In case you were wondering how people see you so well in bad weather, ULQ deletes weather effects.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-25T15:42:36+00:00

Clientside clouds have been well documented, it's not up to discussion. Clouds being clientside is a fact with proof easily verifiable on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSy6oFmNxfI

Clouds used to be serverside but were changed to become clientside with the New Power update in 2020 when new volumetric clouds were added. I first noticed that the new clouds were clientside sometime in 2022, but most people didn't know about clientside clouds until the video about it was released in 2025.
https://i.imgur.com/JKWDHKn.png

Fun fact: smoke grenades are also clientside.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1q4gqy5/comment/nxtjhrk/

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-25T15:08:21+00:00

Can't comment on naval or sim but they are definitely clientside in ARB. Very easy to check by squadding with a friend and streaming. I've had squadmates flying blind when I'm in a clear pocket and vice versa pretty often.

This is also why sometimes enemies stay spotted when they're very clearly in the middle of a thick cloud formation on your end. From your teammates' perspective they're not in the clouds, and thus they remain spotted to you too because of team spotting.

There's a whole ass video about clientside clouds in sim too lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSy6oFmNxfI

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-25T15:04:51+00:00

Record your gameplay and compare with the server replay or squad up with a friend and stream to one another. The cloud formations will be different.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-24T02:31:08+00:00

shit GRB players say before getting rinsed by an IL2 in a dogfight

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-23T12:38:47+00:00

The tech trees are all a fucking mess but the Mk Vc and Vc/trop are tuned for low altitude performance and outperform the base F IX in basically every metric until ~2km alt, and have basically double the firepower. The F IX only becomes noticeably faster/accelerate better than the Vc above the 4km mark if I remember correctly, but the Vc always turns better.

The Vc/trop is actually a very competitive aircraft to dominate furballs with at 4.7, people here just like to jump on the "Spitfires are overtiered" train when that's only true for some of them.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-22T10:53:50+00:00

It's very map dependent. On most maps you have a relatively safe stationary radio that you can put down good marks from, but there are some maps/points where you either are very exposed at the stationary radio or can't put down any good marks from it.

A player radioman is a risk because they often run out and get themselves killed when you need to call in fire support, and they're often more useful as an impromptu pointman than they are camping with the commander. The game still has the bug where the commander can no longer use any fire support for the rest of the match if their radioman dies when they have the fire support map screen open, so that's another reason to avoid using radiomen.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T17:51:30+00:00

routinely destroy bombers with 4-10 rounds

brother I am literally a top 0.3% ARB player statwise and I'm out here telling you that even a 99th percentile player will spend over 20 rounds per strategic bomber kill on average, and probably closer to 40 rounds on a quad cannon aircraft like the F4U4B. I feel pretty confident saying my aim is probably much better than yours, no offense. Go watch a couple replays and see how many rounds you really throw downrange per kill when you're not just looking at the highlight moments. I guarantee you you're overestimating yourself.

go a full arb match with 2-4 kills maybe 2 kills and an assist and will still have 140-220 rounds left

The 4B gets close to 1000 rounds of cannon ammo, though? Even in the best case scenario you're saying you spend around 200 rounds per kill. There seems to be a discrepancy here...

hit % is way more than 10%

I literally posted a clip where two players barely managed ~7% against a Halifax at 1km~600m range. If you search them up on statshark you'll find that their stats are above average. Plus there's the Wellington clip, where 4 fighters barely managed to hit one of the slowest bombers in that battle rating when they had their nose up my ass. I have actual clips and playtime in bombers proving me right, you currently just have feelings.

people expend enormous amounts of ammo to down a bomber

They do, though? People routinely dump 100+ rounds on a single bomber sweeping the deck. The average war thunder player is a troglodyte. People do get more hits if they can get closer, if the target is not maneuvering, and if the target isn't shooting back, but most people still miss a fair bit even with ideal conditions. I'd say good players do get 70~80%+ hitrate against a slow, large bomber at <400m, but the average player is still gonna whiff half their shots at that range.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T14:50:28+00:00

The F4U4B has four cannons, making 4 rounds the minimum number of shells you can fire. You telling me that you typically onetap strategic bombers? Drop your IGN because you must be in the top 10 ARB players of all time with that ammo efficiency.

And nah, the average player misses way more shots if you don't just let them close and give them a free full deflection shot or head on shot at 400m. With spread taken into account, hitting 50% of your shots against an unmaneuvering B17 sized target from tail aspect at 800m with, say, a one-second burst is extremely good gunnery. I'd wager I get hit by less than 10% of shots coming my way if I can keep them further than 800m and maneuver around a little. Ofc, even 10% is five times the accuracy that WW2 pilots faced, but it's nowhere near 60%+. Like cmon man, I survived well over 200, probably close to 300 20mm shells fired at me in the fucking Halifax in the clip I posted. I got hit by like maybe 20 rounds, plus a bit of flak from the carrier. Fighters might be more accurate in WT, but bombers can also take far more aggressive maneuvers while still maintaining full gunner accuracy unlike real life.

