I - Purpose
Over the years I have been playing War Thunder I have seen many tips and tricks to help with accurately estimating the range to your target in tanks. Not only do I find them interesting to learn, but they make me a better player. Being able to quickly and accurately place your first shot allows you to kill enemies efficiently. By having good aim you will not warn the enemy with a near miss or give away your position by firing several times in quick succession. These tips are mainly for RB but they can even be useful in arcade battles allowing you to accurately hit targets beyond the range that the little + drop marker is displayed.
I do not claim to be the person that came up with any of these aiming strategies. I am simply trying to gather them all into a single location to hopefully help other's become better at the game.
II - Helpful Key Bindings
There are some control bindings that will help you with aiming your tank. Having these bound to convenient keys will make your life easier.
- Miscellaneous->Rangefinder
- This control activates your crew's rangefinding ability. (See Crew Rangefinding section below for details) When you press this button your crew will estimate the range to your target.
- Miscellaneous->Sight distance control
- The sight distance control is used to adjust the zeroing of your gun range. It allows you to point at your target rather than above them. (See Aiming & Sight Distance Control section below)
- Camera control->Mouse Wheel (tank)
- You can use this drop down to select what function your mouse wheel performs. The mouse wheel can be set to control your sight distance.
- Suspension control->(All of the bindings)
- These control bindings can be used to angle the few tanks with advanced suspension controls (Currently just a few top rank Japanese tanks). Adjusting your suspension can be useful. One of the main uses is to get a few extra degrees of gun depression by lowering the front of your tank.
III - The Gun Sight
By default every tank in the game has the same universal gunners sight. If you desire you can find more sights from the War Thunder Live site. Some of these sights are historical, some are designed to help you range and hit your target, and some are just for fun. Lets take a look at the default sight:
This is a closeup of the gunners sight. There are a couple of areas on it marked with red numbers that I want to comment on.
- The horizontal lines are used to adjust your guns range.
- Where the long horizontal line meets the long vertical line is your point of aim. By default this is where your shell will impact if you fire at point blank range.
- Along the left side of the scope you will see lines with numbers next to them. These lines have corresponding lines on the center vertical line in the middle of the scope. Each of those lines indicates an increase in range of 200 meters. The number on the far left is the range for that line in 100s of meters. For example; if I wanted to shoot at a tank which is 400 meters away from me I would aim where the second of the small lines (The one with a 4 next to it) crosses the main vertical line.
- These lines will automatically adjust for the shell that you have loaded in your tank. Shells with a slower muzzle velocity or that are less aerodynamic will have larger gaps between the lines than high velocity streamlined shells.
- The smaller vertical lines are measurements of mils. Each line is 4 mils. As with the range lines only ever other line is labeled (8 mils, 16 mils, 24 mils, etc)
- These lines are not used for firing your gun, but are instead used to estimate the range to your target. They will be described in more detail in the Sight Rangefinding section below.
IV - Crew Rangefinding
Pros: Accurate range estimates without requiring the player to calculate. The easiest method to estimate the range to a tank.
Cons: Takes time for the crew to calculate. Range is limited by your crew skills. Estimate may be off by up to 100m.
The easiest method of rangefinding your enemy is to use your gunners skill to estimate the range. It takes a little time for them to calculate the range but they will give you a reasonably accurate estimate up to the maximum range they are capable of estimating. Most tanks will have a maximum range that your crew can estimate of up to 1.2km (determined by your Crew->Gunner->Rangefinding skill). However tanks with the Rangefinder modification researched will be able to give you estimates up to over twice that range with an upgraded crew.
To use the rangefinder, point your gun sight directly at the point you wish to range then press the key you bound to this control. You will see a little progress bar in the top right of your scope (first image above) when it fills, it will be replaced with the estimated range (second image above). After you start rangefinding you can move your sight (or the target can drive away) without worry, it will not change the estimated range. Once you have the estimated range adjust your aim and fire for a perfect shot (third image above, I will cover how I adjusted the range my sight is set to in the Sight Distance Control section).
