Im mainly play british tanks so id like to know more about how to maximise solid shot one shot kill potential. I do know that aiming for ammo racks guarantees a one hit kill. But ive realised when shooting at certain areas of an enemy tank, solid shot can also one hit kill by killing the majority of crew.
With the 17 pounder APCBC i realised that its very easy to take out t34s frontally without having the shells not ammo racking but killing all the crew.
Is the damage that solid shot causes called spalling ? if so, what is spalling and how does it work ? Especially in war thunder.
Also, what are some tips and tricks to maximise spalling
One important factor that affects the amount of spalling is the round’s “residual penetration”, i.e. how much more penetration the round has than the thickness of armour it is hitting.
Using the 6-pounder Shot Mk.9 against the KV-1 (ZiS-5) as an example:
At point-blank range, the Shot Mk.9 has 132 mm of penetration against just 91 mm of armour. It has a lot of residual penetration, so the spalling is enough to take out the gunner and loader to either side.
At 800 m, the Shot Mk.9 only has 98 mm of penetration against the same 91 mm of armour. The residual penetration is much less, so it barely produces any spall and only takes out the driver and commander who are right on the shot’s line of motion.
If you have an extremely high powered gun for the BR (e.g. 17-pounder on the Archer and Achilles), it’s usually enough to fire the shot at the centre of the crew compartment, and there should be enough spalling to take out the whole crew. Your example of the 17-pounder killing all the crew in a T-34 is a case of this. It has very high residual penetration, and the crew on a T-34 are very closely packed, so spalling can take them all out at once. In general though, I wouldn’t trust spalling. It’s safer to first take out critical crew or components in order to disable the enemy, then consider whether you can destroy the vehicle in one shot.
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To add on to what he said. The heavier the shell the more spall it’ll produce that goes along with higher caliber higher damage most of the time but is important to remember. Another thing a lot of people forget is the length of the shell. This will affect how much extra metal it has flying through the tank when it penetrates. A good medium for damage output and penetration is to find a middle ground. If you can penetrate a place with more armor shoot there to create more of a cone spalling. Me personally I try to leave 15-20mm of extra pen to have my shell go through ammo and do more straight line damage, but that is because I know where other tanks crew and ammo are.
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