Russia needs to lose its magic Angle Pen modifier on most guns

[_Baum]

Russia, as we all know, has very powerful, at times absurd, Anglepen modifiers on their shells.

As Far as I can tell the reason for this is twofold

1. Beta and Early release russian Techtree performance

Russia was not that good of a nation eraly on. The KV 2 was a blast, the T50 a nightmare to fight but overall With the Release of the US tree its performance was lacking, especially with the back then better performance of APCR and solid AP and a much worse APHE performance.
So Russia got a buff to their anglepen in one of the APHE rebalances and overall penetration adjustments

2. Real life.

As far As I could find, russia actually had shells which performed absurdly well against angled armour. But it suffered from poor penetration against flat surfaces. The Guns I could find who used said ammunition where the 76mm L-11 and F-34 guns used on the eraly KV 1 and T34 models.
Specifically the BR 350A round is mentioned, but some others probably also saw service

For those who want to see aproximation on how it worked and why it is strange:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBS5RdLdJ60

The Thing is all russian Guns and SHells have increased angle performance, and not just a few. The 122mm Guns and almost certainly the 85mm guns as well as 100mm guns never used this kind of shell. Their design is much more in line with evbery other nations design and the 365K seems to be inspired by the german 75 or 88 guns but that might just be a coincidence

Here a russian BR 365 85 mm shell (the second from the left is the APCBC shell either the A or K model we have in game:

Spoiler

and here a german 8.8cm Pz Gr 39 from the Tiger I

Spoiler

Ofc many will again despise the Wiokipedia sources (albeit the fact that the Russian one is a picture from a piece from Kubinka). So if you have better sources please share them.

As it stands the russian angle performance needs to go. It is unrealistic and quite frankly causes balancing issues as well as the occasional bug in the physics (Shell normalising to impossible degrees).
If Gajin wants every shell to be based on the same model (which is impossible but thats just my two cents) they should at the very least not so obviously use wrong data to get their numbers. As the DeMarr system often disagrees with their own data)

So my simple suggestion is to remove the special angle pen magic from russian guns except for the ones using the BR 350A or B shell which both saw use during WW II and both had a special design to facilitate their increased angle performance. The other russian Shells have all the benefits of that design but none of the downsides making their performance pure fantasy.

[AlvisWisla]

APHE of other nations have this high angled pen as well.
I don’t understand how APHE pens so well on angles in WT.

[FlipAllTheTables]

Russian APHEBC rounds get generally improved slope modifiers because they are blunt penetrators, instead of sharp ones.

The example you showed of the Russian 85 mm ammo, for example, the 2nd from the left is “BR-365A” (from what I can tell, this name is incorrect, it would be just BR-365). The penetrator itself is blunt, and it is specifically APHEBC, not APCBC, unlike the German 88 mm APCBC which has a ballistic cap, then a blunt cap in front of the sharp penetrator.

What I’ve said for BR-365A applies to all other Russian APHEBC. Notice, this is only APHEBC. APCBC rounds like BR-367, 412D and 471D use the same slope modifiers as any other APC type round.

[MiseryIndex556]

Blunt AP had certain benefits but from what I understand, that was against under matching armor. Against over matching armor, it was similar to pointed AP. Soviets used blunt AP because their sharp AP was terrible.

[FHX_Beaver]

At some point all the Russian bias complainers need to really show hard evidence in the code to back up these wild claims.

[FlipAllTheTables]

Sure. Here’s the code to back it up.

Code and information

There are 3 different slope modifiers for full bore AP rounds, those being AP (uncapped, sharp nose AP), APC (AP rounds with a cap) and APBC (blunt nose AP).

BR-365K (sharp nose uncapped APHE, so AP slope modifier):

BR-365A (blunt nose APHE, so APBC slope modifier):

BR-367 (capped AP, so APC slope modifier):

It is simply common knowledge that Russian APHEBC rounds do get generally better slope modifiers than other full bore AP rounds.

