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I absolutely agree with Alchenar and YF-23. I complain about 5.7 but I actually have a lot of fun at 6.7-7.0, which is essentially the same play style.
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Jul 8, 2019 14:45
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Well, I did nail a King Tiger through its turret with my T-44 in the 6.3 game. Maybe that's more fun. The King Tiger player also complained in chat which made it better. I don't like the IS-2s though. Sure they nuke everything they hit, but the reload is excruciatingly long. I miss the IS-1.
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Jul 8, 2019 17:49
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The IS-2 has just enough mobility to be in just the right spot to find the perfect shot before scooting away. Or find a good sniper position. Either way, you don't want to be on the front line, in my experience. Instead, every shot should be a carefully crafted experience that completely ruins someone's day.
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Jul 8, 2019 18:06
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You mean like popping rounds through a King Tiger's turret ring? Honestly, it's hard to play the IS-2 because I feel if I don't cap, no one will.
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Jul 8, 2019 18:08
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Small brain // caps points Galaxy expanding brain // kills point capers
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Jul 8, 2019 18:19
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I usually don't have problems with the team capping points, with a few notable exceptions. People really like to ignore the point on single-point maps if the point is in a different spot. Normandy when the point is outside the town is a great example of this. I watched my entire team die in the town while I was trying to hold off a parade of Shermans from capping the point.
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Jul 8, 2019 18:33
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Alchenar posted:Yeah I wouldn't say it's objectively less fun (although I think the 3.0-4.0 bracket is my favourite), it's just that it's different and you need to stop trying to have fun from playing the old way and starting learning how to have fun playing in the new way. Yeah.. different bands of vehicles have different playstyles. It's just that it takes forever to grind up so you get used to playing a certain way for 200 hours or whatever. Really a shock when you go to 9.0 / 10.0 and all the tanks are bumper cars again just like tier 1.
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Jul 8, 2019 19:45
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I'm a serial capper, but in sim there's almost always too many people flanking anyways. Once I cap I'll either sit and defend it with some creative positioning or move off the point somewhere to kill decappers. A lot of cap points in sim are pretty well defendable thanks to no third person camera peaking and different map layouts from ab/rb.
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Jul 8, 2019 20:23
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Solumin posted:I usually don't have problems with the team capping points, with a few notable exceptions. People really like to ignore the point on single-point maps if the point is in a different spot. Or the death march into the castle to pointlessly play bumper-cars in Fulda.
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Jul 9, 2019 13:33
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Squadron vehicles are in. Time to play everyone, so I can get a new tank
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Jul 9, 2019 18:40
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How does one contribute?
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Jul 9, 2019 19:50
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Jobbo_Fett posted:How does one contribute? Just play.
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Jul 9, 2019 21:08
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NickBlasta posted:Just play. *sighs heavily as he re-crews his TB-3* Edit: Played several matches, made no progress on the Brit plane. Do you have to be squadded up to make progress? Jobbo_Fett fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Jul 10, 2019 |
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Jul 9, 2019 21:13
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WoL's grinding the brit plane too now. Also approved the two level 100 apps pending. I assume those are goons and I'm not just slowly building an army of pubbies.
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Jul 10, 2019 15:20
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Jobbo_Fett posted:*sighs heavily as he re-crews his TB-3* Apparently you just have to play as normal on any mode, any tree. That said, I haven't progressed either.
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Jul 10, 2019 16:59
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They said points will be collected every 3 days, so maybe you just need to play more?
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Jul 10, 2019 17:03
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Solumin posted:They said points will be collected every 3 days, so maybe you just need to play more? It is unclear to me how it works, it also seems like everyone in the squadron gets points depending on the squadron's score, so you might get points for doing absolutely nothing if other people are playing.
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Jul 10, 2019 17:09
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But you dont specifically have to play in a green squad in flight to score points, right? Cause i dont think im even on the discord channel for here, if it even exists.
