Cannons doing too much damge

iegaatdao · June 5, 2026, 5:40pm

It should be yellow

YOU don’t want it to be yellow, you want all of it to be pew and kaboom

And is that UI issue should result in merging all damage into one? You never directly point out to cannon damage so far, only pilot health overperforming

Because it was photos like:

a Puff of smoke coming out of cockpit =
“Obviously the plane needed to explode and a kill given to me” and not “Pilot should be knocked out and a kill given to me”

30mm - 40mm calibers are fielded by

Italy, France, US, Japan, USSR, Sweden, Britain, China, israel and Germany

Look!, everyone fields a 30mm cannon at some point!

But if you want actual cannon fielded on WW2 era stuff.

Spoiler

Special shoutout to NS-23, almost as much explosive filler as 20mm Mine round, but flies a lot better and has a thicker case, meaning it would deal both concentrated blast damage and spread out fragmentation damage.
23 mm NS-23 cannon | Weaponry | War Thunder Wiki

PercussionCap · June 5, 2026, 6:28pm

Why should I not be rewarded with critical damage after shooting straight into their cockpit with cannons?

Likewise, YOU want it to be yellow because you want to be able to make mistakes, fly through people’s guns, and be just fine.

Because I think the damage is just fine. You make a mistake big enough, you get shot down for it.

Again, why do you think a hit directly into the cockpit, which has NO PROTECTION from that angle, should not be lethal or critical? Are we playing World Of Warplanes now, where I need to do enough damage to their hitpoints for a kill?

Potato tomato.

Most of these are quite terrible for the same reasons the MK108 is, with poor ballistics and ammo capacity. Very much unlike the MK103, Type 5, and Ho-155.

Others, like the BK 3.7 aren’t even on single engine fighters. Or even fighters at all. N-37, NS-37, and others aren’t suitable for use against fighters, despite otherwise boasting decent specs.

37mm M4 sucks with low ammo count, poor ballistics;
BK 3.7 is not on any fighters;
MK108 has very poor ballistics and low ammo count;
MK103 is on ONE fighter and it sucks;
N-37 and NS-37 suck against fighters, most useful against bombers and tanks;
Beaufighter has a TOTAL of just 28 shells and no other guns;
Ho-203 is similar to the M4 (in how much it sucks to use), but even worse;
Ho-204 is… decent, but far FAR worse than the good 30mm cannons and only present on one overweight interceptor;
Type 98 is literally a hand-loaded tank gun;
Ho-301’s shells are possibly THE slowest in any aircraft, and you only get 20 of them, split into two guns.

You also missed one, the MK101 on the event Bf 110 C-6. But while it makes for a decent fighter, you only get 60rds for it, and lose the MG FF/Ms.

The Type 5 is the only cannon here that is both on at least one decent fighter and doesn’t suck to use against other fighters. There is a chance we may get a Fw190 C or D variant/prototype with an MK103 in the future, but that would still be just one plane.
As for japan we may get an A6M3 with two Type 2 30mms, and a Ki-61 with two Ho-155s; the premium J2M5 may someday get its 20mm cannons as well. As you said, japan IS an outlier… because they put these high-velocity 30mm cannons on more fighters than anyone else.

All that aside. Most aircraft have zero protection on the side of the cockpit. I don’t care if the pilot dies or if they explode into a dozen pieces. It should do… SOMETHING. Pre-Realshatter with the fragmentation model you like so much, that would have 100% been a kill.

Loofah · June 5, 2026, 7:02pm

FeetPics 2.0, lmao.

If you bothered to read this topic and educate yourself, instead of trying to get me banned by acting like that, you’d know that very large part of kinetic energy of fragments is residual speed of the shell, which is also why normal fragmentation pattern is conical.
In other words - Hispano HE shell at short range should be more devastating than at long range.
And even at short range that shell had very low chance to do what it did.

And regarding 0 damage cockpit shots etc.:

Why?
Because the fragmentation pattern in this game is fully random. You can also hit the back of the armor plate and also do no damage, because getting concussed by overpressure doesn’t apply to planes for whatever reason.

FeetPics · June 5, 2026, 7:16pm

Yes. The damage system needs to be reworked so that German (specifically FW-190) can fly through anyone’s guns multiple times and be immune until every individual bolt is removed with gunfire.

PercussionCap · June 5, 2026, 8:40pm

You control the keys you press.

Cool story. This is what that situation would look like if I did it today:

Even if the 30mm hit was actually the one in the back… that would have gone into the tail and his rear fuel tanks, which would probably have resulted in a kill (by tail detachment) or a fire.

And it sucks. It was a terrible change and to this day should be rolled back. Damage was just fine before.

