Given the number of unique vehicles and gameplay mechanics, it is no surprise that the sheer amount of nicknames could fill a small book.
- 2-OP, the Ironic Nickname for the notoriously underpowered Po-2 biplane.
- Armor tanks - Russian fuel tanks, which are infamous for never catching fire when hit and thus effectively giving Russian ground vehicles extra armor.
- Justified as even on real tanks with this feature (not just Russian ones) that take a hit to these tanks will only have to roll a few feet and be out of the flames. In other words... shooting the tanks is great for the pyrotechnics, but they won't do anything more than burn the paint.
- The unconventional XP-55 Ascender features a pusher propeller mounted at the rear rather then a standard front mounted one. In War Thunder it is also known as the "Ass-ender".
- This was actually a historical nickname for the XP-55.
- Barn - The colossal, boxy FV4005 and its comically-large 183-mm main gun. Nickname lifted from World of Tanks.
- Battleship-17, Beton-17 - The series of B-17 bombers owes these nicknames to their massively rugged damage models in most patches. In Patch 1.43, bomber damage models and gunner accuracy were nerfed, causing them to be Armored Coffins.
- The Beaufighter series of heavy fighters certainly earn the name of "Broken Fighter" since the four 20mm cannons on the aircraft will certainly make anyone regret taking it on in a head on pass. On top of that, the rear gunner is certainly capable of keeping enemy fighters off its back.
- In China, they are "Baitfighters" or "Uglyfighter", as it's judged to be too "fat and bulky" to be an elegant, beautiful plane. The Chinese WT community has a lot of interesting, creative nicknames often unheard of by other players.
- BESH - The Affectionate Nickname applied on the HESH shell, particularly within the context of the BFGs found in the FV4005 and the Centurion Mk. 5 AVRE.
- Two of the Bf 110's historical nicknames are "Meat on the Table" (because it was seen as a free kill for British fighters) and "Goering's Folly".
- BIAS-7: The IS-7, widely perceived as being too strong for its 8.0 battle rating. In particular it's widely regarded as stronger than the T-10M which has an 8.3 BR.
- The SU-100Y AKA "The Boxtank" carried its famous World of Tanks nickname over to War Thunder as well.
- The Bradley ADATS (Air Defense Anti-Tank System) added in 1.89 is often given the portmanteau of "BRADATS" by players.
- Breach Repair Simulator - Part of the top-tier meta involves frequently repairing your, well, gun breech, thanks to it being a weak spot common among modern-day MBTs.
- Bussian Rias - No need to explain.
- One player decided to store all bias complaints in a thread.
- Now with a 181-page thread dedicated to it.
- One player decided to store all bias complaints in a thread.
- Sekrit dokuments - Obscure documents used by Gaijin to change flight and damage models. Or to implement obscure Soviet prototypes whose full statistics seem to be unavailable to everyone except the Gaijin developers. Especially when Gaijin explains that they aren't implementing a vehicle due to unavailability of reliable data for relevant statistics.note This leads to accusations that Gaijin is simply making up statistics for those obscure Soviet vehicles.note
- Gained a new level of hilarity in 2021, when somebody claiming to be a Challenger 2 tank commander posted parts of the tank's still classified manual to the War Thunder forum because he was upset that Gaijin was portraying the tank as too weak. Gaijin promptly deleted the literal secret documents and refused to use them. Then, it happened several more times - from trying to convince people of the proper turret-rotation speed of the French Leclerc tank to documentation about the AIM-120 AMRAAM that happened to include export-restricted data on the F-16 - to the point that people aren't even sure which leaks really happened and which ones are made up, because it's so quickly become accepted that the War Thunder community will casually commit espionage and/or treason to get their tank or plane accurately simulated in-game.
- Cancer is what the community calls an overpowered tank/plane. There are some contenders for the title including:
- The ZSU-57-2, for being way too good at killing tanks despite being an SPAA. Ditto for its Chinese counterpart, WZ305, which not only has the same cannons but also gets proximity HE rounds, making it a superior SPAA.
- The R3 has also been given this nickname for similar reasons, in addition to being absurdly fast and being roughly 40 years younger than any of the vehicles it regularly faces.
- The Siebel ferry 40s are called "Cancerbarges" because they're way too hard to approach in a boat or even a plane without getting blasted to smithereens.
- Cannoncat - The F8F-1B Bearcat, which is armed with four 20mm AN/M3 cannons. Also called Beercan and Spacecat.
