This guide discusses “weak spots” in World of Tanks (WoT).
Weak spots are specific areas of a tank that can be penetrated more easily than other areas where the armor is thicker and/or sloped.
Here is a list of common weak spots across tanks:
- The cupola, which is the hatch on top of the turret
- View (range) ports
- Machine gun ports
- Lower front glacis, especially on German tanks
- Hatches elsewhere on the vehicle
For almost every tank in the game, the rear and side armor of the hull (body) and turret tend to be weaker than the front armor, which is why flanking is so critical in World of Tanks.
In general, you want to avoid targeting the following areas of an enemy tank:
- The mantlet, which is the heavily armored section where the gun attaches to the turret
- Areas which are heavily sloped or angled relative to you
The following video provides illustrative footage of penetrating tanks in their weak spots:
Aside from consistently hitting enemy tanks in their weak spots, make sure to protect your tank’s weak spots via proper angling and leveraging physical cover. The following video provides a more advanced look at weak spot targeting and protection with footage from an “Ace Tanker” Mastery battle for the IS-4:
To protect your tank against penetrations, you can angle your hull armor to increase the effective armor and chance to ricochet incoming rounds, as discussed in my guide on angling.
For more advanced videos, check out my “Road to Unicum” tank reviews in which I share what I’ve learned as I progress towards account Unicum rating (top 1%). I talk through how I’m reading each battle as it unfolds and discuss key decisions and mistakes. My hope is that these videos meaningfully help other players improve their gameplay.
Recommended Tools and Resources
There are some amazing web sites, mobile/tablet apps, and desktop applications that enable you visualize the armor of tanks with 3D models, and you can use these to understand their weak apots. Here are the ones I recommend.
tanks.gg
This relatively new site allows you to view the 3D models of every tank in a web browser.
You can mouse over various parts of the tank to see the penetration values. You can also rotate the turret, so that you can determine side and rear turret values.
The site provides both live and test 3D models.
Tank Inspector
This is an application you install on your Windows computer, and similar to tanks.gg, it provides 3D models of every tank.
One notable feature is that you can specify the shell type (AP/APCR/HEAT/HE/HESH) and caliber of the gun firing on the tank, as shell normalization varies by shell type, and this enables you to see the effective armor values.
Cheers,
Taugrim
Taugrim's MMO Blog 
I wish I had these guides when I first started playing.
:)
I try to create guides that I would have found helpful when I start a new game or class.
Bummer the app creator doesn’t have an ipad version. Are you working towards the IS-3? What about a T-29?
It is a shame there is no iOS version. The Android app is very complex, and I imagine it would be a non-trivial port to migrate it from Java to Objective C.
I’m thinking of targeting the German Tier 7 heavy tanks or the American Tier 7 heavy tanks.
The German heavies have excellent accuracy and penetration, and they would basically be 180 degrees different from the Soviet tanks, which lack accuracy and are designed to brawl much more.
The T29 is an incredibly strong heavy tank due to the insanely thick turret armor. I’ve learned how to deal with T29 at close range, even when they are hull down: aim for the top of the turret, if the turret is the only thing exposed.
I’m not sure how high up in terms of tiers I’ll go. In the first week I started WoT, my plan was to plan up through tier 5, maybe 6. As it turns out, I’m enjoying how much more playable the higher-tier tanks are. E.g. the KV-1S and T-150 move much more fluidly than the KV-1, which I sold as I wasn’t enjoying playing it as much as the tier 6 tanks.
The KV-1S line is much more popular than the T-150 line, but I’m enjoying the T-150 child, the KV-3, much more than I was expecting. I’ve anchored some crazy come-from-behind wins in my KV-3, which is satisfying as it’s not regarded as well as the T29 or IS. E.g. here’s a screenshot from a battle last night that we were losing pretty handily but came back to win. I survived with over 5k potential damage received, along with Top Gun:
Just read this. It’s a nice simple flowchart of how to tactically approach the game. It’s worth committing to memory.
http://forum.wotlabs.net/index.php?/topic/176-camodraw-exposure-armor-first-strike-hp/
Excerpt from that article:
That is sage advice.
Of course, for some tanks (such as heavies) with crappy camo values and view range, the first part doesn’t apply.
But that flowchart does explain why I’ve been dying more often when platooning than when soloing. When I platoon with guildees I’m often our heaviest tank, so I feel that I should be out front and absorbing fire, but doing that too much leads to premature deaths.
