160*** Buying Talismans that earn 100% XP for regular vehicles.
161*** Buying Upgrades for regular vehicles immediately instead of waiting until they have enough XP for them.
162** The Sherman Calliope - [[{{Nerf}} when it was first introduced, anyways]]. It's a rank 2 Premium tank that costs nearly 10,000 golden eagles. For perspective, most rank 4 premiums cost around 7,500 GE. What's so good about it? It has a 60 round ROCKET LAUNCHER that can kill tanks in an instant, with each of its rockets firing right after the last. They do have poor accuracy at range, but that often doesn't matter much on arcade maps. Its battle rating sits at a measly 3.7, so that after its rockets are gone, it can still be effective with its 75mm main gun. Shooting its rockets used to do no damage, but they've since been patched to work as [[MadeOfExplodium ammo racks]], and subsequent rocket-armed vehicles have followed suit.
163** Before the near-universal backlash that followed, the only way you were going to be able to put bushes on your tanks was with 2000 golden eagles.
164* CameraAbuse: The game fully simulates weather effects on the aircraft, causing the planes to wobble if caught in an updraft. But they also rock around when the plane is too close to Flak Shells going off, or too close to a bomb going off. Flying too close behind a plane that has an oil leak can cause oil streaks to obscure your vision, which can be a serious problem in a low altitude knife fight. Pulling too many [=Gs=] in a maneuver will cause the camera to briefly black out to greater or lesser degrees depending on the crew's endurance level and how extreme the turn is. If the craft even goes into negative [=Gs=], this can potentially be a red-out instead.
165** In ground forces, firing mid-to large caliber shells while scoped causes the large amount of smoke and dust caused by the shot to obscure your vision. Depending on the size of the shell the amount of obstruction can be anything from a thin cloud that lasts half a second to a massive plume of smoke that lasts a good few seconds.
166** Also in ground forces, you are able to use the camera at a maximum zoom-out to effectively look over ridges and around corners to see a potential enemy ambush while the enemy themselves can only see you if they are above you or right around the corner themselves. The fact that it is somewhat difficult to keep the turret aligned so that you can peek-a-boom balances this ability out.
167* CaptainObvious: The radio chatter voices every time your plane takes a critical hit.
168* CharacterTiers: InUniverse, A game mechanic. Tanks and planes have a "Battle Rating" which determines how they are matched up with other players in matchmaking; usually by the period of a vehicle's production. A starting biplane, for example, will almost never be put in the same lobby as someone with, say, a F86 Sabre fighter jet.
169* CherryTapping: nothing like getting an expensive high-tier bomber effortlessly blown out of the sky by a reserve plane that's been leveled enough to mount rockets.
170** Or worse, having your pilot killed by a plane that can only mount a single .30 cal machine gun.
171** Certain low-tier planes (especially the Russian [[LethalJokeCharacter I-16 and I-153]]) see play in high tiers since they can consistently out-turn the faster and better-armed fighters they're up against.
172** You'd be completely in tears if your expensive, heavily-armed tank or tank destroyer was knocked out by say...an M22 Locust or T-50.
173** One of the reasons that the FSE Fire Extinguishers are recommended as the first thing you research after tracks is because your tanks are VERY easily lit on fire, which is a death sentence unless you can put it out. Wait too long and the enemy will get out the marshmallows.
174** Low rank howitzer SPG's such as the Spj fm/43-44 and 15cm sIG 33 B Sfl are notorious for killing modern tanks they should have no right destroying with thier huge HE shells, and farming the "God Mode!" award with relative ease.
175** The A-1 H has a literal toilet bomb, an actual porcelain throne packed with a small amount of explosives. The damage to your opponents is likely to be as much emotional as physical. It's also TruthInTelevision , based on a real incident Commemorating the 6 millionth pounds of explosive dropped over vietnam.
176* ColdSniper: Tanks with powerful guns can pull this off; finding a spot with a good field of fire on a high-traffic area the enemy is likely to come through and one-shotting anyone careless enough to expose themselves. Casemated tank destroyers (German Stugs & Jagdpanzers and Soviet SU-series) specialize in this, since getting in the middle of the battlefield makes them easy targets for enemies attacking from the sides or rear.
177* ColorCodedArmies: Played with. All of the planes and tanks are painted in the manner of which they were painted historically. But there is a theme for most of the aircraft.
178** American planes are either olive-drab or silver for land-based aircraft, and different shades of blue for carrier based aircraft and float planes.
179** German planes are typically painted dark green, or khaki depending on the theater paint scheme unlocked.
180** Soviet Planes are usually painted bright green, or solid white, although some aircraft are different shades of green for camouflage, with the later fighters being left bare metal.
181** RAF aircraft are usually painted with a camo pattern. Although a few of them are painted a blueish grey.
182** Imperial Japanese aircraft are either all white, or green on top with white on the bottom, but it's hard to mistake that big red meatball on the wings.
183** On the Ground Forces front, American tanks are painted in a dark green, Soviet tanks in a light yellow-green/ khaki combination, while German vehicles are divided in gray for early-war vehicles and dark-yellow/camouflage combo for mid and late-war vehicles. Japanese vehicles vary, but usually they're olive green for early-mid-tier tanks or spring green for later ones. British vehicles are all dark-green.
184* ComingInHot: Played straight when trying to land a damaged aircraft on a runway. Successfully landing on a friendly runway, even if it is a crash landing, will allow the plane to be repaired and returned to the battle, while crashing the plane anywhere else will keep it out of the battle and potentially cost the player Lions after the match. This is especially important on Realistic Battles, where the player cannot deploy in any other planes once one is down.
185* ConservationOfNinjutsu: Skilled players can, and do, manage to pull this off both at the individual level (one friendly vs many enemies), and at the meta level where they are the last ones alive, against several opponents... and win.
186** This is easier to achieve in tanks than it is aircraft.
187* CosmeticAward: Some of the awards grant players access to new emblems for their planes, as well as new paint schemes.
188* CriticalFailure: "Gun Jammed" indicates that one or more of your guns have seized up, leaving your plane with less firepower than before. This can be potentially fatal when you're chasing an enemy or making a head-on attack. Doubly so on planes with only one cannon, and the gun that seized up is aforementioned cannon, leaving them with two, or even worse one, subpar machine gun.
189** "Cannon Barrel Damaged" or "Cannon Breach Damaged" can be a death sentence if you're stupid enough to try and fire the main gun without repairing either one first. A few instances of your tank exploding when you pull the trigger should be enough to make you consider making sure you have the spare parts researched on your tank as soon as possible. Most of the time, your barrel being damaged or knocked out will just stop you from firing.
190* CriticalHit: One bullet in the right place, and a plane becomes a poof of dust in the sky, or a charred wreck on the ground. Or remain a perfectly good plane... with a dead pilot at the helm, soaring majestically in a curving trajectory that only has one possible ending. Oh, and your bombs ''can'' be set off by enemy shots if they're really lucky.
191** The same is true of the tanks. A shell in the right place can disable the horizontal turret drive, the cannon breach, knock out or kill particular crewmen, [[EveryCarIsAPinto start an engine fire or ignite the fuel tanks]], [[StuffBlowingUp detonate the ammo racks]], etc.
192* CripplingOverspecialization: Played straight.
193** Fighters can take down enemy aircraft with ease, but are less than useless against any ground targets harder than an armored car without any bombs or rockets. Whilst tanks do tend to have poor top armour, aircraft guns generally can't get a good enough angle to punch through them.
194*** Mounting rockets or bombs on a fighter greatly reduces its agility.
195** Attackers can engage anything, but pay for it as they are usually slower than fighters, but lack the armor of a bomber.
196** Float Planes can only land on water. Which is great if you need to set down, not so great if you're trying to capture a runway in Domination Mode.
197*** Flying Boats, though, can easily belly-land on a runway, and most of them are so hard to kill that a capture is almost assured.
198** Bombers can carry a large number of bombs, but must rely on their gunners to take down fighters that attack them, and are typically very slow. In real life, bombers were typically guarded by escort fighters that would either accompany them to the target or sweep the area ahead of them and engage anything getting close, but since these are other players we're talking about, well... needless to say, most of the time, [[InTheEndYouAreOnYourOwn you're on your own]].
199*** Some bombers are actually frightfully good at averting this. Due to incredibly tough hulls and fairly heavy turreted armament, it's possible for some heavy bombers to rack up more air kills than a decently competent player in a fighter simply by... flying straight. If you're ever attacking a bomber and it suddenly levels out, that's a good sign to call a retreat; this often means that the player has switched to manual control of the turrets and is about to focus all his firepower right on ''you.''
200** Using Japanese Bombers is complicated by the fact that they have two separate types of bombs. The gist is that AP Bombs are for Ships only while Ground Bombs are for Ground Units only.
201** Anti-Air trucks are good for killing planes, capping ground zones, and not much else.
202** The [=ZiS=]-30 trades armor, maneuverability, gun handling, and ammo load for a gun that can easily kill tanks a full rank higher than it.
203** Most tank destroyers in general trade a turret in exchange for mounting a larger gun than that chassis could normally mount. Not a problem at longer ranges, a huge problem when that light tank has managed to outflank you...
204*** Averted of course for the American destroyers, which have semi-enclosed turrets. This comes at the cost of thinner armor vulnerable to SPAA fire, though. And the open-top turrets mean any fighter can kill the crew via strafing.
205** The Type 93 SAM is essentially a Japanese short range surface-to-air missile launcher mounted on a [[FragileSpeedster very fast but unarmored]] utility vehicle. Unlike other AntiAir vehicles, it lacks any sort of gun or [[PlayerGuidedMissile manually-guided missile]] to engage ground targets in a pinch (its missiles won't even fire unless they [[MissileLockOn lock on]] an aircraft), making it hopeless in a fight against enemy ground vehicles.
206* CriticalExistenceFailure: Played with. Some aircraft can take an enormous pounding, and still be able to fly normally. But one shot to the cockpit and that plane is toast no matter how little damage it's taken. On the same token, all it takes in some cases is to knock off a stabilizer or an engine, and the plane is done.
207** The stabilizer being shot out can become an annoyance ''very'' quickly, especially when dealing with a fighter on your tail. Literally all it takes to put you out of the fight is a single shot severing the control lines or a lucky burst blowing your stabilizers off. If you're skilled or very lucky, you can possibly use your flaps and throttle and limp back to base for an [[ComingInHot emergency landing]], but those not skilled or lucky enough to regain control of their plane and avoid other enemy players looking for an easy kill are flat out of luck. This is completely unrealistic as bombers *rountinely* had their vertical stabilizers shot off in WWII and were able to land by using the other flaps, but this is coded as "tail shot off" and therefore an instant kill.
208*** Speaking of luck, another way to get a CEF is to be set on fire by incendiaries. There's no real way to put on a fire in your aircraft (Sometimes you can snuff an engine fire out by cutting throttle, but this can create even ''more'' issues as your damaged plane's airspeed drops like a rock); all you can do is pray it goes out in time. Any longer than a few seconds, you're automatically ejected from your plane, which is listed as "burned down"
209*** Engine fire extinguishers for aircraft were finally added in late 2022. However, for single engine planes and helicopters, its still probably a CEF, as your engine will most likely be destroyed after the fire is put out, leading you to rapidly losing altitude. Averted for multi engine bombers however.
210** Likewise with the tanks; just about every game is going to have someone get a one-shot kill simply by putting that shell in the ammo magazine. Creator/MichaelBay [[StuffBlowingUp would be proud]] of the results.
211* DeathFromAbove: As typical for Aerial warfare, this is probably the best method for engaging enemy fighters and bombers.
212** The preferred method of attack for Dive Bombers like the SBD Dauntless and Ju-87 Stuka
213*** The preferred method for engaging ''any'' ground target, whether dropping bombs, launching rockets, or simply strafing with a fighter's machine guns.
214*** Patch 1.37 adds a number of aircraft with obliquely-firing 20mm ''Schrage Musik'' cannon that fires 45 degrees upward, inverting this trope. Note: this means that the guns fire directly UP, not in front/side/rear like almost all guns on bombers or fighters. "Recommended" strategies of using these guns include going beneath bombers (that are constantly shooting you from above straight down) and flying ''upside down'' to strafe ground targets.
215** Artillery strikes and player-controlled aircraft in Ground Forces too.
216* DeathOfAThousandCuts: standard procedure for downing someone in a plane several tiers above yours - it takes a ''lot'' of machinegun bullets to kill a plane armored against cannon shells. Also, the only way heavy bombers can ever be shot down without using rockets or scoring a lucky critical.
217** While they can suffer one-shot kills, tanks can also take a hell of a lot of punishment, either because the shots aren't penetrating or they are and just not hitting anything important inside. This is also the default situation when two opposing Panzer II Ausf C reserve tanks meet - their armour is thick enough that their 20mm cannons can't penetrate it.
218*** Shockingly averted by the Wirbelwind Flakpanzer: Despite the contrary belief that [=WW2=]-era autocannons are not anti-tank weapons, a hundred AP rounds [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYRbwvYDlXc will eventually get through into the vital interior]].
219** Parts of certain nations' ground tech trees play this trope to some extent:
220*** The American 37mm cannons, due to that they lack HE filler in their AP shells. However, they fire really fast to make up for the lesser killing power.
221*** A huge chunk of the UK tank tree eschews HE filler in favor of better penetration, making this trope a characteristic of British tankers.
222*** The French rely on solid shot to an even greater degree than the British; prior to Rank IV, only sever vehicles in their main tech tree (the [[JokeCharacter former reserve]] AMC.34 YR, Crusader Mk. II, Char B1 bis, [=SAu=] 40, the 105-mm Sherman, the AML-90, and Char 25t) use HE filler.