- Also briefly known as the Ovencat, for its tendency to immediately overheat as soon as the player even considered using WEP
- The immense power of the HEAT-FS round that has made thick armor virtually useless has led to the community calling it CHEAT-FS.
- Climb Thunder - The meta that's existed at various times in Air Realistic where every fighter climbs to max altitude at the start of battles, and those who can't climb as high get dominated by those who can. There's generally much rejoicing when the meta shifts away from this.
- The P-39 and P-63 series of Aira/Kingcobras are often just shortened to "Cobra", and their bite has earned them a fearsome reputation. Although it's not very accurate, one hit from its 37mm cannon will wreck your plane, or leave it crippled and an easy kill for someone else.
- Historically accurate. Though American and British pilots disliked the "Iron Dog" P-39 for the unusual balance of its rear-mounted engine, Russian aviators who learned their trade in the notoriously-unstable I-153 and I-16 easily mastered the quirky handling of their Lend-Lease P-39s. They called it the "Dear Little Cobra" and often preferred it and the derivative P-63 over advanced Russian designs like the La-5 and Yak-7.
- Cranberry - The English Electric Canberra and its transatlantic variant, the Martin B-57 Canberra.
- A second cannon armed variant is known as the "Cannonberra."
- The Nakajima G8N1 Renzan Japanese heavy bomber is known as the "Death Star", thanks to its good bombload, ridiculous toughness, and its defensive armament of six 20 mm cannons and four 13.2 mm machine guns.
- Chinese WT players often referred Renzan as "Space Battleship Renzan" as it climbs rather fast for a bomber and sometimes reach ridiculous heights, making most fighters give up intercepting it.
- The B-17 has sometimes been called as Death Star as well.
- The Kawanishi H8K3 Japanese flying boat, with five 20 mm cannons and 5 7.7 mm machine guns, the "Floating Death Star".
- Derp Cannon - From World of Tanks; practically any BFG that can be seen in-game. Such weapons are of limited practicality due to their slow reload and low shell velocity (which makes them more difficult to aim, especially at longer range), but when they do hit the target they hit very hard. Despite their impracticality such guns are nonetheless fun to "derp around" with in casual gameplay, so the nickname has carried over to War Thunder. And it's been expanded to refer to fighter aircraft armed with 37 mm and larger guns that are seen as utterly impractical for dogfighting, but can obliterate slower less agile targets like bombers, or fighers/attacks who already have a damaged engine (or are just AFK or not paying attention). The more oversized it is relative to the vehicle carrying it, the "derpier" it's considered to be. Especially if low rate of fire and (in aircraft-mounted Derp Guns) low velocity render it impractical to use.
- If a fighter aircraft mounts a BFG on its nose/fuselage that extends well in front of the nose (notable examples being the Me 262 A-1/U4 "Narwhal" with a 50mm cannon and the Hs 129 B-3 "Duck" with a 75mm tank gun), it's Biggus Dickus. Both for its appearance, and screwing you over if you got shot by it.
- Another nickname lifted from World of Tanks is the Doom Turtle, bestowed to the massive T95.
- The Hs 129-B3 ground-attack aircraft, which has the 75mm Bordkanone, is called "Duck" and "Panzerquacker" due to the color and shape of its nose.◊ The latter is a pun on its real-life nickname Panzerknacker ("Armour Breaker").
- Easy Mode - The IS-2, for being ridiculously good at its tier.
- The F4U Corsair, during patch 1.29 was completely broken, having engine power and propeller stats many times what it should be; allowing it to easily dive at nearly 1000 Km/h; earning it nicknames such as "F4UFO", or "tooFast4U".
- Fiddles - Machine guns. 0.50 Browning machine guns, however, are often referred to as Freedom Lasers thanks to both some of their tracer rounds looking like a laser lightshow and their good damage.
- Chinese WT players refer the German MG131 machine gun as "MG131 M&M launcher", due to having colourful tracer bullets and almost non-existent damage.
- Flakbarge - The two Siebel ferries of the German coastal fleet and undisputed champions of More Dakka in their half of any naval tech tree.
- Flakbus - The open-topped 8,8 cm Flak 37 Sfl., equipped with, guess it, the 8.8 cm FlaK gun.
- Flatpanzer - The Jagdpanzer IV and its upgunned version, the Panzer IV/70(V). For being flat and thus low to the ground.
- With the unusual shape of the Ho-229, it has earned nicknames like Flying Dorito (itself an actual nickname of the A-12 Avenger) and Batwing.
