War Thunder ground vehicles get new FCS, electrical, autoloader and APU mechanics in next major update

Gaijin Entertainment has used a new dev blog to outline changes for ground vehicles in War Thunder’s next major update. The source doesn’t give a release date, but the changes cover new damageable modules, manual reloading and a backup power system.

Fire control and electrical systems

Both now show up as separate modules in the X-ray view. If the fire control system (FCS) is knocked out, night vision, thermal imagers and the rangefinder stop working. Remotely operated machine-gun or cannon turrets without manual aiming are disabled too.

The electrical system powers the tank’s various systems. Disable it and the FCS, gun stabiliser, radars, optoelectronic targeting, threat-warning system and even the autoloader all lose power. Gaijin suggests learning where it sits on your own tanks and, more importantly, on your opponents’.

Manual reloading for autoloader tanks

Tanks that can do this in real life will be able to reload by hand. When the autoloader’s shells run out, or the autoloader is disabled, the crew switches to manual loading.

There’s a catch: while the loader is hand-loading the gun, the autoloader rack won’t refill. You’ll need to stop firing to let it start refilling again.

In the hangar’s X-ray view, you’ll be able to see reload times for shells stored outside the ready rack or autoloader. It also shows the delay before the ready rack starts refilling and how long refilling takes.

Auxiliary power unit (APU)

Previously, a tank with a dead engine and a flat battery lost all power. Now many vehicles will have an APU, a separate module that keeps electrical systems running even if the engine is destroyed.

• The APU is visible in X-ray view, so you can see where it is and how vulnerable it is.
• It can still be put out of action by other damage, and it can’t power anything if the power system is destroyed.
• You can switch it off in combat so its noise doesn’t give away your position.

On many SPAAs and SAMs, the APU runs constantly to feed power-hungry systems like radars. Disabling those would shut the systems down.

Gaijin says more on turning and mobility mechanics for ground vehicles is coming soon.