Does "Armor Fatigue" exist in this game or just due to not count angle of impact?

[shblovetruth]

It seems some anti-tank weapon (including tanks) sometimes can penetrate or destroy a tank whose armor value is thicker than their max armor penetration value even with a hit on its thickest front armor !!!

In this game, I have seen one Tiger E got destroyed by Soviet EMCHA (90mm penetration), another Tiger E got destroyed by Valentine IX (115mm penetration), the distance was 1200 - 1300 m, and those Tigers were (almost) facing its front armor towards those enemy killers when they finally got destroyed.

I also ever saw 20mm FLAK (which only has HE rounds without any penetration value) destroyed some light vehicles which has 10 to 20 mm armor, and I even once saw a 20 to 28mm German vehicle (can't remember clearly it was a 20mm FLAK or a 20 to 28mm anti-tank gun on a vehicle, but even it was a anti-tank gun, its penetration capability is only no more than 40 to 45 mm.) destroyed an EMCHA (Soviet Sherman tank with 100 mm front armor) even only with its front armor got hit.

So, Does "Armor Fatigue" exist in this game or just due to only roughly count whether it's a front armor or weak side armor got hit, but not count angle of impact ?

The concept of "Armor Fatigue" means a piece of thick armor can even be penetrated by an anti-tank weapon whose max penetration value is lower than this armor's value, by keep hitting it several or bunch of times, because every hit could damage or skiving the armor metal somewhat, and after enough continuous hit, it maybe finally get penetrated.

But, I guess even if the concept of "Armor Fatigue" exist in this game (so that 20mm gun with no penetration value destroyed light armored transport vehicle could be reasonable.), there could be another reason for why those Tigers got destroyed, as you can see in this screenshot, the new explosion (near the "speed bar" panel) is where the Tiger E just got destroyed by a EMCHA at about 1250 m, and that EMCHA is at the central of that line of sight circles (I pressed the key "C" to show the sight of that EMCHA), the Tiger was got destroyed on its falling back, as you can see, the Tiger was mainly facing its front armor to that EMCHA, yes, the EMCHA could see a bit of that Tiger's side armor or even can hit that side armor with a shell, but in real life, at this kind of angle, the EMCHA or even a modern tank is impossible to penetrate it even with a hit on its side armor !!! So, I guess the game system just judged that it was its side armor got hit, so it can be penetrated, but the system didn't take the angle of impact into account !!!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1822286925

OK, now, regardless whether the "Armor fatigue" exists in this game, if it's too difficult for developers to implement "counting the angle of impact" into the game, then, please at least refine the judgement of whether it's a front/side/rear armor got hit.
For example, if a tank hit another tank's side armor from 15 degree, it shouldn't be counted as the side armor got hit, it should be counted as the front armor got hit or just count it as "bounce off" ! The confirmation of "it's a side/rear armor got hit or penetrated" should be at least improved to , for example, the angle is at least 40 degree, and at the minimum degree, it should only has a small possibility to be counted as "side armor hit", the more degree, the more chance to be counted as "side armor hit". (The minimum needed degree can be discussed, I'm not sure either.)

[Wombat Warrior]

Your over thinking it, tanks just have a hidden HP counter

[KillerThief]

Originally posted by Wombat Warrior:

Your over thinking it, tanks just have a hidden HP counter

^

[MexicanYoga]

Originally posted by Wombat Warrior:

Your over thinking it, tanks just have a hidden HP counter

Does that mean that even if a tank is not penetrated, health is still subtracted?

[skc]

Originally posted by MexicanYoga:

Originally posted by Wombat Warrior:

Your over thinking it, tanks just have a hidden HP counter

Does that mean that even if a tank is not penetrated, health is still subtracted?

It seems to be, which is a little disappointing as it just makes me think of something like age of empires combat.

[MrCrisps]

Well, there are many things to understand in OP's case :

First and foremost, the armor values shown ingame are effective values and not straight ones. That means that they're taking the slope into account.

Secondly, the game doesn't calculate or even simulate the angle of impact of a shell on its target. Meaning that a hitting shell will always have the same chance of penetrating, whether it hits the flank of your Tiger at 90 or at 65° for instance. Only the final pen value (still subject to the range it's shot at) is used for knowing if it pens or not in said context.

Thirdly, a shell has always a probability to pen a target, even when it shouldn't. For example, in your case, a Sherman M4A2 (or Emsha) will have something around 1% or even 0.5% of chance to pen a Tiger frontally, even at max range. It won't happen often but it still can happen.

At last, you have to note that all units in the game have HP. Infantry and field guns are shown but the tanks' HPs are hidden. Also, you need to know that even an HE shell will do damage to a tank. Most of the time it won't kill it because the final physical damage value applied will not be enough to reduce the tank's HPs to zero. BUT against lighter vehicles such as armored cars and halftracks, the HE shells can be enought to kill them.


About that, note that the lost HPs of a vehicle can never be regained by any means and that if your Tiger had only 1 HP left, it can possibly be taken out even by MGs or low caliber HE shells.
That's why you can see tanks and other armored vehicles being killed by arty shells or planes sometimes.

In that regards, it's also worth noting that the armor value of a vehicle has a thing to do in the final physical damage value applied to it when hit by an HE shell or any non-penetrating round.
It works that way : the higher the armor value is, the lower the modificator to the actual damage will be, as it is comprised between 0 and 1. I don't know the actual values but for example, in the case of a Tiger the modificator would be of 0.4 when the modif for a SdKfz 251/1 would be 0.9 for example.

[Pak0tac]

you dont have to actually destroy a tank in order for it to be destroyed.
with enough fire pointed towards it, the crew will just bail, just like in real life

[mayrc]

WTF Tank hast hidden HP?
So the whole armor penetration system ist fake?

So what you say is that if you shoot at a tiger with a simple MG just long enough (will take very long i guess)
he will die?

[MexicanYoga]

Originally posted by Faith:

you dont have to actually destroy a tank in order for it to be destroyed.
with enough fire pointed towards it, the crew will just bail, just like in real life

One reason why I adore this game, such a cool mechanic

[MrCrisps]

@mayrc : It's not that extreme.

As i've explained above, the armor value of an armored vehicle has a role to play in the final physical damage applied to it. Mere MG will never be enough (by itself) to reduce HPs from tanks to kill it by itself. It will need for the tank to be hit by a plane bomb for instance, or multiple arty shells.
It will be once the vehicle is at 1 or between 0 and 1 HP that the damage of a MG will do the stupid trick. And even then, it will work for a .50 or a DShK. In that context, that poor tank could also be killed by a low caliber mortar shell...

[Adolith]

1. AP value is displayed at max range. The closer the target, the higher AP. I dont know the exact formula as it was changed in SD2 and might be different depending on the gun, but in SD1 it was 1 AP (10AP in SD2) per 100m. So if we apply that to SD2 the 90 AP of the emcha has increased enough at 1300m to have some chance to penetrate the tigers 125 armor.

This does not apply to HEAT rounds like Panzerfaust/iG18 etc.

2. All vehicles have hidden HP (In SD1 a heavy tank like the tiger had 12 HP). Penetrating hits reduce HP, certain crits reduce HP or produce an instant kill, HE damage reduces HP. Bouncing shots do not reduce HP.

3. HE damage gets reduced by armor

4. Most small caliber guns. including most MGs dont shoot at armored targets. So no, you wont lose a tank to a MG unless you reverse an already shot up tank into it.

[DasaKamov]

Originally posted by mayrc:

So the whole armor penetration system ist fake?

No

if you shoot at a tiger with a simple MG just long enough he will die

and no. The other posts explain the mechanics well.