I’ll keep this simple.
Volumetric caused a ton of shots to fail to penetrate.
There is a 2-fold reason.
The main issue is how the shells behave and we shall discuss this first.
What is happening here?
Some say “volumetric”.
But it’s not THAT simple.
What is really happening, is shell plowing along an armor plate, not deviating from the path even by 1cm.
To one side it encounters thin air. To the other side it encounters armor plate parallel to its movement.
What happens to the shell IRL?
It gets deflected a few degrees to the side, as every simulation out there indicates.
Shells take the path of lesser resistance if the setting allows for it.
When shell strikes a solid plate, that has a hole to one side a few cm from where shell struck… it will still deviate towards that hole, because it’s easier to displace material in that direction.
In this case there’s just air.
But shell will not deviate by even a mm. It will be stopped, because it struck a goddamn corner.
This is also the cause of the iconic Tiger side withstanding Soviet 100mm cannon, as pictured here:
5mm plate is basically ignored. But what happens next?
Our 100mm shell encounters Sponson bottom armor which is 25mm.
What does it do?
Deviate slightly up, penetrating 80mm side?
Nope.
Deviate slightly down, penetrating 60mm lower side?
Nope.
It plows straight along the armor, getting stopped in the most unrealistic fashion one can imagine.
French Panther has non-volumetric bottom sponson armor and this stuff keeps happening.
T-34 has volumetric turret, and this stuff keeps happening.
It’s just a matter of extremely simplified armor penetration.
And this brings us to part 2:
why the hell are 3d models like that:
What the hell does this shell hit?
It seems like there’s some hidden part of the mantlet inside? Can somebody confirm? But if it’s already inside, why does the shell deal no damage?
Seriously, imagine if the mantlet is somehow reaching beyond the turret face - OK, but to strike that super angled part, our Pzgr 39 has to be already INSIDE because otherwise that “angled” part would just be a… part of the turret face and as such, not behave like angled armor at all (if you cut a plate diagonally and then weld it along the cat, it doesn’t make the weld a spot with heavily angled armor, lol).
Shells should deviate from their path if they strike an edge, just like in real life - if there is less resistance to one side, shell should deviate towards that side, rotating slightly in the process.
I would say if the shell strikes a plate like you suggested and it is at less than half the radius from the edge it should just ignore it. If it is closer than hlaf radius to the center of the shell it should deflect slightly under an angle.
I think there’s something dumber going on BTW, because Panther sponson only works when shot at some minimal vertical angle.
If you hit it straitght at 90 degrees, all is fine.
But if you fire from below at lets say, 4 degrees - sorry, 400mm effective.
This of course makes absolutely 0 sense whatsoever.
Just like KV-1 Zis turret front layout, which is something I genuinely do not understand, especially since armor 3d model does not show any magical plate where my shell struck and where I tested, but in the “penetration X-ray view” there’s clearly something there.
Who knows how many “invisible” armor plates can be found in this game.
You still forgot to mention the incredible bullet-stopping power of the sights and tracks.
I think it’s great that at least someone has made a post about this, since the disastrous penetration model is one of the two key issues, along with the damage model, that make this game an absolute failure, riddled with randomness that ruins the gameplay experience.
I also find it funny that they added volumetric bullets, as an excuse to remove the unrealistic pixelated shooting, only to end up doing something that generates even more problems, either due to the devs’ incompetence, or it’s something premeditated to generate more randomness in the game.
I mean, when I started counting and it turned out that out of 30 shots to T-34 1941 turret front using Sherman’s 75mm only 6 penetrated, and out of 5 7.5 cm Pzgr 39 2 did anything I decided enough is enough. Seriously, that turret has some 90mm spots but that’s it.
It has no righ to behave like that.
Meanwhile T-34-42 which should by all accounts be tougher, is actually weaker because it has less corners around the middle.
There’s also the magic of Pz IV that by all means should be an easy pen, and it is. Unless you hit the edge of 50mm mantlet, then it stops 120+ penetration shells because reasons.
Yes, it’s funny that on certain tanks, just by having overlapping armor plating, even though it’s not enough to stop a bullet, they still manage to stop it, even when the bullets are from APCs. On the other hand, I find the T-34 42’s turret harder to penetrate than the 41’s because it has the bulk of the gun mantlet, which either bounces the bullet off or absorbs it without allowing any damage. Besides, sometimes it stops bullets right up to the bottom of the barrel, making it only possible to kill that tank by hitting the turret ring.
Or when you hit the MG barrel, because I’m sure it is bolted in well enough that an IS-2 round wouldn’t just snap the mountings and drive the MG into the operators face.
The mantlet on 42 works like 110mm plate.
Problem is - people will hit all over the place and penetrate around 40% of the time. Meanwhile me firing at 41 turret brings me the mentioned 20% success rate with 104 penetration and maybe 35% success rate with 7.5cm KwK 40 cannon.
Which is highly unfortunate, because T-34-57 with the same turret will then murder me mercilessly.
I would really love to hear, what exactly sits behind that flat spot on KV-1 that can stop 140+ penetration shells like they are nothing.
Because there clearly is something as shown in the “x-ray view” during penetration. It’s not visible in any other view. Is there some kind of 60+mm plate in there? It would be damn stupid from realistic point of view (shell enters crew compartment anyway, the additional heavily curved (only way to get to 900mm) plate with big hole in it won’t stop people from bailing out and fragments from ricocheting inside - it would make a lot more sense to just make the turret front thicker, but who the hell knows?
