4Game

In this post I'll attempt to highlight the TRUE benefits of gun handling equipment. There are a few PhD dissertations out there on gun handling. I've used the equations from those writeups, but this is intended to be more of a quick reference. The advertised benefits of gun handling equipment is vague at best, so I hope you find this helpful when choosing which pieces to equip. There are only three gun handling variables affected by equpment 1) max aim circle size, 2) min aim circle size, and 3) time to aim. The most important thing to recognize about aiming is that the "aim circle size" given to us in the game is actually aim circle DIAMETER, which isn't the right metric to evaluate aiming. When you fire a shell, its distribution covers an area within the aim circle. That makes the aim circle AREA much more important than the aim circle DIAMETER. Since the calculation for area is Pi*radius^2, that makes any improvement to "aim circle size" much more significant than it looks — similar to how a 60" TV has more than twice the screen area of a 42" TV. Skip to the attached picture for the benefits to these 3 variables with the different pieces of gun handling equipment. You can find more explanation below.

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The first variable is "Max Aim Circle Area (with dispersion)". This means, how much does the aim circle area grow as a result of tank movement, turret movement, or gun movement. Vertical Stabilizer and Improved Rotation Mechanism reduce max aim area by reducing the movement dispersion penalty. The benefit they provide reduces with lower movement speed. Less obvious, Improved Aiming Unit and Vents reduce this max aim area by reducing the base aim circle size multiplier. You can see in the attached table how much each piece of equipment reduces the aim circle area with max dispersion.

The second variable is "Min Aim Circle Area." This is more self explanatory, and we're only converting aim circle diameter to aim circle area to see the benefits of each piece of equipment. The big takeaway for aim circle size is that a 5% reduction in aim circle diameter is nearly a 10% reduction in aim circle area. This makes equipment like Improved Aiming unit much more affective than it looks based on the advertised description.

The last variable is "Time to Aim". In short, how long does it take for your tank to reach its final aim size after suffering the dispersion penalties for movement. I put a spin on this to reflect the true benefits of Improved Aiming Unit and Vents. Technically, a reduction in aim circle size doesn't affect time to aim, but it does reduce the time it would take to reach your tank's BASE final aim size. E.g. If base aim circle size is .40, and iAU reduces the circle size to .38, I'm calculating the time it takes to reach the BASE aim circle size of .40 with iAU equiped.

Most of the numbers in the attached table won't surprise anyone, but I'm going to highlight a few things that it confirmed for me. Vstab is obvioulsy the best piece of equipment for gun handling, and most people already know that. Improved Aiming Unit and Vents are much better than they look at first glance, especially in the bonus slot. iRM is a bit underrated, especially for tanks that can't equip Vstabs. Gun Laying Drive is clearly the worst piece of equipment and should only be used for artillery when there are no other options. How you personally rate the equipment will depend on how much you value the three variables described in this thread.

Disclaimer: All calculations were made based on the dispersion values of the T32. These numbers will vary slightly depending on a tank's base values. If you believe I miscalculated something, please let me know. I'll make updates if needed.

https://preview.redd.it/m3ykm0slttfa1.jpg?width=803&format=pjpg&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=18e4a1d2688cc3b5f08a6c5e0012f838302ca164