The War Thunder Hot Tracks Update brings Italian helicopters, heroes of the Battle of Jutland, and more.
Gaijin Entertainment announces the release of the major update Hot Tracks for the online military action game War Thunder. Players will receive new visual effects for ground and naval vehicles, the Italian helicopter tech tree, the legendary battle cruisers Von der Tann and HMS Invincible, and many more new military vehicles.
New tracks
The new caterpillar tracks of the armored vehicles from War Thunder consist of individual segments, each of which has physically precise properties.
When driving over bumps and potholes, the caterpillar bounces on the wheels. When you accelerate and brake, it tauts or whips and swings for a while after the vehicle has stopped.
When a tank hits a caterpillar, the caterpillar will break on the exact segment where the impact occurred. When a tank drifts on stone or concrete or turns sharply on asphalt, the all-metal track emits a bundle of metal sparks. The update currently brings new tracks to select popular ground vehicles, while others will receive the upgrade later.
Engine brings more details to the battlefield
The last major update brought new fire effects for the Air Force, this time ground and naval guns received a similar makeover. The Dagor engine that powers War Thunder now also generates small landscape-specific objects, such as rocks, pebbles, rubble, plants, moss and mushrooms, which are placed on the screen and only use the GPU to make the landscape look more natural.
All of these visual updates are probably better tested with one of the new ground vehicles, i.e. the long-awaited Chinese top MBT ZTZ99 or the Japanese ST-A3 medium tank with an automatic reload mechanism.
Italian helicopter tech tree
The new Italian helicopter tech tree enters the game and introduces three machines. Although the AB 205 A-1 is just a modification of the well-known US helicopter UH-1H “Huey”, both the A109 EOA-2 and A129CBT Mangusta are great examples of the original design of Italian engineering.
The Mangusta is particularly interesting because it was the first attack helicopter to be developed and produced in Western Europe. Today it is part of the arsenal of the Italian and Turkish armies and has already been used in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Mangusta is armed with a 20mm autocannon and carries a good arsenal of guided and unguided weapons, including Stinger air-to-air missiles and Hellfire II ATGMs.
Battle cruisers and more
Jet fans also get some signature machines like the Buccaneer S.2 “Banana” attack jet, the A-7 Corsair II carrier-based attack jet (one of the first US aircraft with HUD) and the F-84F Thunderstreak fighter jet.
The blue water navy in War Thunder has acquired two ships that took part in the Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of World War I: the HMS Invincible and the Von der Tann.
Finally, naval history fans will also get the Japanese Hyūga battleship with twelve 356mm cannons – that’s a new record for cannon caliber in War Thunder.
The extensive update is also carefully examined in the following video:
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