These Awesome Warbirds Will Never Be Added to War Thunder, Here’s Why

But trust us. Things could have been even worse had Gaijin Entertainment decided to add a few airplanes that, for one reason or another, wouldn't make a lick of sense in a War Thunder match. As you'll find, the reasons why are unique to each airframe. These are a few warbirds Gaijin passed on to fly in War Thunder.

Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow: Sadder Than the Maple Leaf's Title Drought.

If you ask some Canadian av-geeks, the administration of Canada's 13th Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker, was basically guilty of treason for canceling the Avro Arrow. A speed demon of a machine theoretically capable of smashing records for speed and altitude, there was nothing in the sky, either American or Soviet, that could touch the Arrow's performance in 1958.

It's been theorized the CF-105 could square up with 2023's contemporary jet fighters by some of its more fervent supporters. A small handful even thinks it could clobber an F-35. We had to dedicate a whole article to explain why that's a load of malarkey. But given the kind of hardware the very top of War Thunder's tech trees has to work with these days, there was once speculation the Arrow would find its way on board.

But those who play War Thunder on-the-reg know Gaijin is a finicky game developer if there ever was one. There's a certain list of criteria that, with a few exceptions, must be met for a vehicle to be coded into the game. One of these rules is the vehicle must have either served in combat or completed its full round of rigorous IRL flight testing in the rare instance prototype aircraft are available for players to fly.

Because the Arrow was unceremoniously trashed, its flight testing never finished, leaving its true capabilities somewhat ambiguous. But there's an even bigger problem. The CF-105 never carried a cannon. Yeah, that's going to be an issue. When even the higher-tiered aircraft in the game still carry some form of an autocannon, that pretty much disqualifies the Arrow from War Thunder service.

Tupolev Tu-95: If the regime of Leonid Brezhnev was an airplane

It's hard to say anything nice about Russian aircraft, given what some of them have been up to over the last 13 months. But before all the unpleasantness in Eastern Europe, the Tupolev Tu-95 (NATO Codename: Bear) was the Russian Air Force's grizzliest, most battle-hardened strategic bomber.

But there's a problem. You'd expect that, considering it's on this silly list. For some reference, anyone who's ever flown the Soviet reproduction of the B-29 the Tu-4 knows big, lumbering bombers are like lamps, and enemy fighters are like a swarm of moths. Only this time, the moths have machine guns and also hurl nasty insults at you through in-game text chat.

Imagine this same experience, but with top-tier jets with double-digit battle ratings and armed to the teeth with enough missiles to shoot down a swarm of bombers. It's not like NATO-aligned fighters were designed for the sole purpose of shooting down Soviet bombers; oh wait. But even if Gaijin did try to bring the Tu-95 into the game, where would you even put it?

Because it's got propellers instead of roaring turbojets like every other high-tier bomber, would the Bear be better at a lower tier? Say, a sub-10.0 battle rating or something close to that, perhaps? Or is it still so recent in War Thunder terms that it'd be chronologically obtuse not to get thrown in the meat grinder with MiG-29s and F-14s? Add in that later Tu-95s have one measly rear autocannon, and that's basically the nail in the coffin.

Lockheed AC-130 Gunship: No... just... no...

Is this the 800-lb gorilla in the room? It's definitely one of the bigger ones in a metaphorical enclosure that makes the Bronx Zoo immediately after a Yankee game look civilized. We can think of a million reasons why the Lockheed AC-130 shouldn't be allowed near War Thunder with a ten-foot pole.

Think the Tu-95 is slow? The AC-130 is considerably slower. Say what you will about the Two 7.62mm miniguns flanked by two 20mm and two 40mm autocannons. A P-51 could run circles around this cargo plane with a mean streak fairly easily. A P-47 thunderbolt could probably shoot it down in one pass with a burst of eight M2 Browings to the wings.

We must admit, the prospects of vaporizing Bf-109s and Zeroes with the mother of all onslaughts in-between turning heavy tanks to paste does sound like a grand old time. But come on. The War Thunder community gets up in arms over far less controversial potential additions to the tech trees. Some of those even got put in the game. We're looking at you, A-10.

So if you're gung-ho about the AC-130 coming to War Thunder, please bark up a different tree. You're better off advocating for the VTOL F-35B getting added to the game before you'll ever see a quad-engine gunship in the skies. And to think we once thought that was also never going to happen either. The AC-130's forbearer the AC-47, on the other hand? That's a whole different story entirely.

IAR-93 Vultur/Soko J-22 Orao: The Balkan attack jet with an identity crisis

We bet you didn't see this one coming. Is it Yugoslav? Is it Romanian? Does anyone in the west even know it exists? These are questions you need to ask yourself about the Avioane Craiova IAR-93 Vultur and the Soko J-22 Orao. In truth, it was a collaborative effort between the two communist and then ex-communist Yugoslavs and Romanians that brought us these twin attack jets.

These jets flew with goodies like Yugoslav and Romanian-built Rolls-Royce Viper turbojet engines and twin GSh-23 20 mm autocannons. Throw in unguided bombs, rockets, AGM-65 air-to-ground missiles, and even short-range air-to-air missiles, and now you're really talking. With a top speed that touches supersonic, it seems like the perfect fit for War Thunder, right?

But the thing is, where would you put them? At least in terms of Romania, the few native aircraft in the game found their way into the premium, pay-to-play tech trees of ex-Axis nations like Italy and Germany. But what about Yugoslavia? We suppose putting the Yugoslav J-22 in the Russian tech tree could make sense. But does anyone want to find out if people take offense to this? We don't think Gaijin wants to take that chance.

If you ask us, the only way it would make sense to bring a large variety of Yugoslav or Romanian aircraft to War Thunder would be to either make a combined Balkan nation tech tree or make two separate tech trees for Yugoslavia and Romania. Not going to lie; the latter option sounds awesome. But again, would Gaijin really do this? We have our doubts. This means, sadly, these twin Eastern European jets probably won't make the cut with Gaijin any time soon.