155mm & 203mm AP test on various targets. I don´t understand the results...

[Vaderan]

Greetings sailors!

 

I have been reading, and in fact, writing a lot of comments concerning various game mechanics, especially the use of HE and AP ammunitions.

Today, for some reason, it came to my mind i could start a row of PvE battles, focused on the mechanics and use of AP ammunition.

 

For this, i took two more or less representative cruisers, a fully upgraded Cleveland, and a fully upgraded Furutaka.

 

My objective was to find out, wether and when AP is of more use, compared to HE, regarding the following guidelines, taken from various threads on this forum, or of own experience, gathered since closed alpha test.

For the first runs, i decided to use AP only, just to get a (renewed) feeling of the mechanics since the latest patch. However, i tried to stick to some basic rules:

1.: use AP on short range, when the shells have a flat trajectory line, or use AP on long to maximum distance, to achive plunging fire hits.

2.: On long to maximum distance, aim for the citadel, on short distance, aim below main armament or armor belt, right above the water line.

3.: when shooting at the hull of an enemy, avoid steep angles, try to hit flat angles.

4.: try to avoid overpenetrations.

 

I started with the Cleveland. 155mm guns, AP only. To gain as much information as possible, i fired on various targets, on various angles.

The toughest target was a tier 8 North Carolina, followed by a Nagato, various Fusos, New Yorks, and smaller BBs. Of cruisers, i had to face anything between tier 8 and tier 2.

 

These are my personal results:

1. i still don´t get these "pling" and "clang" and "swush" sounds. Or better, i don´t get them every time, since i cannot tell wether it was a penetration or overpenetration, just by numbers and sound.

2.: No matter what i tried, i wasn´t able to score a single citadel hit. Not a single one. No matter if DD, CA, BB or CV. This worries me, since i had no problemy at all to harvest citadel and ammunition hits during CAT, at any distance, at any ship. My aiming is reliable, especially with the accurate cruiser guns, usually scoring 3-9 hits with the Cleveland, even on 14km range.

What troubles me even more: at 10-14,6 km, the Clevelands AP shells come down in a steep angle, so i would expect deck penetrations. Maybe no citadell hits on most BBs, but at least at cruisers. Instead, i score low damage rolls, i´d say 320-700 per shell. Or i do zero damage at all, so i have to assume my shells just bounce. The thing is: since i consider myself as rather well informed about distance and angles and stuff, i followed the above rules. But anyway: Wyoming on 14 km range, AP, straight on topp deck: bounce or low damage. Cleveland on 14km: perfect plunging fire on a stationary target: no penetrations. Kuma, a lightly armored japanese tier 4 Cruiser: flat angel on medium distance, perfect hits, but only 320 damage. Smells like overpenetration. Target turns slightly, so the angle changes: bounce, no damage at all.

Cleveland, short range brawl, within secondary range, aiming below turrets and for the armor belt. Penetrations, but no citadel hits. 5-6k damage with 5-8 hits.

These were just examples. Basically, i tried to shot on all targets of all classes, but i failed to do halfway reliable damage to any enemy. The only thing that seemed to work, was hitting soft spotts on BBs, avoiding the citadel and other thickly armored surfaces.

What am i doing wrong? Is the 155mm calibre that useless? i just found no rule, for when to use AP, or, against which armor thickness. HE almost seems to be the only choice. But...

 

There was the Furutaka test:

203mm AP rounds, again against BBs and CAs (i avoided DDs as good as possible, since the Furutaka turrets are slightly...slow...)

Again, not a single citadell hit. No matter, if Kawashi, Wyoming, Fuso, Clevelend or Furutaka. The 203mm shells are supposed to have a higher penetration and damage value. Very disappointing, frustrating and enraging for me was the following situation: During my first Furutaka battle today, i encountered the bot driven Cleveland. AP was loaded, turrets ready. My first and sacond broadside scored 4 plunging fire hits on 11-13 kilometres, without doing any significant damage. At around 10km, the Cleveland turned, so we were broadside vs broadside. I scored a 5 out of 6 AP series, causing some 5000 damage. The Cleveland managed to hit aswell, some 5-6 hits for 10k damage. A third of my HP lost, i obviously took at least one citadel hit. Meanwhile, the Cleveland managed to run into an island. Stuck, she was a sitting duck. At 8,2 km range, i aimed for the citadel, which was rather easy, since the Cleveland didn´t move at all. 6 hits, right above or into the belt, 6k damage. The returning broadside of the Cleveland, though i was constantly changing my course and speed, took my remaining 20k hp. Since my ship didn´t break, i assume several citadel hits.

