Coal as part of the protection scheme

[Mike Carroll]

As I was reading my Janes, they stated that in coal ships a good part of the durability of the ship was the large coal bunkers. When ships ungrade to oil or diesel fuel do they loose alittle durability? Splitting hairs I know.[:D]

[Tankerace]

No, I decided not to do that, I figured if I did that I'd have people complaining "Upgrades are supposed to make it better, not worse!"

About the only thing I took coal bunkers into consideration for was on ships where the wing turrets are adjacent to, or are closer to the side of the ship, they are more easily knocked out. So, for example, In the Dreadnought, St. Vincent, and Bellerophon classes, the centerline turrets all have an armor rating of 280, whereas the wing turrets have a rating of 240. I did this because I felt (as did Jane's, Conway's, and the British admiralty) that these turrets would always be more succeptable to non plunging fire than the centerline turrets. Also, I figured that it could also represent a fire in the adjacent coal bunker, which would force an evacuation of the turret or at least cut off the ammo supply to prevent a magazine explosion.

Holy crap, that just gave me an idea for a new code thing to put in if Mike or Joe or Don get the time. Flooded Magazines. Increase the chance of a Mag explosion to 5%, then have a 5% roll on top of that to see if the magazine gets flooded. So if it passes the first roll then the message "Fire in Ammunition Hoists!" is displayed. Then, if it passes the second roll, the message "Magazine spaces flooded, fire under control." is displayed. If it fails, then the message "MAGAZINE EXPLODES!!!!!" is presented. If the magazine is not flooded, then the game acts as now. If it is flooded, then the ammo to the set of guns in question (F, C, R, L, R) is set to 0.

We could also do a fuel fire, with a 3% chance of a hit causing the message "Fire in Fuel Bunker!". After that, it passes a 3% chance of an explosion. When the ship passes the first roll and has a fire, it looses 10% of its current fuel. If it passes the second, and has an explosion, then it suffers 30 sys damage, 20 float, and looses 30% of its fuel.

I wounder if we could implement these things. Thoughts?

[Mike Carroll]

Thanks for the info. The level of detail is truly awe inspiring. I am not a student of British ships, but didn't they lose 3 Battlecruisers to massive magazine explosions? I think 1 prior to Jutland and 2 during Jutland? Basically single shot deals. That seems like a high failure rate.

[DuckofTindalos]

Bad ammunition handling routines and rotten luck.

[Tankerace]

Yeah. BCs Queen Mary, Invicible, and Indefatigueable (plus the Armored cruiser Defense) all went up to mag explosions at Jutland, and Lion almost did the same but her midship magazine was flooded just in time (though the man who flooded it was killed).

And like Term said, a lot of it was bad ammunition handling, and the GOD AWFUL Cordite powder. Not only did they contribute to the 4 ships above lost at Jutland, the near disaster of the Lion, but also caused explosions for no reason. The Japanese Kawachi went up in 1918 just because of an accident with the cordite, and Mutsu went up in 1943 in almost the same way. In addition several British ships blew up due to accidents with the Cordite. Battleship HMS Bulwark in 1914, Armored cruiser HMS Natal in 1915, dreadnought HMS Vanguard in 1917 all blew up due to Cordite, and not in combat.

Thankfully, all the Americans had to worry about was coal fires, which is what (probably) destroyed the Maine in 1898.

[cyberwop36]

I'm not a big expert but I saw a show on Jutland. They said Beatty wanted more ammo on the BC's than they could safely stow in their magazines. So they had shells sitting in passage ways ect. and it's believed thats what caused the explosions.

"There seems to be something wrong with out bloody ships today."

[Rysyonok]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace
Holy crap, that just gave me an idea for a new code thing to put in if Mike or Joe or Don get the time. Flooded Magazines. Increase the chance of a Mag explosion to 5%, then have a 5% roll on top of that to see if the magazine gets flooded. So if it passes the first roll then the message "Fire in Ammunition Hoists!" is displayed. Then, if it passes the second roll, the message "Magazine spaces flooded, fire under control." is displayed. If it fails, then the message "MAGAZINE EXPLODES!!!!!" is presented. If the magazine is not flooded, then the game acts as now. If it is flooded, then the ammo to the set of guns in question (F, C, R, L, R) is set to 0.

We could also do a fuel fire, with a 3% chance of a hit causing the message "Fire in Fuel Bunker!". After that, it passes a 3% chance of an explosion. When the ship passes the first roll and has a fire, it looses 10% of its current fuel. If it passes the second, and has an explosion, then it suffers 30 sys damage, 20 float, and looses 30% of its fuel.

I wounder if we could implement these things. Thoughts?

I think magazine explosions should be even deadlier. Let's recall all the capital ships lost to them. IJN suffered 4 or 5; Russian Borodino @ Tsushima and Empress Maria @ Sevastopol in 1916 had the same fate.

[DuckofTindalos]

And the Hood...