- The B-17 has one that's both well deserved, and historic... "Flying Fortress"s
- FYI to the lone wolfs out there... do not... repeat... DO NOT take on a B-17 by yourself... you will have no less then 3-4 machine guns shooting at you no matter where you approach it from. On top of that, it's got a reputation for being tough to take down due to its endurance. So, without rockets, a (big) cannon, or Improbable Aiming Skills, don't attack it by yourself.
- Or just use the Trollcannon-equipped ME-410 U4. It was purpose built to ruin B-17s, and once it's at altitude it does the job well.
- B6/R3 is a far more effective bomber remover than U4. For that matter nearly all fighters with 37mm cannons or with German 30mms can destroy a B-17 in a short burst. Me.410B6/R3 is notable because not only its twin 30mm MK103 cannons easily chew through any plane in their sights, while not being as hard to aim as the cannon on U4, it also has a tanky damage model and rarely catches fire, so you don't need to fear eating a few Browning hits on your approach.
- Or the newly added Ta152c, which is a single engine fighter with far better maneuverability than any Me410 models, and also a 30mm MK103 cannon and 4 20mm MG151 cannons.
- Forum Thunder.
- Fridge Launcher - The Yak-9K, which destroys tanks in tank battles with a 45mm autocannon.
- Gaijin's name has had countless spins to it; some of the more frequent variations include Gaijoob, Gaijiggles, and The Snail (referring to its logo).
- Groundpounder - A player who dedicates their (usually American) plane on, well, attacking ground targets.
- Gunshipping - This is what bomber pilots do when they dive down to low altitudes and use their defensive armament to their advantage, or when two opposing bomber pilots use their turret guns only to try and shoot each other down.
- Hamsters - The War Thunder servers. Whenever there are server outage problems, it's joked that the unreliability is because they run on Hamster-Wheel Power. Prolonged downtime will be attributed to the server hamsters dying and needing to be replaced.
- Handholding - Any nation that's perceived as getting preferential treatment by Gaijin. The implication is that the players of that nation are less skilled, and need the developers to hold their hand like a child who's just learning to walk so they won't fall over. The most common recipients of this accusation are players who main either USSR or Germany.
- Helicopter - The Kawasaki Ki-10 reserve plane, which was once able to climb vertically without stalling. Demonstrated in this video.
- Hisparkle - The 20 mm Hispano cannons used by British planes. This nickname was coined due to the fact that the cannons "sparkle" a lot. Alternatively, they're called Hisparkos.
- Hitlerbolt - The German P-47. The Russian one is called Stalinbolt.
- The infamous in-game fragility of the Wellington led to its nickname of "Jelly Welly." Its geodesic frame has been given some justice through changes in the DM mechanic.
- "J out" refers to ejecting, because the standard controls do this with the J key. At one point this was infamous for being able to deny enemies credit for a kill, until this abuse was patched out.
- The AIM-9J Sidewinder and RB24J (the Swedish license-built version) are sometimes called "AIM-9 J-out" and RB24 J-out", because once one is locked onto you there's so little chance of escape you might as well eject.
- The KV-2, with its ginormous 152-mm howitzer that can deliver one-hit kills and for being a really huge tank, has earned the nickname of "King of Derp," which is lifted from World of Tanks. And there's its other less famous nickname, the "Tower of Stalin", referencing its extremely tall turret.
- LaLa - The La-5 and La-7, which had unusually good flight models.
- The Tupolev Tu-2 bombers are called TuTus.
- Land Battleship - refers to the Soviet T-35 heavy tank, which has five turrets.
- Leo - Shorthand for any vehicle of the Leopard family of MBTs.
- Similarly, the Centurions are shortened to just Cents.
- Meat armor - Some early tier vehicles such as the British Independent and the T-35 have a surprisingly high number of crew members and poor armor. But these vehicles not only are pretty tough to take down since they have a lot of spare crew members, but machine gun turret crew make surprisingly effective armor by absorbing shell fragments with their bodies.
- Trying to knock out such large-crew vehicles is known as Whack-A-Mole, because it involves trying to shoot the right spots to kill the remaining crew (and their crew are spaced out enough that it's basically impossible to kill them all in one shot).
- Moon Rover - The Object 279, whose bizarre flying saucer-esque profile wouldn't look out of place in a 1950s sci-fi film.
- Mothership - TB-3, which in real life was actually used for the Zveno project, a parasite fighter concept by the Soviet Union during the 1930s.
