Are Armour Piercing Shells Too Effective?

[Userext]

Ahoy captains

 

   This isnt a usual whine thread. Actually this isnt even a whine thread.(This is SPARTAA! had to do it)

 

I am wondering if WG made AP too effective. Recently coming back to WoWs i played with 3 classes(DD,BB,CA). Ignoring battleships, firing AP with cruisers and destroyers felt like it was more rewarding(damage wise) In fact i started firing AP at battleships and cruisers in my destroyer because my high explosive shells werent doing damage at all. What i am fearing is the glorified days of AP back at CBT before armour fix. It certainly doesnt look like AP is going to be that succesfull anymore but HE feels useless again. I could be wrong of course. 

 

Please state your opinion without harming anyone.

[Vaderan]

The AP effectiveness is still very situational. Broadside on, even small calibres can do significant ammounts of damage, but as soon as the target is angled, even high calibre AP shells start to bounce on relatively soft targets.

Besides that, the question is: what do you consider effective? You might still score high damage citadell hits, if you hit the right spot, but aswell waste your broadsides on overpenetrations.

I personally consider BB AP shells increasingly inefficient, since they tend to basically overpenetrate everything except for citadells or semi tough armored spaces on BBs. CAs are always the gamble between citadell or overpenetration.

Cruisers and some DDs, however, seem to be more effective with AP. High rate of fire and average penetration allow for penetrating medicore armored spaces or cruiser citadells, and 203mm AP shells can even penetrate some BBs, if they come broadside on. On the other hand, HE always gives the chance of a fire or criticals, while it´s raw damage potential per shell seems inferior. However, a Cleveland hitting with 8+ HE shells still takes out juicy chunks out of any BB, CA or DD.

Anyway, with cruiser armor layouts reworked with the next patch, this question might to be reworked again within the next weeks.

[Aotearas]

The thing about AP vs HE is they both serve different design functions.

 

AP is supposed to be the damage dealer provided you penetrate.

HE is supposed to be alternative option for when you can't reliably penetrate (or not at all) and depending on your calibre vs the targets armour, even HE may not deal much dmage (if at all), but it can always damage and destroy modules and set fires.

 

There is also a delicate balance between the two if your AP is underperforming due to very low target armour. Like say shooting at unprotected CVs, AP shells that don't hit the citadel will overpenetrate, doing minimal damage. HE shells however won't, giving you higher consistent damage and depending on how weak the armour is, you can still get citadel penetrations even with HE (which is the reason why I stopped shooting AP at carriers below tier VIII).

[el_bloom]

I shot a salvo of AP from my ZAO on an enemy Yamato 16km away and to my surprise it did 17k ^^

[Ictogan]

I shot a salvo of AP from my ZAO on an enemy Yamato 16km away and to my surprise it did 17k ^^

 

People tend to underestimate the effect cruiser AP can have on broadside BBs.

[_x_Acheron_x_]

Why do I want to roll the RNG dice with AP every time I fire, when I can just spam HE, guranteed to get the same amount of damage as a none pen AP and bonus fire damage.

 

using AP is pointless.

[txtspeak]

gotta be honest, I never use HE unless im in a cleveland hunting destroyers or just in a destroyer, in any other cruiser or battleship I just spam AP

[Userext]

Besides that, the question is: what do you consider effective? 

 

Well yesterday or so i was in nicholas firing at wyoming. A full health wyoming at 6km range. 3 out of 4 shells hit, only 1 of them do damage and its 500 something. Even though 2-3 of those shells were hitting his upper deck olny 1 of them dealt damage and oly 500 damage. I switched to AP and i suddenly can penetrate upper deck armour enough to do 1k damage with each penetrating shot. It was weird considering HE didnt do much damage but AP did

[Ryuuteimaru]

I find AP MEH and can't be relied on and ships other than BB that rely on AP tend to be under performers, Example would be the Hipper which I am grinding now a ship you would think would do good damage due to AP but nope ship is garbage due to been relient on it.