223** A sufficiently-armed coastal ship (sub chasers and minesweepers for example) can take out their blue-water counterparts if you put enough shells onto them (provided they can pierce through the armor in the first place).
224*** Of particular note is an Italian Frigate called the Saetta P-494, it is one of the few boats in the game with airbursting twin 40mm cannons, which absolutely shred all other Frigates, PT Boats, Sub Chasers, destroyers and even lightly armored cruisers, provided they themselves aren't blown up within the relatively close range of 4.9km. It is also armed with anti-ship missiles in case the hail of shrapnel wasn't enough, and with a battle rating of 4.7 (2021), it ''can'' be matched in relative novice matches.
225*** Just like the USS Douglas (4.0BR) premium coastal frigate and its infamous missile spam.
226* DifficultButAwesome: Bombers are for primarily hitting ground targets which are too hardened for fighters to strafe effectively, while being vulnerable to fighter interception themselves. However, with enough points invested in their gunners and[=/=]or being able to manually control those gunners while making evasive maneuvers with the keyboard, a skilled bomber pilot can actually engage and shoot down enemy fighters quite effectively, while being better able to withstand their fire.
227** American planes tend to be this in general, though this is particularly true for the P-47 variants. High top speeds, straight line energy retention and firepower makes them excellent Boom and Zoom fighters, but a lack of turn and climb rate makes effective energy tactics absolutely critical to success.
228** Killing an attacking plane with a tank's main cannon. Really hard to do, but WILL 1 shot the plane. Before machine guns on tanks worked, this was the only way to defend yourself from air attack. As the game has progressed, it's ceased to always be an automatic kill, at least not with non-exploding rounds like APCR and sabot; such rounds need to actually hit the pilot rather than just anywhere on the plane to be a guaranteed 1-shot. HE tank shells on the other hand will always do things like blow off wings with even a glancing blow.
229*** As of 2021 (and perhaps before), shooting a helicopter down with a tank shot has become a meme, as there are likely dozens of youtube videos showing main battle tanks hitting a helicopter and the game will show "Critical Hit" and then the ''helicopter gains altitude and proceeds to kill the tank'', if not automatically putting out the fire and continuing the match, and killing more tanks. Especially hilarious ''when the real tail rotor is completely missing'', because in real life the rear rotor prevents the helicopter from spinning like a top, hopelessly out of control, mainly because the pilot would be plastered to the wall of the cockpit if the engine was not cut into a controlled fall, or the helicopter would gyroscopically flip itself over.
230** The [[PlayerGuidedMissile SS.11 missile]] of the Raketenjagdpanzer 2, which is controlled in flight with the keyboard, can hit targets without a direct line of sight. However, steering a missile into something that you can't actually ''see'' is incredibly difficult even if you know exactly where that enemy tank is over the crest of a hill or around the corner of a building. Indeed, even when you ''can'' see your target, the SS.11 is harder to use than the IT-1's Drakon and the M551 Sheridan's Shillelagh, which are guided by simply keeping the mouse on the target.
231** The automatic grenade launchers found on american helicopters. They're very short range, and have awful ballistics, but the HEAT grenades they're equipped with can penetrate the roof armor of any tank for large amoutns of damage.
232* DistinctiveAppearances: Played straight, as the player can unlock a variety of decals (all based on RealLife aircraft art) to customize the look of their aircraft. Interesting, [[AcceptableBreaksFromReality a player may apply decals only ever used by the side oppose the one of the planes they are customizing]].
233** Different models of the same aircraft will often have a different paint scheme.
234** And now with the custom skin system, you can go hog wild customizing your vehicles, but only you will see it.
235* DodgeByBraking: Played straight, as [[TruthInTelevision used as in real life]] during a dogfight to shake and enemy and get on their tail instead. Drop the throttle, extend the flaps or airbrakes (if you have them) and jink, corkscrew, yo-yo, or DoABarrelRoll. If the one in pursuit cannot shed energy fast enough, they will overshoot the one they are chasing and may find themselves becoming the chased one instead. However, deliberately going to a low energy (low speed and low altitude) state does tend to leave one vulnerable until more energy can be built up, so if the former pursuer has nearby teammates this can leave the braking plane vulnerable.
236* DressingAsTheEnemy: A viable strategy in Tank Simulator Battles provided that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSGqsldK8iw you have a captured vehicle that matches the nationality of the opposing side and painted it over to look like the real deal]]. Although this can [[FriendOrFoe potentially backfire]].
237* DyingMomentOfAwesome: The 8/15/14 trailer had two particularly spectacular examples. See TakingYouWithMe below.
238** Any time you manage to shoot down the fighter that killed your bomber, or both tanks kill each other with their last shot.
239* EarlyGameHell: The starting "Reserve" tanks are terrible to varying degrees, with poor armor being universal. The American [=M3A1=] Stuart is very fast but has brakes made of cheese and a design that makes most penetrating hits knock out the entire crew, the Panzer II has a pathetic [=20mm=] cannon, and the Soviet T-26 has a miserable power to weight ratio. The only thing potentially saving you is that the enemy tanks are just as awful as your own. The starting biplanes are very maneuverable... and that's about all they are good for; huge silhouettes, pathetic weaponry, and low horsepower mixed with a high drag coefficient make them a flying liability.
240** If you thought the Pz.II C was bad, now there's the [=M2A2=]. Armed with only a 50 cal MG with 28mm of penetration at point blank, and only 15mm of armor! It can't even penetrate the II C frontally.
241* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: ''War Thunder'' has a pretty strict rule of no "fake" vehicles, and that includes ones that were actually designed but never got past the blueprint or wooden mockup stage. But when the game was completely focused on the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII through UsefulNotes/KoreanWar era, they made exceptions to fill in the gaping holes at what were then the top tiers for Germany and Japan, since their development of combat vehicles abruptly stopped in 1945. Germany got the Tiger II (10.5 cm Kw.K) for Ground Forces, and Japan got the [=R2Y2=] Kai series of jet attackers for Aviation. These were all only concepts that never even got to the blueprint stage, but were added anyway to fill those tech tree holes. Germany also got a [[InNameOnly "Panther II" with a turret and 8.8 cm gun that the real Panther II prototype never mounted]]; while the hull actually existed and the 8.8 cm Panther turret was designed, it was intended as an upgrade for the regular Panthers and not the already-cancelled Panther II. In Update 1.91 (5 years after they had been introduced), Gajin removed the Tiger II (10.5 cm) and the Panther II from the tech tree and made the hidden gift vehicles available only to players who'd already unlocked them, while adding postwar tanks imported from America as their replacements in the tech tree. But the [=R2Y2=] jets remain in the Japanese tech tree due to the complete absence of any suitable real aircraft to replace them.
242* EpicTankOnTankAction: Ground Forces ''lives'' on this trope. You have a total of 16 players on each team, and each can bring in up to 3 tanks a piece (since Patch 1.43), that's '''''96''''' tanks in a single match. Plus even more AI controlled tanks!
243* EverythingBreaks: Played with in ground combat; tanks can crush, shoot, and otherwise destroy vegetation, fences, and various other parts of the maps, but house-sized and larger buildings cannot be damaged. This has be expanded to include buildings in v1.53, though is limited to the Berlin, Cologne, and Stalingrad maps.
244* EveryBulletIsATracer: You have the option of using Ammo Belts that are 90-100% Tracers if you're still having a lot of trouble hitting the target with any other loadout, or want to light up enemy planes with a salvo.
245** Bonus points for the Soviets. While the tracer configuration for other countries tend to have five or so tracers (that bounce off harmlessly from metal), the Russians have fully API-T (armor piercing incendiary tracer) for every single aircraft they pilot. Not only does it look incredibly intimidating, they can also light up a plane in one attack run. The Americans also get API-T belts for many planes.
246** So-called "stealth" belts invert this trope; they don't contain any tracers at all. The idea is that the enemy doesn't realize they're being fired upon until [[OhCrap their aircraft starts to break up around them]]. They're tricky to use (the lack of tracers makes adjusting the shots a lot harder), but a skilled player can [[DifficultButAwesome ambush enemy aircraft and destroy them in seconds]].
247* ExperiencePoints: Used to gain access to new aircraft and ground vehicles for a specific country. These are earned by doing things to help your team towards victory. Players that don't contribute however, get nothing, while players who do contribute are rewarded based on what they do. Players also acquire crew points to distribute between crew members such as the pilots and gunners.
248* FailedASpotCheck: Sometimes happens with the players in Ground Forces. You will see players run into a cap circle that had only ''just'' been captured, and sit there, despite the fact that the player who just captured it is right around the corner with his gun lined up on the other guys [[OneHitKill ammo-rack]].
249** The AI Tanks that dotted the Ground Forces maps in the early days were even worse about this. They will easily shoot at anything that moves so long as it's an enemy. And will keep shooting at it until it's destroyed... more often than not however, they just become a very easy source of credits and experience for players looking to farm some easy kills.
250** Tanks in Realistic and Sim now no longer get that handy target marker. You have to spot all tanks with the Mark One Eyeball. It's all too easy (and painful) to drive right by an enemy and get blasted in the ass for it. Even worse in sim, allied tanks don't get markers either, so you have to be really careful to avoid friendly fire. Wild blasting at the first thing you see can get you fined.
251** In late August 2016, Gaijin posted an episode of their "Thunder Show" video series on their Website/YouTube channel. The video included a clip showing a KV-2 with custom markings endorsing Creator/DonaldTrump's presidential campaign. The backlash and flames in the comments section led to the video being deleted less than a day after it was posted.
252* FalseFlagOperation: Not an actual gameplay mechanic, but many premium aircraft are planes from different nations tech trees painted up in another's colors, such as a US Navy [[UsefulNotes/KatanasOfTheRisingSun A6M5]] or a Luftwaffe [[UsefulNotes/BritsWithBattleships Wellington]].
253** Some alternate unlockable skins for non-premium planes also can fall under this. The He-112 V-5's most difficult skin to unlock renders its appearance to that of an Imperial Japanese fighter plane (white body w/ red trim and "meatball" Rising Sun deco), even though the V-5 itself wasn't exported to Japan. The third Ki-45 in the Japanese forces also gets a post-war scheme where it's in the colors of a captured plane being evaluated by the USAF. And then the P-40 Kittyhawk on the American roster can ultimately have schemes for American, British, Canadian, and even New Zealand.
254** With the introduction of the "world flags" decals, a player can make any plane bear the colors of any country - including a Luftwaffe aircraft displaying the flag of Israel.
255** The same is true of the Ground Forces, with one of the German premium tanks being a captured [=M4A2=] Sherman.
256** Averting this is why captured premiums aren't allowed in simulator ground forces.
257* FixedForwardFacingWeapon:
258** The guns on fighters naturally, as well as on some bombers such as the American B-25 Mitchell and A-20G. In ground vehicles, there's casemated tank destroyers that have no turret and instead have the gun mounted into the hull facing straight ahead. [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] with the British Archer, which has its gun mounted facing ''backwards''.
259** Most torpedo-armed playable vessels in the Naval Forces mode have fixed torpedo tubes that can only fire forward, while vessels with trainable torpedo mounts (such as on destroyers and cruisers) avert this trope.
260** Some tanks and tank destroyers, like the Marder III, Dicker Max, Brummbar, Hetzer, SU-122, SU-57B, SU-76D, Alecto and Tortoise all have front facing guns without hull mounted turrets.
261* FlawedPrototype: Several vehicles in-game are this in RealLife, with one of the most recent examples being the Tiger (P) added in Patch 1.45.
262* FluffyTheTerrible:
263** Germany has the Maus, which is actually the biggest and most heavily-armored tank in the game.
264** The "Tiny Tim" rockets available for some US aircraft are the largest air-launched weapon of their type in the game, being the size of an anti-ship torpedo. 140 pounds of explosive crammed into a rocket makes things dead.
265* {{Foreshadowing}}: Gaijin has sometimes used AprilFoolsDay events as beta tests of some sort for new features.
266* FragileSpeedster: Japanese ''naval'' fighters. Justified as in real life the only way to achieve the speed and agility they had was to sacrifice armor protection for the pilot and fuel tank. Sure, a well placed round will turn a [=A6M=] Zero into a fireball, but good luck actually hitting it. They aren't so much fast as agile. Compared to planes of other nations the Zero is fairly slow, but it makes up for it with incredible maneuverability.
267** By contrast, Japanese ''army'' fighters had varying armor--for example, both late-war Ki-84 and Ki-100 fighters had good armor protection and self-sealing tanks), whether this has been modeled for the Ki-84 is up to debate. The Ki-61 is decently armored for its tier.
268** Light tanks in general.
269*** Armored cars make this trope Exaggerated. They have even less armor than Light Tanks, but are even faster as long as there's a good road around.
270** The M18 Hellcat introduced in Patch 1.70.1945 is certainly this as well as GlassCannon. While having a powerful gun for its tier and battle rating, not to mention very good cross-country performance, this all comes at the great cost of having almost non-existent armor.
271** Almost all Coastal Fleet boats fit this, being not much more than speedboats with guns. The rest are (relatively) MightyGlaciers.
272** Jet fighters. Not only they tend to eschew armor in favor of raw speed, but even light damage has a very negative effect on their flight performance.
273* FriendlyFireproof: Averted. Players who shoot down a friendly are often penalized HARD for it. So much so, that often no matter how well you do after the match, you WILL lose credits AND experience if you so much as shoot down one friendly fighter.
274** With the fact that rounds can actually over penetrate a target with thin enough armor, and keep going, you not only have to pay attention to where your target is, but where your team-mates are in relation to where your gun is aiming. It is entirely possible for that shot to go through an enemy, do zero damage to him, and then hit an '''''allies''''' ammo rack, and kill him instantly, resulting in a stiff fine for you, and endless laughs for your original target.
275** In simulator ground forces battles, allied and enemy tanks don't get target markers. You have to be sure that speck on the horizon is hostile, and not friendly.
