The pros and cons of having planes and tanks together (WoT, WoWP and War thunder thinking cap)

World of tanks is all about tanks.

World of warplanes is all about planes.

War Thunder wants to be all about war.




Having machines from all branches of the military (air, ground, sea) actively engage each other on a single map while player control does sound fun. But is it?!

The answer to that is...Depends.


World of tanks is all about tanks, except that fighter on the Airfield map(and i will shoot him down one day) Thus the devs have nothing else to worry about but tanks.

Same goes with WoWP and its safe to assume the policy will remain the same in WoWs.

Now, War Thunder wants to have a mixed match.On paper it sounds great. In reality, like I said, not so much. Let's give an example with (yes, again) the only other game that did it on that scale. Ye olde Battlefield 1942.

The main issue people will point out is that Air dominates ground.

Stationary AA is of little use. Mobile AA can drive off a plane at best. Tanks lose engagements with planes in 99% of the cases.

So in a plane, your only equals are other planes, and oh look - tasty kills on the ground.
In a tank you are in danger from other tanks, planes and (I assume there will be) stationary AT guns. Nobody likes being underdog. This will lead to player frustration. In a good team where adequate air support was provided it wasn't so bad. However, if there wasn't adequate cover, or the enemy had total air primacy, tanks could not do shit.

Next on the list is ships. Planes can interact and fight against ships, but to be effective you need a whole squadron. (that means AI planes because player controlled tend to go for the easier target i.e. tanks, rather than the more important). Ships can take out planes by the dozen. Tanks can't do much except the biggest stuff like Maus and IS-3. Faced with indirect ship caliber guns firing in salvoes...yeah that will end up about as you expect it to be. This will lead to serious issues, namely no one will like to play tanks in a mixed battle. That would kill the concept.