Game Mechanics

**This page is a work in progress.**

This page details the many game mechanics that World of Tanks Blitz is based upon, how they work, and how to use them effectively. Game mechanics in WoTB are very similar to its parent game WoT, albeit with some alterations to better suit the gameplay WoTB has. Many explanations for mechanics have been simplified for the sake of simplicity. If you wish to see a more in-depth and detailed explanation of a certain game mechanic visit the specific page of the mechanic you want to see.

## Spotting

*See also: Spotting*

> *You can't hit what you can't see! Okay, maybe you actually can. But how do you see tanks in the first place?*
>
>

Spotting is perhaps the most widely misunderstood and confusing mechanics. Spotting is the combination of 3 other game mechanics: View range, Camouflage and Visibility. These 3 all work together to form Spotting.

### View range

View range is the theoretical maximum value your commander is able to spot enemy tanks. Remember: **Theoretical**. View range is mainly used for calculating spotting range or for a rough estimate of how far you can spot. View range is affected by the following items:

* The tank's view range itself
* Crew skill
* Provisions
* Equipment

It is important to note that this isn't spotting range. View range is your theoretical maximum spotting range. Just because a tank is within view range, doesn't mean you'll spot them immediately. If you have a clear unobstructed view of a tank with 0% concealment then yes, you will spot them within your maximum view range. However, spotting range takes into account concealment value and other numbers meaning that spotting range can be much less than view range. But how less?

#### Spotting range

Spotting range is the actual range upon which you're able to actually spot a specific enemy tank. The amount varies depending on what tank you're trying to spot. It takes into account the enemy tank's concealment value and other numbers. The formula is as follows:

**Spotting range = A - (A-50)×C/100**

A = View range, B = Enemy's concealment

The formula may seem confusing at first, but is actually pretty simple. In order to understand it better, let's show an example.

Let's say your view range is 280m while the enemy tank's concealment is 30%. Let's plug those numbers to the formula.

**Spotting range = 280 - (280-50)×30/100**

Now put your math skills to the test and complete the operations. The operations should go like this:

**Spotting range = 280 - 220×30/100**

**Spotting range = 280 - 6600/100**

**Spotting range = 280 - 66**

**Spotting range = 214m**

There you go! You're able to spot an enemy tank with 30% concealment 214m away. You can also replace A with the enemy tank's view range and C as your own concealment rating, giving you the distance you'll get spotted.

In-case you're skeptical, here's an in-game example.

Spotting Range Video

**Spotter:** Pz. IV Gargoyle, **Spotted:** SU-85b

Pz.'s view range: 267.4, SU's concealment while still: 40%

Distance when the SU is spotted: 182m

**267.4 - (267.4-50)×40/100**

**267.4 - 217.4\*40/100**

**267.4 - 8,680/100**

**267.4 - 86**

**181.4**

**Note**: You don't need to keep running this calculation in your head as well as remember every tank's view range and concealment rating. In-fact, you're actually better off just knowing the enemy's view range and staying out of that distance.

##### Proxy spotting

Whenever you are within 50m from an enemy tank the game disregards spotting range, camouflage, and walls and automatically spots the enemy tank. Of course this also means you're also spotted since you're also in proxy spot range of the enemy tank.

### Concealment

Concealment is an extremely important value in regards to spotting. The more you have, the less likely you are to get spotted.

### Visibility

Visibility is the reason why you won't be spotted when your tank is behind cover, assuming your visibility checkpoints are hidden from the vision rays from vision ports. What were those words that I just said? Well, let's talk about visibility.

#### Vision ports

Vision ports are invisible points in a tank that shoot out "vision rays". Vision rays are invisible rays that shoot out from vision ports. They only go as far as your spotting range. When a vision ray hits nothing, it shoots again. But if it happens to be within line-of-sight with a visibility checkpoint, then the enemy tank is spotted (taking into account concealment, view range, among other things). Each tank has 2 vision ports, no more no less. Where are these vision ports located? First, imagine taking your tank's turret and encasing it with an invisible box. Exclude the gun and extra details such as MG mounts, antennas and attachments. But do include objects that are a part of the tank itself, like hatches, cupolas viewports, and even the gun mantlet. Once you've got your box, put a dot on top, in the middle. Make sure that when the turret rotates, it doesn't move. That point will be your static view port, meaning that its position with the tank never changes. Then next add a dot at the front end of the box, about where the gun should be. That point will then be your dynamic view port, meaning that the position of the dot will change relative to the position of the gun.

