World of Tanks: Ammunition

So after some changes to how your ammo works in world of tanks and through playing about 6,000 more battles since I wrote the Gold rounds and You! post, I've decided to rewrite my post about ammo.

Please note that using gold rounds is not cheating or being cheap. They've been part of the game for a long while and since APCR and HEAT has recently been nerfed a bit. I can't see why people would complain about someone using gold, to me it's as silly as someone complaining about someone using a repair kit or a fire extinguisher.

Types of Rounds

• AP is the standard ammo and has a normalization of 5 degrees. Normalization by the way means that angling is just that bit less effective.
• APCR is generally a premium ammo that has a normalization of 3 degrees. It has a greater penetration value of AP however it loses more penetration the further it flies. You'll only really notice this with across the map shots or when that piece of armor you hit is really angled.
• HE is a standard ammo that explodes when its penetration value hits zero causing splash damage. It is most useful for artillery, resetting a base when you need to not bounce (aim for tracks), and dealing that last 1% of a tanks health that is hard to penetrate. (hull down T34)
• HEAT is a premium ammo that has greater penetration then AP but automatically bounces off 80 degree or greater and has no normalization. It also loses a lot of penetration when it hits spaced armor so in certain cases it is more advantageous to use AP shells due to armor layouts.

General Ammo Layout

Standard Tanks

For my standard tanks I generally go with 60~80% AP, 20~40% Gold, and 0~2% HE. Some times I'm very lazy or a tank has a low penetration value for its tier so I equip more gold shells to better support it vs +2 tiering or those tanks I can't penetrate otherwise if I can't get along side them. Depending on how many rounds my tank carries I'll have a handful of HE shells loaded for last second base resets or dealing that last 20/1500 health on a tank I can't easily pen without exposing myself to too much enemy fire. As an example I carry about 10% gold in my ISU-152 just for some awkward shots vs Tier 10's and 2 HE shells because I never run out of AP and I might need them for a side scraping E-100 that is capping.

Derps

For those tank guns that uses only HE and HEAT shells like the KV-2's short barrel the standard loadout is about 50/50 HE and HEAT. In most cases vs lower tier tanks HE is enough to deal respectable damage but it falls very short vs same or higher tier tanks. Lets say your potential damage is 300 HEAT and 400 HE. You'll probably do 600 damage in 2 shots with HEAT while you'll probably only do 200~350 damage with HE for those two shots. This is mostly why I never play derp tanks anymore, and for the fact that my ISU-152's tier 10 gun is much more satisfying with AP.

Artillery

  For artillery I generally load 70~90% HE and 30~10% Gold HE / HEAT and 0~3 shells of AP. For artillery AP and HEAT shells are rarely worth the chances of bounces / misses. Gold HE is great for when you have a lot of tanks clumped together so you are more likely to deal decent damage to all of them but your bread and butter is always HE.

Very small guns

And we can't forget them little tanks like a T-50 in a tier 9 match, pretty much you're not trying to shoot tanks unless they're other scouts but a good idea is enough AP / APCR to deal with other scouts and to harrass big tanks in the bum or some HE to peck at cappers / maybe dealing 0.1% of a big tanks health but generally I find myself equipping more HE then usual on these small tanks because what else can you do with them but tickle with those little guns.

World of Tanks: Where to shoot

Now this is pretty standard but a lot of people tend to have issues with damaging tanks. Now a lot of times if you're using a low pen gun or firing against a higher tier vehicle there isn't too much you can do even with gold rounds. However there are the general locations to shoot. For constancy sake I refer to angles based on if the protractor below was laid against the hull of a tank so a 90 degree angle would be a straight on hit.

Basics
Generally you'll want to shoot at things that have a green penetration notice (center of cross-hair changes colors). If you are loading HE you might be able to still deal damage even if it is red, however the amount of damage you'll do will really drop if you hit a red patch compared to a green patch at the same angle.

