Artillery, To AP or Not To AP

Artillery – To AP or not to AP.

Artillery.

We all love playing it (from time to time). Who doesnt enjoy the thrill, the power of watching your foes from above, lobbing shells at enemy tanks blissfully unaware that they are about to lose 1000 damage or more and have their turret, gun and gunner knocked out all in one hit?

Yep, its a great feeling when it all goes right, as you watch enemy IS8s get one shotted from full health and there is not a thing that the enemy can do in retaliation.

For those who havn't played artillery, here is a quick rundown.

Personally, I didnt play until probably 2 or 3000 battles into the game. I thought it would be specialised and difficult.

My very first game in the Russian tier 2 artillery I netted 3 kills, I was impressed. It was fun and easy to use.

The plus side is that you get to shoot at your enemies from afar, you can see them and they cant see you.

The down side is that in some maps, it's very hard to find a target, as all the enemies can be hiding in cover. Also, your shots take a quite a while to land, so often you target moves before the shell you fired arrives. It's also inacurate, what looks to be a sure thing garuanteed hit, often somehow manages to miss anyway. 

And of course, as we all know, when it comes to close combat, artillery can be close to defenceless. Slow traverse, horrible aim time and very long reload means that once you have one shot at your enemy, your are all but dead already (although there are French artillery pieces that get to fire off a number of shots in succession, however, this is followed by a very long reload).

Personally, the only artillery piece I have now is the tier 10 Object 261. This is reasonably accurate for a tier 10 piece, its fairly fast moving and the reload is decent at around 30 seconds. Damage is ok, not great but ok. This damage can be boosted however, by firing AP rounds.

Armour Piercing rounds are the standard rounds on most tanks up to about tier 9.

When they hit the target, they either penetrate and do damage, or they bounce if the armour is too strong for them.

Most artillery use HE rounds as standard, which explode.

The advantage of this, is that artillery shots often don't land exactly where you aim them, and the explosion from HE shells is likely to still do some damage even without directly hitting the target.

If you do hit the target with HE, unless you are very lucky and hit a weak area, the damage for the 261 is around 500 or so. 

If you manage to hit and penetrate with an AP round, then the damage can be anywhere from about 1,200 to almost 1,600. However, the drawback is that if you miss, you dont get anything at all, you then have to wait about  30 seconds for your next shot. And even if you do hit, the round can still bounce off highly angled, or strong armour, or even get absorbed by the tracks and do no actual damage other than making the target stop.

In a recent game last week, everything went right, I killed 6 targets, I damage 9, and all up I did 7,919 damage.

This was the best game I have had in this artillery piece yet. And still I did not earn the much vaunted “Mastery” badge. Such a shame.

“What do I have to do”, I thought, “to earn the mastery badge”.  

“I know” I will load 9 AP rounds, and the rest Premium HE rounds – that is the only way I will ever have enough damage potential to earn the badge.

Well, the next game taught me a serious lesson about the flaw in relying on AP rounds.

2 HE shots did damage.  6 AP rounds missed their targets, despite being almost always perfectly aimed. One AP round hit the wrong target that was almost dead anyway, and killed it. And finally, the last shot of the game, on a perfectly aimed stationary target hit the target, but bounced harmlessly off.

You can see the video here

It was comical in it's ridiculousness. A total waste of time, and shows why AP rounds are only effective under certain conditions, and in general cannot be relied upon. If I had used HE instead for most of these shots I would have done significantly more damage.

So here are my personal quick tips on how and when to use AP rounds in the 261.

You should only use an AP round, when you are sure that you are going to hit your target. If you are firing at a small, or fast moving target, AP is probably not your best bet, unless you are the gambling type. If you target is far away, over the other side of the map at maximum range, AP is not a good idea. Your aiming circle is just too large at these ranges and you cannot be sure you will hit even a large target.

In general, the target should be, at maximum, half way across the map not really any further. The target should be stationary, and unlikely to move until your shell arrives. A heavy tank who does not know he has been spotted is a perfect target. Also, the target should have a lot of hit points, if he only has 500 health remaining, a standard HE round will be enough to finish him off, without running the risk of a total miss, bounce of failure. The perfect targets for AP rounds are large and slow. My favourites are the Maus, E100, and JPZE100. These targets, even if they become aware you are aiming at them, still move so slowly, you can easily predict where they will be in a couple of seconds and score a hit. Also, if you have the side or rear of a large target, AP round is perfect and is very unlikely to ricochet off without causing damage. 

Lastly, if you know that you will be attacked at close range and you have to shoot a target directly who is not especially fast and agile, such as a heavy tank or slower medium. AP rounds can be a perfect ambush option.  If you are not going to have time to properly aim your shot and be sure of a hit, then HE is better, as you do not need a direct hit in order to cause damage.

Hope you enjoyed the read, and got a laugh out of the ridiculous effort to to damage with AP in the video, and Ill see you on the battlefield.

Written by Funkman Asia Server