A new beginning

 

I played War Thunder in 2014-2018 and begun playing it again a few days ago - exclusively as "Russen37WT" in Russian BR 3.7 tanks so far. My Russian aircraft are at 2.3 and were always meant to advance to 3.7 or 4.0 on this account.

Russians in BR 3.7 was and is a sweet spot for versatile fun: Good tanks, nice dogfighters, some light and fast tank-killing bombers (though the Russians use rather smallish bombs).

I'll certainly not go to high battle ratings because I dislike the grind, so there's no point in applying to return to the LED or WIN squadrons.

failure

I tried to create a perfect balance - an account that did not get killed, but reached leaderboards entry (100 missions).
Got bounced by a Spitfire in dense clouds, and insta-killed. That was the 39th mission. More than 100 player kills up to that fail.

Next time I try (if ever) I'll stay high if the clouds are terribly dense.

Matchmaking

Tank comic

French tree

I'm trying the French aircraft tree as "Baguette_WT" without any particular goal, just for fun.

The D.50x series was very pleasant surprise (super turning for a monoplane, fantastic main gun). The VG.33 was a pleasant surprise as well (much better in boom & zoom than specs and test flight suggested), and the D.520 feels similar to VG.33 despite a few really bad sorties at the beginning. Even the MS.410 was quite usable with defensive flying, boom & zoom and exploiting the 20 mm firepower. 

Those French fighters don't seem to be well-suited for any defensive manoeuvres except defensive spiral and bullet dodging, though.

I'm looking forward to the Bloch 157, which despite its only partial armour protection and mediocre armament (for 3.x) promises to be at the very least as good as a P-47, if not noticeably better as long as you avoid getting hit much. It's likely going to rule at high altitude in if not drawn to BR 5.0 or higher.

I'll try to avoid head-on fights with fighters (other than fighters with at most 4 "7 mm" machineguns) and to approach well-armed bombers from their weak angles. This in turn means I need to look up some of the new bomber types and their defensive armament. 

I expect that I'll get a 20:1 or better kill ratio in Bloch 157.


P.S.:  I switched to the Japanese tree after 90:3 kills in the M.B.157. It got boring, as it's too similar to P-47 and some other high altitude fighters.

FYI

Hi,

I don't play WT much these days; mostly Rome 2 Total War/Vae Victis instead. I'm back to full time job instead of part time.

Occasionally I'm in 1-3 matches only and mostly as Rus37wt (an account made specifically to play at 3.7 tanks and planes of USSR, without having the super crew advantages and full upgrade advantages that I'd hold over most other players if I used another account for this).

I've lost a bit the "feeling" for fighter manoeuvres (but maybe that's just the LaGG and its weird flight model) and especially aiming, but bombers and tanks still do fine.

The "Schwanzus Longus" account is blocked. They try to force a name change on me. I'd love to see what the G.56 can do, but that's not going to happen anytime soon.

T29 skin

I purchased the T29 when I switched to Americans for Squadron battles (in LED). This is my custom skin for it:

http://live.warthunder.com/post/488612/en/