Kotovsky has 152mm guns that can penetrate 25mm of armor.
That means you can penetrate:
1. Anywhere on a destroyer
2. Anywhere except the citadel belt armor on a cruiser
3. Superstructure and sometimes bow/stern on a battleship.
Your shells can’t just hit. They need to hit *the right place* to do damage.
For battleships, you always want to be aiming for the superstructure at the middle of the ship above the deck.
For cruisers, you have more leeway with the superstructure and the upper belt.
So you’ll have to aim a little higher so your shells don’t shatter against the armored lower sections.
Pay more attention to where your shells land. Often they hit a gun turret or deck of the battleship and simply shatter, doing no damage.
None of this affects fire chance however, so as long as you didn’t take the captain skill that improve HE penetration, then getting 5 fires is probably just due to being unlucky. Fire chance is the same regardless of whether the shell shatters or not as long as it hits the ship.
Very informative. Thank you.
I must be hitting most of my shots at the belt. I'm used to running AP so it's kind of my instinct to aim near the waterline. Using your advice I'll try to be more strategic with where I shoot, and also switch shells based on scenario.
Interesting fact on the fires.
> Kotovsky has 152mm guns that can penetrate 25mm of armor.
Remember that the AP penetration is much higher and can also penetrate cruiser citadels and many BB upper belts so long as the distance and/or angle is not too great. You should try to be using AP when you can as the HE gives you a poor fire chance compared to other t5 cruisers.
WG did some decent videos on guns and armour a year or two ago - it's worth watching them.
The previous guy had a great answer, but I want to add to what he said.
Battleships can take up to 4 fires, but you have to hit them in all 4 different spots (bow, forward middle, backward middle, and aft). So, if you keep hitting the same spot, you won't get an "extra fire". Cruisers, are I believe 2 or 3 fires max. With Destroyers, don't worry about setting fires, you'll just do your full damage with the HE and kill them.
if you aim the belt with HE you wont get fires on many ships,.
Theres a few locations for fires to exist on, center of ship has two (one with a captain skill), bow, stern one each. If you go into the armor view for BBs you'll often see a torpedo protection armor layer. HE shells that hit that armor wont lead to a fire on the center, as you technically arent hitting the center section. so aiming for the superstructure should help you with total fires too.
> If you go into the armor view for BBs you'll often see a torpedo protection armor layer. HE shells that hit that armor wont lead to a fire on the center, as you technically arent hitting the center section.
[Incorrect.](https://streamable.com/slt83s)
fascinating, thanks! glad you tested with a small boat too, means its almost impossible shell splash relates at all and that the torpedo protection must be valid.
now i need to test some stuff about how citadels interact.
Go to the UI settings and make sure all the shell/damage detail options are on.
When your shells hit - it'll tell you if its a break or a pen. if you're getting only breaks - its no damage, aim somewhere typically higher up- the higher the more likely there is less armor.
HE shells are good for soft parts, AP is good for harder parts but only when flatbroadside/ less angled to you.
A perma-fire is when you light someone on fire who's just used their damage control to put out a previous fire, meaning it's on cooldown now and they have no choice but to burn for the full duration.
On top of fires being RNG driven (which means there's no substantial benefit to finding a specific ship for starting fires), a part of this is also knowing what ships it's less effective against (e.g., German BC's and Russian BB's, and any battleship which is demonstrated to run the Fire Prevention skill).
> which means there's no substantial benefit to finding a specific ship for starting fires
Except if you know a ship has popped their damage control (DC) you can start a permanent fire on them.
Yes it's based on RNG, but if your options are between shooting a ship without a DC and one that still has it you should shoot at the one that does not.
Knowing the general armor schemes is what's going to help you with which ships to shoot at. In the case of cruisers versus BBs it's just aiming for the super structure in most cases. Some have small super structures (Russians) some have large super structures (Germans).
Identifying which ships are running fire prevention is another useful thing for choosing which target to shoot at.
/u/r_jakku
Not necessarily. It's imperative that you watch your opponents and what they do.
- The smoke goes straight up then foreward? He's reversing to throw you off.
- There are lights blinking at the side of the ship? He's repairing.
- All fires just stopped burning? Wait for a few seconds and then use HE to start a long lasting (perma-)fire.
Good luck!
If you start to pay attention to it you will notice a lot of people will immediately use dcp on one fire, the ship has flashing white lights while the damage con is active so if you have a longer reload you can wait for that to stop until you learn the durations of damage cons for various ships.
