[Glossary](/glossary.md)/[Gunnery](/glossary/category/gunnery.md)

# Bloom

The widening of the aiming circle caused by moving, traversing or firing, and the reason a gun's paper accuracy is rarely what a player experiences.

Also known as dispersion penalty, soft stats, gun bloom.

Every action multiplies [dispersion](/glossary/dispersion.md). Four penalties matter:

-   •Driving, which scales with speed
-   •Traversing the hull, which applies even standing still
-   •Traversing the [turret](/glossary/turret.md), the one penalty a player pays on every single shot
-   •Firing, which reopens the circle after each [round](/glossary/shell.md)

These are the soft stats. Two guns with identical [accuracy](/glossary/accuracy.md) and [aim time](/glossary/aim-time.md) can feel completely different because one blooms twice as hard when the turret moves, and a vehicle with gentle bloom can shoot while repositioning where another must stop and settle.

Vertical stabilisers, a trained [gunner](/glossary/crew-role.md) and the [smooth ride](/glossary/crew-skill.md) skills all reduce the multipliers rather than the base value, which is why they improve a gun far more than the accuracy figure suggests.

## Related terms

[DispersionThe size of the aiming circle at any moment, which grows with movement and shrinks as the gun settles.](/glossary/dispersion.md)[AccuracyA gun's dispersion at 100 metres, in metres: the radius of the circle a fully aimed shot can land in, where lower is better.](/glossary/accuracy.md)[Aim timeThe time the aiming circle takes to shrink by 60 percent of its width, not the time to become fully aimed.](/glossary/aim-time.md)[Gun handlingThe combination of accuracy, aim time and dispersion penalties that decides whether a gun hits what it is pointed at.](/glossary/gun-handling.md)

[Every World of Tanks term](/glossary.md)

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