Wot projectiles characteristics. WOT shells - HEAT shells, high-explosive, fragmentation, all types of shells. By maximum speed

Penetration rules for HEAT rounds

Update 0.8.6 introduces new penetration rules for HEAT shells:

• A HEAT projectile can now ricochet when a projectile hits armor at an angle of 85 degrees or more. When ricocheting, the armor penetration of a ricocheted HEAT projectile does not drop.
• After the first penetration of the armor, the ricochet can no longer work (due to the formation of a cumulative jet).
• After the first armor penetration, the projectile begins to lose armor penetration at the following rate: 5% of the armor penetration remaining after penetration - per 10 cm of space traversed by the projectile (50% - per 1 meter of free space from the screen to the armor).
• After each penetration of the armor, the armor penetration of the projectile is reduced by an amount equal to the thickness of the armor, taking into account the angle of the armor relative to the projectile's flight path.
• Now the tracks are also a screen for HEAT rounds.

Ricochet change in update 0.9.3

• Now, when the projectile ricochets, the projectile does not disappear, but continues its movement along a new trajectory, and the armor-piercing and sub-caliber projectiles lose 25% of armor penetration, while the armor penetration of the HEAT projectile does not change.

Shell tracer colors

• High-explosive fragmentation - the longest tracers, a noticeable orange color.
• Sub-caliber - light, short and transparent tracers.
• Armor-piercing - similar to sub-caliber ones, but noticeable better (longer, lifetime and less transparency).
• Cumulative - yellow and the thinnest.

What type of projectile to use?

Basic rules when choosing between armor-piercing and high-explosive fragmentation shells:

• Use armor-piercing shells against tanks of your level; high-explosive fragmentation shells against tanks with weak armor or self-propelled guns with open cabins.
• Use armor-piercing shells in long-barreled and small-caliber guns; high-explosive fragmentation - in short-barreled and large-caliber. Using HE shells of small caliber is pointless - they often do not penetrate, therefore - they do not cause damage.
• Use high-explosive shells at any angle, do not fire armor-piercing shells at a sharp angle to the enemy's armor.
• Targeting vulnerable areas and shooting at right angles to the armor is also useful for HE - this increases the likelihood of breaking through the armor and taking full damage.
• HE shells have a high chance of inflicting low but guaranteed damage even with no armor penetration, so they can be effectively used to break a hold from a base and finish off opponents with a small margin of safety.

For example, the 152mm M-10 gun on the KV-2 tank is large-caliber and short-barreled. The larger the caliber of the projectile, the more explosive it contains and the more damage it does. But due to the short length of the gun barrel, the projectile flies out at a very low initial velocity, which leads to low penetration, accuracy and flight range. Under such conditions, an armor-piercing projectile, which requires an accurate hit, becomes ineffective, and a high-explosive fragmentation should be used.

Detailed view of projectiles

Hello, this is the second issue of the Golden Bolt program, about the nuances and tricks of the World Of Tanks game. Let's not waste time, let's go!

But did you know that from the same gun, shells fly out at different speeds?

Their speed does not depend on randomness, it is constant. The developers took pity on us in this matter. You can easily shoot, making a lead depending on the speed of the enemy and the distance to him. But the speed depends on the type of projectile, and not only the speed.

Each type of projectile has its own peculiarity. In total, the game features 5 types of shells: 2 types of basic (armor-piercing and high-explosive fragmentation) - bought for silver and 3 types of premium (sub-caliber, cumulative, high-explosive fragmentation (prem)) - bought for gold. But after the release of patch 0.7.5, for proper balancing, for many MT (medium tanks) of level 10, sub-caliber shells became available for silver, retaining all the advantages of a premium shell.

I decided to test all these types of projectiles for their speed. To do this, I needed all the shots in 16x (16x) slow motion with a frequency of 30 frames per second and count the number of frames spent on the flight of each projectile. The range to the target was 200 meters.

The results are interesting. The flight of an armor-piercing projectile took 136 frames, and the approximate speed of the projectiles was 706 ms. The flight of the sub-caliber took only 88 frames, and the approximate speed of the projectiles was 1092 ms. The test of other types of shells showed a speed identical to armor-piercing ones. I want to draw your attention to the fact that the numbers indicated in this video were obtained empirically and may not correspond to the real characteristics. But it is quite obvious that sub-caliber shells fly much faster than other types, due to which they have greater armor penetration. It is worth considering this when shooting at a long distance at a moving target, because the lead should be taken no less than, for example, shooting with armor-piercing ones.

But that's not all I wanted to tell you about shells in this issue. There is another type of premium shells that have normal speed, but like sub-caliber shells, high armor penetration. And another feature of this type of projectile is that it never ricochets. This is a cumulative projectile.