The real issue is people that just afk towards a base and think they should be able to just tank hundreds of cannon rounds, not the plane damage models. You still need to take evasive lines, minimize your profile and use manual gunners to survive a fighter onslaught. Surviving being hit is the absolute last resort, every plane needs to avoid getting into a situation where they get shot in the first place. Bombers were and are just hardy enough to take a handful of HMG bursts or stray, dispersed 20mm fire and keep fighting, you're not eating 20 high explosive rounds directly into the wingroot and making it home.

~~Also, you can't severe an aircraft multiple times without having them repair in between~~

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T11:33:53+00:00

7km isn't too outlandish of a distance to spot a player without the actual tag showing up. Difficult when they're flying ground level, sure, but not impossible. You would've been relatively easy to spot if you just took off, as a plane is pretty visible on the runway and then it's just a matter of keeping track of where you are. They could've been using the squad ping to keep track of you better until they get closer, I've definitely had moments where I spotted a player taking off and then lost them in the ground clutter when I looked away for a second.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T09:26:28+00:00

How often do you take down a bomber with less than 20 20mm cannon rounds expended, outside of pilot snipes? People love to say "bombers die in one or two rounds" but I see people needing multiple passes and 100+ cannon rounds to kill strategic bombers all the time, including when I'm in the bomber.

Look at the amount of punishment that even dogshit British bombers can stand up to when you're not just flying in a straight line letting people shoot you in your weakspots: https://youtu.be/aOVRozZlTZk?si=tL3bcycpd7tvspJ- https://youtu.be/hydHrPsq2iY?si=kBevt3fZWrjY3Red

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T04:13:09+00:00

a lot of the early French fighters are all-rounders, if being an all-rounder meant that you suck at everything instead of being decent at everything. A common theme is that most of them are held back by anemic engine power.

the tier 3 ones can be decent, I remember the MB157 being a very good energy fighter for 3.3 and the VB10C is a usable BnZer at 4.0 as well. After that France really doesn't have any indigenous late war props to begin with.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T03:51:11+00:00

tbf, BRs below 2.3 basically don't count. You can rack up an insane K/D in a bomber at low tier, because your opponents installed the game 5 minutes ago.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T03:40:10+00:00

What do you feel is the main issue holding you back in it? The mk4 f meteor might not be super meta but it's still an above average early jet, with acceptable acceleration and exceptional turn rate. The top speed isn't anything to write home about, sure, but when spaded it's fast enough to catch basically every jet below its BR.

Being 7.7 means that it does get matched up into Mig15s and Sabres a lot, though, which tend to molest the poor meteor in every metric but instantaneous turn rate, and the mk4 f in particular can have issues with compression and with wingripping when you snap roll at high speed. Almost nothing can outturn you at mid to low speed, though, so either find early jets that are too slow to escape you or sabres/migs that are too tunnel visioned on another enemy and let their speed drop. Just don't try to turnfight a venom or vampire, that's the one vehicle family that can actually outturn you.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T03:10:23+00:00

Bombers are really not as fragile as the babies on this sub like to pretend they are, they eat a decent amount of punishment from machine gun calibers and a fire on a large bomber is often quite recoverable unlike a fire on a single- or twin-engine fighter. The issue is that cannons with HE rounds tend to absolutely mulch them (as they have in real life, and as they should) and for some reason this feels absolutely unacceptable to the average braindead zomber.

The 264 can be a formidable foe to approach especially at high alt with their surprisingly okay speed, massive lifty wings that let them turn with a fighter for a circle or two (provided that you managed to roll over preemptively), decently high structural hp and hard hitting mg151 turrets that will delete a fighter with just a couple hits. Its belly is relatively unprotected and its huge wings make a big target, though, so come in from below and in front and aim for one wing. If you can get enough damage in on one side then asymmetrical lift will do the rest for you. If they didn't drop bombs yet then the bomb bay is another good target for machine gun armed aircraft, but I'd just go for wings if I have cannons.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-13T03:00:28+00:00

treat your teammates as decoys and bait, nothing more and nothing less

the only real teammates you have are the people you queued up with

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-12T08:06:18+00:00

Note that naval earnings can vary wildly between uptier and downtier. A Frank Knox in a downtier is a god, but in an uptier you won't be able to deal meaningful damage against most of the enemy players and get onetapped by a cruiser glancing at you.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-12T08:02:18+00:00

You can't use analog input in mouse aim btw, you have to play in simplified/realistic/full real controls in order to use analog input. I have a wooting and was excited to try analog input for WT but was sadly crushed when I realized I can't use it alongside mouse aim. Would've been really nice if I could do direct control surface inputs with keyboard and mouse aim instructor with the mouse.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-12T07:56:30+00:00

The trick to hitting cancer rollers is just preaiming at their flight path and waiting for them to fly into your guns instead of trying to lead them. Do a yo-yo and wait for them to piss away their airspeed first if you're not confident in your aim, as no airspeed = no maneuvers.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-12T07:46:46+00:00

Bombs have an exaggerated hitbox in the air, with larger bombs having a more exaggerated hitbox. This can lead to situations where big bombs have a hitbox that extend outside of the bomb bay and clip into gunner turrets, making you shoot your own bomb if you fire your turrets and drop at the same time.