RedEye_ツ · June 5, 2026, 8:47pm

The reward used to be running out of ammo and your enemy painted in yellow, going back to the airfield bubble and repairing (or camping). I don’t see how that is any fun from a gameplay perspective.

I’m sure that the yellow/orange damage would be more lethal in real life, but that’s light years apart from what we have in War Thunder due to engines limitations and game design.

I’d say that it’s actually the opposite, cuz having good guns is more punishing for both good and bad players, while having weak guns benefits the players with poor decision making the most, given that they can afford to commit countless mistakes and still not die.
And tbh the average Air Rb player hardly thinks about making it past the first headon lol.

You’d be surprised to know that ever since Realshatter was introduced this is the first time that we actually have that in-game. It’s just very limited by the code and drag values.

Right? Agree. ^

War thunder has never had a realistic damage model or damage system. Stupid weak guns aren’t necessarily any more realistic than the current strong ones, it’s just a trade. But hey, atleast now pretty much every nation is viable to play so I’m satisfied with that.

Years ago, playing anything that wasn’t German or American felt awful. Even when you were glued on the enemy’s six, the amount of ammo needed to finish them off was so high that you’d get swarmed or run out of ammo before you could do it. And if it was the other way around, you’d be deleted in half a second cuz .50cals, AN/M2’s ~3s and Mg151’s simply worked in contrast w the rest.

Even when I started playing the game, I’d constantly be told to not grind Brits cuz of the whole Hisparkos meme since they worked better as airbrakes than as a 20mm.

The addition of a “realistic” feature that added drag to the guns was more damaging to the gameplay than the latest damage overhaul that buffed cannons.

Cuz that’s pretty much what made Mineshells fall behind the rest of the rounds, since they are far more annoying to aim now.

If I could tweak it over, I’d give the Mineshell the placeholder drag value of the Type 99’s and the frag coef that 23mms use. “countPortion”: 1.4, compared to the current 0.75 value so it generates way more fragments than your average 20mm.

In the end War Thunder is a game, and games should be fun, adding annoying limits and restrictions for the sake of accuracy and realism with no regard to gameplay makes no sense.

PercussionCap · June 5, 2026, 8:59pm

I know right? It’s the first time in years that we can play pretty much any nation and not have to suffer with terrible firepower, while getting shot down in just a few hits.

RunaDacino · June 5, 2026, 9:14pm

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VCn0NOwBzBs

One of the most extreme examples I can think of for the sheer insanity you can survive in Warthunder with a bit of rudder.

Loofah · June 5, 2026, 9:20pm

japanese 30mm might not even have fused, unless they fixed it?
Or was that HE shell the only one in your belt and it has proper fuse sensitivity?
You might have hit the armored windscreen.
Or just rolled that 1 in 200 fragment spread for 30mm that somehow missed the pilot.

And finally, which is BY FAR the most likely scenario:
I have posted MULTIPLE times Yak-9K I hit with 30mm M-geschoss in wing TWICE and it did next.to nothing. I hit Bf 109 F4 with 37mm M-geschoss 3 times (twice at below 150m, once at around 900) and he was still flying fine though withiut a wingtip.
Why? Because large caliber HE is randomly not dealing right amount of damage and instead acts like it has the power of Breda HE bullet.
There’s no consistency to it at all.
Today I struck IL-2M AI with 3 30mm to the tail and nothing have happened other than a “crit”, my teammate had to take it down.
Again, no consistency. Moments later my 30mm shells were 1-shotting Ilyushins again.

Loofah · June 5, 2026, 9:31pm

Yeah, now everything armed with MG151/20 or anything higher caliber sucks instead. Yaaaay. Super cool. Back in the day, Germans had good guns, but essentialy Spit Mk XVIII reliably wins dogfights vs literally any German prop it can meet and it did so back in the day too.
Now Mk XVIII can still wipe the floor with Ta, but also airspawns on every 2nd map and is better armed.
The balance is actually slightly better than in the short (pre real sh*tter 3.0) “There’s no God but MG151/20 and Mineshell is its messenger” era. But that’s extremely low bar.

PercussionCap · June 5, 2026, 10:08pm

At least in protection analysis, the whole canopy and fuselage are fusing it.

Really didn’t feel like 1 in 200 ever. Only the last round of cannon buffs made this particular gun worth using.

I don’t really fly germany anymore, especially not something with those guns. The MG FF/Ms have been working wonders though.

Sucks if you only play germany yes, but they’re still not that bad.

Loofah · June 5, 2026, 10:15pm

Italy exists.
And Soviet props and jets with higher caliber weapons that currently have absolute 0 advantage over 20mm, as even damage per hit has been mostly taken away and the big gap between 20mm and NR30 is now fairly insignificant.