By the way, now that we’re talking about the T-34, why can’t the hull’s machine gun area be penetrated with bullets up to 130mm deep? It should be possible with cannons up to 50mm deep.
I’m fairly convinced that volumetric prioritizes “fitting through the gap” over if the round can just smash through. If you hit a joint in the armour the round non-pens if it cant fit through the gap, never mind it could pen both plates 3 times over.
This is partially the issue of “no shell momentum”.
F.e. you can blast single-engine fighter armored windshield with a 50mm HE round going at like 900m/s effective speed (we’re firing from the front at an aircraft closing in) at almost 2kg.
If it hits armored windshield of an aircraft, nothing happens, maybe some fragments kill the engine if it’s single-engine fighter.
IRL said windshield would be blasted straight through pilots face as canopy mounts have nowhere near structural integrity to just take the kinetic energy and the blast of 700g of TNT equivalent.
But we’re talking about a game, where you can block a 203mm HE shell using 10cm by 1 pixel piece of steel. If the shell strikes the 1 pixel part perpendicular, that’s where explosion originates and that single pixel blocks entire 180 degrees of explosion.
Best visible vs soviet MBTs without ERA - if the turret has some irregularities, if you strike those with 203mm HE, absolutely nothing happens despite there being clearly a straight line to the top armor from almost the entire shell.almost, because the tip is blocked
And that’s all that counts!
Right now I’m using the French M4A4, and I usually face T-34s, KV-1s, Panzers, and StuGs. I generally kill T-34s easily by hitting the front of the turret, although if I aim a little more towards the center, the bullet hits near the gun mantlet and does nothing. With the T-42s, I hit the turret ring. I do the same with KVs, hitting the small area at the front of the turret where the gun mantlet isn’t located. Panzers are tricky, since sometimes I kill them with one shot to the front of the hull, and other times the bullet ricochets. StuGs are the most fun, because I shoot them where the driver’s sight is, and the bullet never penetrates, even though it should be a weak point. But hey, we all know that what’s a weakness in reality is a strength in the game.
I deal with T-34-41 by shooting right below the barrel. If I don’t hit the edge of the mantlet, then I take out the gun and oftentimes also turret crew.
Thing is, I can’t make this shot at distance or vs moving target or when I’m on the move myself.
So I sometimes blast at the turret and hope for the best, with Sherman’s reload it sounds viable, but in reality, it often leads to ridiculous amounts of frustration.
The worst part is, it is effectively 100% random, and the edges of the mantlet seem to work like goddamn supermagnets.
On the other hand, I once shot Su-85M from 1600m away with Tiger E, shell landed short and went right through guy’s floor.
I genuinely doubt it should be possible.
Vs Stug - Soviets can shoot at any angled part and kill in.
In M4 I just fire at the gun mantlet. In game we have early mantlet that is a weakspot. IRL they were upgraded to Saukopf mantlets (and also received MGs, but hey, who wants a better Stug?
BTW, uparmoring Stug III’s angled parts would do nothing as Gaijin’s code treats f.e. 30 and 20mm plates sandwhiched together as 2 separate plates.
And Soviet 76mm treats 30mm plate at 70 degrees as if it was at 45 degrees max. So adding armor to Stug III above driver’s plate would do nothing because of broken-a55 way armor is calculated vs Soviet guns.
Look at T-34 with additional 15mm on UFP vs Soviet 85mm - it barely notices the additional plate!
IRL 45+15mm would be like 97% as strong as monolithic 60mm plate.
I told Gaijin it makes no sense. They told me “find documents” - because surely some scientific research was done to refute a claim nobody ever made. Nobody but Gaijin.
Volumetric is a solution, not a problem.
The problem was pixel shots, which ruined heavy tank survivability for years.
Now, when people complain about the armor simulation, this is how people should respond:
However, right now it’s nice to have games slowed down by minor parts of armor unintentionally over-performing across all tech trees.
I’m indifferent, that’s my bias.
I can live with the current or improved. And I’ve pushed people to support improved armor modeling and simulation in the past, and do today.
Encouragement of criticism is the best thing I can offer when I myself am indifferent on an issue.
Well, it’s nice to see armor work indeed.
But then you have anti-armor magic like Soviet APBC performance vs layered armor. Not spaced, just layered. Game treats layered armor same as spaced so having additional plate barely does anything. It’s best visible in case of…
T-34E with 45+15mm hull.
I would be kinda fine with guns being less precise, f.e. via actually using gunner’s sight, because this can be worked around easier than magical sponson bottom armor stopping 200 penetration shell or T-34-41 blocking 12.8cm Pzgr 43 like it’s nothing.
Single 100mm plate is stronger.
Not by much.
But it is.
85mm at 900m
Look here. The plates delaminate.
It means it’s a bit easier to displace material in front of the shell at some point (it can push a tiny bit of it into the gap).
But the difference it makes is fairly small.
Meanwhile in WT such armor is basically as good as monolithic vs APCBC, but absolutely crap vs APBC, which makes absolutely 0 sense.
This is Panther gun at 550m - basically “almost through” and might have penetrated IRL because simulation is not fully accurate:
Anyway, as you can see, no soviet magic is happening.
And BR365 85mm vs Pzgr 39 8.8cm.
Again, no magic happening, because why would it happen, the plates are initially pushed together by impact, and the delamination is fairly small.
