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

# HEAT

A shaped-charge shell with high penetration that ignores distance entirely, but is defeated by tracks, screens and any spaced armor it detonates on.

Also known as high explosive anti-tank, heat shell.

HEAT penetrates with a jet formed on impact rather than with kinetic energy. It therefore loses no [penetration](/glossary/penetration.md) over distance and only [ricochets](/glossary/ricochet.md) beyond 85 degrees, which makes it the most reliable answer to heavily armored targets at range.

Its weakness is anything in front of the [armor](/glossary/armor-thickness.md). The charge detonates on the first surface it meets, so [tracks](/glossary/tracks.md), [side skirts](/glossary/spaced-armor.md), spaced plates and even a fence spend part of its penetration before it reaches the hull, and it cannot [overmatch](/glossary/overmatch.md) thin plates the way a solid [shell](/glossary/shell.md) does.

It gets no [normalization](/glossary/normalization.md) at all, so a steeply sloped plate is measured at its full [effective thickness](/glossary/effective-armor.md).

## Related terms

[Spaced armorA thin plate mounted away from the hull, which strips explosive and shaped-charge shells before they reach the real armor.](/glossary/spaced-armor.md)[Premium ammunitionThe higher-penetration round available on nearly every gun, bought with credits and named after the days when it cost gold.](/glossary/premium-ammo.md)[PenetrationHow much armor a shell can defeat, in millimetres, rolled plus or minus 25 percent on every shot and compared against the effective thickness it hits.](/glossary/penetration.md)[NormalizationThe few degrees a shell turns toward the perpendicular on impact, reducing the effective armor it has to cross.](/glossary/normalization.md)[OvermatchThe rule that a shell with a caliber at least three times a plate's thickness cannot ricochet off it, no matter the angle.](/glossary/overmatch.md)

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

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