Anti-aircraft Fire

This page is a work in progress.

Defence against aircraft in World of Warships is divided into 4 distinct categories: continuous damage output, flak bursts, the sector reinforcement burst, and fighter squadrons. While most ships have some form of AA fire, they will possess varying amounts of both continuous fire and flak burst damage output, whereas sector reinforcement burst damage output is relatively constant and dependent on class. Only some ships have access to the Fighter consumable which launches a squadron of fighter planes that protects the ship against enemy planes. AA mounts can also be destroyed in battle, reducing the effectiveness of AA fire. Aircraft themselves can use various skills, modules, and mechanics to minimize incoming AA fire.

Continuous Damage Output
The most reliable source of defence against CV squadrons is a ships' continuous AA fire, whose full damage output is applied constantly to all squadrons in range.

Damage auras
Continuous damage output is divided into 3 auras around the ship: short range, medium range, and long range, though some ships possess fewer auras. Damage auras stack and do not have a minimum range, only a maximum (so a squadron that is within the short range aura would also take damage from a ship's medium range and long range auras as well), and multiple ships' auras can affect a squadron at the same time with full effectiveness.

Flak Bursts
Flak bursts are fired by a ship's long-range AA mounts and appear as black clouds with orange (or red, while buffed by the Defensive AA Fire consumable) explosions in the flight path of enemy planes. These fire every 2 seconds and deal high damage to every plane passing through them in an area of effect whose size varies slightly with AA gun caliber. Some ships lack a long-range aura (for example: Kleber, Regolo, and their respective tech tree lines) and thus cannot fire flak bursts despite having a medium-range aura that may have a longer range than 3.5km

Flak burst count
All ships have a base number of flak bursts they fire per salvo. The listed number on the in-game statistics is specifically a ship's maximum flak burst count, which is then modified by the accuracy stat of a ship's AA defenses. The average flak count a ship will fire is this modified number, with the minimum being the same 'distance' away from the average as the maximum.
 * For example, Grosser Kurfurst's base maximum flak count is 6, and her AA defence accuracy is 75%. This means that on average, GK will fire 4.5 bursts, with a maximum of 6, and a minimum of 3 (as the maximum burst count of 6 is the same distance from the average of 4.5 as the minimum of 3). This means that the majority of the time, a Kurfurst will fire 4 or 5 flak clouds, and rarely will it fire its maximum of 6 and minimum of 3.

Flak burst targeting

 * Flak burst range
 * Flak bursts begin to fire when squadrons enter a ship's maximum AA range and continue to place bursts in a squadron's flight path until the planes are closer than 3.5km. For example, if a squadron is exactly 3.5km away from a ship, but flying towards the ship, flak guns can fire bursts that appear within 3.5km of the ship that are still effective.
 * Flak burst spawning distance
 * Flak bursts spawn mostly directly in the flight path of the squadron.
 * The distance that flak bursts spawn at is relative to the current speed of the squadron, and has a bit of variation that is enlarged by higher speeds, and reduced by slower speeds. In general, faster planes will create more dispersed distributions of flak clouds.
 * Flak burst spawning sectors
 * There are two "zones" in which flak clouds can spawn: directly in the flight path of the planes (A) and spread out to the left and right of their path (B).
 * Flak clouds are distributed between these two zones at a 4:1 ratio; 80% of explosions will appear in the 'A' zone and 20% will appear in the 'B' zone.
 * The maximum number of explosions that can be placed in zone 'A' by a single ship is 6 - all excess flak clouds will spawn in zone 'B' and disobey the 80%/20% split if a ship has a large amount of flak.
 * For example, Bismarck fires an average of 5.25 flak clouds (maximum of 7). This means that an average Bismarck burst will fire 5 clouds, 4 of which (80%) appear directly in the zone 'A' (directly in the flight path of the planes) and 1 which will spawn somewhere in zone 'B' (out to either left or right sides). Bismarck's AA fire even with the tier 3 captain skill Focus Fire Training cannot place more than 1 cloud into the B zone, which makes her flak clouds relatively easy to avoid as most explosions are forced to spawn in zone 'A'.
 * The European super-destroyer Dalarna fires a base maximum of 9 bursts. With the Auxuliary Armaments Modification 2 module, the Defensive AA Fire consumable, and the Fearless Brawler commander skill active, Dalarna fires a total of 12 bursts. With her high accuracy stat of 90%, this means that she fires an average of 10.8 bursts, and a minimum of 9.6 (rounded to 10 bursts, as a ship can't fire .6 of an explosion). Assuming the average 11-cloud flak burst, Dalarna will place the maximum of 6 clouds into zone 'A' and spread 5 clouds into zone 'B', making her flak clouds much more unpredictable and thus less easily avoided compared to Bismarck's flak.
 * When a squadron is under fire from multiple ships, this maximum number increases to 8, with the most damaging flak explosions being placed in zone 'A'. If both the Bismarck and Dalarna above are firing at the same squadron, their average combined total is 16 explosions; 8 will go into zone 'A' and the remaining 8 will go into zone 'B'. Dalarna ' s flak clouds deal more damage than Bismarck's, and thus 8 of Dalarna ' s 11 explosions will appear in zone 'A', with the remaining 3, along with all of Bismarck ' s 5, filling out zone 'B'.

