Sure, here's the text with all
whitespaces removed after each line: Hello and welcome to the tank
ammo guide for War Thunder. In this video, I’ll be explaining all the
different types of shells in the game. From the shrapnel shell all the
way to the different ATGM types, I’ll be giving detailed explanations
along with visual guides to help you understand each
tank shell in the game. The shells can be split up into 2 basic
groups: Kinetic Energy and Chemical Energy. Kinetic energy shells rely on mass and
velocity to penetrate the enemy armor. The heavier and faster the shell,
the more armor it can penetrate. Kinetic energy shells can
be split up into 3 groups: solid AP rounds, high explosive-filled
AP rounds and sub-caliber AP rounds. First up are solid armor-piercing rounds, the
most basic type of ammunition. These rounds go straight into a plate of armor, penetrate it, and
go as far as it can until it runs out of velocity. Knowing where to aim is key with
these shells, since they have no post-penetration effects besides spalling,
which means the fragmentation of armor. This simple design has three additional
variants, namely armor-piercing capped, armor-piercing ballistic capped, and
armor-piercing capped ballistic capped. These three are your run-of-the-mill AP shells,
but with caps that improve their performances. The APC round features a nose
cone made out of a softer metal. This serves two purposes: to transfer the impact
shock away from the tip to prevent shattering, and to improve its penetration on angled armor.
Because the cap is made out of a softer metal, it’ll deform once it reaches armor, leading
to the shell rotating to a smaller angle. This process is called “normalizing”.
While the nose cone has its benefits, it will also decrease the shell’s velocity, so
it’s best to use it at close to medium distances. Conversely, the ballistic cap on the APBC
shell focuses on improving velocity by making it more aerodynamic.
This leads to better performance over long distances.
The cap collapses once it reaches armor, so it doesn’t help with penetration directly.
If you can’t choose between the two, there’s also a third option: APCBC.
Like the name suggests, the armor-piercing capped ballistic capped shell combines the nose cone of
the APC, and the ballistic cap of the APBC shell. This leads to both increased velocity as
well as better performances on angled armor, making the APCBC shell very effective.
In summary: a basic solid steel shot, an AP shell with a nose cone to help against
angled armor, an AP shell with a ballistic cap to improve its velocity, and an AP shell
with both a nose cone and a ballistic cap. Next up are high-explosive-filled
armor-piercing rounds. As you’d expect, these are AP shells
with explosive filler on the inside. After the round penetrates armor, a
timed fuse activates the explosives, which results in a lot of internal damage.
Because the shells contain this filler though, the penetrating capabilities are slightly
lowered, although the explosive factor more than makes up for that.
There are four types of APHE shells: APHE, APHEC, APHEBC, and APHECBC.
Much like AP, these four only differ in their caps, with APHECBC being the best overall round.
Besides the four conventional APHE rounds, there’s also the anti-concrete, or AC shell.
Like the name suggests, AC was designed as an anti-emplacement round to be used against
fortifications like pillboxes or bunkers. It’s pretty much the same as a regular APHE
shell, but with much more explosive filler, leading to a lot more shrapnel and
a higher chance of overpressure. In summary: an armor piercing round that
blows up after penetrating a tank, APHE that performs better against angled armor, APHE with
improved ballistics, APHE that’s good against angled armor and has better ballistics, and a
big APHE shell with lots of explosive filler. Next up is the semi-armor piercing shell.
SAP is a round featured on naval cannons and howitzers, and is a mix
between APHE and regular HE. Compared to APHE, the outer casing of
the shell is thinner, and compared to HE, there’s less explosive filler.
While that may sound bad, these shells are usually quite large in caliber,
so penetration values aren’t too important. SAP also has a couple variants
like SAPBC, SAPCBC and so on. To learn more about this shell, check out
my naval ammo guide, link in description. The next one is a bit of an
oddball, namely the shrapnel shell. The round features a thin metal
casing surrounding a whole bunch of metal balls as well as a detonator at the rear.
