Firing rockets and machine guns in War Thunder battles is a terrible weapon. Calculating distance How to shoot a war thunder well

When teams are eager to engage in close combat and the enemy is less than 200 m away, hitting a tank is as easy as shelling pears. But what to do when the target is more than 1000 meters away? Most players fire the projectile “by eye”, hoping for luck. If you are unlucky, they begin to adjust the fire by raising/lowering the gun. So it may take four or five shells to “probe” the range, or even more.

Just one shot is enough to determine where the shooting is coming from, so an experienced player, after the first projectile fired in his direction, will either hide behind some terrain object or fire back. It is quite possible that his “answer” will be fatal for you! Chalking up a one-shot kill to luck in most cases would be a fallacy.

Sight device

The tank's sight in the game consists of vertical and horizontal scales with numbers.

Vertical scale- these are aiming points for different distances to the object. Numbers 2, 4, etc. - these are 200 m, 400 m, 800 m, respectively, further by analogy (x * 100 m). If the gunner knows that the distance to the target is 600 m, then he raises the sight to a level between 4 and 8 and fires a shot - a hit is guaranteed! But the problem is that in battle no one will tell you at least the approximate distance. What should I do?

You can't do without it here horizontal scale. Its function is to determine the distance to the tank. Again, the numbers 8, 16, etc. are visible. But this time it's not so simple. It is extremely important to at least approximately know the physical width of the enemy tank. It can range from 2.7 m to 3.5 m, although there are tanks almost 4 meters wide. In order not to remember the width of each tank, it makes sense to take an approximate value, focusing on the rank of the vehicle, because at the first ranks tanks are usually smaller in size than at the last.

Distance calculation

In battle at the 1st rank, it makes sense to take the average width of a tank as 2.5-3 meters, at the 2nd rank - 3.25 meters, at the 3rd rank and above - 3.5 meters. There are not many tanks with a width of 3.6-4 meters, since they exceed the railway gauge in width.

Having seen an enemy tank in the distance, which is facing the gun, you need to estimate how many divisions its width takes up on the horizontal scale. Let's say the tank has filled one division (0-4 m), and its approximate physical width is 3.25 m. Then you need to divide the approximate width of the tank (3 meters) by 4 m and multiply by 1000:

3.25 / 4 * 1000 = 812.5 m

Since the approximate width was taken, the result is approximate. Let's round the distance and get 800 meters - this is the distance to the tank! Now let's use a vertical scale. There is a mark on it 800 m and this means that in order to get into the tank, which is 3.25 m wide and occupies 4 m on the horizontal scale, you need to aim at 8 on the vertical scale.

But what to do when the tank is standing sideways, or in a diamond shape? In such cases, we also measure the length of the tank figure on a horizontal scale, but:

• divide by 1.5 if the enemy is standing like a diamond
• divide by 2 if the tank is standing sideways

Even if, due to estimates and errors, the distance was calculated inaccurately and the shell did not hit the target, it fell next to the tank in any case, so it is very easy to estimate the correction and accurately hit the enemy with the second shot.

Calculating distance using an anti-aircraft machine gun

There is a simpler and cruder solution. If a tank has an anti-aircraft or coaxial machine gun, then it is quite possible to take aim with it. It is enough to fire a burst from a machine gun at the enemy, raising or lowering the barrel, using the divisions on the sight to remember the elevation angle at which the machine gun hit the enemy, and then fire a shot from the main gun at the same elevation angle. Some tanks, such as the Chieftain Mk.3, are equipped with a special sighting machine gun.

This method is limited by the firing range of the machine gun, but is not always convenient, since small-caliber machine guns and tank guns of the late era have different ballistics, so the projectile may fly past or hit another part of the armor when firing in this way.

Shooting from a tank is not as simple as it seems

From this guide you will learn how to properly use a sniper scope, how to correctly determine the distance to enemy equipment, and what lead to take.

First, a little theory, otherwise maybe not everyone understands why you need to know the distance, take some kind of lead, and think that it is enough to simply point the crosshairs at the enemy tank, regardless of what distance it is at, shoot and destroy.

In fact, it's not that simple. You probably know what gravity is. This is the gravitational force of the Earth, which attracts all material objects, and the projectile is, of course, no exception. This means that the projectile will gradually decrease during flight and may simply not reach the enemy, falling to the ground. This is why the distance should be determined.

Firing range determination

The formula in the picture will help us for this. What is she like? We divide this width of the tank by a thousandth. In this case, the width of the tank is rounded to 4 meters. Thus, we divide 4 by 8 thousandths and multiply by 1000. We get 500 - this means that the distance to the tank is 500 meters.

