whats the point of SAP shells?

[fat gaben]

I started playing italian line and i see no purpose of SAP , at begining i thought they are just HE shells with penetration power but later i noticed they are just no different than normal AP shells? any1 can explain?

[Flashshark]

Brindisi does good damage even to BBs with SAP...
But of course SAP is devastating to DDs.

Said this Brindisi is an absolute paper ship, a glass canon that cant survive even as a top tier.
The lower tiers are much better playable due to their good evasion skills.
Brindisi is just not maneuverable enough and lacks survivability to be a real tier 9 ship.
It more liek a 8,5 and should get a strong buff for maneuverability, hp and armor...

[Lavian]

Origineel geplaatst door Flashshark:

Brindisi does good damage even to BBs with SAP...
But of course SAP is devastating to DDs.

Said this Brindisi is an absolute paper ship, a glass canon that cant survive even as a top tier.
The lower tiers are much better playable due to their good evasion skills.
Brindisi is just not maneuverable enough and lacks survivability to be a real tier 9 ship.
It more liek a 8,5 and should get a strong buff for maneuverability, hp and armor...

Brindisi does fine, for the record.

This thread's a necro, but it's notable that the upcoming Italian BBs should be pretty bad against DDs. They'll just pen cruisers, CVs, and BBs for stupid damage from every angle, but as far as I know, full damage against DDs with SAP is limited by a shell-size threshold, so BB SAP is going to be even worse than most battleship AP against DDs, unless they give it a special damage formula (which, I wouldn't discount them doing).

[Flashshark]

SAP is absolutely great against DDs! I really like it,,,

[Totally Innocent Chatbot]

Italian cruiser SAP is objectively better than their AP in every single situation except one. SAP has higher maximum damage than AP, meaning that a full SAP pen does more damage than a full AP pen, cannot overpen like AP can, has more than enough penetration to get through anything other than an armor belt, has higher shell velocity than AP at Tier 8+, and has far better autobounce angles than Italian AP (70 degrees vs. 45 degrees). The only thing that SAP cannot do reliably is score citadel hits on most ships, and even then the ability of the AP to hit citadels is questionable at best, and the damage you get when you do so is relatively underwhelming compared to other 203mm heavy cruisers. Generally you'll want to use SAP almost exclusively on Italian cruisers, switching to AP only if you've found a cruiser showing flat broadside within 10km. The SAP is simply that good, it will achieve better results in literally every other situation.