#### Visibility checkpoints

Visibility checkpoints, similar to vision ports, are invisible points on a tank. Their main purpose is to absorb vision rays. Upon absorbing a vision ray, your tank or the enemy will become spotted, depending on who absorbed what Each tank has 6 visibility checkpoints. Like vision ports, they're also a constant value, meaning a tank will never have more or less than 6 visibility checkpoints. Here are the locations of each checkpoints:

* Top, middle of turret (Shares the same position as the static viewport)
* Front, middle of turret (Shares the same position as the dynamic viewport)
* Left, middle of turret
* Right, middle of turret
* Front, middle of hull
* Back, middle of hull

To visualize it, take the entire tank and split it into 2 boxes, the turret and the hull. Same as last time, exclude extra details but include parts of the tank itself. Once you've got 2 boxes, separate the 2. Take the turret and add 4 dots: One in the same position as the static viewport, one in the same position as the dynamic viewport, one on the left side of the box, as well as one to the right. Then take the hull box then add 2 dots, one at the front then at the back. That's it!

For casemate tanks, replace the turret with the superstructure.

## Aiming

*See also: Aiming*

> You've found your target and decide to engage with it. But, how do you hit a tank?
>
>

Aiming can refer to multiple mechanics at once, those may be Dispersion, Arcade and Sniper view, Auto-aim, and other things. However, we'll only discuss:

### Auto-aim and Manual aim

Auto-aim has 2 versions, mobile and PC. Mobile tracks the point that you aimed on. Meaning that, let's say you aim at the trackwheel of a tank, it will then continue to track that point. The upside to this is that you can continue adjusting your aim as well as the point it's tracking at. The main downside to this is is that when another enemy passes through your crosshair, it will continue tracking them. This means that if you take your precious time aiming in on a weak spot, but suddenly a Sheridan passes in front of you, it will track the Sheridan instead and destroy your efforts at aiming. PC aim on the other hand aims exactly on the center of the tank's hull. **Always**. No matter how hard you try, PC auto-aim will always aim at the center of the tank. This can be problematic if you're trying to hit a specific part, yet don't want to constantly adjust your camera or stop to manually aim. However, it's great for when circling or flanking a tank. Since you're aiming at the side of the tank, you're pretty sure it'll penetrate. This is good since you don't have to worry about aiming and allows you to focus more on your circling.

Manual aim gives you much more control over where to aim as you're able to move your reticle anywhere, not being bound to a single point. However sniper view is always preferred over this.

### Sniper view and Penetration Indicator

Sniper view gives even more control than manual aim as it zooms in your view, lowers your camera sensitivity, as well as enabling the Penetration Indicator. The penetration indicator is an extremely useful tool for aiming. It highlights parts of the enemy tank that you're currently unable to penetrate in bright red, while parts that you're unable to penetrate not highlighted at all. The penetration indicator is an invaluable tool for learning where to place your shots, as the penetrable parts of the tank are easily shown.

#### Penetration Indicator

This mechanic gives you the ability to see each individual armor plate of an enemy tank and tells you which parts are able to be penetrated. Taking into account angle, range, and spaced armor, it highlights impenetrable parts as red, and does not highlight penetrable parts. Beware though, some details of tanks such as rangefinders (Notably on the T29), viewports (Notably the one on the Maus) and more appear to not be highlighted. This is because they are either spaced armor which are normally thin and deal no damage when penetrated, or details on tanks that are not part of the hitbox.

You may have noticed that some parts of the tank are only partially highlighted. This is even visible on the example image above. What this means is that it *can* be penetrated, but it's not a guarantee. This is because of ***Penetration Randomization***, which is covered later on. Just know that depending on how opaque or transparent the highlight is, the lesser or more chance you have at penetrating it.

## Armor

> *The very thing that makes a tank a tank. How do enemies block your shells, and how can you block enemy shells?*
>
>

Armor is one of three factors in the Triangle of tank design. Mobility, Armor and Firepower. All combined into a neat triangle that lets you class tanks by their characteristics. The better gun a tank has, the closer it is to Firepower. The more armor it has, the closer it is to Armor. Same goes for Mobility. Ideally, the tank should be placed at the very center of the triangle, making a balanced, well-rounded tank. The thing is, this is World of Tanks Blitz, not World of MBT's Blitz. Some tanks have ridiculously thick armor, while some have plates thinner than a centimeter. Here's how armor works, and how you can use it to your advantage.

### Basic Armor Penetration

These are some basic terms you should know before reading this article:

Normal – An imaginary perpendicular line to a surface

Shell Penetration – How thick of an armor plate a shell can go through

The "cosine" trigonometric function

Starting off, refer to the image on the right:

The blue line shows how thick the armor plate is. We shall call this ***Nominal Armor Thickness***, lets denote this as “t “. If a shell strikes perpendicular to the armor plate, it will need “t” mm of thickness to go through it and inflict damage

However, this is almost never the case in real matches; we usually shoot at the armor plate at an angle. Let’s represent this with a yellow line, and erect a normal at the point of contact. Let’s name this point of contact “C”. As you can see, the distance the shell has to travel in this instance is much larger than the actual thickness of the armor plate itself. From the image, it is obvious that a shell needs more penetration to go through “CB”mm of armor rather than “CA”mm of armor

This distance a shell has to go through when shot at an angle is called ***Effective Armor Thickness***, and we have a formula for calculating it using trigonometry

Notice that segments CB, BA, and AC for a right-angled triangle since the side AC is perpendicular to the surface of the plate. The shell is also shot at an angle to the normal; let’s call this Θ. Angle SCN = Θ°. Since the angles SCN and BCA are vertically opposite angles, they will be equal. Hence, Angle BCA is also equal to Θ°.

