Gaijin Entertainment announces that the next major Content Update will bring battlecruisers and battleships. The Blue-water fleet with destroyers, cruisers and battleships will become the fifth type of military hardware in War Thunder, along with ground vehicles, aircraft, helicopters and coastal fleet.
War Thunder naval battles began with clashes of light and fast coastal forces ships, like torpedo boats, gunships and submarine chasers. Other types of ships including frigates, destroyers and cruisers were added to War Thunder later. The “New Power” update will bring colossal battlecruisers and battleships boasting heavy armor and large calibre guns.
These large ships will include the British battleship Dreadnought, the German battleship Westfalen, the US heavy cruiser New Orleans and many other famous ships. Dreadnought is probably the most famous from the list. The construction of this battleship at the beginning of the 20th century made fleets from other nations obsolete because of two key features: an "all-big-gun" armament scheme, with an unprecedented number of heavy-calibre guns, and steam turbine propulsion. Other countries rushed to counter this threat with similar war machines and as a result a whole generation of battleships from that era was commonly referred to as “dreadnoughts”.
The gameplay experience was always quite different for small and large vessels and this difference will only increase when the battleships arrive in the game. This is why the fleet tech trees will be split into two separate trees – coastal fleet and blue-navy fleet with separate progression schemes. Players will be able to use any ships they’ve already unlocked and to train existing ship crews to use any other ships. This decision will allow newcomers that are interested only in larger ships to skip small vessels altogether, start with destroyers and get to cruisers and battleships faster, while the developers will get more freedom to choose the ships for the upcoming updates. War Thunder massive naval battles will still involve all types of vessels from both coastal and blue-navy fleets meaning that fast torpedo boats and gunboats will fight together with large ships and aircraft to achieve team victory.
More information on fleet restructuring in War Thunder is available at the official website.