Armor Heads: game mechanics behind the vehicle pages

What the numbers on each vehicle page mean, and the systems every vehicle shares.

Units

• Speeds are shown in km/h; the game stores m/s (the garage multiplies by 3.6).
• Angles are degrees; times are seconds; distances are metres. Every WW2 vehicle is modelled at true scale.

Roles

All 35 WW2 vehicles can be taken on any of the seven WW2 maps, by either team. Nation only matters for the garage filter, the flag on the card, the radio voice, and which vehicles the AI fields on a map ("AI line-ups" on each page).

Survivability

• Hit points (max_health): the tank is destroyed at 0.
• Damage taken multiplier: the tank's overall toughness (below 1 = tougher). Every tank also takes 1.6x damage (TankClass.DamageScale, a global tuning value), so fights take fewer hits.
• Armour zones: each hit is judged against seven zones: hull front, hull side, hull rear, roof (top), turret front, turret side, turret rear. Each zone has a multiplier on the shell's damage: lower = thicker armour (0.4 is very thick, 1.0 average, 1.6+ paper thin).
• Damage of one hit = shell damage × zone multiplier × angle factor × damage-taken multiplier × 1.6.
• Angle: hits square on take the full value; at about 70° from the plate's normal only 75 % gets through, and shells hitting shallower than the ricochet angle (72° by default) bounce off.
• Roof hits: shells coming down steeper than 40° (artillery, shots from high ground) always hit the roof.
• Tracks: a hit low on the hull's outer edge has a 45 % chance to break a track instead of doing damage. A broken track immobilises the tank until the crew repairs it (each page gives the repair time).
• "Raw damage to destroy by zone" on each page is the total shell damage, before multipliers, needed to destroy the tank through only that zone. It makes zone toughness comparable between tanks.
• Effective HP in the garage is HP divided by the damage-taken multiplier.
• Open-topped vehicles (M10, M18, M36, Achilles, Marder III, SU-76M, M3 GMC): high-explosive near misses do more damage and knock out the crew far more easily.

Shells and penetration

Every gun has an AP (armour-piercing) shell in slot 1 and, for most, HE (high explosive) in slot 2. Keys 1 and 2 swap shells. The guns that had a sub-calibre round in service also have it in slot 3 (key 3): APCR (German, Soviet), HVAP (US) or APDS (British 17-pounder), bought in the garage (see below). Every shell flies at its gun's real muzzle velocity.

• AP penetration threshold: an AP shell is stopped by any zone whose multiplier is below its threshold, and then does only 10 % damage. A threshold of 0 means it gets through everything. Example: the Sherman's AP (0.66) goes through a Panzer IV's sides but not a Tiger's front.
• HE: bursts on the plate. Its penetration depends on its size: the threshold is 182 ÷ damage, between 0.45 and 1.3. Bigger shells get through thicker zones (a 75 mm needs 1.0, so only thin plate; a 152 mm gets through a Sherman's front). A stopped HE shell still does 20 % damage. HE can jam the turret, crack optics, break tracks and stun the crew even when it does not penetrate.
• Overmatch: a shell two or more classes heavier than the target's armour class can't ricochet. Shell class comes from AP damage (1 below 200, 2 below 350, 3 below 550, 4 above). Armour class comes from effective HP (1 below 700, 2 below 1500, 3 below 2600, 4 above).
• Range: AP keeps full power up to 100 m, then loses some by 600 m: up to 35 % for light guns (class 1), 20 % (class 2), 10 % (class 3), 5 % (class 4). A tired shell also ricochets more easily. HE does not lose power.
• Splash damage and blast radius: damage to anything within the blast, falling off with distance.
• Ammunition: the starting load per shell type. An ammo drop or the M32 tops it up.
• APCR / HVAP / APDS: a light hard core, much faster than the AP. Its penetration threshold is far lower up close (it gets through much thicker plate), but it loses punch fast with range (APCR 55 % of it by 600 m, HVAP 50 %, APDS 30 %) and its threshold rises as it does: it equals the AP's at 500 m and is worse beyond. It does 25 % less damage than the AP, bounces off slopes more easily (ricochet angle 62-64°) and never comes with the tank: buy 3 for 200 credits in the garage (TAB, last card), 6 carried at most, from a team stock of 3 per player for the whole match. Ammo drops, the M32 and the base never restock it; the rounds are lost with the tank. Each page has a table by range.

