APC and CP were black powder filled while HE was lyddite filled. When the war started the outfit was increased to 110 rounds per gun in most ships. At the time when 4crh projectiles were issued to the Invincible class, the outfit was 33 APC, which were lyddite and black powder filled, 38 CPC and 39 HE.
CPC: 129.3 lbs. (58.6 kg) Originally Black Powder, later TNT not 61.67 kg
Barham as 1916 ship will have with Black powder
So, the semi-armor-piercing shell is significantly stronger than it should be. Why does no one correct this obvious mistake?
British large-caliber shells in the game are much better than they were in reality, whereas the German ones are nerfed — at least in terms of armor penetration.
Are you use USN Empirical Armor Penetration Formula?
Black powder does not exist in this game so TNT was used as a placeholder. The parameters of 15" CPC given by Navweaps are wrong. Instead we took figures from original documents and manuals.
Seriously? And what, it doesn’t bother anyone that it’s twice as effective? Maybe they should’ve reduced its weight then, no? Or, I don’t know, written a couple lines of code to adjust the propellant?
And which formula do you actually use for naval large-caliber armor penetration?
Because your results directly contradict the Garzke and Dulin Empirical Formula for Armor Penetration (USN formula), which is widely recognized by real military experts as the most accurate and realistic.
Your U.S. values are actually quite close to it, but the British are significantly better, and the Germans are worse.
French 1890 DeMarre Nickel-Steel Armor Penetration Formula
Genius, no one ship don’t use this old type ship armour.
DeMarre formula needs a reference shell as reference. That’s problem.
You have been told many times that this is an inaccurate formula, it often gives errors, and it doesn’t take into account the characteristics of the projectiles at all.
Absolutely spot on. The issue with 380 mm German naval guns in War Thunder (like those on the Bayern, Scharnhorst, etc.) is one of the most glaring imbalances in the naval tech tree. Gaijin has clearly nerfed their penetration, despite historical data and well-established ballistic formulas.
📉 What’s the absurdity here:
Historically, the 38 cm/45 SK L/45 APC L/3,5 used on Bayern was capable of penetrating over 600 mm of armor at close range. According to Kriegsmarine tables, it could penetrate 700+ mm at point-blank under optimal angles.
In War Thunder? A laughable ~550 mm at close range, while other nations’ guns of similar caliber perform noticeably better.
There’s a well-known US Navy empirical penetration formula — used in both historical research and academic contexts — that clearly shows large-caliber APC (armor-piercing capped) shells had significantly better performance than what Gaijin models.
P [mm] = C * V [m/s]1.1 * M [kg]0.55 / (D [mm])0.65
704 mm at zero range.
where C=0.5561613 is a scaling constant. I converted this formula to metric from imperial, so if you look it up on the internet, you will find a different scaling constant
And yes, the armor penetration of American ships, for example, matches the formula by about 95%.
In short, saying “they’re not even hiding it” is putting it mildly. Players have been pointing this out on forums and bug trackers for years: German naval guns are intentionally underpowered in terms of penetration and damage, probably for balance reasons.