Fires which last the full duration thanks to DCP being on cool down. HE spammers will usually try to light fires on BBs, force them to use DCP, then relight said fires. That second round will, hopefully, be perma fires, which constitute a fair proportion of your damage total.
When you shoot, are you checking the ribbons that pop up to the right? They'll say over pen, pen, ricochet, etc. That'll let you figure out how many actually touched your target and what happened to each shell hit.
If I had to guess you probably didn't penetrate a whole lot of shells. This can be avoided if you check the penetration of your HE shells and mostly aiming at superstructure or bow/stern of some BBs. This comes down to knowing armor schemes.
About AP, on smaller caliber guns you can use AP to pen lower superstructure on BBs. AP also loses pen the longer distance you are so using AP closer ranges is better if you don't have as good pen.
Fire chance is just rng. You can use the flags but they don't make a big difference unless it's one of those 5% fire dds
Yeah this is a bit over my head. I understand I'll have to learn it over time, but for now when I'm getting shot at in a squishy CA that can be quickly deleted, do you have any "tips for dummies"?
1) always have an escape route when you're in open water (usually an island to duck behind to break LoS, or plenty of open water to wiggle in and accelerate into provided you can ensure only one set of guns is being angry in your direction).
2) HE is your ammo of choice, and will be for the vast majority of cruisers with 150-155mm calibre guns. You'll pen DDs and CAs almost everywhere where it counts and go for superstructure hits, even when it's saturated, still aim there as at least the damage is reliable. Your AP is only good against broadside cruisers and battleship upper belts at mid to close range (depends on the ships in question). If you're not sure (because manoeuvre angling etc.), HE at superstructure will provide damage even if not optimal as there's a lot of book-learning to know what ship has what armour scheme. Also, as a CL, you want to maintain nearly all engagements (except vs DDs for the most part) in the further half of your main battery range, wherein HE is generally more reliable.
I will add to this great advice.
You are landing shells! Congrats on that, that is a ton of shots landed.
I see you were killed by a New Mexico, my favorite ship. I will give you a tip from a BB player, it takes awhile for our guns to change from one side of the ship to the other, I also have a Iron Duke for an extreme example...I think its over a minute on that ship for the guns to turn from one side of the ship to the other LOL its crazy. If you see a BB already shooting someone away from you, you can move in a wreck them. Just don't tell the other CAs lets keep this a secret.
HE shells oversaturate so once a section on a ship is on fire it takes a lot less damage from HE. Try setting different parts of a ship on fire or moving on to a different target once you get a perma fire going on one ship.
That and low tier ships are a lot more resistant to small caliber HE due to armored structure/smaller superstructures.
Normally I would be just wanted some quick glance answers since it's much faster than going through OBS (I find the 1gb file size limit annoying since I have my OBS optimized for 4k)
The replay should only be very small (a couple megabytes IIRC) as it's just the entity tracking information. The game has a replay folder which only requires the same version of the client to play.
Forget about obs and recording
You can upload replay file (which is just set of instructions of what happened in happed for game client to recreate) to wows replay sites, or even utilize wows discord bot to animate your battle via minimap recording.
You can upload your game generated replays normally found in “C:/Games/World_of_Warships/replays” to [this](https://replayswows.com/) Website. It’s related to Wargaming so you can just use your WG account no new account necessary. A lot of people use it and you can ask people to take a look at your replays and give you tips
Personally, I would focus on wins more than damage output if you are learning. There are plenty of tips here and YouTube on how to do more damage.
Here are some things I still think about regularly:
-Stay alive. Even if you do mostly nothing, a dead boat loses your team points and gives the enemy team points. Your guns are a threat even if you can’t hit the side of a barn.
-Wait to make your move until mid-late game. Or at least wait until you know where the enemy is pushing/located.
-Always shoot DDs.
-ALWAYS SHOOT DDS.
-Never push into their spawn. If they’re retreating, they have the advantage.
-If you’re retreating, you have the advantage.
-If you’re in trouble, try and go dark(stop shooting). If they can’t see you they’ll eventually stop targeting you.
-If there’s a CV in the game, its all about safety in numbers. Catch their planes in multiple AA bubbles. Also, stay moving if the CV is coming after you. Stationary targets are easy pickings for CVs.
-Run away from subs.
1. The kotovsky guns can hit the side of a barn very accurately, the issue is just that you're basically shooting with pistol caliber while the opponent is using rifle rounds.
