Squadron battles · SQB & SRE

What are Squadron Battles in War Thunder?

Squadron Battles, SQB for short, are War Thunder's squadron-versus-squadron mode: two organised teams, one from each squadron, fighting under realistic rules for squadron rating and a place on the leaderboard. This page explains the parts of the mode that matter to a squadron running its nights in Discord, and why every one of those battles can be scouted and logged automatically.

SQB, SRE, squadron battles: the same thing

Only squadrons can queue for the mode, and a squadron plays as a team against another squadron rather than being dropped into a random lobby. Because the battles use realistic rules, players also call them SRE, for Squadron Realistic Events, and a squadron's evening of back-to-back matches is usually just called “SQB night”. The official name in the game and on warthunder.com is Squadron Battles.

Seasons, squadron rating and the leaderboard

Squadron battles run in seasons. Over a season every battle moves the squadron rating, a number shown on the squadron's public page at warthunder.com/community, and the ratings of all squadrons are ranked on a leaderboard. Both are public: anyone can open a squadron's page and read its rating and position, which is exactly how WT Scout can report how far a night moved them.

Players inside the squadron have a personal squadron-battle rating too, and the change in that rating after a night is the “+38” next to a name in a session summary.

The weekly max BR schedule

Each season has a maximum battle rating that changes week by week, so a squadron does not play at the same BR for the whole season. The schedule is published in one continuously re-edited thread on the official forum, Season Schedule for Squadron Battles, listing every week with its max BR. The BR steps down through the season: the season that began on 1 September 2026, for example, opened at a maximum of 14.7 and descends week by week to 5.0 by its final days.

Missing the change is the classic Monday mistake. WT Scout reads that forum thread and, when a new week starts, posts the new max BR and next week's once in every server that has battle logging on. It only posts what it has read with confidence; if the thread changes shape, it stays silent rather than guess.

Every squadron battle has a public replay

War Thunder records every squadron battle and publishes the replay on its official replay portal, searchable by player name and downloadable by anyone. The replay file holds the whole match: both teams, every vehicle each player took, scores, kills, assists, deaths, captures, who drew first blood, which team won, and the positions of every vehicle over time.

That is what makes a squadron battle bot possible without anyone's login. WT Scout reads those replays and nothing else: it can name the enemy line-up during a battle, post both teams' scoreboards a few minutes after a match ends, and render the whole match as a top-down timelapse video.

What a squadron actually wants from SQB night

Before the battle: what the enemy squadron brought. Name any player on the other team and /scout answers with their team's vehicles from their latest battle.
After each battle: the scoreboard, without a screenshot. Every finished battle posts itself to the log channel about 10–15 minutes after it ends, once War Thunder has published the replay.
At the end of the night: the record, every battle and who it was against, squadron rating and leaderboard movement, and the players ranked by score. The session summary writes it up about an hour after the last battle, or immediately on /endsession.
On Monday: the new max BR, announced in the channel.

The setup guide gets a squadron there in about a minute, and the command reference lists every option.

Questions

What does SQB stand for in War Thunder?

Squadron Battles: the mode where a squadron fights another squadron as an organised team, rather than being matched into a random lobby. Players also call them SRE, for Squadron Realistic Events, because they are played under realistic rules.

Where is the SQB BR schedule published?

In the Season Schedule for Squadron Battles thread on the official War Thunder forum, which is re-edited for each season. It lists every week of the season with its maximum battle rating. WT Scout reads that thread and announces each week's new max BR in your battle-log channel.

Are War Thunder squadron battle replays public?

Yes. War Thunder publishes a replay of every squadron battle on its official replay portal at warthunder.com, where anyone can find it by player name and download it. That is the only data WT Scout reads.

Why does a squadron use a Discord bot for SQB?

To stop doing by hand what the replay already contains. A bot can name the enemy line-up while the battle is on, post both teams' scoreboards a few minutes after each match, and close the night with the record, the rating movement and the top players, all in the squadron's own Discord.

WT Scout is built on War Thunder's public replay portal and is not affiliated with Gaijin Entertainment.