Penetration by a landmine in world of tanks. Everything about landmines in World of Tanks. General information about landmines
Land mines, or high-explosive fragmentation shells (HE), are one of the four types ammunition in World of Tanks, and probably the least common of them. Their use in battle is very specific, and many do not even know why land mines are needed at all. This article will discuss in detail everything that any self-respecting player should know about them.
General information about landmines
Prevalence in the game
The relative rarity of HE is due to the fact that they are, as a rule, an auxiliary type of projectile. However, a whole class of equipment uses high-explosive fragmentation shells - Art-SPG. And without taking into account artillery, tanks in which a high-explosive cannon is the main weapon can be counted on one hand: KV-2, SU-152, O-I, BT-7 artillery, FV215b (183) and FV 4005 can also be included here. Many other vehicles can also be equipped with high explosives, but these are often secondary weapons and are not considered seriously.
Characteristics of landmines
As an example, let's imagine high-explosive fragmentation projectile F-600D, which is fired by the B-1-P gun of the Soviet Art-SAU Object 261:
- Caliber - in general, not so much important characteristic;
- Armor penetration - with land mines it is always much less compared to cumulative, armor-piercing and sub-caliber shells for the same weapon. However, there are also so-called HESH land mines- they can be found in tanks such as Centurion 7/1, FV4202, FV215b (183) and FV 4005. These are armor-piercing land mines, their penetration is very slightly behind other types of shells.
- The damage is increased compared to that of other shells; for artillery it is generally huge and even allows you to destroy some level 10 tanks with one penetration.
- The radius of fragmentation, or splash, means the distance at which damage is caused by fragments after hitting a tank or any other surface. This is especially relevant again for artillery. A huge splash allows high-level Artillery SPGs to inflict enormous damage to vehicles, even if they simply hit the ground next to them, and even hit two or more vehicles at the same time.
Mechanics of landmines
It is the principle of operation of the HE that makes this type of ammunition quite specific and rarely used. Their main distinctive feature is that they can damage the tank without even penetrating it. However, the damage figures, as a rule, do not exceed half of those stated in the characteristics. These numbers depend on the ratio of the caliber of your gun and the thickness of the enemy tank's armor. If the armor is too thick, then the OFS may not cause any damage at all.
Once in a tank, a high-explosive fragmentation projectile with a high degree of probability can cause critical damage to some external module, and if it does penetrate, it will almost completely disable it indoor module or one of the crew members. In addition, OFS never ricochet, however, for them, as for cumulative shells, the screens and the air gap between the screen and the tank body are an additional obstacle, so it is almost impossible to penetrate shielded tanks with a landmine.
How to use land mines in battle
After reading what was written above, you can guess for yourself how to properly use landmines in World of Tanks. They need to be charged mainly in three situations:
- If you are playing against a tank with very weak armor- one of the branches belongs to these German tank destroyers(Nashorn, St. Emil, Rhm. Borsig WT and so on), French ST Lorr. 40t are also good at penetrating the sides of French tank destroyers Foch and AMX AC, as well as many other poorly armored vehicles. Using high-explosive shells, you not only inflict increased damage, but also additionally disable enemy modules and crew members, thereby reducing their combat effectiveness.
- If you can't penetrate a tank with very thick armor. An example is an IS-7 tanking with a banana turret on the Himmelsdorf map. Firing landmines at such an enemy is more effective - you can slowly inflict damage on him, and as a bonus, also disable external modules - triplex and gun. In addition, such tactics are very annoying and have a psychological impact on your opponent.
- In case you need to finish off an enemy with a very small number of strength points(less than 100), and it is difficult to penetrate it with another type of projectile. By loading a landmine, you won't have to aim weak spots tank - just a simple hit is enough.
High explosive shells in real life
In the end, it is worth noting that the principle of operation of the OFS in real life significantly different from how they are presented in the World of Tanks game. In real combat, landmines are mainly used to destroy enemy personnel, as well as unarmored and lightly armored vehicles such as infantry fighting vehicles, infantry fighting vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles, and to destroy fortifications. For example, during Soviet-Finnish war The KV-2 tank with the M-10T howitzer gun was used specifically to combat enemy bunkers and anti-tank barriers. A high-explosive shell is completely ineffective against well-armored vehicles, and, contrary to popular myth, the shock wave does not affect people or explosive equipment located inside the tank.
