Imagine the incredibly fast rates of fire you’ve seen on machine guns. Now imagine fast guns mounted on tanks and firing shells instead of bullets. That’s what you’re getting with autocannons!

Autocannons are automatic, single-barrel guns that rapidly fire large-caliber rounds. These guns are smaller than the main cannons typically mounted on tanks. Their rounds are loaded into clips, which means that tanks with autocannons will display both an intra-clip reload time (the time between one round being fired and the next) and a standard reload time (the time it takes to reload all the rounds in the entire clip).

Rotary autocannons represent a special take on the autocannon mechanic. They have multiple rotating barrels, which ultimately give them higher rates of fire than single-barrel autocannons (but have other features that balance this perk).

Both autocannons and rotary autocannons exist in World of Tanks Modern Armor, with rotary autocannons added in November 2024. Click below or read on to learn more about these fast-firing weapons of destruction!

• Autocannons: 2024 Update
• Rotary Autocannons: General Description
• Rotary Autocannons: Overheat Mechanic

Although single-barrel autocannons had been added to the game at different times throughout its history, in October 2024, several tanks that mounted autocannons received an update. This update addressed their server-side firing mechanics, to support higher rates of fire:

• The new mechanics grouped multiple rounds when the firing rate was faster than the server refresh rate (0.1 seconds).
• This addressed various issues observed when using autocannons with high rates of fire, where it would take longer than it should to shoot an entire clip.

These changes were initially applied to several Cold War tanks, including the line of French AMX tanks. Afterward, additional fast-firing tanks in both Cold War and World War II modes (including rocket-firing tanks and flamethrower tanks, which have guns that also benefit from these updated mechanics) were given autocannon support and could take advantage of this update.

Below are lists of the tanks that currently use autocannon support. Tanks that mount rocket launchers and flamethrowers are indicated with a note.

Cold War Autocannon Vehicles

World War II Autocannon Vehicles

What makes a rotary autocannon different from an autocannon is the presence of multiple rotating barrels. Having multiple rotating barrels spreads the heat that’s created when shooting, allowing for higher rates of fire than what single-barrel autocannons can achieve.

The barrels must spin up to their full rotation speed before shooting; this is known as a spin-up delay. The spin-up delay will be 0.5 seconds by default but can vary per tank based on balance and tuning. Rotary autocannons also have the chance to cause a small amount of damage on non-penetrating hits.

Each component of a rotary autocannon’s operation has a unique sound. This means that you’ll hear different sounds for firing, overheating, shell ejections, and rotation. Special care was taken to achieve a realistic effect for each sound as well. According to WoTMA’s audio director:

“…there are a bunch of different sounds playing in concert at run time to sort of 'assemble' the audio experience. The firing loops themselves are sourced from real-world recordings of actual guns. The motor windups and wind downs, overheat sizzles and clunks, interior perspective motors whirring, and such are added as sweeteners to the source recordings. The reverberation tails scale based on the listener's distance from the emitter location. The whole thing is also piped through our dynamic reflection system to give different audio reflectivity characteristics based on the listener's proximity to in-world surfaces with different reflectivity characteristics.”

Below are the tanks that feature rotary autocannons.

The overheat mechanic is a new weapon mechanic that adds diversity and balancing factors for vehicles with higher rates of fire.

The number of rounds you can shoot is controlled by the overheat mechanics instead of traditional reload mechanics. This means that these vehicles have a continuous supply of ammunition, and the ammo is NOT separated into smaller clip sizes. If your tank can carry 2,800 AP rounds, all 2,800 rounds are in a single "clip." You will reload only if you switch ammo types.

• IMPORTANT: not every rotary autocannon vehicle will use overheat mechanics!

There are three main components to overheat mechanics that you’ll notice during your gameplay:

Below are the rotary autocannon tanks that use overheat mechanics:

• M48 GAU-8 Avenger Black Edition