The following game, i encountered my evil twin, the "mirror" Furutaka. Although i hit her frequently, i wasn´t able to repeat the Clevelands performance prior experienced on my own. No citadel hits whatsoever.

 

So, what am i doing wrong? I calculate the angles, i know where to aim (heck, i farmed citadel hits during the CAT, what has changed?). I try to avoid overpenetrations, i try to trigger the fuse of the ap shells, with different spots on the ships, different angles. But it just doesn´t work out for me. Is it just bad luck with the RNG, or is there a mistake anywhere else? But if i constantly fail to score citadel hits against bots, i seriously don´t need to return to PvP...

[conductiv]

I still get citadel hits on cruisers near the waterline underneath the torpedo section, center hull for the cleveland and new orleans and front hull under the steering cabin for pensecola and des-moins. level shot 203mm AP shells from my ibuki and baltimore.

 

I have no idea what you did wrong...what I do know is that testing would be a whole lot easier if we had a training room

[Takeda92]

I get citadel hits when using Migami's 203mm guns against other IJN cruisers, however 155mm can't even do a thing to an AFK Clveland from 6-8 km range.

Btw, Cleveland has 152mm guns, not 155mm!

[Bl4ckh0g]

I get citadel hits when using Migami's 203mm guns against other IJN cruisers, however 155mm can't even do a thing to an AFK Clveland from 6-8 km range.

Btw, Cleveland has 152mm guns, not 155mm!

 

I once citadel hit a Baltimore from 8 km with the stock Mogami in this patch

[Coenraad]

Fyi i find the Cleveland has very good armor and is hard to citadel as the citadel is small.
Drove the Pensacola yesterday and those 203's did like 1k per shell hit(6k salvo's) with ap on a Nagato but that was close range and above the belt.
But as soon as he turned the sligtest the damage droped to 600 for a full broadside so swapped to HE again.

 

Edit. Generaly i allways use HE against BB's and DD and AP vs cruisers only if the angle is good. 

[Kruzenstern]

In cruisers I actually get more citadel hits from HE than I do from AP these days. Seems totally borked. Just like the OP, clean shots against a straighlining target like the Cleveland from any 203mm gun cruiser, at very close range, they even all hit where I want them to and where before I would get 2-3 Citadel hits, now I get zilch. Same with BBs, even the occasional lucky plunging hit at 18km that used to rape any cruiser unlucky enough to be the victim now does 736 damage...

 

Something does seem to be amiss here...

 

All the while HE does pretty damn reliable damage to everything.

[Fansadox]

AP is not working properly at the moment. I use HE on my Destroyers and Cruisers exclusive. The only ships i use AP on are my Battleships and even then really good hits that you see landing on Citadel just do 0 damage.

 

So my advice keep using HE until they fix AP shells

[Coyotee]

Yeh same experience, AP, is borked and not just the 152 mm  and 203 mm, even the BB guns are dreadfull with AP at the moment. This week I managed a 8-10 hit broadside to broadside with a montana on a baltimore from around 7 km away doing 5 k dmg or less. And a minute later you 1 shot a CA who is angled at 12 km with 1 AP hit.  Only reliable way to do dmg now is HE on any ship in any situation. Switch to AP is just a gamble in any situation right now, way too unpredictable compared to the effectiveness and reliability of HE shells.

[Vaderan]

Alrright, thanks a lot for the answers so far! i really was doubting my skills (or mind). During CAT i used to explain AP mechanics to other players/newcomers, but these days, i obviously require aid myself.

I totally go with those who claim HE more efficient these days, at least, with DDs and CAs! During my tests, i had a friend with me in similar vessels, shooting HE only. He did twice to four times the damage with HE and fire, compared to my AP attempts.

Well, it´s still beta, and it´s up to us to test these mechanics. I just jope, WG gets this worked out properly.

 

My personal conclusion of this is: there is no real armor penetration system. At least none like we know it from WoT, with overmatching armor and stuff.

[Tin_Can_Terror]

I don't understand Wargaming's aversion to giving us details on the armour and penetration mechanics. In the recent mini patch they removed all information about the actual figures for ship armour and they still do not publish any penetration stats for the different caliber guns. Surely it wouldn't break the game to be more certain  when you don't have a hope of penetrating with AP or are overpenning because on some of the lighter cruisers it is had to know which is happening.

[Wischmob_von_Eimer]

HE is also a more reliable damage source for BB.

