[Mobhack]

Some of these early close support tanks do have this problem. Effectively they probably really only should be equipped with HE for game purposes. But the original unit in the original SP game likely had both AP and HE and this got carried forwards with inertia.

The game scores the likelihood of doing damage for each ammo type in its decision to fire. So if there is both HE and AP, and the AP is rather puny then AP is either only chosen at point blank ranges, or never or at least until any HE is expended.

The game uses the average AP rating (as found in APCalc) and not the "best" rating. APCalc rolls 1000 rounds for each range "bucket" and the nest value is the one that came out highest of those 1000 runs through the code - it says nothing about whether 1 or 50+ achieved that "golden BB" value.

That could be the case for little 37mm/47mm/57mm HE chuckers, some HMG with AP where the same applies and so on. Usually inter-war or ex WW1 type weapons of marginal utility in the first place, and usually something primarily there to bother infantry with. The short French guns, for example. Those have "APCR" ammo with theoretically over-penetrating point-blank range but a really short max range so they actually produce a useful AP effect, very near the muzzle. WE did that in the early DOS game - perhaps even the original SP2WW2 hack - since it was a known issue with SSI's implementation of the little FT-17 type tanks popguns.

If the AP value at a particular range is equal then the game will always use HE - because the HE shell goes bang in the target or miss hex, which can cause suppression or even damage to units other than the target. AP rounds that miss aren't effective.

There will always be some sort of little oddities like this, and if we get them pointed out we can fix the OOB (probably by making sure the unit has only useful HE rounds stowed, but maybe by replacing AP with sabot with an extremely short max range as with the little 37mm Puteaux guns).