The KwK40 L/43 has 137 mm of penetration at point blank, compared to 103 mm of the Chi-Nu. Penetration is better at all angles at all distances, including the fact that since the KwK 40 fires APCBC rather than uncapped APHE, it ricochets less against highly sloped armor.
The only advantage the Chi-Nu’s 75 mm has is explosive filler, when compared to the KwK40s, even the L/43, as it can go through the upper glacis plate of T-34s reliably while the Chi-Nu’s cannon won’t do even against the 3.7 welded hull M4 without aiming for weakspots.
Edit: I forgot that the Chi-Nu’s 75 mm actually has a slightly longer reload than the KwK40, for some reason.
So what, exactly, would a non-derp artillery vehicle do if he came across such a heavy tank in your system? Run? Resign themselves to their fate?
Isn’t creating tanks with enough armor to ignore penetration the exact corollary to tanks with enough penetration to ignore armor? It’s creating roughly the same issue, forcing tanks to engage something that can 100% negate their advantages without requiring exceptional skill or luck to pull off. It puts players into situations where there are actions they can take that reasonably counter their enemy. They’re forced to play passive and wait for the problem to resolve itself, which is never rewarding gameplay.
I’ll repeat, if you’re playing tanks with good armor in a way that relies on your armor to bounce every single shot that gets fired at you frontally, you’re playing them wrong. That’s not a fair advantage to give them. That armor is only there to give you more time to take a shot while your enemy is forced to aim for small and hard to hit weakspots.
Consider a Tiger H1 versus a 76mm Sherman. If the Tiger is appropriately angled, the only spot the 76mm can go through frontally is the cupola, meanwhile the Tiger is free to point and click anywhere remotely center mass in order to get the kill. This means that if both players surprise each other, even though the Sherman has a stabilizer, the Tiger can still react faster due to the armor differences. This is an armor advantage that’s fair for both players, as it’s the more skillful player who wins in that encounter. And this is against something at (or near) the Tiger’s tier, and has a stabilizer. Put a Chi-To or Chi-Ri in that situation, and the Tiger should win every time.
If you’re consistently being barreled and pushed in the Jagdtiger, that likely means you’re playing too close to enemies. The Jadgtiger, like most heavy casemates, is a sniper at heart, best played at range so that enemies don’t have a chance to nail weakspots like a barrel or the machine gun port consistently, and with the ability to pull back into cover and repair before anyone has a chance to rush you. You have the firepower to nuke targets at range without much effort, it’s somewhat of a waste to take it into closer ranges where your advantages matter less and your weaknesses are more pronounced.
The same is true for all those other tanks you listed, with the exception of the Black Prince and IS-4M, who have to play a little closer for their guns to work. But still, maintaining reasonable distance from enemies and support near you to prevent you being rushed are key parts of an armor reliant playstyle.
Expecting armor reliant tanks to be flankable relies both on maps that cater to flanking, and said heavies not having any team support, which can never be relied on. It also relies on maps that don’t have power positions that can lock down entire areas of the map, which again, is far from certain. It also leaves no room for, say, lower tiered heavies who are unable to effectively flank. It’s all good and well to tell someone to “just flank”, but if they’re in a Pershing, and the enemy Maus has backup, what then?
That’s why lineups exist. Admittedly, Germany 6.7 isn’t exactly the most flexible lineup at the moment, but the Tiger II H, Bulldog, M109G and arguably the 4-5 work better on close quarters maps where the Jadgtiger might struggle more. Even the Ferdi might be preferable due to the rate of fire and reverse gear, at the expense of much weaker armor.
Or, a more passive playstyle, ensuring you stick close to friendlies at all times, would also help.
I mean, it’s hardly ideal, but it’s far from the worst option. That reaction time window I brought up earlier works very well with the Tiger II H, anyone who can pen it with APHE (Or APCR) needs to hit the turret front specifically, which can be a hard target at mid range if you waggle it. That conical mantlet is a black hole for stray rounds. You also have by far the best overall heavy tank gun at 6.7, balancing pen, damage and reload, which means you can react comparably quickly to enemies.