Here is where Trigonometry comes in. Since we know how thick an armor plate is, we know the length of AC. Now that we also know the value of angle BCA, we can use the cosine function to determine the length of side BC

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{\displaystyle \cos(\theta )={\frac {AC}{BC}}}

Therefore,

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{\displaystyle BC={\frac {AC}{\cos(\theta )}}}

This is the formula we will be using throughout this article, so please re-read if anything is unclear, or look up a video about basic trigonometry functions.

However, all you need to know is that cos θ will return a unique value for every value of θ. For example, cos 90° = 0, cos 60° = 0.5, cos 30° = 0.866, cos 0° = 1 and so on. Notice that the greater the angle, the lower the value cos θ returns.

Since we know that

BC = Effective armor thickness

AC = Nominal Armor Thickness   and

Θ = Angle of impact, we can derive a more standard formula:

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{\displaystyle EffectiveArmorThickness={\frac {NominalArmorThickness}{\cos(\theta )}}}

**Summarizing all of the above, we can say that:**

1)     The thicker an armor plate is, the higher will be its effective thickness

2)     The higher an angle the shell strikes the armor at, the higher is the effective thickness

### Normalization

Normalization is a phenomenon displayed by AP and APCR shells. Normalization is when a shell slightly bends towards the normal after striking the armor. This in turn, reduces the effective armor thickness of the plate since the angle of impact has been reduced according to the formula used for basic armor penetration calculation.

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{\displaystyle EffectiveArmorThickness={\frac {NominalArmorThickness}{\cos(\theta )}}}

An AP shell will normalize 5° towards the normal, whereas an APCR shell will only normalize 2°towards the normal

The shell paths in the image below is greatly exaggerated for demonstration purposes, but they should convey a visual summary of this topic. It is clear how the length of CD is smaller than that of CB.

This factor helps AP and APCR shells go through slightly more angled armor than a shell would without normalization

**Note**: If the angle of impact is above 70degrees, AP or APCR shells will auto-ricochet and will not attempt to normalize. (Exception coming up)

### Two Calibre Rule

The Calibre of a shell is its diameter. It can be found in the Ammunition tab, or written in the gun’s name in the Modules tab. Example: “152mm XM150E4”. The “XM150E4” is the name of the gun, and “152mm” is the calibre of the shells it’ll shoot.

Now that we’ve cleared that, the rule states:

**“If the calibre of a shell is more than 2 times the thickness of the armor it attempts to penetrate, it shall receive a bonus in normalization**”

For example, if you shoot a 210mm shell at a 100mm plate, you would get a normalization bonus (in addition to the base normalization of AP and APCR shells). There is of course, a formula for it:

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{\displaystyle NormalizationBonus={\frac {ShellCalibre\times ShellNormalization\times 0.7}{NominalArmorThickness}}}

Note that only AP and APCR shells qualify for 2CR

### 3 Calibre Rule

The 3 Calibre Rule states that:

**If the calibre of a shell is more than 3 times the thickness of the armor plate, it will always try to penetrate the armor, regardless of the angle.**

Previously in this article, it has been stated that AP and APCR always auto ricochet at a 70° angle and above, with the only exception being this rule.

Note that **this does not guarantee a penetration**, but merely an attempt at it. You still need to have more penetration on your shell than the effective thickness in order to penetrate the armor.

This only applies to AP and APCR shells.

#### 3CR Bypass

This is an interesting occurrence noticed by a few players, although this might be wrong.

It occurs by exploiting the 3CR rule.

Tracks have a certain thickness, it is usually around 20mm, although tanks like the E100 have about 40mm. When an AP or APCR shell hits the tracks at an angle above 70°, it attempts to penetrate if it passes the 3CR test. However, there is still the main armor to deal with and here is where the “bypass” occurs. Since the shell has already passed the 3CR test for the tracks, the game doesn’t deem it necessary to check if it passes 3CR for the main armor and will just allow it to penetrate.

Example: A 100mm shell makes contact with the 20mm thick tracks at 75deg. It passes for 3CR and it let through. It now meets the main armor which is 40mm thick. Note that this shell does not pass the 3CR test for the main armor and should just ricochet. However, since it passed the test for the tracks, the game doesn’t calculate it again, and just allows the shell an attempt at penetration regardless of the angle.

Note that this does not have concrete in game evidence and is based off of Armor Inspector’s penetration models.

### 10 Calibre Rule

If the shell penetrates, it will travel ten times the calibre into the tank, but no less than half of a meter.

This is used to calculate whether or not a shell will hit a module/crew member after penetration.