CD fire issues

[John Lansford]

My last bombardment TF had a BB take 77 hits from 8cm to 15cm guns.  Anyone who thinks an 8cm gun should be able to sink a BB, please provide me a real life situation where that happened.  Unless the ship obligingly dropped anchor a few hundred yards away from guns of that size, I refuse to believe they could "destroy" a ship the size of a BB.  A 6" projectile has at best (HE) about 100 pounds of high explosive.  An AP shell has far less than that.  They'd run out of ammo before the ship was unable to retire, and its control systems, main armament and armored areas would still be intact.

[bklooste]

Which statement were you against ? I was the one argueing for a cap on sys damage for non pen hits.. and that a 1000 6" ( or even 4") shells still wouldnt auto sink a BB like what happens now. Just commenting on the current routine taht it is possible .

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

bklooste,

Sorry, I don't accept your explanation.  Even if a BB had its entire superstructure (the unarmored parts) destroyed by thousands of shell hits, the ship would still be maneuverable and could fight.  Every BB I've seen had the bridge and control areas armored nearly as well as the main gun turrets and magazines.  In the improbable situation where a CL was able to sit at point blank range and pour salvo after salvo of shells into the BB, all that would be accomplished is a lot of non-critical damage to the hull and superstructure.  The ship would not be in danger of sinking and would still be able to move and maneuver, as well as operate its main armament.

In other words, once a certain level of damage was reached, that would be all that could be done.

[John Lansford]

ORIGINAL: bklooste

Which statement were you against ? I was the one argueing for a cap on sys damage for non pen hits.. and that a 1000 6" ( or even 4") shells still wouldnt auto sink a BB like what happens now. Just commenting on the current routine taht it is possible .

The one where you said if a BB took enough 6" hits it would need to be towed away or abandoned. Control areas are as protected by armor on a BB as the main part of the hull is; the bridge on the ones I visited had 12"+ armor surrounding them, for example. Unless we're once again talking about "golden BB's" where a small shell somehow penetrates an open hatch, or through a porthole, we're talking fantasy to claim small caliber shells can sink or incapacitate a BB.

[mike scholl 1]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford
Unless we're once again talking about "golden BB's" where a small shell somehow penetrates an open hatch, or through a porthole, we're talking fantasy to claim small caliber shells can sink or incapacitate a BB.

When you are talking about a warship (virtually "stuffed" with explosives and other volatile substances) a "golden BB" is not that rare. Remember that in the case of BB's, Mutsu, Maine, Leonardo da Vinci, and Jaime I were all lost to NO HITS whatsoever!

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: John Lansford
Unless we're once again talking about "golden BB's" where a small shell somehow penetrates an open hatch, or through a porthole, we're talking fantasy to claim small caliber shells can sink or incapacitate a BB.

When you are talking about a warship (virtually "stuffed" with explosives and other volatile substances) a "golden BB" is not that rare. Remember that in the case of BB's, Mutsu, Maine, Leonardo da Vinci, and Jaime I were all lost to NO HITS whatsoever!

This is a bit deceptive. In at least two of those cases the ships were not at battlestations, or in an increased material condition at all. In the case of the Maine, you're talking about 1880s tech and DC, not WWII levels.

[John Lansford]

ORIGINAL: mike scholl 1

ORIGINAL: John Lansford
Unless we're once again talking about "golden BB's" where a small shell somehow penetrates an open hatch, or through a porthole, we're talking fantasy to claim small caliber shells can sink or incapacitate a BB.

When you are talking about a warship (virtually "stuffed" with explosives and other volatile substances) a "golden BB" is not that rare. Remember that in the case of BB's, Mutsu, Maine, Leonardo da Vinci, and Jaime I were all lost to NO HITS whatsoever!

Wow, way to make a strawman argument. Show me an example of a BB lost to a golden BB, please, not to carelessness by the crew or sabotage.

[Misconduct]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

My last bombardment TF had a BB take 77 hits from 8cm to 15cm guns.  Anyone who thinks an 8cm gun should be able to sink a BB, please provide me a real life situation where that happened.  Unless the ship obligingly dropped anchor a few hundred yards away from guns of that size, I refuse to believe they could "destroy" a ship the size of a BB.  A 6" projectile has at best (HE) about 100 pounds of high explosive.  An AP shell has far less than that.  They'd run out of ammo before the ship was unable to retire, and its control systems, main armament and armored areas would still be intact.

I just noticed this myself attacking Maleocap, I had 11 Battleships in a bombardment task force, 4 days of Air Bombarding I noticed I destroyed quite a few of the guns on the island, still had Tennessee hit by 88 rounds of 15cm, and took 45 sys damage, no flooding or fires which is odd, but she's out of action for 4 months. Other battleships took no damage and silenced no guns on the island.

