Battle Mechanics

This page is to provide you with as many details as possible of the core game mechanics, so that you need not
search through the forums for this valuable information. The details of some game mechanics are being held
"close to the vest" over at Wargaming.net. To the maximum extent possible, we have provided all the data we
know about game mechanics.
Contents
[hide]
 1 Matchmaking
o 1.1 Battle Tiers

o 1.2 Vehicle Weight

o 1.3 Vehicle Tier

o 1.4 Platoons

o 1.5 Map Restrictions

 2 Tank Stats
o 2.1 How tank stats are calculated

o 2.2 Increasing Stats past 100% primary crew skill

o 2.3 Examples

 3 Experience and Credits

o 3.1 Tank Experience and Credits

o 3.2 Free Experience

o 3.3 Crew Experience

 4 Capturing the Base

 5 Visibility
o 5.1 Draw Distance

o 5.2 Shell Tracers

o 5.3 View Range

o 5.4 Spotting Range

 5.4.1 Minimum Spotting Range

  5.4.2 Maximum Spotting Range
 5.4.3 Calculating Spotting Range
o 5.5 Spotting Mechanics

 5.5.1 View Range Ports

 5.5.2 Visibility Checkpoints
 5.5.3 Rate of Visibility Checks
 5.5.4 Spotting Duration
o 5.6 Camouflage

 5.6.1 Calculating the Camouflage Factor

 5.6.2 Examples
 5.6.3 Tips
o 5.7 Radio Range

 6 Movement
o 6.1 Engine Power & Acceleration

o 6.2 Terrain Resistance

o 6.3 Top Speed

o 6.4 Hull Traverse Speed

o 6.5 Physics

 7 Aiming
o 7.1 Automatic Aiming

o 7.2 Manual Aiming

 7.2.1 Arcade View

 7.2.2 Sniper View
 7.2.3 Penetration Indicator
 7.2.4 Leading the Target
 7.2.5 Ballistic Trajectory
  7.2.6 Aiming and Line of Sight
o 7.3 Strategic View (SPG)

o 7.4 Client vs Server

o 7.5 Where to aim

 8 Accuracy and Dispersion

o 8.1 Gun Accuracy

o 8.2 Aiming Circle

o 8.3 Accuracy Penalties

o 8.4 Aiming Time

o 8.5 Client vs Server

 9 Penetration Mechanics
o 9.1 Impact Angle

 9.1.1 Shell Normalization

 9.1.2 Ricochet
 9.1.3 Overmatch
 9.1.4 Effective Armor Thickness
o 9.2 Penetration Randomization

o 9.3 Penetration Loss over Distance

o 9.4 Double Penetration

 10 Damage Mechanics
o 10.1 Shell Damage

 10.1.1 Damage Randomization

 10.1.2 Armor Damage
 10.1.2.1 AP, APCR and HEAT Shells
 10.1.2.2 HE Shells
 10.1.3 Module and Crew Damage
  10.1.3.1 Damage States
 10.1.3.2 Saving Throw
 10.1.3.3 Complete Crew Death
 10.1.3.4 Ammunition Rack Explosion
 10.1.3.5 Fire Damage
o 10.2 Ramming Damage

o 10.3 Zero Damage Hits

o 10.4 Ghost Shells

 11 Repair
 12 Crew Voice Messages
o 12.1 Battle Start

o 12.2 Auto-aim

o 12.3 Target Hit

o 12.4 Target Destroyed

o 12.5 Module Damage Taken

o 12.6 Module Damage Repaired

o 12.7 Crew Losses Suffered

o 12.8 Out of Action

o 12.9 Teamkill

o 12.10 Unused Messages

Matchmaking
Team selection for random battles is done according to several parameters. Each battle takes place in a so-called
battle tier, and team balancing within this battle tier takes place according to vehicle specific weighting and
additional restrictions.
Battle Tiers
Matchmaking Chart v0.8.8
To find the above link, click on the maximize icon in the bottom right corner of the chart and then copy the link
from the browser's address bar.

Battles can take place in twelve possible different battle tiers. Each vehicle, depending on its performance, is
assigned a certain subset of these battle tiers that it is supposed to fight in.

The matchmaking chart shows which vehicle belongs to which battle tier. An English version can always be
found here. It sometimes takes Wargaming a while to update it after patches, in this case you can refer to the
Russian version, which is usually updated much faster.

The selection of the battle tier you fight in depends on the amount of players available for each battle tier and is
otherwise random.

Players often confuse battle tiers and their vehicle's tier. The match maker does not try to match vehicles by
vehicle tier. For example, a T92 SPG may be vehicle tier 8, but it is assigned to battle tiers 11 and 12 only,
which is out of reach of tier 8 mediums, despite being of the same vehicle tier.

To see which battle tiers a vehicle can fight in, find it on the left side of the chart. If it is not listed as an
exception at the bottom left, the default rules above apply. Take, for example, an MS-1. No special rule, thus we
go find the row for Vehicle Tier 1, Light Tank, and see to the right that this vehicle can fight in battle tiers 1 and
2. Scrolling down, we see that nothing except tier 1 light tanks and medium tanks can fight in battle tier 1. For
battle tier 2, we see that the MS-1 can meet tier 2 tank destroyers, light and medium tanks as well as the T2
Light Tank listed at the bottom. The applicable battle tiers for each vehicle are also shown on the right sidebar
of each tank's page on this wiki.

Vehicle Weight

Once enough candidates for a certain battle tier are found, the matchmaker tries to form two teams from them.
For this purpose each vehicle is assigned a certain weight, and the matchmaker tries to keep the weight of both
teams as equal as possible. Weighting is performed by vehicle tier and vehicle type, some vehicles are
individually weighted, and for some vehicles there are special restrictions.

Below are the rules for game version 0.8.0:

 Weight by Vehicle Tier is applied as follows:

o Tier 10: 100

o Tier 9: 60

o Tier 8: 40

o Tier 7: 27
 o Tier 6: 18

o Tier 5: 12

o Tier 4: 8

o Tier 3: 5

o Tier 2: 3

o Tier 1: 2

 Weight by Vehicle Type is generally applied as follows:

o All Heavy Tanks and SPGs receive 20% extra weight.

o Tier 9 and 10 Medium Tanks receive 20% extra weight.

o Tier 8, 9 and 10 Tank Destroyers receive 20% extra weight.

o Tier 6, 7 and 8 Light Tanks receive 20% extra weight.

 Individual Weights:
o M24 Chaffee is weighted like a tier 6 tank.

o The Pz.Kpfw. 38H 735 (f) "Hotchkiss" is a tier 2 tank with 233% extra weight, with 7 points it is
weighted close to a tier 4 tank, but it is in the same battle tier as other tier 2 light tanks.
o The Comet is weighted like a heavy tank.

o The M4A3E2 Sherman Jumbo is weighted like a heavy tank.

 Special Restrictions
o The number of the same vehicle on opposing teams cannot differ by more than 1, except when
the vehicles are in a platoon.
o Previously, the number of SPGs in opposing teams could never differ by more than 1. While this
is still the goal for the match-maker, since update 0.7.4 it is not a strict restriction. Now, rarely,
SPG numbers can differ by more, including one team having none while the other team has one
or more.
o The total weight of the SPGs on opposing teams cannot differ by more than 25%.

o The total weight of the top tier vehicles on opposing teams cannot differ by more than 25%.
 o It seems in general the weight of opposing teams does not differ by more than 10%, but it is
unclear if there is a fixed limit.

 Scouts
o In the Version 8.5 update, a new Match Maker rule was planned for balancing Light Tanks. The
rule was intended to balance out the number of Scout tanks on each team by balancing the
weight of Scouts on both teams so they won’t differ by more than +/-20 vehicle weight points.
The advantage to this rule is the matchmaker will no longer distribute a large number of scout
tanks to one team and none to the other; the number of scouts should be roughly the same for
each team. During tests, Scout balancing created other imbalances so it was not implemented. It
is currently planned to be released with a later patch.
o The following vehicles are marked as Scouts:

 USSR: A-20, T-50, MT-25

 Germany: Pz.Kpfw. 38 (t) n.A., Pz.Kpfw. II Luchs, VK 16.02 Leopard, VK 28.01,
Aufklärungspanzer Panther
 United States: M24 Chaffee, T21, T71
 France: ELC AMX, AMX 12 t, AMX 13 75, AMX 13 90
 China: M5A1 Stuart, 59-16, WZ-131, WZ-132

Whether vehicles are stock or fully researched, how they are equipped, nor crew skill is taken into account by
the match-maker.

Vehicle Tier

Vehicle tier is not taken into consideration when balancing teams. This is a common misconception among
players. For example, under the current rules a tier 8 medium can be matched against a tier 7 heavy tank. The
tier 8 medium has a matchmaking weight of 40 and the tier 7 heavy tank has a matchmaking weight of 39.15,
i.e. nearly the same. The only relevance of vehicle tier is to determine the battle tier.

However, the top tanks of each team have the same vehicle tier. This balancing rule was introduced, because
people always complain about unfair matchmaking, not understanding how it works.

Platoons
IMPORTANT: If you are in a platoon, the entire platoon is placed into battles according to the platoon member
in the vehicle with the highest battle tier. This can produce unwanted results in particular for new players at the
lower tiers. For example, a tier 4 scout can enter battles up to tier 8, whereas a tier 4 medium tank on its own
can only join battles up to tier 6. If these platoon together, the scout will pull the other tank up into its battle tier,
where the other tank will usually be hopelessly outclassed. Please take this into account when forming platoons.

A special case of this is when you see a top tier tank platooned with one or two tier 1 tank. This is sometimes
done on purpose. If you look above, a tier 10 heavy tank weighs 145 points, whereas a tier 1 tank weighs only 2.
Thus the platoon's team a priori has a massive point deficit, which the match-maker will balance out by either
dragging more lower tier tanks into the enemy team or by dragging more high tier tanks into the platoon's team.
The tactic is frowned upon but permissible. It has become rare these days, likely because the success chances
are mediocre. With two tier 1 tanks the team is missing 13.3% of its team that could play a useful role during
the battle, whereas the only useful contribution the tier 1 tanks can make is sneak into the enemy cap.

The matchmaker does balance the number of tanks in platoons, but not the weight of the platooned tanks. This
means one team can have 2 tree-man-platoons with T8 tanks, whereas the other team has 3 two-man-platoons
with T6 tanks. This rule may not apply, when the server is low populated.

Map Restrictions

Map Restrictions by Battle Tier

Standard Battles in battle tiers 1 to 3 take place on a limited subset of the available maps only. This is done to
allow new players to familiarize themselves with these smaller maps while they learn the basics of the game.
Also except for Karelia these are the smallest/most compact maps in the game, better suited for the very limited
low tier tanks.

 Battle Tiers 1 and 2 fight on these maps:

o Malinovka

o Himmelsdorf

o Mines

o Province

 Battle Tier 3 additionally fights on these maps:

o Karelia

o Prokhorovka

o Ensk

 The map Widepark is limited to Tier 4-6 vehicles.

