Zero damage hits and what causes them

[amade]

So, what exactly causes zero damage hits?

 

This is a question that often comes up on the forums, and quite often the answers that were given are inaccurate, based on hearsay, corrupted in time, or any combination of it.

 

The most oft used explanation by many forumers is damage saturation; in which once a section of a ship is saturated, it stops taking damage. This is not exactly right. It will still take damage, but at half the rate, until eventually another section runs out of HP and shooting at the same section repeatedly results in no damage (and even then, there are still exceptions). However, this situation where a section is completely depleted of hit points is extremely rare and most of the time it is not the correct explanation for the zero damage situations that often get asked about.

 

Some time last year I made an in-depth guide about damage mechanics, based on dev posts as well as thorough testing and experimentation in training rooms. Many of the questions regarding no damage hits can be answered with it. You can find the guide in the link below if you haven't read it yet.
http://forum.worldofwarships.com/index.php?/topic/41728-dealing-damage-in-wows/

 

However, I will admit that it can be daunting to read such a huge wall of text. And due to how frequent people ask about no damage hits and how often people misdiagnose it, I felt compelled to make this thread as a condensed version dealing specifically with zero damage hits.

 

1. Non-penetrations and ricochets

This occurs most often and is easy to recognize, especially with update 0.5.8 which brought us expanded hit ribbons. Quite simply, if a shell doesn't penetrate, it doesn't deal any HP damage. It applies to both AP and HE. Note that HE can only penetrate if the armor it hits is less than 1/6th its caliber. Therefore, hitting anything thicker will result in zero damage, although its splash damage may still incapacitate modules or start fires. However, HE does not ricochet, so you'll never see a ricochet ribbon for HE hits.

 

2. Penetration of external modules

Does not occur as often and not as easily recognized, especially if multiple penetration hit ribbons obfuscate it. It doesn't even leave a penetration decal on the module but you still get a penetration ribbon. This generally happens when a shell penetrates a turret and detonates inside it. This damages the module, but does not take away any HP from the ship. Curiously enough, if you scored an overpenetrating hit instead on the turret it won't count as damage to the module and will take away HP from the ship.

 

3. Near misses with HE

Technically not a hit, but it is quite common and some players complain about damaging modules but not dealing any HP damage, incorrectly interpreting a module incapacitation as a direct hit. As previously mentioned, if a shell doesn't penetrate, it doesn't deal HP damage. Obviously, a near miss would not do any damage. Again, as mentioned before, the splash damage may still incapacitate modules or start fires. This applies to near misses using dive bombers as well.

 

4. Complete damage saturation of a section

An extremely rare occurrence, which you would only normally encounter when using torpedoes against the bow or stern of destroyers. Despite its rarity, many forumers tend to incorrectly explain non-damaging hits with it. Think of a ship as being divided into multiple sections; with the bow, midships, citadel, superstructure and stern all as separate sections with each section having its own HP pool. However, there is another "section" with its own HP pool. This section covers the whole ship (excluding external modules), and its HP pool is almost as large as the total HP of the ship. When a shell detonates inside a ship, it takes away HP from two sections: the localized section and the "whole ship" section. E.g. a shell penetrating the bow will take away HP from the bow section as well as the whole ship section. Once the bow runs out of HP, it is considered saturated and will no longer take damage but the whole ship section will still take damage as it has plenty of HP left (hence why you only get half damage from subsequent hits to the bow). Because the whole ship section has so much HP, it hardly ever runs out before the ship itself is sunk. The only way it would run out of HP is if all the damage the ship takes is concentrated into one section, and this can be achieved by firing multiple torpedoes into either the bow or stern of a destroyer that still has most if not all of its HP. This technically can happen to other classes of ships too, but it would be even rarer as they tend to take a lot damage that is distributed in other sections of the ship. Take note that overpens deal damage directly to the ship's universal HP pool rather than to the section it hits, so an overpen to a completely saturated section will still damage the ship.

