🏆Watch Top Teams Battle it out in Thunder CUP 2025 and Get Yourself Awesome Twitch Drops!

2024 was an incredible year — we held several major Esports events that were high-intensity, with many teams taking part and coming out with success, victory and lots of emotion. Now it’s time to find out who will take home the Grand Champion title of 2024!

What better way to do this than to bring together the 8 best teams of the 2024 season and have them battle it out in a unique tournament featuring a variety of new game modes? Will the DODEC Team continue their success story with 3 major wins out of 4? That’s what we’ll find out in Thunder CUP 2025.

🛍Check out the Qualified Team Packs & Bundle!

From January 31st until February 28th, these packs dedicated to the 8 participating teams will be available in the store. Make sure to check them out!

🔹Team DODEC pack
🔹Team Hide pack
🔹Team Restart pack
🔹Team RAWR pack
🔹Team BIH pack
🔹Team AVReS pack
🔹Team Leet pack
🔹Team LetsGo pack

➡️Team pack bundle at -20%

📱Watch Thunder CUP 2025 and receive through Twitch Drops

First weekend — January 31st from 17:00 GMT and February 1st-2nd from 15:00 GMT
Second weekend — February 7th from 17:00 GMT and February 8th-9th from 15:00 GMT
Third weekend — February 14th from 17:00 GMT and February 15th-16th from 15:00 GMT

🔜LEARN MORE

🐅Get the F-5A(G) in the Freedom Fighter Event!

In this next aviation event, we’re celebrating the Norwegian Air Force. Take part in air battles to get unique decals as well as this special version of the F-5A fighter, nicknamed the “Freedom Fighter”, designed for export to Norway!

🏪From February 6th (11:00 GMT) until February 24th (11:00 GMT), earn mission points in Air Battles, unlock stages and receive rewards!

🇳🇴🇸🇪F-5A(G) — An Event Vehicle Jet Fighter for Sweden at Rank VII

The F-5A(G) is a Royal Norwegian Air Force multi-role fighter jet. This modification is equipped with a new sighting system, all-aspect AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, and the Penguin guided anti-ship missile with a thermal imaging homing head, which will prove itself in battles against tanks. The F-5A(G) is the first Norwegian aircraft in War Thunder and also has a unique “tiger" camouflage!

🎁Rewards are given when you complete a specific number of stages

▪️For 1 stage: trophy with random reward
▪️For 2 stages: one of the decal rewards
▪️For 3 stages: a silver chest “Snake Box”
▪️For 4 stages: one of the decal rewards
▪️For 5 stages: trophy with random reward
▪️For 6 stages: “Emblem of the 336th squadron” decal
▪️For 7 stages: a silver chest “Snake Box”
▪️For 8 stages: a non-tradable coupon for the F-5A(G)
▪️For 9 stages: unique camouflage and four random modifications for the F-5A(G)

❗️Each stage is unlocked for 45,000 mission points and brings a new reward.
Stages change every two days at 11:00 GMT: February 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th, 18th, 20th and 22nd.

🔼The Upgrade for coupon

When you complete 8 stages, you’ll receive a non-tradable coupon for the F-5A(G) where using it will immediately activate the vehicle onto your account. If you don’t want the vehicle and would like to sell the coupon on the Market, you’ll need the “Upgrade for coupon” item.

The “Upgrade for coupon” item can be earned in parallel with the stages throughout the event from February 6th (11:00 GMT ) until February 24th (11:00 GMT) for 750,000 mission points.

➡️LEARN MORE

🎯Planned Battle Rating Changes for February 2025

Hi everyone! Today we’re introducing a round of planned Battle Rating changes for February.

We have a number of planned changes for ground vehicles, aircraft and naval vehicles in most modes. Please check them out and let us know what you think.

➡️Click here to see the table of planned changes

❗️Removing the R2Y2 aircraft from research

Along with the planned Battle Rating changes, we also plan to remove the R2Y2s from research on April 30th. A fully detailed article on this can be found here

📢Meet the Auction!

The auction is a new way to distribute player-created content. In addition to trophies, we’ll now select a few more pieces of work from those not included in them and release them to the auction in limited edition.

How does the auction work?
Trading is carried out using a special currency called Gaijin Coin, the same currency already used on the Gaijin Marketplace.

“Lots” with a minimum bid are put up for auction, which will open for bids at a set time and date. Bidding lasts for a certain amount of time so that everyone who wants to can make their bids.

There is a starting price for each item, so to make a bid you’ll need at least that amount of GJN on your account. The amount you bid is frozen until the end of the bidding or until you make a new bid. If you win, you receive the item and the amount is debited from your account, otherwise the amount you bid is returned to your account.

If you’re outbid, (or in the case of multi-item auctions, if your bid is no longer high enough to win the item), you’ll receive a notification about this. At the end of the auction, you’ll also receive a notification of the auction result.

An auction may contain several identical items in the form of many lots — one item per lot. If this happens, they’ll be received by the players who made the highest bids, and the number of winners will be equal to the number of auction lots. For example, if there are 1,000 participants in an auction for 100 lots, the item will be received by 100 players who had the highest bids at the end of the auction.

