Reintroduce Hullbreak

[BeautifulTai_wan]

No, do not reintroduce hull break. It was awful and literally made more problems than solved problems.

@__Marco__

Balance:
Without Hullbreak, we now have a situation where light armored vehicles can withstand more damage than was originally intended. This has led to a “paper armor meta” where vehicles that should be destroyed by a single hit can survive multiple hits, making gameplay frustrating for many players. Reintroducing hull-break could help restore this balance.

Vehicles with poor protection survive AP impacts because the AP lacks the capability to impart its energy into the light armor, that’s literally realism. If you know you’re likely to face trucks and light armor in your BR zone, bring HE as a first shot. This is especially true for the Jagdtiger, where the HE is very effective, having HE content that is more than capable of killing literally everything on the battlefield frontally. 3.7 kg of TNT will absolutely demolish literally anything, provided you know how to aim.

I’ve literally gone played the IS-4 exclusively firing HE in the past and it is surprisingly effective. The Jagdtiger has around the same HE content for its ammo.

@__Marco__

The hullbreak mechanic simulates the real-life phenomenon where light tanks and vehicles can structurally fail due to the impact of large-caliber projectiles

That’s not realistic in the slightest. Your video shows what amounts to the most optimistic extreme edge case where a full caliber “AP” shell transfers significant KE to the target, but you failed to note that the 105mm round was not actual 105mm ammo from history.

That’s a cast pot steel round, that is both especially soft, heavy and slow to not put much strain on the gun and pressure bearing parts. Actual 105mm L7 KE ammo would fly into the aluminum engine block and fly right out the other side. The cast pot steel ammo is equivalent to using a hollow point bullet on a soap bubble. Not at all representative of 105mm APDS or even 105mm AP/APHE. Note that a majority of catastrophic damage images from the web are due to one of three factors; fire, high explosive or multiple shots.

@__Marco__

Fun Factor:
Many players, including myself, found it satisfying when a large caliber round would actually do it’s job and one-shot lightly armored vehicles. One-shotting is what these high caliber and reload guns are made for and rely on. The possibility of one-shotting is what makes the long reloading time bearable

Load HE then. You can and most certainly will oneshot many vehicles of any weight class with large guns. I load HE or HEAT whenever I need to deal with something without armor, it’s second nature for me now. If you can’t reload safely, then you make the best of the bad position you put yourself into and fire into the “hardest” part of the light vehicle and hope your HE content carries you. It works quite consistently.

@__Marco__

I think the aim should be to try a nerfed variant of hullbreak that doesn’t get triggered by hitting any part of the vehicle. There should be additional standards, like the round having to hit a big module with a certain kinetic energy etc

No, that’s nowhere near reasonable. Hull break was a punishment for light vehicles because most players were too apathetic to load the correct ammo. Unless it’s applied globally (see LOSAT kill mechanism IRL), it will always remain a punishment for light vehicles. Overpressure and correctly functioning additional modules are fine for now.

If anything, were you to actually suggest a reasonable “hull break” it’d be made exclusive to ammo with high explosive content (and certain edge cases such as LOSAT) as KE ammo will overpenetrate and fail to deal significant damage even when hitting “hard” modules of vehicles IRL. HE makes the entire structure of things warp and fail, KE will sail through one side and right out the other, even if there’s a lump of aluminum in between.

[_Marco]

@BeautifulTai_wan

No, do not reintroduce hull break. It was awful and literally made more problems than solved problems.

I said that I know that twice.

@BeautifulTai_wan

If you know you’re likely to face trucks and light armor in your BR zone, bring HE as a first shot.

Are you for real saying that you should play the Jagdtiger with HE main?
I sometimes do that with the IS6 when the spam is too bad but this can’t be a real solution. If it was you would see everyone with a heavy tanks playing with HE, but that’s not the case.

@BeautifulTai_wan

Actual 105mm L7 KE ammo would fly into the aluminum engine block and fly right out the other side. The cast pot steel ammo is equivalent to using a hollow point bullet on a soap bubble.

Idk what would happen with each round on each vehicle irl, you probably know that way better than me.
In fact, though, we have a distortion of reality where a light armored vehicle would be out of action after being hit in the right spot. One example of why slightly armored vehicles profiting from the ingame environment is is because of the rep. mechanics.

