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/

VDV

Ever wondered why Gaijin added those stupid ASU-57 and ASU-85 tanks that are clearly post-war vehicles (with post-war ammo), but not in tier 5?

Maybe they thought of adding something like this:

Note how at the 2:00 mark they show how the Russian airborne tanks were landed - with brake rockets igniting few metres above ground.
Supposedly, Russian airborne troops stay in such vehicles during the airborne operation (at least on combat drops)!

Super detailed Fw 190D-9 skin

You need to check out this skin:

Focke Wulf Fw190D-9
II./JG 6 , Blaue 12
Fürth , Germany , 8 May 1945

 Disregard the 'outdated due to 1.53 patch' message. The following screenshot was made post-1.53:

The vanilla Fw 190D-9 skin is particularly bad and low resolution, so this one is a great improvement.

WTF bomb

So I flew squadron battles with LED as LastDingo, and early in the match I announced that the Challenger on the Charlie cap is dead, so rest of team would not waste time or munition on him. I was 100% positive, for my 500 kg bomb was very well-placed and the tank had already stopped behind a building.

Big 500 kg bomb incoming!

Big 500 kg bomb impacts, even scratches the tank!

Big 500 kg bomb exploded. Tank still alive!

 

43 seconds later: That Challenger tank was finally killed with the third 88 mm hit by Crazy.

SC500K

"260 kg of TNT"

"Max armor penetration: 116 mm"

"The radius of destruction of armored vehicles: 11 m"

Challenger tank: Hull front armour is 50 mm, maybe a little more with upgrades, but no way that grows to 117 mm.

And the tank didn't die to this bomb strike.

Bullshit. That's what it is.

Link: Similar WTF moment I wrote about in February.

When three players ...

... do 90% of the damage on the ground in a ground strike mission, let me ask the other 13 players: 

Too true

SU-122-54 in the real world

This is an article about its history in the eArmor magazine, the professional journal of the U.S. Army armor and cavalry branches:

http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2016/JUL_SEP/3Warford16.pdf

Disrespect

BT tank footage

(Some scenes appear to be shown at accelerated speed, though.)

Porsche

Highest points in random match (not event) that I ever saw: 6,247

...I was glad about my points, then I saw I was 2nd with someone over 5,000 points

... and then I looked at the other side! :o

The KV-220 is a beast

... well worth the grind:

It's a heavy tank as it sould be: 

Can penetrate with good effect, is most difficult to penetrate at BR if positioned correctly and albeit slower than mediums it is maneuvering well.

It's a brute force tool; you can fight your path to the objective at your BR.

If used smartly (patiently), it can do much even well above its BR:

 Crucial context: The BR of the match was +1.0 !

Explain this

Where did the speed drop by upgrade come from until I had the wings and injection updated???

The tank that benefits the most of add-on armour

... is the Panzer IVH.

My stats with it are atrocious because I used it for warbond and SUMMER tasks and capturing instead of for tank killing first, but it's actually BY FAR the best of the Panzer IV series.

It's also quite good-looking (for a tank) with all that add-on armour.

Those 18 mm track segments aren't anywhere as good as 18 mm RHA,

but the armour thickness is at least nominally close to 100 mm in most places

of the front. Angle this tank by 20° a bit and it's about as tough as a Tiger H1

facing its opponent at a 0° angle.

Historically, this tank was the last quality Panzer IV series. The J series was a low quality design with less rubber, lesser steel quality, no powered turret traverse (hand crank only!). The H series was a real tank, J series was mere cannon fodder, mostly tasked to secure the flanks of Panthers - to die instead of them, since a flanked Panther is as unable to survive as a Panzer(kampfwagen) IV.

Similarly, Panzer IIIN (the III series with 75 mm L/24) were often used to protect the Tigers in the heavy tank detachments and to relieve them of the dreaded scouting duties.