[2021] i quit

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