Is there any benefit of not bringing max ammo for a tank at once?

[Peti]

If I only use one munition, is there any benefit if I only bring half of the max ammo?

[Lunovus]

Some ammo racks can be empty or less filled, reducing the chance of ammo blowing up when being hit.

[Pogey-Bait]

I think it's never a good idea to bring full ammo. I usually only bring 24-30 rounds. Having 100 rounds of explosive ammo on your tank is just asking to be ammo racked and blown up.

[kamikazi21358]

Yes, it does slightly decrease the chance of being ammo racked.

However, you’ll see everyone praising to bring as little amount of ammo as possible, here is one of the few that disagree:

It doesn’t save you very often at all. There are only a few tanks I take less than full, such as the filled-to-the-brim T-35 and the turret-lined KV-2. Overall, it really don’t help much. APHE explodes and will kill you anyways, and full caliber ammunition will just kill you in 2 shots most cases regardless. While at high tier, APFSDS still disables your crew pretty well. If not, if APDS, HEAT, and APFSDS aim for the ammo rack — even then, it just doesn’t help. Because even, even when they’re trying to ammo rack you — they don’t aim for some obscure rack in the back, they aim for the main rack, which is always full anyways. Take my T-62, I have played over a hundred Simulator Battles in it. Rounds that ammo racked me, but not in a main ammo rack? 2. In fact, this is ignoring the fact SB has 2 respawns: there is only about a 1/50 chance that bringing less ammo will save you. At least for the first round — because let’s be serious, what is the chances that second round will kill you? ‘Cause those 2 shells for example would have 100% disabled my turret, all you did is buy yourself like 7 seconds.

Meanwhile, you may think ‘I’m not going to use 40 shells!’ No, you might not. However, in expecially Simulator but also Realistic, you will occasionally get that battle where you do fire 40-50 shells. I have ran out of ammo before, even when bringing the full rack. As well, the less shells you bring does often result in less ammo variety. Take the T-54 for example. Most people use mostly APCBC. But what if you meet a T95, for example? Less ammo means less HEAT rounds for example to bring, for those situations (HEAT replaceable for APDS and APCR, dependent on tank). Now let’s say you’re a 1949 and your APCBC + APDS can’t even penetrate that T95? Your in the open, you can’t escape — but if you have smoke... I have used smoke to my advantage, put a shell in their face and it’s harder to shoot obviously. Or even HE, outside of historical purposes, I even find HE useful rarely — SPAAGs, open topped vehicles, extremely light vehicles in cover, and taking shots at planes — HE actually works. Let’s say you bring 20 rounds vs 40. You probably can only have 14 APCBC, like 2 smoke, 3 HEAT, and a HE or something like that. Vs 40 rounds, bring whatever you want, 24 APCBC, 5 smoke, 6 HEAT, 5 HE, perhaps — you will have what you need for any situation.

I just personally think it isn’t worth it to bring less, it helps you so very little. I frankly would just rather have the ammunition I need guaranteed.

[Shard]

As others have said- it would reduce the chance of your ammo exploding. IMO it isn't that important, but you won't need more than 30 shells anyway all match long. Some German tanks do get quiet a bit more survivability because most of them can take shells for days, but it only really makes a big difference against small calibre guns.

[Blamite Delight]

also packing full ammo weighs the tank down.

[FD_Stalker]

do not bring in more than about 30+- shells, even it's APCR.
HE is worthless for small guns, ignore them.
You want 22-27 battle shells(including darts), and 3-7 problem solving shells(APCR). If you have smoke shells, bring 3.
If you do well you might need to resupply, but you could just die and spawn plane.
If you didn't do well, uh you won't fire that much of ammo anyway

[kamikazi21358]

Originally posted by Maus!:

also packing full ammo weighs the tank down.

I have not noticed a difference with this, for aircraft ammo does effect weight, but I don’t notice it in tanks.

[burg4401]

if your tanks has a ready rack, First-order ammo racks the shells will be moved into the turret anyway..............

so the days of removing shells from the turret to reduce getting killed are on a lot of tanks over...
..........might as well take the lot.

As said by others I do on some of my tanks run out in RB.

[Wehra]

its rather important at top tier where chemical and APHE mostly goes away and APFSDS takes over. In addition some tanks like the XM-1 Gm the survivability goes up a lot.

[Polar the Bear]

Im gonna leave an example here for you because everyone is dropping opinions on this

https://wiki.warthunder.com/Tiger_H1

This is the Tiger H1 page...if you scroll down to Armaments

You will see a subsection called Ammo Racks

This displays where the ammo rack will be in the tank at a certain amount of shells...

It also gives you a handy dandy low limit to where only the main rack (which is always there) will be the only rack in the tank.

I believe every tank has this on their page... Cheers!

[kamikazi21358]

Originally posted by Wehraboo:

its rather important at top tier where chemical and APHE mostly goes away and APFSDS takes over. In addition some tanks like the XM-1 Gm the survivability goes up a lot.

Not necessarily. Some tanks perhaps like the XM-1, or the Abrams (the 3 shells in the hull), but many not so much. Most people don’t aim for some obscure ammo rack in the corner, they aim for the main rack. If they miss the main rack. If they shoot you where the ‘secondary’ ammo is, chances are it was aimed at the crew or something, and will incompacitate important components regardless, so all it does is buy you like 5 seconds. I find it rarely helps.

[Wehra]

Originally posted by kamikazi21358:

Originally posted by Wehraboo:

its rather important at top tier where chemical and APHE mostly goes away and APFSDS takes over. In addition some tanks like the XM-1 Gm the survivability goes up a lot.

Not necessarily. Some tanks perhaps like the XM-1, or the Abrams (the 3 shells in the hull), but many not so much. Most people don’t aim for some obscure ammo rack in the corner, they aim for the main rack. If they miss the main rack. If they shoot you where the ‘secondary’ ammo is, chances are it was aimed at the crew or something, and will incompacitate important components regardless, so all it does is buy you like 5 seconds. I find it rarely helps.

a lot of tanks have the ready rack and one beside the driver in the front. i remove it on ALL my tanks with those racks in the front the survivability went up noticeably.

[Wehra]

Russian tanks on the other hand its basically useless to do.

[kamikazi21358]

Originally posted by Wehraboo:

Originally posted by kamikazi21358:

Not necessarily. Some tanks perhaps like the XM-1, or the Abrams (the 3 shells in the hull), but many not so much. Most people don’t aim for some obscure ammo rack in the corner, they aim for the main rack. If they miss the main rack. If they shoot you where the ‘secondary’ ammo is, chances are it was aimed at the crew or something, and will incompacitate important components regardless, so all it does is buy you like 5 seconds. I find it rarely helps.

a lot of tanks have the ready rack and one beside the driver in the front. i remove it on ALL my tanks with those racks in the front the survivability went up noticeably.

Yes, but say take the Leopard 2, to do this you need to take out all but I believe ~12 shells or so. This, now you’re actually at risk of running out of ammo, expecially on some RB maps and Simulator.

[Læms]

well id say it doesnt really matter much in BR's lower than 7.7, but in BR's over 8.0 it matters alot, like you dont take more ammo than 28 in Russian MBT's and i think it was around 16 or 17 shell on 2A4 and A5, and it really depends what Abrams you are playing i think it was 30 shells on the 105 and 16 for the 120, doesnt matter on the Challengers, you get the idea always try to store the ammo in the turret