Once the detonator activates, the cap flies off, and the balls are released inside the target,
leading to fragmentation, or shrapnel if you will. Because the interior is filled with the
shrapnel components instead of structural steel, the shell can’t penetrate much armor, which
makes it ineffective against armored targets. If it does manage to penetrate
though, it can cause a lot of damage. And the final kinetic energy
shells are the sub-caliber rounds. Instead of the entire shell, these rounds
use small and dense cores as penetrators. Due to the size of the core, it can concentrate
all its force on a much smaller area, leading to a lot more penetration.
But because the core is so small, it can’t fit into a regular gun
barrel, hence the name “sub-caliber”. In order to compensate for the difference in
diameter, the shell needs a casing, or a “sabot”, which is made out of a much softer metal.
There’s also the issue of post-penetration; the tiny core just punches a hole in the armor and
goes through it, leading to almost no spalling. This means you need to aim
carefully while using these shells. There are three types of sub-caliber
rounds: armor-piercing composite rigid, armor-piercing discarding sabot, and
armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding-sabot. APCR is the most basic type of sub-caliber round.
Like I explained earlier, the hard core is surrounded by the softer sabot, which
travels with the core to the target. Upon impact, the sabot deforms, which
lets the core penetrate the target. Typically, the metal used for
APCR cores is tungsten carbide, which is a hard yet brittle material.
This is where “shattering” comes in; if the shell faces angled or too much armor, the
core will break apart into many little pieces. In short, avoid using APCR against angled armor.
APDS on the other hand, gets rid of its sabot after it leaves the barrel,
hence the name “discarding-sabot”. This leads to much better performance
in penetration and velocity. In comparison to APCR, the core is made out of
a tougher tungsten alloy instead of carbide, leading to less shattering against angled armor.
The final and strongest sub-caliber round is APFSDS.
Much like APDS, the shell discards its sabot after being fired.
Unlike APDS though, APFSDS is quite long, which leads to much better post-penetration effects.
It also features fins on the back of the shell for better long-distance performance.
Older shells like AP, APCR, APDS and so on
are usually fired from rifled cannons, which means they start spinning
as they’re being fired. This method, known as spin-stabilization,
helps stabilize shorter rounds over long distances, preventing them from
tumbling or veering off-course. The longer the shell though, the
faster it needs to spin to stay stable, and for really long shells like APFSDS,
that speed is almost impossible to reach. So instead, these longer shells use
fins to give it the same stabilization, hence the name “fin-stabilized”.
Anyway, long explanation over, back to War Thunder.
In-game, the discarded sabot of APFSDS, which are called “sabot
petals”, can also damage enemy vehicles. While they’re not very powerful, they
can still be sorta useful in some cases. In summary: small and dense shell surrounded
by a soft casing, a faster APCR that gets rid of its casing, and a longer APDS that can
travel further and cause more spalling. Up next are the chemical energy shells.
Instead of relying on mass and velocity, these shells use chemical reactions to penetrate armor.
Since velocity isn’t a factor with these shells, they have the same penetration
values over all distances. But since they rely on those methods, they’ll
detonate when they come in contact with anything, so you need to watch out for trees,
fences and other objects in the way. Certain tanks also feature spaced,
explosive-reactive, composite and other armor types to counteract these shells,
so you’ll need to watch out for those as well. There are 3 main types of chemical
energy shells: high explosive, high explosive anti-tank, and guided missiles.
First up in the list of chemical energy shells is the high-explosive round and all its variants.
HE is about as simple as it gets, when it comes in contact with anything, it blows up, leading
to shrapnel flying all around the place. As you’d expect, the shell has
almost no penetrative capabilities, so it’s best used against lightly
armored or exposed parts of vehicles. It can also be effective if you fire it at a
turret; the shrapnel can find its way to the top of the hull, which is usually not very armored.
If it’s fired from a large caliber gun though, it can deal significantly more
damage, due to overpressure and the sheer amount of explosive filler.
Overpressure is the result of the explosion’s shockwave compressing the air, by the way.
