A lot of early-war tanks equipped with 37mm–47mm cannons historically did have access to HE rounds for use against infantry, soft targets, and lightly armored vehicles. Yet in War Thunder, many of these guns seem to lack HE options entirely.
Examples include vehicles like the Stuarts, Pz 38(t), BT-5 / BT-7, A13 Mk II, Daimler, Tetrarch, M14/41, Strv m/38, Strv m/40L, Lago I — and many more.
This raises a fair question: should HE shells be added to these lower-calibre guns?
Why it might make sense:
Historically accurate loadouts included HE for multi-role use
Better effectiveness against soft targets (trucks, SPAA, open-top vehicles)
Reduces reliance on APHE, which can overpenetrate at times and do less than ideal damage to soft targets
Potential downsides:
HE effectiveness might be limited anyway due to small filler
Still, having the option would improve realism and give players more flexibility in combat situations.
What do you think?
Should 37–45mm cannons get their historically available HE shells, or is the current ammunition better?
HE shells generally aren’t given to low tier vehicles to make it easier for new players to get into the game and understand the main anti-tank ammunition before figuring out what HE is good for. I think most new players would think that the shell that explodes is the one that is the best, due to common portrayals of explosions in movies and other games when tanks get hit, while the reality is very different.
So while it would be nice for veteran players, it would confuse new ones, which gaijin really wants to keep.
Problem in WT is underperformance of fragmentation.
Fire 75mm HE 2m from the unarmored truck and it’ll probably do absolutely nothing.
IRL the fragments would absolutely take the vehicle out.
F.e. you can hit the Yag-truck with 37mm HE (doesn’t matter if HE or M-geschoss) 40 times around the cannon and you’ll never hit the driver, despite there being 0 armor between the cannon and driver, only sheet metal. Generally, you’ll be lucky to kill all the guys sitting in the back with 10 shots around the base of the cannon, because fragments are extremely underpowered and the number of these is also minimal.