We can find out approximately how much the tank's figure occupies using the lateral correction scale.

Lead means the height of the canopy with which you should shoot. You can learn more clearly from the video on this page.

Well, now let's look at another case, when the enemy tank is on board. How can we determine the width of the tank in thousandths? Yes, very simple! We determine its length. In our case, this is 16 thousandths, divide by 2, since the length of the tank is approximately twice its width. It turns out 8 thousandths - we substitute this figure into our formula.

Video

Good statistics on a war thunder player’s personal card is not yet a sign of high skill. Such statistics can be achieved on bots or while playing at the training ground, but you may never learn how to play. In this article, we will look at the mistakes that not only beginners, but also experienced players make when playing anti-aircraft guns.

Self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, as you can guess from the name, are designed to fire at aircraft, but some of these vehicles can quite effectively fight enemy ground vehicles, but you still shouldn’t get carried away with anti-aircraft gun battles with enemy tanks. The priority targets of anti-aircraft guns are still aircraft. The first mistake players make is choosing the wrong projectile. It would seem, what difference does it make than shooting at an airplane? Our projectile is heavy, the caliber of the gun is large, the rate of fire is high, load and shoot, but no such luck. The fact is that the skin of aircraft is very thin and an armor-piercing projectile simply pierces the aircraft right through without causing serious damage. A high-explosive shell tears the plane into pieces and sometimes just a pile of debris falls to the ground. For example, consider the American M-19 anti-aircraft gun installation with a coaxial 40 mm cannon. It would seem that the weapon is very powerful, but not very fast-firing. Many players, even after studying the high-explosive belt, leave the standard belt loaded, which contains 50/50 high-explosive and armor-piercing shells. You can only shoot down a plane if you hit it with a landmine, but you still don’t have enough penetration to fight tanks. It turns out that on the battlefield you, like a dolphin, are neither fish nor fowl.

The second mistake is choosing the wrong position. Many players reason like this: if I’m on an anti-aircraft gun, then I have nothing to do in the line of fire, because the anti-aircraft gun is a cover machine, which means I just need to hide in the bushes and shoot at the enemy’s planes. In general, the train of thought is correct, but this does not mean that you need to choose the bush closest to you, hide there and sit there until the end of the match and look out for enemy airliners. Enemy planes will not fly towards you, because your team has long left ahead and all the enemy bombers and fighters have long since ironed them out while you are sitting behind your favorite bush. Don’t sit still, enemy planes won’t come to you, and it’s difficult to shoot down someone from a great distance, unless you get lucky. At the spawn point, you can shoot enemy winged vehicles on small maps, for example, on the same “Karelia”. On larger maps, move forward with your team, slightly behind, so as not to become easy prey for enemy tanks.

The third mistake is revealing your position too early; this mistake mainly manifests itself in simulated or realistic battles. Seeing an enemy plane, the anti-aircraft gunner immediately begins to rumble at a small point from all the barrels, which immediately reveals his location. It is quite difficult to notice equipment from a height. Therefore, it is best for you to let the enemy get closer and hit him with all your guns from a deadly distance. If the enemy plane is not approaching you, then this means that you are too far away and the main forces of your team are now being completely raked by this bomber. Read the previous advice and change your position.

The fourth mistake is that you do not see the battlefield. Very few people use zoom, not the sniper mode, but the zoom of the barrel, and they do so in vain. In the war thunder game, such an approach is vitally important for anti-aircraft gunners, because by bringing the barrels closer, you remove all unnecessary and distracting objects from the field of view, but retain your overview; this trick will allow you to better see the target, and more precisely, hit it. And sometimes it happens that you look but don’t see. Planes usually don’t fly one at a time, so if you see a plane approaching you and then abruptly moves away, don’t rush to follow it, it may well be that its partner is approaching you very close. Of course, it will be difficult for you to defeat a flight of 3 attack aircraft, but against a pair of opponents the tactics are quite effective - we let the first one pass, we shoot down the second.

Mistake five, you are stuck in aviation, it happens that the enemy simply does not have planes, well, none of the enemy team dared to take to the skies. And you all skate around the map, take positions. You stare at the sky until your eyes hurt, but why? Give up this stupid activity, put an armor-piercing belt in the gun and go help your allies. Even if you cannot destroy an enemy tank, you can knock it out, knock out the guns and tracks, criticize the crew, so it will be easier for your allies to finish off the enemy vehicle. It is clear that an anti-aircraft gun will not be able to compare in effectiveness with tanks or self-propelled guns of its rank, but you are already on it and you have nowhere to go, at least try not to be ballast for your team.