Note: Be careful when rangefinding something around bushes or other objects. It is possible to accidentally rangefind on a leaf or other object that may not even render in your scope. It is never fun when you shoot the bush 200m in front of your target by mistake.
V - Sight Rangefinding
Pros: Can provide quick estimates of range. Does not rely on crew skill
Cons: tanks of unusual size will throw off the aim estimate. Can be hard to estimate range if you do not have a clear view of the tank.
If your crew is not skilled enough to rangefind your target or you need to estimate the range quickly, you can use the markings on your sight to estimate the range to your target. As I covered briefly above, the small vertical lines measure mils in your sight. As you go from tank to tank you will notice that these lines will move to be closer or farther apart to adjust for each tanks individual sight magnification level. What that means is regardless of the tank you are using, if an enemy tank measures 8 mils in your sight it will always be the same distance away. @Halajda made a wonderful guide covering the math behind this in detail in the Machinery of War section of the forums. Most of what I know I learned from that guide. Sadly it is no longer updated and the images are broken, but you can find it here. If you want to know the mechanics behind how this works that guide is a good read. Below is an image showing in game how you can use the mil markings on your sight to range a tank.
For the purposes of estimating our the range in game, all we need to know is that any object of a specific size and range will always take up the same number of mils in our sight. We can use this to create a cheat sheet of sorts that we will use to estimate ranges. Below is my personal range estimate table. The estimated ranges are listed by both the number of lines in the sight and mils. Range Front is the estimated range if you are looking at the front of the tank, Range Side is the estimated range if viewing the tank from the side.
Important: The main issue with this chart is that not all tanks are the same size. If the tank is larger than average it will be farther than we estimate, if it is smaller then it is closer. I have made this chart using average tank sizes that work for me. You may find that you need to slightly adjust the estimates to have it perform the best for you. If you want to have more accurate range estimates for specific tanks, look at the post I linked earlier. It has a spreadsheet with some specific German and Russian tanks along with the formulas you can use to calculate the exact range for any tank.
VI - Estimating Range Using Landmarks
Pros: Able to fire extremely fast and accurate.
Cons: Requires the largest amount of knowledge and experience to use. Have to spend time before the battle learning the landmarks.
This method of ranging is the most accurate, but also the one that requires the most player knowledge and experience. It relies on your knowledge of the map, your favorite positions, and where you will likely see the enemy. To use this method of rangefinding, you place yourself at a location you will return to in the future (such as a sniping location) and mark down ranges to various landmarks around you. For example, on the Poland map I know that the C capture point is roughly 700m in range away from the rocky cliff on the northwest end of the lake. I can move to that position and quickly fire a well aimed shot without requiring any calculations or estimates.
There really isn't much more to say about this method. Load up a custom battle on the map of your choice, spawn a tank, get out your notepad, and start writing down ranges. It will take time to mark all of the ranges and even longer to remember them in battle, but the payoff can be huge in letting you aim accurately with an unprecedented speed. It is a very useful method for a player that prefers to sit back and snipe from their favorite locations, but less useful for players that are more mobile and constantly roaming the map to engage from different spots each game.
VII - Estimating Range Using the Map Grid
Pros: Can give you range estimates without requiring direct line of sight to your target.
Cons: Hard to estimate the range to a tank until they are marked on the map. Have to know the grid square size for your current map.
The last method I know of to estimate ranges is to use the map grid. Every map is made of a grid that you can see on your minimap. Every square in this grid is a constant size and can be used to estimate the range. The downside is that the grid is not uniform in size between maps. For example, one grid square on Frozen Pass is not the same size as one grid square on Kursk.
To use this method you look at your position on the map and count the number of grid squares between you and the enemy tank. If the enemy has been marked on your map by a friendly scout then it can give you a decently accurate range estimate quickly. If however you are trying to calculate the range to a tank in your sight, it can be hard to tell exactly where they are located on the map. It also becomes difficult to quickly calculate the range when the tank is on a diagonal line away from you. Below is an example on the test drive map.
