Weakspots & Armor Angling Guide (2025)

Armor Fundamentals

Effective armor is the combination of nominal thickness, impact angle, and shell normalization. Track how your gun caliber interacts with enemy plates and use the in-game penetration indicator to validate the shot. Remember that HEAT loses effectiveness on spaced armor while APCR normalizes less than AP.

Normalize angles mentally: every 10° of additional tilt adds roughly 6% effective thickness for AP/APCR. At 70° effective angle most shells ricochet, so forcing opponents to shoot at steep angles is a reliable way to bounce. Conversely, flatten your gun to the target by moving laterally or driving downhill before firing.

Common Weakspots

• Lower glacis plates on heavies when they peek over ridges—hold your shot until the plate is exposed.
• Cupolas and commander hatches, especially on American turreted vehicles; bait the peek then snap the cap.
• Turret rings while the enemy is rotating or reversing; aim at the hull-turret seam to damage both track and turret.
• Driver visors, MG ports, and overmatchable roofs on Soviet heavies; large-caliber AP can auto-pen these zones.

Build a personal weakspot notebook. Use the armor inspector tool or tanks.gg to screenshot problem tanks and mark safe vs dangerous angles. Reviewing those notes before a ranked session keeps the knowledge fresh and dramatically speeds up target assessment mid-fight.

Angling Techniques

Maintain 35–40° angles on flat front armor to force ricochets, and use side-scraping on corner fights to hide your front. In hull-down positions, rock forward and back to bait shots into mantlets. Always repair tracks quickly to avoid getting farmed while immobile.

Track bloom management matters: break line of sight for two seconds, then peek pre-aimed rather than snap-turning your hull. If you must rotate, reverse out while wiggling so the enemy never sees a flat surface for more than a fraction of a second.

Angle Cheat Sheet

Shell Choice vs Armor Type

AP and APCR normalize, making them ideal versus angled plates. HEAT is best for flat, thick targets but fails against tracks and spaced armor. HE delivers module damage and splash, useful for stripping external fuel tanks or resetting caps. Keep at least two shell types ready on hull-down tanks so you can switch after scouting armor layout.

• Swap to HEAT for super-heavy cupolas when you have a flat shot.
• Use HE on lightly armored TDs to guarantee tracking + damage.
• Carry APCR on mediums to punch through angled turret cheeks.

Overmatch & Spaced Armor

Track shell calibers versus target armor. Guns 3× armor thickness will overmatch, while 2× can still penetrate with favorable angles. vs spaced armor, switch to AP or HE; HEAT will detonate on the outer layer. Utilize turbo or mobility boosts to secure side shots where overmatch guarantees the pen.

Keep a list of overmatch breakpoints: 120 mm overmatches 40 mm roofs, 130 mm beats 43 mm, and 150 mm defeats 50 mm plates. Memorize these numbers for popular metas like the Chieftain, 279(e), and BZ-176 so you instantly know whether to risk a roof shot.

Training Room Drills

Use training rooms to test angles versus clanmates, logging the bounce/pen ratios. Practice poking corner positions with a timer to mimic battle rhythm, and record replays to review your exposure times and shot placement. Aim to reduce exposure to under two seconds per trade.

Set up three drills: (1) side-scrape against a partner firing APCR, (2) weakspot snap-shooting with a timer, (3) overmatch practice by switching to high-caliber guns. Capture replays and annotate mistakes—track those notes in a spreadsheet to measure improvement week over week.

Class-Specific Tips