Glossary

This page contains a list of terms and definitions that are commonly found when discussing and playing World of Tanks.

AFK

Refers to Away From Keyboard

Alpha

The amount of damage that a gun does in a single shot.

Ammo Racking

Either damaging a vehicle's ammo rack or destroying it completely by way of detonating its ammo rack.

Autoloader

An automatic loading system which allows for a tank to fire multiple shots in succession without a long pause for a reload. Vehicles equipped with autoloaders typically have magazines holding two to eight shots with short load times in-between. Once this magazine has been expended, the vehicle must reload the entire magazine, which usually takes much longer. These are not to be confused with autocannons, which are similar but have a few different characteristics.

Autocannon

An autocannon is a low caliber weapon capable of fully automatic fire (burst-fire in the game), but unlike machine guns, they fire shells instead of bullets. Used in early-war light tanks to give them an edge versus their (at the time) machine gun-armed opponents. However, autocannons rapidly fell behind in the shell-vs-armor race and quickly became used only by a few specialized German reconnaissance vehicles. However, autocannon use vastly expanded in the region of anti-aircraft defense.

Bounce

A shot that ricocheted off of or failed to penetrate another vehicle.

Buff

Increasing the effectiveness of a tank, module, or game mechanic by the game developers to improve game balance.

Caliber

The diameter (usually expressed in centimeters, millimeters or inches) of a gun or the rounds it fires.

Camping

Sitting stationary in one spot waiting for enemies to come. Though many vehicles need to be played passively, the term is usually used pejoratively to refer to playing passively in a way that is selfish and doesn't contribute to the team's effort. A player who does this is known as a camper.

Cap

A capture point. Cap or capping typically used as a verb referring to the act of capturing a capture point. It's typically referred to as the Flag/circle area around it when referring to it as a noun.

Carry

When one tank or group of tanks win a game for their team with little to no help from them.

Critical Hit/Crit

A shot that damages a module or injures crew member. A critical hit may or may not do damage to the actual tank and subtract hit points (ie, when a shell hits a vehicle's gun without hitting the vehicle itself).

Cupola

An elevated (usually either cylindrical or conical) structure on top of a vehicle's hull or turret which a vehicle's commander or other crew member uses to see out of the tank. These structure tend to stick out from the roof of most vehicles, and are often weak spots in their armor.

Derp Gun

A short, inaccurate, high-damage gun with usually long reload time that typically fires high-explosive (HE) ammuntion. Most derp guns are low-velocity howitzers, and get their name from their relative easiness to use and low skill shelf.

DPM

Short for Damage Per Minute, a count of a gun's potential damage over a minute of sustained fire. DPM can be found by multiplying a gun's alpha damage by it's rate of fire (in rounds per minute). Guns with higher DPM can theoretically do more damage in less time than guns with low DPM.

Face Hugging

Driving a vehicle up to an enemy and pressing the front of vehicle against it. This is most commonly done on heavily armored tank to either make the enemy panic or conceal a weak spot.

Gun Elevation

The gun's maximum angle above horizontal (i.e. aiming up).

Gun Depression

The gun's maximum angle below horizontal (i.e. aiming down).

Gun Handling

A gun's overall aiming characteristics. Guns with short aim times, good accuracy, and low aim dispersion caused by moving and shooting are considered to have good gun handling.

Hull Down

A position where a vehicle's hull or lower hull is behind a hill crest or other obstacle, leaving only its turret or superstructure exposed. This is usually done on tanks with strong turrets or superstructures to increase their survivability.

Lemming Train

When most (or all) of the vehicles in one team attack one flank and leave the others undefended. This is usually a poor strategy, and leads to most of the people in the lemming train getting killed because of poor coordination.

Lit

Another word for "spotted". A vehicle that is visible to the enemy team.

Mantlet/Gun Mantlet

The moving part of armor attached to a vehicle's gun. The gun mantlet acts as spaced armor, and is often very thick and difficult to penetrate (although lack of armor behind a gun mantlet can make it a weak spot on some tanks).

Mod (game modification)

Short for modification. A mod changes the game's visuals, sound, or interface. Mods can be either legal or illegal depending on what they do.

Nerf

Decreasing the effectiveness of a tank, module, or game mechanic by the game developers improve game balance.

Normalization

An effect that causes AP and APCR shells angle verses a plate of armor to decrease upon impact. This gives these shells a greater chance to penetrate armor which is well angled.

Overmatching

A mechanic which gives AP and APCR shells an increased chance to penetrate well angled armor which is half the thickness of their caliber size as well as the ability to fully ignore auto-bounce impact angles for armor a third of their caliber size.

Pen

Short for penetration. This can refer to either the penetration rating of a gun (usually in mm) or the actual act of penetrating a vehicle with a round.

Pen Rate

Short for penetration rate. The ratio between between hit and penetrated shots (rarely also calculated as penetrated/fired shots).

Permatrack

To continually immobilize an enemy by repeatedly shooting his tracks at a rate where his automatic repair rate for the suspension cannot fix them before the next round hits.

Round-robin

Competition format in which every contestant meets every other participant, usually in rounds/turns. Also single round robin in case of everyone playing everyone once - or double round robin in case of two rounds.

Scout

A tank that attempts to spot other vehicles. Scouting is usually associated with light tanks having good view range and the ability to maintain full camo while moving, although any tank can do it if necessary.

Shell Velocity

The speed at which a round leaves the gun barrel and moves towards the enemy vehicle. Shells with higher velocity don't have to be pre-aimed that much for long distance shots.

Side Scraping

A technique where a player slowly reverses into the open at a shallow angle, revealing only the heavily angled side of their tank. This technique is usually used on tanks with thick side armor or tracks in order to increase their survivability.

Soft Stats

Stats that are not fixed by historical specifications and can be changed to affect game balance.

Spaced Armor

Armor plates which are placed separately from a vehicle's main armor, with a gap in-between the two. Spaced armor provides greater protection from high explosive and high explosive anti-tank rounds, which can detonate on it before reaching a vehicle's actual armor. Tracks also behave like spaced armor.

Spotter

Any tank that spots enemy vehicles for artillery, TDs, and/or snipers, allowing them to fire beyond their own visual range. This can be intentional (See Scout) or it can be coincidental. For example, an artillery player might say "No spotters" when a request for fire is made.

Stock

The beginning state of a vehicle, before any of its modules have been unlocked and mounted. Stock tanks almost always perform worse than their upgraded counterparts.

TK/Team Kill

Killing an allied tank, whether on purpose or by accident.

Tracking/Tracked

Short for "de-tracking", or rendering a vehicle immobile by way of destroying its tracks.

Unicum/Unicorn

A name for the top 1% players in the game, in terms of skill.

Default

When a map is awarded to a team coming from the upper bracket in a double elimination format.

Smurf

An experienced player that use a new account to play in lower ranked games than his actual level.

TBA

To be announced - Information not yet disclosed by the person or organization in question.

TBD

To be determined - Something yet to be determined such as tournament participants or release date.

Unknown

Unknown - No demos or vods are available to know the game maps.