276*** Later averted in October 2016, when Gaijin disabled friendly fire for ground vehicles in realistic and sim modes in response to [[{{Griefer}} excess team-killing]].
277*** However, its still possible to team kill with bombs and rockets from planes to ground forces, making this a ZigZaggingTrope.
278* GameplayAndStorySegregation: Late tier Japanese planes are often just American planes, as for [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki obvious reasons, Japan wasn't in terribly good shape after 1945]]. The highest tier Japanese jet fighter, for example, is just an American F-86F-30 Sabre fielded by the post-war [=JASDF=], though it's since been superseded in Patch 1.87 with Japan's first indigenous fighter aircraft, the Mitsubishi T-2 fighter/trainer (which also led to the development of the F-1 Kaizen attacker). Some of the vehicles on their ground vehicle tree are American ground vehicles fielded by the post-war [=JGSDF=] until Japan got around to building their indigenous designs, such as the Type 74.
279** It's the same story for the Germans as well, with the last jets being the [=MiG=]-23 in East German colors, and an F-4 Phantom in West German markings.
280* GatlingGood:
281** Version 1.63 adds the M163 [=VADS=]; an M113 armored personnel carrier converted into an anti-aircraft vehicle with an [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M61_Vulcan M61 Vulcan]] mounted on it. It has a rate of fire of [[MoreDakka three THOUSAND rounds per minute]], making it the fastest-firing gun in the game to date.
282** Many of the helicopters added in Version 1.81 feature Gatling-type weapons as well, ranging from 7.62mm Miniguns on the UH-1 Huey and AH-1G Cobra, four-barreled 12.7mm Yak-B machine gun on the Mi-24 Hind-D, to the M61 Vulcan's tri-barreled little sister, the M197, on the later-model Cobras.
283** The M61 itself was later added to both air and sea vehicles, on US planes such as the F-4 Phantom and the F-104 Starfighter and also the Japanese license-produced [=JM61=] variant, seen on the Mitsubishi [=T-2=] for air and the [=PG 02=] patrol hydrofoil for sea.
284** The A-7D Corsair has an internal M61 Vulcan and can also mount two additional gun pods with either more M61s or the 30mm GAU-13/A rotary cannon, a derivative of the famous GAU-8 Avenger.
285** Finally, A-10 and MiG-27 with 30mm cannons were properly introduced.
286** The Vietnam era A-1 H Skyraider provides a rare piston engined example, being able to mount an astounding eight rifle caliber miniguns on the pylons under its wings. Oh, and it can still use its 4 20mm cannons at the same time.
287* GeoEffects:
288** Skilled players will often fly nap-of-the-earth when they're trying to avoid enemy fire. The results vary, but it can be rewarding when you miss a mountain by inches, and the plane behind you... doesn't.
289** Effective use of terrain to provide cover and concealment is often the hallmark of a skilled tanker in ground combat.
290** One of the two main strategies for attack helicopters in the game is to fly as low as possible and use terrain to avoid detection while sniping with anti-tank missiles from a distance.
291** Update 2.11 (Ground Breaking) allows a select number of vehicles equipped with dozers and to invoke this. Large enough bombs can also produce craters on impact.
292* GlassCannon:
293** In low levels, the Chaika. It mounts four machine guns and they fire twice as fast as the other biplanes, effectively giving it about ''four'' times the firepower of every other biplane that isn't soviet (and twice as much as even them), and making it capable of attacking planes several tiers above its own with a fair chance of winning. However, it's just as resistant to damage as the other biplanes - that is to say, it'll go down in flames if someone so much as throws a handful of pebbles at it.
294** At higher levels the Japanese - mirroring their RealLife [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII WWII]] designs - have several planes that hit ''very'' hard, but have very little armor and will be swatted out of the sky by any equivalent-tier plane that's survived their first attack. Japanese tanks also play out similarly, trading armor for respectable firepower.
295** The CR.42 Falco mounts two 12.7mm machine guns which allows it to wreck other early planes almost effortlessly and put the hurt on higher level aircraft. However, it's made of the same stuff as every other biplane: wet tissue paper.
296** Open topped Tank Destroyers, in particular the [=ZiS=]-30. No armor to speak of, HE shells and MG fire will wreck it. But it mounts and absolutely devastating 57mm cannon that will knock out tanks a tier higher than it.
297** The IS-2, due to its main opponents being the late-war German tanks and tank destroyers, which are armed with comparable anti-tank guns and comparatively better armor.
298** Any light tank with a big gun for its tier, the Chaffee and Walker Bulldog being great examples.
299** Most of the UsefulNotes/WorldWarII era American Tank Destroyers count, in particular the M36.
300** The Gepard and Flakpanzer are this in Arcade Battles. Due to having only 2 crew members, they die if either of their crew is taken out...which is an issue because the gunner is sitting in an open-topped turret. However their autocannons are powerful enough to penetrate tank armor of the same tier with mere glancing hits, crippling any tanks that lock eyes with them for more than a few seconds.
301** The Archer is this among the British ground vehicles, packing a 17-pounder cannon but with virtually nonexistent armor and an open-top layout. On top of that, it has ''rearwards''-facing gun, meaning the player has to be really cautious in positioning lest they get to be on the receiving end of both artillery and airstrikes (both of which are almost guaranteed to destroy it).
302* GratuitousForeignLanguage: Some vehicles play to this with their names; Japanese planes will often have "ko", "otsu", "hei", or "tei" to denote various models of similar designs. Some German vehicles are also known by their German names instead of any model number, such as the Nashorn, Sturer Emil, and Brummbar.
303* GrenadeLauncher: As of patch 1.69, some low-tier and most top-tier tanks now feature functional vehicle-mounted grenade launchers that can launch a volley of smoke grenades to provide concealment.
304** Several american helicopers mount grenade launchers in chin mounted turrets.
305* GuideDangIt: Partly thanks to the BlindIdiotTranslation, and somewhat poor in-game guide explanations, it's best if one goes searching for Website/YouTube video guides if you're new. The game otherwise almost expects players to have a decent basic understanding of military equipment as it worked in real life.
306** '''Ammo''': One of the biggest causes of new players shouting cries of "OMG, how'd you survive that, this game sucks!". Too little penetration, and your shots will bounce harmlessly off. Too much penetration, and unless you directly hit a critical part or crew member, your shots will do virtually nothing. Additionally, the wide variety of ammo can be confusing. For example, Adjustment Incendiary rounds for machine guns are not the same as Incendiary/API/API-T rounds. Adjustment Incendiaries causes minimum/no damage on impact, simply sparking when it hits a target to give a more visible indication of where in general your shots are hitting. They do not have the increased chance to spark a fire that regular Incendiary does. Tracer and Ball ammo is great if you're fighting primarily bi-planes, but awful once metal skinned aircraft are your foes.
307*** Likewise, new tank players often scramble for Armor Piercing, Composite, Rigid shells due to their listed extremely high Penetration ratings, when it would be better to use Armor Piercing Capped type rounds, especially when the enemy tank is at a sharp angle of deflection. Knowing which shell has just enough AP rating to get through the armor and hard equipment of a tank, then bouncing around inside of it, and shrapnel producing effect (via either High Explosive filler, spalling from the impact of the tank, the stream of molten copper from a HEAT round) is vital to improving your skill.
308** Equipment and Crew location knowledge is also vital. Riddling a plane or tank's central body is nowhere near as effective as targeting the equipment and crews. Causing a wing to tear off by hitting the area it joins the body (which is also where the fuel tanks often are), shooting the engines or cockpit of a plane is easier than dumping over half your magazines into the sturdy framework of the aircraft and hoping it falls out of the sky. The same goes for tanks: targeting ammo racks, fuel tanks, and engine parts can make short work of a tank. Knowing where the crews likely sit can buy you precious extra seconds, or knock out the tank as well.
309*** '''Energy Fighting''': If you play realistic or simulator battles, understanding energy fighting is an essential skill, yet the game does not teach you how or why it works. To simplify energy fighting: Every aircraft in the game as it flies has two types of energy: Potential Energy, which comes in the form of altitude, and Actual or Kinetic energy, which comes in the form of airspeed. These two types combined form one's total energy state. Being in a higher energy state allows for you to dictate the terms of the engagement, and thus gives you the advantage. Many players in the game either don't understand the need for an energy advantage, or believe that one must have an altitude advantage to have the advantage in energy. They completely disregard that it is entirely possible, and sometimes advantageous, for one to be at a lower altitude yet be in a higher energy state than the enemy aircraft. Once you know how much energy you have, fighting becomes a battle of trying to expend the least amount of energy and make your opponent shed most of his. None of this is ever explained in game.
310** Gaijin didn't explain how Air Domination and Front Line modes work, so you have to read the forums, test them out in a custom battle, or watch Website/YouTube videos to know the objectives.
311* GullibleLemmings: It's not unusual to see 4 or more members of your team chasing after a single enemy in a long conga line, vying to be the one who gets the kill. This, as one might imagine, makes them incredibly easy targets themselves. It's even a viable strategy to send a single plane down low as bait, wait for the whole enemy team to pounce on it, and then dive on them from above at your leisure.
312** In such situations, it is also not uncommon to see multiple pursuers crash into each other, [[NeverMyFault then start screaming at each other about trying to steal kills.]]
313*** And that's assuming they don't just shoot each other to pieces without noticing.
314*** To add insult to injury, in Arcade AB, the game will then most likely throw up a warning telling you to stop shooting at your teammates or it will return you to the main menu. This warning shows up the moment even one of your shots flies past one of the followers, regardless of how long they're in the line of fire or if it even hits them at all. It gets rather annoying very quickly!
315** Some players will continue to follow an enemy player even through difficult terrain, or past obstacles in the hope that the enemy player will either break off and go somewhere else, or smash into the ground.
316** Wise players however are frighteningly good at averting this. If they see that too many players are latched onto a single enemy, they'll break off and go somewhere else. Or try to swoop in whoever is looking to harvest easy kills from those players. Or, if they see that the player they're chasing is trying to scrape them off on the canyon wall, they'll lag back, climb, and wait for a better moment to slot in and shoot him down.
317*** In arcade they'll dive and use speed and evasion to drag any overzealous enemies on their tail back towards the friendly spawn point, leaving them at a low altitude state to allow for a pack of freshly spawned and frustrated friendlies to vent a bit of anger on the easy, low-flying hapless foes and clearing their tail at the same time.
318* GunsAkimbo: Several tanks mount multiple turrets, which can be independently aimed to engage multiple targets simultaneously. The [=M3=] Lee, for example, has a hull-mounted 75mm, a turret 37, and a 12.7 machine gun turret on top of the 37. The T-35 is the master of this with ''FIVE'' gun turrets!
319** Many Anti-Air vehicles pack multiple guns, with some of them packing quad mounts.
320* GuyInBack: Several of the aircraft have them in the form of gunners. However they're blind as a bats when the AI controls them, but when you control them, they get ImprobableAimingSkills. Fortunately, investing in crew experience can mitigate this issue.
321* HistoricalInJoke: The ultimate fighter on the Russian tree, the [[UsefulNotes/RedsWithRockets MiG-15]], is painted up in North Korean livery. This is most likely a reference to the fact that the Russians secretly sent many pilots into the UsefulNotes/KoreanWar to build up a pool of experienced jet fighters. US pilots would refer to them as "Big Daddies" or "Honchos", since the Russian pilots were [[BossInMookClothing typically much better]] than their [[RedShirts North Korean comrades]].
322** With the pattern of version numbering in the game [[note]]increased by increments of 0.02 per major update, for example 1.43, 1.45, 1.47[[/note]], most players expected the next major patch to be 1.49. Then Gaijin rolled out [[http://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/236023-war-thunder-update-1701945-weapons-of-victory/ Update 1.70.1945]]. Then you realize that it's been almost 70 years since the end of [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII WWII in Europe.]]
323* HitAndRunTactics:
324** The most commonly used method of attack against more agile fighters. Get about 2-3000 feet above them, then dive down on top of them all guns blazing once you're in range. If the attack hasn't killed them use the speed built up in the dive to run the hell away before they can target you in retaliation.
325** Also the tactic of choice for light tanks and armored cars, as their laughable armor will get them killed if the enemy does as much as look in their general direction.
326* HomingProjectile: Version 1.85 added air-to-air guided missiles, which unlike the [[PlayerGuidedMissile anti-tank]] missiles in the game, don't require any further guidance from the player after launch. This is played realistically though as the first missiles to have been introduced are short-range, heat-seeking missiles which can be evaded through evasive maneuvers or decoyed with a volley of countermeasure flares.
327** As the game has progressed in technology and come closer to the modern era, a plethora of air to ground and air to air guided missiles of all types have been added.
328* HotSubOnSubAction: The 2018 [[https://warthunder.com/en/news/5419-silent-thunder-the-first-test-of-the-new-game-en Silent Thunder]] game mode.
329* ICallItVera: Players can pick and choose different nose art from the Allied decal list. All of which are actual nose art, from actual aircraft.
330** And a whole host of inscriptions for each nation, ranging from BadassBoast to InsultOfEndearment.
331* IneffectualLoner: Good teamwork is necessary for survival and victory. Even a Bomber flying at high-altitude needs help from another Bomber or an escorting Fighter.
332** Fighters should not attack a group of Anti-Air units unless they are distracted by other friendly aircraft. This goes double for ground forces mode, player flak is much more deadly!
333** At low levels this gets inverted. Due to the general inexperience of most low-level players and a tendency for many of them to just dogfight instead of going for the mission objectives, a single competent pilot that makes a beeline for the nearest ground targets, instead of ineffectually flying about in search of enemy planes to swat out of the sky, can turn the tide of the whole match.