 

You wont get these 20k Citadel hits but you will do constant damage and can actually caulculate if you can kill someone in one salvo or not.

[Bl4ckh0g]

I don't understand Wargaming's aversion to giving us details on the armour and penetration mechanics. In the recent mini patch they removed all information about the actual figures for ship armour and they still do not publish any penetration stats for the different caliber guns. Surely it wouldn't break the game to be more certain  when you don't have a hope of penetrating with AP or are overpenning because on some of the lighter cruisers it is had to know which is happening.

 

Mostly because you'd need an entire ingame encyclopedia for giving every ship's armor layout with the gun's penetration at various ranges 

[Wischmob_von_Eimer]

 

Mostly because you'd need an entire ingame encyclopedia for giving every ship's armor layout with the gun's penetration at various ranges 

 

Same would go for WoT, but somehow they managed to give you the informations ingame.

 

Go figure, could be wizardry or advanced techno magic, right?

[Bl4ckh0g]

 

Same would go for WoT, but somehow they managed to give you the informations ingame.

 

Go figure, could be wizardry or advanced techno magic, right?

 

a ship's armor layout is a hundred times more complex than a tank's, and the gun's armor penetration is changing by hundreds of millimeters over distance not 10 or 15 as in WoT 

Here:

[Wischmob_von_Eimer]

Just because you dont know how to implement the information you think it is impossible, right?

 

 

Complexity does not result in impossibility.

[Bl4ckh0g]

Just because you dont know how to implement the information you think it is impossible, right?

 

 

Complexity does not result in impossibility.

Who said anything about impossibility?

You can implement it without problems,

It would just take half a dozen people and a couple of months

[Wischmob_von_Eimer]

This was a joke, right?

 

You cant in any way possible think that way, right?

[Djerin]

Who said anything about impossibility?

You can implement it without problems,

It would just take half a dozen people and a couple of months

 

If what they said and wrote is true, than they alread have armor layouts implemented. They just don't tell us how the armor layouts actually look like. If I understood it right that was what tin can terror complained about.

[Bl4ckh0g]

This was a joke, right?

 

You cant in any way possible think that way, right?

 

Creating proper illustrations about the armor layout of every in game ship with different cross-sections with the armor quality of course not just the pure thickness

Then making a penetration chart about every gun in game with a resolution of around 1-2 km with deck and belt penetration

proofreading the whole thing

implementing into the game

creating a user interface that can support this

debugging and testing that interface

 

and this isn't even considering the angling and the penetration loss and decap effect of the shells when they penetrate different layers of armors...

 

 

And this is just something too read, note even a tank inspector like model viewer 

[Wischmob_von_Eimer]

But they dont tell you about this kind of stuff in WoT either, yet they can provide you with penetration at 100m and armorthickness.

 

And if you look at tanks with spaced armor or the superpershing you somehow realize that they somehow managed to still give you ome values you can use.

 

Btw, tracks of tanks work as additional spaced armor.

[Wischmob_von_Eimer]

 

Creating proper illustrations about the armor layout of every in game ship with different cross-sections with the armor quality of course not just the pure thickness

 

Why the hell would you need propper illustrations of armor layouts of the inside of a ship?

 

Hell, you cant even aim at single windows even at <1km, so why the hell do you want the ultimate precission in armor layouts when the dispersion of your guns is measured in footballfields?

[KurumizawaR]

i personally find it hard to get citadell hits on japanese BB since the patch, but on american BB i get them 2 out of 4 salvos - depending on the range ofc and done with another BB

for the 155 Guns i only use HE in my mogami for everything BUT an other mogami, somehow the 155 AP seems to be able to hit citadells there (or i am just lucky dunno, but seems to work consistently)

considering the current "HE meta" i did not mount the 203mm guns on the mogami and can hence not tell how the AP works there, but from experience inside it against other mogamis and also while sailing in a BB, i can tell that AP citadell pen happens rarely with those guns, just alot of "clonk" sounds

so yeah AP needs a bit tweaking around and HE needs a slight rebalance

 

and to the last posts, yeah we kinda need a statistic for armor values and layout atm, since they removed the old ones - we know nothing atm^^

[Bl4ckh0g]

But they dont tell you about this kind of stuff in WoT either, yet they can provide you with penetration at 100m and armorthickness.

 

And if you look at tanks with spaced armor or the superpershing you somehow realize that they somehow managed to still give you ome values you can use.

 

Btw, tracks of tanks work as additional spaced armor.

