Tournaments is one of those parts of War Thunder that the game introduces once and never revisits.

Short answer

Short version — it is exactly what it looks like, and the confusion comes from a similarly named thing nearby.

  • Ask what it is for before asking how to get it.
  • Note where it first appears, so you can go back if you need to.
  • 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. Early impressions of it are usually wrong in the same specific way. It is more consequential in the late game than the early one, which is why first impressions mislead.

How it connects to the rest of War Thunder

Screenshots age faster than text, which is why this describes rather than shows. Two similarly named things exist, and mixing them up explains a lot of contradictory advice. Its practical value is narrow and real, rather than broad and theoretical. Where something depends on your platform or region, that is called out rather than glossed over.

Whether it is worth going out of your way for depends entirely on how you are playing. It shows up in more places than its introduction suggests, once you know to look. There is usually a fast way and a reliable way, and it is worth knowing which one you are choosing.

Whether it is worth going out of your way for

Most guides mention it in passing and none of them stop to define it. The name is descriptive if you already know what it does, and opaque if you do not. Nothing here assumes a particular playstyle beyond wanting the thing to work.

  • Do not confuse it with the similarly named thing — that mix-up drives most bad advice.
  • Do not build a plan around it before you have seen it work.
  • Check the version you are actually running before assuming anything is broken.
  • Ignore the myth attached to it; it has never held up.
  • Read the in-game description once, then ignore it.

What it is often confused with

It rewards understanding rather than grinding, which is unusual for War Thunder. Its role has changed across updates, so older discussion describes something slightly different. The short version is near the top on purpose; the reasoning is there if you want to know why. There is a persistent myth attached to it that has never been true in any version.

The game introduces it quickly and assumes you picked it up, which is where the confusion starts. Half the pages on this topic were written for a build that no longer exists, which is why they stop matching what you see. The in-game description is technically accurate and practically useless.

What it changes in practice

Community shorthand around it has drifted far enough from the original meaning to cause arguments. A single check up front replaces a lot of guessing later. It is the kind of thing veterans forget they ever had to learn.

It appears in supplementary material in more detail than it does in the game itself. If you are coming to this after a long break, the terminology has probably moved on. It became noticeably more relevant after a change the patch notes barely mentioned.

What to do once you have it

Knowing this does not make you better at War Thunder, but it does make the rest of it legible. What follows assumes you are on a current install and have not modified it. The wiki entry is thorough and buries the actually useful part six paragraphs down.

Where people go wrong

  • Downloading a helper tool for something the game already does in its own menu.
  • Trusting a video thumbnail that promises a result the video never actually shows.
  • Treating a rare edge case as the normal behaviour and planning around it.
  • Grinding a method that was patched months ago because a thread still ranks well.

War Thunder FAQ

Has it changed recently?

Its role has shifted across updates more than once. Anything you read without a version attached may describe an older form of it.

Is it important?

More than its screen time implies, less than the discussion around it implies. Somewhere in the middle.

Do I need any mods or third-party tools for this?

No. Everything described here works with the base game on any supported platform.

Where can I read more?

The official material covers it in more depth than the game does, and considerably more reliably than aggregated fan pages.

If you only take one thing from this: the answer near the top is the part that matters, the rest is context.