[Cosseria]

AP is fine as it is, but I wish it was less tier dependent. I mean, a round from a Nagato 410 mm gun should smash any current T 8 BB with ease. 

[el_bloom]

 

Well yesterday or so i was in nicholas firing at wyoming. A full health wyoming at 6km range. 3 out of 4 shells hit, only 1 of them do damage and its 500 something. Even though 2-3 of those shells were hitting his upper deck olny 1 of them dealt damage and oly 500 damage. I switched to AP and i suddenly can penetrate upper deck armour enough to do 1k damage with each penetrating shot. It was weird considering HE didnt do much damage but AP did

 

This game definitely has its quirks

[Unintentional_submarine]

 

Well yesterday or so i was in nicholas firing at wyoming. A full health wyoming at 6km range. 3 out of 4 shells hit, only 1 of them do damage and its 500 something. Even though 2-3 of those shells were hitting his upper deck olny 1 of them dealt damage and oly 500 damage. I switched to AP and i suddenly can penetrate upper deck armour enough to do 1k damage with each penetrating shot. It was weird considering HE didnt do much damage but AP did

 

Wyoming has a few areas on it's upper hull and superstructure that are armoured enough that HE can't penetrate, but AP at a proper angle can. Also, while her main structural plating is 19mm and is thus penetrable by 127mm HE, her weather deck (the one out in the open) is 25mm and thus not penetrable by HE. Any HE that lands on her deck would only do splash damage to nearby modules (if any are nearby). Should an AP shell hit the same deck it will naturally ricochet due to the acute angle, but can then strike a potential nearby structure for damage. Hence sometimes AP looks like it is just better.

However, super structures are generally speaking not just one big flat surface and even something as thin as Wyoming's superstructure can still autobounce 127mm AP if the angle is acute enough.

Everything has a reason.

[Userext]

Everything has a reason.

 

 But its not just wyoming. That was just an example. Every BB i faced in the couple months i fired AP. HE just didnt do enough damage while AP did 1k to 3-4k. Of course nearly all my shots during this was plunging fire

[Mayv]

What AP?

 

USN 127mm/38 AP is very situational.

 

Why do I want to roll the RNG dice with AP every time I fire, when I can just spam HE, guranteed to get the same amount of damage as a none pen AP and bonus fire damage.

 

using AP is pointless.

 

There is no penetration (and damage) rolls in WoWS.

[Unintentional_submarine]

 

 But its not just wyoming. That was just an example. Every BB i faced in the couple months i fired AP. HE just didnt do enough damage while AP did 1k to 3-4k. Of course nearly all my shots during this was plunging fire

 

Well that's most likely down to the location of the hits. At some point DD HE can only hurt the superstructure and over time it simply gets depleted. That was part of the reason behind Iowa's strength back in the days just after release. Her superstructure and stern I think got depleted extremely fast, and could in fact get reduced to 0, so no damage was caused. Naturally that makes it hard to kill a ship when one of the main areas for damage is immune. But as I mentioned DD HE should always be focused on the superstructure, this includes the funnels. AP can hurt more areas in general, but is instead affected by angles.

 

HE = less penetration but isn't affected by angle of hit + causes fires

AP = more penetration, and often more damage per hit, but can bounce off plates HE will penetrate and will not cause any fires. Overpens are also a risk, but rather less so for a destroyer.

 

Thus it comes down to what the situation is. Harassment at long range, stick with HE for the most part, even if you hit the deck and main turrets, it is generally a lot better than seeing AP just bounce. At short ranges on a broadside, AP can work absolute wonders. If AP worked for you at long ranges, then you are likely to have been rather lucky. Because at longer ranges penetration is severely reduced and the end result is much like HE penetration, but without the fire chance nor the ignoring of the angles.

 

But at the end of the day, whichever works for you really. I can't really tell you that AP is wrong if you keep getting into situations where it does. I just know from my own games that AP is unreliable most of the time.

[Vaderan]

Well, one reason why low calibre shells (HE and AP) appear to be useless on BBs, is the reasont that they are not intended to do significant damage to a BB. Small HE shells on BBs are supposed to do module damage to AA guns and cause fires, while AP shells might be capable of penetrating lightly armored areas for more noticable damage.

