When to use HE vs AP

[Duck Person]

Hello! I’m new to the game and I’m still learning the mechanics. I know there are two types of shells in game, one for exploding and one for armour piercing(?), However I’m not sure when to use which one and against which ships. Context: I normally use German Battleships, and I’m currently on the IV Kaiser. Thanks :)

[jaquig]

HE: use when you are shooting at very lightly armoured target like a destroyer. The only other time it may be useful is when you are facing off against a 2 tier higher bb and can't penetrate the armour at the range you are at.
The rest of the time and the best for default use, AP.


with the cruisers, light cruisers you want he for the most damage but ap will still work just mainly over penetrations. heavy cruisers you are more likely to get full damage with ap

[Jackson]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipcvKXStRw

Check that out.

As a general rule fire HE at destroyers AP at most other things. Battleships that are bow on are good for HE sometimes.

These rules can change up a bit depending on what ship you're in, but what I said above fits most, if not all German battleships.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Duck Person:

Hello! I’m new to the game and I’m still learning the mechanics. I know there are two types of shells in game, one for exploding and one for armour piercing(?), However I’m not sure when to use which one and against which ships. Context: I normally use German Battleships, and I’m currently on the IV Kaiser. Thanks :)

A few ships (mainly Italian) get access to SAP (Semi armour-piercing) which adds another option.

Flowchart for ammo selection is:
Can you plausibly citadel the target (Subs and Destroyers don't have citadels at all, so it's impossible irrespective of armour or shell characteristics) with SAP > AP > HE? If yes, use that (very rare set of match-ups where SAP or HE will be able to cit, though).

Will your AP or SAP ricochet (look up the overmatch and autobounce mechanics respectively)? If Yes, use HE where available or SAP where not.

Will your AP Overpenetrate? If Yes, use SAP or HE.

Are you merely going to regular-pen with AP? If Yes, use SAP if it can regular penetrate > using HE if your ship has particularly good HE that can still penetrate > using AP that won't shatter > using weak HE.

Is your AP going to shatter? If Yes, use HE to start fires.

If no to all of the above, use AP.

So, from this, you can see that the large calibre guns on a battleship want to be using AP where possible in order to more consistently find enemy citadels and more consistently do maximum damage. If you position optimally (set up crossfires with teammates and thus force enemy to choose between showing broadside to either you or your teammates) then you'll find more enemy broadsides, and thus won't have to worry about ricochets and can just nuke stuffs broadsides with AP.

SAP has the highest base damage, but is very rare to find a match-up where it can cit, so will only be doing ~1/3rd base damage from regular pens.

AP has good base damage, and is most likely to penetrate the enemy citadel (100% damage plus other perks) but is most likely to ricochet (0 damage) or overpen (10% damage) - regular pens are still doing 1/3rd of the shell's base damage.

HE has the worst base damage (1/3rd from regular pens), there's very few match-ups where it can penetrate a citadel (100% damage plus perks), and is the most likely to shatter on thick armour, but has a blast radius that can help disable enemy modules (secondaries, torps, AA, etc, etc) and can light fires even if the shells shatter.

[HANOI]

As for a beginner, and not want to get a bit deeper in for now, as a battleship, use AP, any other shiptype, you want to use HE (if avail). If SAP is avail, use that before HE or AP on any ship.

If you playing longer, you might get the other stuff into calculations, like how the angle of an target is, what type of ship you shoot, the range, pens and so on. It could be a bit too much as a starter.

[arjensmit79]

It is very complicated in so many ways. First of all, you have the entire story that Ace writes there. But then if you are in a battle ship, you not only need to know what ammo type is best. You need to know it 30 seconds beforehand. (or 60% of that to switch, but that is a waste of reloadtime too).

I have to admit i rarely switch ammo types myself. When you start playing, have defaults for every ship (type) and as you get better at the game, learn more and more exceptions to that default. The base rule of course you should know from the start and that is that you shoot AP at broadsides and HE at bow/stern targets.

When you're in a DD. HE is the default. There are exceptions based on the ships you play against like other DD's that are too heavilly armored so your HE doesn't hurt their hull. There's only a very few DDs like that, i don't know by head which ones they are.
There are also exceptions where the DD you play is more designed around AP. One example of that that i know is the Gaede, (it has powerfull AP guns that are good at citadelling cruisers) but there are more. So HE, until you learn these exceptions.

For Battleships, the default is mostly AP. The main reason for this is imo opportunity. If i fire AP at a target where HE would be better, its likely i do say 3k dmg instead of 4k or something like that. However, when you see a broadside cruiser and you have HE loaded, you may have wasted an opportunity to one-shot that cruiser. You just dont want to miss those opportunities, so you mostly want to have AP loaded. Again, from that default we make exceptions. The exceptions that i personally make are this:
-At the start of the match, if there are a decent number of DD's in the game, i may start out with HE loaded so that i can support my DD who is fighting over the cap. If you get lucky to hit that enemy DD with an HE volley from a battleship, that is huge. It might only be 10k damage, but its half that ship gone and removing DDs at the start of the game is a big step towards victory for your team. Another exception is when i see german battleships. I know they are almost impossible to citadel but they melt like butter to HE spam, so thats what i do against them if i know that i will likely be fireing at one 30 seconds beforehand.