You’re vulnerable if you overextend, obviously, but again, playing slower, more carefully, and with backup, you can absolutely take the Tiger II brawling and do reasonably well. Certainly, the turret and reload make it more comfortable to play than a Jadgtiger in a brawling situation. And the better rate of fire arguably makes it more flexible than tanks like the Super Pershing, T34 and IS-2 mod.
That’s not entirely true. In reality, any penetration shot meant the tank was out of action as the crew bailed. In reality, a broken track meant the tank was out of action. In that context, cupola shots were quite effective in reality. The difference is in numbers. In reality, there were only a fraction of tank engagements as there are in WT. That’s why it seems so excessive in WT.
That’s what you know about. You cannot tell it didn’t happen more often just because you don’t know about it or none registered it.
If you read from the start of the thread it explains why this happens. It happens because the APHE simulation is wrong. So APHE should be fixed not cupolas or whatever wrong APHE affects.
And cupolas are damaged with AP rounds. AP rounds in general don’t create that much spalling to kill anyone apart commander which is logical if he is using cupola viewports. Only APHE does greater damage to turret crew. If you talk about visual cupola tearing off that is currently not existant in game engine nor vehicle 3D model and has nothing to do with exploits.
So no, its not exploit. Only APHE is exploit, other shells act pretty realistically.
Speaking of only one gun barrel damage here are few more images. Its not frontal but it shows it happened more than once.
Its not unfair if it happened and it happened in real life. As I said before situations like that are all about numbers. Total number of tank engagements in game by far surpasses complete tank engagements ever in the whole world. So 0,1% of 500000 is not the same as 0,1% of 10000000. So of course it happens more in the game than in real life. Take into count that this is a game and someone might deliberately tak his aim to hit barrel while in real life it would aim either for center mass or weak spot if available.
And thats another issue. Heavy tanks are forced to CQB which they were not designed for.
You are wrong about this one. Heavy tanks have targets which cannot penetrate them just not at close range. In real situations heavy tanks were used as long range support while mediums did most of CQB as they were more mobile and less expensive to make.
None of the issues has anything to do with cupolas or gun barrel damage but somewhat realistic tank models put into positions they would not willingly be in reality.
Well then you just got unlucky (the same as the your real life example). Thats just it. It happens to everyone as its part of the game and as you yourself demonstrated can happen in real life.
I like many have gone onto the firing range and fired at the cupolas available on there and the chances of a one-shot kill seem pretty random, like maybe one in five. It’s hardly an exploit and far less of an issue in game than an enemy hitting your gun barrel while facing you head on which in reality seems very unlikely.
One shot kill through cupola is possible only with APHE and only because APHE is wrongly simulated in WT. Its nearly impossible to one shot vehicle through cupola with any of the solid shots (AP, APC, APCBC, APCR, APDS, APFSDS). Whatever setup I tried in custom shooting range almost always only commander dies when using solid shot.
I agree but it’s a game where we have tanks from WW2 facing a Concept 3 from 1980 in Vietnam, so does it all really matter. It’s not like every shot at the cupola instantly takes the crew out every time. It amazes me just how we randomly slide in and out of reality with this game as and when it suits.
What’s the specific issue with APHE being wrongly simulated? From the inside of the tank the cupola is a small indentation, setting an explosive off there would be the same as setting it off anywhere else.
For barrel damage it’d be interesting to explore still allowing the gun to fire but with reduced accuracy/muzzle velocity/chance of catastrophic failure (incl harm to the crew?). So tougher gun, more degradation to performance when it’s taken some damage. Gives some balance knobs to turn instead of the binary there is now. Even with the banana peel damage shown now in reality you’d still be able to get a shot off.