It is possible, but it is not a generally given. Like it is the other way around with the big shells.

Plunging fire with small calibre guns is somewhat different aswell. Shell velocity decreases with distance to the target, and the lower the calibre, the bigger the loss. Again, ships with soft deck armor might suffer penetrating hits for damage, tougher deck will bounce them. In addition, especially at range, it is a gamble wether you hit the deck on a flat angle, or the superstructure at a ricochet angle.

[Gunship14]

 

Well that's most likely down to the location of the hits. At some point DD HE can only hurt the superstructure and over time it simply gets depleted. That was part of the reason behind Iowa's strength back in the days just after release. Her superstructure and stern I think got depleted extremely fast, and could in fact get reduced to 0, so no damage was caused. Naturally that makes it hard to kill a ship when one of the main areas for damage is immune. But as I mentioned DD HE should always be focused on the superstructure, this includes the funnels. AP can hurt more areas in general, but is instead affected by angles.

 

HE = less penetration but isn't affected by angle of hit + causes fires

AP = more penetration, and often more damage per hit, but can bounce off plates HE will penetrate and will not cause any fires. Overpens are also a risk, but rather less so for a destroyer.

 

Thus it comes down to what the situation is. Harassment at long range, stick with HE for the most part, even if you hit the deck and main turrets, it is generally a lot better than seeing AP just bounce. At short ranges on a broadside, AP can work absolute wonders. If AP worked for you at long ranges, then you are likely to have been rather lucky. Because at longer ranges penetration is severely reduced and the end result is much like HE penetration, but without the fire chance nor the ignoring of the angles.

 

But at the end of the day, whichever works for you really. I can't really tell you that AP is wrong if you keep getting into situations where it does. I just know from my own games that AP is unreliable most of the time.

Exactly this. At some point, people were telling me I should be using AP with the Budyonny 100% of the time. When I tried that, the damage I was dealing became about half of what I used to do when I mixed HE and AP. So, lesson learnt : There is no "just use this shell all the time". It's extremely dependant on the situation, the ships involved, the angles, the distance and all that.

[StringWitch]

I feel the problem with AP is relative inconsistency compared to HE. I'd like to see AP maximum damage lowered, with (over)penetrations dealing a higher percentage of the max damage, to make shooting feel more consistent and move away from BBs doing 2k on one salvo and 2 citadels for 25k on the next because of where dispersion happens to throw the shells, while neither increasing nor reducing the total amount of damage dealt over time. What I have in mind is for, say, an 8000 damage 12" shell to instead deal 6000 damage with penetrations dealing 50% and overpens 15-20% (instead of the current ~30% and 10%).

[simonmd]

Ahoy captains

 

   This isnt a usual whine thread. Actually this isnt even a whine thread.......

Of course not.....

 

...... out of curiosity, been citadeled much lately? 

[Orkel2]

AP is fine. HE is OP.

[AgarwaenME]

AP is fine. HE is OP.

 

Wow, they're really dredging the bottom for supertesters now...

[Userext]

Of course not.....

 

...... out of curiosity, been citadeled much lately? 

 

No, if you would read my answer to others you can clearly see my problem is about the receiver end not me.

[beercrazy]

AP is fine most of the time but the overpen damage needs a overhaul

HE can be overpowered when used with signals that give a higher percentage to start fires and adding the captain skill to that as well

 

why do he shells get the chance to be buffed by the extra option of fires but AP shells get no options to do more module damage is strange but hey that's wg for you

[Takeda92]

It depends on what AP you were firing. The Japanese has the worst AP for cruisers and destroyers in the game.

 

 

[AnotherDuck]

It depends on what AP you were firing. The Japanese has the worst AP for cruisers and destroyers in the game.

 

Well, the 203 mm AP shells aren't bad in the mid tiers. I find them somewhat reliable for citadels on other cruisers. HE is great for just about all Japanese ships, though.