World of Tanks

[Simon_Jester]

I know, but it's something that well placed HE should be able to do. It's also the case that real life artillery is more than capable of soft killing a tank even on a fairly wide miss. Of course arty as displayed in this game has unrealistic information to target with, and too few guns to bracket fire on a target or spend shells on ranging shots... I bet a lot of the issues with arty could be solved by displaying tanks on their map as fuzzy circles so you're never really sure where the tank is. An information delay on them moving or not would also be great.

It's a game, not a simulator, man.

For the game to work as designed, you need one SPG to be roughly as powerful and effective in battle as one tank. If artillery is reliably racking up 30-40% of the kills on the field despite making up only 20% of the order of battle, it's too powerful and the normal tanks exist mainly as big chunks of victim for the artillery. If artillery is seldom getting any kills, it's too weak and everyone will stop bothering with it. If it's in between, you've done it right.

So on the one hand, you can't give artillery crappy targeting information because if you do, the artillery players won't be able to aim- they'll just be spamming shells, which costs them credits without accomplishing much of anything; the game doesn't award points for missing the target. On the other, you can't give tanks historically correct vulnerability to 6" and 8" shellfire, because they'll get the shit blown out of them and the drivers of normal tanks (especially slow ones) will complain that they might as well not bother.

The current balance for artillery is pretty close to right- it works about correctly. The one reasonable complaint (which applies to both HE and normal tanks) is that the change in HE damage mechanics has made artillery and 'derp' tank guns too weak to be competitive- they've swung the balance too far away from the dominance of artillery and of direct fire guns like the (American) M2/M5 75mm and M4 105mm, which artificially favors the tanks with armor piercing guns and turns the thicker-skinned tanks into near-invulnerable monsters as far as low tier armor is concerned.

I remember taking over sixty shells from Tier 3 and 4 tank destroyers and tanks once in my KV-3. Granted, the bombardment kept me from seeing or shooting back accurately, and granted that this kind of performance isn't totally ahistorical, but the sheer impossibility of bringing my tank down was probably deeply frustrating for the three or four vehicles that were pounding on me. I suspect they spent more credits on ammunition than they got back for destroying my tank, and that's never good.

[xthetenth]

Adding imprecision in the knowledge of the tank's location is functionally the same as adding more scatter. It's just another way to use random inaccuracy in the translation from the targeted tank through the user's aim point into a shot's eventual landing spot.

From a gameplay perspective, it's the huge variance in damage between direct hits and misses that really irks me. Inaccurate guns that deal tremendous damage on direct hits mean that a lucky hit can be a game changer. I personally would really like VT shells that do more splash damage on a wider radius but can't get those one shot nukes. In random matches, that early game near kill or full kill of a big tank doesn't happen and arty is more about skill in getting shells on the right target, and in clan wars the guys who do time on target barrages to get a sure kill aren't really affected, while lower concentrations aren't as random and are therefore easier to strategize with.

I haven't seen arty become less powerful really, it's the direct fire howitzers that have really suffered.

[Simon_Jester]

It may just be my perception- I got back into an SU-5, and the shells I'm throwing don't feel as effective as they were in my SU-26. That could be explained by the tier-shift, come to think of it.

[Nephtys]

It could be worse. You could have an M37 then upgrade to an M7 Priest, and be slinging the same ineffectual 105mm shells. Except instead of shooting at Stugs and Pz4s, you're now shooting at IS4s and T32s.

[Sea Skimmer]

An article on artillery versus tanks.

That article has pictures which are useful to see in the original format.
http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/2002/NOV ... S_8_11.pdf

[Simon_Jester]

Yes- giving artillery realistic firepower would make near misses by HE rounds liable to mission-kill a tank. Absolutely.

Of course, giving the tanks themselves realistic firepower would do the same- when an M4A3E8 in World of Tanks fires a 76mm armor piercing shell into another M4A3E8, it is almost assured that it won't score a kill- penetration, damage, yes, but a kill, no. It takes something more like five or six AP rounds to finish the job, assuming you don't get lucky and blow up their ammo rack or something.

Realistically, one 76mm hit to the turret will put an Easy Eight out of commission. Realistically, a near miss from an artillery round will put a tank out of action.

In effect, the lethality of most guns in WoT is dialed down, or the durability of the AFVs is dialed up, by about a factor of, oh, four to five. That way, all tanks can survive multiple hits from own-caliber weapons, with a handful of exceptions like self propelled guns. The same change in lethality versus durability makes HE rounds a lot less lethal against tanks on a near miss.