There are other rounds that also get the “APBC” slope modifier (I believe the Swedish 75 mm APBC does) but the majority of these rounds are Russian.

Quick edit: If you want real quick proof, simply compare the 0º and 60º penetration of BR-365K and BR-365A at point blank.

Spoiler

	0º	60º
BR-365A	135	58
BR-365K	148	58

One round has noticeably higher flat penetration, yet they both reach the exact same 60º pen value.
This gives BR-365A a significantly lower slope modifier than BR-365K, roughly 2.33 compared to 2.55 (simply divide the flat pen by slope pen to get the specific slope modifier)

I will add, however, that “blunt nose” slope modifiers aren’t always superior. They are specifically worse when against armor that the projectile undermatches, at higher angles, which can be observed when one compares BR-271K to BR-271 from the Russian 57 mm on the T-34-57, at 60º.

[_Baum]

@FlipAllTheTables

Russian APHEBC rounds get generally improved slope modifiers because they are blunt penetrators, instead of sharp ones.

The german shell literally has the same shape in the cap but does not get anywhere near as much a normalisation. And why does the 85mm shell get the exact same normalisation rate as the 76mm shell with a specially designed breaking blunt nose?

@FHX_Beaver

At some point all the Russian bias complainers need to really show hard evidence in the code to back up these wild claims.

Where did I mention russian bias? This has nothing to do with bias. It has sth to do with “being true to reality”

I do not mind that the 76s mm guns have the buffed slopes as this is what their ammo was designed to do. I do however mind that the same modifiers are applied to many other shells which never used said specially designed shells.

[FlipAllTheTables]

@_Baum

The german shell literally has the same shape in the cap but does not get anywhere near as much a normalisation. And why does the 85mm shell get the exact same normalisation rate as the 76mm shell with a specially designed breaking blunt nose?

The cap is separate from the penetrator. It is generally made of a softer steel and is there, for the most part, to protect the penetrator from shattering. Once it hits the armor, it will generally break off.

Meanwhile the Russian penetrator itself is blunt. The overall shape is similar, yes, but the actual functionality is not.

[AlvisWisla]

Good clarification, Baum. I appreciate it.

[Miragen]

You can still find the code that hard nerfed APDS slope performance by adding an extra line of code between 65 and 60 degrees to cause a massive drop off at 61 degrees, where the Soviets commonly have 60 degree sloped armor.

“slopeEffect15deg”: [15.0,10.24]

“slopeEffect20deg”: [20.0,7.2]

“slopeEffect25deg”: [25.0,3.72]

“slopeEffect29deg”: [29.0,2.76]

“slopeEffect30deg”: [30.0,2.46]

“slopeEffect35deg”: [35.0,2.24]

“slopeEffect40deg”: [40.0,2.064]

Also the code that caused German tanks to randomly catch fire through MGs

https://gfycat.com/merrygorgeouscuttlefish

[_Baum]

@FlipAllTheTables

The cap is separate from the penetrator. It is generally made of a softer steel and is there, for the most part, to protect the penetrator from shattering. Once it hits the armor, it will generally break off.

True. This could explain a difference, but not how it is the exact same as a specially designed shell. Also the BR-365K and A shell are the same shell one just with a ballistic cap, yet the balistic capped shell gets the 76mm modifiers while the noncapped shell does not get them.
The BR 365K should already have the same modifier as the A with the A just being faster/retaining more energie. Therefore the K and A should have similar angle performance/modifiers.
That is my gripe.

Take the IS 2 1944. Its Shell only gains the “blunt nose” modifier once it is capped. It is double capped and a “sharp” penetrator. (It is not as pronounced as on the Tiger II or 88mm in general but it is nolonger of a similar shape as the cap, otherwise said cap would be useless and it would just be an APHEBC shell)
The Tiger II also uses a Sharp penetrator with a double cap. Yet the IS 2 retains far more pen at an angle then the Tiger II. The retention of the IS 2 1944 is once again compareable to that of the 76 and 85mm guns. This should not be the case. The values we should expect should be closer to the values found on the 88mm gun.

