CyberStonka

Hi!
We are aware of the issue and working on solution. Should be delivered ASAP.
Sorry for the inconvenience

Dear Steam players!
For unknown reasons, Steam have started downloading the game files again.
In order not to download existing files again, you can use the following:

Pause the download of the game on Steam client.

Find the folder with the War Thunder game and rename it (for example, as “War Thunder1”).

On Steam client, uninstall the War Thunder game.

Rename the game folder back to its original name.

On Steam, find the War Thunder game and click "install".

Steam will check the files and download the missing ones, if necessary, so you can continue to play.

Official answer

Sorry gents!
Unfortunately we don't know what happened. Steam is redownloading the same files.
May be it is somehow depends on enabling steam download and disabling automatic updates via launcher (that was the most popular requests from steam players).
But that is unclear how this things are connected.
Version is the same.
Steam just decided to download files.
We are trying to get to Valve about the issue.
If it will happen again - we'd ask Valve to disable steam updates again.
Sorry for inconvenience again

PS People say that this works:

1. pause the update on steam
2. go to your WT folder, rename the folder to other things like "War Thunder old"
3. uninstall war thunder from steam
4. rename the folder back to just "War Thunder"
5. Reinstall the game back on steam on the same path as before, and it should identify the
old files