Crew Training and Qualifications

Each World of Tanks crew member holds a special position in a tank. There are five unique roles: a Commander, a Driver, a Loader, a Gunner and a Radio Operator.

Each vehicle can vary in the number of crew members inside it and the roles that they are assigned. World of Tanks vehicles have 2-6 crew members. No vehicle in World of Tanks can operate without a complete crew. Through battles, a crew will gain experience the same way vehicles will, and over time crewmen will improve their vehicle operating level and later acquire new skills and perks. Initially, all tankers only have a 50% training level. The better the outcome of the battle is, the more experience your tankers get. And getting to 100% crew skill is the easiest method to increase overall vehicle performance.

Attention! Every 10% of the  Commander’s combat skills give a bonus 1% to all crew! Thus, if your Commander is 50% trained, then the crew is trained 55%; if the Commander is 100% trained, then the crew is trained 110%.

Some peculiarities of crew training

Each crew member has their own nationality, which means he can only operate tanks of his nation (e.g. an American gunner cannot be retrained for a German tank). Crew members are trained to operate a certain tank (and all premium tanks of same nation and type). If you retrain a crew member for another vehicle, he loses all his previous qualifications.

Crew always gets experience for battle, but the amount he gets is dependent on a number of variables. Let’s assume for the purpose of the examples below, that when 1000 experience points are awarded for a battle, the tank gets 1000 experience points and the Commander and Driver would normally get 1000 experience points as well.

Basic experience receipt is reduced in the following cases:

• If a crew member was originally in a premium vehicle, but is then trained for another tank type (e.g. a Panther’s tanker operates a Lowe) then he gets only 50% experience points (500 exp.points);
• If a crew member is fighting on a non-premium vehicle but is trained for another tank of another type (Panther’s tanker operates Maus), then he gets 25% exp (250 exp points).
• If a crew member was in a non-premium vehicle and is trained for another vehicle of the same type (Panther’s tanker operates Panther 2), then he gets 50% exp.points (500 exp.);
• If a crew member was in a non-premium vehicle and he is trained to another premium vehicle the same type (a Tiger tankee operating in a Löwe), he receives 100% of his experience points;
• If a crew member is hit, then he’s fined for 10% exp. If a crew member is hit and not cured by the battle end, or the tank is destroyed (not penetrated!) then he gets 90% exp (900 exp points)

Visually in garage they are distinguished with the percentage amount and vehicle name color. For premium M3 Stuart: 

1. is tanker trained for the tank;
2. is a tanker trained for another tank of same type;
3. is a tanker trained for another type tank (percent amount is colored red):

Please note (1000 exp points taken as an example again):

1. If this is the first victory of the day, then each crew member gets 2000 exp points.
2. If this is the first victory of the day and there is a special event on (e.g. crew training doubled for a weekend special), then each member gets 4000 exp points.
3. First victory of the day refers to the vehicle. In other words, if you receive double exp on the MS-1 and the send its crew to a premium T-127, then you will still gain the double income if you haven’t gathered one on the T-127 yet.

Crew training mechanism

The crew training process can be accelerated at any time.  When you purchase a new tank, it will come with a standard crew with 50% training.  Alternatively you can spend extra credits to starts with a 75% trained crew, or you can have them being at 100% with the Tank Academy option.   Starting with well-trained tankers will let you show off all that the evhicle can do. To choose this option you need to select Tank Academy in the Purchase window.

Please note that Tank Academy training is purchased with in-game gold:

If you want to rapidly increase the training of an existing crew member, all you need to do is to select the vehicle, right-click on the specified tanker and open his Personal File in the menu

In the Personal File window click on the Training tab and choose Tank Academy training (purchased for Gold) to increase the tanker’s major qualification level up to 100%:

If your crew members have gathered experience already or if you want to retrain them, the training level at Rapid Courses or in Regimental School may offer higher values than shown above. For example, retraining a 100% trained crew member from one heavy tank to another through Regimental School will give not 75% but 90% skill level.

Accelerated crew training

All experience gained from a battle can be sent directly to crew training. A vehicle must have elite status which is achieved when all its modules are researched. When a vehicle is elite, enter the garage and check the option for Accelerate crew training to activate this mode.

In the pop-up window you can confirm your selection:

This means that the “weakest” crew member will get two times more experience whilst the other members gain a regular amount of experience. In this mode no experience is allocated to the vehicle itself, so no undistributed experience is lost.

If you're going to sell a tank and buy a new one, but do not want to lose the skilled crew, the crew can be retrained from one vehicle to another. The nationality of the tankers does need to be taken into account. So, Soviet tankers would not be able to operate German or American tanks and vice versa.

In order to retrain your soldiers, you need to send them to the barracks before you sell the tank.  To do this, you need to select the tank and click on the tankers. In the pop-up menu, select Send to Barracks then repeat this for each member of the crew.

It is also possible to automatically send crew to Barracks at during the tank selling stage. The checkbox for “Send to Barracks and Demount Equipment” in the sell panel is set by default.

When you sell the tank and buy a new one, make sure you check the box for "Buy the tank without crew"  because you already have soldiers in the barracks. 

As soon as you have your new vehicle in your garage you can assign your veteran tank pilots to it. 

Click on the Barracks tab and right-click on the required tanker. Select Training tab in his Personal File and specify the chosen tank for this soldier. Open the Personal File of each tanker. Select the training level (Tank Academy, Regimental School, Rapid Courses) and click on “Train”.

Please note that the major qualification cannot be changed: a radio operator cannot become a gunner and a loader will cannot become a commander.

And don’t forget that Barracks can be enlarged at any time!

Crew skills and perks

When a tanker has reached 100% training in his major skill qualification, he can then begin to train other skills and perks.

Make your crew 100% effective and crush the enemy on the battlefields of World of Tanks!