Tank Shells

[Judge Lazar]

Anybody hav a good breakdown on all the types?

[Necris]

Looking for the same info.
The WT Wiki hasn't been updated and the official forums won't provide the info either.

[Judge Lazar]

I seems like HEAT ronds do the most penetration at distance but im no expert

[I AM THE DOCTOR NOW]

HEAT rounds are hollow charge rounds that explode on impact spewing out molten metal into the target (not good against spaced armor aka any german tanks with schurtzen).

APCR is Composite rigid subcaliber round that has higher muzzle velocity and higher pen in shorter distances. Doesn't do as much damage as AP.

AP is pretty much a bullet. APHE is AP shell that explodes after impact (pen or no pen). APBC is AP shell with a protective cap to prevent it from shattering on impact givinig higher pen chance.

HE shell is regular explosive shell that explodes on impact (low pen).

[WitchKingAngmar]

Maybe this can help you http://warthunder.com/en/news/387-Developers-Diaries-Ground-Forces-Damage-Model-Part-2-en

[Aegis270]

I can help. There are 3 main types of rounds, each of which have multiple rounds that perform more or less the same role.

1: Basic round.
These are your basic AP/APHE/APBC/APC/etc, which all perform more or less the same role of having good damage to components and decent penetration to deal with most tanks in most situations. This is the round you will spend most of you time sligning downrange since it's the most consistant damage round in the game. You can find guides on the various ammo varities in the catagory. To me, the differences are negligible. Generally, if something has higher penetration, it causes less component damage.

2: Penetration rounds
Also known as "Oh jesus a KV1 just showed up", these rounds are designed to penetrate any target you put in front of it. They have 2 flavours; HEAT, which keeps it's penetration well over long ranges but can't deal well with spaced (The metal plates around the turrets on some German tanks) or sloped armor, and APCR, which doesn't keep it's penetration over ranges but has much higher penetration in close quarters. Both of these rounds pay for their penetration in lack of damage; due to the small size of the projectile, they do far less damage to components than a penetrating shot from standard AP. It's always worth having a few of these rounds on hand to put some damage on especially well armored tanks at an uncomfortable angle.

3: Damage rounds
Right now, I believe there are only HE and Shrapnel shells in the catagory. These rounds sacrifice penetrration for pure damage. HE functions like you think it would, it's basically like firing a bomb at the target. It's never going to penetrate, but the force of the explosion can knock out components and crew members without penetrating. The higher the calibre of the gun, the more effective the shell will be, exemplified in the SU 122 and KV2 being able to knock out just about any tank in one shot with HE. Shrapnel shells have low penetration, but will cause catastrophic component damage if they do penetrate. I always keep a few of these on hand to take out the AI, or soft tanks like tank destroyers or SPAAGs.

So in summary, AP rounds against the majority of tanks, APCR/HEAT against targets that AP won't penetrate, HE/Shrapnel shells against soft targets for maximum damage.

[Tankfriend]

Well, here's what I dug up from the tech trees so far.

AC - Anti Concrete
Just a massive block of metal you fire at something. It's a bunker buster round (KV-2 says hello).
+ high penetration power
+ very high damage due to massive caliber (152mm)

APC - Armour Piercing Capped
Standard armour piercing ammunition with a cap on top that absorbs the initial impact shock and keeps the projectile from shattering.

APBC - Armour Piercing Ballistic Cap
Standard armour piercing ammunition with a cap on top that is aerodynamically shaped to improve flight characteristics of the projectile.
+ better long-range performance than APC
- worse short-range performance than APC

APCBC - Armour Piercing Capped Ballistic Cap
Combination of AP ammunition and both caps.
+ better all-around performance than both APC and APBC

API-T - Armour Piercing Incendiary - Tracer
Standard armour piercing ammunition that burns after firing. Probably a better chance to set a target on fire, but you only find these on small-caliber guns (like the German 20mm), so penetration is negligible. Probably effective against aircraft, though. There's also a tracer effect to these shells, so they "glow" and are easier to see than normal projectiles.
+ better chance to cause fires
+/- easy to follow the shots because of the tracer effect

APHE - Armour Piercing High Explosive
Standard armour piercing ammunition with an explosive filler that detonates after impact, whether penetrating the armour or not.
+ better damage potential than other AP ammunition
+ can do damage even without penetrating armour
- worse penetration power than other AP ammunition

APHEBC - Armour Piercing High Explosive Ballistic Cap
APHE ammunition with a ballistic cap for better long-range performance.
+ better long-range performance than APHE
- worse short-range performance than APHE

APCR - Armour Piercing Composite Rigid
Armour piercing ammunition with a soft outer shell and a small, but very hard core (made from tungsten, for example).
+ much higher penetration power than other types of shells
- worse performance beyond mid-range than other types of shells
- much lower damage than other types of shells

APCR-T - Armour Piercing Composite Rigid - Tracer
The same as APCR, just with a tracer
+/- easy to follow the shot because of the tracer effect

HVAP - High Velocity Armour Piercing
HVAP-T - High Velocity Armour Piercing - Tracer
These two are exactly the same as their APCR counterparts, just with a different name. You know, Americans and British just have to have different names for the same things, sometimes. :D

HE - High Explosive
A shell that isn't solid inside, but has an explosive filler, instead. It explodes on impact, and the larger the caliber of the shell, the more devastating the effect will be.
+ can do damage without penetrating armour
- generally not as effective as AP ammunition, unless you use high-caliber guns or meet very-thinly armoured targets