[freeboy]

ok, now I again get to rant, just had my bb group sallying out of Manila hit a little base wit ha cd gun... lost THREE cruisers! WHAT? this is insane in the membrane, a travesty a sham a bit f dark stickey stuff.. ok
rant over
lol
Seriously the engine is causing me to re think the entire use of BB groups against bases... maybe I should be happy I still have any fleet as much as I lose ships! ouch!

[usersatch]

If we assume, for just a minute, that the CD fire is properly modeled, I'm confused as to why some islands are real whoppers and others are complete duds.  Did the IJN really put killer CD guns on Mili, yet fail to put the same kind of good ones on strategic islands (eg, Kwajelein, Eniwetok, and Rabaul)? It sounds like Saipan is pretty murderous, which makes sense from a strategic sense, but I had no issues when I took Rabaul.  The Japanese had to think that we were aiming for Rabaul.
 
I agree with Freeboy, unless he is hitting Corrigedor, I'm not buying that some random little island has the guns to sink thee cruisers. An errant roll of the die, perhaps?
 
When I look at my damage after the Mili debacle, I did not notice very little float and fire damage.  All of my BBs and CAs had between 10 - 30 sys damage, which seems logical given that, short of a miracle, the CD guns will not penetrate the belt armor, but will do some damage above deck, but nothing too severe.  What doesn't make sense (to me) is that my CAs, with less armor and shorter gun range, had less overall sys damage than my BBs. Smaller targets, maybe?

[Nomad]

ORIGINAL: usersatch

If we assume, for just a minute, that the CD fire is properly modeled, I'm confused as to why some islands are real whoppers and others are complete duds.  Did the IJN really put killer CD guns on Mili, yet fail to put the same kind of good ones on strategic islands (eg, Kwajelein, Eniwetok, and Rabaul)? It sounds like Saipan is pretty murderous, which makes sense from a strategic sense, but I had no issues when I took Rabaul.  The Japanese had to think that we were aiming for Rabaul.

I agree with Freeboy, unless he is hitting Corrigedor, I'm not buying that some random little island has the guns to sink thee cruisers. An errant roll of the die, perhaps?

When I look at my damage after the Mili debacle, I did not notice very little float and fire damage.  All of my BBs and CAs had between 10 - 30 sys damage, which seems logical given that, short of a miracle, the CD guns will not penetrate the belt armor, but will do some damage above deck, but nothing too severe.  What doesn't make sense (to me) is that my CAs, with less armor and shorter gun range, had less overall sys damage than my BBs. Smaller targets, maybe?

Check their manuver speeds, the CAs are much higher than any BB.

[John Lansford]

The CA's in my bombardment TF that hit Mili had significantly less system damage than the BB's.  One was hit for no damage, the other had less than 10 system damage.  Four out of the 5 BB's had 10+ system damage, one almost up to 20.  This was the 2nd TF to hit Mili though; the first one had BB's all take system damage over 20 and one up to 35, from the same CD guns.

[Lecivius]

Let me preface this by stating I believe the CD issue has issues.
 
Without getting to far into this, I am confused about something.  A BB can take over 32 1000lb SAP bomb hits with 25-40 system damage.  That's 16 tons of SAP ordinance.  Yet roughly 150 150mm AP shells can sink a BB?  Give or take, thats around 8.25 tons of ordinance.  And I am unaware of any muzzle velocity over-matching the physics of a 1000lb projectile faling from over 1000 ft.  It would appear there is a discrepency in damage models.
 
Or am I totally missing the point?

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: Lecivius

Let me preface this by stating I believe the CD issue has issues.

Without getting to far into this, I am confused about something.  A BB can take over 32 1000lb SAP bomb hits with 25-40 system damage.  That's 16 tons of SAP ordinance.  Yet roughly 150 150mm AP shells can sink a BB?  Give or take, thats around 8.25 tons of ordinance.  And I am unaware of any muzzle velocity over-matching the physics of a 1000lb projectile faling from over 1000 ft.  It would appear there is a discrepency in damage models.

Or am I totally missing the point?

In the game, those 1,000 lb bombs target only the deck and belt. They have zero chance to hit the superstructure. So, absolutely zero of them will penetrate and cause significant damage (Nik, please fix bombs vs ships so they can sometimes target superstructure). Now, the gun vs ship model is slightly different. Each shell has a chance to hit the deck, belt or superstructure of any ship. Since belt and deck have armor, those 6" shells will bounce on them. But, superstructure has no armor. All of the hits that target superstructue will damage (sys and fire only) the ship. With 150 hits, around 50 of them will be penetrating on the superstrucure with 100 of them bouncing on the other locations. Once a ship gets to 99 sys, and high fire levels, then flt and eng damage start to add up, resulting in a sunk ship.
(note that 20mm and .50 cal hits on a BB won't do the same thing that 6" hits will. The EFFECT of the weapon is not large enough to cause damage to a high DURABILITY ship. a slight few of them will increase sys damage, so maybe 1,000 hits from machine guns will sink a BB.)