334* InfinityMinusOneSword: Advancements in shell production led to the German "Minengeschoß" shell, basically a high-explosive shell with twice the explosive of your average allied shell- And German anti-aircraft ammo belts are full of them. Add that to the hail of lead that can be discharged from an FW-190-A4's quad 20mms or the whopping [[MoreDakka ''six'' that can be strapped to a FW-190-A5/U2, the most heavily armed fighter of the war,]] and you've got a reasonably versatile fighter that can saw the wings off of heavy bombers with minimal effort. According to the battle rank system, the A5/U2 is on par with several jets that weren't even flying until ''years later-'' Meaning that in arcade mode, players flying high-tier FW-190s are put in matches with them out of fairness.
335* InterfaceScrew:
336** Flying too close behind a plane with an oil leak will cause your vision to gradually become obscured by oil until you're completely blinded, though breaking away for a few seconds alleviates the problem. Similarly, pulling too many positive G's in a turn will cause your vision to grey out and dim until you level out, while pulling too many negative G's will cause your vision to become blurred with red.
337** In ground battles if you are fired upon by a rocket launcher tank, your screen will start shaking from the rockets' explosions. Note that this does not actually cause your targeting reticle to sway; it's only your screen.
338* {{Irony}}: In celebration of V-E Day 2014, The operation "Battle of Berlin" was chosen as the main event of Realistic and Simulator battles for three straight days. Unfortunately, very few people wanted to play as the Russian side as the Germans kept winning with a 90% victory rate, thanks to the overpowered excellence of the Fw 190, Ta 152, and the He 162. The 10% victory rate for the Russian side was mostly due to players destroying all of the Light Pillboxes instead of winning in the air.
339* JackOfAllStats: Heavy Fighters and Attackers. These aircraft can carry bombs and/or rockets that can be used for ground attack,while their heavy cannon armaments are easily able to knock down most fighters unfortunate enough to get in their gun sights. Despite these traits, they're not as agile as dedicated fighters, and have lower bomb loads than dedicated bombers. Medium tanks take up this role in Ground Forces, having ok guns with middling armor, but decent mobility.
340** .50 cal machine guns are this in the firepower department. They strike a good balance between ammo loads, power, and reload times.
341* JokeCharacter: I-Go ko has such a laughable armor scheme that high explosive shells are inherently fatal to it, regardless of where they hit the tank. In fact, even the Panzer 2's 20mm gun can pen the tank which is saying a lot since many players consider the Panzer 2 to be an inferior Tier-1 tank due to its poor armament.
342** Note that the I-Go ko acts more like a supporting howitzer than a tank, and can still deal almost instantly lethal damage to enemy light tanks by firing a high angle shot so that it impacts their rather thin roof armor. Most anti-aircraft trucks aside from the Russian Tier I trucks are also in danger since they ''can't fire forward'' to protect their un-armored cabs, where The I-Go ko's weak hull-mounted machine gun can easily kill their crews.
343** The Type 95 Ha-Go, the Hotchkiss H.35, and the FCM.36 were removed from the game's research trees owing to their poor anti-tank performance. The tanks were eventually put back into the game after lots of players complained. While horrible for taking out anything but lightly-armored vehicles, especially at point blank range, the Ha-Go and the two French light tanks can still act as team support (especially if their users spam calls for artillery strikes during arcade battles).
344** Both of the Japanese Soukou-Tei "tank boats" are utterly useless as they are Army-operated ''riverine'' gunboats, not true naval gunboats. They are slow as balls and their armor only serves to slow them down. They also swamp easily if they take on any water and are rather vulnerable to aircraft of all kinds. The worst part is that their sea keeping is so terrible that they constantly rock while in motion which makes aiming nearly impossible. One wonders if Gaijin did this to deliberately insult Japanese naval prowess.
345* KillItWithFire: Being lit on fire is usually a death sentence for light aircraft and a serious problem for big ones. Some gun loadouts have incendiary bullets to facilitate this occurrence. If you're really unlucky the enemy will have nothing but incendiaries loaded...
346** Is equally dangerous to tanks should the fire reach the ammo magazine. Fortunately, one of the upgrades most tanks can unlock is a two-use fire extinguisher. Which becomes problematic in higher tiers as one would have to grind to get the upgrade, meaning a stock high-tier tank on fire is effectively a dead tank.
347** It's even worse with boats and ships, despite the fact that boats and ships float in sea water. You can't scoop up sea water to douse an onboard fire during battle, after all!
348** Napalm bombs. They are nearly useless against tanks, but will kill any open topped vehicles horribly. They will do DamageOverTime to strategic bases in air battles.
349** The "Smell of Victory" Battle Pass added several flamethrower equipped vehicles: The Churchill Crocodile and "Zippo" armored boat. It's likely more flamethrower vehicles will come later.
350* LampshadeHanging: Gaijin is pretty much aware of [[CreatorProvincialism Russian bias accusations]] from the forums. They can and will poke fun at these, see the AprilFoolsDay entry above. Their online store also launched a [[https://store.gaijin.net/story.php?title=%D0%AFussian-Bias-Advanced-Pack Яussian Bias Advanced Pack,]] yes, it really has TheBackwardsR for maximum hilarity.
351* LawOfChromaticSuperiority: In order to distinguish different versions of the same plane quickly, each iteration has a different color scheme, which leads into this as one climbs the tech tree.
352* LeadTheTarget: You have to shoot where the target plane is going to be in order to hit it. A "lead target indicator" is included to help people in Arcade battles, but is absent in Realisitc and Simulator battles.
353** Still present in ground forces and naval forces, but no aid of any kind, even in arcade.
354** SPAA and ships equipped with a tracking radar will add a lead indicator even in modes that do not have them, as long as you can maintain a target lock.
355* [[LethalJokeCharacter Lethal Joke Plane]]: Several of the aircraft do not seem to fit in their intended roles, or seem just awful at first plane. But players familiar with the history of the aircraft will quickly figure out how best to use them.
356** The Ju-87 Stuka climbs worse than a lead turtle, is pretty fragile, and can't dogfight as well - the only thing it CAN do well is when he has a bomb ready and above 2000m. Come level 7,(Modern BR: 2.0) and you get Stukas with TWO 37MM CANNONS, which rip wings and motors and tails like nobody's business in one hit. Large amounts of {{Troll}}ing has been done with such a poorly maneuverable, visibly pointless plane.
357*** It actually starts a little earlier. The Ju-87 D-5, while visually no different from the D-3 before it, differs in one very important manner: It has 20mm cannons with a much larger ammunition count than the G-1 and G-2. While it might not be a trolling machine like the Ju-87 G, it is still a bad idea to get in front of one.
358*** The Ju-87 B-2 can be a greatly effective anti-bomber in low tier matches if the pilot is skilled enough. Sure, it's a completely crap airplane at first and trying to actively dogfight is guaranteed suicide, but in the right hands it can be a PBY's nightmare with the pools of ammo the Stuka can pour into its rear end. It also has a *very* good turn radius at optimally slow speed and flaps deployed and can outturn almost anything outside of a biplane in a pinch.
359*** Similarly, the Ju-87 R-2 is one of the few Stukas which can carry a 1000kg bomb. Combine its low Battle Rating with the general fragility of tanks at the same rating, and it is one of the only bombers that can reliably destroy ''every single enemy tank'' occupying a Capture Point with a single accurate pass.
360** The PBY Catalina, which must be the slowest bomber ever. Also big and rather exposed in motors and a blind spot directly in its 6'0-clock. HOWEVER, excluding motors and wings it is VERY durable and has such a large bomb load that it will kill half of the ground units (or sea units) if the fighters don't sic on it for free xp. Fore extra lulz, use it against low rank player tanks that typically don't have more than 50mm of armor at the most. They don't stand up well to a pair of 1000 pound bombs going off near them.
361** The SBD Dauntless Dive bomber. Only two .50cal guns in the nose, and twin .30cal for the GuyInBack to use make players feel underpowered while using it. But it's extremely sturdy, and can shrug off a surprising amount of hits. It's also fairly maneuverable, and can even give some of the Japanese planes a run for their money. In real life, Stanley "Swede" Vejtasa took his SBD Dauntless against three A-6M Zeros... and ''WON''.
362*** Now that it got Suspension Gun Pod which adds 4 .50cal, it becomes makeshift bomber hunter as it has bomber spawns
363** The [=H6K=]-4 can probably one-up the PBY for slowness. On top of that, it's got one of the heftiest repair bills of any aircraft at that level, and catches fire very easily when hit. However, it's got a tail-mounted 20mm cannon that's going to given many players a rude awakening when they approach it for the first time. And when upgraded can carry two 2,000lb bombs that can reduce a Ground Strike Area Target to a smoldering crater in just two runs. On top of that, it's a real pain in the neck to shoot down as very very few aircraft at that level even pack the right weapons to damage it, let alone shoot it down.
364** Biplanes, pure and simple. Slow, peashooter guns, poor climbing ability, and most of them have their landing gear down at all times. However, they turn better than any other plane in the game, and while their guns are weak, they can [[SnipingTheCockpit kill the pilot]] with some ImprobableAimingSkills. The I-153 takes this even further, as it's in the same sub-tree as the initial Russian reserve I-15 biplanes, but despite only having the same armament of 7.95 machine guns its battle rating is ''3.0'' which ranks it higher than virtually every other fighter at Tier 1, ''including'' the first [=LaGG=]-3's and the Yak-1 even though those planes get 20mm nose cannons AND better stats AND rockets!
365*** Certain Russian biplanes can be upgraded to carry rockets, giving your first-level plane the ability to one-shot any light bomber it gets close to.
366** The P-47 Thunderbolt counts as most players probably aren't familiar with its history. In-game, it has very poor acceleration (due to its weight), average maneuverability, and it gets matched up against very nimble fighters that pack Bomber-killing cannons. But with [[MoreDakka 8 .50cal machine guns]], and a maximum load of 10 rockets, 2 1000lb bombs, and a single 500lb bomb, a player knowledgeable with its history will quickly tear up any and all ground units if the other team is stupid enough to leave him alone. Additionally, it is one of the only planes in the game which performs well at all altitudes and has a nightmarishly fast climb speed, making it almost trivial for a decent pilot to draw an opponent out of their element.
367** Rockets are slow, relatively inaccurate, and are effectively useless at long range or against hardened targets (such as most ships). However, they can one-shot most aircraft (some only take two), and with the right settings and crew point investments, rockets can go from useless weight, to near game-breakers.
368** Britain's Blenheim bomber is a low tier bomber with average speed, a puny bomb load of only two medium (or four light) bombs, and a single forward-firing machine gun located far out on the left wing. However, what it does have is two turret gunners that, when invested enough skill, can tear apart almost any fighter dumb enough to try and latch on its tail, and an exceptional maneuverability for a bomber. A useful tactic when dealing with enemy fighters at low altitude in a Blenheim is to hit the deck in hilly terrain and suddenly dip altitude before pulling up. If the pursuer doesn't smash into the ground or a tree trying to keep up, his pilot will often be left exposed for the twin machine guns mounted on the chin turret waiting to ''tear him apart.''
369*** The Po-2, a simple Soviet pickup-truck of a biplane, is or was the worst aircraft in the game (discussed under [[TheAllegedCar The Alleged Plane]], below), but it's also the only biplane in history to have shot down a jet fighter; a Po-2 shot down an F-86 Sabre in the Korean War. (It helped that the F-86 has a stall speed of 124 MPH and the Po-2 has a top speed of 94 MPH...)
370** Dive bombers in general are often this trope in Arcade Mode, tending to be fairly low-speed and high-lift; in order to avoid simply [[NotTheFallThatKillsYou smacking into the ground at high speed]] when they start diving, they often include speed-reducing features like dive brakes and fixed landing gear. These are worse than useless in the typical dogfight, but invaluable in a low-altitude tail-chasing match; a skilled player can simply pull the aircraft into a shallow climb, cut the engine, drop the flaps, and extend the airbrakes, causing their speed to drop precipitously, giving them a very clear shot at [[DodgeByBraking the drastically-overshooting enemy plane]]. (Just be careful not to accidentally [[HoistByHisOwnPetard stall out]].)
371** On the tanks side of things, we now have the M3 Lee, and M3 Grant tanks. Players from ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'' will likely be quick to dismiss it due to the reputation it had in that game[[note]]big, fat, slow, TD-like play style[[/note]], but in War Thunder '''all of the guns work''', including the .30-cal [=MGs=] on the turret and turret roof. It's also quite roomy inside the tank, meaning that many penetrating hits may not even hit a crew member or a module as they pass through. Once players get used to the odd way the guns work, they will quickly find themselves racking up more kills and shrugging off more hits than the higher-tier [=M4A1=] Sherman.
372*** Anti-aircraft vehicles can be this, surprisingly. The ones armed with .50-cal machine guns can tear up light tanks, and the ones with cannons can wreck medium tanks and lower-tier tank destroyers at close range (ask any poor schmuck T-34 driver foolish enough to rush a Wirbelwind point-blank).
373*** The Type 95 Ha-Go, nearly permanently removed from the game due to lack-luster anti-tank performance, is still somewhat popular owing to its good mobility on rough terrain. Its small size also makes it better for sneaking around urban maps, where it can act as a scout.
374** The Siebel ferry 40s are barges which are so SLOW that they can't even evade incoming fire are are relatively easy to hit with torpedoes. The big catch here is they have enough mass and width to [[DamageSponge soak up much of the fire]] from weapons enemy boats at their level will have, and that they can '''ANNIHILATE''' any enemy boats that cross into their line of fire within seconds because they have way too much firepower for their tier rating (four quad 20mm turrets or four 88mm flak cannons) which has caused complaints that these "ships" are under-tiered. Tier 1 destroyers that get within line of sight of the flak barges can also suffer heavily.