- The Italian R3 armored cars have earned the nickname "Mouse Droid" due to their resemblance to the small robots from the original Star Wars trilogy.
- They're also named "pizza cars," "lunchboxes," "Italian race cars," or something similar largely due to their speed and, well, the stereotype of Italian cuisine.
- "Narwhal" for both the French Premium SO 8000 "Narval" (as a direct reading of its name), and the Me 262 A1/U4, "Pulkzerstörer" (for its solitary nose mounted 50mm cannon).
- Noobfire - Spitfire fighter, most models of which are (in)famous for having no obvious weak points in the game. The Spitfire Mk IX (especially the premium one in the US tree) is nicknamed Spacefire.
- Ironically the "Spacefire" nickname most often refers to the Spitfire Mk IX LF variant. This specific variant is equipped with an engine designed for low altitude use. Since the vast majority of "high altitude" dogfights take place at what would be considered low altitude in real life has lead to the aircraft's infamy.
- Nuclear Holocaust Shell - A common name for American tanks mounting 90 mm M3 gun (mainly M26 Pershing) loaded with M82 armor-piercing capped ballistic cap (APCBC) shell. Containing 199.59 grams Explosive D, it has tremendous power to explode any kind of tank at its BR in a single penetration hit.
- Even the infamous Soviet IS-2 with 122 mm D-25T loaded with BR-471B armor-piercing high explosive ballistic cap (APHEBC) has only 156 grams (A-IX-2) of explosive weight.
- Nuke - The colossal 5000-kg FAB-5000 bomb that can be found on the Pe-8. Hilariously enough, actual nukes were added to the game in late 2020.
- OP-190 - A nickname used by people who accuse the Fw-190 (especially the A4) to be overpowered due to its extremely heavy firepower and its low battle ratting. While the A-4 got its BR bumped up, it is still best to avoid head-ons with this plane.
- The yearly Operation S.U.M.M.E.R. events (which allow various reward vehicles to be earned) are known as Operation S.U.F.F.E.R. because they're widely perceived as excessively grind-heavy, especially to get the best vehicles (like the IS-7 and the FJ-4B VMF-232 with Bullpup missiles in 2018). The renamed 2019 version of this event, Operation H.E.A.T., was along the same lines immediately dubbed Operation H.E.L.L., although it turned out to be a much more bearable grind than previous versions.
- Otomagic - The Italian Otomatic SPAA, basically an OF-40 tank except with an OTO Melara 76mm Super Rapid naval gun which makes it both the best SPAA in the game and effectively one of the best "main battle tanks" in the game. Only the limited number of APFSDS shells and artificially low penetration of the APHE round keep it form being a complete Game-Breaker.
- PaK Puma - The Sd.Kfz.234/4, an armored car equipped with a 75 mm PaK cannon. It's distinguished from the other two Pumas (234/3 and 234/2) which use different guns.
- Peanut Butter and Jelly (or PB&J) - The PBJ-1H attacker of the US Navy, basically a B-25 with a 75mm cannon.
- Pedobears/Kindergarten Stabbers - A very common name for experienced players who deliberately play at low tiers to hunt newbies with their high player and in-game crew experience.
- Pencil - F-104 Starfighter, derived from its thin profile.
- Bombers are called pinatas due to being ludicrously easy to kill.
- Pizza Launcher or Pizza Trucks - Italian ground vehicles with big guns or wheels.
- Rapeboat - H6K floatplane bomber, boasting massive armament and durability for its tier. Also, Banana (thanks to its shape).
- Due to the speed of the P-51D Mustang, it has been called "Runstang."
- Same Exact Protection - The M1A2 SEP, due to it lacking any armor upgrade whatsoever compared to the M1A2 Abrams despite the SEP upgrade adding an improved 3rd-generation depleted uranium armor package in real life. Thus rendering the SEP just a heavier Abrams instead of an actually better one.
- The P-51H is given names such as "Super Mustang" or "Uberstang", as it provides performance more akin to early jets than most props.
- The Sea Meteor, containing major improvements over its predecessor jet, is called Sea Jesus.note
- Sealclubbing, often shortened to just "clubbing" - Winning effortlessly, either because your opponents are inept or, more likely, because you fly/drive whatever is the most powerful and overwhelming in the current patch. Or because you're an experienced player who stays at the bottom tiers (and especially low-tier Arcade mode) to club the newbies.
- Sergeant Björk - The VEAK 40, for being a Swedish SPAA that functions exactly like the American M247 Sergeant York.
