Naval Gun Combat questions

[akdreemer]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Thanks Nikademus/Sardaukar. Good Witp is much better than i tought. This issue came because Littorio(Italian BB) armor, it has a belt of 350+36+24mm=410mm i was afraid this would make an ubber BB.

Multiple armor plates are less resistant than a single homogenous plate. In this case the two smaller plates serve as fragment barriers and add no apreciable resistence to shell penetrations.

[el cid again]

This is correct. Unfortunately, WITP seems to be built on the simple assumption that we want the maximum armor thickness, period. The code discounts this by various "die rolls". Nor is it easy to correct this. There are theories about what counts to what extent. Indeed, structural steel has some armor value, and modern warships might be called "semi-armored" because their hulls do stop some (particularly modern, small) shells. But the practice of considering HY80 (and similar) as having protection value dates back into this period of history. There are also theories about the value of "sloping" of the armor and/or structural steel. Which is pretty abstract because a real shell does not enter at a normal angle - but some specific function of a nearly parabolic trajectory. Two shells almost never enter at the assumed angle anyway - so the WITP code idea of die rolls is actually pretty good.

What we need - and it would be a bear to implement - is to define a uniform theory of armor value for all types of armor and structural steels -

then to gather that data for all ships (only maximum for deck and side - conning tower is chrome apparently unused)

and then enter it in the data set on a consistent and comprehensive basis. Probably a man year type project.

[Dili]

Multiple armor plates are less resistant than a single homogenous plate. In this case the two smaller plates serve as fragment barriers and add no apreciable resistence to shell penetrations.

 
That smaller plates are for splinter which in case of a BB heavy round can be a big chunk (the last plate being more distant makes also some protection exploding bombs etc.)
 
My issue is that we sum all armor for some ships but not for others? is a 30mm plate armor in a cruiser counted but in BB not counted?  why? Keep in mind that a couple of light cruisers - British ones - dont even have belt armor from magazine to magazine.
 
CL Garibaldi have a 30mm belt +100mm belt shouldnt we count the 30mm one?

[Dili]

conning tower is chrome apparently unused

Since the conning tower is such a small target i hope that is true since the chance of hitting it are much less. Also doesnt have the same damage consequences.

[Nikademus]

"Tower armor" hit location represents the conning tower of a ship.

[Sardaukar]

Funnily, as I said, when I watch combat animations, sea battle seems horribly unrealistic...but when seeing only combat report same battle looks completely plausible...[:'(]

[Nikademus]

how so?

[el cid again]

ORIGINAL: Dili

Multiple armor plates are less resistant than a single homogenous plate. In this case the two smaller plates serve as fragment barriers and add no apreciable resistence to shell penetrations.

That smaller plates are for splinter which in case of a BB heavy round can be a big chunk (the last plate being more distant makes also some protection exploding bombs etc.)

My issue is that we sum all armor for some ships but not for others? is a 30mm plate armor in a cruiser counted but in BB not counted?  why? Keep in mind that a couple of light cruisers - British ones - dont even have belt armor from magazine to magazine.

CL Garibaldi have a 30mm belt +100mm belt shouldnt we count the 30mm one?

In WITP we should count it as 130mm. IF we had a discount system we might count it as 115mm - something like that.

[DuckofTindalos]

ORIGINAL: AlaskanWarrior

ORIGINAL: el cid again

Sometimes torpedoes hit at very great ranges. Normally you expect effective torpedo range to be much less than theoretical maximum torpedo range. But the greatest torpedo salvo in history took decades to understand - partially because not all the ships hit were even in the same task group. The same salvo sank a carrier (Wasp?), blew a destroyer in two, and damaged a modern US battleship. For many years we assumed two submarines were involved. The most distant hit was almost certainly not visible to the attacking submarine.

True, but in this case the Japanese torpedo could actually go that long of a distance, this is the exception and not the rule, and really is a statistical fluke. Indeed the major focus of Japanese surface warfare, of which the subs were a part, was their ability to fire torpedoes to very long ranges, but depended on the firing of mass amounts of torpdeoes.

Their torpedo cruisers being the extreme expression of that doctrine... 20-tube Long Lance broadside!

[Dili]

In WITP we should count it as 130mm. IF we had a discount system we might count it as 115mm - something like that.

 
Italians considered it equivalent to 150mm side of CA Zaras.
Also then we'll had to change all deck armor since in many ships it's made by several layers.

[el cid again]

Correct. And in RHS you will find the armor is uniformly the total of all layers. Sometimes this is just over the magazines. Sometimes magazines and machinery only. Does not matter: max value is the WITP value. Same for side armor. At the moment we just add em all up. I had some help with this. And there are discrepencies between sources. In general we tried to use a single set of data for all nations (Conways). In some cases we went to the constructors drawings to resolve questions. But we did not consider slope or discount multiple layers - and we probably should - if we had a set of rules we agreed on.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

how so?

Just feels so. [:D] If I see only Combat report, my imagination can fill the gaps without any need of animations that only serve as reducing my "suspension of disbelief" ! [8D]

[crocodile]

About torpedoes :
To take account in a game of the specific effects of torpedoes according to specific protections could be complex (like « bulge », external protection that avoid direct torpedoes explosions on the armored belt). For example, in the case of the French Richelieu BB class (this example because my father served on the Jean Bart BB during Torch operation) compartments filed with cork notably modified the flooding result of torpedoes.
 
About armor :
An other parameter which is near impossible to find is the true steel quality and harden, that was not the same for all ships.
 
About artillery : one parameter (among others) which can be decisive for huge gun on BB is the technology. For example, on old BB the primary gun towers had to line up on ship axe to reload, even though the modern primary gun mechanisms allowed to reload keeping the guns pointing towards the target.