375* LightningBruiser: Several of the attackers, but the most well known from Real Life is the P-47 Thunderbolt. It could take a beating, and then dish it back out with ''eight'' [[MoreDakka .50cal heavy machine guns]]. All while having an engine that could perform well at any altitude.
376** The T-50 "light" tank. Very fast, with armor comparable to the T-34 medium tank.
377** Despite the notion that all Heavy Tanks are slow, the Tiger, when fully upgraded and given a decent crew is actually quite fast and nimble for its size and weight. On top of that when the armor is angled well enough it can [[NoSell bounce shells designed specifically to kill it]], at which point its main gun can quickly deliver the proper reply to the insults.
378** The Panther takes this and runs with it. In real life the Panther was actually capable of higher speeds than it was often driven[[note]] Due to the issues with its very complex transmission[[/note]]. But the front armor is angled well enough, and the gun mantlet is so thick that enemy shells bounce harmlessly off. Add in the very powerful 75mm gun and many players will question why they would want any other tank in the game when the Panther is top tier.
379** The Cold War & modern-era main battle tanks can fit this as well; having lethal main guns that can one-shot almost anything they encounter and powerful engines that allow them to move swiftly about the battlefield.
380* LongRangeFighter: German and British tanks both specialize in dispatching opponents from distance, ideally from hull-down positions.
381** The F-14 Tomcat specalizes in shooting down enemy aircraft from kilometers away with its very long range AIM-54 Phoenix missiles.
382* TheLoad: Planes that keep flying in a straight line upon spawning are players that have joined the match and gone [=AFK=] just for a small sum of Silver Lions and XP.
383** Players that quit at the start of a match either have a bad connection, don't want to play the selected map, or just like to inconvenience the team by leaving it with one less contributor.
384* LuckBasedSearchTechnique: Every now and then there will be a mission where visibility is exceedingly low due to heavy fog, thick clouds, or night. Such conditions are beneficial for high-level Bombers but are very detrimental for Fighters as they have to stumble within kissing distance to find an enemy plane.
385** A mission that takes place at dawn will give a visibility advantage to the side that has the sun to their back as the blinding light makes it hard to be seen by the opposition until it's too late. This is actually Rule 1 of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicta_Boelcke Dicta Boelcke]], a list of aerial combat tactics written by German fighter ace Oswald Boelcke.
386** Planes can't detect tanks and give them markers, so a bomber will have to look for unmarked targets visually.
387** Ground Forces simulator disables all target markers, so again you're looking visually for tanks. Not too bad normally, but add a high foliage map like Jungle and it quickly becomes this trope.
388** Player tank models that are not spotted by ground forces are not drawn from distances over 800m.
389** Ground vehicles have it just as bad as fighters during twilight/night missions. Whilst the penetration marker of the crosshair will quickly help you realize when you're aiming at an enemy when playing in Arcade mode, that marker isn't present in other modes - and it can take your crew an extra couple of seconds to spot or identify whoever or whatever you happen to be aiming at. This is made significantly worse by the fact many (but not all) tanks lack all-around optics.
390* MacrossMissileMassacre:
391** While some planes can mount a lot of rockets, like the A-20 and Fariey Firefly mounting up to 12, and the Westland Wyvern mounting 16, the Sherman Calliope takes the cake. it mounts ''SIXTY'' rockets, and can fire them off very rapidly!
392** In update 1.59 Actual missiles were added in the form of Early generation [=ATGMs=]. In keeping with this trope, the Strv 81 can chain fire 3 missiles, but has no more than that.
393** The Russian IL-28Sh tier 5 bomber takes the cake in aerial rocket spam, carrying a load of 12 rocket pods for a total of almost ''200'' rockets, which can be fired individually to hit point targets or volley-fired to saturate an area.
394** The [=F4U-7 Corsair=] is the king of this in Prop tiers. 114 Mighty Mouse rockets will make short work of any ground targets in its way.
395** In general, most attack helicopters can pull off this trope with a combination of ungided rocket pods and guided =[ATGM=]s.
396** High tier multirole jet aircraft can pull this off too, with multiple rocket pods, air to air and air to ground rockets. It gets really crazy mixing and matching with the custom loadout system.
397** The F-14 Tomcat is the current king of this trope, being capable of launching a volley of long range missiles at multiple targets almost as soon as it gets airborne.
398** Several SAM systems have multiple launchers to invoke this trope. Special mention to the Tor-m1, which can launch verticvaly and then turn after launch, bearing more resemblance to the trope namer.
399* MadeOfExplodium: Ammo racks in general. If a shot gets through the armor, and hits the ammo rack, expect either a geyser of flame shooting out of the [=TCs=] hatch, or your turret to pop off like a champagne cork.
400** The M4 Shermans, T-34s, and T-54s have it the worst of all the tanks. Justified as they're all basically rolling ammo racks, with ammunition stored all over the hull, meaning that just about ''any'' shot that penetrates the armor will blow the ammo racks. In-game it can be frustrating, however it is an example of ShownTheirWork as these tanks really ''were'' that susceptible to ammo rack detonations.
401** Rarely, you can cause the bombs hanging on the wings of bombers to detonate prematurely... to rather disastrous results.
402** Shooting the rockets on rocket-armed tanks such as the Sherman Calliope will act as ammo racks, exploding spectacularly.
403** The MBR-2 of Patch 1.57 is hilariously bad for one reason: Its top-mounted engine is so volatile that even a few rounds of rifle-caliber machine gun fire will detonate it.
404* MadeOfIndestructium: A very embarrassing mistake that's made by Players in Ground Forces is running at high speed into trees ''with thick trunks''. An observant player knows right away that a tree with a thick trunk can never be knocked down and will be extra careful to avoid it while driving. Players that aren't careful, however, will commonly get their engine or suspension broken and their driver killed. It's even possible to kill your entire crew by going downhill into a big tree. Its worse with light-weight tanks with little armor; what looks like a sapling can unexpectedly stop you (and your poor driver) dead.
405** At times, the driver can seem like a OneHitPointWonder, falling unconscious at the slightest collision with unbreakable terrain. The suspension isn't much better either.
406** Fortunately crew and module damage from hitting obstacles was disabled. However, it can still completly kill your momentum, a big problem for lighter weight vehicles that can stuggle to take down even a chain link fence and rely on speed to survive.
407* MadeOfIron: The Yak-9T and Yak-9K are the best known examples of unrealistic durability. They can smack their wings against trees at high speed and still not show any bit of performance degradation. But this has been fixed in the last few patches.
408** Bombers can be very tough to take down if you don't know how and where to hit them. But the one that takes the cake is the [=H6K4=] Japanese Float Plane. When it's a top rank plane, the worst it has to face is the occasional .50cal machine gun, and even then, most of the players lack the knowledge of where exactly to hit it. On top of this, the 20mm cannon in the tail will make short work of anyone stupid enough to get in behind it.
409** The [=H6K4=] is downright realistic compared to the B-17 -- which, at whatever tier it appears, will easily take the ''entire payload'' of multiple Japanese or German aircraft (including 20 mm cannons and higher) and continue onto their target. Apparently, Gaijin took the legendary reputation of the B-17 and decided to make them fire-retardant (B-17s will always extinguish engine fires before they do any real damage) and immune to 20 mm fire (in reality, around a dozen or more hits would perforate a B-17). Iron indeed!
410*** The [=H6K4=] also gained a nasty surprise advantage when Gaijin addressed the problem of bombers being insta-killed from pilot shots like regular planes and the co-pilots just sitting around uselessly...by actually allowing the co-pilots to effectively be 'extra lives' for the pilot. The [=H6K4=] can take up to ''four'' pilot shots before shooting the pilot actually kills the plane...
411*** Since the damage model does not include the separation of the elevator or rudder mounts, only the control surface or the entire tail section, and since the B-17 has an oversized tailfin that obstructs most of the bomber from behind, this has been amplified. Most players sit dead six, kill the gunners and then pump round after round into a tailfin that cannot break off, even though it should.
412** The KV-1 could qualify; with many German tanks at its tier unable to penetrate its frontal turret armor, and most unable to penetrate its frontal sloped armor, it's not uncommon to see a KV-1 shrug off dozens upon dozens of should be fatal shots over the course of a game. (This is TruthInTelevision. During [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa]], a KV-1 motored onto a road in the midst of a German armored division, shifted to park, and held out for days -- until point-blank 88mm fire punched a few small holes in the turret and stunned the crew, and combat engineers were able to push in grenades. The Germans buried the crew with full military honors, and presumably kept the tank.)
413** While the first IS-2 has the same armor profile as the IS-1, the IS-2 mod. 1944 has arguably more effective upper glacis armor than the Tiger II due to better sloping, and has an extra 100mm mantlet covering the left side of the 100mm turret front, which totals 15mm more than the Tiger II (H) turret. The right side of the turret front, however, remains at a paltry 100mm. (Also TruthInTelevision; the IS-2 was a true tank, with a rotating turret, but its 122mm main gun was almost as powerful as Soviet siege artillery and its armor was scaled to match, thicker than some early-war bunkers'.)
414** The [=M4A1=] Sherman, of all tanks, can be this. It was designed to kill Panzer [=IIIs=] and [=IVs=], and it can do that very well; its M3 75mm cannon can deal significant damage at 500 meters or more, a range at which other tanks of its generation can hardly scratch its paint.
415** The Maus and the T95. Two of the most heavily armored tanks built during WWII. Both are capable of withstanding an enormous beating, and dishing it out in return. Just keep them away from artillery and bombs, their slow speed means they can't dodge them.
416* MagicTool: Airfields in most cases, assuming you can land on them, can repair your plane from Swiss cheese with nothing working, to fully capable and battle ready within 90 seconds after coming to a complete stop. Damage that would have effectively rendered the aircraft completely unusable.
417** All tanks have them as an upgrade. It should be noted that the amount of time it takes for the tank to repair is determined by how many of the crew members are still alive, and how bad the damage is. In some cases, it's just better to leave the tank, then sit and wait for the repairs to take hours to complete...
418** Cap circles are this for ground forces. It allows for repairs if you lack the aforementioned upgrade, and refills your ammo over time.
419* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: The radio chatter, again.
420--->*Wing is shredded off the fuselage in a fireball*
421--->'''Pilot''':(calmly) Uhh, I've got a problem here.
422* MightyGlacier:
423** Bombers. They pack the heaviest punch for air to ground work. But they're usually sluggish, and the gunners are seemingly blind when it comes to dealing with fighters, at least until they get a few points into their skills. {{Downplayed}} insofar as their top speed isn't terrible, but their mass and stability makes them difficult to accelerate or turn quickly and easy targets for enemies.
424** Exaggerated and the logical conclusion with the Maus, the final German (Super) Heavy tank. At 188 tons, it moves at only 12 mph on smooth ground, but has a 128mm gun capable of destroying any Allied or Soviet tank.
425** In comparison to the smaller patrol and motor torpedo boats, battleships and cruisers in the game are this; comparatively massive vessels bristling with weaponry that would make a heavy tank jealous from bow to stern, but very sluggish and unwieldy compared to their smaller counterparts.
426** The A-10 and Su-25, which are subsonic attack aircraft that are unmatched when it comes to durability and firepower. When it comes to survivability, they carry hundreds of countermeasures to fend off missiles and their airframes can take hits that would've instantly destroyed other aircraft. In ground combat, they pack ungodly amount of bombs, missiles and rockets that can wipe out dozens of ground vehicles in a single match. They're also no slouches in air combat either thanks to their all-aspect air-to-air missiles and optional gunpods in addition to their massive internal cannon.
427* MilitaryMashupMachine: The aptly named "Land Battleship" T-35 Heavy Tank. While most tanks only have one turret, and one gun, the T-35 has a total of FIVE turrets, and of which, three have usable weapons. A 76mm howitzer and two 45mm AT Guns. And the thing is only a rank one tank. And then there's the SMK, which is essentially a lengthened KV hull with an extra turret mounting a 45 mm gun in addition to the 76mm.
428** The M3 Lee looks like the result of a MadScientist trying to Frankenstein together a [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarI WWI]] with a [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII WWII]] tank. True to real life, the tank actually works pretty well, with enough firepower and flexibility to be force to be reckoned with, and enough mobility to be respectable. Its bizarre design stems from the real life problem of needing to rush a tank into production immediately even though American tank development wasn't quite ready for a proper tank, which would be the M4 Sherman. So they took what they already had--a one-man 37mm gun turret, a sponson turret for the 75mm gun, and a chassis that could be readily modified to fit both, and slapped it together. Despite its obvious flaws, it worked well enough as a stopgap and actually continued good service in various theaters for the rest of the war.
429** The LVT series of tanks look like giant boats with treads (this is because they were designed as landing crafts). Amusingly they do actually function as boats, being one of the only tanks in the game that can go into shallow water without sinking into it and drowning the crew. Due to having no infantry in the game, their spacious design means they're actually very hard to put down in a single shot as their crewmen are spread throughout the huge chassis.
430* MissileLockOn: Version 1.85 added heat-seeking air-to-air missiles including the [=AIM=]-9 Sidewinder and AA-2 Atoll which, like in real life, emit an growling electronic tone when they have a positive lock on a target.
431* MobileShrubbery: Gaijin added the ability to slap bushes to your tanks, making them much harder to spot in realistic battles. It also makes [[AttackItsWeakPoint weakspot targeting much harder]]. The fact that they are only available for Golden Eagles has lead to accusations that it's just BribingYourWayToVictory.
432* MoreDakka: True to RealLife, many of the aircraft in the game are packing multiple machine guns and cannons. Justified in that the goal is to create a high weight of fire on the target, so much so you can run a buzz-saw through him and possibly rip a wing off.
433** The British are early-tier masters of the trope; the Hurricane I has eight machine guns, and the II has ''twelve''. They create a large volume of fire that'll blow most light fighters out of the sky, but they tend to lose badly to cannons when going after armored targets.