If players with the same bid compete for the remaining item, then the first bidder will have the advantage since they bid first. One player can only buy one lot from an auction.

In the auction interface, you’ll see the values ​​of the current leading bids.

➡️Click here to go to the Auction
➡️LEARN MORE

🛠It’s fixed! №102

Today, we’ve rounded up and will be going over some of the bug fixes and improvements that we’ve made to the game today and over the past few weeks. If you’d like to catch up on every fixed bug, then be sure to check out the changelog section on our website.

If you’ve found a bug that you’d like to report, you can do so on our community bug reporting platform.

✅Helicopters that had magic tricks

Helicopters are pretty fragile vehicles, but a couple of bugs that crept into the game made them much more durable. One of these bugs allowed bombs to pass through helicopters without causing any damage. Another gave helicopters the ability to deflect bombs with its rotor blades, with the slower the bomb fell, the more chances the blades had to deflect it. Both of these bugs have been fixed.

✅Crew incorrect voices after firing

You aim your gun, fire and hit your target and smile — however, your crew said that it was a miss and to adjust your aim. What kind of shenanigans were going on here? There was a bug where the crew called out a hit a miss when the discarding sabot part of an APFSDS shell flew past the enemy vehicle, even though the armor-piercing part of the shell itself hit the target. We’ve fixed this bug!

✅Missile launch line displaying at all times

When launching air-to-surface guided missiles, the launch zone is outlined with a green line for clarity. But a bug caused this line to remain on the screen if you were destroyed and respawned in another aircraft, even if you left the battle and went into another. This bug has been fixed!

✅Stuck bomb bay

Aircraft capable of carrying different bombs either externally on hardpoints or internally in the bomb bay were found to have strange behavior. If you opened the bomb bay and then selected bombs on the external hardpoints, the bomb bay closed by itself and did not open again until either selecting the bombs in it or deselecting the external weapons. We’ve fixed this bug too.

That’s not all
You’ll find the full list of improvements in separate update notes. The display of water near the shore has been improved, the voice announcer no longer reports the direction of the previous missile, and the hit analysis no longer shows shells that are not in the feed.

➡️Update 2.43.0.86
➡️Update 2.43.0.87

🐞Once again, many thanks for all your bug reports that you submitted using our special service.

🐅Freedom Fighter: F-5A(G)

Meet the protagonist in the Freedom Fighter event: the Norwegian F-5A(G) multi-role jet fighter!

🇳🇴🇸🇪F-5A(G): An Event Vehicle Jet Fighter for Sweden at Rank VII

At a glance:
▪️AIM-9L Sidewinders!
▪️Penguin Mk.3 guided missile.
▪️Countermeasures.
▪️RWR.
▪️Unique camouflage on the missiles!

👋Introducing the F-5A(G)!
The Norwegian F-5A(G) has arrived to War Thunder in the Freedom Fighter event! This is a very special variant of the F-5 with new combat capabilities and a cool unique camouflage. Let’s take a look at the details!

➡️Click here to find out more details about the Freedom Fighter event

⭐️The Return of Monthly Historical Decals!

Hello everyone! Today we’re very happy to be able to present a new series of historical decals for you to unlock. We’ve been working on returning these decals for a while now, and this series will have a few changes compared to the previous run. This initial post will be a bit longer, bear with us!

❗️The Format
This time around, we’ll aim to add a set of historical markings once a month instead, and there’s a few reasons for this. Chiefly, it gives everyone interested in the decals a longer amount of time to unlock them, as previously many players weren’t able to get the markings. This also ensures that we don’t actually run out of possible additions. Some nations do indeed have a huge amount of options, others however have a very small amount. To make sure that we can keep adding emblems across the board for everyone for the foreseeable future, we’ll have 10 per month — 5 new emblems and 5 emblems from previous events, that way new players will be able to unlock some old emblems they wouldn’t have been able to get previously as well.

❓Unlock Requirements
We’ve made the unlock requirements slightly longer this time around to compensate for the extended duration, though not by a huge amount. The unlock requirements will be simple: frags, missions played, score earned, things that are universally achievable. Some special markings will be a little more challenging such as finishing at a certain position on the leaderboard, but in general the requirements will be simple and able to be achieved gradually as you play normally.

💡Open to ideas!

➡️LEARN MORE

⛩Discounts, a Decal and Rare Vehicles for National Foundation Day in Japan!

When Emperor Meiji regained real power, he decided to introduce a national holiday to honor the emperors. The occasion was the accession to the throne of Jimmu, the legendary first ruler of Japan. In 1872, this day was celebrated on the first day of the Lunar year, which then fell on January 29th, but the following year Japan switched to the Gregorian calendar, and February 11th was chosen as the date. In 1966, the date was again decided to be a holiday, but instead was given the different and less imperial name of National Foundation Day.

🛍Discounts in the Gaijin.net Store!

