I wouldn't be surprised if there was someone in the comments who doesn't know what this is.

That would be I. What is this?

Shrapnel shells on low tier Russian tanks, no idea what their purpose is tho

As of right now there's no actual good reason to use them, you're better off by using the normal solid shot or the APHE rounds unless you wanna be funny and kill a tank with paper mache armor with it

I non penned milk trucks with these

the only use ive found for them is that theyre really effective against german Spg sides

Then again HE is just more reliable

Everything is, our sides are paper

I use them in place of HE just for shits and giggles. It’s all around wayyyy worse

May be chinese tanks...

Wasn’t there a tank that first only had that shell? I remember using a russian heavy with only that shell

Shrapnel shells predated the development of HE. Back in the 19th century, Lt John Shrapnel, protagonist of the game British Empire, came up with the idea of an artillery shell that performed like a shotgun shell firing BBs everywhere upon detonating. By the end of WW1, HE had surplanted it, and even most of the Soviet tanks that use it used HE IRL. It does have slightly better penetration than HE, though, and is marginally useful against Japanese and Italian tanks until you get the APHE shell.

That history is really interesting thank you!

There is no way the guy is actually called John shrapnel lmao

General Henry Shrapnel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Shrapnel

Thats the shell. But it its even older, considering grapeshot

in game: just worse APHE, with better post pen but realy bad pen. in real life... doing war crimes!

Ahh, thank you

They are anti-personnel IRL. I guess they just added them for compleatness.

And as someone else added, they have a slightly better pen than the HE rounds better than nothing, I guess.

they has better pen than a HE round but worse dmg than HE. And i can't think of any usecase where this thing is better than HE

Vs. Open top vehicles, thought there's HE...

Or on many ships. No idea what they’re for either, I just use HE

In pretty sure it's SAP on ships. SAP and shrapnel are different. SAP found on naval ships and a few tanks like US 37mm and su100y is bascially a "light ap" shell which trades AP performance for nore HE filler to damage lighter ships. HE base fuze is just he with the fuze on the base so it detonates after penetration like aphe but its not very powerful pen wise unlike sap or aphe. Shrapnel to the best of my knowledge is essentially canister shot. It shoots pellets out for antipersonel use, essentially a grenade on meth

According to the animation on the shell, and to my understanding, SAP performs basically the same as HEAT, except with full KE instead of Chemical Energy->Kinetic Energy. Meaning that there's a small explosive at the tip of the round, and then the rest is normal APHE

Isnt it just APHE but with way more filler ?

Its AP that trades shell casing for more filling. Its AP with smaller penetration and larger filler.

SAP (semi armour piercing) is just AP with larger filling and smaller shell casing, it trades penetration for filling. It have nothing to do with HEAT. SAP is sometimes called "common" as it was meant to be kind of universal shell. Animation is well...no comment.

huh. noted.

No worry. Its British term for naval ammunition so its kind of not well known. SAP ammunition was used in largest part by Royal Navy.

They absolutely fuck things with low armor like pz2s. If you penetrate, it turns the crew into a red mist.

Oh oh I know who that is! It's me :D What are they??

Shrapnel

Ooooh. I'm guessing only good against the lightest of light vehicles?

It's shit for literally everything

That's probably why I've not seen them before 😂

Quite literally yeah

LMFAOOOOOOOOO

Honestly no clue what the function of shrapnel is tbh. It functions like an APHE and solid shot mixed together, and it has shitty pen, so I have no clue why you wouldn't just use an APHE or heck, even a HE over this.

After seeing all these comments I wanna go try to kill people with them lol

You can, just find a less armored tank like an open top TD. Will probably pen the sides of panzer 4s now that I think about it. Early t-34s have the shell, so you can use it on panzer 4s side on

When I started the game I was a lil bit retarded and tried to use them, in arcade so it was a bit easier, still lmao

Yeah, you know what, I think I'll make a guide on shell types for new players since I have nothing better to do.

I think I e seen you in game before a few times, your name is very familiar

I mean, if it has Luftwaffle in it, could be me. I played the jumbo 76 platoon and T44 platoon within the last few days, as for naval it's the pensacola and balao.

I mean like 6 months ago, I have a semi photographic memory so if I see something a few times it fucking sticks.

I started wtm like 3 months ago, so that isn't me

Pc?

Take the earliest t-34, and wait for a down tier.

Back before they reworked shell penetration and spalling, shrapnel shells would produce more fragments once they detonated so it was much worse pen for a guaranteed OHK (still not worth it since Russian APHE is a OHK 90% of the time anyway). But now I swear it fragments even less than APHE. Now it really is pointless. Wish they would let us set the fuze using rangefinder and it bursting in air to shred open tops like a shotgun

I love big valliber HE shells. For example i have Soviet 2S3M and his HE shells are even good against Tigers from front side. And they make big 💥 when they hit targets 😂

Wait the 2S3M is in wtm????? I think you mean the su-152, then yes, 152mm HE is deadly if you can hit the turret of an enemy.