In addition, real OFS have two switchable modes: fragmentation, when the projectile instantly explodes upon contact with a hard surface, and high-explosive, when the explosion occurs with a delay to give the projectile the opportunity to first enter the interior of the tank or room, and only then explode.
Thus, high-explosive shells in World of Tanks have a very limited scope, but can greatly facilitate the game in certain situations.
(I don’t mention the shaitan pipe (152 mm M-10) on the KV-2 with penetration like level 5 armor-piercing guns and damage like level 5 artillery, a separate article should be written about it.)
So,
Why don’t beginners take high explosives? because they have a small penetration prescribed. Why do some newbies still take them? Because they have enormous damage prescribed. The latter are then surprised to discover that the damage goes through even the thickest frontal armor, although not as great as stated. How can you make sure that the full damage occurs?
In this article, I will try to analyze the main points of the use of high explosives in battles, as well as small notes compiled on the basis of my observations in battles.
So, what is a land mine? IN general view This is a short-barreled, large-caliber gun that fires high-explosive fragmentation and cumulative shells, with a longer reload time, greater dispersion, and also a lower flight speed of the projectiles themselves than long-barreled armor-piercing guns. I want to start the review of these guns with a review of the ammunition for them:
High-explosive fragmentation shells
High-explosive fragmentation shells have thin walls and are filled with an explosive whose mass is much greater than the mass of the projectile; at the moment of contact with an obstacle (for example, armor), they detonate and a shock wave affects a small area around. Therefore, the armor penetration of these shells is low, and the damage radius is large.
In the game, damage from fragmentation high explosive shells can be divided into 2 types: low damage (0-250), mainly from the shock wave; and full damage (350-500), usually when a shell explodes inside the tank. Full damage occurs precisely when the projectile hits armor thinner than the armor penetration of a high-explosive weapon. Typically, this type of armor is found on Tier 4 tanks, and on the sides and rear of Tier 5-6 tanks. If the armor is thicker, then the projectile explodes on it, and the damage from the blast wave passes through weakly protected places on the armor, in addition, such a wave damages and breaks modules located outside the tank (triplexes, guns, tracks, less often tanks). Since tanks usually face us, it is necessary to inflict the most possible damage with a shock wave. To do this, you need to shoot next to all kinds of hatches, observation devices, machine guns, etc. In this regard (in terms of the number of places vulnerable to a blast wave), the front of the tank is protected from high-explosive fragmentation shells even weaker than the sides or rear, see note No. 2. It is not recommended to shoot tracks with these shells - they usually completely absorb the shock wave. In general, when firing high-explosive shells, the enemy is consistently dealt damage of 50-150 units, and against weakly armored targets, such as light tanks or artillery, as well as in cases where the enemies are facing us with the least protected places of armor, you can deal full damage, rejoice and feel like a destroyer of everyone and everything.
HEAT shells
More expensive, but having huge armor penetration with the same damage as HE - the second reason why you should play with a high explosive.Upon contact with an obstacle in a cumulative projectile it also detonates explosive, but the explosion is concentrated inside the projectile into a thin stream that escapes from the nose of the projectile and penetrates very thick armor (see "cumulative effect" on Wikipedia).
However, the cumulative jet weakens very quickly with distance, so if such a projectile hits screens or tracks located far from the hull, the damage to the tank will be very small. You can also sometimes hear “didn’t penetrate,” especially if you shoot at armor without aiming. Well, what can I say: and Mouse ricochets off MS-1. HEAT shells must be used prudently and carefully. Also a quick note about the price of these shells: they can be purchased for silver, but they cost about 30 times more than non-gold ones. Don't be afraid of it!
If a projectile causes full damage, in the calculation of credits for the battle, not only will the amount of this projectile be returned, but an additional amount will also be added on top (in credits, of course). What you shouldn’t do is miss, 1-2 wasted shells can still pay off, more is difficult. If you shoot mindlessly, you can go into the red, although at levels 4-5 it’s not easy. I would also like to note the reaction of players who, relying on their thick armor, come at you at close range, when you are completely reduced and charged with cumulative power. This is priceless... In general, with cumulative shells you can pierce the enemy in the forehead, inflict consistently huge damage, earn money, decide the outcome of the battle and enjoy the game.
