War Thunder – Light Tank Rework

Thin armour, weaker guns and a limited crew is no longer an excuse! The most vulnerable vehicles will now have much more opportunity to turn the tide of battle or gain more rewards!

We plan to add several key features for the lightly armoured vehicles at ranks II-VI, these will not only bring more tactical diversity but will also allow them to be on par with other vehicle types and significantly improve teamwork in War Thunder.

 

Scouting

The first feature for the above types of vehicles is “active scouting”. From now on your low calibre gun is no excuse for retreating – scout the enemy positions and pass the info to your allies – you will receive a decent reward. The scouting feature will work differently depending on the game mode used:

  • In order to scout the environment in Arcade mode just select a target and push the “Scout” button (may be bound in the settings). After that an enemy marker will become visible for all your teammates for 30 seconds.
  • In Realistic mode you will have to use binoculars or sight (sniper) view.  Once in this view put your crosshairs on an enemy vehicle and press the “Scout” button. After that a marker will appear over the enemy vehicle and will be updated for 30 seconds.

All allies will receive the recon data which means that you can not apply your skill to vehicles that have already been scouted. Passing enemy coordinates takes time so you may only use the “scouting” feature after a specific “cooldown” period, this applies even if you were have not been successful in your reconnaissance (Realistic mode only).

Every time a scouted enemy is destroyed by an ally in AB, the original scout who lit it up will receive an additional artillery strike as well as an air strike point whilst in RB it will reduce the SP requirements for any aircraft for that scout. Every scout will receive a reward for every enemy vehicle spotted with his scouting and he will also receive  an additional reward for any enemy vehicle that was spotted by him and destroyed or critically damaged by the friendly team. However in Arcade the spotting scout will only receive a bonus for enemy vehicle destruction if the enemy has not already been revealed by another ally who eventually destroyed this enemy.

Repairs

There is one extremely important feature for these light vehicles – they can provide repairs for every member in the team even if they are not in their squad. So if you are playing a heavy tank for example – select the “Repairing!” short message – any allies who are driving light vehicles may assist you even if they are not members of your squad.

Additional modifications

Also these light vehicles will have additional modifications for research:

  • Airstrike – in Arcade this will permit the scout to join any air battle started by your teammates. This will not be limited to a fighter – you will be able to use an attacker or a bomber even though your team has already begun the battle. Your opponent will have an opportunity to add an additional fighter though.
  • In Realistic mode this modification will additionally reduce SP requirements to use aircraft in combined battles
  • Improved optical sights will increase the spotting distance by 30% in all modes.

List of vehicles affected:

USA:

  • M22
  • M5A1
  • M24
  • M41A1
  • T92
  • M56
  • M50 Ontos
  • M551
  • T114
  • M24 TL
  • M5A1 5th arm.div.

Germany:

  • Ru 251
  • Begleitpanzer 57
  • Pz.II H

USSR:

  • Т-80
  • АSU-57
  • PT-76B
  • АSU-85
  • Obj. 906
  • BMP-1
  • Type-62

Japan:

  • M24
  • M41A1
  • Type 60 SPRG

France:

  • AMX-13 (SS.11)
  • and others (upon release)