With Cruisers its much more complicated. I again have defaults here. If i play russian cruisers, AP is my default. With american cruisers HE is my default. But you should be switching a lot more depending on the situation. Luckilly, reload times are much shorter than on the battleship, so its much more convenient to switch depending on the target.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by arjensmit79:

You need to know it 30 seconds beforehand. (or 60% of that to switch, but that is a waste of reloadtime too).

Foresight helps, but even if you're caught out and end up firing a sub-optimal salvo, you lose nothing by switching after the salvo, in preparation for the next one. Ditto for swapping before you hit the minimum reload threshold.

Reduced cooldown is circumstantially useful if you're confident you can get a potentially devastating strike off sooner by doing a forced switch (USN special captains help a ton with this), but generally you're right to suggest preferring AP as a default ammo type on a BB, as an example.

If you're in a stealthy ship that a lot of people play poorly (Monarch, Roma), then using that stealth to find an optimal salvo and thus secure massive alpha with the correct ammo choice is down to how you approach a match - at which point preemptively choosing the right ammo is pretty straight forward and just a matter of patience because you have the initiative.

[SpotFord]

I have a follow up question about this. I usually play cruisers and use HE a lot of the time unless against battleships. But if i forget it on i just get a lot of overpens on targets. But AP on battleship guns most of the time? I'm confused.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by SpotFord:

I have a follow up question about this. I usually play cruisers and use HE a lot of the time unless against battleships. But if i forget it on i just get a lot of overpens on targets. But AP on battleship guns most of the time? I'm confused.

If you can plausibly get cits, you use AP for devastating damage.
If you can't get cits, it depends if your AP gets good full penetrations (so not overpens, ricochets, shatters); or if your HE is particularly good (especially in terms of fire chance, or DPM).

Really it's a case of knowing your matchups - a relatively squishy cruiser broadside to another cruiser can potentially get citted depending on the range and match-up and thus eat massive damage, a cruiser citting a BB is far less likely depending on the match-up and ranges.

Feel free to go into a training room, spawn a ton of tier-appropriate bots with no ammo and can't move, and get a sense of what you can and can't citadel through their broadsides at various ranges.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/552990/discussions/0/7410182519542871096/#c7410182519543564100

[Duck Person]

Thanks for all the advice ^_^

[jaquig]

the 20 to 30 thousand damage shots from your bb main guns firing ap are the best to see in a battle.
cruisers can rarely get citadels to give the big damage and going for dpm / damage over time from fires by using he is just getting the best return on your efforts.

caveat on the cruisers and citadels: I just had a battle in Asturias and Il Allend where both got multiple citadels, both were only ap so it was possible but even firing ap actually getting citadels isn't common.

[Game Ban]

I rarely switch ammo. 99% of the time its AP

[Tommygun]

With some BBs I find that one gets so many OPs and ricochets its almost worth just shooing HE untill something is broadside and less than 10kms away.

[Ace42]

Originally posted by Tommygun:

With some BBs I find that one gets so many OPs and ricochets its almost worth just shooing HE untill something is broadside and less than 10kms away.

If you know your match-ups, you can circumstantially aim a tiny bit below the waterline to try and arm the shells on the water to prevent the overpens.
If you know the armour schemes, can obviously just try to arm on thicker plates or clutter if you can find an angle.

[dakin1]

When I play BB I will often start with HE loaded because opposing ships are coming towards you and are usually at a sharp angle which is not favorable for AP penetration/citadels-also in case a DD pops up I want to be able to shoot it with HE which is more reliable doing damage to DDs versus BB AP. After the first salvo or two I usually switch to AP and start hunting broadside/poorly angled CAs and BBs to go for big hits/citadels.

One exception in the BB lines is the British BBs--their HE have some of the highest fire starting chances in the game, and so it is often more useful while opposing ships are at long range to stay with HE to get permanent fires going--this provides you with passive damage over time which can really add up. I tend only to switch to AP once I see a target at medium to short range that I feel I have a high chance of getting a citadel (I haven't looked up the pen tables but it also feels to me that British BB AP has poor pen at longer ranges anyway relative to nations like the US or Japan)...

[christof]

Originally posted by The Vehicle Gamer:

Originally posted by Duck Person:

Hello! I’m new to the game and I’m still learning the mechanics. I know there are two types of shells in game, one for exploding and one for armour piercing(?), However I’m not sure when to use which one and against which ships. Context: I normally use German Battleships, and I’m currently on the IV Kaiser. Thanks :)

As someone who has gotten to tier X on the first German BB line and tier VIII on the second I can say that AP shells are almost always the right choice when playing a German BB, the only time that HE shells are better (in my opinion) is when you are fighting a destroyer or submarine, against any other class though AP works 90% of the time, hopefully I could be of assistance.

Except for those situations, German BB HE is indeed only really for those few premiums with smaller calibre like the Scharnhorst sisters and the Mecklenburg.

And maybe at low tiers where your AP will just overpen a lot of targets and even your HE can citadel a lot of the cruisers.