That's all, we hope the advice will help you be an effective combat unit on the battlefield.

When teams are eager to engage in close combat and the enemy is less than 200 m away, hitting a tank is as easy as shelling pears. But what to do when the target is more than 1000 meters away? Most players fire the projectile “by eye”, hoping for luck. If you are unlucky, they begin to adjust the fire by raising/lowering the gun. So it may take four or five shells to “probe” the range, or even more.

Just one shot is enough to determine where the shooting is coming from, so an experienced player, after the first projectile fired in his direction, will either hide behind some terrain object or fire back. It is quite possible that his “answer” will be fatal for you! Chalking up a one-shot kill to luck in most cases would be a fallacy.

Sight device

The tank's sight in the game consists of vertical and horizontal scales with numbers.

Vertical scale- these are aiming points for different distances to the object. Numbers 2, 4, etc. - these are 200 m, 400 m, 800 m, respectively, further by analogy (x * 100 m). If the gunner knows that the distance to the target is 600 m, then he raises the sight to a level between 4 and 8 and fires a shot - a hit is guaranteed! But the problem is that in battle no one will tell you at least the approximate distance. What should I do?

You can't do without it here horizontal scale. Its function is to determine the distance to the tank. Again, the numbers 8, 16, etc. are visible. But this time it's not so simple. It is extremely important to at least approximately know the physical width of the enemy tank. It can range from 2.7 m to 3.5 m, although there are tanks almost 4 meters wide. In order not to remember the width of each tank, it makes sense to take an approximate value, focusing on the rank of the vehicle, because at the first ranks tanks are usually smaller in size than at the last.

Distance calculation

In battle at the 1st rank, it makes sense to take the average width of a tank as 2.5-3 meters, at the 2nd rank - 3.25 meters, at the 3rd rank and above - 3.5 meters. There are not many tanks with a width of 3.6-4 meters, since they exceed the railway gauge in width.

Having seen an enemy tank in the distance, which is facing the gun, you need to estimate how many divisions its width takes up on the horizontal scale. Let's say the tank has filled one division (0-4 m), and its approximate physical width is 3.25 m. Then you need to divide the approximate width of the tank (3 meters) by 4 m and multiply by 1000:

3.25 / 4 * 1000 = 812.5 m

Since the approximate width was taken, the result is approximate. Let's round the distance and get 800 meters - this is the distance to the tank! Now let's use a vertical scale. There is a mark on it 800 m and this means that in order to get into the tank, which is 3.25 m wide and occupies 4 m on the horizontal scale, you need to aim at 8 on the vertical scale.

But what to do when the tank is standing sideways, or in a diamond shape? In such cases, we also measure the length of the tank figure on a horizontal scale, but:

• divide by 1.5 if the enemy is standing like a diamond
• divide by 2 if the tank is standing sideways

Even if, due to estimates and errors, the distance was calculated inaccurately and the shell did not hit the target, it fell next to the tank in any case, so it is very easy to estimate the correction and accurately hit the enemy with the second shot.

Calculating distance using an anti-aircraft machine gun

There is a simpler and cruder solution. If a tank has an anti-aircraft or coaxial machine gun, then it is quite possible to take aim with it. It is enough to fire a burst from a machine gun at the enemy, raising or lowering the barrel, using the divisions on the sight to remember the elevation angle at which the machine gun hit the enemy, and then fire a shot from the main gun at the same elevation angle. Some tanks, such as the Chieftain Mk.3, are equipped with a special sighting machine gun.

This method is limited by the firing range of the machine gun, but is not always convenient, since small-caliber machine guns and tank guns of the late era have different ballistics, so the projectile may fly past or hit another part of the armor when firing in this way.

Realistic battles in War Thunder are a special mode, the missions of which reproduce real battles of the Second World War and other conflicts of the 20th century, including those that took place only in alternative history. Players can fight using the vehicles of the country that is participating in the confrontation according to the plot.

The main difference between realistic battles and arcade mode is that the player cannot be reborn on destroyed equipment. The physics are more realistic, so before playing RB, it is recommended to complete the training. It is also worth noting some other features of this battle mode:

• Lack of markers above opponents;
• Lack of bomb sight;
• Availability of rebirth points;
• The behavior of tanks and aircraft and the damage model are as close as possible to real ones.

In this guide we will tell you how to fight in this mode: how to aim if there is no sight, as well as other nuances.

Realistic tank battles

This mode is more correctly called Joint Realistic Combat: planes and ground vehicles fight together here. From a tactical point of view, such battles are much more varied: tankers should remember about attack aircraft, which can “cover” the equipment from above, and pilots should be careful at low altitude so as not to be shot down by an accurate air defense shot.