So, there is a discrepancy in the models. CD routine is actually more accurate because a 6" shell can damage a BB, whereas a 1,000 lb bomb can not.

The problem with the CD routine is that the ships do not 1: retreat from insurmountable odds, and 2: don't knock out very many guns (realistic vs pre-war installations, not realistic vs new installations.)

Anyway, that's how I see the issue.

[Dili]

A BB can take over 32 1000lb SAP bomb hits with 25-40 system damage. That's 16 tons of SAP ordinance. Yet roughly 150 150mm AP shells can sink a BB? Give or take, thats around 8.25 tons of ordinance.

The game is wrong, and that was one of most important things to fix from Witp to AE. Unfortunateley they choosed to turn on the "complicationometer" in pilots.
32 1000lb "non penetrating"- i will still ask one more time for people to check BB armor diagrams- would have great chance of sinking a battleship. And for start that should add a dozens near misses...which means tons of water in any place...I don't think 150 6" would sink a BB most of the time.

[Lrfss]

ORIGINAL: usersatch

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

usersatch,

By that analogy, a human swinging a standard hammer should eventually be able to break through a BB's belt armor if he just keeps at it long enough.  Armor belts don't work like that though; either the shell had enough kinetic energy to smash through the armor or it doesn't; if it lacks enough energy, then the armor resists the shell and is not affected.  Body armor isn't a good comparison because it absorbs the bullet's energy by deforming rather than outright resisting the force.

Think of a BB's armor as like the standard concrete "jersey barriers" you see in highway medians.  If a car strikes one it is deflected and the concrete suffers no damage.  A big enough truck may smash through it if it travels fast enough, though.  A 6" shell hitting a BB's armor is similar to a compact car hitting a concrete barrier; all the energy is used in smashing the shell, not the armor plate, just as the car is smashed hitting the concrete.

You just proved my point! Body armor reacts by dissipating the force of the relatively flat-faced projectile to a wide surrounding area. Hard, frontal armor reacts to, presumably, a naval AP round, by dissipating the kinetic energy of the projectile at a very small point around, but mostly behind the point of impact. The AP round has a very small surface area of impact as compared to a normal HE round, but with the same amount of kinetic energy. The frontal armor relies on its thickness rather than its surface area (like body armor) to defat the round, or dissipate the energy. Hit body armor with AP bullets or an arrow, they will go clean through. Armor plating doesnt "resist" incoming projectiles at all--it absorbs the energy (KE = 1/2mv^2) where some is lost as heat, friction, etc. upon impact, but most of the energy is transferred directly from the projectile to the object of impact and directly behind it. But, each time it absorbs (or resists) a huge force at that small point, it weakens the material in a very small area.

Using your analogy of auto concrete barriers, yes, a compact car (or even a semi for that matter) doesnt have a lot of kinetic energy per square inch versus the total surface area of the front of the vehicle, but if you focus all of that kinetic energy down to a very small cross section of just a few inches, there's a hell of a lot of energy waiting to be transferred. If the car glances, or is deflected, off the barrier (some energy going in the x-plane but most going in the y-plane), significantly less energy is transferred than if it hits it at a 90 degree angle with no deflection, (all energy going in the x-plane). This is why modern tanks have sloped frontal armor. Like I said, I'm not a materials engineer, but I am a physicist, so I do know that each hit (if powerful enough) can break a few of the lattice bonds in the concrete (or steel). Concrete (and steel) are arranged in interconnected "sheets" of atoms, or a lattice. When a force hits the lattice, it is dissipated to the surrounding atoms. But, hit it enough and the atomic bonds in the outermost sheets begin to break and give way. It may take 2 semis or 2000 sedans to do it, but one way or the other, the material (and the bonds that hold it together) can absorb only so much before it fails. What I don't know is exactly what a single sedan does to a concrete barrier crashing head on on a micro level (or an AP round striking a nearly perpendicular sheet of BB armor).

I'm in no way saying that a single 6 inch AP round will penetrate BB belt armor, but if you fire enough of them at the approximately same point of impact, eventually they will. IRL, I would take it to Vegas (betting against it, of course) with the chances of that many rounds hitting in the same spot.

Hi All:

I'm going with the Physicist "usersatch" on this one...[&o] However it is absurd unless the BB's were anchored that any where near 150 6" rounds could have even struck within the same reasonable proximity on a "I hope" moving/manuvering BB in the first place let alone to cause it to sink! How long would it even take to fire that many rounds off assuming trying to be accurate no doubt? Sorry I forget how many tubes though were firing, but still come on...