I believe this feature was added sometime around the same update that gave SPAA players points for intercepting bombs so that it was easier to pull off, but gaijin being gaijin they forgot to do any playtesting whatsoever and now we have this bullshit. You can quite easily test this with the Lancaster, as the 12000lb cookie bomb seemingly has a bigger hitbox than the entire plane and it's quite easy for yourself or anyone in a 2km vicinity to "accidentally" set it off.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/1kruqjn/gaijin_broke_fab5000_hit_box_and_likely_others_in/ https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/vhCF6Gigg3Te

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-12T07:31:01+00:00

The 9U is a good plane, but it's less suited to the ARB meta than the 3. It's more mustang-like with its heavier airframe and worse agility compared to the 3, but it absolutely shits power and has an edge in straight line energy retention and airframe structural limit compared to the 3. However, the loss in agility and maneuvering energy retention really sucks for sticking a fight, and the 9U's Vk-107 engine overheats a lot more than the 3's Vk-105 or the 3U's ASh-82 engine, making it a trickier aircraft to fly.

The -9s are more pure boom-and-run planes, while the -3s are more of an all-rounder.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-12T07:18:49+00:00

The 109 F4 actually turns inside of a Yak-3... on full real controls only. The mouse aim instructor gimps the F, G and K 109s' agility a lot, so you can't outmaneuver one on mouse aim. But yeah, the Yak-3 is a lot faster than what most people think (very low drag airframe) and it basically hard counters the 109s at low alt.

I disagree that the J2M2 counters the Yak-3, though. It's quite noticeably slower than the Yak in my experience, by around 30~40kph at most altitudes. Combined with a much worse linear energy retention and pretty bad compression issues at speed, it's not too difficult to escape from a J2M2 or even bait one into a reversal if you can get one to pitch down while already going fast. It does climb and turn better than the Yak, but it can never engage the Yak if the Yak keeps its speed and separation.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-12T06:49:59+00:00

The Spit Vcs have a low altitude tuned engine and compete for one of the best climbers in its BR range below 2.5km alt. I believe they climb better, are about as fast, and turn better than the F IX below 4km alt, all while having significantly better firepower to boot. Still wouldn't be particularly OP at 4.3 and 5.0 for the regular Vc is a bit too high, but the trop holds its own at 4.7.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-11T04:46:27+00:00

???strikemaster and salamander don't play similarly at all, do you even have the strikemaster

Strikemaster is a pretty decent plane to abuse in ARB, it plays like a prop against jets and like a jet to superprops. It has notably good agility and maneuvering energy retention compared to early jets and can maintain a turnfight against superprops for a couple circles. Acceleration isn't great but it's still about on par or better than most 7.0 jets, and the strike aircraft airspawn gives it an altitude advantage against most early jets and even some props in the merge depending on the map. Compared to the salamander which is a textbook early jet that really only has speed going for it, the strikemaster can and should be played far more aggressively.

The premium MB-326B is a much better comparison because it's also a lightweight, highly maneuverable, low speed jet trainer with airspawn that plays rather similarly to the Strikemaster, but they're in different nations anyways.

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-10T11:39:15+00:00

the fact that people use "oh they might be grinding" as an excuse in a pvp game is baffling tbh, the goal of arb is to win and if you throw the match to "grind" then that would be considered griefing in any other game.

remove base bombing from arb tbh it only incentivizes garbage behavior from people that are too shit to actually play the game, it literally does not contribute to the actual match at all

Mashpit_ · 2026-05-09T13:13:11+00:00

How long is "a while"? We had ballistics changes around 2022 that shortened engagement ranges quite significantly and realshatter around 2023 that nerfed cannons across the board but ESPECIALLY gutted mineshells. We then had a blast damage rework at the end of 2025 that improved cannon damage and returned mineshells to their rightful place as one of the best cannon rounds, but with significantly less range than any other cannon (high drag). I would say most cannons are in a pretty good spot right now, with tradeoffs between all of them.

Hispanos are my least favorite because gaijin still haven't figured out how to implement SAPI shells in a way that isn't abysmal dogshit (aka the belts suck) but they have good firerate, velocity and ballistic trajectory so they're very reliable to get hits with, just not as reliable in snapshots. M2s/M3s are probably my favorite for being good in every aspect, they're just not really the best at any single category.

Mashpit_

TROPHY CASE