World War: To the combat troops

This mode has significantly different gameplay for commanders and combat troops. If you are one of the commanders, we have an article that may be useful for you.

Game mode with battles on the global map that are run in “Operations” format and are based on historical events.

World War mode battles are run in Realistic mode with special marker mechanics.

Participation

World War is available to all players that have at least one purchased rank 3 vehicle.

The World War mode in War Thunder is represented by Seasons that have various scenarios, years of operations, available vehicles and theatres of war.

Squadrons and players that take part in battles and Operations will receive (besides the usual battle rewards) special prizes for participation, and the best squadrons and players will receive special valuable prizes after the results of the day and the Season - they are unique for each Season.

Squadrons	Squadron members	Free players
Take a role in one of the contesting parties and lead the Operation until it's over, commanding the armies and initiating battles and participating in them. Squadrons can take part in World War Seasons and fight for valuable prizes.	May fight both for their own squadrons within an Operation or participate as free players joining any available battles.	Can play a role of reinforcements taking any vacant places in available battles and helping one of the battling parties.

Interface

You can enter the World War interface using the “TO BATTLE” button menu, by selecting the “World War” option.

World War window

From here participation begins in the World War as the commanders of squadrons, their members or free players. Conditionally divided into three parts:

Scoreboards	“All battles” button	Scenario list
A list of special daily awards, as well as squadron and players' record tables. In the scoreboard, the player can view his statistics and rankings.	Opens a window where all the available battles are presented. A competitor can immediately join an ongoing battle or queue up for a battle in preparation for its start.	The currently active scenarios in which the squadrons battle each other. Useful if a participant is a member of a squadron or a free player who wants to find a particular Operation and participate in it.

Window of all battles

This window contains a list of all available World War battles, the composition of armies involved in the selected battle, the time before a battle begins and other conditions. You can quickly find an interesting battle and join it.

Preparing for battle

You are only able to use vehicles that form part of the battle army. Players will always receive one vehicle from each vehicle group of the army. If the player has already purchased other suitable vehicles from the vehicle group, those vehicles may be placed into a vehicle slot instead.

The vehicle will join the battle with all researched and installed modifications, but the player’s crew level will be whatever that crew’s slot is normally.

The process of placing vehicles into vehicle slots can be done automatically by pushing the “Generate vehicle preset” button. The mechanism will select, from all of the player’s vehicles, those vehicles with the highest BR for each vehicle group in the army and will put them into the vehicle slots with the maximum crew levels and highest crew qualifications in them.

Participation in the battle

After completing preparation for battle, a player selects "To battle!" and enters the mission, the tasks of which depend on many factors, including: the type of armies encountered, their composition, the conditions under which the battle has begun, and much more.

Upon entering battle, a player will receive from 1 to 3 randomly selected vehicles from the army and must complete the mission tasks in the allotted time.

Every lost vehicle is deducted from the army! Try to protect your vehicle.

Read the main article regarding the rules on distribution of vehicles among the participants, peculiarities of aviation armament and symbols.

In the squad

The mechanism of participation in battles in a squad is not particularly different from the mechanics of participation in random battles, except that the possibility of assembling a squad of up to 10 participants - this mechanics works only in battles in World War.

A commander need to send the squad into battle. Members of the squad must confirm their readiness twice: the first time in the hangar interface, and then in the battle window - it is necessary to exclude the possibility of participants who did not have time to install the specified vehicles in crew slots.

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  The participant sets up a vehicle in the crew slots

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  All members of the squad confirm their readiness and readiness of the crews

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  The entire squad is in battle

Mechanics

Safe exit area

There are no airfields in World War aviation missions, and the air reserve and aviation fuel reserves are limited. In order that a vehicle is not lost from the army, it is enough to fly to a special safe exit zone. A pilot in such a zone will be able to take the vehicle out of battle (button J) without losing it for the army.

Army morale

Defeat in one World War battle does not entail catastrophic consequences for the entire Operation, as it was in reality, and often commanders resort to creating lost battles deliberately - for example, in order to delay an enemy attack. But every army has a morale index, which decreases with every defeat and increases with victory. An army whose morale index has fallen to zero will surrender to the enemy and disappear from the Operation map. Consider this in battle, even when fighting on the side of an unfamiliar squadron.

Reinforcement

If you don't have an aviation army at your side in battle, the commander can send reinforcements in the form of aircraft at any time: fighters, attackers or bombers. Aircraft will begin to be distributed among the members of the allied side according to the usual rules.