In update 0.8.6, the developers completely redesigned cumulative shells, their mechanics in the game, as well as their cost. In particular, for mid-tier vehicles, the armor penetration of cumulative shells has decreased by ~50 mm. The ability to ricochet a cumulative projectile was also added, which complicates their use. In return, the developers did not increase the dispersion of these weapons, and considering that in patch 0.8.6 the probability of hitting the center of the aiming circle increased, for high explosives this means an increase in accuracy.
Now about the features of the weapon:
Rate of fire, dispersion, projectile flight time. Such low performance gun developers tried to compensate for the damage that an experienced player can cause with this weapon. Whether they succeeded or not is up to you to decide. In general, shooting at moving targets is difficult, since it is difficult to correctly calculate the time of flight of a projectile and shoot in advance. It's difficult, but you can hit it stationary targets standing in the distance. If you are lucky and get in, rejoice. HE and CS damage does not depend on distance, in addition, a pleasant surprise awaits you (see note No. 1). But in general, it is better to play with such a weapon on the front line, then there is little chance of missing. And here it’s worth remembering about slow reloading, always having cover at hand, not engaging in a duel with rapid-firing tanks at arm’s length and not hoping that the enemy will take full damage and die immediately, although this often happens. First of all, a tank with a high explosive is a support; it should damage, distract and finish off. And yes, a little practice, straight hands, and you can do whatever you want with this tool, and even more.
In general, to understand high-explosive guns, whether you like them or not, you need to play about 100-200 battles with them, and then decide what is better: penetration or damage.
Notes
- Note No. 1 - when shooting at long distances from sniper scope it can be seen that the projectile flies above the place where the sight is located, flies in an arc and approximately hits the point at which it was shot. Taking into account the spread, of course. In general, such shooting is somewhat reminiscent of artillery: hitting the target is difficult, but possible. Also, due to the fact that the projectile flies in an arc, the target may be unlucky: the projectile has a high probability of hitting the roof, which is very thin, especially on tank destroyers. For example, if you shoot a Stug III at 150m, you hit it in the forehead and it takes 50-150 damage, depending on your luck. If you shoot him in the forehead from a distance of 250 - 350 m, then, of course, if you hit, you will probably hit the roof, and he will receive 250 - 350 damage. Even a one-shot is possible. And these are with ordinary high-explosive shells.
- Note #2 - Most bright representatives this type of tank: KV-1. Soviet heavy tanks: ugly combat vehicles for everyone who plays against them, because of the thick frontal armor and weapons, and for those who play against them, because of the disgusting dynamics. When shelling these tanks with high-explosive shells, you might be surprised: shooting at the sides causes less damage to heavy tanks than at the front. The reason is in the structure of the tank: the armor on the sides and rear is comparable to the front armor of medium tanks; due to the high height of the tracks, the fenders are very small, and it is almost impossible to hit them with a high-explosive shell. As a result: the sides are very weakly vulnerable to high-explosive fragmentation and almost impenetrable to cumulative projectiles. In the forehead, most often there are non-sloping sections of armor, riddled with hatches and machine guns, and a turret with a bunch of observation devices. Therefore, if such a tank is standing sideways to you, shoot at the turret, or go around it from behind and use cumulative bullets to shoot at the stern. Or, of course, you can try to go in head-on))))
- Note #3 - Defenseless artillery. The cabins of most mid-level self-propelled guns are open to all winds. However, this often saves them from shooters with high-explosive guns. The fact is that if you catch only the edge of the armor, hit the gun directly or the same tracks, the artillery piece can survive. And sometimes he even survives one, less often, two hits. Be careful when shooting at artillery, and shoot at the center of the wheelhouse armor, which is sometimes represented by just a small shield on the gun or symbolic sides, like a truck. Then the artefact will probably explode on the first hit.
- Note #4 - Shooting at the side is a delicate matter. As mentioned above, caterpillars love to eat up all the damage from land mines and cumulative shells. But, if you get into the fenders of the same T-34 or Pz.Kpfw. IV is almost perpendicular to the armor, the full damage will most likely pass through. It is also necessary to target weak points with high explosives, although this is more difficult.
Many World of Tanks games do not use high-explosive shells at all, since they cause virtually no damage to enemy targets. In fact, only an inexperienced player can think this way, and someone who has already had several thousand battles behind him understands how useful land mines can be against some equipment on the battlefield.
What are landmines in tanks?
In real life, high-explosive shells were used primarily against enemy infantry, buildings, checking minefields, destroying surveillance devices, and also to shell-shock the crew.
