The May 21st update will include changes intended to reduce weak spots on tanks like the Abrams series that were an unintended byproduct of the existing shell mechanics.

Commander,

We know that you have certain expectations around gameplay in World of Tanks Modern Armor, and we’re always looking for ways to adjust the game to meet your standards as well as ours.

With the May 21 update, we'll be slightly adjusting the mechanics of APDS, APFSDS, and APFSDSDU ammunition in Cold War mode. (We're using "APDS" as the general catch-all term for these shells for brevity, as they all have the same mechanical changes.)

These changes will apply only to Cold War mode. Shell mechanics in World War II will remain unaffected.

The issue:

Due to the standard 70-degree ricochet mechanics of all AP shells, we were seeing a number of unintentional shot traps caused by the armor layouts of many Cold War tanks, the Abrams series being the most noticeable.

What this means is that a shell would strike highly angled armor, ricochet off, and penetrate another area of the tank, creating weak spots on the tank that weren't intended. The use of World War II mechanics in Cold War mode was creating this unintended behavior.

The changes:

To address this, we have made some gameplay adjustments to APDS, APFSDS, and APFSDSDU that, while not exactly analogous to real life, seek to remedy this issue and also cause the shells to react in a way somewhat more akin to how they would in the real world.

• The first change is that APDS, APFSDS, and APFSDSDU now will no longer ricochet when they strike at the auto-bounce angle. Instead, the penetrator will shatter instead of continuing on its trajectory. Just like a normal ricochet, penetration will not be calculated on hits beyond 70 degrees. This means that hits at 70 degrees or greater, for all intents and purposes, will be like standard non-penetrating hits. This measure is to prevent shot traps that should not have been there on certain vehicles in the first place.
  
  
• The second change is that for APDS, APFSDS, and APFSDSDU shells, the shell caliber now must be 3.5x the nominal armor thickness in order to overmatch the armor, as opposed to 3x (as seen on AP and APCR). While APFSDS is understood to be generally more effective against thinner, sloped armor in real life than older kinetic energy projectile types, sloped armor on the modern battlefield is still effective and not entirely invalidated by this ammunition type. Double overmatch mechanics have not been affected.

Questions:

Will these changes affect APDS, APFSDS, or APFSDSDU for World War II tanks?

No. These changes only affect shells in Cold War mode. If a vehicle in World War II mode uses APDS, APFSDS, or APFSDSDU (for example, the NM-116 Panserjager), these changes will NOT apply.

Why are both changes needed?

The 3x overmatch mechanic allows a shell to ignore the angle of impact and instantly penetrate, no matter what. But with the current shell mechanics, we found there were armor sections that do provide adequate protection in real life but were failing to do so in-game. We saw one of two things occurring:

• A shell 3x overmatched the tank’s thin, highly sloped armor, causing instant penetration.
• A shell’s caliber was less than 3x the thickness of the armor, causing it to ricochet and penetrate armor somewhere else on the vehicle and creating damage from an unintended shot trap

If the overmatch mechanic wasn't increased to 3.5x for these particular rounds, it would still just overmatch and penetrate anyway, regardless of the ricochet mechanic change. Both changes are needed to address the shot trap issue.

Additionally, both changes are designed to approximate real-world shell behavior and performance. Since the arrow-like APFSDS penetrators of Cold War wouldn't act like AP shells from World War II upon a ricochet, we decided to adjust their behavior to be closer to that of real life. The increase of the triple-overmatch mechanic for APDS/APFSDS penetrators to 3.5x has two purposes:

• It simulates the lower weight that APFSDS penetrators have compared to some of the large AP shells of World War II, which use their energy to "burst" through thin, but heavily sloped armor.
• It also makes some of the sloped armor on many vehicles that lack composite or ERA more effective.

With these changes, our goal is to make Cold War vehicles like those in the Abrams series more competitive in all the ways they should be. As we’ve mentioned, Cold War mode is constantly evolving, and these changes are part of that ongoing evolution, designed to improve the quality of play.

Once these changes go live, we would love to get your feedback on them. Join us on Discord or our other social media accounts, and let us know what you think.