All other battle tiers should get a random map distribution, but technical reasons relating to the allocation of
server resources cause the three maps above to be the most commonly played maps for all tiers. For as yet
unknown reasons also the distribution of other maps does not appear truly random. The frequency of newly
introduced maps is slightly increased. See this forum thread for more details on actual map distribution in
random battles.

Important note regarding camouflage skins: All (as of 8.0) of the maps listed above are summer maps. This
means that tier 1 tanks and most (see Matchmaking Chart for exceptions) tier 2 tanks/tank destroyers will never
see a winter or desert map. So, for now at least, purchasing a winter or desert camo skin for these vehicles is a
complete waste.

Map Restrictions by Game Mode

 The following maps are not available in random battles:

 Province (for battle tiers 4 and higher)

 Widepark (not available for tiers other than 4-6)

 The game modes Assault and Encounter Battle take place on a limited subset of the available maps
(follow the respective links for a list).

Tank Stats
The performance of your tank depends directly on the qualification of its crew. Each crew member is fulfilling
one or several roles in your tank and the performance of your tank in those areas depends on their effective
primary skill levels. For example, reload time depends on the Loader's skill. Since the commander provides
10% of his own skill level as a bonus to each crew member, he is also relevant for every stat of your tank. If you
have more than one crew member responsible for the same stat (e.g. two Loaders), then the average of their
effective skill levels will be used to calculate the effective stat. Refer to the Crew page about for more details
about which crew member affects which stat of your tank.

How tank stats are calculated

The stats of your tank as they are shown in the garage or in the tech trees, i.e. the nominal stats, do not
necessarily represent your tank's actual performance. In game versions up to 0.7.1.1, they were calculated based
on a hypothetical 133.33% effective primary crew skill, which cannot be reached in game. Game version 0.7.2
introduced a change to how the stats are displayed; now they are shown based on 100% effective primary crew
skill. However, since all skill modifiers, even the Commander's bonus, are ignored, most stats will continue to
differ from what is displayed even if you happen to have a 100% crew.

You tank's actual performance for each stat can be calculated based on the effective skill levels of those crew
members which are responsible for the operation of that part of the tank, using one of the following two
formulae:

A digressive stat is, for example, your aiming time, which becomes shorter as your Gunner's skill level
increases. A progressive stat is, for example, your view range, which increases as your Commander's skill level
increases.

Note that only stats that depend on actual crew interaction are affected by crew skill. Your tank will not get
thicker armor or become heavier with more experienced crew. Also while a better Loader will make your gun
reload faster, he will not influence the speed with which auto-cannons or autoloaders fire the shells in their
magazines, because shells from the magazines are chambered automatically. The Loader does come back into
play when reloading the magazines, however.

Note further that the values displayed in game are just approximations because the actual values are either
rounded to the nearest integer or only the integer part is shown without any rounding. This is not only
inconsistent, but also means that since 0.7.2 you can unfortunately only calculate an approximation of your
effective stats based on what is shown in game.
Increasing Stats past 100% primary crew skill

Apart from advancing your crew's major qualification to 100% skill level, you can advance your tank's
performance further as follows:

Bonus to Tank Stats

 Certain skills and perks provide bonuses to specific tank stats.
 You can buy equipment for credits that gives a direct bonus to specific tank stats. For example, Coated
Optics provides a 10% bonus to view range, and a Gun Rammer provides 10% bonus to reload time.
 There are also credits or gold bought consumables that provide a bonus to engine power and turret
traverse.

Bonus to Crew Skills

 Brothers in Arms is a perk that increases every skill level of every crew member by 5 as long as it is
active for all crew members.
 Improved Ventilation is a credit bought equipment for close-topped tanks only that increases the skill
level of the primary skill and non-role specific secondary skills of every crew member by 5, i.e.
effectively +5 for the Commander and +5.5 for his crew. This bonus is displayed in your garage screen
when you mouse over each crew member, but the displayed numbers are rounded to the nearest integer.
 Chocolate/Rations/Cola/Coffee are gold bought consumables that equally increase every skill level of
every crew member, but by 10, i.e. effectively +10 for the Commander and +11 for his crew. This bonus
is not displayed in your garage screen.

Examples

Let's go through a few examples to make it clearer or confuse you more, as the case may be. Hopefully you like
math!

Easy example

The entire crew of your stock Leichttraktor is at 50% primary skill level. What is your view range?

 The garage stat shown for view range is 262m

 Note that actual view range is 262.5m, but the decimals are not shown in game, so your calculations will
unfortunately never be quite exact. The following examples are based on the values actually available to
you.
  Responsible for view range is the Commander. He has an effective skill level of 50%.
 View range is a progressive stat. Thus we calculate 262m / 0.875 * (0.00375 * 50 + 0.5).
 We obtain as a result your effective view range of 206m.
 That means your Commander cannot see any tank further away than 206m even if it is right in front of
you and shooting at you. Keep that in mind and make sure you train those crews!
 You decide to remedy the situation immediately by equipping Binoculars equipment that you had
available and which give a 25% bonus to view range. You calculate 206m * 1.25 = 257.5m. There you
go, marked improvement, but only while your hull does not move for at least 3 seconds.

Advanced example

You just bought your stock Marder II with a 75% crew and want to know how fast it reloads.

 The garage stat shown for rate of fire is 26.25 rounds per minute. Since you want the actual reload time,
you calculate 60s/26.25 = 2.286s reload time for every shot.
 Responsible for that is the Loader. The Marder II does not have a separate Loader. Instead, the Gunner is
loading the gun himself. What is his effective skill level? His primary skill level is 75%. But we must
not forget the Commander's bonus. The Commander's skill level is also 75%. So we calculate 75%
(Loader) + 75% (Commander) * 0.1 (in a case like this where Commander and crew have the same skill
level you can also simply calculate 75% * 1.1) and obtain the effective skill level of our Loader at
82.5%.
 Reload time is a digressive stat. Thus we calculate 2.286s * 0.875 / (0.00375 * 82.5 + 0.5). We obtain as
a result our effective (rounded) reload time of 2.47s.
 We can also calculate rate of fire. Since that is progressive we go 26.25 / 0.875 * (0.00375 * 82.5 + 0.5),
i.e. our stock Marder II has a (rounded) rate of fire of 24.28 with a 75% crew.

Difficult example

You have advanced in World of Tanks and bought a shiny new AMX 50B. It is still stock, but you invested
some gold into training your crew immediately to 100% skill level. But you ran out of gold so only your
Commander and your Gunner got trained to 100%, while you trained the rest of your new crew to 75% with
credits. You also installed Improved Ventilation equipment. What is your rate of fire?

 Unfortunately, for all auto-loader and auto-cannons the in-game stats shown for rate of fire don't show
the reload speed for the entire drum, instead showing how many shots you can shoot with the time it
takes to reload the entire drum and the gap in-between firing the separate clips. Since we do not want to
work with incorrect data and also make the example a bit more complicated, let's look at the stats not
 shown in game. The vehicle's gun has an autoloader and can fire 4 shells every 2.5 seconds until the
magazine needs to be reloaded, which nominally takes 30 seconds.
 Responsible for that is the Loader. The AMX 50B has three crew members assigned to that role, the
Commander, the Gunner and the Radio Operator. The Commander and the Gunner are at 100% primary
skill level, the Radio Operator is at 75%. So what is the effective skill level for our calculation? As
explained above, we take the average of each crew member's effective skill level, so we need to
calculate it for each of them first, add them and then divide by their number: 100+5=105%
(Commander) + 100+5+105*0.1=115.5% (Gunner) + 75+5+105*0.1=90.5% (Radio Operator) / 3. As
you can see, it becomes a bit more complicated here, we need to take into account equipment, which
crew member receives the Commander's bonus and which doesn't. Our calculated effective skill level is
thus 103.67%
 Now back to our formula to calculate the actual tank stats. If you paid attention above, you'll know that
the 2.5s for revolving the magazine while firing are automatically performed by the tank and not
influenced by crew skill. Reloading the magazine, however, depends on the crew. Knowing that, we take
the 2.5s as a constant and calculate 30s * 0.875 / (0.00375 * 103.67 + 0.5) = 29.54s as the time it takes
to reload a magazine. But we wanted to know rate of fire, i.e. the average amount of shells the tank can
shoot every minute. We know the tank takes 28.13s to load and fire the first of four shells and then fires
the remaining 3 shells with a 2.5s delay between each shot. Thus we calculate 60/((28.13s + (4 - 1) *
2.5s)/4 and finally obtain our answer, our crew allows our tank to fire 6.74 rounds per minute.

Experience and Credits

Gaining experience and credits is one of your primary goals in World of Tanks. Experience is used to research
new modules and tanks and to progress your crew, while credits can be used to pay for new modules and tanks,
equipment, consumables and ammunition, crew training/retraining as well as temporary camouflage patterns.

Tank Experience and Credits

Experience and credits are gained in all game modes except training battles for the following actions:

XP awarded? Credits awarded?

During the battle:

Fixed amount scaling with player's tank

Joining a battle No
tier
Spotting an enemy
Small flat bonus per detected tank, Small flat bonus per detected tank,
tank for the first
double per detected SPG double per detected SPG
time

Per point of damage, modified by

Damaging victim's tank type and tank tier compared
enemies you are Per point of damage.
to your own (damaging higher tiers pays
spotting yourself more). All damage counts, whether caused by
direct hits, splash damage, ramming, fire
Damaging All damage counts, whether caused by
or ammo-rack explosion.
enemies that are direct hits, splash damage, ramming, fire
not lit up at all or ammo-rack explosion.

Damaging
enemies that your
50% of the above 50% of the above
team is spotting,
but not yourself

Damage done to
targets you are 50% of what the team member doing the 50% of what the team member doing the
spotting, by team damage would earn if he spotted the damage would earn if he spotted the
members who are target himself, divided by the number of target himself, divided by the number of
not spotting them team members spotting the target. team members spotting the target.
themselves

This means destroying an enemy tank's

module (only damaging it is not enough),
or killing a crew member.

Small bonus depending on the tier of the

target compared to yours, whether caused
Inflicting critical by direct hits, splash damage, ramming,
(module/crew) fire or ammo-rack explosion. No
damage
Light tanks receive a bonus for critical
damage inflicted to heavy tanks.

In all cases, only the first critical

destruction counts (or second, in case a
repair/first aid consumable was used)

Disabling an
enemy vehicle Same reward as inflicting damage for the Same reward as inflicting damage for the
(killing complete remaining hit points remaining hitpoints
crew)
 Small bonus modified by the tier of the
Killing shot No
killed enemy compared to yours

Close combat Damaging enemy tanks at under 200m

No
bonus range gives a very small bonus

Scoring base Per point scored, up to 100 points, if the

No
capture points base was captured successfully

Scoring base Per point scored, more than 100 points

No
defense points possible

Flat amount paid to everyone who is in

Completed base the capture circle at the moment of
Flat bonus
capture completed base capture, independent of
individual contribution

After the battle:

Survival Small flat bonus No

Team
Coefficient based on the total damage
performance No
inflicted to the enemy team by your team
factor

Loss No No

Draw No No

The "Joining a battle" reward is

Victory Coefficient of 1.5 multiplied by 1.85. No bonus to other
rewards earned during the battle.