You can see that I am 1 grid square away from the tank I killed to my east. This map has a 4kmx4km area so each grid square is 400m. I aimed at 400m and got a perfect kill shot. Using that same estimation I can tell that the light tank to my north is around 300m in range, the heavy to my west is around 450 meters as it is one grid square over but on a diagonal, and the tank farthest to my east is around 900m away as it is 2 grid squares over and on a diagonal.
All of the tank maps are divided into a 10x10 grid (Although on several maps the play area doesn't use the full grid). The most popular map sizes as far as I can tell are 4km, 2km, and 1.2km squared which gives a grid square size of 400m, 200m, and 120m on those maps respectively. Unfortunately I do not normally use this method and do not have a table for the grid size on the various maps. I might get one made someday, or if anybody has such a table and wants to share, please post it as a reply and I will add it here with a credit to you:)
VIII - Aiming & Sight Distance Control
PHEW! That was a lot of work to find out how far away the tank was. Now for the fun part, aiming and SHOOTING! We could simply use the little elevation lines to raise our sight to the estimated range and fire, but there is a better way to get accurate shots. That way is to use the sight distance control to adjust our point of aim. It will take a little while to get used to using the sight distance control, and you may find yourself firing a few shells over the head of nearby tanks until you get the hang of it. But do not worry, if you want to learn how to use it, the controls will quickly become second nature to you. You can adjust the range that your gun sight is zeroed at by using the Sight distance control key binding that was mentioned way back at the start of this guide. I personally use the mouse wheel to control my sight distance and bound the mouse wheel button to reset my range to 0.
When setting up the binding you want to bind a key to "Reset axis value". You will use this key to reset your sight to its default range (your range is set to 0 meters) whenever you are ready to move to a new location. If you are using buttons to adjust your sight range rather than the mouse wheel you will also want to bind keys for "Increase value" and "Decrease value". You then need to adjust the "Relative control sensitivity" to the lowest value possible, this will allow you to have a smooth range adjustment if you hold the key. Lastly, adjust the "Relative control step" slider to your preferred setting. This slider will adjust how large of a range adjustment you get when you tap the key instead of holding it.
It is important to note that when you are adjusting your distance, the steps will not always be the same. One step might move your range from 0 to 200m, then the next moves you to 350m, then 500m, etc. It can be annoying at first, but you will always be able to adjust your sight close enough to the desired range for accurate fire. You will also notice that the larger the shell drop of your current gun the smaller range change each adjustment step will be. Basically the way it works is each step moves the sight up or down by roughly the same amount, but the range that adjustment correlates to depends on the gun and shell you are firing.
You might wonder why you should bother with this rather than just manually raising your barrel to use the range lines in your sight. And that is a good question. There are many shots where using the range lines rather than adjusting your sight distance will allow you to aim and fire faster. In those situations forget trying to be fancy and just blow up the enemy! However for longer range shots where it is harder to count the number of lines to adjust, when you are set up in a sniping location and your target is moving, or if you are on uneven ground, adjusting your sight distance gives you a nice advantage. You can also use the distance control to adjust your fire without moving your gun sight. If your shot falls short, adjust your sight distance to a longer range and you will correct your aim without your crosshair ever needing to move off of your target. Very useful for when you have your crosshair in just the perfect location on a hard to see/hit tank.
Now for the real hidden power of using the sight distance control. Firing while on a slope. Estimating how far to the side your shell will fall is difficult and can cause you to miss your target. If you adjust the range of your sight properly however, you shell will hit exactly where the horizontal line crosses the circle that indicates your point of aim in the game. See the image below for an example.
IX - Conclusion
Wow, I can't believe that I just spent the time to write all that out
. The reason I made this is I have seen many people ask questions on how to accurately aim their tanks. While I am by no means the best player in the game I have been around for a while and wanted to share some of the advice I have picked up over the years. I hope that somebody finds some of this information new and helpful to them. If somebody does then it was all worth the time spent.
Should anybody have feedback, extra advice to give, or corrections, please let me know.
Happy hunting all!
