I got curious recently and i look at Wikipedia and saw that a lot of low BR cannons have HE ammuntion IRL (and enlisted) but not in WT
The german 37mm tank cannons have HE. Along with the czech 37mm.
Russian 45mm O-240 HE
Japanese 37mm had a HE, and that is actually in the game but it’s only found of like 5.7 BR jap tanks.
Heck, the french SA 18 L21 has a AP and a HE too, but why aren’t they added at all?
For the SA 18, i can get why the AP isn’t added, low pen. But why are all low BR low caliber tank cannons missing thier HE shells?
Is it balancing thing for low BR open tops?
I can get missing HE shells for vehicles who were around before the HE was introduced. Like the M63 for the American 37mm, or the british 40mm Shell mk.ll
There was a thread somewhere covering this subject, but essentially HE rounds were removed from vehicles at reserve-ish BRs due to certain “skill” and effectiveness concerns.
Essentially, these rounds were not too useful in hands of newcomers since they didn’t know how to use them properly (this game ain’t WoT as you can see), and the skilled ones – amongst which “”“seal clubbers”“” are – used them to nuke them newcomers in their open-top vechiles, like SPAAs and SPGs.
But I believe there was also something to do with effectiveness of those HE shells, as they didn’t pack much of a punch to trigger overpressure given their calibre (37/40/45 mms), making them redundant for an average player.
Well, maybe if Gaijin actually took time to explain the mechanics in their game then they would know how to use HE, along with scouting, and many other mechanics. We need a tutorial for HE and how it works.
Iirc, they were removed prior to overpressure, which was rationalized at the time because lower caliber HE was very ineffective, which is no longer the case.
Rank 1 HE removal is in the same camp as nerfing traction to prevent people from reaching OP spots, removing said OP spots, but leaving the traction nerf.
HE rounds don’t have to meet the 170 g TNT eqv. threshold that APHE rounds do in order to overpressure crew, so long as the vehicle is coded as open-topped. Lower caliber rounds just have smaller radius. This means they can still be situationally useful, particularly against semi-armored vehicles that can resist MGs while also not reliably fuzing APHE.
I feel like the obvious solution is to just include a section in the ground tutorial briefly explaining that HE rounds are mainly only useful against open or unarmored vehicles unless they are higher in caliber.
As someone who used them back then, they were never used. Mainly because the vehicles they were fighting weren’t exactly what they would have fought, and because the game back then was intended to have infantry npc’s.
For people wanting to see this even further. The gunshield of the flak 88 bus is perfect for this. Even obscenely small HE quantities, like 20mms can overpressure that one crew member that’s right up against the shield itself (when facing the front/gun, it’s on the right).
I think i got a 2g tnt equivalent to overpressure that one crewmember through that shielding. Although it was extremely particularly
Unfortunately can’t give a image due to console player
My favorite example is the M10 GMC.
It’s possible for the M10’s hull crew to be overpressued by a 12.7 mm HE round from a strafing aircraft striking the roof in just the right spot.
A round with less than 4 g TNT eqv. is able to kill a man through over 19 mm of RHA because the turret roof is open.
WT crewmen can tank a 12.7 mm I-T round pointblank to the neck, but if it has the tiniest amount of explosives, no amount of armor can save them ig.