@BeautifulTai_wan

and fire into the “hardest” part of the light vehicle and hope your HE content carries you. It works quite consistently.

It is quite inconsistent. As I have showed, the extrem of that is having to scratch the gun breech of a M109 so it does kill it. What a great time to be playing a 20 sec. reloading gun. That’s just not what I mean by balance and fun.

@BeautifulTai_wan

Hull break was a punishment for light vehicles because most players were too apathetic to load the correct ammo.

Maybe at that point where reloading takes half a minute it is not about being apathetic anymore. If no-one manages to do that, maybe you should blame the game and not the player.

@BeautifulTai_wan

Overpressure and correctly functioning additional modules are fine for now.

Btw overpressure is very unrealistic, too. Not as a concept but it is way over exaggerated. Just as a note.

[BeautifulTai_wan]

@__Marco__

Are you for real saying that you should play the Jagdtiger with HE main?

HE as your main ammo? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m suggesting you load a couple HE rounds first and then switch to APHE after the initial light vehicle rush ends. It’s not that complicated.

@__Marco__

Maybe at that point where reloading takes half a minute it is not about being apathetic anymore.

At that point, it is your fault for being apathetic, yes. There are tanks with 30+ second reloads that still need to load the right ammo for the right targets. T30, Obj. 268 both have slow reloads and cannot get away with exclusively firing AP ammo. It’s annoying and cumbersome but it is the right way to play. Jagdtigers work best in one of two situations; with a friend to cover your slow reload or at distance significant enough to prevent a failed shot of the wrong ammo into something too light.

@__Marco__

It is quite inconsistent. As I have showed, the extrem of that is having to scratch the gun breech of a M109 so it does kill it.

You can hit him in his ammo, or shoot his driver / transmission and retreat to reload HE, fire just under the gun to fuse your ammo on his engine block, or even shoot the ground under him to overpressure edit: it seems they’ve recently changed this behavior to make it much more difficult. Still, ammo and engine hits will kill a M109 consistently. There are many ways to deal with a M109. If you have to deal with multiple tanks with a M109 who thinks they’re invulnerable, that’s a case of bad position or bad luck, getting rushed during a slow reload is a weakness you have to play around.

[Fat_Fury]

IMO hullbreak should come to the game again… there are multiple situations where you shoot a large round into a frontal plate of the tank and you will never ever pen it even after 6 shots etc…
While adding some realism which would just make the material in the hull lose strenght imagine shooting a HE round into a frontal plate of a lets say leopard in no way you will do anything but after 5 shots spalling would break off etc that i would love to see

[Zyranovos]

Yes!

[KillaKiwi]

Overpressure mainly effects open top vehicles and increased the killing power of HE shells against armor with direct or near hits.

The reason it works is because it kills crews and crews are the lifeblood of any vehicle in WT.
Which can easily repair damage which would have disabled the tank.

Of course it doesn’t make sense that crews can repair damage that isn’t repairable.

If a gun, transmission or engine is hit directly by a cannon shell, it needs to be replaced.

Likewise armor is never damaged and affects the vehicle. Even though a vehicle might have two 120mm large holes in the turret after being shot.

[Master_Teaz]

I do hope this happens, or atleast somewhat happens

FV4005 will appreciate this, no more Tiger II surviving direct hits that would break every weld remotely near the impacted plate

[_Marco]

@BeautifulTai_wan

I’m suggesting you load a couple HE rounds first and then switch to APHE after the initial light vehicle rush ends. It’s not that complicated.

Loading HE as first shot because maybe there could be a light tank as first opponent and after that just hoping the enemies will have substantial armor is not really a great solution. This basically means light tanks have a special advantage and you don’t have a real reliable solution for that.
Just say that the “no armor best armor” meta is what you like because that is what your post implies to me.

@BeautifulTai_wan

At that point, it is your fault for being apathetic, yes.

It’s not just me, as I already wrote in my previous post, most players don’t use HE as their first shot. And this is a very important point because it means that it might not be an efficient tactic to do so. You might think that everyone is still missing out on this, but players usually adopt such tactics over time when they are good enough.

