Changes going from version 1.3 to 1.31: flak splash damage is 1.14x higher and machineguns are 1.5x to 2.5x more effective. Exact details can be found here. This page has not been updated with these values - the Giant Grid O' Death is really the place to look for exact damage now. I'm leaving this page here as it has a few things (collision damage) that the Grid does not, and this page is friendlier and easier to read.
Changes going from version 1.2 to 1.3: EA/DICE's README file says that the assault rifles, medics' guns, and flak are all reduced by 50% in their effectiveness against planes. This is true for the assault rifles, you need twice as many shots to kill a plane as in 1.2. The medics' SMGs are not halved. They are reduced by 33%, i.e. you need about 1.5 times more shots. Direct hits from flak guns are not weakened against planes at all; splash damage (near misses) are indeed weakened 50% (thanks to Dustin Hulm for clueing me in). Also, contrary to various rumors, machineguns are not reduced against planes (and it never said anything like this in the README, anyway).
Some of the subtleties and other characteristics of the various weapons are discussed on the Tips and Tactics page. This page is primarily about the damage each weapon causes. Thorough testing of tank vs. tank can be found in Trevor Larkum's tank data file. I've also made a Giant Grid O' Death, generated by a perl script I wrote, meant for modders. This table shows all sorts of obscure information (100 AA shots kills a sub) and shows all Road to Rome weapons, but make sure to read the guide at the top first.
| head | trunk | legs | |
| Knife/Bayonet | kill | 54% | 27% |
| Pistol | 57% | 34% | 17% |
| Medic's submachinegun | 50% | 30% | 17% |
| StG44 Assault Gun | 60% | 37% | 24% |
| BAR Assault Gun/Breda | 74% | 47% | 30% |
| Sniper/Engineer Rifle | kill | 67% | 34% |
| Machinegun | 67%-94% | 33%-56% | 13%-20% |
| Flak Gun | kill | kill | 50% |
Here is the chart in terms of how many hits it takes to kill a soldier, along with additional information about each weapon.
| rate of fire | reload time | head | trunk | legs | |
| Knife/Bayonet | 2/sec | 1 | 2 | 4 | |
| Pistol | 4/sec | 2.5 secs | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Medic's submachinegun | 9-10/sec | 4.3-4.8 secs | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| StG44 Assault Gun | 9/sec | 3.8 secs | 2 | 3 | 5 |
| BAR Assault Gun/Breda | 8/sec | 4/4.3 secs | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| Sniper/Engineer Rifle | 18/22 per min | 3/1.6 secs | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Machinegun | 8(4)/sec | 2 | 2-3 | 5-7 | |
| Flak Gun | 2.7/sec | 1 | 1 | 2 |
There is a large variation in the machinegun's damage - I believe this is due to the variation in where shots hit, and what angle to the surface of the soldier. All the other weapons are extremely consistent in the amount of damage done. If you shoot the flak gun at someone, remember that the gun itself is to the left of you, so you must aim more to the right as the target gets nearer.
The Breda appears to be very similar to the BAR in the amount of damage it does, so I have classified them together. Judging from the .con files, the Breda takes longer to reload, and has its damage decreased by distance, but is more accurate. The Sten is the same as the other medics' guns.
Note that the BAR/Breda and StG44 are about the same in number of shots to the same area to kill. However, the BAR/Breda will kill with one head and one body shot, while with the StG44 the shootee is still hanging on by a thread (3% health).
The sniper and engineer rifles cause damage the same, however the engineer's rifle reloads and shoots faster.
Grenades, ex packs, anti-tank weapons, tank guns, artillery, etc, can kill in one explosion/hit.
The pistol, medic's gun, and engineer/scout gun do not affect any vehicles except the jeep, planes, and landing craft. Listed below are the number of shots to destroy the vehicle. Shots at planes are all aimed at the engines; shooting elsewhere does considerably less damage. For example, the StG44 takes 150 shots to destroy a B17 when shooting at its engines, vs. about 590 shots when shooting at its cockpit. Level bombers have the characteristics of 2 seater planes as far as taking damage goes.
| pistol | medic's gun | engineer/scout rifle | Axis StG44 assault gun | Allied BAR/Breda assault gun | |
| jeep | 46 shots | 21 shots | 11 shots | 21 shots | 19 shots |
| fighter plane | 36 shots | 48 shots | 18 shots | 33 shots | 27 shots |
| 2 seat plane | 48 shots | 64 shots | 24 shots | 46 shots | 36 shots |
| B17 bomber | 160 shots | 222 shots | 72 shots | 150 shots | 120 shots |
| landing craft | 115 shots | 59 shots | 24 shots | 69 shots | 46 shots |
Engineer bars is how many bars of repair an engineer needs to fully repair the object. Each engineer has 9 bars he can repair. For example, "18 bars" mean an object at zero health would take two engineers all of their fixing ability to repair it. The values given are not precise, as it is very difficult to damage an object to be barely in existence; most values are derived from destroying an object say 50% and seeing how much it takes to repair it.