My complaint is that the balance has shifted a little too far the other way for the purposes of gameplay.

[Agent Sorchus]

Hey anyone who is thinking that they should undo the nerf is smoking crack. Doing a training room for this video (Recruitment Vid) I was firing HE rounds at a Maus, mostly just for show, yet my first round killed his loader and ruined the entire take despite doing no damage. You just have to aim so that the explosion can warp to hit weak points.

And this isn't an inconsistent thing either, I killed an VK45 Asuf B with my short 122mm armed KV solo just by knowing where to hit to cause massive damage. (note with the ausf B, hitting it on the turret with a big enough HE round is more than enough because you will hit their soft top armor, similarly the Maus is weak to HE when it is pointing it's side to you and has it's turret pointed at you since the HE will go through the soft under turret armor.)

HE actually requires just a bit of thought now instead of being arty idiot proof like it used to be. Learn to think a little and it is very good, though low tier french tanks are still shit. (Also they have massive roof armor anyway so the old way HE rounds worked wouldn't do shit to them, just as it is now.)

[S.L.Acker]

An article on artillery versus tanks.

That article has pictures which are useful to see in the original format.
http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/2002/NOV ... S_8_11.pdf

Thanks, I'd seen the original at some point, but I couldn't seem to find it in my quick search before class this morning.

[S.L.Acker]

Hey anyone who is thinking that they should undo the nerf is smoking crack. Doing a training room for this video (Recruitment Vid) I was firing HE rounds at a Maus, mostly just for show, yet my first round killed his loader and ruined the entire take despite doing no damage. You just have to aim so that the explosion can warp to hit weak points.

And this isn't an inconsistent thing either, I killed an VK45 Asuf B with my short 122mm armed KV solo just by knowing where to hit to cause massive damage. (note with the ausf B, hitting it on the turret with a big enough HE round is more than enough because you will hit their soft top armor, similarly the Maus is weak to HE when it is pointing it's side to you and has it's turret pointed at you since the HE will go through the soft under turret armor.)

HE actually requires just a bit of thought now instead of being arty idiot proof like it used to be. Learn to think a little and it is very good, though low tier french tanks are still shit. (Also they have massive roof armor anyway so the old way HE rounds worked wouldn't do shit to them, just as it is now.)

How good was actual spall protection on a WWII tank anyway?

[Agent Sorchus]

Depends on the era and the specific tank. No shit but several tanks in the german army had crazy different protection schemes with differing alloys. And obviously a 41 tank is different than a 45 tank. But besides that I have no clue exactly except that tanks were soft killed a lot, often not because they were dead but because the crew was convinced they were dead. WoT had an article about how the most effective round the M4's had right off d-day was smoke cause it convinced German armor they were burning.

And M4's were made with a soft alloy that didn't spall that badly, with an average crew death at around 1 per tank destroyed it worked pretty well even if they were easy to knock out.

[S.L.Acker]

Depends on the era and the specific tank. No shit but several tanks in the german army had crazy different protection schemes with differing alloys. And obviously a 41 tank is different than a 45 tank. But besides that I have no clue exactly except that tanks were soft killed a lot, often not because they were dead but because the crew was convinced they were dead. WoT had an article about how the most effective round the M4's had right off d-day was smoke cause it convinced German armor they were burning.

And M4's were made with a soft alloy that didn't spall that badly, with an average crew death at around 1 per tank destroyed it worked pretty well even if they were easy to knock out.

That makes sense, I was thinking that spalling from HE might be under represented after the recent nerf, but now I'm not so sure.

It might be interesting to see some form of 'hardcore' mode in WoT though. One hit bails of tanks, major damage from arty (who would have a vastly harder to use targeting interface) and well placed HE rounds from howitzers.

[Zinegata]

Personally - even before the nerf - I've never really used HE very much unless the tank was a Derper, in which case I'd only use HE. Even before the patch you'd probably do around 1-3% damage at best with a 75mm gun shooting at a Tier 8 frontally. Dropping it down to nearly 0% doesn't really irk me, as if I'm using the said gun I'd be aiming for a flank AP shot anyway.

[Agent Sorchus]

I don't know, HE on an american 76 sounds good, not the least because you can hit the weak points exactly and rapidly to do damage to crew and modules.

[Zinegata]

I don't know, HE on an american 76 sounds good, not the least because you can hit the weak points exactly and rapidly to do damage to crew and modules.

I've done a lot of time on the Easy 8, and HE 76mm simply never stacked up compared to AP. Being able to rapidly do 100 damage every 2 seconds is better than being able to rapidly do something more along the lines of 40 damage every 2 seconds with *maybe* some module damage on top.