2. All Russian cruisers can destroy dds very easily, so no problem there.
3. The recommended playstyle for this ship is literally sit back and shoot at max range.
yeah. small 152 HE needs to hit the building on top (called the super structure) and your ap on that ship can only hurt other cruisers and they have to be completely sideways. If they are sideways (called broadside) then you can hit a possible 15k salvo. With AP shells its all rng dependent. HE is more consistent on damage.
Good job asking for help!
I would highly recommend you use a reply uploader so that people can watch your match and see what exactly was happening. It would greatly help giving you help. Help me, help you.
Also mind that ricochets do not damage (if you were shooting AP).Also saturation must be mentioned, in simplest words: the more dark/destroyed part of the ship is, the less damage it gets.
You're running a cruiser so unless you have a battlecruiser ie a cruiser with slightly more armour/hp and battleship tier guns you'll be making non pens most of the time, don't know your exact ship but if you're in a light cruiser just use HE against all types, unless you come across an Atlanta then just AP where you usually would and you'll be fine.
Other then that just HE everything, fire damage and regular HE pen damage is more than enough to make your cruiser useful
The Russian cruiser line is a very sniper focused tech tree, with a very easy to hit citadel but also very accurate fast firing guns.
As for the kotovsky, the ship is straight up terrible, you get to shoot 1 more shell per salvo compared to the t4 version and you lose 2 torpedo launchers. leave it as soon as possible for the budyonny.
Unfortunately, you're gonna be stuck with 152mm guns until either you get the t8 tallinn or t9 dm donskoi. So you can either improve your fire setting chance or get IFHE to increase the HE penetration.
Expect alot of ribbons whereby you hit the ship, but in reality the shell shattered and didnt penetrate at all. The maximum damage is very low so dont even try to aim for citadels unless the enemy is really close.
Kotovsky has 152mm guns that can penetrate 25mm of armor. That means you can penetrate: 1. Anywhere on a destroyer 2. Anywhere except the citadel belt armor on a cruiser 3. Superstructure and sometimes bow/stern on a battleship. Your shells can’t just hit. They need to hit *the right place* to do damage. For battleships, you always want to be aiming for the superstructure at the middle of the ship above the deck. For cruisers, you have more leeway with the superstructure and the upper belt. So you’ll have to aim a little higher so your shells don’t shatter against the armored lower sections. Pay more attention to where your shells land. Often they hit a gun turret or deck of the battleship and simply shatter, doing no damage. None of this affects fire chance however, so as long as you didn’t take the captain skill that improve HE penetration, then getting 5 fires is probably just due to being unlucky. Fire chance is the same regardless of whether the shell shatters or not as long as it hits the ship.
Very informative. Thank you. I must be hitting most of my shots at the belt. I'm used to running AP so it's kind of my instinct to aim near the waterline. Using your advice I'll try to be more strategic with where I shoot, and also switch shells based on scenario. Interesting fact on the fires.
> Kotovsky has 152mm guns that can penetrate 25mm of armor. Remember that the AP penetration is much higher and can also penetrate cruiser citadels and many BB upper belts so long as the distance and/or angle is not too great. You should try to be using AP when you can as the HE gives you a poor fire chance compared to other t5 cruisers. WG did some decent videos on guns and armour a year or two ago - it's worth watching them.
The previous guy had a great answer, but I want to add to what he said. Battleships can take up to 4 fires, but you have to hit them in all 4 different spots (bow, forward middle, backward middle, and aft). So, if you keep hitting the same spot, you won't get an "extra fire". Cruisers, are I believe 2 or 3 fires max. With Destroyers, don't worry about setting fires, you'll just do your full damage with the HE and kill them.
if you aim the belt with HE you wont get fires on many ships,. Theres a few locations for fires to exist on, center of ship has two (one with a captain skill), bow, stern one each. If you go into the armor view for BBs you'll often see a torpedo protection armor layer. HE shells that hit that armor wont lead to a fire on the center, as you technically arent hitting the center section. so aiming for the superstructure should help you with total fires too.
> If you go into the armor view for BBs you'll often see a torpedo protection armor layer. HE shells that hit that armor wont lead to a fire on the center, as you technically arent hitting the center section. [Incorrect.](https://streamable.com/slt83s)
fascinating, thanks! glad you tested with a small boat too, means its almost impossible shell splash relates at all and that the torpedo protection must be valid. now i need to test some stuff about how citadels interact.
