Crew Training

The crew is the key element linking a player and a vehicle. Each crew member has their own qualification: Commander, Driver, Gunner, Loader, or Radio Operator. By improving a crew member's major qualification and training additional perks, they become more effective, which significantly improves the battle performance of the vehicle.

Major Qualification

After training your crew member to 100% in their major qualification, perks become available, which increase your battle capabilities.

Commander training is of critical importance. Every 10% of the Сommander’s combat skills gives a 1% bonus to the whole crew. For example, if your Сommander is trained to 50%, then the crew receives an additional 5% bonus to the level of major qualification. If your Сommander is trained to 100%, then the crew will receive 10%. The Commander's bonus is not applicable to the Сommander.

Effective major qualification mastery is determined by two factors:

• Qualification level. The level of major qualification of a tanker.
• Vehicle control mastery. Crew members can use their skills to the fullest only on the vehicle for which they are currently trained, or on Premium vehicles of the same type and nation.

Major Qualification Training

When recruiting a crew member, you can choose one of three major qualification levels:

1. Rapid Courses. The courses are free, but a tanker is trained to 50% only. This training level is set by default when recruiting a crew member.
2. Regimental School. A tanker is trained to 75% for 20,000.
3. Tank Academy. A crew member is trained to 100% for 200.

The most common way to raise crew mastery to 100% is to gain experience in battles. Every tanker receives the same amount of experience for each battle as the vehicle. The more effective they are in battle, the faster the crew is trained.

However, training a tanker to 100% only by gaining combat experience can take a long time. 
To accelerate qualification training, you can:

• Train an already-recruited tanker in the Regimental School or Tank Academy for game currency.
• Use Personal Reserves to gain additional crew experience.
• Activate the Accelerate Crew Training option on Elite vehicles.
• Purchase WoT Premium Account to get 50% more Crew Experience per battle.

Accelerating training for in-game currency

If you already have tankers trained to less than 75%, you can send them to Regimental School or Tank Academy at any time. To train your crew member:

1. Select the vehicle in the Garage and the tanker whose level you want to increase.
2. Select Personal File from the menu. On the Training tab, select Tank Academy or Regimental School.

You can also train all crew members at once. Click  (Crew Operations), and in the Crew Retraining section click Retrain. Choose the training level (Regimental School or Tank Academy) in the Crew Retraining window and click Retrain. Only those crew tankers whose qualification level is less than 75% will be retrained.

Accelerating crew training on Elite vehicles

The Accelerate Crew Training option is available on Elite vehicles. By activating it, all experience earned on this vehicle is spent on crew training. The least experienced crew member is trained twice as fast and is marked with .

Elite vehicles include researchable vehicles that have all modules and following vehicles upgraded, as well as Premium and reward vehicles.

To accelerate crew training on Elite vehicles:

1. Select the vehicle in the Garage.
2. Check the Accelerate Crew Training box above the crew members panel in the top left corner of your Garage.

Crew Perks

After training your crew member’s major qualification to 100%, additional perks become available.

Perks can be group or individual. Group perks are available for all crew members, while individual perks are only for certain qualifications. If a tanker has several qualifications, they can train all perks available for each one.

Sixth Sense: A Special Commander Feature

Please note that all commanders have a special feature that allows them to identify whether their vehicle has been spotted by the enemy.

The main features of crew perks:

• Perks come to effect when trained to at least 1%, and grow more effective with further training.
• Some perks have a situational effect that is triggered in certain battle conditions, while others have a permanent effect that remains active throughout the battle.
• For group perks, the average training level among all crew members is applied.
• Each percent above 100% of major qualification training amplifies the effect of all perks except for Brothers in Arms.

After training an additional perk to 100%, tankers can start training the next one. To train the next perk, the tanker will need twice as much experience as for the previous one.

Perk Training

Perk training starts at 0% and increases by gaining Combat Experience.

A zero perk is a special type of perk that is available to a crew member by default. It is fully trained, does not require any experience, and cannot be changed by the player. Crew members with zero perks can be acquired as a reward or during events (such as Holiday Ops). Zero perks significantly reduce the amount of experience needed for further crew training.

Perk training can be increased at any time. There are several ways to do this:

• Training for Free Experience. After each battle, 5% of Combat Experience is converted into Free Experience. You can also gain Free Experience by converting Combat Experience from Elite vehicles for gold.
• The Accelerate Crew Training option on Elite vehicles.
• Study Crew Books.
• Activate Personal Reserves.
• Earn more both Combat and Crew XP when playing with WoT Premium Account or in Premium vehicles.

To accelerate perk training for Free Experience::

1. Select the vehicle in the Garage and the tanker whose level you want to increase.
2. Select Personal File in the menu.
3. In the Perks section, click Increase.
4. Choose the training level in the Training for Free Experience window and click Exchange.

Crew Books

Crew Books allow you to speed up training of one or all crew members by adding a certain amount of Crew XP.

Crew Books differ by type and value. The higher the value, the more XP a Crew member will receive when the Crew Book is studied. There are five types of Crew Books that differ in their acquisition method and conditions of use.

Purchasing Training Manuals

To purchase Training Manuals:

1. In the Garage, select the vehicle of the nation for which you want to purchase Training Manuals.
2. Click (Crew Operations) above the Crew Panel and click Open in the Crew Books section.
3. In the CREW BOOKS window, select Training Manual and click Purchase.
4. In the confirmation window, set the number of Training Manuals and click Purchase. A Training Manual costs 2,000,000. When studied, the manual provides each crew member with 250,000 experience.

To apply Crew Books:

1. In the Garage, select the vehicle of the crew or crew member you want to train.
2. Click  (Crew Operations) above the Crew Panel and click Open in the Crew Books section.
3. In the CREW BOOKS window, select a Crew Book type and click Apply.
4. In the confirmation window, click Study. The Crew Book will be spent, and each or a selected crew member will receive experience depending on the studied Crew Book type.

To view your Crew Books:

1. Go to the DEPOT tab under the Battle! button in your Garage.
2. Click  (Stock) to the left of the screen.
3. Go to the Crew Books tab. Available Crew Books are displayed here. Use filters to search for the Crew Books you need.