If you have run into J22 in War Thunder and moved on without quite understanding it, this is the explanation.

Short answer

J22 is a fixed part of War Thunder that most players meet once and remember, whether or not they understood it at the time.

  • Check which version of War Thunder any discussion of it is describing.
  • Ignore the myth attached to it; it has never held up.
  • If a menu path does not exist for you, your build is older or newer than the one described.

War Thunder models more of the vehicle than it tells you about, and the grind punishes guessing. The in-game description is technically accurate and practically useless. Its practical value is narrow and real, rather than broad and theoretical.

What it is often confused with

What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. It rewards understanding rather than grinding, which is unusual for War Thunder. Two similarly named things exist, and mixing them up explains a lot of contradictory advice. Everything below is framed around the current state of War Thunder rather than a launch-week impression.

It is the kind of thing veterans forget they ever had to learn. It shows up in more places than its introduction suggests, once you know to look. None of this needs a paid tool, a third-party launcher or an account on a site you have never heard of.

Whether it is worth going out of your way for

It is more consequential in the late game than the early one, which is why first impressions mislead. Whether it is worth going out of your way for depends entirely on how you are playing. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why.

  • Do not build a plan around it before you have seen it work.
  • Treat wiki trivia sections as trivia rather than mechanics.
  • Keep a save or backup from before you start — it costs nothing and occasionally saves an evening.
  • It rewards attention rather than preparation.
  • Do not confuse it with the similarly named thing — that mix-up drives most bad advice.

Common misunderstandings

The game introduces it quickly and assumes you picked it up, which is where the confusion starts. Knowing this does not make you better at War Thunder, but it does make the rest of it legible. The awkward part is rarely the step itself, it is knowing which step comes first. The name is descriptive if you already know what it does, and opaque if you do not.

Community shorthand around it has drifted far enough from the original meaning to cause arguments. Do the cheap check before the expensive one — that ordering alone saves most of the frustration. Its role has changed across updates, so older discussion describes something slightly different.

What it is

If you only remember one thing about it, remember where it appears. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. There is a persistent myth attached to it that has never been true in any version.

It appears in supplementary material in more detail than it does in the game itself. If a step reads as obvious, do it anyway — the obvious ones are the ones people skip and then wonder about. Early impressions of it are usually wrong in the same specific way.

How it connects to the rest of War Thunder

The wiki entry is thorough and buries the actually useful part six paragraphs down. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing. It became noticeably more relevant after a change the patch notes barely mentioned.

Where people go wrong

  • Skipping the prerequisite because it looked optional in someone else's summary.
  • Assuming a guide from an older season still describes the current version.
  • Trusting a video thumbnail that promises a result the video never actually shows.
  • Copying a setup wholesale from a streamer without understanding what each part does.

War Thunder FAQ

What is J22 in War Thunder?

The short answer is above. The longer one is that it fills a specific role, and understanding that role explains why it keeps coming up.

Is this still accurate after the latest War Thunder update?

The method is; individual numbers may not be. If a value on your screen differs, trust the screen and keep the sequence.

How long does this take?

Minutes if it goes cleanly, an evening if you hit the edge case in the caveats list. Neither is unusual.

Does this work the same on console and PC?

The logic is identical. Menu paths and button prompts differ, and any real difference is flagged above.

That is the whole of it — if something here stops matching War Thunder, the game changed, not the method.