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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.

Meet one of December’s headline additions: the Terminator fire support vehicle. In-game, it comes in two versions: the tech-tree BMPT and the premium BMPT-72.

In 1961, Japan’s Self-Defense Forces adopted the Type 61 tank. Compared with contemporary American or Soviet designs, it looked outdated almost from the moment it appeared. Yet despite its obvious shortcomings, it remained in service for decades, simply because it was exactly what the country needed at the time.

The 21st century brought new rules to military engineering. A growing spectrum of threats forced designers to increase protection across every class of combat vehicle. Weight had to rise, but crew safety became the priority.

Turbojet engines have long been a cornerstone of modern aviation. Today, let’s dive into how these powerplants work.

The British Matilda rarely takes center stage in wartime chronicles. Yet crews across the Commonwealth fought in these slow, peculiar tanks from the early years of World War II to its very end. When Vickers engineers designed it, they drew heavily on lessons from the long-gone First World War. Yet remarkably, they still nailed it. The Matilda turned out to be relevant even as the nature of warfare evolved dramatically.

During the Cold War, countries with limited means usually relied on allied suppliers for defense. At times, though, circumstances pushed such states to join forces and develop their own equipment. A prime example was the joint Romanian-Yugoslav project that produced the IAR-93 Vultur and the J-22 Orao.

The American M113 is a famously flexible workhorse. This platform spawned everything from ATGM carriers to SPAAGs. War Thunder has had plenty of those for years, but the latest update adds something truly unusual to Israel’s tech tree: the Bardelas/60mm HVMS. And yes, Bardelas really does mean “cheetah”. Military naming conventions remain undefeated...

In the mid-1920s, Germany quietly abandoned the Versailles restrictions and began covertly rebuilding its armored forces. In 1933, the army tasked Rheinmetall, whose Grosstraktor was the only 1920s design with any combat value, with developing a new heavy tank. The brief called for a vehicle of about 20 t with three turrets, armed with 75-mm and 37-mm guns plus multiple machine guns. The paperwork labeled the program Panzerkampfwagen Neubaufahrzeug — literally “new-construction fighting vehicle”. The name stuck and was later shortened to Nb.Fz.

We’ve already taken the British Hawk 200 for a spin, but it isn’t the only trainer arriving in the Spearhead update. Now it’s time for Italy’s lightweight strike aircraft, the Aermacchi MB-326K — a combat-focused offshoot of a trainer.