AP simply kills tanks that it will face quicker.

[Agent Sorchus]

Most of the time yeah, ap is better. My experience is in the E2 not the easy8 so that is probably the difference. An Easy8 will get flank shots, the Jumbo gets face shots.

[Zinegata]

Most of the time yeah, ap is better. My experience is in the E2 not the easy8 so that is probably the difference. An Easy8 will get flank shots, the Jumbo gets face shots.

The Vk3601H with the 75mm L/70 is kinda what the Jumbo is like, an I never found it profitable to face-shot with HE. If I'm taking the time to aim for weakspots on the enemy's front, I'd still use AP.

[Simon_Jester]

Hmmm. Yeah, I think I see. Against anything hard enough that you can't penetrate the frontal armor in the Sherman Jumbo, trying to flank it risks exposing your flank, which is lightly armored and will get holes shot in it. So blasting away with HE may honestly beat the alternative of trying to flank.

In the Easy Eight, you always want to flank, and you have the mobility and speed that let you get away with that.

[xthetenth]

In my experience with US tanks, I've always tended to make a beeline for the most consistently rolling terrain I could find. That way I could take advantage of the hills to cover advances to flanking positions and that sort of thing. You can also stay on the backhill which increases your effective armor slope and minimizes your silhouette. I personally haven't fired HE except to finish off a 2 hp T1 in my AMX 40 in weeks.

Also, yay me, after a long stretch of great games that just missed it, I got a boelter's in my Patton to bring me over the 1k xp per game mark, which is a distinction only my 4502 A shares. Great tank.

[Zinegata]

Hmmm. Yeah, I think I see. Against anything hard enough that you can't penetrate the frontal armor in the Sherman Jumbo, trying to flank it risks exposing your flank, which is lightly armored and will get holes shot in it. So blasting away with HE may honestly beat the alternative of trying to flank.

I didn't say try to flank. I said shoot at the weakpoints in the front.

[Simon_Jester]

Uh, sorry. I was replying to a sort of aggregate of multiple comments, including Sorchus's, not just yours.

The catch with aiming for weak points, for me at least, is that except at short range the gun just won't let me do it. Most of the weak points I'm familiar with (or which are visible) are less than half a meter across, and you are aiming for something that the random, inherent inaccuracy of the gun won't let you hit reliably. At thirty meters it's fairly practical, you can hit a chosen twelve-inch patch of armor on a stationary target reliably, but it won't work well at longer combat ranges, or when you're moving to avoid artillery fire, or when they're moving and trying for a flank shot, or... you get the idea.

Now, if you have a very well protected tank and can just sit there and let them bounce, as with the Sherman Jumbo or low tier French vs. French tanks, you can get away with doing it, wait for them to give you an opening and exploit it. But under a lot of circumstances I'd rather go for the flank shot than bank on hitting a target ten or fifteen centimeters across.

[Agent Sorchus]

The difference between the Jumbo and 3601 is really simple. One has rate of fire and the other has accuracy. Surprise that is, it means the two find it better to fight differently. The L70 has .31 shot placement and rate of fire up to 15 rounds a minute, the M1A2 has .35 and up to 21 rounds a minute. The Jumbo can't find those weak points at the same range as the VK36, but it can place HE close enough to a weak point and fast enough to actually rack up real harm. Both guns have the same aim time, 2s, which is plenty for the slower firing VK36, but just barely decent for the faster firing Jumbo.

[Sephirius]

Have they implemented custom skins yet that are player visible?

[Nephtys]

So I got the hang of the T20 at last.

Basically, forget everything you knew about the E8's maneuverability, massive DPM. Instead, play it like a faster to relocate M36. With that low turret, I can get great results from the damn thing.

One thing that's REALLY obvious though is how powerful the Vert Stabilizer is. I had no idea what it's effect was until I tried driving a T20 without, then with. Likewise, my E8's performance goes down to crap without the Vert Stab. It's really rather remarkable what a massive effect it has on accuracy during stop-and-go shooting.

[Xess]

I just got the Chaffee and so far I am loving it. I still need the best engine and radio, any tips on how to play it?

[Agent Sorchus]

The chaffee isn't a t-50. Don't think it will ever be able to do the crazy turns that the t50 can. On the other hand it is a good team work tank that has excellent view range. It is excellent with camo nets where it finds a good observation point and scouts most of the enemy team. It still can flank but it isn't as great as a T50, but it is better than a vk2801.

Either way it is a good enough tank to play. Just a little odd.