And seriously, I have hit Yak-9UT pilot (I think) right in the top of the head (from above) with M-geschoss and he went yellow.
Stuff just happens.
In eaely real.shatter era at one point cannon damage was EXTREMELY low.
It was both too low and unrealistic with how it was applied. MG151/20 was also way too strong back them

Right now damage is way too high and just as unrealistic.
Real shatter does not need “moving the damage slider”, it needs replacement as it’s broken beyond any repair.

KillaKiwi · June 5, 2026, 11:01pm

Pretty sure a Sabres 12.7cal are actually more deadly in taking out jets than those 23mm and 37mm that could one shot but are much harder to hit with 🤔

The damage scaling just makes no sense.

It takes like 2-3 high velocity .50cal AP to complete destroy a prop engine while a 20mm deals 80-100% to it.

So every AP above 20mm is already overkill to damage the engine but .50cals are so efficient that they in return make 20mm AP pointless with their high volume of fire and better ballistics.

Smaller guns should be easier to hit with while bigger guns hit less but are more lethal.

While the development of weapons showed a clear path to larger calibers since smaller calibers often don’t have the desired effect, even when they hit.

But in WT the guns that are easy to aim are also so good that it’s simply not necessary to cause more damage per hit.

If a Yak-3 goes down from two 20mm Mineshells than a larger bomber would take 10 times as many hits but in WT it’s like 2-3 times as much, so there’s not even any point to bring more damage for worse ballistics.

Having different shell types is also pointless when one type overperforms so much that any other just makes you perform worse.

We still have 20mm and 30 incendiary shells that do absolutely nothing and adding incendiary to an explosive has no consequence as well, since you don’t need to set fuel on fire or pierce an armor plate when a hit just dismantles the plane anyway.

Currently MG 151/20 and Hispano mostly suffer from not having pure explosive belts like some other cannons and Mineshells would be pointless, if German FI-T shells weren’t still lacking their realShatter implementation.
Making them hit almost as hard but with much better range performance.

Imagine being able to chose between having a tracer and slightly less damage or no tracer and dealing more damage.
Or more incendiary content making a shells actually more effective in setting fires.

Choosing between sensitive and less sensitive but more devastating ammunition.
Like with Japanese unfuzed shells.

Or adding more AP shells for targets that are less vulnerable to explosive ammo.

Loofah · June 6, 2026, 11:53am

Yes.
When I flew Sabre, I was absolutely shocked I could cut off a jet bomber’s tail (it counted as kill though it visually didn’t fall off) with a short burst.
Sabre absolutely wrecks everything, as Gaijin damage modelling strongly promotes weapons capable od hitting the same module more than once. Hence Yak-3U firepower advantage over f.e. Ta-152H firing 2x20mm. Even if both are landing HE, 3U has a huge chance to hit same module with both, which means 1-click kill, while Ta will hit 2 different spots on the wing, which is less reliable.
Sabre will frequently land all 6 bullets to the same module. And it will only lose effectiveness if you hit the border and 3 go left and 3 go right because now the damage is spread over 2 modules.
Anyway, I think it takes around 24 bullets to down a jet fighter on average, which is up to 200ms of firing.

iegaatdao · June 6, 2026, 2:32pm

It can be a client side bug (if you see the enemy tumble as normal after losing their tail)
Or sometimes you can simply cut the inner traction and see it fly normally except for some nose up or down movement and a last rudder.

iegaatdao · June 6, 2026, 2:37pm

Not only that, proper simulation of different shells have been mostly lost, with only the mg151/20’s FI-T being proof that “fragmentation” isn’t a synonym with “high explosive”, If the aforementioned mg151/20’s FI-T was updated then there wouldn’t be any difference compared to Mine rounds.

Loofah · June 6, 2026, 4:37pm

Some planes can die when they lose elevator, rudder and both stabilisers. Happens to some fighters too. I think this is a death condition that is hard to trigger in fighters because their tail HP is just so low it basically always falls off. I’ve seen it happen to P-38 and SM-91 or 92 too.

It counts as insta-death, plane will start to tumble, but nothing big falls off.

dannaryan-psn · June 6, 2026, 4:50pm

Yes but… no.

War Thunder is advertised as trying to be authentic. Each vehicle/weapon is modelled in relation to its real life parameters except in instances when Gaijin has stupidly caved in to the playerbase in the name of “gameplay” when in reality without sounding like an elitist it’s more to do with skill issues.