🔹T-2 Early Pack (only during this sale!)
🔹Type 16 (FPS) pack
🔹IJN Yamashiro pack
🔹Type 90B "Fuji" Pack

➡️Japan National Day 2025 packs

❗️The IJN Kiyoshimo is temporarily available for 4880 Golden Eagles and the A6M5 Ko and J2M4 Kai are temporarily available for 3850 Golden Eagles each!

⭐️Earn the “Symbols of Japan” decal!

🏪When: From today until February 18th (11:00 GMT).
Task: Play 3 battles using Japanese vehicles at rank III or above to receive the “Symbols of Japan” decal!

🎁Get yourself some body pillows!

In honor of Japan’s National Foundation Day, we have a small surprise for you! Activate the “NationalFoundationDay” code in the Gaijin Store and gain access to tasks with unique rewards: Dakimakura decorations depicting Omaneko, the mascot of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force base in Omaezaki City!

After activating the key, you’ll find the following tasks in the Achievements > Holidays > National Foundation Day in Japan section.

🏪From today until February 18th (11:00 GMT)

▪️Earn a total of 20,000 mission points while playing with Japanese vehicles at rank III or higher in Ground Battles to get the Omaneko dakimakura (normal edition) decoration.
▪️Earn a total of 40,000 mission points while playing with Japanese vehicles at rank III or higher in Ground Battles to get the Omaneko dakimakura (limited edition) decoration.

🐸It is a Wednesday pillow, my dudes!

▶️Update 2.43.0.105 (Battle Ratings)

Battle Ratings
❗️The planned Battle Rating changes have come into effect.

Aircraft
▪️Missions on the “Moscow” location have been re-enabled in Air Realistic Battles.
▪️A-5C — has been moved to Rank VII.
▪️F-111C — GBU-15(V)1/B has been added, additional wing pylons for AIM-9L have been added.
▪️F-16A OCU — helmet mounted display has been added.
▪️Me 262 A-1/U4 — gun dispersion has been reduced.
▪️F-4C — the AIM-9B and AIM-9E modifications have been moved to tiers I and II in modification research.
▪️F-14A Early — the AIM-9D modification has been removed (Research Points and Golden Eagles will be compensated). AIM-9D missiles can now be used without researching any modifications. The AIM-9G and AIM-9H modifications have been moved to tiers I and II in modification research respectively.
▪️F-5A(G) — the modification positions in the tree have been changed. The Flares/Chaff modification has been moved to tier I in modification research.

Ground Vehicles
▪️Improved Chaparral, Antelope, Type 81 (C) — the NVD modification has been moved from tier IV to tier II in modification research.
▪️Improved Chaparral (Israel) — the MIM-72G modification has been moved from tier IV to tier III in modification research.

❤️Themed Decorations, a Decal and Tank for Valentine’s Day!

Valentine’s Day is celebrated on February 14th! Spread the love in War Thunder with a themed decal, decorations and the MK-IX “Valentine” tank that temporarily returns for the occasion.

⭐️Earn the “Neon Valentine” decal!

Get yourself this love-themed decal by completing the following task.

When: From today until February 17th (07:00 GMT).
Task: Play 3 battles using any nation at rank III or above to receive the “Neon Valentine” decal!

🛍Valentine’s Trophy with Decorations!

A trophy with themed decorations is available to purchase in the in-game Item Shop for 499 Golden Eagles! This trophy includes the “Anchor of Love” ship decoration, plus the “Teddy Bear with a Heart” and “Compound Bow” decorations for ground vehicles. When opening it, you’ll receive a decoration that you don’t yet have.

🏪The MK-IX “Valentine” is temporarily available for Golden Eagles!

The British MK-IX “Valentine” tanks were supplied to the Soviet Union under Lend-Lease. One of the supply routes was via Iran, which is why many Valentines fought against the Wehrmacht on the North Caucasus Front. This tank can withstand hits well, quickly reloads its powerful 57 mm gun and can penetrate most enemy armor with its APCBC shell.

➡️LEARN MORE

🚁The BO 105 CB-2 Is Temporarily Available at a Discount for the BO 105’s First Flight!

The BO 105 multi-role helicopter, designed by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm, made history as the first light twin-engine helicopter and the first helicopter capable of aerobatic maneuvers. Its blades were reinforced with fiberglass and its advanced rotor design proved so reliable that in the six million operating hours accumulated on all BO 105 units produced, the rotor has never failed. Today, we celebrate the anniversary of the BO 105’s first flight which occurred on February 16th 1967.

🛍The BO 105 CB-2 is temporarily available at a 30% discount for Golden Eagles!

You can get this helicopter at a 30% discount for 5,992 Golden Eagles!

🏪When: From today until February 17th (10:00 GMT).
Where: Germany > Helicopter > Premium vehicles.

The BO 105 CB-2 is an upgraded variant of the BO 105, primarily designed to combat tanks. It features improved optics and American BGM-71 TOW missiles. Due to its compactness and high maneuverability, the BO 105 CB-2 is able to make maximum use of the terrain to deliver surprise attacks, and its flares will help counter enemy missiles.