AP ammo for Naval Destroyers

[Moosecow]

Should I be using AP shells on destroyers at all? Besides destroying ammo racks (which is not always a guaranteed OHK), they don't seem to do much damage. Shells are too inaccurate to hit ammo at range and there's no reason I should be using it to fight a cruiser because I'd get annihilated anyways. The only real use I've seen is on fletchers, sumners, and cowells since they have enough armor to negate HE but also enough to set off the explosive filler in AP.

I can only select 2 shell types on the PR 7U so am really debating whether to use HE and AP or HE and HE-VT (for effective/reliable destruction of late-round planes).

[Obamenau]

AP rounds are best suited for long range and ammo racks.

I almost exclusively fire AP at destroyers and save HE for smaller boats or low crew DDs and bigger.

It also depends on how good your AP round are. For example the stroyny has very powerful APHE rounds.
The ones form the Z20 have alot less HE filler and those form the Cowell lack penetration.
Since you are using the stroyny definitely use AP. They can do alot of damage at longe range if you get a grip on the aiming system.

[Moosecow]

Originally posted by Mindstream:

AP rounds are best suited for long range and ammo racks.

I almost exclusively fire AP at destroyers and save HE for smaller boats or low crew DDs and bigger.

It also depends on how good your AP round are. For example the stroyny has very powerful APHE rounds.
The ones form the Z20 have alot less HE filler and those form the Cowell lack penetration.
Since you are using the stroyny definitely use AP. They can do alot of damage at longe range if you get a grip on the aiming system.

The issue I am having is that the AP over-penetrates. Yes theoretically the PR 7U has great APHE, but in reality it does little to none damage: the shell enters and then exits the ship without exploding resulting in hardly a change in compartment color whereas HE would've turned it black and caused a fire.

I am not sure what happened but I remembered that in beta AP would explode inside destroyers but now they pass right through with little to no spalling damage. I think they've been nerfed at some point.

[Obamenau]

Originally posted by Purple:

Originally posted by Mindstream:

AP rounds are best suited for long range and ammo racks.

I almost exclusively fire AP at destroyers and save HE for smaller boats or low crew DDs and bigger.

It also depends on how good your AP round are. For example the stroyny has very powerful APHE rounds.
The ones form the Z20 have alot less HE filler and those form the Cowell lack penetration.
Since you are using the stroyny definitely use AP. They can do alot of damage at longe range if you get a grip on the aiming system.

The issue I am having is that the AP over-penetrates. Yes theoretically the PR 7U has great APHE, but in reality it does little to none damage: the shell enters and then exits the ship without exploding resulting in hardly a change in compartment color whereas HE would've turned it black and caused a fire.

I am not sure what happened but I remembered that in beta AP would explode inside destroyers but now they pass right through with little to no spalling damage. I think they've been nerfed at some point.

The things is the Stroyny "dps" is pretty lackluster. You only have 4 guns with a slow reload, with HE every other DD will outshoot you in a fair fight.

Sure AP is less reliable, however it will instantly destroy modules when hit, and set fires. And there is that chance for an ammorack.

I used the stroyny for quite a bit and definitely prefer AP at long range. Your HE damage is so bad ist better to go for those moneyshots: slowing down and damaging DD at range, and when closer got for the ammorack.
The overpen things definitely is annoying, but it's not as bad in my experience. It's on the Krasny Kavkaz were it's a real problem. With that one I mostly shoot HE

[Moosecow]

Originally posted by Mindstream:

The things is the Stroyny "dps" is pretty lackluster. You only have 4 guns with a slow reload, with HE every other DD will outshoot you in a fair fight.

Sure AP is less reliable, however it will instantly destroy modules when hit, and set fires. And there is that chance for an ammorack.

I used the stroyny for quite a bit and definitely prefer AP at long range. Your HE damage is so bad ist better to go for those moneyshots: slowing down and damaging DD at range, and when closer got for the ammorack.
The overpen things definitely is annoying, but it's not as bad in my experience. It's on the Krasny Kavkaz were it's a real problem. With that one I mostly shoot HE

The other issue is that the stroyny has such bad shell dispersion that you can't reliably hit ammo at range. Also if you don't hit the ammo directly then it passes right through without causing any damage; the current damage model is not very forgiving. If the stroyny has bad dpm and any AP shell can set off ammo, then what difference does it make when the faster firing enemy can do the same?

I feel like I miss out on causing significant crew damage if I use AP and it is especially upsetting when, once you do hit the ammo, it does not kill the enemy.

I just had a match in which I faced a sumner in my frunze. Despite pumping me with twice the shots, I whittled him down to 0% while I ended with only 60% because he was using AP