AP vs HE

[OrangeAfroMan]

A lot of the info I've read on this subject has a lot of retard factor, so I'm asking here.

What are the benefits of each, when do you use which?

[Dirk Magnum]

AP is more likely to penetrate, and if it does it'll do a lot of damage. But it might bounce off and do nothing.
HE is less likely to penetrate, but more likely to damage components of the target. HE is also more likely to cause a fire, and has increased effectiveness against open-top vehicles.

AP should be your default ammo. Switch to HE if you're just not getting AP through the opponent's armor. You may not reduce their HP by much, but at least you might set them on fire or destroy other parts of their tank.

[Qui Shon]

Also, 75mm calibre guns are kind of the minimum to even consider HE, at tier 2-4.
105mm at tier 5+.

Aside from arty and 150+ mm low penetration guns (KV / SU-152 /E-100), I almost never fire HE anymore.

[ctrlchris]

Is your gun stupidly big for your tank? (152 on the kv/105 on the hetzer etc) shoot some HE yo.
If not, carry 80% AP rounds and 20% HE rounds JUST INCASE.

But yeah, mainly what everyone else said, if you cant pen them with AP swap to HE so you can atleast do some damage.

[Varcaus]

HE also works great for killing arty.

[Booley]

HE: flinging in the enemies general direction to reset cap. Never actually try to use it to kill someone, if you can't pen with AP your HE will probably do ignorable amounts of damage while you get shot at. (except for KV 152, hetzer 105, etc)

[PraetorNZ]

i always have terrible rolls using HE on arty so just stick with AP. dont usually carry more than 5 HE on any tank

[Elias M]

Pretty much repeating others but:

If your gun's caliber is <76mm then don't bother carrying HE, since it does so little damage. Since these are generally small tanks it should also encourage you to use mobility to find the weaker flanks of bigger enemies.

Howitzer type guns such as the German 10.5cm StuH, US 105mm SPH and the KV's 152mm should use HE all the time.

Most people carry AP/HE in a 60/40 or 80/20 split.

HE ammo is cheaper than AP, so if at the end of a round the only targets left are soft-topped SPGs then switch to HE and save some credits.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire S A510e using Tapatalk 2

[Rans]

HE: flinging in the enemies general direction to reset cap. Never actually try to use it to kill someone, if you can't pen with AP your HE will probably do ignorable amounts of damage while you get shot at. (except for KV 152, hetzer 105, etc)

This, even if you fight higher tiers, doing 12 damage might kill them with laughter.

[Swiss]

i always have terrible rolls using HE on arty so just stick with AP. dont usually carry more than 5 HE on any tank

Yeah, seriously. HE is so bad now it doesn't even do reasonable damage to open top arty, I always have AP loaded. Only exceptions are the specialist guns and resetting cap.

[Loire]

As others have said.

I essentially only keep 10 AP rounds on my T20 for cap resetting. If I can't pen with AP then I'm flanking.

[Tordin Varglund]

Only time i use HE in high velocity guns is when i need to decap with 100% efficiency. Otherwise AP is better most of the time. I usually carry something like 5 HE, 5 Gold and rest AP in most of my tanks. If i cant fit all the gold and HE ill give up HE ammo for gold since giving up AP really isnt an option.

[Stormscion]

to put it simple
if your gun is short and fat = he
everything else = ap

there are exceptions but they are rare and you will learn them as you go

[dzajic]

Yeah, but I do think that recent HE buff has made HE "lasthitting" at T9 and T10 viable again. Though you can no longer count on HE doing around 50% of stated damage. Now a 1/3 is great result. But if you have to kill that <200HP IS-4 or M103 or IS7 or whatever... and your gun is at least 120mm caliber... you are (again) allowed to switch to HE.

[Dogbeast]

Don't use a howitzer with HE as your primary weapon when you have much better guns at your disposal.



This Patton player is a moron. Do not be like him.

[Siriothrax]

One creative use for HE in high caliber guns is to splash enemy tanks that you can't see entirely. The most common scenario is when you're in a standoff on opposite sides of a tank wreck; in that case, you can back up a little, aim beneath the wreck, and splash the ground beneath the enemy for a decent amount of damage to their vulnerable underbelly. Example here, near the end of the replay: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?5kgf87537njau5g

[Kransthow]

>using HE under any circumstances
>2012

[Dogbeast]

One creative use for HE in high caliber guns is to splash enemy tanks that you can't see entirely. The most common scenario is when you're in a standoff on opposite sides of a tank wreck; in that case, you can back up a little, aim beneath the wreck, and splash the ground beneath the enemy for a decent amount of damage to their vulnerable underbelly. Example here, near the end of the replay: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?5kgf87537njau5g

Hahaha oh wow that IS-4 on your team was bad.

[Varcaus]

>using HE under any circumstances
>2012

KV derp.

[Mr Marram]

Is your gun stupidly big for your tank? (152 on the kv/105 on the hetzer etc) shoot some HE yo.
If not, carry 80% AP rounds and 20% HE rounds JUST INCASE.

But yeah, mainly what everyone else said, if you cant pen them with AP swap to HE so you can atleast do some damage.

This is pretty much how to do it, however I used to run a full AP set on the Batchat as it ran through the rounds so quickly (30 total) having to change to HE for the last (usually higher tier) mid-low HP tanks will result in a horrible death on your part.