High-Explosive Shell
Soft targets / area effect
The IRON NEST high-explosive shell is your versatile workhorse — blast and fragmentation for infantry, soft targets and grouped threats. Forgiving, broadly useful, and a staple loadout.
The round you reach for when in doubt.
If the armor-piercing shell is your scalpel, the high-explosive shell is your hammer. It converts the gun’s energy into blast and fragments, making it the default choice for soft and grouped targets.
When to load it
High-explosive shines against infantry, light positions and anything spread across an area. Its blast radius is forgiving, so a near-miss often still counts — which makes it the round to lean on while you’re still sharpening your firing solutions. Against tanks and bunkers, though, switch to armor-piercing; HE will scratch the paint at best.
How to use it well
- Aim for the cluster. With area effect, the centre of a group matters more than any single target.
- Exploit the forgiveness. A slightly imperfect solution can still be lethal — useful under the clock in challenge modes.
- Don’t waste it on armor. Read the intel first; HE on a hardened target is a wasted turn.
In the wider loadout
High-explosive and armor-piercing are the two rounds every operator should master first. Between them they cover the majority of early orders, and they teach you the firing loop without specialist complications. From there, branch into smoke for sightline control and the specialist rounds as orders demand. See the full ammunition guide for the complete picture.