Sector Reinforcement
Sectoring a ships' AA by looking in the direction of the planes and pressing the appropriate hotkey (defaults: letter 'O' and tilde '~') will result in a burst of damage and a gradual increase in the AA damage output of that sector. There are only two sectors (port/left and starboard/right) and this effect has a cooldown and effectiveness whose base values depend on ships' class.

Fighter Squadrons
Some ships and all CVs have access to fighter squadrons to defend against CV squadrons. Ship-launched fighters patrol in a radius around the ship, while CVs possess two different types of fighters: those that it automatically launches when enemy squadrons are detected near the carrier itself that patrol in a radius, and the manual use fighter consumables available to most CV squadrons which can be deployed on a static position on the map.

Aircraft counterplay against AA fire
Understanding how aircraft are able to reduce incoming aircraft fire is as important as knowing how to maximize your own anti-aircraft fire. CV players have a plethora of options ranging from their own input to various commander skills for minimizing plane losses.

How different attack aircraft interact with AA fire

 * Rocket planes
 * Rocket planes are generally quite vulnerable to losses as they must close to inside medium range AA to deal effective damage. However, some rocket planes have a long lead time in their "machine gun" phase where they are invulnerable to fire.
 * Torpedo bombers
 * Torpedo bombers can begin their attack run far outside of even long-range AA fire and possess the 'green reticle' damage reduction for the entire duration they are vulnerable to AA damage. This makes them quite difficult to shoot down if the carrier player is planning their attack runs intelligently.
 * Dive bombers
 * Dive bombers are the most susceptible planes to taking losses during their approach. In most cases, they must have their reticles already lined up before even initiating the attack run, and thus don't have access to damage reduction for either continuous or flak AA fire.
 * Carpet bombers
 * Unlike dive bombers, carpet bombers can usually begin their attack run further away from the target ship, giving them easier access to damage reduction.
 * Skip bombers
 * Like torpedo bombers, skip bombers can initiate their attack run far outside of AA range. However, they possess another advantage: they can release armament at various distances while still retaining good hit rate, allowing them to intelligently avoid plane losses after their strike.
 * Fighters

Dodging flak bursts
Because flak bursts mostly spawn in a predictable place and at a set time interval of 2 seconds, CV players can "force" flak bursts to spawn off their optimal path. Flak bursts that spawn in the "A" sector are the easiest to throw off as they are forced to be directly in the path of the current trajectory of the planes. By making slight turns and increasing speed every 2 seconds, an experienced CV player can force flak to spawn away from their direct path towards a target.

Mitigation against Continuous damage
There are 3 main ways that CV players can defend against continuous AA damage.
 * 1) Green reticle during attack run
 * 2) * This is both the least visible, and the most significant source of damage reduction for continuous AA damage. When a CV player begins a strike, their reticle first turns yellow, and then green. When the reticle is green, their planes have an additional 30% damage reduction against continuous AA fire. In the case of torpedo, carpet and skip bombers, experienced CV players will often begin their runs quite early while they are outside of AA range, so that they enjoy this damage reduction even against long and medium range AA.
 * 3) Passive damage reduction from skills and modules
 * 4) Speed
 * 5) * While it's not particularly damage reduction, aircraft that are very fast spend less time taking damage from AA fire, and thus take less damage overall.
 * 6) Dodging flak bursts
 * 7) * Because flak bursts mostly spawn in a predictable place and at a set time interval of 2 seconds, CV players can "force" flak bursts to spawn off their optimal path. Flak bursts that spawn in the "A" sector are the easiest to throw off as they are forced to be directly in the path of the current trajectory of the planes. By making slight turns and increasing speed every 2 seconds, an experienced CV player can force flak to spawn away from their direct path towards a target. This effect is made easier by planes that can alter their speed quickly, such as rocket squadrons.

Understanding the currently-in-testing AA mechanics update (Nov 18th, 2022)
On November 18th 2022, an update to AA mechanics was announced on the official development blog. This change improves the effectiveness of continunous AA fire by allowing AA fire to "blunt" incoming strikes.