HEFI-T - High Explosive Fragmentation Incendiary - Tracer
Similar to HE shells, but designed to cause a greater number of fragments *and* with a burning effect similar to API. Generally found on small-caliber weapons, too, and - similar to API - probably most effective against aircraft. Also has tracer effect.
+ can do damage without penetrating armour
+ better chance to cause fire than HE
+ higher degree of fragmentation than HE
+/- easy to follow the shot because of the tracer effect

HEAT - High Explosive Anti Tank
The basic idea is similar to HE shells in that this shell doesn't have a solid core, but a large explosive filler. In front of that filler is placed a cone-shaped solid material (copper, for example). On impact, the explosion propels the cone towards the target at extremely high speeds to penetrate its armour, melting parts of it in the process.
+ penetration power independent of range
+/- penetration power highly dependent on caliber and length of gun - short and large guns profit from it, while longer and smaller guns tend to be better off with AP
- lower damage than normal AP ammunition (probably similar to APCR)
- weak to spaced armour (like sideskirts on later Panzer III and IV)

FI-T - Fragmentation Incendiary - Tracer
This is a pure anti-aircraft round, so only found on AA vehicles. The shell bursts into a number of burning fragments.
+ chance to cause fire
+ high degree of fragmentation
+/- easy to follow the shot because of the tracer effect
- completely useless against ground targets, unless unarmoured

Shrapnel
Similar to FI-T, this is a shell that bursts into a large number of fragments.
+ high degree of fragmentation
+ useable against thinly-armoured ground targets at close range
+ maybe useful against aircraft (?)
- useless against anything else

[Aegis270]

Christ, I thought I did a fairly good job, but I can't beat that. Would add the fact that a large calibre gun (ie Su 122, KV2) basically negates the downsides of HE ammo, since the explosion more or less ignores the armor or the target and does flat damage against any components in range of the explosion, which for a 152mm shell is pretty much bigger than the tanks it will be hitting. This also means that it's not very good against spaced armor.

[Tankfriend]

Yeah, if you have large-caliber weapons, you can probably just blow everything to smithereens with HE. :D

[Raffiyen]

It basically depends on the specs of the shell. All you really need to know is what distance your are at from your target to do critical damage. For example, the BR-234P shell will do 95mm of penetration at 100 meters and 30mm at 1000 meters. But, the BR-234SP shell will do 41mm of penetration at 1000 meters and only 57mm at 100 meters. So in conclusion, knowing your distance and shell penetration at that distance will give you the better odds on the front.

[Daeysheperd]

Is APC better than AP?

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by Daeysanta:

Is APC better than AP?

If those are the only two Armour Piercing tank shell types a tank has access to, then yes. The APC has a metal cap on it designed to absorb some of the impact to prevent the shell simply shattering the moment it hits the target (which happened once they developed tank shells that were travelling above a certain velocity).

[Egro]

APC stop the shell from shattering and bound off but with reduce accuracy...realistic speaking, I don't know how it work in game.

[Casual Sun]

In general, at least:

Least penetration you can get away with + greatest fragmentation. If your HEAT shells will penetrate, use your HEAT, if you need to use the ultra armor piercing shells, use those. If you use far greater pen shells, you do little damage, if you don't have any penetration, well, that one is pretty obvious.

So to take out a Zis, your shells that will pierce 115mm of armor will probably do nothing unless you peg a crew member. Your HEAT shells, on the other hand, will have massive fragmentation as soon as they hit the thin armor, blowing up the tank or killing the crew.

Yeah, it's hard to always have the ideal shell ready, so most of the time it's the middle of the road shells unless it's a special occasion.

[Tankfriend]

Originally posted by B'oh ShadowFighter88:

Originally posted by Daeysanta:

Is APC better than AP?

If those are the only two Armour Piercing tank shell types a tank has access to, then yes. The APC has a metal cap on it designed to absorb some of the impact to prevent the shell simply shattering the moment it hits the target (which happened once they developed tank shells that were travelling above a certain velocity).

Another benefit of a ballistic cap is that the shell is less likely to just bounce off angled armour harmlessly.

Originally posted by Casual Sun:

So to take out a Zis, your shells that will pierce 115mm of armor will probably do nothing unless you peg a crew member. Your HEAT shells, on the other hand, will have massive fragmentation as soon as they hit the thin armor, blowing up the tank or killing the crew.

It's actually the other way around. HEAT shells don't have a lot of fragmentation for very far into the tank. Meanwhile, the AP shells on the Zis have an explosive filler that goes off inside the tank. Much more dangerous than HEAT.

That kind of APHE shells is something to look out for on any tank - they tend to have lower penetration power than many other shells available, but when they penetrate the armour and explode inside the tank correctly, they're by far the most dangerous shells you can use.

[Procrastinating Gamer]

Originally posted by tankfriend:

Originally posted by B'oh ShadowFighter88:

If those are the only two Armour Piercing tank shell types a tank has access to, then yes. The APC has a metal cap on it designed to absorb some of the impact to prevent the shell simply shattering the moment it hits the target (which happened once they developed tank shells that were travelling above a certain velocity).

Another benefit of a ballistic cap is that the shell is less likely to just bounce off angled armour harmlessly.

Ah yeah; forgot about that. Although I always thought that was something specific to APCBC - AP Composite Ballistic Capped which basically had two caps. At least that's what I recall from Jingles' video on tank shells and I haven't watched that in months. Found the link for anyone curious, though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwqImiJVchc