(T110E3 in all the pictures)
I'd like to take the time to talk a little about penetration in this game and to those that might not know it fully…
The reason why 420 average pen can penetrate 524.9mm of armor is that… It's basically the maximum roll of that shell. Any further and it is impossible to pen as seen.
Which is calculated by 25%, which is 525mm exactly. However why it can't pen the 525mm is because I'm mousing over the point and is not accurate. There is some invisible numbers like .000001 etc. That is not showing as it is actually over the 525mm mark. But if it is 525mm exactly and below JPE-100 HEAT can always pen if it rolls that… which is .1% as you can see…. Insanely lucky to get that roll… Like trying to win an unusual in the old TF2 days. So yeah, you could get a 525mm roll against E-100 turret which is only 275mm at best head on.
Which does also unfortunately mean your 420 HEAT can roll as low 315mm. Dat… 25% chance on each trigger pull.
The last picture is 183mm HESH vs the LFP of T110E3.. I included this as HE/HESH also have the ability to roll their own penetration hence why it still says 31% chance to pen. Your HESH can still roll a potential 287mm at it's highest. Thus allowing HESH to penetrate the weirdest fucking places. As long as it's flat enough for the shell to hit as HEAT/HE/HESH does not over match thin armor
I've seen those countless weird penetrations and bounces… Like bouncing on a Tiger 2 LFP with IS-3. (He was angled a bit, LFP is about 170-180mm. I rolled probably less then that. With the lowest being 168mm. Extremely unlucky… At least the accuracy hit the LFP. Or your 246mm AP penetrating 128mm gun can go through the turret of the E-100 despite having less then 250mm/270mm of pen… It's just gold gives you higher chances to pen if you do hit that spot.
tl;dr The "average penetration" of any listed gun is where the RNG starts from. If you want to figure out what your highest pen roll is or the lowest. You times your average pen by .25 and then add or minus the average pen. Your penetration is never a consistent 420, 230, 276, 259… It's rolled just like your accuracy, alpha damage, and even doing damage to internal modules or crew.