@BeautifulTai_wan

Jagdtigers work best in one of two situations; with a friend to cover your slow reload

So your friend makes up for the imbalance. Just play it together with your friend to make up for the disadvantage, is that what you are saying? You can bring up this point for every sh!t vehicle in this game, it still won’t fix the issue.

@BeautifulTai_wan

or at distance significant enough to prevent a failed shot of the wrong ammo into something too light.

Most long reloading tanks indeed are very good at long range combat but I don’t get the point of when sniping the issue of lack of post pen effect won’t occur anymore. Isn’t it even harder to aim pixel perfect for the oneshot then?

@BeautifulTai_wan

You can hit him in his ammo

No reliable kill

@BeautifulTai_wan

or shoot his driver / transmission and retreat to reload HE

Just a crit, not a kill. The M109 will be able to shoot back.

@BeautifulTai_wan

fire just under the gun to fuse your ammo on his engine block

@BeautifulTai_wan

Still, ammo and engine hits will kill a M109 consistently.

That (engine block) doesn’t work at all, it juts doesn’t, try it out in the hangar.

Even if the methods you listed worked it would still mean: Thanks to it’s thin armor the M109 can survive more than any IS2, T-34/29/30 and any other conventional tank.
That is exactly that paper armor meta that I want to end.

[BeautifulTai_wan]

@__Marco__

Loading HE as first shot because maybe there could be a light tank as first opponent and after that just hoping the enemies will have substantial armor is not really a great solution. This basically means light tanks have a special advantage and you don’t have a real reliable solution for that.

The reliable solution is HE ammo. It’s pretty simple.

@__Marco__

Just say that the “no armor best armor” meta is what you like because that is what your post implies to me

Or maybe I just don’t want to return to the era of idiotic mechanics that are designed intentionally to punish light armor for daring to exist and handhold bad players with an unrealistic advantage? Like what I said in my original post?

@__Marco__

It’s not just me, as I already wrote in my previous post, most players don’t use HE as their first shot.

Not planning to efficiently deal with your opponents is exactly the reason why you struggle. Either learn the hard module positions to keep using APHE and win or swap ammo to make use of overpressure.

@__Marco__

You might think that everyone is still missing out on this, but players usually adopt such tactics over time when they are good enough

The majority of players have learned to shoot engine blocks for APHE to function normally. Because they have learned to aim.

@__Marco__

So your friend makes up for the imbalance.

Maybe my wording was vague, but the meaning is to play the tank with blues around you so nobody tries to jump out and kill you for shooting one enemy. Don’t go off and drive into a situation where you are surrounded and isolated and lack the time to take enemies out one by one. Kinda applies to the majority of the game, really.

@__Marco__

Most long reloading tanks indeed are very good at long range combat but I don’t get the point of when sniping the issue of lack of post pen effect won’t occur anymore. Isn’t it even harder to aim pixel perfect for the oneshot then?

The intent is to give you the opportunity to reload without dying if you play at distance. Again, pretty simple. Shoot them, maybe immobilize them, reload HE or hit them in the engine to kill.

@__Marco__

No reliable kill

M109 isn’t a top BR tank with blowout panels, it explodes if you shoot the ammo/propellant casings.

@__Marco__

Just a crit, not a kill. The M109 will be able to shoot back.

That is the intent, immobilize them and pull back around cover so they cannot shoot you before you reload HE.

@__Marco__

That (engine block) doesn’t work at all, it juts doesn’t, try it out in the hangar.

You try it, it works for me with the tank pretty much 100% of the time. From a decent number of angles, too.

@__Marco__

Even if the methods you listed worked it would still mean: Thanks to it’s thin armor the M109 can survive more than any IS2, T-34/29/30 and any other conventional tank.
That is exactly that paper armor meta that I want to end.

Until the instant any SPAA, CAS or tank with HMG secondary comes along the M109 is getting shredded by their guns or exploded from way further away by their bombs. You’re putting poorly armored tanks on a pedestal of nigh invulnerability to literally everything in the game when that isn’t the case.

You should try playing the tank with bad armor to experience firsthand what happens to them when something rolls/flys along that can just hold the dakka dispenser down and turn you into swiss cheese. Or what happens when someone next to you gets bombed or missed by a bomb and it kills you.