- During Patch 1.41, bombers were incredibly tough and gunners were really accurate, which led to abuse by many players. To combat this, the Sky Police was formed. In Simulator Battles, these guys will kill any bomber pilot they see in the match, friendly or not.
- The PBY-5 Catalina (and the Sunderland Mk.IIIa added in v1.57) have been nicknamed "Skywhale," thanks to their shape.
- Bomber pilots are derisively called "Spacebar Warriors" due to the fact that they only need to press spacebar to drop bombs.
- Spaced armor - Exploiting a Leeroy Jenkins type player on your team (or less commonly, a teammate who willingly sacrifices himself because his tank is for whatever reason unsuited to the current battle situationnote ) by using him as a Human Shield.
- Sometimes works at low tiers since the introduction of the Matilda Infantry Tank. Just like in World of Tanks, it has insane amounts of armor for its rank, and can take more hits than other tanks that are lower ranked than it is. Ergo, it's not uncommon for players trying to grind through the thing to get the repair kit unlocked to act as a riot shield when advancing on a capture point. This is especially the case if their gun is knocked out as taking the point will give them a place to repair, but the zone is crawling with enemies. Basically, they go in, take the hits, meanwhile their team hopefully shoots the guys infesting the zone... hoping that none of them are Matildas as well.
- Spaghetti Shooter - Italian fighters armed with .50-cal Breda SAFAT machine guns that can barely hit anything.
- Stalinwood - The general nickname for the material used on Russian planes due to their perceived insane toughness. The infamous "LumberYak" glitch of 2013 (allowing the the Yak-7 and Yak-9's wooden wings to take an infinite amount of damage without actually breaking off, which was demonstrated by people flying their Yaks through trees) greatly contributed to this meme.
- In the same vein, Stalinium for any and all instances of Russian armour being stronger than it should be.
- Stock Syndrome - A condition where a stock plane or tank has laughable performance compared to its upgraded counterpart. It becomes painful in higher tiers where you have to endure long grinds just to get a single modification of that vehicle.
- Sushi - A pun on the name of the Mitsubishi J8M/Ki-200 Shusui, which is derived from the Me-163 Komet.
- The AMX-50 Surbaissé is called the "Super-Bias", for its excellent AP shells and because its name sounds vaguely like the nickname.
- Tiffy - The Hawker Typhoon.
- Tumor-4 - The Tu-4 heavy bomber, widely considered to be cancerous.
- The F-82E is pretty much two P-51s glued together earning it the nickname "Twinstang"
- Said plane also features a unique gunpod to increase it's firepower. Mounting it grants you 8 additional M3 12.7 machineguns on top of the 6 M3's it already owns making a total of 14 M3's all mounted together at the center. Because of this it is known as the "Doom pod".
- UFO - Any plane accused of having an unrealistically good flight model. This has not gone unnoticed by Gaijin as the April Fools' 2019 event features playable UFOs.
- WALL•E: The M901, because its missile launcher bears a distinct resemblance to WALL•E's eyes. With many players naturally taking the next step and putting eye decals on it.
- Warcrime Panther - Bestowed to the Ersatz M10, a Panther made to resemble the aforementioned tank destroyer. Once again, lifted from World Of Tanks.
- Weebcopter - The AH-1S Kisarazu, which sported anime livery in the early parts of The New '10s.
- Wehraboo - A derisive term derived from Wehrmacht and weeaboo; a fan who thinks every German vehicle was the absolute best in the war. Typically complains about German vehicles not being OP.
- In the same vein, "Freedumbs" or "Freeaboos" are used against those who think anything built by the USA should curb-stomp everything it looks at.
- And "Slavaboo" for those who believe that every weapon and vehicle produced by Glorious Mother Russia was God's gift to soldiering. Unlike the previous two, notorious for whining when they don't obliterate everything in their path, Slavaboos are hated for mindlessly and reflexively defending Soviet vehicles from any and all claims of being overpowered.
- Fans of British hardware are known as Teaboos.
- The different nations' aircrew models have all been nicknamed.
- "Joe" for American aircrew (particularly tail gunners).
- "Hans" for German aircrew.
- The Russians have "Ivan".
- The Brits have "Nigel", possibly due to his passing resemblance to Nigel Thornberry.
- The Italians have "Marco", named for a famous member of the Italian WI player community who passed away from lung cancer in late 2015.
- And China's has been called "Winnie Pooh." After the meme comparing Chinese President Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh.