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Jul 10, 2019 17:14
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As part of a squadron, you play. In a 3 day period, you get 1 activity point for every 200RP you earn towards normal vehicle research. This caps at 360. That's 72,000RP worth of normal games I think. Your squadmates play. They also all earn 1 point per 200RP. This is added up and then there is some kind of modifier based on the average activity level (not sure what), this caps at 20,000. It pays you out in squadron vehicle research at the end of the 3 day period. I don't know exactly how it works, but it seems like then, if you cap out your personal contribution and your squad is very active, it will give you 20,360 squadron RP per 3 days. At 384,000 that's 56 days (or 18 3-day periods) for the tank?
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Jul 10, 2019 18:26
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Jobbo_Fett posted:But you dont specifically have to play in a green squad in flight to score points, right? Link is at the top of the OP in case you want to join the channel.
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Jul 10, 2019 18:50
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Is there an explainer about which shells to use? When to use them? and how many to carry?
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Jul 10, 2019 23:10
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Always max shells unless you're a coward.
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Jul 10, 2019 23:44
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Minenfeld! posted:Is there an explainer about which shells to use? When to use them? and how many to carry? The short version: whatever has the best pen, except for APCR. This isn't perfect advice, but it works for almost everything. Should we put together a shell explainer for the OP? I'll happily cover British and French rounds. There's a ton of overlap between nations.
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Jul 10, 2019 23:57
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There used to be a chart for ideal ammo stowage, but with ready racks on t4 and above it no longer matters in most cases. Tiger2's will always have ammo in their turret unless they're empty, I think. If you look in the hangar with xray mode you'll see a first-order rack labeled on tanks that have it and then you can just stay at or below that count if you want to keep the smallest surface area. For the earlier tanks without a first order rack listed i'm not sure what the fill order is other than looking at the old chart which may or may not be accurate. I'm sure someone else knows or can test.
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Jul 11, 2019 00:00
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Solumin posted:The short version: whatever has the best pen, except for APCR. Does it matter if some have more explosive mass than others? I can choose between some with more or less and I can choose between two types that are better at pen at less than 500m or better above 500m and angles (not including APCR rounds).
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Jul 11, 2019 00:07
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I usually just bring about 20 "main" shells, then a handful or two of supplementary shells. So something like the Cromwell V, I'll have ~24 APCBC and ~4 HE. I don't remember if it has smoke shells, actually, but I'd bring maybe 4 of those too. For a tank like the Vickers MBT, where both shells can be useful, I'll bring maybe 15 of one and 10 of the other. It really comes down to play style. I don't expect to live long enough to fire 20 main shells, but there's a chance I'll get lucky, so that's how many I bring. Some maps are harder to resupply on, or some tanks are so slow that resupplying takes ages, so maybe I'll bring more. Or if I like camping a cap point on one map, o need fewer shells because I'll be constantly replenishing them. I use HE for lighter vehicles like SPAA and the main shell for everything else. Tanks with .50 Cal machine guns can just use those instead of HE shells. E: just saw your post. Hopefully other people can weigh in here, but in my experience, more pen is better than more explosive mass. There are some cases where too much pen is a problem and the fuse won't activate, but that's an edge case where an HE shell is probably more useful. It's rare (in my experience) for angled performance to be significantly worse for higher-penning shells, so it's a case by case basis. Are you getting uptiered? You probably want raw pen. Are you seeing lots of angled armor? Consider the other rounds. The one exception to this is APCR, which for me will bounce 90% of the time and will do almost no damage if it pens. It's an emergency round for pinpoint accurate shots on very heavy targets. Are there any tanks/shells you want specific advice for? How often, really, are you engaging from beyond 500 m? Solumin fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Jul 11, 2019 |
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Jul 11, 2019 00:07
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ussr use anything that's specifically called APHEBC, even keeping a handful of them in later tier tanks that allow it. have a handful of HE on shells of 122mm or higher. once you hit the cold war APFSDS > HEATFS > APDS america APCBC > APC > AP use anything with HE filler over things that dont. until cold war then its same as ussr APFSDS > HEATFS > APDS also you have HESH which are specialty HE shells that are useful against soviet sloped armor and bad against anything thats thick and flat german pretty much everything worth using is APCBC with HE filler until cold war then its same as above APFSDS > HEATFS > APDS brits it's all solid shot but it's still APCBC > APC > AP. cold war APFSDS > HEATFS > APDS and they have greater HESH availability than america french sorta like brits but they have autoloaders and their shells slap for like 40mm more pen than equivalent BR vehicles (?? french tanks own) i haven't really hosed around with italy or japan but by and large the same applies as for germany/USA for both, kind of? commentary: personal preference is definitely a thing and i tend to use more APDS in the 'cold-war but not modern darts' era than a lot of people (based on dumb internet forum reading but whatever) just because i hate it when my HEATFS detonates on shrubs and fences but by and large HEATFS does greater post-pen damage than APDS bacon flaps fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Jul 11, 2019 |
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Jul 11, 2019 00:23
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Italy is the same as Germany, as far as I have seen, until the later ranks when they are basically American. High tier stuff is all the same anyway. French tanks are magical and have like 100% more shrapnel, too.
