In War Thunder, Great Britain is a country that stands as a bit of a noob trap. That is, the Royal Air Force is fairly difficult to come to grips with as a new player. But in the hands of a master, it features a spectacular lineup of machines. Spitfires, Tempests, and Typhoons all stand as evidence of this, and act as kinds of antitheses to the easily understood BF 109s and P-47s of Germany and The U.S.
This guide will go over the British Reserve Planes of War Thunder in Realistic Battles (AB and SB will make some information regarding performance a little less useful): The Fury MK I, The Fury MK II, and the Nimrod. And the first thing to note about these planes, for new players, is that they are all designed to be planes that you stop flying as soon as possible. They are, in as objective of terms as can be made, difficult to make work and unrewarding.
British Reserve Planes: Nimrod MK I
Sluggish, slow, and doesn’t control well in sustained turns, the Nimrod is about as lame of a plane as the name suggests. The Wiki states that the Nimrod has an excellent climb rate relative to other biplanes, which absolutely must be an error as our internal testing showed that this plane takes roughly 130 seconds to get to 1KM altitude from the airfield. By comparison, the Furys take roughly 70 seconds to do the same.
This discrepancy serves as an important lesson in War Thunder: Do not trust the stat cards, and do not trust any one person’s opinion on how a plane functions. Use your own best judgement and experiment. The stat cards are either wrong from the get-go or use niche variables to decide how to represent a plane’s performance, and other people’s opinions are prone to error.
If you do, for some reason, decide to fly the Nimrod MK I, there’s really only one way to do it: as a turn fighter and, ideally, as a supportive player. The meaning of playing supportive being that you don’t want to get into 1v1s, since just about every other bi-plane fighter in the game will out-turn or out-gun you, and you’ll shrug too much speed to be useful in anything but short engagements.
In short, take your time to climb to around 800M altitude, then jump into engagements with enemies who have already bled speed in previous turn-fights. Even though you’re a lame plane, you’re still a biplane, which means your turn rate is going to far surpass any monoplane in the game. Don’t be afraid to turn with those 109’s.
Fury MK I & MK II
Luckily for those who hate the more studious aspects of War Thunder, the MK I and MK II Fury can be flown in exactly the same way, but for one specific mechanic that we’ll talk about in a moment. For simplicity, just know that the Fury is a totally capable turn fighter and climber.
The Fury MK I takes roughly 70 seconds to get to 1KM altitude, as we’ve mentioned. The MK II improves on this slightly thanks to its access to WEP (War-Time Emergency Power). WEP is accessed by pushing the throttle over 100%, up to 110% on most planes. This improves performance, increases fuel usage, and increases heat generation. If you’ve ever noticed your radiators overheating, it’s because your throttle is too high for too long: lower the throttle occasionally or use M.E.C. to open the radiators up for increased cooling (and drag).
As for dog-fighting, the Furys are biplanes, which means, by default, they are excellent turn fighters and not much else. They control better than the Nimrod over extended fights and tend to bleed less speed on the horizontal. In fact, these two planes seem to out turn every single opponent in the game, so have fun in the 1v1s and take ’em down.
This doesn’t mean that they are impervious, mind you. These biplanes will still bleed speed in the vertical, and lack any form of high speed in a straight line, which doesn’t pair well with their weaker loadouts of two 7.7mm machine guns. They are turn fighters, through and through.
To effectively use the Furys, climb to about 1KM altitude, gain speed in a straight line, and engage enemies in 1v1 scenarios (or better yet, with teammates). The excellent turn rates of these planes means that as long as you don’t eat too many rounds in the head on, you’ll beat your opponents in the following turn fight.
Remember, as fun as biplanes can be in short matches, they are designed to help newbies enter into the game. The British reserve planes are not to be flown for long periods of time if you enjoy getting your full rewards of Research Points and Silver Lions. Get your research, get your lions, and get your monoplanes unlocked so you can start getting more rewards for your actions.
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