How Damage Works in World Of Warships

World of Warships has been around for almost seven long years now. Throughout that time, the game grew with a steady increase in player count from just three thousand peak players back in 2017 to a healthy fifteen thousand peak players in December 2021.

More and more players are slowly but surely finding their way into this amazing world of naval warfare. If you are a beginner yourself, it might be best to know what to aim for when engaging enemy ships to deal the maximum damage and start racking up on kills and in-game rewards.

Warship Sections and HP

Battleships are complex engineering marvels with thousands of moving parts and hundreds of different components.

For a Naval War game like World of Warships, including every section of a ship as a damageable surface will not make sense since it adds unnecessary damage sources, which can overcomplicate the game’s damage computation.

To make gameplay in World of Warships more practical, the game only included sections that can take obvious hits from basically any distance in the game.

To make things even simpler, WarGaming cleverly divided every part of a ship in World of Warships into just five unique sections:

• Superstructure – Green
• Casemate – Light Orange
• Bow – Dark Yellow Green
• Aft End – Rear End Dark Yellow Green
• Entire Hull – Imaginary Armor Covering the Entire Ship

Each section of a warship has its Hit Points (HP) values which can also vary from one ship to another.

When each ship’s section’s HP Values are summed up, they will add more than the ship’s maximum Hit Points (HP). This is because each section of the warship has its HP values.

Let’s use the Japanese Battleship, Kongo, as our example.

Kongo has 54,100 Hit Points, all of which are allocated towards the Citadel section of the Battlecruiser. Every other section of the ship (Bow End, Superstructure, Aft End, Hull) has HP values. We will delve even deeper into section damage in the latter parts of this article.

In this case, we can view Ship HP in World of Warships as how fast a ship is destroyed.

In the case of Kongo, if enemy warships deal a total of 54,100 damage to the Kongo’s Citadel, Kongo will instantly be destroyed.

On the other hand, dealing 30,000 damage to the Kongo’s Citadel plus another 24,100 accumulated damage from various sections (Bow, Superstructure, Aft End, Hull) of Kongo will also destroy the ship instantly.

In simpler terms, the Kongo can only take a total of 54,100 damage from any of its five sections before the entire ship is sunk.

How Damage Works in World of Warships

Damage is a very complex and nuanced element in World of Warships. A couple of important facts must be considered when computing for the expected maximum damage dealt with enemy warships.

1. The Citadel is the Heart of Any Ship

A ship’s Citadel, or Mid-section, is the most important part of any ship in World of Warships. This section is where the engine room and magazine room reside within a warship.

When a ship’s Citadel is destroyed in real life, the warship will no longer function properly as its primary source of power will no longer be functional. Because the ship’s Magazine is located in the same compartment as the engine room, any fire within the Citadel will likely set off the stocked ammo and cause a massive explosion, dealing tons of damage.

The same rules apply to World of Warships.

Citadel hits are the most damaging hits in World of Warships. Shells deal maximum damage to the Citadel and are exempt from any damage reduction regardless of armor.

For Kongo, since 100% of the ship’s listed HP is concentrated at its Citadel, receiving a total of 54,100 damage to its Citadel will destroy the Battleship.

Ex: A single 3000-damage shell will inflict pure-3000 damage to a ship’s Citadel (assuming a Citadel hit). In the case of Kongo, it will only take 18 shell hits to its Citadel before it is destroyed.

2. Superstructure, Bow, Aft End + Hull Split Damage

For this part of the article, the same single-shell damage value (3000 damage) will be used as our primary example.

As mentioned in the previous section, only hits to the Citadel can deal the advertised shell damage. Any sustained damage to any other part of a ship will only deal 1/6 of the advertised shell damage (in this case, 1/6th of 3000 is 500 damage) to the warship. However, this next bit is where things get interesting:

Whenever a ship takes a hit to its Bow End, the warship will receive 1000 damage, not 500 (1/6th of 3000).

When a warship receives a hit to any section other than its Citadel, only 1/6th of the damage will be dealt towards the specific section that took the hit. The other 500 damage will be dealt towards the Entire Hull as Hull Damage.

Keep in mind that any damage the warship takes to its sections will be deducted from the total warship HP.

3. Destroyed Sections and Hull Damage

Since sections of the ship have their respective Hit Points (HP), every section of the warship can technically be “destroyed.” When a section of the warship is destroyed, the warship will stop receiving the 1/6th damage from the shell impact and will only receive the Hull Damage instead. 

For example, if a particular ship’s Bow End has a total of 5000 HP, a total of 10 Bow hits will “destroy” the Bow End section (10hits x 500 damage = 5000 Bow HP) of the ship.

When the Bow End is in a “destroyed” state, the ship will no longer receive additional damage from hits to the Bow End section. Instead, all subsequent damage to the “destroyed” Bow section will only be dealt as Hull Damage (500 damage). The same is true for any other section of a ship (Superstructure, Casemate, Aft End).

Important Note: A “destroyed” section of a ship will appear visually in-game as “blacked-out.”

With this in mind, it might be best to stop aiming for the already destroyed sections of enemy warships as you will deal lesser damage overall.

You can start aiming for other sections of the ship, such as the Superstructure, Casemate, or Aft-End. You will deal more damage to enemy warships versus beating a dead horse in the destroyed Bow End.

Complex Design and Engineering

Damage computations for World of Warships might seem confusing, so keep these things in mind:

1. When the opportunity presents itself, do your best to aim for the Citadel as it deals the most damage to enemy warships.
2. When the Citadel is not an option, all the other sections of a warship are still good targets.
3. Stop aiming for “destroyed” sections of a warship.
4. Landing multiple, small hits is more important than scoring a single Citadel hit.

There are still many other elements related to damage to take into account in World of Warships, such as Fires, Flooding, and Armor Penetration, which will all be another topic for another article.

That’s about it! We hope this has been a helpful guide to figuring out where and when you can deal the maximum amount of damage to enemy warships in World of Warships. Good luck and Fair Seas!