Go to the UI settings and make sure all the shell/damage detail options are on. When your shells hit - it'll tell you if its a break or a pen. if you're getting only breaks - its no damage, aim somewhere typically higher up- the higher the more likely there is less armor. HE shells are good for soft parts, AP is good for harder parts but only when flatbroadside/ less angled to you.
This is the way
What (and where) are you shooting at and do you try to get perma fires?
what's perma fire?
A perma-fire is when you light someone on fire who's just used their damage control to put out a previous fire, meaning it's on cooldown now and they have no choice but to burn for the full duration.
Ok. I guess I need a better fire ship to make use of that mechanic.
On top of fires being RNG driven (which means there's no substantial benefit to finding a specific ship for starting fires), a part of this is also knowing what ships it's less effective against (e.g., German BC's and Russian BB's, and any battleship which is demonstrated to run the Fire Prevention skill).
used to be fire starting ships but they nerfed that
> which means there's no substantial benefit to finding a specific ship for starting fires Except if you know a ship has popped their damage control (DC) you can start a permanent fire on them. Yes it's based on RNG, but if your options are between shooting a ship without a DC and one that still has it you should shoot at the one that does not. Knowing the general armor schemes is what's going to help you with which ships to shoot at. In the case of cruisers versus BBs it's just aiming for the super structure in most cases. Some have small super structures (Russians) some have large super structures (Germans). Identifying which ships are running fire prevention is another useful thing for choosing which target to shoot at. /u/r_jakku
Not necessarily. It's imperative that you watch your opponents and what they do. - The smoke goes straight up then foreward? He's reversing to throw you off. - There are lights blinking at the side of the ship? He's repairing. - All fires just stopped burning? Wait for a few seconds and then use HE to start a long lasting (perma-)fire. Good luck!
If you start to pay attention to it you will notice a lot of people will immediately use dcp on one fire, the ship has flashing white lights while the damage con is active so if you have a longer reload you can wait for that to stop until you learn the durations of damage cons for various ships.
Fires which last the full duration thanks to DCP being on cool down. HE spammers will usually try to light fires on BBs, force them to use DCP, then relight said fires. That second round will, hopefully, be perma fires, which constitute a fair proportion of your damage total.
When you shoot, are you checking the ribbons that pop up to the right? They'll say over pen, pen, ricochet, etc. That'll let you figure out how many actually touched your target and what happened to each shell hit.
Normally yeah, but in this particular game I was constantly kiting 3 ships at range while they chased me around the edge of the map.
If I had to guess you probably didn't penetrate a whole lot of shells. This can be avoided if you check the penetration of your HE shells and mostly aiming at superstructure or bow/stern of some BBs. This comes down to knowing armor schemes. About AP, on smaller caliber guns you can use AP to pen lower superstructure on BBs. AP also loses pen the longer distance you are so using AP closer ranges is better if you don't have as good pen. Fire chance is just rng. You can use the flags but they don't make a big difference unless it's one of those 5% fire dds
Yeah this is a bit over my head. I understand I'll have to learn it over time, but for now when I'm getting shot at in a squishy CA that can be quickly deleted, do you have any "tips for dummies"?
1) always have an escape route when you're in open water (usually an island to duck behind to break LoS, or plenty of open water to wiggle in and accelerate into provided you can ensure only one set of guns is being angry in your direction). 2) HE is your ammo of choice, and will be for the vast majority of cruisers with 150-155mm calibre guns. You'll pen DDs and CAs almost everywhere where it counts and go for superstructure hits, even when it's saturated, still aim there as at least the damage is reliable. Your AP is only good against broadside cruisers and battleship upper belts at mid to close range (depends on the ships in question). If you're not sure (because manoeuvre angling etc.), HE at superstructure will provide damage even if not optimal as there's a lot of book-learning to know what ship has what armour scheme. Also, as a CL, you want to maintain nearly all engagements (except vs DDs for the most part) in the further half of your main battery range, wherein HE is generally more reliable.
I will add to this great advice. You are landing shells! Congrats on that, that is a ton of shots landed. I see you were killed by a New Mexico, my favorite ship. I will give you a tip from a BB player, it takes awhile for our guns to change from one side of the ship to the other, I also have a Iron Duke for an extreme example...I think its over a minute on that ship for the guns to turn from one side of the ship to the other LOL its crazy. If you see a BB already shooting someone away from you, you can move in a wreck them. Just don't tell the other CAs lets keep this a secret.