Courageous When your team is defeated but you get

When your team is defeated but you get
Resistance one of the Battle Hero, Epic or Platoon
one of the Battle Hero, Epic or Platoon
(Battle Hero, Epic achievements, you will receive the same
achievements, you will receive the same
or Platoon credit bonus as the victorious team. The
experience bonus as the victorious team.
achievements on a "Joining a battle" reward is multiplied by
Coefficient of 1.5.
loss) 1.85.

Victory in a tank In addition to the normal bonus for In addition to the normal bonus for
company or clan victory, 50% of the XP gain of the losers victory, 50% of the credits gain of the
wars battle is transferred to the winners. losers is transferred to the winners.

Tank specific Tank specific coefficient, assumed to be Tank specific coefficient, generally
balancing factor 1 for all tanks higher for premium tanks
 Active premium
Coefficient of 1.5 Coefficient of 1.5
account

First daily victory

Coefficient of 2 No
with the vehicle

Exiting battle No "Joining a battle" bonus. Since your No "Joining a battle" bonus. Since your
during loading tank is actually present in the battle until tank is actually present in the battle until
screen or it gets destroyed, it can passively earn XP it gets destroyed, it can passively earn
countdown e.g. for spotting enemy vehicles. credits e.g. spotting enemy vehicles.

There is a penalty for the XP earning. If

Credits as earned, there is no penalty. If
the tank was not destroyed before
the tank was not destroyed before exiting,
Exiting battle exiting, further XP can be earned
further credits can be earned passively
after countdown passively while it remains on the
while it remains on the battlefield, e.g.
battlefield, e.g. for spotting enemy
for spotting enemy vehicles.
vehicles.

Small penalty, supposedly twice the Penalty to an amount of four times the
Team Damage amount of XP you would receive for repair costs required to fix the damage
inflicted causing the same amount of damage to that was inflicted, limited by the total
the enemy. amount earned during battle.

Half the repair costs required to fix the

Team Damage damage or a quarter of the penalty paid
None.
received by the player(s) who caused the team
damage, whichever is lower.

You will NOT get experience for:

1. Damaging an ally's tank, even if said ally is "blue"

2. Team-killing.
3. Shots that deal no hull damage destroy no module or kill no crew member.
4. Shots that destroy a module that had already been destroyed prior (except when a repair pack has been
used on it).
5. For receiving damage without fighting back. As stated above, your shells have to damage your attacker.
6. For receiving titles in the "hero of the battle" window.*
7. For receiving medals or completing achievements.
8. No bonus experience for a draw or a lost battle.
 9. A specific bonus for "killing all enemy tanks" does not exist, but as listed above, the entire team receives
more XP the more damage to enemy tanks is inflicted by the team.

(*You will, however, get bonus experience or credits if you receive a specific award during an "Operation"
event. For example, if it is "Operation Sniper", you would receive extra experience or credits for earning the
"Sniper" achievement.)

Free Experience

Free experience can be used in the research of any vehicle instead of just the vehicle it was earned with.

You always gain 5% of the amount of experience earned in a battle as free experience. This is a bonus and is not
subtracted from the vehicle's experience.

Additionally, you can use gold to convert vehicle specific experience to free experience. The vehicle must be
elite, i.e. fully researched.

Crew Experience

Each crew member receives experience equal to the experience the vehicle earned in a battle, possibly modified
by experience bonuses and penalties.

Capturing the Base

A standard battle can be won either by destroying all enemy tanks or by capturing the base. To capture the
enemy base, your tank must drive into the white circle in the enemy base (commonly referred to as the cap
circle or simply cap). A green bar with the title "Enemy Base Capture :" appears at the top of the screen for your
entire team. Your tank must remain within the circle until the capture bar reaches 100%. Each tank in the
capture circle generates 1 capture point per second. You cannot generate more than 3 capture points per second.
Once you have completed the capture, the title of the capture bar changes to "Enemy base captured!".

If you leave the cap circle before capture is completed, all capture points earned by you are lost and the capture
bar progress is reduced accordingly. The same happens each time you get damaged while within the cap circle
before capture is complete. Both hull damage and critical damage (e.g. tracks) have the same effect, as does
damage inflicted by the enemy or your own team.

Once capture is complete, the round does not end immediately. There is a delay of at least 5 seconds before
victory is yours (unless the battle timer runs out earlier). According to Overlord this delay gets extended each
time a vehicle is destroyed. The following outcomes are possible:

 All friendly vehicles are destroyed within the delay: Enemy team wins.
  All vehicles of both teams are destroyed within the delay: Draw
 Enemy completes base capture of their own within the delay: Draw.
 All other cases: Your team wins.

If you are playing the assault game mode, then only one team owns a base that can be captured by the other
team. Everything else works as in standard battles.

In encounter battles there is only one neutral base that both teams can capture. The same mechanics as in
standard battles apply here as well, however there are two differences. First, in an encounter no capture points
can be gained while there are tanks of both teams within the capture circle. Capture progress is simply halted
and resumes if the intruding tank leaves the circle again. The other difference is that the capture rate is slowed
down to 1 capture point every 2.5 seconds.

Visibility

Not everything that happens in the game world will be visible to you at all times. Game mechanics and
technical limitations alike limit what you can see at any given moment. The main reason for technical
limitations is server performance. We are told the current spotting system costs 30% of the server resources
needed for a battle.

We need to distinguish three main terms that often get confused by players:

 Draw Distance - a technical limitation to being able to see tanks and other objects in the 3D world.
Maximum is 707m.
 Spotting Range - the game mechanics limitation to spotting, i.e. "lighting up" a target yourself.
Maximum is 445m.
 View Range - a tank specific value only used for calculating spotting range, without any relevance of its
own. No theoretical maximum.

The following sections explore each of these terms and other relevant factors in detail.

Draw Distance

Draw Distance is the maximum distance at which objects are drawn on your screen by the rendering engine.
The bigger the draw distance, the more computing power is required both for client and server. The rendering
engine used by World of Tanks sees the world as cubes. The map itself is a cube, and every object within that
map cube is drawn within an invisible cube centered on and aligned to your view point. Everything near the
boundaries of this cube starts to fade into a distance fog and everything outside of the boundaries is entirely
invisible to you. This cube is your draw distance.

Draw Distance Setting

Draw distance can be limited in Game Settings->Graphics via the "Draw Distance" parameter that allows you
to choose from the following three options:

 High: Maximum allowable draw distance (this is defined separately for each map, usually 1600m x
1600m x 1600m)
 Medium: 1100m x 1100m x 1100m
 Low: 900m x 900m x 900m

Higher draw distances will limit frame rate if your computer is on the slower side but unless your frame rate is
low you should always opt for the highest draw distance available.

Server Horizon
 Even with your draw distance set to high, dynamic objects (i.e. spotted enemy vehicles, terrain
destruction, tracers) may remain invisible to you. This is because the server decides whether to send
information about dynamic objects to you based on whether they are within the boundaries of a separate
1000m x 1000m x 1000m cube centered on your tank but aligned to the map boundaries regardless of
your view point. Every vehicle outside of that server cube will always be invisible to you in the default
Arcade View or in Sniper View regardless of your draw distance setting.
 If a tank would be visible for you on the server, but you lowered your draw distance such that you
cannot actually see it, the user interface will nevertheless draw the respective vehicle marker, it will
appear above the invisible vehicle when you press Alt (using the default UI; using UI Modifications can
make it constantly visible). You will however not see the tank or its outline.
 Self-Propelled Guns have another view mode available to them, the so called Strategic View, giving
them a top down view on the battlefield. The server will also send information about all dynamic objects
to your client that lie within that view port.

Minimap

The minimap is not part of the 3D world and thus unaffected by the limitations discussed in this section. What
you see on the minimap is however influenced by Radio Range discussed below.
Shell Tracers

For the visibility of shell tracers there are some special rules:

 Tracers from friendly vehicles are always shown (subject to the above limitations to draw distance).
 Tracers from spotted enemy vehicles are always shown (subject to the above limitations to draw
distance).
 Tracers from unspotted enemy vehicles:
o In Arcade View and Sniper View, tracers are only shown if they originate from within +/- 25° of
the direction you are looking at and from within maximum spotting range. [1] In the following
illustration, you will only be able to see the red tracer in the first two cases:

o In Strategic View, all tracers are shown that originate from within your strategic view port.

View Range

View Range is the theoretical maximum distance that your vehicle's Commander (not you!) can see, and
depends on the vehicle's turret, the Commander's effective primary skill level, whether the Commander has the
Recon skill and the Radio Operator has the Situational Awareness skill, as well as the usage of view range stat
enhancing equipment like Coated Optics or Binoculars. View Range has no relevance of its own, its only
purpose is to serve as a factor for calculating the spotting range. It is not to be confused with draw distance, nor
does it have any influence thereon.

Note that unlike what the in game description of the view range enhancing equipment indicates, there is no
500m limitation. View range is unlimited. The better your view range, the better your spotting range, at any
range.

The maximum possible view range you can currently (v0.7.3) achieve in game is nearly 598.842m with a Patton
and 100% Commander and crew having the Brothers in Arms perk, the Commander having 100% Recon skill,
the Radio Operator having 100% Situational Awareness skill, the tank having Improved Ventilation and
Binoculars equipment installed and using Case of Cola premium consumable.

Spotting Range

Spotting Range is the maximum distance at which you will detect/spot an enemy tank if you have line of sight.

Minimum Spotting Range

You will always spot any vehicle that comes within 50m of you, regardless of line of sight. Because you do not
need line of sight, this is also called proximity spotting, and can be used on certain maps to spot enemies going
past a choke-point without actually being exposed to them.

Maximum Spotting Range

You can never spot a vehicle further away than 445m, the game engine performs no spotting checks past this
boundary.

Note that unlike draw distance limits, spotting range limits are the same in all directions (think of a virtual
bubble instead of a cube).

Calculating Spotting Range

Spotting Range is not a fixed value particular to your tank, but depends on the target you are spotting, its current
position and situation. In other words, as many different individual spotting ranges are calculated by the server
for your tank as there are targets within the minimum and maximum spotting ranges to you. For each target the
spotting range is calculated individually according to the following formula:

If your spotting range to a vehicle equals or exceeds your distance to that vehicle, and you have line of sight, or
if the vehicle is within the minimum spotting range, you will spot it. Otherwise it remains hidden to you unless
spotted by another vehicle on your team that you are in radio communication with.

See above for how effective view range can be calculated. Camouflage mechanics are explained below.