The absence of markers allows you to use techniques that are not available in the arcade: a surprise attack from the flank or an ambush on inattentive players. In this mode, you cannot do without binoculars, thanks to which you can spot the enemy from afar. A guide to using this device can be found on our website.

In simulated battles in War Thunder there is also no auxiliary aiming marker.

In a realistic battle, try not to unnecessarily give away your location with tracer ammunition. In addition, a skilled player can detect you by the noise of the engine of your vehicle and trees falling as you move. Remember to use camouflage that matches the terrain. If there are only rebirth points left, for example, for an anti-aircraft gun, you shouldn’t abandon your team: you can easily help them fight against aviation.

Realistic airplane combat

The fighter and attack aircraft begin the mission at the airfield, and the bomber is already in the air. Realistic physics leaves its mark on the gameplay: for example, at high speed a plane can fall apart. Any damage received affects the aerodynamics. You should monitor the engine temperature, especially on maps with hot or cold climates.

The main tactic in this War Thunder mode is the use of fighters: the destruction of enemy ground equipment has almost no effect on the outcome of the battle. However, do not forget about the presence of anti-aircraft guns that can destroy your plane.

Depending on the aircraft used, the following tactics are recommended:

• Fighter. Climb as quickly as possible, which will allow you to gain high speed while descending. Fighters play a decisive role, since victory depends on the destruction of all enemy aircraft.
• Stormtrooper. After dropping bombs and missiles on enemy vehicles, you can play in fighter mode.
• Bomber. The task of these aircraft is to bomb the enemy base. At maximum descent, you can become invisible to enemy fighters, while becoming an easy target for air defense. After dropping the bombs, you should return to base for a new supply. In most cases, a third mission is not required, since the battle is already over by then.

Having been trained in how to conduct realistic battles using this guide, you have a high chance of leading your enemy to victory. However, you should not blindly follow the recommended tactics: often the key to victory in an air battle is skillful improvisation.

Why is there no bomb sight in realistic battles?

In realistic battles in War Thunder, the developers removed the bomb sight for the reason that it gave an advantage to bombers. In joint battles, these aircraft easily “covered” heavy tanks, which simply might not have time to leave the affected area. There is no such sight in airborne RBs either, which is not entirely convenient from the players’ point of view. However, despite some difficulties, it is possible to bomb without a sight, as every guide on this topic repeats.

How to bomb in realistic battles

Although there is no bomb sight in RB War Thunder and there is no option to turn it on, there are several effective techniques that allow you to bomb without a sight. This guide will help you do everything right. The algorithm of actions is as follows:

• We gain altitude;
• When approaching the target, we reduce the gas to zero;
• We release landing flaps;
• Let's go to the cockpit;
• We release a bomb when your plane is over the target.

With enough practice, your aimless bombing will be extremely effective. The fact that there is no bomb sight is not an obstacle for experienced pilots during a bombing mission. Keep in mind that at low altitude it is easier to bomb in this way, but enemy vehicles will shoot back.

How to aim in realistic tank battles in War Thunder

This guide will tell you how to use a tank sight and rangefinder. Correct calculation of the range allows you to adjust the angle of inclination of the gun, which determines the flight path of the projectile. You will be guided by the width of enemy tanks. Therefore, you should know their average dimensions:

• 1st rank – up to 3 m;
• 2nd rank – 3.25 m;
• 3rd rank – 3.5 m.

Before firing from a tank, determine how many spaces on the horizontal scale the enemy occupies. For example, one division is equal to a physical width of 3.25 m. Divide this number by 4 and multiply the result by 1000. Rounding the result, we get an approximate distance of 800 meters. Accordingly, on the vertical scale you should aim at the number 8, corresponding to the distance to the object. If the enemy is standing sideways to you, divide the silhouette by 1.5, if it is a diamond, then by 2. Accordingly, we also multiply the total by 1000. Even if the determination of the firing range turned out to be inaccurate and the shell fell nearby, the next shot can be corrected.

Preemption

In realistic War Thunder battles there is no third-person view and aiming assistance: all calculations must be done yourself!

You should be able to aim with the gunner's sight in order for your participation in the RB to be effective for the team. Don't forget about lead - corrections that affect the calculation of the distance to a moving target. The lead value is different for different models of equipment, so you should study these values ​​separately. Also, don’t forget to upgrade your gunner’s “Range Finder” skill. In realistic battles, battles take place at distances of up to 800 meters, and this is the minimum distance that your gunner should be able to determine.

You can also find other useful guides on aircraft and tanks on our website.