In our game, land mines have very low armor penetration, and therefore explode without penetrating armor. But it should be taken into account that in this moment Not all tanks in the game are protected by strong armor.
What types of landmines are there in tanks?
There are three types of high-explosive shells in our game:
- ordinary;
- premium landmines;
- HESH landmines.
Which ones are better?
The former cause significantly more damage than armor-piercing shells, but their armor penetration leaves much to be desired. But even ordinary landmines have a big advantage - they always cause damage wherever you hit. For example, the KV-2 has landmine damage of 910 units. Hits in armored tank, a land mine deals approximately 300-400 points of damage, while a regular projectile will do “zero”. And weakly armored targets, such as artillery or the entire branch of “cardboard” German tank destroyers, will receive maximum damage.
Consequently, no matter what the enemy does, no matter how much he “tanks”, he will always receive damage from a landmine.
What is the difference between premium landmines and regular ones?
Premium landmines are not much different from regular ones. Most often, they penetrate armor a little better and have a large “splash” (the radius of scattering of fragments). That is, such a landmine can damage several targets at once if they are nearby.
A special place is given to HESH land mines, which are available only for British equipment. Their armor penetration is only slightly inferior to armor-piercing shells, and at the same time they cause enormous damage. Take, for example, the famous British tank destroyer FV215(B) 183. The armor penetration of this monster’s HESH high explosive reaches 230 mm, and the damage, attention – 1750 units. Can you imagine when such a projectile just flies into your side? This is almost always a one-shot unless you are a level 10 tank.
Exploding randomly
When shooting landmines, you should try to hit straight armor - tracks or “slanted armor” absorb damage better.
Land mines bring a lot of fun to game process, especially on large-caliber howitzers. Some lovers of land mines boldly take the KV-2 and go into battle against the “ten”. Imagine the owner of an IS-7 or E-100 who receives 350 units of head-on damage from a level 6 tank and cannot do anything about it. What then is it like for the famous Grille when he receives 1000 damage?
Landmines are undoubtedly very useful look shells, but you need to have them to use. An experienced player always carries about five landmines with him, even with conventional guns, in order, for example, to shock “cardboard targets.”
Top 5 high explosive tanks
6 years and a month ago Comments: 4
High explosive shells in the game World of Tanks are called guns large caliber, from which you need to shoot either landmines or cumulative shells. With the latter, everything is very clear: according to the principle of operation, they are similar to conventional armor-piercing ones (only adjusted for the absence and significant loss of armor penetration when passing through the screen), only they are much more expensive.
Why are high-explosive guns popular?
Such “high explosives” with the ability to fire cumulative projectiles from them were very popular in such vehicles as the Netzer, M4 Sherman and some others. The very high damage of such cumulative projectiles for their level made it possible to quickly destroy opponents. In update 0.8.6, the penetration of these shells was significantly reduced, but they still remain a formidable force.Firing high-explosive fragmentation shells.
But we will not talk about them, but about firing conventional high-explosive fragmentation shells, which, in fact, are what “high explosives” are intended for. At first glance, the use of high-explosive shells requires practically nothing from the player: if you hit the enemy, he will still take at least minimal damage. This is why at low levels inexperienced players often shoot only land mines: they do not know the penetration zones, so they rarely use armor-piercing ones.But once the player understands the basic principles of the game, learns the most common vulnerable areas of tanks (for example, the lower frontal part), he completely switches to armor-piercing shells, and uses high-explosive fragmentation shells only in quite specific situations: when knocking down a grapple, when shooting at an enemy using a reverse diamond, etc.
M5 Stuart, as an example of a tank with a high-explosive gun.
But what to do if you can only equip a tank with a land mine or other weapons that are frankly weak? Consider, as an example, the American light tank M5 Stuart. You can put a 37 mm “picker” on it, penetration armor-piercing projectile which is 56 mm. This is not enough even for light tank fourth level. An alternative is the 75 mm high explosive, which does not carry cumulative projectiles. And “gold” landmines are rarely used due to their high price.Many players find this easy American tank frankly weak in the game, especially against the background Chinese copy. But this is due to the fact that inexperienced players simply do not know how to competently use ordinary high-explosive fragmentation shells on such “high explosives”, since they are accustomed to armor-piercing shells.