Spotting Mechanics

To determine whether you have line of sight to a vehicle within your spotting range and will thus spot it, the
server calculates a virtual vision ray extending from one of two view range ports on your vehicle to each of the
six visibility checkpoints of the target vehicle.
If a vision ray is obstructed by non-transparent objects like houses, terrain, or even just a lamp post, this ray
ends there and does not reach the target vehicle. Important to know is that both the vehicle being spotted as well
as other vehicles from other players are fully transparent as far as spotting mechanics go.

If no vision rays reach their target, you will not spot it. But if at least one of the six vision rays reaches the
target, you will spot the vehicle and it will light up if it was previously hidden. At this point it makes no
difference if any of the other visions rays would reach their target as well because.

View Range Ports

Each tank has two View Range Ports as shown in this illustration:

 Static View Range Port: A static location on the tank model, placed on its highest elevation and centered
there.
 Dynamic View Range Port: Located where gun is mounted to the turret, dynamically moves along with
the turret.

In general, the two view range ports take turns every 2 seconds, i.e. every 2 seconds visibility checks are
performed using the respective other view range port.

Visibility Checkpoints

Each tank has six Visibility Checkpoints distributed across the tank as shown in this illustration:
 1. Top, Middle of Turret (same location as Static View Range Port)
2. Gun Mount (same location as Dynamic View Range Port)
3. Front, Center of Hull
4. Rear, Center of Hull
5. Right Side, Middle of Turret
6. Left Side, Middle of Turret

Rate of Visibility Checks

You will not necessarily spot an enemy tank as soon as you have line of sight on it. The rate of visibility checks
is limited as follows:

 within 50 m range - every 0.1 sec

 within 150 m range - every 0.5 sec
 within 270 m range - every 1.0 sec
 within 445 m range - every 2.0 sec

NOTE: While Overlord confirmed the above as still correct for 0.7.1, US community manager Vallther claimed
on 23 January 2012 that the frequency of the visibility checks depends "a lot on the map" and that he "requested
a total check from Q&A regarding the matter". [2]
The rate limitation on visibility checks means that it is entirely possible that a hidden tank moves out of cover
right after a visibility check, shoots you, and returns back into cover right before the next visibility check, thus
never getting spotted and staying hidden. This can also lead to fast tanks getting spotted only closer to you than
your spotting range would normally allow - at a maximum speed of 72 km/h a tank can cross 40m between
spotting checks past 270m range.

Spotting Duration

Once spotted, a vehicle stays lit up for a minimum duration of 5 seconds which can extend up to 10 seconds
after the spotter moves out of spotting range or gets destroyed. The exact duration seems to be random. Tanks
spotted right next to each other may stay lit up for different durations. The Designated Target perk for the
Gunner extends this duration further.

Camouflage

One factor when calculating spotting range is the camouflage factor of the vehicle to be spotted. The higher the
target's camouflage factor, the shorter the spotting range.

Calculating the Camouflage Factor

The camouflage factor is calculated as follows:

camoFactor = baseCamo * (0.00375 * camoSkill + 0.5) * camoAtShot + camoPattern + camoNet +

environmentCamo

The camoFactor cannot exceed a value of 1, so if the equation results in a higher value camoFactor is set to 1.

Let's look at the different elements of that equation in detail:

baseCamo
Every vehicle in game comes with a base camouflage value assigned to it by the developers as
part of game balancing. The value is defined separately for moving and for standing still. The
baseCamo value is generally lower while moving the hull than while standing still, but for some
tanks including most light tanks the values are equal for both states, which is a big advantage for
dedicated scout tanks.

The baseCamo values are not shown in game but can be calculated based on the spotting range
formula and the formula for the camouflage factor explained here. Allow for a certain margin of
error because of differences in the distance display in game and the distance between visibility
checkpoints and view range ports plus the fact that in game distance is only shown in 1 meter
steps.

An incomplete list of measured spotting ranges in meters can currently be found in this table.
First value is for standing, second for moving and third for shooting. A tank with 400m view
 range and 100 percent crew was used during tests, without any special
perks/skills/equipment/consumables. All other tables like this and this should be considered
outdated, because several camo factors changed in 0.8.6. Also note that some fan sites display
base camo values dating from the v0.6.2.8 closed beta game client. Nearly all of these values are
outdated by now, you should ignore them.
camoSkill
This is your crew's effective skill level for the Camouflage skill.
camoAtShot
This is another value defined by the developers for tank/turret/gun combination individually as
part of game balancing. The same gun can have a different value on different tanks (or
theoretically even on different turrets on the same tank, although no example is known of that).
Gun caliber or existence of a muzzle brake on the gun have no influence on this value.

The value is not displayed in game, but can be determined through testing in the same way as the
baseCamo value (see above). The value is on average around 25%.
camoPattern
This is the camouflage bonus provided by a camouflage pattern permanently bought for gold or
temporarily rented for credits via the "Exterior" window. If a camouflage pattern of the same
type as the map you are playing on (summer, winter, desert) is applied. The amount added
depends on vehicle type, biggest is for tank destroyers. the Maps page for details on which
category a map falls into. Since map selection in most game modes is random, for most of your
tanks you'll have to buy a camouflage pattern for all three map types if you want to ensure you
always get the bonus. However, as mentioned in the Map Restrictions section above, tier 1 tanks
and some tier 2 tanks will currently never play on a Winter or Desert map in random battle mode.
camoNet
This is the camouflage bonus provided by Camouflage Net equipment, if installed and active
(you must have been standing without moving your hull for at least 3 seconds). It provides a
bonus based on vehicle type, biggest is for tank destroyers.

environmentCamo
 Environment Camouflage Schema
You can use the different objects on the map to provide additional cover. Solid objects like
terrain elevations, rocks, houses, or other static objects on the map cannot be seen through and
thus always provide 100% camouflage, i.e. you will not be spotted. But also half-transparent
objects like bushes or trees (up or felled) provide a camouflage bonus up to 64%, depending on
the density of the object. A full list can be found here.

As soon as you fire your gun, the camouflage bonus provided by transparent objects in a 15m
radius around your tank is reduced to 30% of the original value. Objects furter away are
unaffected.

Environment camouflage bonuses stack, but special rules apply when firing your gun:
 In the illustration to the right, each bush provides the same environment camouflage bonus X.
Since these bonuses stack, tank 1 has an environmentCamo value of 3 * X.
 However, as soon as tank 1 fires its gun, the environment bonuses within the 15m radius no
longer stack. Instead, only the bonus from the bush with the highest camouflage bonus is taken
into account. In addition, the bonus from that bush is reduced to 30% of its original value, so 0.3
* X. Bonuses from environment outside of the 15m radius stack as usual. Thus, while firing tank
1 has an environment camouflage bonus of 0.3 * X + X = 1.3 * X.

No camouflage bonus is provided by:

 Player tanks (dead or alive)
 Grass

 Downloadable camouflage skins as opposed to the camouflage patterns you buy for gold or rent
for credits
 Anything else
Note that your tank does not need to be fully hidden to take advantage of an environment camouflage bonus, the
environment only needs to cover all of your visibility checkpoints in the direction of the spotting tank's view
range ports for the bonus to apply.

Examples

Let's look at an example to see how it all comes together.

Say our spotting target has a baseCamo coefficient of 25% or 0.25 while standing still and 15% or 0.15 while
moving the hull. The camoAtShot factor is 25% or 0.25 as well. The entire crew of 5 has 100% Camouflage
skill level and the Commander has 100% primary skill level. Improved Ventilation equipment is installed. Our
tank is sitting completely inside of a dense bush and has not been moving for more than 3 seconds.

The effective camouflage skill is:

(100 + 5 + (100 + 5 + (100 + 5) * 0.1) * 4)) / 5 = 113.4

Should this calculation be confusing to you, remember that you need to factor in both the bonus from Improved
Ventilation equipment as well as the Commander bonus. It would, however, be understandable if the calculation
above still seems confusing, because there's no way to tell what those figures relate to unless you spend some
minutes figuring out the equation. To make things easier for you, here's the above numbers explained:

(CommanderSkill + VentBonus + (CrewSkill + VentBonus + (CommanderSkill + VentBonus) * 0.1) *

NumberOfNonCommanderCrewMembers)) / TotalNumberOfCrewMembersIncludingCommander = X

Now we can calculate the camouflage factor using the value for the effective camouflage factor:

0.25 * (0.00375 * 113.4 + 0.5) + 0.64 = 0,87140625 (87.14%)

As soon as our tank starts moving out of the bush, the camouflage factor is as follows:

0.15 * (0.00375 * 113.4 + 0.5) = 0.1387875 (13.88%)

Now to get a complete spotting example, let's add an example spotter with an effective view range of 400m.
Spotting range is calculated as follows:

First example: 400 - (400 - 50) * 0.929140625 = 95.01m spotting range.

Second example: 400 - (400 - 50) * 0.1387875 = 351.42m spotting range.

Tips

 A camoFactor of 1 means your tank is invisible up to 50m to any possible spotter.

 Bushes or standing trees within the 15m diameter become transparent to your view. This helps you
determine your distance from them.
 To maximize your use of camouflage bonus provided by your environment, do not sit inside of bushes
while you fire, instead sit more than 15m behind one or even several bushes. This is particularly
important for scouts. Firing reveals your position. If you absolutely need to take a shot, e.g. to track your
target for your team's artillery, pull back just before you take the shot - your target will stay visible to
you even with the bush in transparent for the normal spotting duration. However, don't forget that
enemies can see your tracers, so you may see shells homing in on your position despite being invisible
to the enemy.
 Since dedicated scout tanks have the same high base camouflage values while standing still as they do
while moving, they are best for reaching forward spotting positions unseen.
 Baiting the enemy to shoot you can be an effective tactic to light them up because of the camouflage
reduction while shooting.
 As long as you are outside of 445m maximum spotting range you do not need to worry about
camouflage, you will be invisible to the enemy team regardless of what you do. The difficulty is
knowing whether you are outside of their maximum spotting range - keep paying attention to the
minimap as enemy tanks get spotted and memorize their locations/count.
Radio Range

Each vehicle comes equipped with a radio that allows your Radio Operator to communicate with other vehicles
on your team. Two friendly vehicles can communicate if they are no further away from each other than the sum
of their respective radio ranges (also called signal ranges). For example, a tank with 300m effective radio range
and a tank with 500m effective radio range stay in communication up to a distance of 800m. Your effective
radio range depends on your vehicle's radio and on the effective skill level of those crew members responsible
for the Radio Operator role.

If you are in communication with a friendly vehicle, then you will share information about the position and
health of all enemy vehicles either of you are currently spotting. You will not relay any information received
from other friendly vehicles via radio communication, however, nor will it be relayed to you. In other words,
you will know the location of:
  Any friendly vehicle within your combined radio ranges.
 Any vehicles (friend or foe) spotted by you.
 Any vehicles (friend or foe) spotted by a friendly vehicle that is within your combined radio ranges.

Example:

You are looking down a long street from your tank destroyer and do not see any enemies, because they
are outside your own spotting range. However, when a friendly tank moves down the street, it spots an
enemy tank that was there all along. As long as you are within radio range of that friendly tank, you will
see that enemy tank just as if you were spotting it yourself.
See the illustration to the right for an example of a more complex situation.