Crew and module damage

• A real hit on the turret can damage the turret ring (slower traverse and elevation, slightly slower reload) or the optics (the gunner's sight is stuck at its lowest zoom).
• HE crew knockouts: an HE burst can stun the driver (the tank stops responding), gunner (no firing; the commander lays the gun slowly), loader (very slow reload) or commander (no T spotting) for a few seconds. Nobody dies. Bigger shells stun more crew for longer ("crew shock" on the shell table).
• Everything is repaired over time by the crew, at once at the team's base, or by the M32.

Gun handling

• Reload: seconds per shot. Autoloaders / autocannons (Luchs, Sd.Kfz. 250/9, T-60, M32): the reload refills a clip, and the clip's rounds then fire at the clip interval.
• Damage per minute on each page is the main (AP) shell's damage over a full reload cycle.
• Dispersion: the aim circle when fully settled, in degrees. Aim time: seconds for the circle to shrink by a factor of e (about two thirds). Move bloom: how much the circle grows per m/s of hull speed. Firing, hull turns and turret traverse also open the circle.
• Gun arc: turreted vehicles traverse 360°. Casemates swing the gun only a few degrees left and right of the hull centreline (some unevenly, like the Hetzer's 5° left / 11° right) and must turn the hull to aim further.
• Elevation / depression: how far the gun can aim up and down. Depression matters for firing from behind a crest.
• Gun sight: the gunner's sight (Left Shift) and its zoom steps, taken from each vehicle's historical sight. The commander's binoculars (V) zoom 6x, 10x and 15x on every vehicle.

Roof machine guns

Only vehicles that carried a roof or anti-aircraft machine gun have one, and it is that vehicle's own gun, modelled where the real one was (hold the middle mouse button or X to fire, Z for its view). It elevates to 70°, so it can shoot down enemy recon planes, and overheats if fired in long bursts. It does full damage only to the thinnest plate of light vehicles and 10 % to anything thicker.

Vision and spotting

• View range: how far the crew spots enemies on their own. The Optics upgrade adds 10 %.
• T marks a target for the team (markers on the HUD, credits for the spot). Bushes, trees and the camouflage net make a tank harder to spot.
• No WW2 vehicle has a sensor periscope mast or a flare launcher. Those belong to the game's original (non-WW2) designs, so the pages leave them out.

Mobility

• Speed: every vehicle drives at its real top speed on roads and its real cross-country speed off them (the off-road share is on each page), and reverses at its real reverse speed. Acceleration: m/s². Turn rate: degrees per second when pivoting or slow, and at top speed.
• Engine start: seconds to restart the engine (E turns it off, which makes the tank quieter).
• Halftracks (Sd.Kfz. 250/9, M3 GMC): steer with their front wheels, cannot pivot on the spot, and never turn tighter than their minimum turning radius. A broken track still stops them.
• Mass affects collisions and ramming.

Smoke

G fires a smoke salvo. Each vehicle carries a number of salvos, each recharging over its own time. Vehicles with 0 salvos have no smoke dischargers.

Special ability (B)

Each vehicle has one ability, usable once per round. It becomes ready after its load time, counted from when the round goes live. Pressing B again after use shows the price of a second use, and pressing it once more within 3 s buys it.

Upgrades (garage and in-battle shop)

Every vehicle can fit the same ten upgrades. Two are picked in the garage (saved per tank). During a match, more can be bought in the shop (U opens the garage, TAB switches to upgrades), one per round, up to three, for five fitted.

AI crews take two upgrades by role and buy one more per round.

Economy (online)

• Each team has a finite pool of every vehicle. Each page's stock is the number for a five-player team, scaled with team size (at least one). A bought tank leaves the pool for good.
• Players start each match with 1,500 credits and earn more: 0.1 per point of damage dealt, 250 per kill, 100 per assist, 25 per T-spot, 75 when a team-mate kills a tank they marked, 100 for surviving a round, 150 to everyone on the team that wins a round.
• A player who can't afford anything left gets the cheapest available tank free (the "loaner"), so a team is out only when its pool runs dry.
• Single player uses a solo purse that starts at 1,500 and earns 250 per kill, 100 for surviving a round and 150 for winning a round.

Support vehicle (M32)

Hold R near a friendly tank (within 13 m) to repair 40 HP per second, fix a broken track at once, and top up its shells and smoke. Repairs draw on a 2,000 HP stock, refilled at the team's base (200 per second); ammunition is free. Repairs pause for 3 s whenever either tank is hit. Players earn credits for HP repaired.

Other rules

• Spawn protection: a freshly spawned tank takes no damage for 6 s, or until it fires.
• Base zone: tanks at their own base repair, and enemies camping there are pushed off.
• Camouflage: C in the garage cycles paint schemes. "Auto" follows the map. Paint is cosmetic.
• Headlights (L) and night vision (N) work the same on every vehicle.