434** The Americans are the undisputed champions of spray-and-pray with the P-47 and PBJ-1 series, both of which are capable of putting out a murderous hail of lead. The second PBJ has 12 .50 cals in the nose, with an additional 2 in the ball turret that can be pointed at its target. Going head to head with one is a bad idea, to put it mildly.
435*** From the F-82 and Bearcat on, American fighters are armed with the M3 machine gun, an electrically assisted variant of the M2 that pours out fire at 1,200 rounds per minute.
436*** The F-82's firepower became even more ridiculous with patch 1.47: an External Gun-pod Option will exponentially raise the firepower by giving it '''14''' M3 Machine Guns. All of which can fire Armor Piercing Incendiary rounds exclusively...
437*** Some planes eventually gain the option of wing-mounted gun-pods that exchange maximum performance for more dakka.
438** The French VB. 10-02 combines 6 .50 cal MG with 4 20mm Hispanos. That is a ton of lead down range, though still less than the F-82.
439*** However, for true insanity, look at the He 219 A-7. A heavy Night fighter with four 30mm cannons and 2 20mm, clocking in at an absurd 15.3 kg/s burst mass to the F-82's 12.1. And because they're cannons, and German, the shells are stuffed to the brim with explosives...
440** The Germans combine this with autocannons, both in the air AND ground forces. Case in point, The Kugelblitz and the Ta 152, in the right hands, are some of the deadliest vehicles in the game with their 30mm cannons.
441** The aforementioned T-35 Heavy Tank certainly counts with 3 guns the player can fire. Getting near one in any tank that lacks the capacity to kill it is not a healthy venture.
442** The American Tank tree brings with it the M16 Half-track. A Self-Propelled Anti-Aircraft vehicle that packed four M2 .50cal machine guns. In real life it was nicknamed the "Meat Chopper" or "Krautmower" because of its insane rate of fire.
443** The M2 Medium Tank has ''NINE'' .30 caliber machine guns. Sadly only 7 of them work... for now.
444** The M50 Ontos deserves a mention for its 6 recoilless rifles. They have low muzzle velocity so it can be hard to range, but you have instant follow up shots from the other guns. Once you find the range, you can bombard a target with the remaining guns and slink away.
445** Update 1.93 includes the BMP-3 for the Russian tree, which packs more firepower than most main battle tanks; a 100mm main gun firing both standard shells ''and'' [=ATGM's=], a 30mm autocannon, and ''three'' 7.62mm [=PKT=] machine guns.
446* MutualKill: Head-on Attacks can usually end up with both planes having destroyed each other or not being able to break away in time. For example, two fighters destroy each others engines and one fighter getting rammed by the wreck of his opponent.
447** A Anti-Air vehicle can shoot down a bomber, only for it to be too late and have the bomber drop their bombs on him anyway, killing them both.
448** With proper timing, its possible for two tanks to kill each other by firing at the same time, particularly at longer ranges.
449** Ships and boats can also do this at longer ranges.
450* NeverSayDie: Crewmembers aren't "killed", they are "knocked out", even in extreme cases, i.e. a Flakpanzer's commander receiving a 152mm anti-concrete round straight to the face.
451* NitroBoost: The War Emergency Power engine setting on most planes allows them to produce extra engine power, albeit overheating the engine more quickly. Some planes such as late war German fighters are equipped with the MW-50 Methanol-Water injection system or the GM-1 nitrous oxide injection system to give them even more horsepower for a limited time.
452** Many mid and high tier jets are equipped with afterburners, which add a lot of thrust at the cost of heat generation ad a LOT of extra fuel drain.
453* NoFairCheating: Anyone caught using illegal modification software will find his account terminated. If someone is accused of cheating, replays from witness players will be reviewed and the suspect's account will be examined for any discrepancies in vehicle performance. If the verdict is "guilty," the account is wiped from the system. Gaijin refuses to return any terminated account to functionality, no matter what excuse is given. And yes, the developers will assume that the cheater will blame just about anything including pets.
454--->From the official website, concerning the penalty for cheating: No. We will not return the account to you even if the modification has been launched “only once”, if your friend used your account or even if the cat is to blame for everything.
455* NoOneShouldSurviveThat: Happens sometimes when players break off an attack thinking that the plane they're chasing is going to crash. Hilarity ensues when they realize that they were wrong...
456** Invoked when a player dumps a large bombload on a stationary plane waiting for repair on the runway...and somehow ''just'' enough of that plane remains undamaged that the repair timer merely resets to a longer wait time instead of the game marking the plane as destroyed.
457** It's possible (with a lot of luck) to hit a plane with a tank's main gun. It's also entirely possible for the plane to to survive it. If the shot doesn't hit an engine or the cockpit, there's no guarantee of a kill, particularly with AP rounds that do nothing but punch a hole through the plane. And given the distances usually involved, it's not as if the tank player can effectively aim at a specific spot on a plane.
458*** Helicopters in 2021, because of various bugs and issues, routinely shrug off tank rounds that take off their rear rotors entirely.
459* NoseArt:
460** Vehicles can be customized with decals, which include many based or inspired on real nose art.
461** Also present in the default paint scheme of some aircraft; the American B-25J-20 Mitchell and German Ju-87-B2 Stuka for example feature shark faces as part of their default paint schemes.
462* NoSell: Any bullet that doesn't have an Armor-Piercing characteristic is prone to bouncing off harmlessly when hitting Armored Cars. Even planes will bounce shots if they hit from the wrong angle, regardless of whether or not they have armor. Because of this, it's important to avoid belts that have ball or tracer rounds as they have a high propensity for unreliability and ineffectiveness. Unfortunately for the early British planes, almost all the default "training" belts are made of of mostly ball bullets...
463** Ground Forces aren't exempt from this either; a shot that hits at a shallow angle won't do anything other than scratch the paint job. A tank driver who knows how to angle their armour against incoming shots can take a lot of punishment if the ones shooting at him don't aim for things like the turret ring or try to reposition.
464** Immediate Action Incendiary and Adjustment Incendiary Bullets are misleading: They both look like the same bullet and seem to imply that they're effective at setting aircraft on fire but what they really do is explode in a bright flash to visually indicate that you're landing hits on the enemy. Just like ball and tracers, they're useless against armor.
465* NoSwastikas: Par for the course for a game made in Russia. None of the German fighters have a single swastika in any of the locations they would logically have one.
466** In the 1.33 update, Gaijin added black X's to many German planes where swastikas would have logically been, so no one can say they aren't trying as much as they can for accuracy.
467** Likewise, none of the German ground vehicles have iron crosses on them either.
468** With the introduction of Finland in 2.21 "Fire and Ice", Finnish swastickas were replaced with blue crosses where they would have been.
469* NotTheIntendedUse:
470** Recoil from firing the guns slows a plane down a little. This has resulted in any remaining ammo being used for "gun brakes" when landing in order to bring the plane to a stop faster.
471** The damage modelling that allows for the landing gear to break off of aircraft with fixed gear [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMGYgr5v1i0 absolutely is not intended for deliberately losing them in order to shed some weight and reduce drag]]. Gaijin eventually got wise to this exploit being abused by players and promptly put an end to it.
472** Dive brakes can be used to stop faster which is very helpful to avoid overshooting a carrier landing.
473** Tank guns can be used to shoot down aircraft which is completely unheard of in real-life. OK, well not ''completely'' unheard of, but extremely rare.
474*** Players in closed development testing have already started using [=ATGMs=] to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbOtnfWREsc shoot down aircraft]] before their open introduction in 1.59.
475*** Bombs can be used to kill enemy fighters chasing you, if you are close to mountains.
476*** Even [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvgxkBpkaa4 artillery strike]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e-k43Is5yQ torpedoes]] have been used to kill planes.
477** US medium bombers have as much frontal firepower as their fighters. They're intended for strafing ground targets, but this doesn't stop some people using them as heavy fighters, especially against multi-engine aircraft.
478*** This extends to heavy bombers as well, which are usually bristling with numerous gun positions which are meant to fend off enemy fighters, but can allow them to act as flying gunships that can engage enemy aircraft from almost any direction. Plus most bombers likely wouldn't expect to be fired on by another bomber until they start taking hits. A real-life example of this was detailed in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoZLyWJ5lRw one episode]] of Gaijin's Youtube series ''The Shooting Range'', wherein a pair of American B-17's went hunting for Japanese flying boats, using their formidable defensive armament and legendary durability to decimate the luckless Japanese aircraft.
479** April 2018: Gaijin put in another major patch that stopped players from abusing the "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9E3nEeFoJc Torpedo kills ground vehicles]]" exploit.
480** The Japanese Type 75 SPG; a 155mm self-propelled howitzer added to the game as a direct-fire tank destroyer. In-game it very rarely gets the chance to perform its intended role as an indirect fire artillery piece. World of Tanks models this in-game, War Thunder does not.
481** The MG may not be able to do much against another tank, but it's pretty handy for destroying obstacles on the road so your tank doesn't get slowed down.
482* NukeEm:
483** Following the New Power (2.1) update, Reaching 15 kills in arcade ground battles on [=BRs=] of 6.0 and higher will allow you to fly a nuke-carrying aircraft; dropping the bomb on the area of the battlefield will result in an [[InstantWinCondition instant victory]].
484** Nukes were added to Realistic Battles in the Ixwa Strike (2.5) update, requiring 3000 spawn points in battles of [=BRs=] of 6.7 and higher.
485* OneHitKill: Cannons and Rockets have the potential to do this if they hit the fuel tank. Can also happen with a hit to the bombs, or on some aircraft at least, a hit to the wing spar.
486** Anti-aircraft artillery cannons, while not very accurate in and of themselves, are extremely good at removing wings.
487** An [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncILNe9gCG8 amusing troll tactic]] is to use the Me 410's 50mm cannon or the Ju 87G armed with twin 37mm cannons against enemy fighters. Although [[DifficultButAwesome this is VERY HARD to do]], the satisfaction of pinching several players out of the sky in one shot is very rewarding.
488** This can happen a lot in the Ground Forces. It's always best to avoid being shot in the first place unless there's a massive disparity in your tank's armour and their gun's penetration.
489** In ground forces, anything with a High Explosive Armor Piercing round is very likely to one-shot anything it can penetrate, as the high explosive activates after penetrating, essentially turning the crew into chunky salsa and/or exploding nearby ammo supplies. Generally it's only available on a handful of tanks and mainly tank destroyers.
490** The overpressure mechanic added later on in the game's life made hitting an exposed or open topped vehicle with an he shell or bomb an almost guarnteed one shot. Even a near miss from an HE rocket is usually enough to destroy them.
491* OneHitPointWonder:
492** American tier 1 tanks are infamous for their tendency to have total crew loss from a single penetrating hit; a large crew count and high sides make it difficult to ''not'' hit at least one crew member in vehicles like the M3 Lee, which was nicknamed a "(grave) for seven men" by the Red Army.
493** Same goes for the IS-2 and T-44 in matches that involve them fighting things like the King Tiger, Ferdinand, and Jagdpanther, where the latter's 88s are capable of killing 3/4 of the crew (i.e. the ones housed in the turret), enough to count the former as knocked out.
494** Any tank with a starting crew of only 2 people is this due to the game's mechanic of removing any tank that lacks a gunner and a driver. You can try to avert this by buying the Replenish Crew upgrade, but more often than not whatever killed your first crewman also disabled your tank (as you cannot drive it while replenishing even if the driver is still alive) and is still looking at you.
495*** Its even worse in Realistic and Simulator modes, as a 2 crew tank wil lbe instantly considered knocked out and you'll have no chance to use your replenish crew, unlike in arcade where it is used automatically when you're down to one crew member
496* OneHitPolyKill - Bombs have a splash radius that can destroy multiple units if they're close enough but you'll need a direct hit with bombs that are less than 250kg.
497** The KV-2's 152mm howitzer has been known to kill 2 tanks sitting close to each other in 1 shot.
498** It's rare but possible to do this in a tank battle with an appropriate kinetic penetrator round if it goes through one tank and into another behind it.
499** The PE-8's 5000kg bomb is infamous for causing mass casualties in ground battles, and it does not discriminate allies from enemies.
500* OpposingCombatPhilosophies:
501** American and Japanese planes are on opposite extremes of the spectrum. American planes are durable and powerful but for the most part handle like flying bricks, whereas Japanese planes are extremely agile but get snapped in half from pretty much any return fire. Americans benefit more from flying in groups to make up for their abysmal turn speed, while Japanese fighter planes generally prefer to fight one-on-one.
502** American and Soviet tank destroyers. The Soviets tend toward [[SuperToughness heavily armored]] but [[MightyGlacier slow behemoths with casemate-style]] [[FixedForwardFacingWeapon main guns]]. Their American counterparts tend to be [[FragileSpeedster light, more mobile vehicles with paper-thin armor]] that manage to put a large gun with a fully-functioning turret on a relatively small vehicle [[GlassCannon by making the turret even less armored and not even having a roof on the turret]]. Most German tank destroyers follow the same philosophy as the Soviet ones, though lack both armor ''and'' a turret, relying entirely on the stealth provided by their low profile to survive.
503* OverHeating: One must be careful to shoot measured bursts rather than letting the guns go until empty, because doing so will overheat and jam them. In arcade battles the jam can be fixed with a reload, but in the other modes it's a trip back to land at the base.
504** Oil/Water/Engines can overheat if you leave [[NitroBoost WEP]] on for too long, especially in Realistic mode (but can sometimes happen even in Arcade, too). If you ignore it too long your engine will die.
505** The same goes for using afterburners too long in mid to high tier jets. It depends more on the specific jet, however.
506* PainfullySlowProjectile: The sweedish starting heli [=HKP3C=] is equipped with the slowest missile in the game, the lethargic RB 53 that travels at a measly 85/ms.
