Most of the fighting with the artillery pieces of the vessels (cruisers and battleships) takes place at high distance. This means that you must note some:
Hardly a captain leaves his ship lying quietly in the water. So you have to hold when firing.
The telescope
You accessed the telescope mode by pressing the Shift key - Here you can get zoom closer to your target.
The Alt key
By pressing ALT, you gain some information about your target: hit points, speed of the target, distance to destination and flight time of the projectile.
Intrusion The goal
Sometimes happens automatically, you can manually target with the X button, recognizable by the white crosshair over the ship. Follow now, as long as you do not move the mouse to the breakpoint that you have targeted. So after the first volley (which probably went wrong) you can readjust the fire angle without searching the old breakpoint again.
The HUD
Sometimes you often overlooked, but you have the left and right of your crosshair rulers - so you can better estimate how much you must correct your breakpoint.
Various combat situations and correct courses of action Update
Your opponent stands still
Fire, aim and hit.
The opponent goes right (steep) to you or away from you
Fires just before his bow.
The enemy moves parallel to you
Even relatively simple: Depending on the speed of the opponent you have to hold different extents: Here you help the line marking of the telescope and the Automatic Target Tracking. Simply adjust your Fire accordingly. If there are several guns you can fire before your fires the full broadside also a "test shot".
The enemy moves diagonally away from you:
Similar parallel fire, but here you must also consider to include the changing distance in your calculations. Here a test shot is almost essential.
The enemy is constantly changing course and speed:
Here only help experience. Best you use several test shots and only approximations until you get closer to your target.
Direct fire or high-angle fire
We distinguish in this guide two fire types:
Direct fire and steep fire
Direct fire: Direct fire is usually fired at close range. The trajectory is flat and the artillery shell suggests a ship in the tank or on the side of the ship.
Steep fire: high-angle fire is mostly delivered at great distances. The Gun point in the sky, the trajectory is strongly curved (parabolic trajectory). The bullets hit mostly on the deck.
It is important to choosing the correct ammunition.
Hit Locations (citadels)
Currently, there are 8 different target areas: the engine room, steering gear, turrets, torpedo launchers, anti-aircraft guns, secondary armament and the "superstructures" ammunition depot and hangar. You may have heard of a hit on the "citadel". Seen Marine Military History, a citadel, a particularly sensitive area - which is also armored accordingly.
Ammunition dump: Of course the most sensitive area of the ship, so it is also the hardest armored. Usually they are directly under the gun turrets. But because of the armor helps only thick armor piercing ammunition here. Does not even try to scratch with a destroyer, the ammunition depot of a battleship, it will not succeed. But with your armor and have a little luck, the ammunition bunkers explode - a one-hit wonder. If not, however, turn out after all the turret, which is a huge weakness for many ships.
Engine room: The place where the steam is generated. It is usually among the chimneys. Great damage by a hit but here does not Align: The advantage is that your opponent does not get more thrust. However, a stationary target is a relatively easy striking.
Steering gear: This is of course at the stern of the ship (below the waterline). Results here clamp the oars in the location.
Main guns: The turrets. Possibly a hit destroyed the tower beyond repair for the rest of the battle, but mostly it falls "only" for a while. Otherwise here also high damage is possible. However, the turrets are among the second-best armored structures.
Torpedo launchers: A hit here turns the torpedo launchers, like the guns temporarily or even permanently. The damage here is not so high, but the structures are less armored.
Secondary armament: Difficult to sight, because the secondary armament is distributed and small throughout the ship. But a hit can bring the gun to turn out.
Antiaircraft: The anti-aircraft guns. Again, results can turn the gun temporarily or permanently.
Ammunition choice - Amour-Piercing (PB) or high explosive (HE)
This question is basically a rocket science and the tooltip of both types of ammunition allows for a few conclusions about what is effective when.
High explosive ammunition (HE) explodes on impact and may cause a fire. Armor-piercing ammunition (PB) breaks through armor (assuming it has enough kinetic energy) and damage the module behind.
Armor of ships: further the angle of impact of a projectile is away from a right angle, more armor must penetrate the basement.
Distance to destination: The farther your target is away from you, the steeper the angle of impact is the enemy ship.
- Short distance (direct fire) = flat trajectory, well to penetrate to the sidewalls. From the deck floors will probably bounce.
- Long distance (angle fire) = steep trajectory, well to penetrate to the deck. From the side walls, the floors are bounce.
The following tables are designed to provide you a rough indication - sometimes the other type of ammunition is just as effective.
Highly explosive munitions also have the advantage that they can cause fire and damage modules by critical hits.
The class names in the table are the way your goals, to your fires. Not to be confused with your ships.
Small Caliber Guns (most destroyers):
Removal DestroyerCruiser Battleship Aircraft carrier
FarAPHE HE HE
Medium APHE HE HE
CloseAPAP HEHE
Medium Caliber (most Cruiser):
Removal DestroyerCruiser Battleship Aircraft carrier
FarHEAP HE AP
Medium APHE HE HE
CloseHEAP APAP
Large Caliber (battleships):
Removal DestroyerCruiser Battleship Aircraft carrier
FarHEHE AP AP
Medium HEAP HE AP
CloseHEHE APAP
The images created by Wargaming you realize how ammunition behaves when it collides at a certain angle to the armor or the deck. "Flat Trajectory" means here what we have called direct fire, "Plunging Fire" means that through fire. "Penetration" means the armor is pierced, "Ricochet" means the grenade bounces off.
