Russian Ballistic caps do they over perform?

do Ballistic caps actually work like this cause it feels very OP right now if you have them as few tanks in most countrys get them alot of russian tanks get them but i feel they overperform as im pretty sure it shouldnt allow you a extra 30mms of pen on your shell as it would make no sense not to use them

ballistic caps allow you to pen sherman jumbos front plate in the T34-85 which makes no sense as jumbos front plate is angled to 170MMs which the T34-85 has 135mm pen with BR-365 and cause of ballistic cap it can pen 170mms which feels op

what are your thoughts

Ballistic caps were invented to reduce drag on the shell so that it keeps speed for longer distances, in some cases it also allows the shell to angle itself to get a more favourable penetration angle before the tip of the actual shell hits the tank (depends on the type of ballistic cap used and the type of tip the shell has). A shells ability to penetrate something is directly liked to how fast it is going and then angle it hits at.

So for your specific case the ballistic cap would angle the shell “down” more so that it has to go through less of the armor (sort of like if you were shooting from above the enemy without a cap) compared to a shell without a cap that has to go through more armor as it angles “up” more.

I don’t know if i explained it well enough, but i was trying to keep it as simple as possible :P
The wiki explains things quite well: ( Shell Normalization Against Angled Armor in War Thunder | War Thunder Wiki )

doesnt make sense as tiger 1 PZGR 39 has a ballsitic cap for aerodynamics and it doesnt do that ? or even the 76mm M62

8,8 cm Pzgr. Patr. 39 Kw.K. 36 : Germany (DEU)

Differing By Just 1mm The US 76mm Guns Were So More Effective Than The ...

heres one with cap off
Panzergranate 39

All APHE in the game over-performs, however people voted no on changing this.

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not from the way the pen is whats overperforming the explosion is

The explosion is over-performing.
The pen is just standard APHE pen which is in Japan, China, Italy, etc as well.

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yeah im taking about the Ballistic cap which helps on angles but it seems it only works on russian tanks as tiger 1 has a ballistic cap but cant do the same thing

It also depends on the “head” of the shell underneath, if its pointed or flat tipped. I’m not sure about this part but i think it also depends on the metal used, some might be designed to not bounce off as easily while others might be designed to help with the penetration itself, not sure though.

I don’t actually know how the dev’s determine what shells get what angle modifiers but if you think there is something wrong then you can bug report it here (just search a bit first so that you don’t report something that is already reported and known about): (Gaijin.net // Issues)

A guide on how to report bugs can be found here: ([Navigation] Technical Knowledge Base | War Thunder Wiki)

Edit:
Screenshot 2025-08-07 195014
Screenshot 2025-08-07 195006
(Armour-piercing, capped, ballistic capped shell - Wikipedia)

The BR-365k vs BR-365 seems to be not only the cap but also a flat nose for increased angle penetration (which would in theory be better for penetration than a flat cap on a pointed shell):


(85mm BR 365/365K | British Ordnance Collectors Network)

Irl, the rounder heads on Soviet shell ruined their performance against angled armor. It warthunder, Soviet AP somehow performs comparably to HEAT.

In all fairness though, tanks like the T-34-85 would likely become trash if their shells were realistic.

Well, they were lower quality and softer, so they also chose the flatter design as it gives more durability, at the cost of flat penetration, a side effect is improved angled penetration, tho as there isnt a negativ factor for flat head rounds in game, they are just overperforming.

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Soviet APBC are flat nosed AP with a ballistic cap.

In reality a flat nose increases performance against overmatching armor but makes it perform worse against undermatching armor.

In WT flat nosed shells have simply no downsides and are superior to flat nosed AP.

Which of course makes no sense, but what actually does in WT?