The fact is that when it comes into contact with an obstacle, an explosive is detonated and a cumulative jet burns through the armor at high speed. Therefore, you will never hear the word “ricochet” from the crew commander, although at very extreme angles you can hear the phrase “armor is not broken”, even from the most lightly armored tanks, which shocks many players: “How could a flea not be penetrated by a premium shell ? But knowing the mechanics of the game, you cease to be surprised at this.

Also, high-explosive shells never ricochet, they have significantly lower armor penetration, but the highest potential damage in case of penetration. And in case of non-penetration, the projectile simply explodes outside the tank, causing damage in the radius of the explosion. Moreover, the thinner the armor, the more damage he will receive. And if the armor within the fragmentation radius is extremely large, then you can even hear from the crew commander “didn’t break through”, which also causes a storm of indignation among many players who did not expect such a catch from a high-explosive shell.

Of course, this is not all that can be said about shells, but I did not have such a goal. The main thing is that from this short issue you have learned something new and useful about the game.

The next issue will be really hot, because we will talk about the fire and everything connected with it.

The speed of the projectile in WOT needs to be known in order to more accurately shoot ahead of time from long distances. There are 4 types of shells in World of Tanks, which can be both regular and improved (for gold):

• Armor-piercing (BB, BS),
• Sub-caliber (BP),
• Cumulative (CC),
• High-explosive fragmentation (HE).

Each type has its own flight speed, which is measured in meters per second (m/s or msec ).

How to view WOT projectile speed

The game itself does not provide this option. Players have repeatedly contacted the Wargaming support center with questions, but in response they received only superficial information from the developers:

The fastest shells are sub-caliber shells, the slowest shells are HE shells, and a little faster than HE shells are cumulative shells.

Online check

And yet, the speed of the projectile can be viewed on special sites. In addition to this parameter, they generally show everything about tanks - all known characteristics.

• Tanks.gg- English speaking service. Just select a tank and look at the item " Shell velocity "- this is the speed of the projectile.
• tank-compare.com- WOT tank comparison service in Russian. Choose a nation, type of equipment and a specific tank.

It is important to understand here that no one guarantees the accuracy of the data of these sites (as well as any others), since the speed of the projectile was measured manually by the players (read more about how this is done). Therefore, if you see or hear the term “projectile velocity” in any YouTube video, know that this is not an exact value, and there may well be an error of 1-10% depending on the quality of the measurement.

Projectile speed mods

For World of Tanks, there are 2 popular modifications from Ekspoint on this topic.

No one is currently compiling WOT projectile speed tables, since data can be obtained from online services and thematic mods.

How to measure projectile speed in WOT

Externally, the speed is measured as follows.

1. Shooting at a fixed distance is recorded on video with 30-60 FPS. It is desirable to fire several shots to reduce the statistical error.
2. Then the resulting video is slowed down and the speed of the projectile is calculated depending on the number of frames during which it flies to the target. For example, if the projectile travels a distance 100 m behind 27 frames at framerate 60 FPS, so he spends 27/60 = 45 s. Knowing this figure, we can calculate the speed of movement using the school formula V (speed) = S (path) / t (time) . We get 100 / 0.45 = ~222.22 m/s.
3. To get more accurate results, it makes sense to calculate several (3-5) shots and calculate the arithmetic average.

How to quickly calculate lead in combat

Exactly - no way. For this you need to know moving target distance And projectile speed . You can get this data from the mods suggested above. But in addition to them, you also need to know target direction angle and calculate the result using a complex geometric formula in 1-2 seconds. Offhand, this cannot be calculated, unless you are a genius of higher mathematics or a human calculator ...

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Armor penetration in WoT: theory, features and differences from reality.
Part one: projectiles and their characteristics

The confrontation between armor and guns is one of the foundations of our game, which is why the mechanics of interaction between shells and armor plays a key role in World of Tanks. It seems to an inexperienced player who is just starting his way in the game that there is nothing complicated here - the blank flies at the target, and depending on its armor penetration, it deals damage or the tank remains unharmed. But over time, the player has a lot of questions - why the same shell does not always pierce the armor of the same tank, why shells ricochet, why shells do not pierce tanks at a long distance, and many others.

There are answers to these questions, and to find them, you need to consider in detail the theory of armor penetration in WoT. It is this theory that we want to talk about here.

Some remarks and terminology

Before proceeding directly to the theory, an important note should be made: WoT is not a tank combat simulator in its purest form, therefore, simplified mechanics are used in the game. First of all, this concerns the implementation of the projectile, the calculation of its flight path, interaction with armor and ricochets. On the other hand, the developers made an attempt to bring the mechanics of the interaction of a shell with armor closer to reality, which is reflected in the spread of penetration, in the drop in penetration with distance, the interaction of shells of various types with armor, etc.

To understand armor penetration theory, there are a few important concepts to remember.

