War Thunder: Recommended Keybinds for Ground and Air Battles

Before you start your War Thunder experience in Ground realistic Battles you should assign some keybinds to not get frustrated about avoidable mistakes.

These settings allow you to measure the distance of targets on the battlefield and adjust your cannon to the bullet drop.

First step: Head over to
Controls > Ground Vehicles > Miscellaneous > Rangefinder
and assign any key to be able to use your Rangefinder during the Battle.

Second step: Head over to
Controls > Ground Vehicles > Miscellaneous > Sight distance control
and set keybinds for Increasing and Decreasing the value.
You can also assign a key to Reset axis value but that is not necessary.

Keep in mind that the caliber, barrel length and the type of ammunition you are using can make a big difference in bullet speed and bullet drop.

example for bullet drop:

What it should look like after pressing the range finder key:

This is where your measured range is getting shown:

After you know how far away your enemy is, you can set the distance using the designated keybinds from step 2.

These settings are especially important when playing in a squadron and allow you to set a marker for your squadron members.

First step: Head over to
Controls > Common > Basic > Set target for squad

Once you have done that, it will be much easier for you and your squad mates to describe an enemy position.

Once you unlock a Tank of tier 4 or higher, night maps will be added to your match pool and you should know how to use your nightvision. Opinions about night vision are divided, but it can still be very helpful in some situations. Thermal vision is usually a big benefit to you, and if you have access to it on your tank, I would recommend using it.

First step: Head over to
Controls > Weaponry > Night vision mode

If your Tank has access to one of those features (Night or Thermal vision), you can simply turn them on now with the designated key and if your tank has both, the thermal vision will be used instead of the nightvision.

Nightvision:

Generation 1 thermalvision Vs. Generation 3 thermalvision:

As you can see, the details in the older thermal vision device are blurred a bit more.

If you unlock an SPAA on a high BR, most of the time it has a radar for spotting planes. The radar spotting scale is usually set to about 10Km range, but you can change that.

Step one: To change that head over to
Controls > Ground Vehicles > Weaponry > Change Radar/ IRST scope scale

After that you should see the radar scale right next to your radar on the top left.
It helps you to spot enemy planes and helicopters over greater distances.

At some point in the game you will eventually reach planes that are equipped with Air to Air missiles and Flares. But you dont need the Flares if you dont know how to fire them so let me help you out.

First step: Head over to
Controls > Aircraft > Weaponry > Fire countermeasures
Controls > Helicopter > Weaponry > Fire countermeasures

If you own a plane with lots of countermeasures you can think about setting a keybind for periodic countermeasure release. This can be extremely useful when flying an A-10 or SU-25, for example.

Optional second step:
Controls > Aircraft > Weaponry > Periodic countermeasures release
Controls > Helicopter > Weaponry > Periodic countermeasures release

You even can fire countermeasure series if you have enough flares for it.

Third step: For that head over to
Controls > Helicopter > Weaponry > Fire countermeasure series

It will end up looking something like this:

Sometimes you need to bomb a base and only have seconds right above the base to drop off all your bombs. Luckily there is a function with which we can drop whole series of bombs.

First step: Head over to
Controls > Weaponry > Drop bomb series

This will allow you to drop huge amounts of bombs within seconds.

Now to the rocket salvo. These are just very useful when attacking ground targets and you want to make sure the target is getting destroyed.

Second step: Go to
Controls > Weaponry > Fire rocket salvo

By holding down your assigned key you will be able now to shoot rockets for as long as you hold down the rocket salvo key.

Once you’ve unlocked a high tier plane it usually comes with a ballistic computer for the cannon and for unguided missiles. The ballistic computer is very useful when you focus on destroying ground targets. You can set Keybinds to quickly activate the ballistic computer.

Step one: Go to
Controls > Aircraft > Weaponry > Toggle Cannon Ballistic Computer
Controls > Aircraft > Weaponry > Toggle Rocket Ballistic Computer

Cannon:

Rockets:

With these settings you can shoot more precisely and you are less likely to waste ammo.

Some planes have little boosters to help you taking off. I’d recommend setting a keybind for them.

Step one: Head over to
Controls > Aircraft > Mechanization > Ignite boosters

These will help you for taking off faster or gaining speed faster.

example: (Ar 234 B-2)

Some planes in the game are equipped with the “Schräge Musik” feature, it is really uncommon to use it but I think there are some situations where it might be helpful

Planes equipped with “Schräge Musik”:
– Bf 110 G-4
– Do 217 N-2
– Ju 388 J
– Ki-45 tei

example: (Do 217 N-2)

First step: Go to
Controls > Aircraft > Weaponry > “Schräge Musik” cannon activation

After activating it during combat, you will get into the gunner position of the vertically mounted guns and will be able to shoot.