Constraints and compromise often push naval engineers toward original answers to seemingly simple problems. For the Royal Navy after the First World War, constraints were paramount. In 1922, Britain signed the Washington Naval Treaty: an agreement among five powers to rein in the arms race at sea. The treaty forced the abandonment of promising new capital-ship projects — already growing ever more complex and costly. Yet Britain had no intention of surrendering its great-power navy, so the Admiralty challenged designers to produce a powerful new battleship that outclassed prewar types like the Queen Elizabeth while remaining within treaty limits.
If you’re asked which combat aircraft shows up on camera more often than any other, what’s the first one that comes to mind? For many, it’s the legendary American carrier-based fighter, the F/A-18. Today, we’re taking to the skies in this very aircraft — specifically in its most advanced variant, better known as the Super Hornet.
The Ratel 20 is a South African Light Tank in the British Tech tree, which is typically disliked. With a top speed of 65 mph, and a missile with maximum 530mm of penetration, the Ratel 20 is — on paper at least, a good light tank. However, with a poor acceleration and a rather slow missile, this vehicle does not perform too well when in combat.
The Soviet KV series, most notably the KV‑1 and KV‑2, were among the heaviest tanks of the early war. When they were put to operational use during the midst of Operation Barbarossa, German forces found most of their anti‑tank weapons far too weak against the thick armor; even a single KV could stall an advance and demonstrate capabilities the Germans themselves lacked. That display of strength made captured examples highly prized. Yet the tanks were far from perfect. They consumed fuel at alarming rates, broke down often, and were difficult to supply, and as such many were left behind in retreat or captured intact. The Wehrmacht quickly put these tanks to use, repainting their insignia and assigning them new designations as Beutepanzer (lit. loot tank).
In the winter of 1950, a new era of military aviation began over Korea. For the very first time, jet fighters entered combat en masse: the Soviet MiG-15, alongside an entire lineup of American aircraft — from the F-80 Shooting Star and F-84 Thunderjet to the iconic F-86 Sabre. Jet aircraft had made their debut at the very end of World War II, but it was the Korean War that became the first major conflict where dozens of jet fighters regularly clashed in the skies.
The T-26-4 was an experimental “artillery tank” designed in the interwar period by the Soviet Union. In War Thunder, this tank can be tricky to play and requires some experience. Its several weaknesses, such as thin armor and slow speed, force the player to maneuver it cautiously in battle. However, it can be fun to play once you master both its drawbacks and advantages.
As early as the beginning of the 1940s, aircraft designers understood that the future belonged to jet propulsion. In practice, though, that potential took time to unlock. Early engines were temperamental and unreliable, and their thrust was barely enough to compete with the best piston powerplants of the day. Even so, leadership kept pushing this new kind of aviation forward.
The Fokker D.XXI was a single-seat fighter aircraft designed and manufactured by the Dutch aviation company Fokker. It served primarily with the Netherlands’ Luchtvaartafdeeling (LVA) (Aviation Department) during the late 1930s, the Finnish Air Force in the Winter War and played a notable role during the opening phase of the Second World War. Although already obsolescent by the standards of 1940, the D.XXI demonstrated surprising effectiveness in combat, particularly in Dutch and Finnish service, where skilled pilots exploited its strengths to compensate for its technical shortcomings. This article focuses chiefly on the Dutch and Finnish variants and their operational history, while also addressing foreign use, like Danish variants.