507* PlayEveryDay: A daily multiplier (x2-5) would reward bonus XP for the first victory. This was replaced in patch 1.47 by an item system.
508** Later on, daily missions were added into the Battle Pass system, incentivising this trope to make progress in it.
509* PlayingPossum: when having a determined attacker on one's tail and seeing no immediate way to get rid of them, it can be beneficial to fake having been damaged beyond the ability to maintain control by slowing down, stopping all evasive maneuvers and pointing the nose to the ground. Some players - especially if themselves under fire by an ally of their target - won't press the attack at this point, and assuming their target can't avoid a crash will disengage and look for something else to do. Cue their vengeful target gunning the throttle, breaking off the dive and looking for blood...
510** In tank realistic and simulator battles where there are no markers, its somtimes possible to blend in with enviromental civilian vehicles by parking on the side of the road with your engine off. Inattentive players will be in for a rude suprise if they drive by you.
511* PintSizedPowerhouse:
512** When you look at the sizes of the American carrier-based aircraft, and compare them to land-based fighters, you will notice this about them. The one that really takes the cake is the Grumman [=F6F=] Hellcat. Fully upgraded, it can carry two 2,000lb bombs, and six rockets. To put this in perspective, the only other aircraft with an armament that surpasses it is the P-47 Thunderbolt a full rank higher.
513** The M41 Walker Bulldog may be classified as a light tank, and it may have cardboard for armor.... but it packs a 76mm gun that gets the second best Armor-Piercing round for that gun on the Easy 8 Sherman... as its starting round. After that, you get access to APDS ammunition, and can absolutely wreck tanks with far greater armor than it has. It should be noted however, that it's also a FragileSpeedster due to it being a small vehicle, it's very easy to kill the crew with a single well timed and aimed APCR round.
514** The ZIS-30 is so tiny that it's gun crew literally has to sit on top of the chassis to fire the gun, protected by only a tiny blast shield. As everything that brings up the tank will note, it has a cannon that can devastate tanks whole battle ratings ahead of it. It is also ridiculously fast, owing to it's small size.
515** The M56 and M50 US tank destroyers. Both are tiny, designed to be air droppable, and have cardboard for armor. but both are packing HEAT shells with 320+mm of penetration, are very hard to see in realistic, and are both very nimble so they can retreat quickly.
516* PlayerGuidedMissile: Version 1.59 introduced the Soviet IT-1 Drakon; a T-62 chassis with a special turret equipped with an anti-tank guided missile launcher, the missile being manually steered to the target by the player. As well as the German Raketenjagdpanzer 2, with two French SS.11 anti-tank missile launchers on a similar chassis to the Jagdpanzer 4-5, and the American M551 Sheridan light tank, capable of firing MGM-51 Shillelagh missiles as well as conventional shells out of its 152mm main gun. For the British, the first missile-firing vehicle is actually Swedish, the Stridsvagn 81 (an export version of the British Centurion) that's been refitted with 3 (non-reloadable) rails for Robot.52 missiles (the export version of the SS.11). On account of not actually being a British Army vehicle and never proceeding past testing stage even with the Swedish Army[[note]]To the extent that it was never even given an official designation to distinguish it from stock Strv 81s![[/note]], it's a premium while the other new missile-launchers are in the regular tech tree. The Drakon and Shillelagh are guided by simply keeping the target in the crosshairs, while the SS.11/Rb.52 are more difficult because they have to be manually steered into the target.
517** Most starter helicopters will have manually guided [=ATGMs=], if not the one immediately after the starter.
518* PointDefenseless: massively averted. If you think you can just fly up to a bomber in a light fighter and fire your peashooters at it undisturbed [[DeathOfAThousandCuts until it finally succumbs]], a few instances of getting your pilot killed by their turret guns should be enough to start you considering reasonable angles of attack instead.
519** Also, beware the AAA that dot most of the maps. While the mobile AA guns aren't much to worry about, the stationary flak guns seen near pillboxes or airfields have a nasty habit of blowing players out of the sky that aren't working with other team members. ''Especially'' the ones around airfields. If you're playing Realistic Battles and want to score a ground kill on an enemy player while he's refueling/reloading...you better either be a heavy bomber at high altitude or bring plenty of friends. Preferably both.
520** Go ahead, try and make an attack run on a destroyer in a slow-moving torpedo bomber at low altitude without any fighter cover to distract it... we dare you.
521** An actual case of this trope pops up in low tier navy battles. In both arcade and realistic, players can bring their own planes, or can spawn in a random plane. While the earliest boats likely have [=MGs=] that can work fairly well as AA, later but still low tier ships, such as tier 1 Germany, might forgo light, rapid fire machine guns for heavier cannons. Great for ships, not so great for bombers and dive bombers.
522* PowerCreep: Some vehicles have been accused of being this, particularly some of the end-game vehicles such as the Chieftain Mk.3, since they skirt perilously close to modern technologies that would completely outclass other vehicles they would face at their tiers (A modified version of the 120mm L11 gun on the Chieftain for example is still used on the present-day Challenger 2). And then with Version 1.59, the arrival of ''guided missiles''.
523** As the game progresses closer and closer to modern day tech, this trope is almost certain to continue.
524* PowerUpLetdown: The In-game Encyclopedia advises against using rifle-caliber "Armor-piercing tracers" as they are inferior to "Armor-piercing" and "Armor-piercing Incendiary". This is because the burning of the tracer chemical will significantly alter the weight and in-fight ballistics, resulting in a bullet that is more prone to divergence and bouncing.
525* ProductPlacement: One of the decals players can unlock is the Nvidia logo.
526* PromotionalPowerlessPieceOfGarbage: Gaijin hosted a promotional event where people could get an A-26 Invader by purchasing an exclusive laptop with the game already installed. Unfortunately, the huge sticking point is that those exclusive laptops cost '''$2200''' each.
527** Gaijin later had put up a event giving people the chance to earn a rare premium plane, for the Americans it was the same ultra rare Invader. The catch? you needed to get '''1100''' kills (RB and SB kills counted as several) in two weeks to get it. Meaning only those who actually had time to play for several hours daily managed to reach the end goal.[[note]]Specifically, 1100 kills in two weeks works out to roughly 10 kills an hour, 8 hours a day, 7 days a week.[[/note]] From the time of the event (2013) until the introduction of the non-premium A-26B-50 in Update 1.67 (March 2017), there were no opportunities to get an A-26.
528* RammingAlwaysWorks: Almost guaranteed to destroy both the rammer and the rammed. (Unless it's a glancing hit or the other plane is significantly less durable than yours, in which case you ''might'' survive.) However, because ramming never gets you credited for the kill, the maneuver is usually a product of either extreme frustration (after, say, a bomber has survived three ammo belts and is still limping along), desperation (last friendly survivors on the ground, enemy heavy bomber heading at them, and you flying a reserve plane with no chance of taking it down in time with gunfire), or noobishness (pursuing players forgetting there's a throttle and slamming into you because they're flying a faster plane). Or simple dickishness - ramming is typically seen as a low move and will attract a lot of verbal abuse in the chat, so trolls can load up on reserve planes and smack them into people just to enjoy the anger.
529** Averted with planes ramming ground units. It used to work, but was removed in an ObviousRulePatch prior to ground forces being released.
530** While not as effective as it is in, say, ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'', ramming is used in the ground combat and can have some use. In extreme cases, you could flip an enemy tank. More likely, you can nudge them around, throwing their aim off and hopefully exposing weak points to yourself or allies.
531*** Can occasionally work if the vehicle being rammed is much smaller and lighter than the vehicle ramming it; a heavy tank for example could effectively destroy an anti-aircraft truck or one of the smaller light tanks by crashing into it at full speed and/or shoving it into the nearest solid object until it's crushed to death.
532*** One tactic for dealing with enemy tanks in a capture zone, if you can't kill them, simply knock their engine and transmission out, and then push them out of the capture zone. This can be especially funny when doing this puts him into the line of fire of something with a bigger gun than you have. Or pushes them into [[SuperDrowningSkills a body of water]].
533** Also effective in naval battles; ramming enemy vessels can cause damage to them and possibly even capsize them. This is even encouraged, as there's a Steam achievement for destroying ten enemy vessels in this manner.
534* RevengeBeforeReason: A lot of less-than-experienced players will get so incensed at being shot down that they'll ignore mission orders entirely and focus all their energy into vengefully pursuing their attacker. The game actually encourages this, by leaving said attacker selected as a target when you jump in a new plane even if you wouldn't be able to target them with normal means.
535** Starting from Update 1.70.1945, said attacker is marked with a ''skull.''
536** The "eye for an eye" award is earned for basically doing exactly this.
537** "Revenge CAS" (spawning in a plane and then bombing the tank that killed you) is an extremely common occurance in ground battles.
538* RingMenu: The game implements one of these accessed via the T key to issue attack/defend orders as well as a series of responses to teammates. Selecting one will play voice clips and insert it into your team's in-game text chat as well.
539** As the game got more complex, a "Multifunction Menu" accessed via the Y key was added. it allows you to access all controls for your vehicle and weapons in one place.
540* RockBeatsLaser: It's entirely possible for a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxlYPIuOdpw&ab_channel=Voyager [=WW1=]]] vehicle to utterly destroy a modern one. There's even an award for this called "God Mode".
541* SceneryGorn: The "Berlin" map is a bombed-out, decimated German capitol that is barely recognizable save for the charred husk of the Reichstag. Version 1.53 adds equally devastated Stalingrad and Cologne maps to the list.
542* SchmuckBait:
543** Bombers with escorting fighters can be this; the bomber orbits at high altitude over the enemy's bases and enemy planes coming up to intercept the bomber get jumped from above by escorting fighters who use their speed and altitude advantage to annihilate the slower, climbing enemies.
544** It's common for an aircraft finding himself in an unfavorable engagement situation to try to goad enemies into following him back over his own airfield where the AI anti-aircraft gunners can pick the pursuing enemy apart, as demonstrated by [=PhlyDaily=] [[https://youtu.be/PZaugU8iVq0?t=23m here]].
545* SelfDeprecation:
546** The April Fools' 2019 event, Earth Thunder, features flying [=UFOs=] seemingly as a jab at the use of the term "UFO" by the community when talking about any aircraft with unrealistic/broken flight models.
547** In response to the fallout from ''War Thunder'' [=YouTube=] personality Sean's now-infamous "free Abrams" remark during the parts & [=FPE=] debacle, late March 2019 saw Gaijin introduce a premium bundle called "The Real Free Abrams Pack"; it included the [=XM1=] (GM) prototype Abrams tank, 13337 Golden Eagles, 13337 minutes (approximately 10 days) premium account time, a "Got that free Abrams" decal, and a player title of "@realFreeAbrams".
548** A 2020 AprilFoolsDay [[https://warthunder.com/en/news/6672-new-revolutionary-war-thunder-controller-en post]] has Gaijin give a nod to the ULQ exploit in ground forces that existed for years.
549--> ''"For example one push of a lever will allow switching the graphics quality to Ultra Low right in the middle of a battle, allowing the spotting of enemies that wait for you in the bushes."''
550* ShellShockSilence: As of v1.61, when a crewmember gets wounded in a ground vehicle, it will cause audio to become muffled and/or cause the player to hear a ringing ears sound effect.
551* ShootTheFuelTank: When hit with incendiary or explosive rounds, fuel tanks will be set on fire, permanently or temporarily disabling the vehicle. Protected tanks are more resistant to hits.
552** Fuel tanks on tanks can explode, destroying the vehicle. It's especially a common problem with Soviet tanks.
553* ShoutOut:
554** One of the unlockable skins for the Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighter on the Chinese tech tree (and the premium F-5C version in the US tree) is the paint scheme of the fictional [=MiG-28=] from ''Film/TopGun''. The devblog for the latter aircraft directly references this.
555** The 2021 April Fools' event has two - the futuristic [[VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077 Warfare 2077]], and [=TailSpin=], which basically a [[CelShading cel-shaded]] WesternAnimation/TaleSpin in a video game setting.
556** A year later, War Thunder gets a VideoGame/DuneII-themed April Fool's event.
557** In June 2022, the F-14 was added in an update suitably titled [[Film/TopGun "Danger Zone"]]. Incidentally, the F-14's introduction coincided with the release of ''Film/TopGunMaverick''. And while the teaser trailer for the update doesn't use the Music/KennyLoggins song (due to copyright issues), players quickly realized that [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDvik1MAtr4 it synchs up perfectly with the song]].
558* ShownTheirWork: The planes are quite well researched, with most of the planes having a small information section attached to it to give a bit of history on the plane. The individual quirks of some planes also translate into historical and simulator battles, such as the P-51 becoming much more bottom-heavy with full fuel due to its belly-mounted reserve fuel tank.
559** On top of that, several of the aircraft have very poor dive characteristics, and are very difficult to pull out of a dive. The P-38 Lighting for example, just like in RealLife, will crash if it gets into a steep dive for too long. Players who are familiar with this information (either through reading or trial and error) can use this information against players that never bothered with the information.
560** The Tanks are getting a dose of this as well. Nearly every internal component is modeled in every tank, and the armor of each tank mirrors the real thing. Just like with the aircraft, [[AttackItsWeakPoint knowing where to shoot]] is just as important, if not more important, then making sure your enemy doesn't get a shot on those locations.
561* ShowsDamage: Through a very nice bullet-hole and bomb-crater system. Tanks can have non essential bits like stowage bins and track guards blown off.
562* SmokeOut: Patch 1.69 adds various methods for deploying clouds of concealing smoke, from the firing/launching of smoke shells/rockets, to the use of a self-concealing smoke generator.