Movement

Movement of your tank in World of Tanks is critical not only to reach advantageous locations or to retreat from
disadvantageous ones, but also and in particular while fighting other tanks to increase your effective armor or
avoid shots entirely.

Engine Power & Acceleration

Acceleration is mainly based on your engine power/tank weight ratio. More engine power means better
acceleration while more weight means less acceleration. Several consumables are available to give your engine
power a boost during battle.

Other factors that play a role are your suspension's terrain resistance and the terrain type and elevation you are
driving on. Note that the different types of Enhanced Suspension equipment provide no bonus to your vehicle's
driving performance.

Terrain Resistance

The terrain resistance, or passability/passing ability, as Wargaming calls it in their patch notes, describes your
suspension's performance (top speed, acceleration, traverse speed) on different types of ground. The
performance degrades the softer the ground becomes. The game distinguishes three types of terrain: hard (roads,
pavement, cobblestones), average (some paths, dirt, sand, grass, shallow water), and soft (swamps, deep water).
Most terrain types are easily recognizable, but swamps can be difficult. On Karelia and the aptly named map
Swamp it is quite easy, but on Lakeville in the valley the grass texture looks like any other, when in fact the
underlying ground is soft.

The exact amount of this degradation is a property of the suspension installed to your tank but is not displayed
in game. Wider tracks do not necessarily provide better handling on soft ground, e.g. the M24 Chaffee has by
far the best off-road performance of the dedicated tier 5 light scout tanks despite also having the narrowest
tracks. For all tanks, if a suspension upgrade is available, it always comes with better performance on some or
all types of terrain, i.e. less terrain resistance.

Top Speed

A common misconception is that the listed forward/reverse speed of your tank is an indication of the speed your
tank should drive at. That is not the case. Instead, this stat indicated the speed limit of your tank's transmission
system. For many tanks it's a speed you may only see while going downhill. While there are some tanks which
can reach their speed limit on flat ground, other tanks can only reach it on a downhill slope and some may never
reach theirs at all. Prior to 8.0, this stat was a hard limit that could not be exceeded no matter what. Now, it's
based on weight vs. engine power, and can be exceeded under the right conditions.

Hull Traverse Speed

The hull traverse speed or turn rate of your tank defines how fast your tank can turn its hull. It depends on the
installed suspension and your acceleration.

Note that some tanks can traverse their hull on the spot (pivot) while others can only do it while driving
forwards or backwards.

Although traverse speed is affected by both engine and suspension, in game tank specifications only show the
change in traverse speed when different suspension is mounted, but not when different engine is mounted. This
means that tracks info only shows values for stock engine, and it can be very confusing and misleading because
some vehicles gain a lot of traverse speed by mounting stronger engine, but this change is not visible in tank
specifications. One of the most obvious examples of this is E-75 which in game listed traverse speed for top
suspension is 21° and this is only true for its stock 650 hp engine, with its top 1200 hp engine, its traverse speed
is a lot greater than 21°.

Physics

A new physics system was added to the game in version 0.8.0. The system is best experienced rather than read
about.

No longer do hills have lines that you simply cannot cross. The steepness of the terrain you can climb is now
determined by your tank's weight, horsepower, and the speed it was going before it started climbing.
Some items of note:

 If your vehicle enters water that's too deep, an icon will appear on your screen indicating that water is
entering the crew and/or engine compartment. If you stay in deep water for too long your tank will
destroyed. Prior to 0.8.0, you simply had an invisible wall preventing you from driving into or falling
into such bodies of water.

 You can drive off of cliffs. You can use this to attack enemies from directions they weren't expecting. If
you're not careful you can fall to your death in some places on some maps. Fast tanks can catch air as
they go off a cliff at high speed. This also has interesting implications for ramming (or then again you
could just drop your tank on an enemy). Prior to 0.8.0, you simply had an invisible wall preventing you
from driving or falling off of cliffs.

 If your tank is going fast enough and you turn sharply, your tank will now drift (slide sideways) while
turning.

 Ramming a tank will knock that tank away from you in addition to causing damage. In the right
situation, you might be able to knock them off a high cliff.

 You can push friendly tanks up hills far more effectively now than prior to 0.8.0.

Aiming

All about pointing your gun at the enemy and hitting them. Make sure to read the section about Accuracy and
Dispersion as well.

Automatic Aiming

Automatic Aiming, or auto-aim, aims to the center of the tank: often the most armoured part. It does not lead
your target at all. It is only useful for aiming at weaker armoured tanks very far from you or when you are both
at close range and you need to focus on dodging incoming shots rather than carefully aiming at the enemy. In
these occasions, auto-aim can save you some worry. By default, auto-aim is engaged by right-clicking on a
target, and disengaged by pressing E.

Note that auto-aim will keep aiming at the target as long as it remains visible to you, even if it is behind a rock,
a house, or a friendly tank. That does not mean you should actually shoot at it in these situations - sounds like a
stating the obvious, but it happens all the time, in particular with newer players.
Manual Aiming

In most cases it is better to aim your gun manually rather than rely on auto-aim, but there are a few factors to
consider. Every shell in the game has its own trajectory and flight speed, and you often need to consider them
while manually aiming, but since the game does not tell you these parameters, they are best learned from
experience.

Arcade View

Arcade View is the default view mode that you load into battle with. It is a third person view mode that places
the camera above and behind your turret. Your aim follows your view-point. This can be confusing to players in
particular next to buildings, because the elevated view point causes the gun to point up the obstacle.

This can be mitigated by locking your gun in place. By default this is done by holding down the right mouse
button. This enables free mouse look without losing your aim. Note that by default the right mouse button also
enables Automatic Aiming, therefore it is recommended to assign a different mouse button or key to Automatic
Aiming.

Sniper View

Sniper View gives you a first person view basically through the gun. By default it is accessed by pressing the
left Shift key or by zooming in on the target using the mouse wheel. Because of the different view point, this
view mode does not cause any aiming problems in proximity to buildings or other elevations.

The other advantage of this view mode is the magnification of the target area, allowed for more precise aiming.
Beware of "tunnel vision", however, and keep a close eye on your minimap so you do not get surprised by tanks
sneaking up on you from behind while you are busy sniping.

Penetration Indicator

The penetration indicator is an option to the gun marker in your aiming reticle - enabled by default - which uses
an easy color code to help you evaluate whether you will be able to penetrate the target's armor in the location
you are aiming at and with the shell you have loaded. A red indicator tells you that you will be unable to
penetrate the targeted tank in that location, a yellow indicator means that the target's armor thickness lies within
the -/+25% range of your penetration rating, while a green indicator means that your shell's penetration rating
will exceed the target's armor thickness in all cases.

While the penetration indicator is an invaluable tool in discovering a target's weak spots, always be aware of its
limitations. It is a simple comparison of your penetration rating versus the target's armor thickness along the
normal at the aim point and does not take into account the impact angle, so even with a green penetration
indicator your shot may still ricochet or fail to penetrate the target's effective armour thickness. Also, because of
dispersion affecting every shot you take, you may not actually hit the weak spot you were aiming for.
Leading the Target

Leading the Target

If your target is moving perpendicular to you, you always have to adjust your aim manually. This is also called
leading the target. Factoring in your shell's flight speed, you have to aim where you estimate the target your
shell's trajectory intersects with the target's movement. For example, if your shell flies 1000 m/s on a flat
trajectory (e.g. AP shells fired from the 8,8 cm KwK 43 L/71 "long 88" of the Pz.Kpfw. VI Tiger), and your
target is 500m away, your shell takes little more than half a second to reach it. If your target is a T-50-2 moving
perpendicular to you at 72 km/h, i.e. 20m/s, theoretically you need to aim 10m in front of it to hit it.

However, since this is an online game and not reality, you also have to account for network latency, i.e. your
ping. If you were playing with 500ms ping (an extremely high ping), then you would have to lead the target by
an additional 0.5 seconds of movement. In the example that means you would have to double your lead and aim
20m in front of the target (see also Latency Correction below).

While all that is easy enough with a high velocity gun, it becomes much harder with a low velocity gun like the
105 mm AT Howitzer M3 of the aforementioned T82. It fires HE shells which fly at a velocity of 311 m/s on a
very high trajectory, i.e. they can take several seconds to reach a faraway target. The amount you need to lead
your target by with such a gun increases accordingly. Naturally, the more you need to lead the more will your
aim be off if your target changes its course even slightly. That is something to keep in mind when trying to
avoid incoming shots: never be predictable.

Ballistic Trajectory

The reticle takes the ballistic trajectory into account, so it will automatically aim a little higher while you hover
over a visible target (red outline). However, as soon as you move your aim away from the target, this automatic
correction goes away. This is important to consider when leading a moving target as described above, because
then you will have to correct your aim for the trajectory yourself. An easy way to know by how much to correct
is to first hover the reticle over the target, note how high it aims, and then aim to the same elevation while you
lead. While doing that the reticle may adjust to terrain or objects your aim passes over, so you might need to
compensate for that as well if the situation arises.

Aiming and Line of Sight

Despite shells following a ballistic trajectory, aiming is strictly line of sight. That can lead to situations where
you cannot place your reticle on a target, because it is hidden by a terrain feature, although the ballistic
trajectory of your gun would actually allow you to hit the target. This is particularly pronounced with howitzer
guns with high arcing trajectories, for example that on the T82. Due to the automatic correction of your aim it
can be quite tricky to shoot the target in such situations, but there are a few considerations that can help you
with:

 Sniper View has the lowest view point (gun mount), so do not use it if your target is behind an elevation
and you have trouble placing your reticle on it.
 Arcade View has a higher view point for aiming purposes (Commander's cupola), so you may be able to
aim at the target in this mode.
 Auto-aim does not actually rely on line of sight, so in situations where manual aiming fails, you can try
to right click the target in arcade mode and see your reticle drop a little bit further, possibly just enough.
 If all of these fail, and if the target is far enough away, you can try to simply aim above the elevation,
and hope for the best. It takes a lot of experience to get these fully manual howitzer shots right, however.

Regardless of elevation there can also be situations where you do have line of sight on the target and can place a
shot, but you cannot see the target's red outline. This usually happens if another object is closer to you than the
target and your reticle prioritizes the other target instead of the tank you clearly see and want to aim at. You can
take the shot regardless, but aiming can be tricky if your reticle also tries to adjust the aim for the closer object.
Be particularly careful if the closer object is a friendly tank - many have accidentally been shot in the back by
their team mates in such situations.
Strategic View (SPG)

Strategic Aiming Basics

If your vehicle is a self-propelled gun, then Sniper View is not available to you, instead you have an SPG-
specific aiming mode called Strategic View available. It is accessed in the same way as Sniper View. It gives
you a top down view onto a section of the battlefield. You can use your mouse or the cursor keys to move the
view around. You can also place the Strategic View directly onto a certain battlefield area by holding Ctrl and
right clicking the desired location on the minimap.

