[2022] Gibraltar fAilP, unable to citadel most T10 cruisers at 1km or less...

@lloyd1701

You're experiencing the Short-Fuse AP getting armed prior to entry of the Citadel.

Gibralter has a 5ms Fuse Time:

whereas Goliath has a standard 33ms Fuse Time (as well as a higher Arming Threshold):

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Gibraltar shells are wonderful against DDs because of priming off even very light armor and being able to explode quickly (instead of zooming out the other side of a thin ship before popping). This can make for consistent damage against Cruisers, but it can mean that spaced armor around the Citadel of a ship can remove the likelihood of scoring Citadels with Gibraltar AP.

You are correct! Cruiser-caliber shells with short fuse timers will not reliably citadel cruisers that have spaced armor in front of their citadels. However, the tradeoff is that they are exceptionally good at not over-penetrating destroyers. Gibraltar will absolutely nuke a DD if you can land some hits.

Our game is extremely complex when taken down to the small details. This is one of those finer details.

The Henri's armor scheme is designed to protect the ship. The design works exceptionally well against Gibraltar AP due to the spaced area.

Or you can aim for the upper hull / superstructure on the Henri and similar ships with spaced armor around the citadel.

Not all should are going to or should play the same. Gibraltar is somewhat unique in it's AP shell characteristics for the caliber, as they behave more like MInotaur shells than goliath shells. This is part of what makes it different from choosing an Henri or a Goliath.

You may not like the difference, but the purpose of having a wide variety of ships is to allow gameplay that suits as many styles as possible.