War Thunder 2.57.1.48 Adds a New Nuclear Escalation Bracket

War Thunder Update 2.57.1.48 addressed a compact set of vehicle, interface, and Nuclear Escalation issues. Gaijin published the announcement on July 24, 2026, through its official Steam update notice.

The biggest gameplay change affects Nuclear Escalation. Early-era battles now include a 12.0–13.0 Battle Rating bracket, allowing aircraft rated 13.0 to enter either early- or late-era matches. The patch also stops the “Peaceful Atom” award from appearing in Ground Battles for that mode.

Several vehicle fixes round out the update. The F/A-18C MLU 2 received a fix for missing AGM-154A1 JSOW pylons, while the FIAT 6616UB gained DM63 APDS ammunition. The PGZ88’s mantlet protection and vehicle graphics also received corrections.

War Thunder Update 2.57.1.48 Patch Notes

This update mainly affects Nuclear Escalation matchmaking, radar controls, and a handful of aircraft and ground-vehicle problems. The new early-era bracket gives 13.0 aircraft another possible matchmaking range, while the vehicle fixes correct missing equipment, armor behavior, textures, and visual artifacts.

Aircraft

• F/A-18C MLU 2 (Sweden) — a bug that caused the pylons with 2x AGM-154A1 JSOW to not display has been fixed. (Report).
• I-16 type 5 — a bug that caused the landing gear to appear deployed when spawning in the air has been fixed. (Report).

Ground Vehicles

• FIAT 6616UB — DM63 APDS has been added.
• Csaba — a bug that caused some of the textures to display incorrectly has been fixed. (Report).
• PGZ88 — a bug that caused the mantlet to give significantly more protection than it should have has been fixed. (Report, Report).
• PGZ88 — a bug that sometimes caused graphical artifacts to appear around the vehicle when viewing it from some angles has been fixed. (Report).

Interface

• The minimal radar indicator (without a full set of the radar control buttons around it) now has two more buttons: to switch between the radar and IRST and to switch to ESM mode.

Nuclear Escalation

• New Battle Rating bracket of 12.0-13.0 has been added to the early era battles. Thus, aircraft with a BR of 13.0 can be matched into both early and late era battles.
• A bug that caused the “Peaceful Atom” award from Ground Battles to start being awarded in the game mode has been fixed. (Report).

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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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