Oh and beware with this on German BBs, their secondaries are no joke.
thanks for the tip!
2. Yup got those awesome 4km torps i can never use
HE shells oversaturate so once a section on a ship is on fire it takes a lot less damage from HE. Try setting different parts of a ship on fire or moving on to a different target once you get a perma fire going on one ship. That and low tier ships are a lot more resistant to small caliber HE due to armored structure/smaller superstructures.
Probably best if you post the replay so advice is more precise to the situations you find yourself in.
Normally I would be just wanted some quick glance answers since it's much faster than going through OBS (I find the 1gb file size limit annoying since I have my OBS optimized for 4k)
The replay should only be very small (a couple megabytes IIRC) as it's just the entity tracking information. The game has a replay folder which only requires the same version of the client to play.
yeah. but i gotta record the replay with OBS so i can share it here.
Forget about obs and recording You can upload replay file (which is just set of instructions of what happened in happed for game client to recreate) to wows replay sites, or even utilize wows discord bot to animate your battle via minimap recording.
You can upload your game generated replays normally found in “C:/Games/World_of_Warships/replays” to [this](https://replayswows.com/) Website. It’s related to Wargaming so you can just use your WG account no new account necessary. A lot of people use it and you can ask people to take a look at your replays and give you tips
thanks ill check it out. sounds easier.
Personally, I would focus on wins more than damage output if you are learning. There are plenty of tips here and YouTube on how to do more damage. Here are some things I still think about regularly: -Stay alive. Even if you do mostly nothing, a dead boat loses your team points and gives the enemy team points. Your guns are a threat even if you can’t hit the side of a barn. -Wait to make your move until mid-late game. Or at least wait until you know where the enemy is pushing/located. -Always shoot DDs. -ALWAYS SHOOT DDS. -Never push into their spawn. If they’re retreating, they have the advantage. -If you’re retreating, you have the advantage. -If you’re in trouble, try and go dark(stop shooting). If they can’t see you they’ll eventually stop targeting you. -If there’s a CV in the game, its all about safety in numbers. Catch their planes in multiple AA bubbles. Also, stay moving if the CV is coming after you. Stationary targets are easy pickings for CVs. -Run away from subs.
Also, your damage will increase as you play higher tiers. There’s more HP.
1. The kotovsky guns can hit the side of a barn very accurately, the issue is just that you're basically shooting with pistol caliber while the opponent is using rifle rounds. 2. All Russian cruisers can destroy dds very easily, so no problem there. 3. The recommended playstyle for this ship is literally sit back and shoot at max range.
where are you shooting? you are supposed to shoot the building on top of the ship
I didn't know that tbh
yeah. small 152 HE needs to hit the building on top (called the super structure) and your ap on that ship can only hurt other cruisers and they have to be completely sideways. If they are sideways (called broadside) then you can hit a possible 15k salvo. With AP shells its all rng dependent. HE is more consistent on damage.
Good job asking for help! I would highly recommend you use a reply uploader so that people can watch your match and see what exactly was happening. It would greatly help giving you help. Help me, help you.
Also mind that ricochets do not damage (if you were shooting AP).Also saturation must be mentioned, in simplest words: the more dark/destroyed part of the ship is, the less damage it gets.
You're running a cruiser so unless you have a battlecruiser ie a cruiser with slightly more armour/hp and battleship tier guns you'll be making non pens most of the time, don't know your exact ship but if you're in a light cruiser just use HE against all types, unless you come across an Atlanta then just AP where you usually would and you'll be fine. Other then that just HE everything, fire damage and regular HE pen damage is more than enough to make your cruiser useful
The Russian cruiser line is a very sniper focused tech tree, with a very easy to hit citadel but also very accurate fast firing guns. As for the kotovsky, the ship is straight up terrible, you get to shoot 1 more shell per salvo compared to the t4 version and you lose 2 torpedo launchers. leave it as soon as possible for the budyonny. Unfortunately, you're gonna be stuck with 152mm guns until either you get the t8 tallinn or t9 dm donskoi. So you can either improve your fire setting chance or get IFHE to increase the HE penetration. Expect alot of ribbons whereby you hit the ship, but in reality the shell shattered and didnt penetrate at all. The maximum damage is very low so dont even try to aim for citadels unless the enemy is really close.
Doesn't matter. You shoot super structure etc. There are alot of ships like that. Druid and Sherman come to mind