Ofc every nation has a different design of their shells, but it is quite obvious that Gajin reused the modifiers of one specific almost unique shell and applied them to almost all Meta russian shells

For game balance this was good for a long time, but with the New systems for overmatching, Volumetric, DeMarre and many more it has outlived its purpose and actually harms the game.

As mentioned it breaks physics in some cases (This can happen with all shells, but russian shells especially 85mm and 100mm seem to do it the most) causing volumetric to “over normalise” a hit turning a hit on an almost flat surface into a pen by angeling the shell further down than possible.
It also causes balance issues. Some russian guns over perform causing BR shifts which are not justified beyond randome overperforming shells. The T 44 (85mm) would be an example of this.

[FlipAllTheTables]

@_Baum

Also the BR-365K and A shell are the same shell one just with a ballistic cap

The very image you provided shows that this is not true.

BR-365A and BR-365K

Entirely different explosive filler and penetrator shape.

@_Baum

Take the IS 2 1944. Its Shell only gains the “blunt nose” modifier once it is capped. It is double capped and a “sharp” penetrator.

BR-471B does not have a sharp penetrator. It is blunt and only has a ballistic cap (I assume “double capped” means both ballistic cap and “protective” cap).

BR-471D is double capped, however it uses APC slope modifiers like every other APCBC round in the game, and the IS-2 (1944) also cannot fire this round.

BR-471B diagram

[_Baum]

@FlipAllTheTables

IS-2 (1944) also cannot fire this round.

Yes I accidentially had the IS 3 shell opened for that one

But its modifier is still much better than other APCBC rounds. Even when going into the armour viewer you see that it still has a better modifier than other APCBC rounds and is actually more similar to capped british shells of the 17 and 20 pounder. On average it “sees” 20-30mm less armour as the German 88, American 90mm, Italian 90mm and other guns using APCBC rounds. the same holds true for the 100mm APCBC rounds Albeit to a lesser degree being within 10-20mm of other nations rounds.

But It is consistently the best at penetrating angles and has the lowest “armour” value when facing angeled tanks. Which combined mean that even those russian guns have on average a 20% or more advantage at angles.

And all of that still does not explain how their APHEBC shells all share the same modifier as the 76mm shell which uses an entirely different head shape to achive its angle pen.

[FlipAllTheTables]

@_Baum

Even when going into the armour viewer you see that it still has a better modifier than other APCBC rounds and is actually more similar to capped british shells of the 17 and 20 pounder. On average it “sees” 20-30mm less armour as the German 88, American 90mm, Italian 90mm and other guns using APCBC rounds. the same holds true for the 100mm APCBC rounds Albeit to a lesser degree being within 10-20mm of other nations rounds.

That’s part of how overmatching works. Bigger projectiles get superior slope modifiers, and this applies to all full bore AP rounds.

Russian 122 mm BR-471D will have roughly the same slope modifiers as the US T34 heavy tank’s 120 mm APCBC or the Jagdtiger’s 128 mm APCBC.

@_Baum

And all of that still does not explain how their APHEBC shells all share the same modifier as the 76mm shell which uses an entirely different head shape to achive its angle pen.

Go to the time stamp of 1:30 on the video you posted.

So if anything, BR-350A should actually have just worse performance than BR-350B and other blunt projectiles.

[Peasant_wb]

Everyone needs to read this thread.
TL;DR: Soviets made a mistake when converting striking velocities of their new blunt BR-471B shell into effective distances. They used Firing Tables for the HE shell OF-471 and concluded that it’s able to defeat Panther glacis at 2500m, while in reality it was more like 1700m max.

[MiseryIndex556]

Using T33 as a reference, the M358 would penetrate the Panther glacis at about 620 m/s. With the 1067 m/s muzzle velocity, that’s around 5700 meters.

[Xx8xX]

Because Rus ammo has a Triple amount of TnT equivalent