This compression can cause serious damage to both humans and objects, which makes it quite effective
against tanks, but only if it’s powerful enough. High-explosive also has a couple variants,
starting with high-explosive time fuse. The HE-TF shell features a timed fuse,
which detonates after a set distance. You can set this distance
by using your rangefinder. In real life, this shell was designed for
flak cannons to be used against aircraft. It’s pretty much useless in-game though, since
rangefinding a moving plane is quite difficult. A more modern variant of HE-TF is
high-explosive variable time fuse. The HE-VT shell also blows
up after a set distance, but this time, that distance isn’t predetermined.
Instead, the shell itself has a proximity sensor that automatically detects enemies near it.
This can be extremely useful against aircraft, since all you need to do is fire
the shell close to the target. Against tanks though, not so much.
A more obscure shell is the high-explosive grenade.
This round was specially designed to be fired from recoilless rifles.
Due to their unconventional charges, their velocity is usually pretty
bad, so they can’t travel too far. When they come in contact with a
target, they perform essentially the same as a high-explosive round though
Speaking of, the next shell is the anti-personnel fragmentation grenade.
The VOG, which is a Russian acronym for “fragmentation grenade round”, was
designed to be used against infantry. Think of it like a very
powerful machine gun round. A couple bursts can take out tracks,
barrels, exposed parts of vehicles, and can clear terrain elements like bushes or trees
And the final high-explosive shell is the rocket. A rocket is basically an unguided
self-propelled high-explosive round, which usually holds a lot of explosive filler.
They are pretty inaccurate though, and their effects are usually minimal,
only damaging the gun barrel or the tracks. If the target is lightly armored or if
it’s a large caliber rocket however, the enemy can go down in a single hit.
In summary: a round that blows up when it comes in contact with a target, an HE round
that blows up after a set distance, an HE round that blows up when it detects something near it, a
low-velocity HE round, a smaller and less powerful HE round, and an unguided self-propelled HE round.
Next up is the high-explosive squash head round. HESH is one of the more unique shells in
the game; instead of penetrating armor, it uses the enemy’s armor against itself.
When it comes in contact with a target, the plastic explosive tip of the round squishes
onto the armor, hence the name “squash head”. Afterwards, the same plastic explosive detonates,
causing a shockwave to go through the armor. This leads to the surface on the
inside to rupture, sending pieces of metal shards inside the tank at high speeds.
Theoretically, BESH can be quite destructive, but in-game it’s pretty lackluster,
unless it’s a really large caliber round. Following HESH is high-explosive
anti-tank, another interesting round. HEAT rounds are designed with a couple key
components; namely an explosive charge, a detonator, and a cone-shaped metal
liner, which is usually made of copper. When the round comes in contact with
a target, the explosives detonate, which causes the liner to collapse into
an extremely high-velocity jet of metal. This jet is focused through the tip
of the round and into the target. When the jet comes in contact with the
armor, it acts as a kinetic penetrator, and thanks to its incredibly high velocity,
it can chew through a lot of metal. The drawback to this design however, is
that the jet of metal is focused on a very small area with not much spalling,
so you’ll have to know where to aim. Like high-explosive, HEAT also has a
couple of variants, starting with HEATFS. High-explosive anti-tank fin-stabilized
is a more modern HEAT round, using better penetrative chemicals and
having fins at the back of the shell. Similar to APFSDS, the fins
exist to compensate for the smoothbore cannons featured on modern MBTs.
On regular HEAT shells, spinning is actually counterintuitive; the shaped charge tries to focus
the jet into a small area, but if the round spins, the jet will spread around more, leading
to less force and thus less penetration. Thanks to smoothbore cannons, all of this can be
avoided, and the fins on the back of HEATFS can help stabilize the shell while traveling.
Next up is a pretty obscure round, namely high-explosive anti-tank, multi-purpose.
HEAT MP rounds are just HEATFS rounds with a proximity fuse.
Unlike HE-VT though, the proximity fuse only detonates above
a specific altitude, so you can still use it as a HEATFS round against ground targets.
If you pair it with your laser rangefinder, it can be pretty useful to
shoot down helicopters and such. And the last HEAT variant is the HEAT grenade.