“No armor best armor” is a meme. 98% of the complaints I see from people related to poor armor causing overpenetration is due to them being incapable of aiming or loading HE. The last 2% are getting hit by the snail’s incredible ability to turn a good shot into one that does literally nothing due to ping, server issues or RNG.

[_Marco]

@BeautifulTai_wan

That is the intent, immobilize them and pull back around cover so they cannot shoot you before you reload HE.

Again, this is the paper armor meta I do not want. I actually would like the game to be in a way that armor is not something negative for tanks.

@BeautifulTai_wan

You try it, it works for me with the tank pretty much 100% of the time. From a decent number of angles, too.

Try it from the front with a Jagdtiger. It won’t work. I’ve tried it.

@BeautifulTai_wan

Until the instant any SPAA, CAS or tank with HMG secondary comes along the M109 is getting shredded by their guns or exploded from way further away by their bombs. You’re putting poorly armored tanks on a pedestal of nigh invulnerability to literally everything in the game when that isn’t the case.

This is probably where our opinions fundamentally differ.
I guess you believe in a system of rock paper scissors where certain vehicles have a substantial advantage over others.
I think this graphic describes it the best:

overgeneralized, there is way more types of tanks, attributes etc.

I believe that all the tanks in the battlefield should be balanced to each other. That would promote just skill.
This is a slim but deciding factor between your view of how the game should be balanced and how I view it.

overgeneralized again, there is way more types of tanks, attributes etc.

In order to achieve what is being shown in this graphic the slightly armored vehicle (G6 here) should not be the one with the best survivability out of these 3.

Ofc the vehicles can never be perfectly balanced. I just don’t like the way of balancing which is every type vehicle getting one meta- advantage and - disadvantage over another one.
And ofc in this way of balancing, SPAAs and planes would still punish light armor but these encounters are rarer and it’s not like I like the role of some rat SPAAs or planes either.

[ExecutivOutcomes]

How would hullbreak work if it splits my tank in half?
Say my G6 is split between the drivers cab and the turret crew do I just die even if enough turret crew survived to shoot back.
If I don’t die I would find it a bit too much damage for any repair time to fix.

[_Marco]

As it has been in the game already, you’d die.

[BeautifulTai_wan]

@__Marco__

I guess you believe in a system of rock paper scissors where certain vehicles have a substantial advantage over others

No, I just don’t want to return to the time where light vehicles ate ammo to their hull corner or external optic and instantly died. Everything counters everything if played correctly, barring a handful of outliers that physically cannot damage certain enemies in their matchups.

Hull break was literally just punishment for not playing something with the arbitrary “heavy enough to not be subject to punishment” line in the vehicle code. It was extremely unfair. Light tanks with 30mm on all sides would get instantly destroyed, but MBTs with that on most of their sides would be allowed to repair and fight back. That’s ridiculous.

[_Marco]

@BeautifulTai_wan

No, I just don’t want to return to the time where light vehicles ate ammo to their hull corner or external optic and instantly died.

Me neither. As I said in my post, there should be stricter standards. For example: a round having to hit large modules with a certain kinetic energy.

@BeautifulTai_wan

Everything counters everything if played correctly, barring a handful of outliers that physically cannot damage certain enemies in their matchups.

I believe that slightly armored vehicles do have that one meta-advantage.
When having very little armor in War Thunder you get to have the advantage of being more mobile but on top of that you are better off when it comes to survivability, too. Especially many medium tanks have a very unfortunate spot in the game because of their designers having added a bit of additional armor that’s just a disadvantage in the game.
Not only do I believe that it is unfair to punish too much armor, I also think that the shift to light armor meta is not what a tank game should be about and makes the game less fun. On some tiers you only get to see people cruising around with these “cars”. People don’t even play light tanks in a tactical way as it used to be, they straight up just speed into the center of the map.

@BeautifulTai_wan

Hull break was literally just punishment for not playing something with the arbitrary “heavy enough to not be subject to punishment” line in the vehicle code.

You are right with that. It still is a game, though. You just can’t simulate reality, there will always be compromises. I just believe that with hullbreak the game is better than without, I’m not saying it would be perfect but it isn’t perfect right now anyways and it will never be.