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Jul 11, 2019 00:26
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For my T-34 and T-44 the shells labelled APHEBC have lower pen the then APCBC shells.
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Jul 11, 2019 02:12
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Minenfeld! posted:For my T-34 and T-44 the shells labelled APHEBC have lower pen the then APCBC shells. They have vastly more explosive filler for only a tiny bit less penetration.
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Jul 11, 2019 02:35
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Love the matches where you're just dunking on the enemy team, then you finally die and welp turns out your whole team has died somehow.
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Jul 11, 2019 02:41
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Shanakin posted:They have vastly more explosive filler for only a tiny bit less penetration. This is where the armor analyzer thing is great. Find the heaviest/most sloped tanks you're going to face and see how much of a difference that pen makes. appropriatemetaphor posted:Love the matches where you're just dunking on the enemy team, then you finally die and welp turns out your whole team has died somehow. The Air RB version of this is: "Ah, 7000 meters! Wonderful, I see Bf 109s on the horizon... and my whole team is dead."
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Jul 11, 2019 02:43
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Minenfeld! posted:For my T-34 and T-44 the shells labelled APHEBC have lower pen the then APCBC shells. In general, using the heaviest, most explosivest round that will actually penetrate an enemy tank is a good idea. If two rounds are equal (ie they will both penetrate) using the one with more filler is best. So like for the 85mm gun you have 365A and K shells. Since they will both penetrate nearly everything, it's better to use the A. The German tanks with the long 88 have APCR, but there is nothing they will face that the APHE doesn't penetrate, making APCR useless. Relevant exception is the 76mm gun, the MD5 shell has more explosive but the fuse is such that it detonates immediately after penetrating, which can limit the damage. The MD8 shell explodes in the middle of the tank, which will do more damage.
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Jul 11, 2019 03:50
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appropriatemetaphor posted:Love the matches where you're just dunking on the enemy team, then you finally die and welp turns out your whole team has died somehow. Buddhist wisdom; if you are dunking on the enemy team that means that your team aren't getting kills. If they aren't getting kills then they are the ones being killed.
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Jul 11, 2019 10:41
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I did a write-up on shell types, feel free to use it for the OP I guess. Also to point out any mistakes, there's definitely stuff (like Shrapnel) I knew next to nothing about and had to ask people for. WT shell types 1. AP  The AP shell of the 75mm M3 cannon that most Shermans use This is your basic kinetic penetrator. You shoot a chunk of metal out of your cannon, it hits a metal plate, and if it goes through the enemy tank now has a chunk of metal going through it and bits and pieces of the armour that got pierced showering whatever's behind it. 2. APHE  The APHE shell of the 75mm M3 cannon This is similar to the AP shell above, however, notice the statistics for high explosive filler in it - the chunk of metal you shot out of your cannon also doubles as a grenade that goes off after penetrating thick enough armour. So in addition to damaging whatever's behind the point of impact, there is also a radius of damage around the shell when it goes off inside the tank. This is the most effective shell type throughout much of the game thanks to the damaging potential it has. It's the bread and butter of WT tank battles. NOTE: You will notice a few things in the naming of the shells, namely the second shell is called APCBC instead of APHE. C stands for Capped and BC for Ballistic Capped, and these are essentially modifiers that give the shell better ballistic properties or adjust its trajectory on the point of impact to make it hit angled plates at a flatter angle. Both AP and APHE shells might have those modifers, but the primary difference is whether they have HE filler or not. 3. HE  The HE shell of the 75mm M3 cannon The AP shells and APHE shells are kinetic penetrators, meaning they use kinetic force to go through enemy armour. HE shells are just a bunch of high explosive and the force of the explosion is enough to go through steel of a certain thickness, which classifies them as a chemical penetrator. Usually, these shells were meant for attacks against enemy infantry, so they are not really as effective against enemy armour, with notable exceptions depending on you calibre - the most notorious example