The angle of entry of the projectile. Under this concept, the angle measured between the normal drawn to the tangent and the projectile velocity vector is taken specifically at the point where it touches the armor. Here, we must immediately warn of the confusion that often arises: when the projectile velocity vector coincides with the normal, the angle is taken as 0 °, although in fact the projectile hits the armor at an angle of 90 °. This should always be taken into account and understood that 85 ° is not an almost direct entry of the projectile, as one might think, but on the contrary, an almost parallel span, guaranteeing a ricochet.

Normal. This is a perpendicular to the tangent drawn through the point of the armor at the location of the projectile. The most simple normal is on a flat armor plate - this is its perpendicular. On curved surfaces, to find the normal, you first need to draw a tangent (remember the school geometry course), and only then draw the normal.

Projectile velocity vector. This is the direction of the projectile at each point in its trajectory. The need to use the velocity vector is due to the fact that the projectile does not fly in a straight line, but along a ballistic trajectory, which is an arc (in the game it is represented as a parabola). This arc cannot be used for calculations, but a vector can.

ballistic trajectory of a projectile. In our reality, the calculation of the ballistics of a projectile is very complicated, it includes taking into account the many forces and moments acting on a flying projectile - air resistance, taking into account the rotation of the globe (Coriolis force), aerodynamic indicators of the projectile itself, wind characteristics, the presence of rain, the projectile's own movement (rotation around the axis, deviation), etc. It is simply impossible to calculate all these forces in the game, so the flight of projectiles in WoT is modeled according to the simplest ballistic trajectory, taking into account only the force of gravity. This path is a parabola, at each point of which the flying blank has a different velocity vector, which is taken into account when calculating its interaction with the armor.

Reduced armor thickness. This is the actual thickness of the armor that a projectile has to overcome when it enters at one angle or another from the normal. For example, if a 100 mm armor plate is hit at a 45° angle, the projectile will have to cover a little more than 141 mm.

Screen and main armor. The type and characteristics of the armor are “written” in the collision model of each vehicle, and depending on the type of armor, the scenario of the development of events is selected: when it hits the screen, the penetration of the projectile drops by 5% for every 10 cm of the path, upon contact with the main armor, the rule comes into force 10 gauge. This is discussed in detail in the second part of the article.

What is a projectile in WoT

To simplify the calculations as much as possible, it is assumed that the projectile in our game is a material point with zero dimensions. That is why shells can fly through gaps of any size, the main thing is that such gaps should be present in tank collision models and map textures. But on the other hand, such shells do not leave holes in the armor, so in the game it is impossible to stuff a bunch of shells into one hole.

However, despite this simplification, the projectile can be assigned to one of four classes - armor-piercing (AP), armor-piercing sub-caliber (AP), high-explosive fragmentation (HE) and cumulative (KS). Moreover, all shells have five main characteristics:

Basic armor penetration;
Base damage;
Damage to internal modules (hidden projectile parameter);
Flight speed at the beginning of the trajectory (from the muzzle);
Normalization.

Some of these characteristics are the same for all types of projectiles, while others are characteristic only for certain types of projectiles. We will point this out when considering individual characteristics and mechanics.

armor penetration

Every projectile in the game has a base armor penetration that can randomly vary by +/- 25%. That is, for a projectile with a penetration of 100 mm, the spread is from 75 to 125 mm. This rule applies to all types of projectiles.

There are several rules for armor-piercing and sub-caliber shells:
The base breakdown is observed only at a distance from 0 to 100 meters;
At a distance of 100 meters, the armor penetration of shells decreases linearly (this indicator is not the same for shells of different calibers and types, for sub-caliber shells the drop in armor penetration is greater, for APs - less, on average, at 500 meters, the breakdown decreases by 3 - 15%);
Projectiles from low-level machine guns and automatic cannons completely lose penetration at 400 meters (before patch 9.8, the limit was 350 meters).

At the same time, high-explosive fragmentation and cumulative shells do not lose their penetration with increasing distance.

The differences between the penetration of different types of projectiles are due to the unequal physical principles underlying these projectiles. Ordinary AP and BP shells pierce armor due to the stored kinetic energy (in fact, it is a stone thrown at high speed), and since the projectile's speed decreases with distance, its kinetic energy also decreases - hence the drop in armor penetration. High-explosive fragmentation shells are bombs with fuses that fire on contact with armor, for them the speed of meeting an obstacle does not matter, therefore, both at the gun’s edge and at a distance of 700 meters, the penetration of an HE shell is the same. HEAT shells also fire upon contact with armor, regardless of the speed of the meeting, and their penetration is due only to the penetration of the HEAT jet, and has nothing to do with the flight range.