 

yes because a shell in Wot at max lose 10 or 5 mm of penetration and has to penetrate one layers of armor with sometimes spaced armor

A 406 mm shell loses two thirds of It's penetration from 20 km and then has to penetrate 4 or 5 layers of armor....

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_14-45_mk1.htm here have a look at the New York's penetration 

 

Why the hell would you need propper illustrations of armor layouts of the inside of a ship?

 

Hell, you cant even aim at single windows even at <1km, so why the hell do you want the ultimate precission in armor layouts when the dispersion of your guns is measured in footballfields?

 

because a ship doesn't just have one layer of armor throughout the whole ship, that's why they removed the armor stats from in game because they were useless...

 

[Djerin]

Dude we know all that. What don't know is how WG designed the armor layouts. that's what we want to know. We don't need someone to tell us, that BB armor layouts are complicated.

[Bl4ckh0g]

Dude we know all that. What don't know is how WG designed the armor layouts. that's what we want to know. We don't need someone to tell us, that BB armor layouts are complicated.

 

 

North Carolina and Washington incorporated "all or nothing" armor which weighed 41% of the total displacement; it consisted of an "armored raft" that extended from just forward of the first gun turret to just aft of the rear gun turret. They had a main armored belt that was 12-inch (300 mm) thick amidships, inclined at 15°, and backed by 0.75-inch (19 mm) Special Treatment Steel (STS). This tapered down to 6-inch (150 mm) on the lower edge of the belt. The ships had three armored decks; the main deck was 1.45-inch (37 mm) thick, the second, thickest deck was 5-inch (130 mm), and the third and thinnest deck was 0.62-inch (16 mm) thick. The first deck was designed to cause delay-fuzed projectiles to detonate, while the thicker second belt would protect the ships' internals. The third deck was intended to protect against shell splinters that might have penetrated the second deck; it also acted as the upper support for the torpedo bulkheads. The conning tower was connected to the armored citadel by a 14-inch (360 mm) thick communications tube. Armor thickness for the conning tower itself ranged from 16 inches (410 mm) on both sides to 14.7 inches (370 mm) on the front and rear. The roof was 7 inches (180 mm) thick and the bottom was 3.9 inches (99 mm) thick.^[46][47]

The main battery turrets were heavily armored: the turret faces were 16-inch (410 mm) thick, the sides were 9-inch (230 mm) thick, the rear sides were 11.8-inch (300 mm) thick, and the roofs were 7-inch (180 mm) thick. 16-inch-thick (410 mm) armor was the maximum width factories were able to produce at the time of the ships' design; by 1939, however, it was possible to create 18 in-thick plates. These were not installed because it was estimated that the conversion would delay completion of the ships by 6 to 8 months. The barbettes that held the turrets were also strongly protected. The front portion was 14.7 inches (370 mm), the sides increased to 16 inches (410 mm), and the rear portion reduced to 11.5-inch (290 mm). The 5-inch gun turrets, along with their ammunition magazines, were armored with 1.95-inch (50 mm) STS plates.^[48]

The side protection system incorporated five compartments divided by torpedo bulkheads and a large anti-torpedo bulge that ran the length of the "armored raft". The outer two compartments, the innermost compartment and the bulge would remain empty, while the third and fourth compartments would be filled with liquid. The system was reduced in depth at either end by the forward and rear gun turrets. In these areas, the fifth compartment was deleted; instead, there was an outer empty compartment and two liquid-filled spaces, backed by another empty compartment. To compensate for the reduced underwater protection system, these sections received additional armor plating, up to 3.75-inch (95 mm) in thickness. The complete system was designed to withstand warheads of up to 700 lb (320 kg) of TNT. Underwater protection was rounded out by a triple bottom that was 5.75 ft (1.75 m) deep. The bottom layer was 3 ft (0.91 m) thick and was kept filled with fluid, while the upper 2.75-foot (0.84 m) thick layer was kept empty. The triple bottom was also heavily subdivided to prevent catastrophic flooding should the upper layer be penetrated

 

Here, the North Carolina's armor

I get it from Wikipedia. It's on the internet.

If WG wants to implement this then they either give you a nice reading like this.

Or make a multi layered model of the ship's armor layout, which takes considerable time to make.

 

So If you want to know the ship's armor, then there's the internet. If you want to know how's that armor looks like on the ship, then you will have to wait until they implement it because they sure as hell not gonna give you a novel sized description on every ship's armor layout.

and implementing takes time and resources, time and resources that can be used for making the game better.

 

This game is far more complex than WoT and it takes way more time to implement things here.