being the 152mm cannon on the Russian KV-2 heavy tank, which lobs an HE shell large enough and packed with enough explosive to actually destroy enemy tanks. HE has a few advantages over other shells: it applies equal force in all directions, so the angle at which you hit enemy armour does not matter, the amount of TNT will usually mean a generous splash that will be much more effective against unarmoured enemy vehicles than a kinetic penetrator, and, being a chemical penetrator, with the pen determined by the point of impact rather than ballistics, it doesn't make a difference how far you are so long as you can get the shell on target. An HE shell that hits you from 10 meters or 1000 meters is going to generate the exact same explosion. An HE shell that hits the turret, even if it can't damage it, is likely to splash through the hull's roof and fry the driver or the engine (depending on if you are shooting the front or back of the turret). The Soviets early on use a variant of this called a Shrapnel shell that is essentially an HE shell filled with ball bearings. I am personally not familiar with this, but I've seen people swear on its effectiveness against light armour. 4. APCR (also referred to as HVAP)  The APCR shell of the 75mm M3 cannon This is, essentially, a smaller, denser AP shell. APCR shells have higher muzzle velocity and penetration values than AP shells, but worse ballistics and post-pen damage. They also fare horribly against angled armour. As a general rule, you will never want to use these over AP or APHE. There's two scenarios in which it is useful; against tanks heavy enough that your AP/APHE cannot penetrate, or in case you are bringing a lower tier tank in your lineup and you get uptiered enough that your regular shells are not effective. It is prudent to bring a few of those shells with you just in case if you have them. 5. HEAT  The HEAT shell of the Type 99 cannon on the Japanese Ho-I Another chemical penetrator, HEAT shells function by creating a jet of metal at the point of impact that then penetrates the armour. Like HE, distance doesn't matter since penetration is determined by the impact rather than ballistics. Unlike HE, the way in which you impact the enemy armour matters since you aren't using just a crude package of high explosives. Post-pen damage is also mostly limited to a cone past the point of impact. They also tend to have a pretty low muzzle velocity (with some exceptions, such as high-tier France). These are good shells to have if your AP/APHE shells suck (as in the early Pz4s with the short gun and some early Japanese tanks). 6. APDS   Comparison between the APDS and APCBC shells of the 17pdr cannon on the British WW2 Challenger This is a sub-calibre shell that has a wider base to make it fit the cannon it's getting fired from, which it detaches after shooting. Think of this as a much improved APCR shell: they don't suffer from the same ballistics issues, and post-pen damage (while not equal to an equivalent calibre AP shell) is good enough to make this useable as a general purpose shell. At the battle ratings where these shells appear you also start seeing heavy tanks with lots of armour, which AP/APHE shells will struggle against. The high muzzle velocity also makes long-range engagements a lot more viable than they were before. 7. HEATFS  The HEATFS shell of the L7A3 cannon on the Type 74 This late-game shell is essentially a HEAT shell with good ballistics. Like APDS, it makes long-range battles more viable, with the added advantage of your shells not losing penetrating power over long distances. Once introduced this shell dominates the game until you start facing tanks that have more sophisticated armour to help against chemical penetrators, like ERA. 8. HESH  The HESH shell of the L7A3 cannon HESH is a chemical penetrator that operates by squashing a bunch of plastic explosive on the armour plate it impacts and setting it off, creating a shockwave that goes through the armour and causes fragments of it to break off on the other side (an effect referred to as spalling, which is also present with the other shell types). It is effective against sloped armour where APDS or HEATFS have to deal with extreme angling, such as the IS-6. Gaijin has rebalanced HESH back and forth a few times; for a while this used to essentially be an "HE+" shell, making it extremely effective, but its splash radius was nerfed at some point. I also have no idea what the deal is with the higher pen on more angled armour, nevertheless, I've seen people swear by its effectiveness against Soviet tanks still. 