Unlike in the other view modes, in strategic mode the aiming circle does adjust to terrain elevation and ballistic
trajectory. Thus it will usually not be a perfect circle but an oval shape. This helps you judge both the angle of
the terrain your target is positioned on and your shell trajectory to the target. The little dot within the aiming
circle/oval represents the height adjusted center of your aim.

It takes a little getting used to perfect aiming with self-propelled guns, see the illustration to the right for the
basics to get you started.

Client vs Server

Shots that fall outside of your aim or go into a completely different direction are usually caused by network or
server lag. This can happen because every movement of your aim on your client has to be transmitted to the
server first and executed there as well. So regardless of your latency the server aim will always lag slightly
behind your aiming on the client. If you press CapsLock + 0 during a battle, your client will show an additional
blue reticle which shows the last information the client has received about where the server is currently placing
your aim, as well as the size of the aiming circle on the server. Since this is subject to latency as well, it is not
entirely accurate either, but if you are having latency related problems it can be a good idea to use the server
reticle and wait until server and client reticles match before you fire a shot. The server reticle is not displayed
while Automatic Aiming is engaged.

Where to aim

When shooting at an enemy tank, it is always useful to aim for areas with less armor. All tanks have the
strongest armor in the front, with the rear being the weakest. In addition, a tank's armor is not uniform. Use the
Penetration Indicator to discover weakly armored spot, so called weak-spots (typically hatches, machine gun
mounts, etc.).

Often it can also be helpful to inflict critical damage, e.g. by destroying the tank's tracks and thus immobilizing
it, by shooting it's fuel tank to set it on fire, etc. Follow the links for more details.

Accuracy and Dispersion

Standard Deviation Diagram

Every shot you take is dispersed randomly around the center of your aiming reticle, i.e. you will not necessarily
hit exactly where you aimed. The actual dispersion amount is based on a Gaussian (normal) distribution curve
and depends on your gun and the turret it is mounted to.
Gun Accuracy

The accuracy value for a gun is given in meters at a range of 100m. The lower the value the more accurate your
gun is. The value describes 2 standard deviations σ from the center of your aim. In other words, for a gun with
0.32m effective accuracy at 100m, 95.45% of all shots will land within 0.32m of the center of your aim at that
distance. Dispersion amount increases linearly with distance, i.e. 0.32m effective accuracy at 100m translates to
0.64m at 200m and 1.28m at 400m

Aiming Circle

The aiming circle, also called dispersion circle, dispersion indicator or reticle, describes the area of 2 standard
deviations σ from the aim point. Based on a purely normal distribution that would mean that 4.2% of your shots
would fall outside of the aiming circle. They are moved to the edge of the circle, so they don’t fall outside.
However, there is a minor amount of 0.2% of shots that lands outside the circle.

Accuracy Penalties

The accuracy discussed above applies is the best case scenario. During actual game play several factors can
come into play that results in a penalty to your accuracy:

 Dead Gunner: If your Gunner gets knocked out the Gunner's skill will be set to 0% for the purposes of
calculating the accuracy stat. The effect is mitigated if the Commander has the Jack of All Trades skill.
The effect is removed if the Gunner receives first aid via a consumable. See the Crew page for more
information.
 Gun Damage: A damaged ("yellow") gun typically fires with halved accuracy for as long as it remains
damaged.
 Shooting: With each shot you take your accuracy temporarily gets reduced dramatically depending on
the vehicle type, but your Gunner will immediately start aiming again.
 Turret Rotation: Rotating the turret results in a temporary accuracy penalty. The exact amount depends
on the installed gun and the speed you rotate the turret at.
 Vehicle Movement: Moving your vehicle forwards or backwards temporarily reduces accuracy. The
exact amount depends on the installed suspension and the speed you are moving at.
  Vehicle Rotation: Rotating your vehicle left or right temporarily reduces accuracy. The exact amount
depends on the installed suspension and the speed you are rotating at.

With game version 0.7.2 several crew skills and perks have become available to reduce most of these penalties.

Aiming Time

The aiming time listed for each gun (in a specific turret) describes the time it takes for the aiming circle to
shrink to a third of its size. However, most of the penalties described above increasee the aiming circle by a
factor bigger than three, which is why fully aiming the gun typically takes longer than the listed amount of time.

Client vs Server

When you fire a shot, your shell trajectory is first calculated based on the data the client has. It is later updated
with the data confirmed by the server. If the difference was big, then you may see shell tracers leave your barrel
at an angle or change flight path mid-trajectory.

It is unclear whether only the aiming point or also the dispersion of the trajectory around this center point is
corrected based on server data. At least in v0.7.1, if you watch a replay, you can notice that each time you play
it, your trajectory will be slightly different. This indicates that either dispersion is not synchronized between
client and server, or that it is during a battle but that data is missing in the replay files. In any case, currently
replays cannot be used to find out where your shot went exactly.

Penetration Mechanics

Aiming properly and hitting the enemy tank are only the means to an end, and that is actually damaging and
eventually disabling it. And that is not automatic. Once you have hit an enemy vehicle, the game then calculates
where the shot hit the enemy, at what angle you struck the armour, the effective thickness of the armour (based
on the impact angle), and thus ultimately whether your shell penetrates the armour.
Impact Angle

The angle at which an Armor Piercing (AP), Armor Piercing Composite Rigid (APCR), High Explosive Anti-
Tank (HEAT) or High Explosive (HE) shell hits the target's armor is crucial for penetrating it. The ideal impact
angle is along the normal, i.e. perpendicular to the armor plate. The actual impact angle is calculated as the
deviation from the normal. For this, the ballistic flight path of the shell is taken into account, which can be
particularly important for artillery guns and their high arcing trajectories if you fire AP or HEAT shells with
them.

If the shell hits an external module (e.g. tracks, observation device, turret rotator), impact angle is not taken into
account. The exception to this rule is the gun.

Shell Normalization

The impact angle of AP and APCR shells onto a vehicles armor is normalized, i.e. adjusted towards the amour’s
normal axis at the point of impact.

In case of spaced armor, shells are normalized at the point of impact on the spaced armor, and if they penetrate,
continue along their normalized flight path into the vehicle. Once it impacts the hull armor, normalization
occurs again and the remaining penetration potential (i.e. the original penetration potential minus the effective
armor thickness of the spaced armory) is used to calculate whether the shell penetrates the hull proper.

As of update 8.6, APCR shells are normalized at 2°. The normalization amount is a constant value depending on
the shell; there is no randomization.

The impact angle of HEAT and HE shells is not normalized at all. Angle is used for armor line-of-sight
thickness calculations, as normal.

Ricochet

If the normalized impact angle of an AP or APCR shell on the target's armor exceeds 70° (80° for HEAT), a
ricochet (a specific variant of a bounce) occurs regardless of its penetration value and the shell is deflected off
the target without causing any damage. You may ricochet off of spaced armor as well, and even if you penetrate
that your shell may still ricochet off the underlying hull armor.

As mentioned above, impact angle is not taken into account when hitting external modules except the gun, so a
ricochet off those is impossible.

A ricochet off terrain features, buildings or wrecks is impossible.

Overmatch

If the AP or APCR shell's caliber is 2 times or more than the nominal thickness of the armor (Such as a 120mm
shell hitting a 60mm thick plate), projectile shell normalization is increased by the following formula: basic
normalization * 1.4 * shell caliber / nominal armor thickness. Note that the shell is still capable of bouncing if it
strikes the armor at an angle of 70° or more from normal.
If the AP or APCR shell caliber is 3 times or more than the nominal thickness of the armor (such as a 120mm
shell hitting a 40mm thick plate), no ricochet will happen even if the impact angle is more than 70° from
normal. The increased shell normalization described above will also occur.

In cases involving HE shells or external module hits, overmatch does not occur.

Effective Armor Thickness

Your tank is armored with plates of varying thicknesses. The game only provides you with the nominal armour
strength of the three main armor plates of your tank's hull and turret, respectively. However, the tanks are
actually modeled in much greater detail. The penetration indicator can help you discover the actual nominal
armor thickness of your target.

However, the nominal thickness of an armor plate is just the minimal amount of armor a shell impacting it must
penetrate. As soon as the impact angle deviates from the normal, i.e. is not perfectly perpendicular to the armor
plate's surface, the effective armor thickness that the shell needs to penetrate will be higher than the nominal
armor thickness:

The effective armor thickness is calculated by dividing the nominal armor thickness with the cosine of the
nominal impact angle. For example, in the diagram above we have a nominal armor thickness of 100mm and an
impact angle of 30°, thus we have an effective armor thickness of 100mm/cos(30°) = 115.47mm that the shell
needs to be able to penetrate. In other words, at an impact angle of 30° the armor is effectively over 115.47%
stronger than its nominal value.

The following table provides the coefficients for a number of normalized impact angles:

Impact Angle Effective Armor Thickness

0° 100%
10° 101.54%
20° 106.42%
30° 115.47%
40° 130.54%
50° 155.57%
60° 200%
70° 292.38%
> 70° Ricochet

As you can see, the effective armor thickness increases exponentially with the impact angle. For shells
impacting you at 60° your armor is effectively twice as thick and at 70° nearly three times as thick. As
explained above, for angles higher than 70° all AP and APCR shells will ricochet regardless of armour
thickness.

As of 8.6, HEAT shells will start to ricochet if the impact angle equals or is greater than 80 degrees. The armor
penetration after ricochet will remain the same.

The same applies to your targets, of course, so always take that into account when deciding if and where to
shoot them. Reducing the impact angle to your target only slightly will exponentially reduce its effective armor
thickness and a target that was previously impossible for you to penetrate may suddenly become easy prey. This
is also the reason why you should always attack from two different angles at once. A target can only maximize
their effective armor in one direction, as soon as they try to accommodate two possible impact angles they
suffer an exponential loss in effective armor thickness towards both of them (thus if you are the one getting
flanked while in a strongly armored tank it is best to maximize your effective armor towards one opponent
while shooting the other one).

Penetration Randomization

Penetration values displayed for a gun/shell combination are average values. The actual penetration value is
randomized by up to +/- 25% around the average value. Randomization occurs on impact with the target,
separately for each new shell you fire.

Penetration Loss over Distance

Since shell speed decreases the longer a shell flies, the game models linear penetration loss over distance
depending on the gun and shell type used:

 Armor Piercing (AP) shells experience low penetration loss over distance.
 Armor Piercing Composite Rigid (APCR) shells generally experience high penetration loss over
distance (the exception are the APCR shells used by tier 10 mediums)
  High-Explosive (HE) and High-Explosive Anti-Tank shells (HEAT) shells experience no penetration
loss at all.

The penetration values displayed in game indicate average penetration values at 0-100m distance (no
penetration loss occurs within this range). Penetration values at higher distances are not displayed. As a rule of
thumb, the higher the tier of the gun used, the lower the penetration loss over distance. For example, a
Leichttraktor loses up to 17.5% penetration firing AP shells and 51.4% firing APCR shells with its default gun,
whereas a Maus only loses about 2% with AP and 15.4% with APCR.