For example, if you are using armor-piercing shells and the enemy is standing sideways to you, then it is useful to shoot him through the track at the side, this guarantees penetration in almost any case. But in this case, it is not worth shooting at the caterpillar with a high-explosive projectile, because it is a screen that well absorbs damage from high-explosive fragmentation ammunition. It is better to shoot, for example, at the side of the tower, where the armor is relatively thin, which will lead to damage not only large quantity damage, but also critical damage.
We shoot land mines at artillery
Contrary to fairly common belief for effective use high-explosive fragmentation shells vulnerabilities you need to know even better than in the case of armor-piercing ones. For example, when firing an armor-piercing projectile at a self-propelled gun, there is practically no difference where you actually shoot: the damage will occur in any case. But with a high-explosive fragmentation projectile, everything is much more complicated: the damage can be “eaten up” by both the caterpillar and relatively durable housing, but getting into a poorly armored wheelhouse will destroy the self-propelled gun even with one hit."Fugaski" differ weak penetration, but with very high damage even when using regular rather than “gold” shells. Your goal should be weak armored vehicles, for example, with an open cabin. Among tank destroyers low levels There are a lot of such vehicles, which will allow you to destroy them in one or two shots. Hitting the side, stern and other weakly armored places is also effective, just don't hit the tracks.
"Fugaski" can be very effective in a head-on attack, since a high-explosive fragmentation projectile inflicts a lot of critical damage. When such a projectile hits the front of the turret, the gun is often completely disabled, making it impossible to fire. If the enemy does not have a repair kit (or has already used it), then he will be defenseless for about ten seconds, which will make it easy to destroy him.
"Fugaski" have poor accuracy and slow reloading. The first leads to the need to shoot from close ranges. The second involves careful thinking through tactics; often you only have one shot, after which you need to immediately hide behind cover. You have to play not because of high damage per minute, like “hole punchers,” but because of high one-time damage.
As a conclusion, it is worth saying that a land mine, even loaded with a regular and not a “gold” projectile, can become a formidable weapon in the right hands: you can destroy many enemies with one or two shots, but for this you need to know the weak points and get used to long reloads and information.
High-explosive fragmentation shells are present in the game as both regular and premium ammunition. This is the main type for self-propelled guns and short-barreled large-caliber guns. They have the highest potential damage for their calibers and the lowest armor penetration. The peculiarity of HE shells is that in order to inflict the full damage stated in the technical characteristics, they must penetrate the main armor of the tank, whereas if they do not penetrate, the damage is inflicted taking into account the armor absorption coefficient.
HE shells have the concept of “splash” - a sphere of scattering fragments, the ability to cause damage linearly decreases along the length of the scattering radius and amounts to 50% of the base damage value at the center of the explosion, and 15% at the edge of the splash radius. Premium HE shells have an increased radius of fragmentation, HESH shells have increased armor penetration. The fragments ignore the overlap of tanks, thus a small tank, being behind big tank in relation to the point of explosion, will receive its “legal” vectors with fragments.
The same rule applies to ignoring destructible/non-destructible objects. A tank behind a wall can take damage from shrapnel if a shell explodes with reverse side walls.
High-explosive fragmentation shells do not have normalization and do not ricochet. To calculate penetration, the reduced armor thickness at the point of impact of the projectile is used.
Main features of high-explosive fragmentation shells
- The armor penetration of the projectile does not decrease with distance.
- When a land mine explodes on armor (when damage passes through the armor, but without the projectile penetrating into the space behind the armor), the damage is halved.
- A shock wave (a rupture in the armor or near the tank) cannot damage more than half of the crew members. For crews with an odd number of tankers, rounding in both directions is equally likely.
If the HE shell did not penetrate the armor of the tank or exploded next to it:
At the moment of the explosion of a high-explosive projectile, a sphere of scattering fragments is built. From the center of the sphere, vectors are constructed to all modules and armor groups of the tank. The server also determines the damage (the value chosen is ±25%, which is divided by 2). Subsequently, when calculating the damage caused by fragments, the resulting number participates in the mechanisms of attenuation with distance (the flight distance of fragments is taken into account) and damage absorption by armor (the thickness of the armor and the absorption coefficient from the installed lining are taken into account). After calculating the damage for each shell fragment, for all modules and armor groups, the maximum value is selected, and it is this damage that is inflicted on the tank hull.
Thus, the use of high-explosive shells is extremely effective against weakly armored targets.
Also, high-explosive shells from large-caliber guns can be used to cause damage to heavily armored tanks, the armor of which is difficult to penetrate with other types of shells.