By the way, very often players complain that the randomization of projectile penetration at 25% is too much and does not fit well into the game. In reality, the problem lies much deeper, and such a spread allows you to not take into account parameters such as the quality and structure of the armor in the game. In reality, the projectile and armor are made of different alloys, and in some cases, when a projectile hits a tank, it can simply collapse or deform - in this case, no penetration occurs, and the spread of penetration exceeds 100%. This state of affairs in the game is unacceptable, so the developers artificially limit the spread of penetration, and our armor and shells are “spherical in a vacuum” (that is, ideal, they do not take into account the material and its characteristics). If we played according to real mechanics, then the indignation of the players would reach cosmic proportions.

Projectile normalization

This is one of those parameters that cause heated debate, but it cannot be ignored - normalization exists and is used in real shells. Normalization is the angle of the projectile's return (reduction of the angle to the normal) in case it did not ricochet. Normalization is due to the fact that projectiles with a blunt end, as it were, “bite” the armor when they meet it at an angle and do not turn a certain angle. Since the angle between the projectile velocity vector and the normal decreases during normalization, the reduced armor decreases, which means that the probability of penetration increases.

For different types of shells, the normalization value is not the same:
For conventional armor-piercing shells - 5 °;
For sub-caliber shells - 2 °;
All cumulative and OF have no normalization.

Thus, for conventional AP shells, upon impact with inclined armor, the probability of shell penetration is the highest, since due to normalization, a significant decrease in the thickness of the reduced armor can occur. The normalization of AP shells is less, so the change in the reduced armor for them is insignificant, which often results in non-penetration. But for HE and KS there is no normalization, therefore for them the reduced armor is calculated only by the angle of entry.

It is important to note that the rule of 2 calibers, which is practically unknown to players, operates in the game. If the projectile caliber is 2 or more times greater than the armor thickness (real thickness, not given) at the entry point, then the final normalization is calculated by the formula: final normalization = basic normalization * 1.4 * projectile caliber / 2 * armor thickness.

That is, if you launch a projectile with a caliber of 122 mm with a normalization of 5 ° into armor with a thickness of all 60 mm, then its normalization becomes a little more than 7 °. So large-caliber shells are more likely to penetrate thin armor, which in certain cases (for example, when high-level tank destroyers or TTs meet with light tanks) brings the game closer to reality.

The game mechanics is such that normalization is taken into account every time when breaking through the screen armor, when breaking through the main armor and ricocheting. That is, if the projectile hits the screen, then normalization is taken into account when it breaks through, and if there is main armor behind the screen, then normalization is taken into account a second time. This parameter is also taken into account if the blank hits the armor or screen again during a ricochet.

However, there is one interesting trick here, which the developers resorted to in order to simplify the calculations: normalization is used only for calculating armor penetration, but it does not change the trajectory of the projectile in the armor and in the reserved space. In reality, the projectile, due to normalization, somewhat changes the path of its movement, due to this, in fact, the reduced armor decreases. In our game, the projectile travels the same path as without normalization, but the thickness of the reduced armor is considered to be less than it is - this makes calculations easier and does not force servers and clients to process large amounts of information.

Projectile ricochets

Ricochet is a special topic and a special problem that developers have been solving for a long time, but even today it still gives a headache.

In general, the ricochet rules are simple:
The ricochet angle for AP and AP shells is set to 70° (again, the angle is measured relative to the normal);

The ricochet angle for the CV is set at 85° (previously, the CV did not ricochet at all);
HE shells never ricochet.

When performing ricochet calculations, normalization is not taken into account; it is included in the calculations only at angles less than 70° for BB and BP, and less than 85° for CS.

The ricocheted projectile continues its flight, however, at present, the trajectory of the movement of the ricocheted projectile is determined randomly, which in some cases is very surprising. Until recently, a ricocheted projectile could move only within one tank (for example, ricochet from the VLD to the lower part of the gun mantlet, from the MTO cover to the rear of the turret, from the side armor plate to the fender, etc.), but recently, shells can ricochet into other tanks, damaging them.

Ricocheted projectiles have base normalization, but their penetration is reduced by 25%. At the same time, for one projectile, a second ricochet is also possible, but in this case, after a rebound from the armor, it simply ceases to exist. In the case of a ricochet of a cumulative projectile, there is no drop in armor penetration.

The game is contradictory 3 gauge rule c, which states: if the caliber of the projectile is 3 or more times greater than the actual (not given) thickness of the armor at the calculated entry point, then the probability of ricochet becomes zero. Simply put, for large-caliber projectiles, it makes no difference how it meets with thin armor - penetration will still occur. This rule applies only to AP and AP shells, HE shells explode on armor at any angle (although reduced armor is taken into account for them anyway), and CCs ricochet according to the usual rule.

Now, knowing about the shells and some of their characteristics, we can consider the mechanics of armor penetration - read about this in the second part.