Like the high-explosive grenade, these rounds are specially designed
to be fired from recoilless rifles. Due to their low muzzle velocity,
they can’t travel very far. But at close range, they’re as effective
as your run-of-the-mill HEAT round. In summary: a round that sends a jet
of very fast metal through a tank, a modern HEAT round, a HEATFS round with a
proximity sensor that activates in the sky, and a low-velocity HEAT round.
The last major group is the anti-tank guided missile with all its variants.
In-game, the most basic type of ATGM is essentially a rocket-propelled
HEAT round that you can control. The type of control or the “guidance”
of these missiles can be quite varied, so let’s go over those now.
First up is manual command to line of sight, or MCLOS.
This is the most primitive type of guidance; you have to guide the missile yourself
using either your keyboard or your gamepad. Next is semi-automatic command
to line of sight, or SACLOS. Instead of constantly guiding the missile,
all you need to do is point your crosshair at the target, and it will guide itself towards it.
And the last guidance system is fire-and-forget. After locking a target, information like
coordinates, velocity or the infrared image of the enemy is programmed into the missile.
After launching, you don’t have to guide it or even look at the target, so you can
quite literally forget about the enemy. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s
take a look at the variants of the ATGM. The first variant is the ATGM overfly top attack.
Instead of flying directly towards the target, the ATGM-OTA first gains some altitude,
and then descends to hit the target’s roof, where the armor is usually weakest.
Next up is the proximity fuse ATGM, or ATGM-VT. This missile does what you’d expect; you
guide it towards a target, and it blows up when it detects an enemy near it.
It’s quite useful against air targets. The next guided missile is a pretty
interesting one, namely the tandem charge ATGM. This missile uses a twin-stage warhead to
overcome explosive reactive armor, or ERA. When the first warhead comes
in contact with the target, it blows up, clearing any ERA
that may stand in its path. This opens the way for the second warhead to come
in direct contact with the armor of the target. Next is a pretty simple one,
namely the high explosive ATGM. Instead of a shaped HEAT charge, these
missiles just use explosive filler. This means it’s pretty much just
a rocket that you can control. In the same fashion is ATGM-AP, or armor piercing.
This round isn’t technically classified in-game, but I thought I’d include it nevertheless.
ATGM-AP is a rocket-propelled kinetic penetrator, which penetrates more armor
the further it travels. Think of it like a really big APFSDS round.
When it’s first launched, it’s quite slow, but after it gains some speed,
it can be quite destructive. Currently, it’s only featured on the LOSAT, but
it might be added to other vehicles in the future. And the last guided missile
is the surface-to-air one. The SAM is a proximity-fuse fire-and-forget
missile designed purely for anti-air purposes. All you need to do is lock the target and launch.
SAMs include a variety of different missile types, from heat-seeking to radar-guided and many more.
I go into deeper detail about the different types of anti-air missiles in my AAM guide, so check
that out if you want some more information. In summary: a rocket-propelled HEAT round that
you can control, an ATGM that flies toward the top of a target after gaining altitude, an ATGM
that blows up when it detects something near it, an ATGM with two warheads to overcome ERA, a
rocket-propelled HE round that you can control, a big rocket-propelled AP round that
you can control, and an anti-air missile that guides itself.
And the very last round we’ll be talking about is the smoke shell.
This round, unlike all the others we’ve mentioned, is not for anti-vehicle purposes.
Instead, you can use it to conceal your position or mess with your enemies.
Some strategies include firing it close to your location, firing it somewhere you’ll
be going, or firing it at your enemies. The smoke lasts about 20 seconds, which is
plenty of time if you use them correctly. And that about covers it.
I hope you enjoyed the video! I wanna thank everybody for
fifty thousand subscribers. When I released the first couple Tank Ammo guides, I didn’t expect it to explode in views
like that, but look at the channel now. This time I did much more research
on how the shells actually work, so I hope you understood the shells.
I even had to learn Blender from scratch, and while the animations are a bit choppy
at times, I still put my best into them. If you have any questions or you noticed something
wrong about the video, please leave a comment. Other than that, thanks for
watching and happy April Fools. <3