| Defender | respawn time | engineer bars | grenade | explosive pack | bazooka | StG44 assault gun | BAR/Breda assault gun | machinegun | flak gun | anti-tank gun | medium tank | heavy tank | artillery |
| weapon firing rate | 28/min | 1/sec | 10/min | 5/sec | 5/sec | 8(4)/sec | 2.7/sec | 21/min | 21/min | 15/min | 12/min | ||
| machinegun | 35-55 seconds | 6 bars | 2 | 1 | 12 (splash damage) | no effect | no effect | no effect | no effect | no effect | no effect | no effect | 1 |
| flak gun | 40-80 seconds | 12 bars | 4 | 2 | 2 | no effect | no effect | no effect | 12 | not testable | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| anti-tank gun, front |
40-80 seconds | 8 bars | 2 | 1 | 3 | no effect | no effect | no effect | not testable | 2 | (5) | 2 | 2 |
| anti-tank gun, sides |
1 | 7 | not testable | (3) | 1 | 2 | |||||||
| anti-tank gun, rear |
2 | 7 | 1 | (3) | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| coastal gun | 40-80 seconds | 4 bars | 3 | 1 | 3 | no effect | no effect | no effect | 20 | both not in any battle | 2 | 2 | both not in any battle |
| jeep | 10-30 seconds | 6 bars | 2 | 1 | 1 | 21 | 19 | 32 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| APC | 35-55 seconds | 9 bars | 4 | 2 | 3 | 135 | 101 | 56 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 |
| artillery | 40-80 seconds | 4 bars | 2 | 1 | 2 | 60 | 49 | 28 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| medium tank, front | 40-80 seconds | 11 bars | 6 | 2 | 6 | no effect | no effect | no effect | 18 | (2) | 3-4 | 2-4 | 3 |
| medium tank, sides | 3 | 17 | (2) | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||||||
| medium tank, rear | 1 | 13 | (1) | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
| heavy tank, front |
70-110 seconds | 12 bars | 7 | 2 | 12 | no effect | no effect | no effect | 106 | 11 | 11 | 5 | 5 |
| heavy tank, sides |
4 | 21 | 2 | 2-3 | 3 | 3 | |||||||
| heavy tank, rear |
4 | 21 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | |||||||
| fighter plane | 40-80 seconds | 10 bars | 3 | 2 | 1 | 33 | 27 | 16 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 seat plane | 40-80 seconds | 14 bars | 4 | 2 | 1 | 46 | 36 | 22 | 8 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| B17 bomber | 160-200 seconds | 44 bars | 12 | 8 | 2 | 150 | 120 | 91 | 26 | both not in any battle | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| landing craft | 20 seconds | 12 bars | 6 | 3 | 2 | 69 | 46 | 60 | not testable | both not in any battle | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Defender | respawn time | engineer bars | grenade | explosive pack | bazooka | StG44 assault gun | BAR/Breda assault gun | machinegun | flak gun | anti-tank gun | medium tank | heavy tank | artillery |
In general, the hull of the tank appears to be more vulnerable than the turret, so aim for the body. When shooting at the Tiger and M10 in particular, aim for the treads, as this causes it much more damage. Shooting at the lowest part of the front of other tanks causes the most damage. The angle the shot hits is important: hitting square-on does the most damage. Thorough testing of tank vs. tank can be found in Trevor Larkum's tank data file.
The lower half of the front of APCs and front and sides of artillery has armor that stops assault gun and machinegun bullets. Everywhere else these bullets cause damage.
Splash from near-miss tank shots does not directly damage enemy tanks, jeeps, APCs, and artillery (those these could take damage from getting bounced against walls, knocked over, etc). The splash can push vehicles around, but does not damage them. Artillery shells do cause splash damage to vehicles.
Machineguns that heat up (i.e. everything but plane machineguns) have their rate of fire halved, waiting for cooldown. If you overheat the machinegun, the cooldown takes about twice as long. There are actually two types of machineguns, Browning and MG42. From quickly looking over the files, it looks like the Browning gets used in the B17, the rear gun for 2-seater planes, as the "death seat" MG in 2-seater tanks (except the Russians'), as the coaxial gun on the M10 (but not the German or Russian heavy tank), on the Fletcher destroyer, and on Allied and Italian landing craft. The MG42 is used everywhere else. See the Giant Grid O' Death for the differences.