Double Penetration

A shell can continue its flight path after the initial impact, either on the outside of the tank in case of ricochet or
inside of the tank following penetration of spaced armor, hull amour or external modules. A shell will continue
flying for ten times its caliber (a 100mm shell will continue for 1 meter). The remaining penetration potential is
the initial penetration value, randomized at the point of impact +/- 25%, minus whatever effective armor
thickness that was penetrated. This remaining penetration potential is then used to calculate whether any other
armor plates that are hit can be penetrated. Internal modules or crew members have no armor and thus will
always get hit if any penetration potential is left in the shell.

Note that the penetration model is simplified and after initially impacting a vehicle a shell is "bound" to this
vehicle and cannot hit any other tank anymore. That means that a shell can neither ricochet off a tank to hit
another tank within its deflected flight path, nor can a shell pass through a tank to hit another tank behind it. A
shell's flight path also ends after impacting the ground or buildings.

Damage Mechanics
If your shell penetrates the enemy tank's armor, its journey is not over, the enemy tank does not automatically
take damage. It all depends on the path of your shell after penetrating the armor and what parts of the enemy
tank it hits on that path. A shell can indeed pass clean through a tank without causing any damage.

Shell Damage

Each shell has a specific damage potential. The game mechanics differentiate between amour damage and
module and crew damage, but only the potential armor damage of a shell is actually displayed in game. The
potential for module and crew damage exists in addition to the armor damage potential and is not shown in
game.

The potential for module and crew damage is balanced individually for each shell - generally speaking low tier
guns can cause more critical damage than armor damage, whereas the inverse is true for high tier guns. The
reason is that low tier tanks have considerably more module hit points - another hidden property of your tank -
than they have armor hit points. At high tiers the opposite is true.
Damage Randomization

Just like shell penetration, all shell damage is randomized by up to +/- 25%, regardless of shell type. The gun
properties display the average value. The shell properties display the damage range. Note, however, that the
shell values are rounded to the nearest integer, whereas the damage amounts shown in game are truncated. This
is a display issue, and both are incorrect: The server uses the exact values.

Armor Damage

Each vehicle has hit points, displayed in the garage. Each vehicle enters the battle with 100% hit points because
you must repair any damage taken by your vehicle in a previous battle before you are allowed to join the fight
in it again. Each time the vehicle takes armor damage; its hit points get reduced. Once a vehicle's hit points
reach zero, the vehicle is destroyed. During a battle, the remaining hit points of a vehicle are represented by the
progress bars displayed over the targets you aim at.

Spaced armor is a special type of armor that exists to deflect a shell's flight path and to protect against the
explosion blast from high-explosive (HE) shells. Spaced armor is special in that it is separate from the hull
armor. Damage applied to spaced armor does not reduce the hit points of the vehicle itself.

AP, APCR and HEAT Shells

AP, APCR and HEAT shells cause damage only if they manage to penetrate the target's hull armor. Once the
hull armor is penetrated the target will take the full listed damage, +/- 25%. Other factors play no role to the
damage calculation. For example, it makes no difference whether you barely penetrated or easily penetrated the
target.
HE Shells
High-Explosive shell damage model

The situation is more complex for HE shells because both penetrating and non-penetrating hits and even misses
can cause damage.

If this type of shell penetrates the hull armor, the situation is identical to the one just described for the other
types of shells, damage is done to the full listed potential, +/- 25%. Since the shell, as high-explosive
ammunition, explodes inside of the vehicle after it passes through the armor, any internal modules or crew
caught within the explosion radius risk taking damage/getting knocked out (see Module and Crew Damage
below).

However, HE shells typically have low penetration values, so unless you aim carefully at a weakly armored area
of your target, you will not penetrate and the shell explodes on the outside of the target vehicle at the point of
impact. This also applies if a HE shell penetrates spaced armor, which causes it to explode before hitting the
hull armor. Finally, even if you miss the target, the shell will implode on impact and may still cause damage to
the target if that lies within the explosion radius, which depends on the shell used. In all these cases where hull
armor is not penetrated by the shell itself, the amount of damage is lower and calculated according to the
following formula:

Spall Coefficient may be 1.2, 1.25, 1.3, or 1.5 if a spall liner is installed and you calculate armor damage,
otherwise 1 (i.e. a spall liner does not protect external modules). actualDamage results of zero or below mean
you cause no damage.

Impact Distance is the distance between the point of impact of the shell and the point of impact between the
explosion's blast and the target along a straight, unobstructed line. Since the blast will cover an area of the
target's surface, the game selects the spot that leads to maximum damage according to the above formula, i.e. it
will be a trade-off between the spot with the lowest nominalArmorThickness and the closest spot that can be hit.
Ideally your blast wave reaches an unarmored area of your target, e.g. the open top and rear on certain tank
destroyers or self-propelled guns.

Once the exact point of impact has been determined this way, the actual damage amount is determined as well
as is the actual damage potential that the shell can now cause to the target. Whether this actual damage potential
causes any damage to the vehicle follows the normal rules, but with the following limitation regarding internal
modules and crew:

 If the shell exploded on the vehicle itself, then the propagation of the blast wave into the tank is
simulated by calculating a cone-shaped area 45° wide originating from the point of impact of the shell
along the normalized impact vector. Damage to internal modules and crew is possible within this area.
 If the shell exploded elsewhere and only the external blast wave impacted the vehicle, then no
propagation of the blast into the vehicle itself takes place. Because of this no damage to internal modules
and crew can occur.

If spaced armor is impacted by the blast wave first, the calculation above is conducted a second time for the
underlying hull armor. Since this second calculation is based on the remaining reduced damage potential, its
result is typically zero, i.e. no damage.

Module and Crew Damage

As mentioned above, you can not only damage a vehicle's armor, but also its modules and crew. Armor damage
and module/crew damage are distinct. That means hitting a module only affects that module, not the hit points
of the tank, just like hitting the armor does not affect a module. However, the same shell can damage both hull
armor and module(s) or crew since it travels through the tank after penetrating the hull armor.

Damage States

Just like the vehicle's hull, also each of its modules and crew have hit points. During a battle, you only see a
simplified display of the amount of hit points remaining on your modules and crew represented by one of three
color states in the damage panel at the bottom left of your screen. These states are:

 Default (i.e. no color shading): Enough hit points for module and crew to be fully operational.
 Yellow: This state signifies that a module has taken considerable damage but is still operational. Tracks
remain fully operational in this state, whereas every other module works at 50% efficiency. Crew
members have no yellow state.
 Red: This state signifies that a module is in-operational/a crew member is knocked out. Crew members
remain in this state unless a consumable is used to restore them to full health, whereas modules will
automatically be repaired over time by your crew up to the "Yellow" state of being operational.

All module and crew state changes are accompanied by a voice message.

Saving Throw

When a module or crew member is hit, they do not necessarily take damage from the hit. Instead, most modules
have a specific chance not to take damage. This is also referred to as a saving throw. The base chances of
damaging a specific module or crew member when hitting it are as follows:

 Suspension: 100%
 Engine: 45%
 Fuel Tank: 45%
 Observation Device: 45%
 Radio: 45%
 Turret Ring: 45%
 Gun: 33%
 Ammunition Rack: 27%

All crew members have the same chance to get knocked out when hit, however starting with game version 0.7.4
this chance depends on the damage type:

 Crew hit by AP/APCR/HEAT shell: 33%

 Crew hit by (internal) explosion: 10%
Each of these base chances to damage a module or knock out a crew member can be increased by 3 if the
Deadeye perk is active for your Gunner at the time of a shot with an AP, APCR or HEAT shell.

No other factors influence these chances. The amount of ammunition you are carrying does not affect the
chance of your ammunition rack taking damage.

Complete Crew Death

Note that as soon as all crew members are knocked out, the tank becomes inoperable. Consumables to restore a
crew member's health cannot be applied anymore at this point, i.e. there is no way to restore the tank to
operating condition. It counts as destroyed, even though its hull stays on the battlefield with all its remaining hit
points.

Ammunition Rack Explosion

If the ammunition rack's hit points reach zero, it explodes, destroying the tank and its crew completely
regardless of the remaining hit points on either of them. The only case the tank does not explode with a "red"
ammo rack, is when the rack is empty. You can increase your ammo rack's hit points by installing "Wet" Ammo
Rack equipment or by training the Safe Stowage perk on a crew member with the role of loader.

Fire Damage

There are two ways the enemy can set your tank on fire.

 If your fuel tank's hit points reach zero, your tank automatically catches fire.
 Each time your engine gets hit, there is a chance that your tank catches fire. This chance depends on the
engine and is displayed on the engine module's properties in game or here on the wiki. Note that the
transmission counts as part of the engine.

While your tank is on fire, it constantly takes both hull as well as module and crew damage. The exact damage
rate depends on the tank but is not displayed in game. The duration of the fire also depends on the tank, on your
crew's effective Firefighting skill level, and whether your Driver has the Preventative Maintenance perk active
and whether you use Automatic Fire Extinguishers consumable. You can also extinguish a fire manually by
using Manual Fire Extinguishers consumable.

Ramming Damage

You can also damage a target by ramming it. The collision creates an explosion at the point of impact similar to
that of a high-explosive shell. The strength of the explosion, i.e. the damage potential, depends on the kinetic
energy applied in the collision (0.5 * combined weight * relative speed^2), or in other words the combined
weight of you and your target as well as your relative speed. That means that the heavier both you and your
target are and the faster you collide, the stronger the explosion caused by the collision will be.
However, that damage potential is distributed according to the weight of each of the two colliding vehicles
relative to their combined weight (1 - individual weight / combined weight). For example, if you weigh 75 tons
and you ram a target weighing 25 tons, only 25% of the explosion will affect you.

Actual damage calculation then follows the same rules as for high-explosive shell explosions, thus ramming
lightly armored targets/areas of the target will cause more damage than strongly armored parts. Damage taken
can be reduced by having a Spall Liner equipped. You can further reduce damage taken and at the same time
increase the damage inflicted to the target by having your vehicle's Driver trained in the Controlled Impact skill.

If you are about to be rammed, you can reduce the damage you will take by moving away from the approaching
enemy, thus reducing your relative speed, and pointing your strongest armour at them. If your Driver has the
Controlled Impact skill, you need to be moving to activate it, anyway.

Zero Damage Hits

Hits that cause no damage, also called zero damage hits, are notorious among the player base, and various
conspiracy theories abound in their respect. However, in most cases they are simply the result of the above
described game mechanics in conjunction with poor and sometimes incorrect visual and audible feedback given
to the player about what happened with their shell. Bounces and ricochets, hits to spaced armor or to external
modules are difficult to distinguish for the player, yet they all have a chance of not resulting in any visible
armor damage to the enemy tank (they might still cause module or crew damage, but that is not always
immediately visible to the attacking player and thus dismissed).