1. Top/Bottom of the chassis
2. Rear of the chassis
3. Sides of the chassis
4. Lower Glacis (the bottom part of a tanks front)
5. Commander Hatches (Those things on the tops of turrets where a tank crew can poke their heads out of) 
6. Driver port / machine gun port in the chassis

Intermediary
Now you'll notice a lot of times you'll hit something that shows green (penetrable) however you'll bounce or fail to penetrate the armor. This is because armor becomes more effective when it is angled. Armor at a 60 degree angle has about double the effectiveness so 100mm becomes around 200mm. There is also spaced armor that will cut down your rounds penetration effectiveness by a lot because of how shells work in the dead space.

Now for this area I'll go into a few different tanks on specific spots and the kind of gun needed to deal damage. This is based on shooting the tanks front which is generally what direction they'll be pointing towards you.

• Super Pershing (the hatch under the two barrels on the top of the turret)(top half of the hull with gold IS-3) 
• KV-5 (the R2D2 which is the larger cylinder that is poking out of the chassis)
• Maus / E-100 (Gold rounds to the turret's from when they are looking directly at you with an IS-3+)(Lower glacies, the maus is harder because it is very small between the track's space armor)
• T-95 (Pretty dangerous, only those hatches at the top are reliable since the tracks can cover up a lot of that lower plate)
• IS-6 (For anything as weak as an IS-6's pen, shoot the top of the turret, the chance of bouncing on the chassis is too high)
• IS-3 (The very top of the turret there is a bolted on plate between the hatches and the gun which is extremely weak)
• T28 Prot (Gold rounds in the IS-6 can penetrate the center of the chassis where the clan tag is

And finally some spots to not shoot or be careful of shooting

• The T69 has a very bouncy turret if you use a low pen gun
• Anything sitting on the sides of tanks like gas tanks or the two things poking out of a T29's turret has no damage boxes so you'll be just shooting dead air.

World of Tanks: Getting started on World of Tanks

Welcome tankers to the wonderful world of tanks! Most of you are probably new to the game, while some of you are extremely new. Through my experiences in battle I've learned a lot of things about tanks and tanking that a lot of newer players should know.


Go for a KV-1 with the 85-mm
My first advice is to go for the KV-1, it is only around 20,000 exp to get from tier 1 and with an average of about 500 experience a battle you'll get it researched in around 40 games. The reason why is that it is arguably one of the very best tanks at tier 5 and you'll be able to learn a lot of key things in this tank. The first being how to angle your armor to minimize damage taken along with how to brawl. You'll see where the heavies normally go every time in maps, join them and play along with the others, and if you aren't in the top tier then hang back behind them and wait / move around to get damaging shots.

Also this is a good time to talk about equipment and consumables on your tanks. Get yourself Ventilation (+5% to crew effectiveness), Rammer (+10% to reload), Toolbox (+25% repair). This is so your can shoot faster and when you get tracked you can repair it faster and get back into the battle. For consumables ALWAYS First aid kit (4,4 to heal driver), repair kit (5,5 to repair tracks), fire extinguisher (reassign to the space bar or an unused mouse button). 3,000 credits might look like a lot but the amount of experience and credits you could get that match can pay for it so many times over.
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Crews
Your crews are very important, never run a tank above tier 3 with a crew below 75%. That 20,000 credits per crew member means so much I can't describe how useful that 25% training is, that 23,000 experience needed to get from 50% to 75% means your crew could have been 86%. That little bit faster reload rate, turn speed, acceleration, accuracy, etc means the difference from having an average game to a good or great game. Imagine all of the scenarios where if that one shot hit or you reloaded half a second faster and killed that guy capping / killing you.

Also when you get 100% on a crew go for Brothers in Arms on every single crew member (it only works if all crew members has Brothers in Arms trained to 100%) or go for all camouflage (scouts / tank destroyers). For your second skill if you don't have Brothers in arms already I suggest all repair. The number of times I've had to waste a repair kit on my tracks so I wouldn't be instantly killed by half the enemy team and the number of times I've lost a brawl because I couldn't turn my turret fast enough when tracked is too numerous to count in those 9,000+ battles. Also don't sell any crew that is above 75%, just move them to the next tank or keep them in the barracks for another tank.


Ammo
Now it doesn't matter so much in lower tiers but once you get to around tier 4 where armor values start to matter your general ammo layout should be 50~90% AP, 10~50% Gold, 0~0.5% HE rounds. Tanks with HE rounds as their primary (artillery and derps) are special cases and can be covered later, just remember that.