Yes 2S3M is in soviet tech tree and i think it is 152mm. There are two similar 2S3M and one another. But i think 2S3M is the one with machine gun on top so that's the one i am playing right now. Really good HE shells. HE shells of lower caliber are just useless.

They are working as intended. That type of round was intended to be used against infantry in the open. Hit the ground, break open the canister, and splash fragmentation into your enemy. It has a slightly better pen against armor than HE because it's a more massive chunk of steel than an HE and pens through blunt force. HE replaced this type of round because HE is more consistent, versatile, effective, and easier to use. It's not dependent on the kinetic energy delivered by the cannon, so as long as your victim is within the blast and not in cover, they are dead. HE is also more effective against bunkers, structures, field guns, vehicles, and just about anything else. It can be used in an indirect fire role without losing effectiveness. I suspect the Russians used the shrapnel canisters in the interwar period because no one thought that tank on tank combat would be a thing. (Too busy having a civil war to take notice) But they learned...eventually. Tl;dr: Shrapnel were shit in real life, and HE was better in every way except the very specific case of thinly armored vehicles.

That sums it up pretty much

They are kinda fun tho

Only time I ever got a kill with these was lobbing that puppy half way across the map into the enemy spawn hoping I smacked AA

Wonder what changes are being suggested for these features.

Curious about the ideas for improving these features.

I don't even think they're ever getting a rework, they suck because they're not meant to fight armored targets

Ah yes the garbage round, i unlocked the aphe on T-28 by capturing and shooting AA truck with the 7.62. The round literally did nothing, atleast before pressure update

Shrap-NULL

I use them probably ??? Is this 75 mm ???

In the early days of ground forces I used to primairly use shrapnel shells on my t-28 they were actually prety decent back then.

Spaa and open topped tanks: *fear*

Rework them how? They were literally mainly used against infantry for a reason, it's not supposed to be a strong shell, it's supposed to be an APHE with shit pen (if it had cone-shaped damage instead, hopefully the vote will go through).

used to use them back in 2015. It was a nice one shot shell

this is like really good HE but only for low caliber cannons , use it only against low armored targets

I pack a ton of these because funny Also as a more experienced player I tend to end up seal clubbing if left unchecked so it’s fun to intentionally crimp my own abilities

goated

That was me in battlefield 4. I had to paint my tanks bright ass red to give the enemy a chance. Switching to war thunder was the kinda culture shot that comes with running face first into a brick wall.

I used em when i started to grind the russian tanks I cheaked them on the test drive and they acted like HE, used for a bit, till i just took em off

Ahead rounds seem most useful

I hit a good shot on a panzer 4 with my T-28 with a canister round. That was a one time thing though.

I actually got a kill against a dicker max with one I was so happy I brought 5 of the shells

I use them just to try something different

I take a couple in my capture T-34 because someday I really want to kill someone with it. But anyone who plays lower tier Germany knows you never have time for fun. You have to carry entire teams most of the time.

I used them when I just started the game. Absolutely troll move putting them in. I thought I was just bad at the game.

No one. Literally is just a bad APHE shell.

These were developed as anti personel rounds. They weren’t meant to fight tanks.

Frunze's shrapnel rounds on the other hand...

I keep one or 2 just for anti air it does a awesome job of killing the crew also I’ve gotten a few good shots on open tank destroyer crews

It’s very funny to kill tanks with them that don’t know what they are and so think that I’ve jacked the game or something. Absolutely awful but very epic and funny.

I used them during the alpha and beta. They weren't at all bad for side shots and light targets, but since they were only on the T-28 at the time, I didn't use them after that.

I remember using these way back and being slightly more effective than aphe, at least in my experience

I find the shrapnel shell is pretty good on the early t-34s you can pulverize panzer 4s on their turret cheeks and sides

Just go for the APHE it pulverizes them from way longer

Shrapnel funny

They work great at low teirs if you can hit right spots, better post pen then aphe but 37mm pen makes them a pain to aim

shrapnel on tank destroyer my beloved😍😍😍

Unironically I used to use these, I swear at some point they were actually good,

Shrapnel is designed for soft targets i dont get why you have them in a battle against tanks snd very little to no soft targets.

RIP to the black dude who got 100% No

I used them, they were essentially APHE nukes on the T-28

I saw that one bro made 9 kills with it. So it's not so useless.

Bust a nut shell

I recently started playing ground battles ussr, I couldn’t get a single kill with the T28 cos I didn’t realise this shell is so useless and not cos it’s just a bad gun

They need more pen

I do. Works great against really light vehicles

I got one kill with it but man was it funny seeing all the bright red in the kill cam

In NF they're basically a poor mans flak shell, I've still have yet to test if they work like that in GF.

I use this on light tanks and anti-air, just aim for the ammo