@BeautifulTai_wan

It was extremely unfair. Light tanks with 30mm on all sides would get instantly destroyed, but MBTs with that on most of their sides would be allowed to repair and fight back. That’s ridiculous.

Well from a balancing perspective I would disagree with “It was extremely unfair”. I think it would be less unfair as it is right now.

[dannaryan]

@BeautifulTai_wan

No, I just don’t want to return to the time where light vehicles ate ammo to their hull corner or external optic and instantly died. Everything counters everything if played correctly, barring a handful of outliers that physically cannot damage certain enemies in their matchups.

Hull break was literally just punishment for not playing something with the arbitrary “heavy enough to not be subject to punishment” line in the vehicle code. It was extremely unfair. Light tanks with 30mm on all sides would get instantly destroyed, but MBTs with that on most of their sides would be allowed to repair and fight back. That’s ridiculous.

It’s a light tank… Your weakness is little armour. You mention you hate getting hullbroken by “shots to the optics” yet what you’re missing is that your lightly built tank designed for speed is getting smashed by a large very fast round. The fact that only your optics are damaged is the game’s terrible damage modelling and in no way realistic. In reality depending on the tank or round speeding your way that turret could be ripped clean off.

As it stands light tanks have higher survivability than heavies with a successful penetration as most of the time the OPHE rounds won’t fuse and you’ll at times only lose one crewmember. Meanwhile the light tank can fire a round into its heavy would-be assassin and kill them in one shot due to the armour being thick enough to fuse the round.

Hullbreak needs to return. Light tanks should NEVER have greater survivability than heavies or mediums.

[RunaDacino]

At the very least, strike to the transmission should do something more serious.

Scenario: You’re in a slow-reload tank loaded with AP (not even APHE) facing a milk truck. You don’t have any form of secondary MG.

You shoot the milk truck in its gun or just under it and hit the transmission.

Do people not think that either the gun (and gunner sitting in it/around it) be torn off by such a shot, or the trailer bit collapse on itself?

I feel being struck in these spots by a massive round, like the 17 pounder quick-firing armour piercing shell

should at the very least “knock out” any and all crew nearby and not just absorb the shot like nothing happened that the crew can then quickly repair and return fire (if they even need to repair - like the bottom red boxes only take out the transmission which does not reduce the lethality of such millk trucks, yet they’re perfectly able to maintain a stable aim, quick “turret” rotation and fire despite the transmision and the undercarriage around the transmission being annihilated)

Right now, your only option is reload to HE (you’re dead by the time you reload) or individually snipe each crew member with a 17 pounder AP shell.

Also annoyingly, you can observe a similar scenario when strafing howitzers with full damage models in ASB. Cannon rounds hitting the gun has zero spaling effect on the crew even in ridiculous cases.

[BeautifulTai_wan]

@dannaryan

Hullbreak needs to return. Light tanks should NEVER have greater survivability than heavies or mediums.

No, it doesn’t.

I’ve gone over why already.

Hull break doesn’t need to exist, it’s an obsolete mechanic for ground battles.

Not unless you’re fine with adding it to literally everything, including heavies and super heavies. Hull break is and will forever be an arbitrary, ahistorical punishment for light vehicles daring to exist.

Overpenetration is in fact, a very real thing that happens. That’s why HE ammo and heavy MGs were designed.

[RunaDacino]

@BeautifulTai_wan

Overpenetration is in fact, a very real thing that happens. That’s why HE ammo and heavy MGs were designed.

How do you justify “Overpenetration” and a milk truck that took a shot into the base of its gun connecting it to a relatively flimsy trailer causing no damage to any crew nearby and is able to immediately swivel said gun to shoot whoever didn’t directly hit the gunner?

[BeautifulTai_wan]

Putting a hole in a hollow steel gun mount isn’t doing significant damage to the enemy vehicle. Why do you want to be rewarded for bad shooting?

If you want to destroy something with very little armor, you need to use high explosive; because AP won’t transfer the kinetic energy it has to thin armor and light structural steel. HE does things like tear trucks in half and turn them into barely recognizable lumps of smoldering metal.

[Hudler]

Yes, hullbreak should be fixed to work correctly and added back to the game