• AP rounds are your bread and butter, aim for weak spots sides, ass, lower plate on chassis, driver and machine gun ports, and hatches on the top of the turret. Also if you get a good shot at the roof of the tank chassis that is generally has a very low armor value.
• Gold (HEAT / APCR) always buy for credits and live within your means, these are just for those tanks you can't damage with regular AP in your current situation or for those tanks that need to die and you can't risk non-damaging shots.
• HE reserve it for those shots where you need to reset the cap by shooting someone where it can splash their tracks.

 Those invisible tanks
So because of the spotting and camouflage mechanics you'll encounter situations where you can't see the tanks that shoot you. This is either because their really camo'ed up or so far away you can't spot them. If you can't spot them and they are shooting you, just pull back behind some cover and reposition. And remember that you have to be behind bushes for them to really take effect, not inside. Also all bushes in 15 meters (when they go from see through to not see through) will stop providing you camo bonus when you fire.


Join a Clan
One of the best things you can do is join a clan, that way you'll have people to platoon with and learn with like -JLA-. World of tanks is a team game, so get some friends and platoon or tank company with them. So many of the people who has joined my clan has told me how much better their win rate and efficiency (a generic metric that says about how well a player is) because of the tips they've learned by playing with and learning from each other.


Always Strive for Better
Besides setting goals like get X tank you should set more interesting goals for yourself that don't require just sitting at spawn in every battle without firing a shot. Generally I shoot for damage and experience. Currently my average damage per battle in tier 8 is around 2,000 so my goal is about 3,000 for me to call it a great game. Another good metric to go by is average experience (my current is around 700 but I've been shooting for about 1,000+ every game).

Generally try to do your health worth in damage every game, so if you have 1,500 health and you do about 300 damage a shot try to get a minimum of 5 damaging shots in every battle (not including kill shots where the tank only had 50ish health). If you do that, you'll find yourself in the top half of your teams score almost every game.


Going down the lines
So after you've played enough battles in your KV-1 to get some experience under your belt and you've read guides, wiki, forum, and stuff to learn about spotting, camo, angling, etc where should you go from here unless you want to only play a KV-1 for the rest of your tanking career. My advice is to play different tank lines like a tank destroyer, artillery, medium, and light and see what kind of play style you like most. I do say focus on only three separate lines of tanks at a time. Generally I'd say something like two heavies and one medium line (IS-3, T110E5, T-62A or M48 Patton) but it really depends on you after you get a grip of how the game plays. Just don't try to grind 5+ tank lines at once, you'll always be strapped for credits due to all the tanks you'll be buying


Using Gold
So lets say you get your hands on some gold from maybe a promotion, an event, or you just bought a few dollars worth of it. If it is your first gold I suggest getting about 2~10 tank slots (so you can have more tanks to play with and you don't have to give up tanks you love to continue grinding). I also suggest getting some premium days whenever they go on sale or a premium tank like an IS-6 or T-127. It really depends on you but never use gold for anything but tank slots, convertible exp, or premium days.

World of Tanks: Arty Safe

So being 4:20 am I decided that I wanted to write another post right now about my views on being safe from artillery. I'll be expanding this post and working on some of the others later with pictures, but for now enjoy. While playing tanks you'll probably have gotten smacked by an artillery shell or two at an ill conceived time and you've problem sat up next to a building or mountain to block the rain. This simple act is what I like to call cowering next to some arty cover. Being "Arty Safe" is more then just sitting next to a tall object.

My definition of arty safe expands out quite a bit from just sitting next to a tall rock and gets into the lines of not so safe, but safe enough. Remember the key is to keep your presence in the battle and not just hide. You're doing no good for your team if you can't deal damage until your allies are dead and they come to mop you up.


Cover
High Cover
This includes mountains, houses destructible or not, cliffs, and pretty much anything that provides at least cover from 40 to 80 degree of angle protection (0 being a straight line to your face and 90 being dropped direction down on top of you). No matter what artillery can do they can only hope to splash you but offers zero or 1/100 chance of a direct hit. This is the easiest cover to spot and use such as the bridges on port to the houses in the city on Ruinberg. It is good to use, but keep in mind that you want to still have presence in the battle. You won't have access to this at all times, if you notice most of the heavy's brawling areas are centered around locations with high cover because it negates most of the artillery interference, especially when they sit relatively still (in the same spot) to wiggle.

