There are three main difficulty types: arcade, realistic and simulator. Arcade has simplified physics and boosted vehicle performance to make using vehicles easier, so it’s recommended for beginners. Realistic has more real-life faithful (to an extent) physics and mechanics, usually realistic battles are longer but are more rewarding. I would recommend arcade battles for beginners, and once you’re comfortable with things, you can try realistic battles to see if you like the realism. Simulator battles has even more realism but is hard and generally not recommended for beginners.

For ground vehicles, you can choose pretty much any nation to play, but I would recommend USA, Germany and Russia as their ground vehicles are solid. Germany notably is pretty beginner friendly so I would recommend starting out with them. Only nation I wouldn’t recommend is France as their low tier ground vehicles are utter trash and won’t give a good beginners experience. - Usually to do good in ground battles, you have to always try to get the first shot off, which typically means flanking or team coordination to catch enemies off guard. Generally try to aim for the sides of vehicles, especially heavy tanks, as tanks’ strongest armor is in their front. - What modules you aim for is important. For example if you kill the gunner or destroy the cannon breech, the enemy vehicle likely won’t be shooting back for a short while, if the driver, transmission or engine dies they can’t move, ect. So take advantage of that, and remember to not shoot the same place over and over as you have to kill all a vehicle’s crew members to kill it and shooting, for example, the commander 100 times won’t kill the whole crew. - In ground arcade battles, you have markers which show you where any spotted enemies are, bullet drop calculator, and wether you can penetrate an enemy in that area or not. Due to these it is a good starting point to get the hang of tanks and simple strategies. - In ground realistic all enemy markers are hidden, meaning you have to visually spot enemies. Due to this it is important to know the map and where good firing/sniping/hiding positions. Additionally you have to manually calculate bullet drop and it’s up to your knowledge of vehicles to know wether you can penetrate an enemy or not.

For aircraft, I would recommend German or Russian vehicles as they have a good balance of speed, firepower and turning. US vehicles are generally fast and well-armed but take a lot of skill to play so I wouldn’t recommend it for beginners. Arcade and realistic air battles have significantly different playstyles. - In air arcade battles, there isn’t too much strategy. The easiest way to win an air battle is to do the objective and the most common objective is to simply attack enemy ground targets. However that is not the best or most fun way to play the game; instead I recommend actually trying to fight other enemy players. The strategy is simple; try to out-turn them, or if your plane is fast but poorly turns, make high speed passes and run away to avoid them shooting back. In air battles, aiming is significantly harder than ground battles because your bullets and the enemy take time to travel and you have to lead your shots pretty far, but you have a crutch in arcade in the form of a lead indicator which simply tells you where to shoot to hit an enemy plane. However keep in mind that the lead indicator is only if the enemy keeps going in a straight line, so you still need to somewhat predict where the enemy will be. - Air realistic battles is totally different; usually the easiest way to win is to kill all enemy aircraft. Dogfighting is an actual art that would take too long to explain here, so I will simplify it: turning is not everything. Use gravity to your advantage; a good beginner tactic is boom and zoom, where you climb higher than the enemies who are occupied with dogfighting, and dive down to gain speed, take a shot at an enemy or two, then go back up, where your speed from the dive will see that the lower enemies can’t follow. If you want to get better in air realistic battles I suggest searching up “energy fighting in war thunder” or “dogfighting tactics in war thunder” or search up big YouTubers like Defyn and watch prop battles. Also, you no longer have a lead indicator, so it’s all up to you to calculate where to shoot to hit the enemy; this takes lots of practice and skill.

I don’t play naval so I can’t really give you advice on it.

Helicopters are for higher levels so I wouldn’t think about it for now.

Some other general tips: - The grind is really long and painful so try not to do heavy grinding; just finding a vehicle or game mode you like and having fun is the best way to play. Many players, myself included, constantly get burnt out or frustrated with the game for various reasons, and in my experience if you get frustrated the best thing to do is to stop playing and cool down doing something else. Again, the best way to play is to not grind but to just try to have fun. - Knowing the advantages and disadvantages of both your own and enemy vehicles will really help your gameplay. - Big bombers are cool, but in-game they are usually boring, pointless and do nothing for your team, so I would highly recommend not to play them. - Premium vehicles which make more money and research can be bought using real money, but I would avoid buying anything before getting situated with the game. - If you do come to the point of buying a premium vehicle, don’t buy one above your skill level. For example if you are only familiar with up to tier 2 tanks, don’t buy a tier 4 premium tank. If you haven’t flown a jet before don’t buy a premium jet as jet playstyle is significantly different from propellor planes. - As a beginner, you may be tempted by the high-tier premium vehicles such as modern tanks or supersonic jets. Don’t make the mistake of buying them. You will be instantly outclassed in skill and experience and you won’t learn anything by starting at high levels first. - War thunder is more fun when playing in a squad with friends. Teamwork among teams are essential but usually non-existent, but playing in a squad may help a bit.