The idea of a routine enabling withdrawing prior to a "Total Loss" situation sounds to me like a good plan except wherein one foolishly takes his BB's, CA's in with the landing craft or more mildy put includes BB's, CA's or the like within an Amphib TF in a landing op. In that situation oh well? The odds go up like crazy for critical hits and well placed rounds to do major if not catastrophic damage based on obvious close range/greater penetration/better accuracy factors, etc. I think that the game models the BB's, CA's etc as sitting still as opposed to moving/manuvering as how else could you explain the results the OP experienced here? Just my $.02 (U.S.) here...[8|]

[PMCN]

I have a great picture of a Tiger tank knocked out at Kursk.  What you see is that there are several rounds that didn't penetrate and then in one case a second round overlaps.  This causes the armour to fracture at that point.  The tank is otherwise in perfect shape and you can see that over a dozen rounds (on this side only) didn't penetrate only due to the luck of 2 rounds landing at the same point did the failure occur.

Now I don't think this is terribly likely to occur with a BB and even 2 rounds hitting the same area will be unlikely to fracture the belt but still a BB could be mission killed by 6" shells.  All its superstructure, exposed deck guns, catapults, masts etc could be knocked down.  Sink?  Not really very likely.  But turrets could be jammed (even a non-penetrating round can cause spalling).  Not to mention fires on the deck and so forth.

In truth what I don't see is the CD guns being effective at what they are intended to stop.  I've seen xAP, xAK, and APs survive 20-30 hits by the guns.  It was rare that they withdrew due to damage and I don't recall seeing one sunk.  Even though I see things like: critical hit, severe damage, etc I don't see the ship sinking.

Bombs can target superstructure: I have the marblehead at 99 system damage from being bombed at port.  Or do just the 1000 lbers not??? 

[John Lansford]

Paul, that's a misleading image of that Tiger.  You don't know what range the AP shells hit the tank, or at what angle.  The one that penetrated may have done so without the others hitting in that same area, and at Kursk some of the Soviet AT guns were firing literally at muzzle range.  How does that in any way apply to a naval battle at thousands of yards range?

Again, someone please show me a real life situation where small or medium caliber warheads struck a BB's armor so often in the same location that they eventually penetrated that thickness.  It's ridiculous to try and explain the damage routines in this way if there's no example of it IRL.  You're basically saying if a man swings a hammer at the belt armor long enough he'll eventually break it.

BTW, my invasion TF for Mili took the base with no trouble at all last night. Three armored battalions and one infantry regiment invaded for the loss of two LST's and one LCI, all sunk by the coast defense guns. I only had DD's and smaller ships firing in support of them. This after I had two bombardment TF's with BB's get hit 20+ times for large system damage results.

[PMCN]

I am not saying that 6" rounds hitting a BB will sink it, in truth I find the concept absurd.  Though if by some fluke of luck 2 of them landed in close proximity to each other they would have a greater effect then if they landed in widely separated locations.   Penetrate the belt?  Not even two landing on the same spot.  Damage it for sure but penetration no baring some sort of fluke. 

This is the same as in Harpoon it was possible to sink the Iowa with a Slava's 150 mm deck gun (or whatever size it was 155, 175).  Not a chance, mission kill it yes, sink it no.  I'm fairly dubious even a SS or AS missile would do anything against a belt designed to stop 16" shell fire.  But this is not relevant to the topic at hand.

The real issue is that the BB would not hang around to get hit that often, once it started getting its deck equipment shot up the Captain would pull it back out of range of the shore batteries and continue to fire his main guns.  There is no justification for excessive damage that I can see.

And your point about the losses to the small ships is the one I noticed too. The guns seem ineffective at stopping landing ships since you have to hit the damn ship 50+ times to kill it. Why a xAK can take 1/3 the damage of a BB is rather hard to understand.

[usersatch]

I never said it was likely, just theoretically possible to have X number of rounds hitting the same spot. At night. Against a moving target. At a range of several miles. [:)]
 
Does the game setup reflect history? I can understand Saipan being a deadly CD trap, but why the heck would you put valuable guns at a hole like Mili???
 
 

[Bradley7735]

ORIGINAL: Paul McNeely

Bombs can target superstructure: I have the marblehead at 99 system damage from being bombed at port.  Or do just the 1000 lbers not??? 

The Marblehead can be penetrated by bombs. BB's can not. I'm sure the CL is at 99 sys because of bomb/torpedo penetrations on the deck and belt areas. In fact, Marblehead can be penetrated by much smaller bombs than 500kg. She'd be put under by 100kg bombs, I think.