Everybody experiences zero damage hits, just like everybody experiences misses. However, a thorough
understanding of the game mechanics described above will help you minimize them. There is randomization in
the game, but you will always hit what you aim for, namely the area covered by your dispersion circle, so aim
wisely to maximize the chances of your shots to damage your target.

Ghost Shells

Players also like to claim ghost shells, i.e. shells that either disappear straight out of the barrel or pass straight
through a target as if it wasn't there.

The first type is typically due to the player missing the visual tracer effect - watching the battle's replay from a
different angle will reveal it to you.

The second type can in rare cases be caused by heavy lag in the client/server connection that causes a
synchronization loss - what you are seeing on the client is not actually what is happening on the server, and
what's happening on the server is what counts. It may also be caused by a mistake in the collision model of the
opponent's vehicle. The collision model is a simplified version of the visual model of the target vehicle, but
separated into various hit boxes. If two hit boxes are not perfectly aligned, they may create a void between them
that a shell can pass through if it flies through at just the right angle. Finally, for some vehicles there are parts of
the visual vehicle model that are intentionally not reflected in the collision model and a shell can pass straight
through them. This is often the case for elements fastened to a tank's external hull, e.g. boxes or fuel tanks. In
many cases these are just decoration.

Repair

If you take module damage during battle, your crew will instantly start repairing it by restoring a specific
amount of hit points to the module every second. The actual amount that gets repaired every second depends on
the specific module itself (not just its type) and the effective repair skill of your crew.

Your crew will only repair a damaged module just enough to make it operational again, i.e. it will remain in
"yellow" or damaged state. The exact amount of hit points this state represents depends on the specific module
as well.

To get a module fully operational again and restore all of its hit points to it during battle you must use a
consumable. The Small Repair Kit is bought for credits and allows you to repair one module during the battle
(starting from patch 0.7.4 both tracks can be repaired at once if they are both damaged). The Large Repair Kit
costs either gold, or, starting from patch 085, credits, and fully repairs all modules that are damaged at the time
you use it. It will also provide a bonus of 10% to the crew's repair speed unless consumed.

Crew Voice Messages

During battle your crew notifies you of various events. Here you can find a list of them all:

Battle Start

Battle start
 Let's go!
 Time to roll out!

 Move out!
 Let's get this show on the road!

Auto-aim
Auto-aim engaged
 Target acquired!
 Permission to engage!

 Ready to fire
 Ready to fire on target!
 Target locked!

Auto-aim lost
 Target lost!
 Where did they go?

 I don't see the target

 I can't see them anymore!
 Where did the target go?
 Target has moved away!
 We've lost the target!

Target Hit

When hitting your target, multiple events can apply at the same time, but only one message is played.
Unfortunately the same or very similar messages are used for different events of this type.

Ricochet with AP and APCR

 Ricochet!
 That one bounced!

 It bounced off!
 That one ricocheted!

Armor not penetrated / Ricochet with HEAT

 Bounced off!
 We just dinged 'em!
  We didn't even scratch them!
 We didn't penetrate their armor!
 That one didn't go through!
 They dinged us!

Enemy set on fire

 Enemy on fire!
 Enemy fuel tank is hit!

 We've torched them!

 We lit that one up good!
 Enemy brewed up!

Critical Hit
 Penetration! (changed from "Critical hit!" in patch 7.2)
 We nailed 'em bad!

 That's gotta hurt!

 Looks like that one went right through!

Armor penetrated / Critical hit to external module

 Penetration!
 Enemy armor is damaged!

 Enemy is hit!
 Enemy armor is hit!
 Punched right through their armor!
 Nice shot!
 We've got them!
 They're hit!
 We've hit them hard!
Target Destroyed

Target destroyed
 Enemy vehicle destroyed!
 Enemy armor is destroyed.

 They're knocked out.

 Got 'em!
 Gotcha!
 He's gone - find another target!
 We finished him off!
 Enemy vehicle knocked out!

Module Damage Taken

Ammunition Rack damaged

 Our ammunition rack is hit!
 Ammo storage is hit! We're lucky it didn't blow!

 Ammo hit! We're lucky it didn't blow!

 We've lost some ammo, but at least it didn't explode!

Engine damaged
 The engine is damaged!
 The engine is smoking!

 We've lost half of our engine power.

 We're losing power!
 The engine is damaged! We've slowed down!
 They hit the engine! We're losing speed!
 The engine is cutting out!
Engine destroyed
 Critical engine damage! We're stuck here!
 Our engine is knocked out!

 They hit the engine! We can't move!

 Critical engine damage! We're stopped!
 They've taken out our engine! We're stuck!
 Engine stalled! We can't move!

Fire!
 Fire! Put it out quickly!
 Fire! Put it out quick!
 We're on fire!
 We're on fire! Put it out!
 Smother those flames!
 Grab a fire extinguisher and put that out!
 Put out the fire!

Fuel Tank damaged

 Our fuel is hit! We've lost half our gas.
 Our gas tanks ruptured - we're low on fuel!

 Fuel tank hit!

 We've been hit in the fuel tank!
 Our gas tank is hit!

Gun damaged
 Our main gun is damaged. It's working but not very well.
 The main gun is damaged. We can't fire accurately.

 Main gun hit!

  Our cannon is hit!
 Main gun damaged! We've lost accuracy!

Gun destroyed
 The main gun is destroyed!
 The main gun is knocked out!

 They took our gun!

 They took out our gun!
 Main gun destroyed, we can't shoot!
 Our cannon is destroyed!
 They've knocked out our cannon!
 Main gun knocked out!

Radio damaged
 The antenna is damaged! We can only talk locally!
 The Radio is hit. We can't raise anyone outside this area!

 Radio hit! We can only talk locally!

 The Radio is damaged! See if you can raise anyone!
 Radio hit! Radio range decreased!

Observation Device destroyed

 We can barely see through the scope!
 The range finder took a hit, we can only shoot close targets.

 Optics destroyed!
 They've hit our viewports! Can't see anything!
 Viewfinder knocked out! We can hardly see anything!

Track damaged
 Track hit!
  One of our tracks is damaged!
 Our track is hit! It could break any minute!
 One of our tracks was hit!
 One of our tracks is hit!
 The track is damaged!

Track destroyed
 We're immobilized!
 We've lost a track!

 One of our tracks is gone! We can't move!

 They blew off our track! We're stuck!
 We've lost a track! We're immobilized!

Turret Ring damaged

 The turret ring is damaged, we can barely turn it!
 Hydraulics are down - we have to hand crank the turret!

 Turret hit! rotating speed decreased!

 They hit the turret controls!
 Turret ring hit - it's moving slowly!

Turret Ring destroyed

 The turret is jammed!
 The turret controls are busted, we can't turn it.

 Turret jammed!
 The turret is stuck!
 They destroyed the turret controls!

Module Damage Repaired

Engine repaired
 We've repaired the engine, but we can't go very fast.
 The engine is fixed, but it's not going to hold up the speed.

 Engine fixed. Let's move on!

 The engine is holding together for now - don't push it!
 We've fixed the engine, but we can't go too fast!

Fire extinguished
 The fire is out!
 We've put out the flames!

 The fire is extinguished!

 We've put out the fire!

Gun repaired
 We fixed the main gun, but it's still not very accurate!
 The main gun is up, but accuracy is off!

 Main gun repaired, but it's not going to shoot straight anymore!
 The main gun is working, but not very well!
 The cannon is up, but the sights are still off!

Observation Device repaired

 The periscope is fixed, but it's still fragile!
 We've got the rangefinder working, but it's marginal!

 Optics repaired!
 We've cleared the view ports! Keep your eyes open!
 Viewfinder back up, visibility increased!

Track repaired
 We've fixed the track!
 Track's up!
  Track fixed!
 Track repaired!

Both tracks repaired

 Drive on!
 Track repaired! Drive on!

 Track fixed! Let's roll!

 Track fixed! Get going!
 We fixed the track! Let's roll!
 We fixed the track! Get going!
 Get going!
 Let's roll!
 Let's go!
 Track's up! Let's go!

Turret Ring repaired

 We fixed the turret, but it's still not turning very fast!
 We fixed the turret, but it still is not turning very fast!

 Try rotating the turret slowly, it should be working now!

 The turret is fixed, but it's still not turning quickly!
 You can turn the turret slowly now!
 The turret works now, but be gentle with it!

Crew Losses Suffered

Commander killed
 They got the commander! We can't see what's going on!
 The commander is hurt, he can't focus!

 The commander is hit!

  The commander is knocked out!

Driver Killed
 They killed our driver! We're covering his position, but not very well.
 They killed our driver!

 The driver is hit, he can barely steer!

 Our driver is dead! We can barely move!
 The Drive is a goner! The controls aren't responding!
 The driver is hit! We can't go very fast!

Gunner killed
 The gunner is dead! We're trying to cover for him!
 The gunner is wounded! He'll have a hard time hitting anything!

 Gunner is dead! We're shooting blind!

 Gunner is gone - somebody get on the gun!
 The gunner bought the farm! Our accuracy will suffer!

Loader killed
 The loader bought the farm!
 The loader bought the farm! We can't reload as fast!

 The loader is hit - he's moving slowly!

 The loader is dead! Our rate of fire is slow!
 They got our loader!
 Our loader is gone! We can't fire as fast!

Radioman killed
 The Radioman is down! We can only signal nearby vehicles!
 The Radioman is bleeding! We can't rely on him!

 The Radioman is dead! Our radio range is reduced!

  They got the Radioman! Stay close to the other vehicles!
 Our Radioman is hit! Radio range has dropped!

Out of Action

Vehicle destroyed
 Bail out! This vehicle has had it!
 We're done for! Get out!

 We're done for! Everyone get out!

 Bail out! We're finished!
 Vehicle destroyed!
 We've had it! Let's get out of here!

All Crew killed

 Crew is knocked out!
 Crew members are killed!

 Bail out!
 We've lost all of our men!
 We're done for!

Teamkill

Ally killed by you

 That was one of ours!
 We've killed a friendly!

 We've destroyed one of our own vehicles!

 We've hit one of our own vehicles!

Unused Messages

Crew messages which are in the game client but are not being used (anymore).
Gun reloaded
 Reloaded!
 Loaded and ready!

 Ammo up!
 Ready to fire!
 Locked and loaded!

Enemy destroyed by your team

 Another one down!
 Enemy vehicle eliminated!

 Scratch another bad guy!

 Enemy destroyed!

Enemy sighted
 Target spotted!
 Enemy exposed!

 There's one!
 I see one of them!
 Enemy detected!

Explosion next to you

 That was close!
 They almost got us that time!

 They're right outside!

Ally killed
 Friendly vehicle knocked out!
 One of the vehicles destroyed!

 One of our vehicles destroyed!

 They destroyed one of our tanks!
Battle lost
 Fall back men, this mission is over!
 We can't hold on!

 We may have lost this one, but we'll be back!

 Nothing more we can do here!
 Fall back men, the mission is over!

Battle won
 Victory is ours!
 Great job, men!

 Mission accomplished!
 We've won!