Road to Rome: the Sturmgeschutz needs only two hits to its front from the M10 to be destroyed. The M3 Grant is particularly unimpressive: among its other faults, it's the only tank that can be blown up with one bazooka shell to its rear. The medium tanks take 4 grenades to blow up, the Sturmgeschutz takes 5. Anti-tank gun vs. medium tanks were done with the M3 Grant, and are shown in parentheses to note this.
| jeep ramming | APC ramming | artillery ramming | medium tank ramming | heavy tank ramming | |
| flak gun | 2 \ destroyed | undamaged \ 5 | 1 \ destroyed | undamaged \ 6 | undamaged \ 1 |
| anti-tank gun | ? \ destroyed? | ? \ ? | ? \ destroyed? | ? \ ? | ? \ ? |
| jeep | both destroyed | destroyed \ 10 | destroyed \ 10 | 11 \ 2.5 | 9 \ 1 |
| APC | both destroyed | both destroyed | 12 \ 10 | 12 \ 3 | 9 \ 1 |
| artillery | destroyed \ 10 | destroyed \ 6 | 0-12 \ 3-10 | destroyed \ 3.5 | destroyed \ 1 |
| medium tank | both destroyed | 12 \ destroyed | 7.5 \ destroyed | 5 \ 5 | 3.5 \ 2 |
| heavy tank | 10 \ destroyed | 4 \ 10 | 4.5 \ destroyed | 3.5 \ 5.5 | 3 \ 3 |
If an APC or artillery (Wespe) runs into the rear of a heavy tank, the APC/artillery blows up but the tank takes no damage. This strange phenomenon does not affect jeeps.
Flak guns appear to take damage from vehicles only when the vehicle explodes or flips over onto the gun. Whoever is manning the flak gun is usually killed whenever any vehicle rams it.
Damage varies wildly when artillery (Wespes) crash into each other.
Respawn time is how long it takes for a vehicle or emplacement to respawn after it is destroyed.
Engineer bars is how many bars of repair an engineer needs to fully repair the object. Each engineer has 9 bars he can repair. For example, "18 bars" mean an object at zero health would take two engineers all of their fixing ability to repair it.
| respawn time | engineer bars | destroyer gun | battleship gun | sub torpedo | light bomb | heavy bomb | plane torpedo dropped | plane torpedo in water | flak gun | coastal gun | medium tank | artillery | |
| weapon firing rate | 12/min | 9-12/min | 5.5 pairs/min | 12 pairs/min | 11/min | 6/min | 2.7/sec | 12/min | 21/min | 12/min | |||
| coastal gun | 40-80 seconds | 4 bars | 2 hits | 1 hit | not testable | 1 bomb | 1 bomb | 2 torps? (very hard!) | not applicable | 20 | 1 hit | 2 hits | never together |
| landing craft | 20 seconds | 12 bars | 1 hit | 1 hit | 1 torp, but only while sub is ramming | 1 bomb? | 1 bomb? | 1 torp | does not hit | not testable | 1 hit | 2 hits | 2 hits |
| submarine | 20 seconds | 11 bars | 1 hit | 1 hit | 1 torp | 3(6?) bombs | 4 bombs | 1 torp | 1 torp | not testable | 3 hits | 8 hits | 2 hits |
| destroyer | 200 seconds | 18 bars | 4 hits | 2 hits | 4 torps | 16 (8 pairs) | 14 | 8 torps | 4 torps | 800 hits (5 minutes) | 15 hits | 28 hits | 25 hits |
| battleship | 5 minutes | 40 bars | 17 hits | 4 hits | 11 torps | 36 (18 pairs) | 20 | 19 torps | 8 torps | no effect | 28 hits | 47 hits | never together |
| carrier | 5 minutes | 54 bars | 17 hits | 4 hits | 7 torps | 16 (8 pairs) | 16 | 47 torps | 8 torps | no effect | 35 hits | 58 hits | never together |
The Axis battleship has a rate of fire of 12 shots per minute, the Allies battleship has 9 per minute.
Note that some of these shots are fairly difficult, e.g. it can be tricky to get both bombs in a pair to hit the destroyer. Torpedo bombing the destroyer and sub is also difficult: you must both fly very low and very slow and release well before you get to your target (e.g., as soon as it emerges from the fog is good). There also seems to be some variation in the amount of damage when bombs hit, say, the battleship, but it might also be me just losing count around 45 or so. So, consider the higher values ballpark figures.
| submerged submarine ramming | surfaced submarine ramming | destroyer ramming | battleship ramming | carrier ramming | |
| submarine | 2.5 \ 2.5 | 8 \ 8 | 3 \ 2 | 2.5 \ 0.2 | sub destroyed \ 4 only if carrier hits conning tower |
| destroyer | 1.5 \ 2.5 | 3 \ 8 | 3-4 \ 4-5 | 6.5-10 \ 1-1.5 | 6.5 \ 1.7 including drag damage |
| battleship | 0.5 \ 2.5 | 1.5 \ 8 | 1.2 \ 4 | 1 \ 1.5 | 1 \ 1 |
| carrier | 0 \ 2.5 | 0.5 \ 8 | 1 \ 4 | 1 \ 3 | 0 \ 0 |
A ramming carrier can go over a surfaced submarine and neither take damage, if the sub's conning tower is not rammed. A ramming carrier goes over the top of a destroyer and causes drag damage to both.
Crashing a plane into a submarine can sink the sub. Crashing a plane into a destroyer, battleship, or carrier does maybe a half-bar (of 12 bars total) damage to each.
Last change: March 9, 2003