 

5. Client desynchronization

Also not technically a hit. Players with bad connection to the server may see their shells hit the ship, but on the server side it was actually a miss. The player's client is desynced from the server, and what is shown is not what happened on the server. This can be easily recognized by the total lack of a hit ribbon or seeing shell splashes that don't align with the tracers.

 

6. Penetrating torpedo bulges without penetrating the armor behind it

This is similar to penetrating an external module, you will get a penetration ribbon but deal no damage, but it is harder to recognize unless you were to zoom in extremely close and see exactly where the shell penetrated. If you are a veteran player from WoT, this is similar to penetrating spaced armor and dealing no damage because the shell did not penetrate the armor behind it. How often this occurs is not well known due to the circumstances required for it to happen (it will almost always be a below waterline hit), but has been confirmed in training room testing. It could be argued that penetrating torpedo bulges without penetrating the armor behind it should grant a non-penetration ribbon instead of a penetration ribbon.

 

 

So, the next time someone asks "Why are my shells not doing damage???", I sincerely hope that from now on the first answer he gets from our ever helpful forumers will be the correct one.

Also, my apologies for not including pretty pictures in the guide this time.

[Aduial]

Thanks for the guide, i learned a lot. I always assumed that HE always did damage unless the ship was damage saturated. 

[Sinboto]

I like using the new in depth shell ribbons, so I always know what happened to my shells where they hit. 

[Khafni]

Thanks for the explanation! +1

[OffShorePanda97]

+1 very in depth 

[Wowzery]

Most of the time when I see 0 damage, its early in a game, done by BBs firing at extreme range.  I've done it many times, get a hit, even get a ribbon, and 0 damage.  Now I can even see the damage done.  Depressing to start a game, get 1-3 hits, 0 damage.

[CAPTMUDDXX]

Excellent explanation

[HMCS_Devilfish]

Awsome explation

[Unryuu_Kai]

Hi,

From patch 5.4, there was a buff to secondary HP :

"Increased the hit points of a number of secondary guns and changed the calculation for how they're damaged by HE shells and shrapnel."

After this patch from anecdotal evidence, I have noticed my cruiser HE (mainly 203mm) dealing about 1k damage with 5-9 hits on enemy BBs (Mainly IJN). They used to deal about 5k per salvo before this patch.

My question is, does the secondary (external modules) still absorb HP from the base pool HP after it gets permanently destroyed eg. still acts like a shield, or not?

[amade]

Hi,

 

From patch 5.4, there was a buff to secondary HP :

"Increased the hit points of a number of secondary guns and changed the calculation for how they're damaged by HE shells and shrapnel."

After this patch from anecdotal evidence, I have noticed my cruiser HE (mainly 203mm) dealing about 1k damage with 5-9 hits on enemy BBs (Mainly IJN). They used to deal about 5k per salvo before this patch.

 

My question is, does the secondary (external modules) still absorb HP from the base pool HP after it gets permanently destroyed eg. still acts like a shield, or not?

 

First of all, modules don't absorb HP damage. Any shell that detonates inside an external module will not deal HP damage to the ship. So any buff to HP of secondaries will not change the HP damage the ship takes (since it takes none in the first place), it only changes how well the modules will survive.

 

Secondly, after the module is dead, the armor for the module is still there even if the module is gone. AP shells will usually overpen it and hit whatever thing is behind the module so it's a non issue, but for HE shells it will detonate on the module's armor and deal no damage to the ship.

[McHoliday]

Most of the time when I see 0 damage, its early in a game, done by BBs firing at extreme range.  I've done it many times, get a hit, even get a ribbon, and 0 damage.  Now I can even see the damage done.  Depressing to start a game, get 1-3 hits, 0 damage.

 

This is exactly why I went looking for answers.  dropped a BB shell onto the deck of a CL, got the penetration ribbon and that's it.  no dmg, no modules, nada.  Is there any new information since this was posted?

[cdowis]

It showed that I had sunk a ship, but it credited me for ZERO damage.

 

Somebody got robbed.