Even if you’re in a heavy the best armor is not getting hit. That’s not to say you shouldn’t be out front doing your job.
Think of it as LoSing in a typical mmorpg environment. It’s just another way to control the game.
Ah, but that’s where an awesome light tank player comes in. They provide vision control by passive/active scouting while you provide map control by sitting in a easily defendable area plinking away at what the scout lights up from relative safety while using the information the scout provides to probe for a good time and place to push.
I personally don’t play as well in a platoon either. I don’t know what the deal is.
Very true.
Agreed, when that light tank is sustainably spotting. That is a very clear, succinct definition of roles.
Good stuff, my only suggestion after going through the comments, is that you grind out some Artillery up to at least tier4 before you grind out another Tier 7 tank. The best way of learning the pros/cons of SPGs is to play one, and there is a lot to learn.
The german line up to the grille, if only because you get to use both mortar and true artillery style guns (quite a difference in playstyle). I’m no expert on SPGs though. I’m sure another player might have better insights.
before I followed Taugrims advice to play Matilda, Churchill 1… I used to play the german spg’s alot. Currently I play the Grille and im waiting for the Hummel. Its fun but you have only a chance to shine if somebody scouts for you and if the enemy scouts are killed before they spot your for the enemy spg or kill you. You are depending more on your team mates than with any other class in the game in my opinion.
I would suggest scouts are arguably more dependent on the rest of the team than any other role in the game.
Arti can do a lot of things other than sitting in the back lobbing shells when targets light up. Counter battery fire, target prioritization, and they are one of the best pseudo scouts in the game for tight situations at the end of close games.
Agreed.
Scouts can eventually get pinned in a corner, and if their friendly tanks don’t providing support fire, the light tank will eventually get killed.
That said, it’s incredible to watch a light tank bait other tanks into exposing themselves.
This is part of the reason I don’t play arty.
When arties have tanks to protect them and other tanks to scout for them, they’re a wrecking ball on maps that aren’t too impeded by LoS.
I’ve only played 5 games of arty, but what you say makes sense, especially if a player is soloing.
I watch what arties do, and I ask my guildees about them, so I have a decent understanding of their capabilities. But certainly there is no better teacher than hands-on experience.
I understand, I never liked arti until about 50 games into my Grille which I only got recently. My tier2 Bison… started grinding on that in WOT 1.0 so you could say it took time but I persisted.
The Grille has less than 30 shots and if nobody scouts for you your dead. It takes 20 sec to reload. You won hit a smart and fast tank. A heavy tank is hard to kill with one shot. I have seen what a scout can do alone thats why i think the arty relais more on others than scouts.
I learned to appriciate scouts now even more
I’ve carried several games as a scout, but I have carried quite a few more in my grille which is why I have the opinion I do.
In a lot of ways it is very similar styles of play, knowing the best location to set up, prioritization, and good decision making based off the flow of the battle.
That makes intuitive sense, and it’s the reason why I favor damage-oriented tanks as opposed to light tanks.
A scout is only as good as the friendlies who protect that scout and fire on targets that it spots.
An arty, except on city maps, will generally have at least 1 target to fire on, so they have good “uptime” of their DPS since targets will get spotted by any friendly tank.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/193520/Wargaming_kicks_paytowin_monetization_to_the_curb.php
Wargaming is launching a campaign to eliminate any element of pay-to-win from their game, or at least the perception of it.
Wow!
This is huge news, and a decision that resonates with me.
I still think that the game would be better without premium ammo, or at least ammo that doesn’t really have a downside to it. If they wanted to implement different types of ammo with pros/cons, I think that would be fine.
At any rate, I’ve cracked 2k battles and as of this morning was at a 54.98% Win Rate (~97th percentile), so it’s possible to do statistically better than average without having to P2W to get there.
Grats!
I don’t disagree about the gold rounds.
WG is on the right track though. Gold shells used to be for real money only. Same with camo paint and premium consumables. Feels like they’ve been working their way towards this forever.
Understood.
As a new player my impression is that this isn’t a P2W game, but there are still aspects that could be improved from that perspective.
Still, this game kicks ass now, and if WG continues to take the game in that direction, that’s even better.
Nice guide, thank you.
I use:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.anarchy97.wotweakspots&hl