Bismarck's armour scheme might not be as OP as expected

her mast and flag where still standing before she sunk fun fact

Like hundreds of niche mechanics that can be introduced to naval, developers know about them and will consider adding them when appropriate/have enough resources

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all right one more question what formula do you guys use for gun penetration
i found this and was curious if its good ? at 0 m ingame right now it says that pen is 701mm and this says 742mm ? for her AP shell

Spoiler
Range Side Armor Deck Armor
0 yards (0 m) 29.23" (742 mm)
5,000 yards (4,572 m) 24.26" (616 mm) 0.76" (19.3 mm)
19,685 yards (18,000 m) 16.50" (419 mm) 2.96" (75.0 mm)
24,060 yards (22,000 m) 15.49" (393 mm) 4.15" (104 mm)
29,528 yards (27,000 m) 11.98" (304 mm) 5.02" (126 mm)

The above information is from “Battleships: Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II” for a muzzle velocity of 2,690 fps (820 mps) and is based upon the USN Empirical Formula for Armor Penetration.

Range Side Armor Deck Armor
10,936 yards (10,000 m) 20.08" (510 mm)
21,872 yards (20,000 m) 14.33" (364 mm)
22,966 yards (21,000 m) 13.78" (350 mm)
27,340 yards (25,000 m) 12.13" (308 mm)
32,808 yards (30,000 m) about 4.70" (120 mm)
38,276 yards (35,000 m) about 6.69" (170 mm)

The above information is from “German Capital Ships of World War Two” for a muzzle velocity of 2,690 fps (820 mps) and is based upon German face-hardened (side) and homogeneous (deck) armor penetration curves.

Mount/Turret Data

Germany 38 cm (14.96") SK C/34 - NavWeaps

There’s no secret. The method has been applied to every shell since the formula was introduced to the game 6 years ago: [Development] Improved Calculation of Armour Penetration in the game - News - War Thunder

Penetration is calculated by the calibre, mass, speed of the projectile (which closely matches historical range table since the new calculation method of air resistance introduced in 2.45 update), and bursting charge. No other factors are considered except presence of the cap for APC/APCBC vs AP/APBC

This method is not perfect, but it’s consistent. We are aware that it generally underestimates all high calibre naval AP shells by roughly 20% globally but again this is for everyone, not for Germany only.

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ok cool thanks that makes sense

Damn that would make every battleship paper vs its own ammo and other ships of the same BR? or did i get something wrong. would that be realistic?

It’s a very complicated topic, I have been discussing with developers about potential changes to the penetration formula that can make it more closely matching real life data, but I have yet to come up with an idea that won’t get something borked or making it too complicated.

Especially considering the map we we have rn are extremely small for modern battleship engagement, I feel like the current formula strikes a wicked balance between realism and fun gameplay

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remove coastal spawns from the map make dedicated maps for naval past hits beyond 11 miles in naval combat where rare at that range you where not hitting at that range with accaurcy most engaugments started doing actual damage within 10 miles its 50/50 past that

Yeah with 20% stronger shells i feel like it would be an absolute mess. Ships arguably sink too fast already and take damage/explode too easily for my liking (especially on the tiny maps, in ec it feels much better), but 20% pen more makes any ships armor basically pointless even at range maybe except for extremely sharp angles (but then you wouldnt shoot through their belts but just the bow/icebreaker and the front bulkhead which is already usually a oneshot or at least front magazines/shell rooms explosion.

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Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-364-2314-16A,_Atlantikwall,Batterie__Lindemann
Screenshot 2025-05-31 044339


unnamed

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Bismark also has WRONG main gun penetration ,

Data about 38cm C/34 penetration numbers for 38cm AP shell.

check Page 497.

should be 742mm penetration instead of 701mm in 0 Meters

there is enough information about being 742mm penetration at 0meters

This gun had a lot of pressure

Book: Battleships : axis and neutral battleships in World War II : Garzke, William H : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
Title: Battleships : axis and neutral battleships in World War II
Page: 497
publication date: 1985
ISBN: 0870211013
Author or organisation: Garzke, William H
Battleships : axis and neutral battleships in World War II

Confirmed by other sources Like here:
Germany 38 cm/52 (14.96") SK C/34 → 742mm

and here: (this link has multiple references and ISBN)
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNGER_15-52_skc34.php

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formula is different thats why its every boat

Every single ship is underperforming in Pen. but this is probably better as we have tiny maps for naval

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Would u mind taking a look at this table, please?

Other nations are a bit on the spot with penetration like 406mm from LOWA and Yamato.
German penetration with Bismark is a bit lagging by 10%

Iowa’s Mk 8 Mod 6 is also underperforming significantly compared to real life trial data. People tend to think USN empirical formula or some other derived formula as more “realistic” than Gaijin’s, but they are not. The USN empirical formula is almost as inaccurate as gaijin’s formula when estimating most of post 1940 AP shells including American’s own.

I would like to debunk the myth that “switch to USN empirical formula and we will have historical shell performance in game”. The nature of penetration formulae is nowhere near “realistic” because these mathematical derived concepts are meant to be consistent, whereas the nature of shell vs armour in real life is inconsistency. The formulae were used in estimating armour and shell performance only to determine the relative chance against each other, and one should never consider any of those as “bible” that can be fully trusted in any context.

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Ingame we don’t see penetration at 0km. 701mm is at 1000m. WT formula at 0km shows 724mm pen.
A bit closer to IRL numbers

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This is what I see:

image

In fact, all formulas are inaccurate, and the practice of any formula needs to be corrected through live-fire target shooting. And this is precisely what GAIJIN is lacking.

yes, 701mm at 1000m, not 0m

1500m after that the shell is already at 666mm, so the 724mm at 0m mentionned by @_Betty, even considering a non linear loss of penetration, seems reasonable

I think Gaijin uses the Jacob de Marre formula or a derivative, you can calculate it there if you have the shells spec :

(don’t forget to click the APCBC box)

It’s still a 18mm difference compared to the claimed 742, but let’s face it, 18mm isn’t going to change much in a battle anyway, it’s in the acceptable margin of error, shall we say (all battleships suffer from this to various degrees)

EDIT : did the check again, when applying the shells stats using the formula, we get this :
image

724mm, as stated earlier

Yeah,
However, let’s face it, it falls short compared to other countries.
Especially Japan, USA, and Russia, we would also like to see H Class so Germany can fight against Lowa, Soyuz (which was also never materialized), and Japan.

The document I provided is based on True data.
It also means that Japan, USA, and Soyuz are a bit OP, if you consider 0Meters penetration from the DOCS.

REAL PENETRATION DATA
Soyuz at 0 Meters = 829 mm ( I will assume equal to USA)
Lowa at 0 Meters = 829mm
Bismark at 0 Meters = 742 mm
Yamato at 0 Meters = 864 mm

WARTHUNDER PENETRATION DATA
Soyuz at 0 Meters? = 843.47 mm
Lowa at 0 Meters = 884.07 mm
Bismarck at 0 Meters = 724.5 mm
Yamato at 0 Meters = 888.22 mm

It would be a minor adjustment, here and there, + ou - so it could make it a bit more proportional

That makes:

Soyuz → Around 884,078 - 829mm = 55mm OP
Lowa → Around 884,078 - 829mm = 55mm OP
Bismark → Around 742 - 722mm = 18mm Underpowered
Yamato → Around 888-864 = 22mm OP