Skill issue.
The Conq uses carbide APDS, which is utter dogshit.
Try using the Vickers or the Cent Mk 10.
You fool, Vickers Mark 1 and Centurions L28 shot is Tungsten Carbide too. The only not Tungsten Carbide APDS shots are L52 and L15.
They have alloy cap. And modelled as alloy penetrators.
Compared to fully carbide penetrators, they have less flat pen but more angle pen, deal more damage, and shatter less.
They are not modeled as alloy penetrators. They have shattering problems as well, but lesser ones.
They shatter very rarely. Shatter the same as fully alloy penetrators, like the one on the Chieftains. And as i said, they deal more damage, and have batter angle pen with less flat pen.
Fully alloy penetrators are not capable of shattering in the first place. Again, stuff like 105 mm L28 does.
L28 might have better slope pen than earlier APDS designs, but fully alloy APDS has even better slope performance.
Yet with the american APDS, i have seen it shatter a few times. As well as the ones on the Chieftains.
These are the lines that determine how APDS loses penetration with air gaps and multiple plates of armor. This specific example comes from 105 mm M392 APDS which is a licensed version of L28.
Fully alloy APDS like 105 mm M728, m/66, and 120 mm L15 simply do not have these lines of code.
Just aim better
They still act like full alloy. They shatter yes, but extremely rarely (EDIT: just like full alloy ones), and have good angle pen, tho (EDIT: a bit) less.
Ok so they seem to have changed how the APDS/APCR “new” shatter mechanic
works since last I checked? As previously you could very easily see how broken it was by aiming L1G or L28 at Elefants front hull plate and it showed that two laminate pieces of 100mm armour ended up providing 400mm protection? I havn’t heard anyone mention this until now.
This is how the problem worked before but now this doesn’t seem to work like this.
And testing against actual spaced armour gives some strange results? Seemingly Tungsten Alloy Core L52 (M728) works worse than L28A1???
How “shattering” works right now is that tungsten carbide cored rounds lose additional penetration when going through multiple plates of armor and airgaps.
As this mechanic affects the penetration of the round rather than the actual effectiveness of the armor, protection analysis doesn’t take it into account. So you end up seeing moments where the armor protection falls well below the penetration of the projectile, yet it does not penetrate, such as the shot you’ve shown with the Elefant.
Actually seeing “shell shattered” show up on the hit cam is highly inconsistent. But for all intents and purposes, it’s just a fancy way of the game saying that the APDS/APCR has lost too much penetration to penetrate the target due to multiple stacked plates of armor and/or air gaps.
As mentioned, fully alloy APDS rounds do not have this mechanic modeled.
They only changed the carbide penetrators (EDIT: meaning, after the initial change), or at least that’s what i noticed.
They went from completly useless to usable, and again useless, then to somewhat useful a couple times.
They are better than they were (not just the one you mentioned, but a Conqueror was completly incapable of frontally penning a Panzer III M xd.
EDIT:
This was after they made it somewhat useful. After the initial patch, it literally could not pen it unangled, and the non spaced armor parts on the turret are so far from crew, that it took multiple shots to kill the gunner. Shooting the armor convering the transmission just resulted in destroying it, but no damage to the crew.
END EDIT.
Once i actually shattered on the side os a ZSU, that has 15mm RHA+2x4mm structural steel (as a storage box).
Meanwhile “carbide” APDS, like L28A1, even at the start just went through spaced armor like hot knife through butter (Elephant, Super Pershing, even MBT/KPZ-70), even if it was angled.
And don’t even talk about APCR, it is officially useless xd.
Which is strange, since i have shattered on a Tam mantlet and side (hitting front track wheel from side on) with Chieftain APDS.
How long ago though?
This newer mechanic for APDS shattering was only implemented halfway through last year.
Yes because APCR didn’t have shattering mechanics at first.
The mantlet was right after the (initial) change, the track one was ~1-2 months ago.
There was also one with the Vickers Mk 3, shattering on the APDS ammo rack from the side of a gepard or Marksman, i don’t remember which one. This was between the 2 i already mentioned.
There have been a couple more, i just don’t remember the details.
I understand how it worked on the change, and how it was toned down the patch afterwards (but still not working as intended), what I’m not sure of is what happened between now and then specifically. Shatter just is not a fun mechanic, the fact no one seems to know how it’s working now is a sign of bad game design.
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Not just that. 17pdr can barely pen a Panther upper plate, or Jumbo at point blank. That is even if it can pen at all. From patch to patch it has been changing. One patch you can somewhat pen it, other patch, you can’t. Currently, you can, but we will see what happens next patch.
Same is true for the 83mm APDS, and the Conq, VS Tiger 2 upper plate.
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