Low Cover
This is generally barriers that offer a lot of protection from 0~10 degree attacks (tank to tank) but leaves your roof relatively open such as the walls in the city on Mines or being hull down in a dip in terrain. The cover you're receiving is mostly from the front of your tank and if the artillery lobs it short they'll likely do no damage. This is very bad cover from artillery shots but a lot of times you'll be more threatened by the other tanks and will require you to be where you can reliably trade shots then trying to peek-a-boom around a corner at a much slower pace. Generally your goal if artillery is on your mind is to not be the easiest target nor the juiciest.

No Cover
So there is no artillery cover, to better protect yourself you have to make shooting your tank a lower priority to the artillery by making it harder for them to hit you. If you are moving back and forth artillery is more likely to shoot the guy sitting still then you, likewise if you are on the far side of a hill from the artillery they'll have a harder time getting splash damage and will also be less likely to hurt you. However I'll go into those things as well later.

Not being spotted
And I think I should put this in as well that unless a more skilled artillery player is paying attention to tanks that are not lit on the field and purposely trying to kill you, you really don't have to worry. I've killed a few tanks by following tracers, and a few more artillery doing the same thing but it is not as common while easier targets abound.




 
Things you can do besides using cover!
So besides hiding behind a rock which can get you killed a lot more often then you think, mostly by flanking enemies that will either hit you in the bum, or force you to move out of arty cover to be safe from them. I've killed a good number of tanks that where being arty safe, until they pulled back a few meters because they didn't want to get shot by an allied tank.

Speed
Hitting a moving target is quite a bit harder then hitting a stationary one, especially when they are moving sideways to the arty's position and not just toward or away from them (it sucks having a target move outside of your arch and you have to turn the tank to continue following them). Now moving in a straight line at the same speed isn't that much harder to hit, especially if an allied tank doesn't track the bugger before my round lands but there are a lot more near misses from being a half second too soon / late on firing. The best way to use movement to avoid being hit is to weave a bit, turn slightly left / right and if you want to get fancy slow down or speed up. that 5 degree turn at full speed with a shell travel time of 2 seconds means my direct hit splashes no where near your tank.

Terrain
Besides cover, the best kind of terrain is being on the back / far side of a hill. A good example is the dunes on Sand River. Because of the angle of the terrain an artillery has to directly hit your tank to deal damage because a meter or two short or long means that shell is exploding at the top or bottom of that hill which is no where near your tank on the middle. Likewise if your tank is on the near side of a hill, that artillery shell cannot land anywhere further away then a meter (nice splash damage range) due to it falling short or long.


Being less juicy
You really need to play some rounds in an artillery to know about this which is pretty much priority and ease of hitting. If artillery is already looking at you, they'll be more likely to continue shooting at you then the easier guy to hit on the other side of the map because of the hassle of turning the tank and re-aiming. If you are sitting behind a rock and they have nothing really easy to hit but are already looking at your direction, expect a shell to come flying in if you decide to peek around the corner to shoot someone. It is hard to describe target priority based on all the factors but I'll just make a little list of things to help you base on how likely you'll be getting shot at. Many times I've seen artillery shells fall around me to the point of laughing because I was one of the few guys lit up, probably under the least amount of cover, and even though I was dancing they just wanted me to die already!

•  Is anything blocking my accuracy ring?
• Are they already in my firing arch? 
• How likely are they to move before I hit them?
• Are they about to stop to take the time to zoom in to shoot?
• How much damage can I get off that shot?
• Do I need to kill them?
• Just die already!!!
• Free Kill!

I don't so like the last section, but it can sit for now while I go to bed and think about it some more. However that is enough to get started with.

World of Tanks: Tank Companies

Since non-premium accounts can create tank companies in the upcoming 0.8.5 patch I think it would be a good idea to talk a bit about the basics of creating and operating a tank company. To start out you'll have four choices of tank companies to run, Junior at tier 4, Medium at tier 6, Champion at tier 8, and Absolute at tier 10. Currently most tank companies that are running are mediums, however when the patch comes out we'll probably see a lot more junior and champion tank companies popping up. Now before I get started I'd like to state that I'll be focusing on medium tank companies the most with this post since I know them the best.

