Rank VII Battleships urgently need stock AP shells

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

• Yes.
• No, HE is fine.

Hello!

Up until now, you could argue that HE on Top Tier Battleships could be minimally usable, as they could face Cruisers relatively often.

However, from now on, 7.7-8.7 is a BR range exclusively composed of Battleships, all of which are entirely imprevious to HE.

For instance, this is all the damage FOUR HUNDRED HE SHELLS (400) dealt to some mere RN Conte di Cavour… over the course of THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES!

The only modules I could damage were the secondary/anti-air batteries and the funnels; and the only damage I could deal damage to the crew was by hitting the anti-air batteries. Barely 1% crew damage per salvo.

This situation is even worse than stock HEAT was for Top Tier MBTs. There are no weakspots, no ranges, nothing that can be done to make HE work against other Battleships.

[Josephs_Piano]

Good point - although also shows that HE probably is in hte right place now - let’s hope they don’t decide to make it more powerful instead!!

[Morvran]

100% agree. The first (and on the dev server) only match with SAP sucked in Vanguard

I could do no damage to the battleships and there was pretty much only battleships

So I made this thread for it

Vanguard needs AP Stock

As it currently stands on the Dev server. HMS Vanguard starts with the 15" 4crh CPC [SAPCBC] shell which even in 7.3 ships like HMS Hood, Does little against 6.0 dreadnoughts, but at 8.0 it is completely hopeless. Even in a full downtier, there is little you can do in the way of meaningful damage to anything and your only real hope is for a bot in a heavy cruiser that you can actually attack.

15" 4crh CPC

[Screenshot 2025-05-31 042213]

Given the 8.0 BR nature of Vanguard and the fact that …

But yes. They all probably will suffer similarly

[GibProject68U2]

Honestly they should come stock for every ship. I usually struggle to deal with other destroyers, like american ones with stock HE.

But for the most part, Light Cruisers and larger are useless until you get proper AP, until then your only bet is to kill AI smaller ships.

Stock AP for all naval please

[Beeschurger]

@SPANISH_AVENGER

This situation is even worse than stock HEAT was for Top Tier MBTs

Leave it up to gaijin to outdone themselves in the most user unfriendly mechanic competition

[MJPIA]

Stock HE has and always will be ridiculous, imagine getting nothing but HE stock in tanks.

It’s a predatory mechanic solely to frustrate players to spend money so they aren’t a punching bag

While simultaneously juggling getting more effective repairing and firefighting, all of which are crucial when you are taking fire combined with how naval players don’t get reduced prices on parts or fpe compared to ground which depending on your luck can result in hours of misery trying to get your ship to a basic competitive level.

[mid0ri]

To be honest, I don’t understand why they didn’t add Rank VII BB stock AP in the first place.

[Josephs_Piano]

@GibProject68U2

Honestly they should come stock for every ship. I usually struggle to deal with other destroyers, like american ones with stock HE.

But for the most part, Light Cruisers and larger are useless until you get proper AP, until then your only bet is to kill AI smaller ships.

Sounds like you are doing something seriously wrong then - I use 6" HE vs destroyers from the US 5.0 cruisers - AP or SAP only for targets that actually have armour.

HE is perfectly capable of blowing up DD magazines, and does a shedload more damage when not doing so due to having massively greater HE loading!