9. APFSDS  The APFSDS shell of the L7A3 cannon This is the ultimate in kinetic penetrators. APFSDS shells (also colloquially referred to as "darts") tend to cut through armour like it's butter. And where top tier armour provides good effectiveness against chemical penetrators, kinetic ones are much less affected. If you are not using an ATGM launcher at top tier, you should probably be using this. //above three are the HEATFS, HESH, and APFSDS shells on the L7A3 cannon on the Type 74 10. Smoke shells  The smoke shell of the L7A3 cannon Smoke shells create, well, smoke! This is useful in a lot of situations but can also be detrimental; you are essentially trying to deny your enemy information, but can also end up doing that for your own team. If there's an enemy sniping from somewhere it's useful to shoot smoke at their sniping spot to blind them; but this also means it's harder for your team to snipe back at them and eliminate them. You can use smoke to cover an advance, and make it harder for the enemy to land any accurate shots on moving tanks; but you might end up just blinding your own team to any enemies, and if you had teammates that were in position to provide supporting fire, you can make their job harder too. Another pubbie mistake I see often is putting down smoke in a panic after being immobilised, which... just blinds them to whoever shot them, and the enemy can just shoot on the same spot (or, in case of a fire, use that smoke to determine where the tank they shot is). On the other hand, I've dropped a smoke shell in front of a tank destroyer before, making that player panic and letting me drive up next to him for a side shot. So smoke shells can be useful, just make sure you have situational awareness, a plan, and don't panic. YF-23 fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Jul 11, 2019 |
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Jul 11, 2019 13:07
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Shrapnel! 
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Jul 11, 2019 14:03
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AP: I would also mention APC and APCBC shells here, or at least mention that you talk about them more in the APHE section. I've never tested this, but I swear APC has better post pen than APCBC. HE: Missing a word in "meant attacks". APDS: You probably don't need that bit about the image at the end of the paragraph. The sentence comparing it to APCR is a garden path. One starts reading it as "it doesn't suffer from the same ballistic issues and post pen damage" but the "post pen damage" part is the start of a new thought. The semi colon should probably be a colon, and there should be a comma before "and post pen". HESH: this round works by basically slapping the armor so hard that it spalls on the inside. It does this by squashing the plastic explosive head (hence "high explosive squash head") on the target, then detonating a fuse, sending shockwaves through the metal. This makes it fantastic against steel and buildings, hence why the FV4005 exists, while really bad against spaced armor, composite armor, and spall shielding. It's also incredibly hard to model this accurately, which is why the game treats it as somewhere between HE and HEAT. In game, it performs better against slopes because, in theory, spreading the plastic explosive more will cause more spalling. But the game can't model that, but rather models spalling by how much the round penetrates! So more penetration means more spalling. I'm not sure most of this is worth mentioning in the overview. Maybe mention that it's similar to HE and almost impossible for the game to model realistically. Also use the FV4005 shell for the picture.
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Jul 11, 2019 16:10
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APCR is a full sized shell with a higher density core surrounded by low density material (aluminum for example). APDS is like APCR but is just the core with a discarding sabot (shoe) that fits around the core only while it's in the barrel, the sabot falls off the round shortly after leaving the muzzle. This improves ballistics and long range performance. 17lber APDS 
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Jul 11, 2019 17:38
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Thank you for the corrections. I do have a bit about the C and BC modifiers right after the APHE paragraph. Also, I'm using the L7A3 shells for the comparison because it's honestly a more common gun and there is a player choice as to the kind of round they'd want to use, so it makes more sense for someone reading it to think "ok, so it's a choice between those, and these are the advantages and disadvantages". If someone ever looks at the FV4005 in the game and sees that it only has HESH and looks at its stat card they are going to go "oh, oh gently caress, ok, I understand" anyway.
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Jul 11, 2019 17:42
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Its also worthwhile to carry like 10 APCR in tanks like the M18/M36 becuase they give you good flat angle performance at range, say against KT or Panther turret faces. Also that you can completely reorder or change out ammo loads in the tactical menu when selecting a tank, so while you may not use any APCR on a map like Poland you can carry a lot more on Kursk, where it can be a lot more valuable to have.
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Jul 11, 2019 17:53
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