War Thunder’s 2.57.1.33 Patch Adds More Nuclear-Carrying Aircraft

Gaijin Entertainment published the War Thunder Update 2.57.1.33 announcement on Steam on July 21, 2026. The patch focuses on aircraft changes, including five new nuclear weapon carriers for Ground Battles sessions with a Battle Rating of 13.0 or higher.

These aircraft carry a nuclear bomb along with four air-to-air missiles: two infrared-guided weapons and two active radar-homing weapons. The update also adjusts guided-munition targeting against ships, fixes several aircraft bugs, updates the RIM-24 missile, and restores keyboard arrow-key binding.

War Thunder Update 2.57.1.33 Patch Notes

The largest addition is the new group of nuclear-capable aircraft. The rest of the update is made up of targeted fixes for aircraft behavior, naval weapons, controls, and missile guidance.

Aircraft

• The following new nuclear weaponry carriers have been added to Ground Battles with a session Battle Rating of 13.0 and higher. They carry not only the nuclear bomb itself, but a set of air-to-air missiles, 2 IR guided and 2 ARH guided. The following aircraft have been added: ☢F-16A ADF (USA, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, France, Sweden), ☢F-16A MLU (China), ☢F-16D Barak II (Israel), ☢F-2A (Japan), ☢MiG-29SMT (9-19) (USSR).
• Now when launching the last ARM, if the aircraft has no integrated ESM sensors, the radar indicator will automatically switch from the ESM mode to radar mode.
• The guidance logic of all guided munitions has been revised so that when firing at ships the crew compartments can be selected as the target, thus the munition on average will hit more vital parts of the ships.
• Fw 189 C — a bug that caused the open canopy to insufficiently slow down the aircraft and to not get torn off at high enough speed has been fixed.
• He 111 H-6, He 111 H-16 — a bug that caused the 250 kg bombs to get stuck in the bomb bay when released has been fixed.
• Me 163 B, Me163 B-0 — a bug that caused the fuel tanks not in the cockpit to remain self-sealing despite the updated information in the X-ray hint has been fixed. Source: CGD-256 ME 163, Volume II – Me 163 B Airplane Manual.
• F5W torpedo — torpedo parameters have been corrected to match the original Italian W 170/450/5.46 torpedo.
• A bug that caused the Yak-38M attack aircraft to spawn in the Ground Arcade Battles with 2 additional AAMs which made it impossible to safely leave the plane without using them has been fixed. (Report).

Naval Vessels

• RIM-24 — flight model has been updated, the missile has been updated to a fully physical control model.

Controls

• A bug that made it impossible to bind actions on the keyboard arrow keys has been fixed. (Report).

Patch notes reflect only key changes, meaning they may not include a complete list of all improvements made. Additionally, War Thunder is constantly being updated and some changes may not require an update. Changes reflected in patch notes are formed by taking reactions and requests of the community from the bug reporting service, forums and other official platforms into account. Bug fixes and changes are implemented in order of importance, for example a game-breaking bug will be worked on and implemented sooner.

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War Thunder

Developed by Gaijin Entertainment

War Thunder is the most comprehensive free-to-play, cross-platform, MMO military game dedicated to aviation, armored vehicles, and naval craft, from the early 20th century to the most advanced modern combat units. Join now and take part in major battles on land, in the air, and at sea.

• Genre: Shooter, Simulator, Tactical
• Platforms: Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Linux, PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5, Mac, Xbox One
• Modes: Single player, Multiplayer, Co-operative, Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO)
• Release: 2013-01-28
• Publisher: Gaijin Entertainment
• Age Rating: PEGI 12 / USK 12 / CERO B / ACB PG / GRAC 12+ / ESRB T
• IGDB Rating: 74.2/100

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