When any one of us feels that a certain aircraft, tank, weapon/missile etc is performing not true to reality Gaijin asks for official documentation with supporting sources. I bet if Gaijin totally nerfed your favourite aircraft in a non historical fashion to make it more “fair and balanced” you’d be uploading all of the datasheets on the planet to prove it was wrong. @PercussionCap you love the Ki-84, how would you feel if Gaijin nerfed its elevator for “gameplay/fun” because Mustang pilots complained you kept out-turning them? Let’s be Frank (couldn’t resist) there’s been quite a few “Ki-84 OP PLZ NERF” threads in the past…

This sets a dangerous precedent that I’m stunned you can’t see. Because if you want completely unrealistic weapons in this supposedly realistic game because of a false sense of “gameplay” then I shall immediately petition for:

The Yak-3U to be able to WEP at all altitudes as it’s “unfair” that I’m out performed at higher altitudes. In fact no Russian aircraft loses power at altitude as it makes for poor gameplay. It’s also totally unfair that my Yak-3 breaks apart at around 440mph, we’ll remove that too.

Also it’s so terribly depressing how my P-47 gets out turned by A6M’s. For the sake of fair and balanced gameplay let me turn like a Zero, heck you can let the A6M do 460mph as well. For gameplay we’ll make all aircraft fly the same that way it’s completely fair and balanced.

You can’t say you’d be against any of this as we don’t care about historical accuracy remember? after all you’re all apparently fine with even piddly Italian .50’s ripping thick P-47 wings off in one small burst as I’ve proven in my videos, or Shvak’s dissecting HE-111’s in literally two rounds… because gameplay, we need that instant dopamine hit how dare we have to hold the trigger down slightly longer or make a second pass at something like a bomber.

The current damage system isn’t just laughably bad but it’s a detriment to gameplay… not a positive. The bomber pilots have been begging for better damage models for years due to them being cut to ribbons and heavy fighters are also completely redundant. You aren’t tougher, your firepower also doesn’t matter, I’ll do the same with two historically weak Shvak’s. You’re just a bigger, slower, less manoeuvrable target.

The current damage model fiasco has even made add-on guns worthless. You’re literally losing performance for no advantage.

No I’d say removing the limits and restrictions that brought balanced gameplay make no sense, as we’re seeing now.

PercussionCap · June 6, 2026, 5:27pm

Already happened.

I don’t love the Ki-84. I don’t even like it much anymore. It has too little ammo and the instructor setup is mediocre. The only things I like about it are the speed and the marketplace trainer paintjob for the Ko model.

Just as easily as we can find “Zero OP pls nerf” threads. It means nothing.

The difference is that there was a total mismatch between these planes’ flight performance and firepower, caused entirely by ShVAK being almost unusable in the past. Now with a cannon that actually does damage (instead of emptying a dozen shells into their cockpit, engine, and fuel tanks, and nothing happening) the Yak-3 immediately moved up to 4.7. More will follow.

Critically, it’s not that the ShVAK needs to be THE STRONGEST cannon out there. It just has to be usable enough to not drag an entire tech tree down, and not allow enemies to simply ignore you as you unload dozens of shells into them for no meaningful damage whatsoever.

Cool strawman.

RedEye_ツ · June 6, 2026, 6:36pm

Trying to be authentic. By looking at the current matchmaker, gameplay balance, BR’s, it’s very clear that Gaijin isn’t very worried about that. War Thunder is in a very comfortable spot between realism and game.

When it comes to the guns, they haven’t consulted anybody prior to deprecating the old formula for HE. Infact they didn’t announce when they buffed guns in the old hitpower system either before swapping to realshatter, so the players had nothing to do with it to begin with lol. It was their decision and the majority was against it, so I don’t see how’s that the player’s fault.

The player just wanted to be rewarded for their kill and asked for improvements, many don’t even know what realshatter is. Gaijin simply improved the guns using the code that they intentionally migrated to, using its parameters and limitations.

The skill issue argument goes both ways. You can argue that players don’t want to think much and finish the dogfight in a single burst cuz they can’t handle a longer dogfight, and I will argue that they want to commit a million mistakes infront of my guns and not be punished for it.

Not necessarily, have you seen the Fw190 Klimb afterburner report that pretty much destroyed the cooling of the whole Fw190A line?
“I thought they were cheating” and “Something tells me that this shouldn’t be the case” combined with an in-game screenshot were the sources.

Spoiler

I mean we have to use what’s in our favor in order to address something, adapt to Gaijin’s standards.
I don’t agree with all of them but it is what it is.

Right and they will hit you with a big fat “Not a Bug Report” and close the thread.
Nobody is being stopped from doing this. It’s completely out of our control.

Yes I can? I’m not completely against historical accuracy? I just don’t share the same standards as you do >_>