563* SnipingTheCockpit: Played straight. As part of the SubsystemDamage gameplay, crew can be incapacitated, and if the pilot is killed or knocked out the plane is considered "downed" and will crash. Further, no matter how robust the construction is and how much damage the air frame can absorb, [[AttackItsWeakPoint the cockpit is always vulnerable]] at least through the glass canopy. This means that head-on confrontations between planes are particularly deadly for both parties.
564** Almost required for Ground Forces, as one of the ways to kill a tank is to kill all but 1 of its crew. As long as a tank has at least 2 crew still alive, it can continue to fight at reduced efficiency, but there's no tank where a single person can drive and operate the weapons at the same time. Completely changed with Version 1.57, allowing a tank to keep fighting in "Last Man Standing" mode with even 1 living crew member. The catch is that it's still impossible to both drive and shoot the guns with one crew member, so that one guy has to switch between the driver's and gunner's seats (which is not a quick process): in effect, "Last Man Standing" in most situations just means desperately trying to fire one more time before your last crewman is killed. However, this led to a what is essentially a "Whack-A-Mole" phenomenon. If you do not have a shot at the vehicle's ammo rack or engine, you MUST kill that last crew member to remove the vehicle from play, and if the other player is alternating between driving and gunning in response to where your gun is pointing, you end up having to play "Whack-A-Mole"-like minigame with your gun as the hammer, and the last crew member as the mole, as described in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRQ_r2TVUmY&t=5m35s this video.]]
565* SoundCodedForYourConvenience: Every gun in the game has a different sound effect, from the pow-pow-pow of the M2 .50 to the sharp rattle of the Mg 17 7.92mm.
566** Many aircraft also have their own engine sounds, though most still don't and more sounds are added in every patch.
567* StoneWall: The Sherman Jumbos are this, especially the one armed with the 75mm gun. While their armor is capable of shrugging off even [[LightningBruiser Panther]] and [[MightyGlacier Tiger]] rounds, their guns won't do much against those tanks' armor unless you're either a crack shot or at point-blank range (and even then, you still have to AttackItsWeakPoint). It's a similar story for the Churchills.
568** The jumbo now has APCR rounds so it can pen most enemies it faces. No such luck for the Churchills however...
569* StukaScream: Subverted; only the first model of the Ju-87 available in the game is fitted with the iconic dive siren. All subsequent models have this feature deleted.
570* StupidJetpackHitler: A top-secret anti-gravity-powered Nazi spaceship is mentioned in passing in the AprilFoolsDay episode of The Shooting Range.
571* SubsystemDamage: Played straight, and part of the simulation. Various components of the plane can be hit and the damage will affect its performance in a variety of ways. For example, losing a chunk of its wing has a drastic effect on the pilot's ability to control it. On the other hand, some light damage can be mostly just cosmetic and have little effect on performance. For someone looking to shoot down a bomber, going for this by attacking the engines is a good idea. If you see your target's elevators fly off or get a notice about them losing tail control, then they're doomed; best they can do is delay the inevitable and try to spite you by getting killed by one of your teammates before they hit the ground.
572** Continues in the Ground Forces, which tracks components like the tracks, suspension, transmission, horizontal and vertical turret drives, engine, radiator, cannon breach, ammo magazine and the crew. If your driver is knocked out, you can't move your tank until he wakes up; same with losing the gunner (unable to fire or turn the turret). And if the driver is killed, there's a delay while one of the other crewmen switches place with him.
573** Gone even further with naval battle, as on top of everything else, there's also hull integrity: If your hull is breached there's a chance that it will start taking on water. If it's shot below the water line, it will ''definitely'' take on water. Even if the damage is patched up, you still have to tell your crew to bail out water or risk losing buoyancy and drowning.
574* SuperPrototype: Several aircraft and tanks are this, both in the regular research lines and as premium vehicles, as they never made it to the production lines for varying reasons. Some of the most notable examples include the American T32 Heavy Tank and Soviet SMK added in Patch 1.45, the I-185 line of Soviet fighters (which overlaps with FlawedPrototype, as they were too difficult to control for inexperienced pilots) and the German Horten Ho 229 flying wing jet fighter. Now there's also the Maus and T95 Super Heavy Tanks as of 1.75.1945.
575* SurveillanceDrone: The Drone Age update introduces scout drones as a researchable modification for Rank VI and VII light tanks.
576* TakeThat:
577** In April 2015, Gaijin introduced "Unrealistic Battles" where players drive around in an SPS-255 which is a wooden-framed M4-shaped rubber balloon decoy tank that has NO armor, is propelled by 4 men riding bicycles, is armed with a pneumatic vegetable launcher that shoots potatoes and carrots, and has a "health bar of 400 HP". In essence, the event is a brutally cunning jab at Wargaming's ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks''.
578** For April 2016, there's the sailing fleet event, which is another brutally cunning jab towards ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships''.
579** For April 2018, there's Silent Thunder, a game mode where every player fights in a submarine. Besides showing that Gaijin can put Submarines in their game and make them work, it fosters suspicions that Wargaming is too cheap to put Submarines in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarships''.
580* TakingYouWithMe: Sometimes happens with desperate players who will crash their planes into someone else's to bring them down, an interceptor ramming a bomber, for example. Conversely, a plane with a turret mount in it which is going down might still fire wildly at whomever inflicted critical damage on them in the hope of bringing them down too as they spin toward an inevitable crash. It's also not uncommon for a bomber who is outnumbered at low altitude to drop his bombs and then crash his plane into a target in order to deny the enemy a kill.
581** Invoked in the most [[DyingMomentOfAwesome awesome]] way possible in the game's [[http://youtu.be/pzgPXOw2plI latest trailer]], featuring the tail gunner of a mortally damaged American B-17 bomber shooting down the attacking German fighter responsible, while a Joss Ackland-esque narrator warns, "...And you ''won't'' get out. Not when it dives at 300 knots," followed by the driver of a burning Panther tank ''missing its turret'' charging into an Allied convoy.
582** Ground Forces Arcade players have made whatever aircraft they spawned into improvised [[PlayerGuidedMissile Player-Guided Missiles]] as the Hull Break mechanic applies to planes in addition to [[{{BFG}} huge tank shells]].
583* TerrainSculpting: Dozer-equipped vehicles as well as any bomb with a large enough payload can do this in Ground Forces.
584* TimeDelayedDeath: Can happen a few ways:
585** An aircraft can be rendered too damaged to fly but not technically "dead" by the games standards. That will change when it hits the ground.
586** Tanks being set on fire can burn to death. This basically will happen if they don't happen to have a fire extinguisher unlocked.
587** Naval retains fires but also introduces flooding. While ships can repair hull breaches and dewater by default, if the player isn't on top of it or too large a hole opens up, it can doom the ship.
588* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: The enemies in the PvE mode Tank Assault are hordes of AI-controlled tanks. Despite [[ArtificialStupidity not being very smart]] (they mostly rush in a straight line and don't use fire extinguishers, so any fire in the tank results in roasted crews), they can pull off feats that players can only dream of, like casually sniping targets from almost a mile away while on the move at high speeds. They also spawn waves of the heaviest tanks in their tier, sometimes at a Battle Rating higher than players would be able to meet in [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]] matches.
589* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: in order to prevent kill-stealing - where one takes a lot of effort to damage a plane but sees his kill credited instead to a passing team mate who casually fires the final burst that kills it - many players will continue to follow damaged planes in their final dive and keep shooting them well after it's clear they no longer have any control and can't avoid a crash, because total destruction while still in the air will award the kill without having to wait for the impact.
590** Sure, you can kill a plane with a normal rocket. But what's worth doing is worth overdoing. Hit them with a 298mm "[[NonIndicativeName Tiny Tim]]" rocket instead! Never mind that its the equivalent of a 140 pound bomb with wings meant to kill ships, that bomber needs to explode ''awesomely.''
591** Sure, a 37mm cannon could take out anything in a hit or two. But why stop at that when you can wipe out an enemy plane with a ''75mm'' antitank gun slinging high explosive?
592*** Or if you're Italian, a 102mm!!
593** Nothing is more trollish, hilarious and satisfying than dropping your bomber to right above ground level with fighters in hot pursuit for then to ''drop your bombs'', particularly if they have a large blast radius. If timed right, they will blow one or more of the fighters out of the sky.
594** On the Ground Forces side, you have the KV-2 with a 152mm howitzer. At its tier the worst it will fight would be the early Tiger tanks, which explode gloriously under the power of this gun. Pity the poor flak truck that meets it...
595*** Or, through a combination of luck and skill, hostile aircraft.
596** The Sherman Calliope. Why use 6-12 rockets on a plane? Why not use ''SIXTY'' rockets strapped to the top of a tank to blow up your enemies?!
597** For Ground Forces, if you just disable all available crewmen or set the tank on fire for a certain amount of time, you just see it turn into a burnt out husk. Shoot it in the ammunition with a HE round (especially if said tank itself is carrying explosive ammo)? It explodes into a fireball with enough force to ''launch the turret off of the chassis''.
598** Some of the soviet Anti-Air guns are mounted on literal potato trucks (as in civilian trucks used to transport potatoes). You can of course try to kill one by shooting a high explosive anti-tank shell at it from a tank destroyer, at which it will most likely not even hit armor and go straight for the driver's face.
599* TrailersAlwaysSpoil: The devblog announcing the addition of AI supercarriers for top-tier naval jets included a picture of [=HMS=] ''Ark Royal'' with Blackburn Buccaneer attack jets sitting on her flight deck; this aircraft wouldn't be revealed until the following update at which time they came as a surprise to exactly nobody.
600* TwentyBearAsses: Gaijin offers free Golden Eagles and Premium Aircraft/Vehicles to whoever is skilled and determined enough to complete special challenges. This has had the unfortunate side-effect of polarizing the fans between elitist and casual gamers.
601* UrbanWarfare: Several of the ground maps, specifically Berlin, Cologne, and Stalingrad play to this, with Normandy and Poland to a lesser extent as the towns only makes up a relatively small portion of the actual map with plenty of flanking areas outside the town itself.
602* V8EngineNoises: The game tends to recycle engine sounds across many different aircraft and ground vehicles.
603* WatchOutForThatTree: It's quite easy for players to get distracted by watching nearby enemies and fly or drive straight into a tree because they weren't watching where they were going. While this is quite often fatal for most aircraft, some ground vehicles can be damaged by it as well if they hit a large enough tree at full speed with damage ranging from a destroyed engine or transmission to knocked-out crew members, the latter of which can result in an insta-kill for vehicles with a small number of crew to begin with which don't have the crew replenishment module available at the time.
604** In Navy combat, it's possible to not notice you're heading straight for land, and either ignore or not notice the warning, or not react fast enough/not be maneuverable enough to avoid a collision and possibly run aground.
605* WeaksauceWeakness:
606** For the most part, Soviet tanks struggle to aim downwards, making them appallingly poor on the hilly central and southern European maps.
607** The trucks and halftracks can often have their crew knocked out my a simple collision to the front engine, even against destroy-able terrain, at top speeds.
608** Any tank with only 2 crew members can and will die the moment one of them goes dead. This also makes the "replenish crewman" upgrade near pointless as if you need this at any point in the battle, you are probably immobilized and disabled right in front of the guy who just did that to you. In realistic/sim, you don't even get that as the vehicle dies as soon as there's only 1 crew left. This pain is doubled for things that can be killed with 30 caliber machine guns, like the Kaytusha rocket truck or the Flakpanzer 1.
609** Ships can get wrecked by running aground at relatively high speed, or running aground and not getting back into the water.
610* WeaponizedCar: The Soviet and German starter AntiAir vehicles are cargo trucks and stripped-down light tanks with a flak cannon fastened to the bed, while the U.S. ones are halftracks up till the M19. In 1.75.1945 halftrack TD's with 57 and 75mm guns were added. Version 1.55 saw the [=T17E2=] and Mk.2 AA armored cars with twin .50-cal machine guns & 20mm cannons as tier 1 anti-aircraft vehicles for the British (though they quickly proved just as lethal to other tier 1 ground vehicles as to enemy planes. They later got moved up in BR due to this).
611** Actual armored cars have slowly made their way into the game. The British have the Daimler AC, The US has the M8 Greyhound as a premium,(both armed with light tank guns) and the Germans have the Sd.Kfz.234/2 (Talk about a mouthful!) armed with the 50mm cannon from the Panzer 3. Oh, and the Chinese faction has the export version of the M8 as a reserve tank.
612** [[UsefulNotes/SouthAfricansWithSurfaceToAirMissiles South Africa]] under the British tech tree have several armored cars, ranging from being armed with a measly 2 pounder all the way up to a 105mm NATO tank cannon! There's even a version with radar and dual 35mm anti air cannons.
613** [[UsefulNotes/GaulsWithGrenades France]] get several versions of the 8 wheeled EBR armored car, the AML 90 with a low pressure chemical round throwing cannon, and even a [=ATGM=] carrier with the [=SANTAL=].
614** [[UsefulNotes/ChineseWithChopperSupport China]] Has a couple in the modern era part of the tree, such as the [=PTL02=] and the [=ZLT11=]. But the most infamous by far is the WMA 301, a premium Armored car with a bevy of high tech features including a fully stablized 105mm gun capable of launching Tandem charge ATGMS that defeat ERA, VT-Fuse HE allowing it to shoot down helicopters, thermal sights, a laser ranger finder, and a pretty good road top speed of over 50 MPH. All of a very low BR of 8.3, where msot opponents you face won't have even half those features. It's no wonder its commonly accused of being a way of BribingYourWayToVictory.
615* YouAllLookFamiliar: Aircraft with multiple crew members and ground vehicles with open crew compartments play to this, as the crew members all have identical templates, the exception being that at least one member of a German or Soviet open-topped ground vehicle will be wearing an officer's hat instead of a helmet like the rest of the crew.

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