Starting A Tank Company
To start a tank company you need two things. The first one is players which you either get from clan and friend invites or from random players joining while the tank company is open. The second thing you need is a caller who directs your troops into battle. Without these two things you'll be losing a whole lot more then you'll be winning. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is forming a tank company without either yourself or a friend / clan mate being the caller as tank companies need organization with the smaller number of tanks and more organized teams out there. Tank companies are not random battle and if everyone goes off and does their own thing then you'll be grossly outmatched.This is why I say you should NEVER form a tank company unless you are going to call the battle plan. Also if you are going to call you'll need a microphone since typing in orders will be too slow.

Layouts
Besides having a caller and getting people you'll need to fill up your point limit (60 for mediums). To start it out lets go with your 10 heavies and then subtract from that to fill in the different types of tanks that will benefit the callers and the tankers play styles the most. You can run with just 10 KV-1S's however you'll be handicapping yourself a lot unless your team can make up for the one sided approach and lack of synergy.
  
Besides your main force you'll want some sort of flankers or reactionary force such as two or three hellcats. Their tank destroyer benefits to camouflage along with their more poke you in the side attitude works well with a KV-1S blob. The can be passive scouts behind bushes or sit to the side and hit targets in their rear.

Another thing you'll want depending on the layout is some artillery and a scout to not only light up targets but to have that constant added pressure. Generally you'd sacrifice two heavies for a pair of artillery and a scout. The artillery can reach out and touch someone by providing needed damage to a target while the scout keeps the team updated on enemy movements and lets them take a lot more shots then they could before.

However you decide to build your tank company figure out what roles you need and pick the tanks based on that such as an artillery to hit those dug in tanks or maybe a T-50 if you losing because your tanks never have anything to shoot at.

Calling
While in battle and your calling the match with your microphone remember to ping the map with ctrl + click to better show people where to go. Seeing G5 light up while you tell the heavies to go there makes it easier for them to know what you're talking about. Your job as a caller is to get tanks where they need to be when they need to be, if the drivers can't kill their target then its their fault but if they don't have a target or are in the wrong place, it is solely your fault. Lets say you have your whole tank force push the valley on Lakeville while leaving the city and center open and a T-50 gets into the base and kills the artillery, it is your fault for not stationing some defense there. However if the whole team gets stopped by a single tank destroyer and completely fails to push through the valley even though you're telling them too, it is their fault. However instead of just being a single tank destroyer but a heavily entrenched force that stopped and massacred your push, then it was your fault for not calling that properly by ordering it, or not reacting to it properly.


The goals to winning is map presence and awareness along with the application of force. Knowing where the enemy tanks are lets you position your tanks to counteract what they are doing. For me the biggest thing while calling is having a better application of force by having more guns pointed in the same direction then the other guy. Lets take an example with assault on Sand River. If you place all of your tanks on that dune while attacking so you can see the enemy cap and you send your scout to get lights (which hopefully he'll be smart and light up 1 or 2 tanks and book it to safety instead of driving onto the cap and dying) You'll have all of those tanks and artillery ready to fire on the one or two tanks that are spotted / ready to fire back. If that one or two volley of shells kills or injures a few tanks and your team barely gets touched, then you're ahead. Now lets say half their team went up the hills and towards the 8/9 line of the map to defend from there. If you push all your tanks along the 1/2 line and have all those guns pointed at the small number of defending tanks on that side of the map chances are you'll wipe them out before the rest of the team can get enough barrels on your troops.

Anyway I hope some of this has helped some of you, and for those of who who don't want to read it all...
TL;DR

• If you start a tank company without already having someone as a caller, you better be calling yourself or you should not have started a tank company.
• Have a microphone for calling.
• When calling remember to have map presence / awareness and use a greater application of force then the other guy, aka more putting your tanks in positions where they're fighting 2 on 1, or even better 5 on 1.
• If you join a tank company and the leader says "Okay who's calling" leave.