War Thunder “Big Guns” Update 1.47 Released

As we near the halfway point of War Thunder’s third year of open beta-ness, we have been regaled by update 1.47, dubbed “Big Guns.” While it may not be the flashiest or most extravagant update yet (that will probably have to go to the Ground Forces update) it certainly brings along a lot of highly desirable features, as well as some slightly less desirable ones. You can read the full changelog here, or you can read our summarized bullet points below.

• The introduction of a fair number of vehicles including:
  • The Pz VIII “Maus” (a truly big gun on an even bigger tank)
  • The B29 Superfortress
  • The B57
  • The Fw-200 Condor
  • A new late model Tiger tank
  • Another Marder III that has slightly more protection for the gunner and loader (it is arguable how much of a difference 15mm thick gun shield can be though)
  • The Flakpanzer 38(t)
  • A handful of variants of already existing vehicles. Now all we need is the German Nashorn, Sturmtiger, Brummbar and American tank destroyers to fill out the tech trees before the arrival of British tanks!
• Two new views for ground forces. Binocular view, which allow you to survey the land zoomed in without turning your turret (or lack of one), and driver view, which will give you the view a driver would have inside of a tank allowing for easier driving.
• Contrail effect added for planes, but you will need to be at higher altitudes to see them.
• Heat/compression effects for cannon fire for ground forces.
• Everyday login rewards that give you boosters which you can activate.
• Improved dirt effects on vehicles as well as terrain being altered by vehicles treading on them.
• Arcade battle bombs from planes will have a 10 second delay giving players a chance to get away.
• Damage and flight models have been changed, especially for ground forces where the type of shell one fires will determine the likelihood of a fire when hitting fuel tanks and the like.

There are also many more smaller subtle changes, but these are the main changes. as for some things that people didn’t like so much? It seems that the new damage models have made the 23mm cannons of Sturmoviks quite incapable of killing anything more heavily armored than a light tank. There is also the complementary bugs that come with every new update that will likely get stamped on within the next few days through customary War Thunder micro-patches.

War Thunder is currently in open beta and you can sign up and play for free right now! War Thunder is playable on PC, Mac, Linux and Playstation 4.

What excites you most about the “Big Guns” update for War Thunder? Tell us in the comments below!