Hi all,
I past months I always read Nikademus' post regarding bomb penetrations and
ship armour ratings with greatest interest.
His "quest" for more historically effects now brought v2.00 with changed bomb
penetrations/armour ratings (thanks Matrix/2By3 !!!).
What I would like to know is weather Nikademus had a chance to test new v2.00
data and whether the bombs ceased to be "torpedoes" (as he very nicely
described what we had up to now in UV)?
Can you please comment Nikademus?
Leo "Apollo11"
Question for Nikademus regarding v2.00 and new bomb pen/armour rating
Moderators: Joel Billings, Tankerace, siRkid
Question for Nikademus regarding v2.00 and new bomb pen/armour rating
Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!
A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE
24
no, not 24 as in the series, but 24 as in '24' hours since Matrix released 2.0 :p
Hi Apollo. I'll answer your question in two parts.
Here are the stated changes to bomb ratings posted by Matrix
Device Name Current Effect Current Pen Altered Device Name Altered Effect Altered Pen
30 kg Bomb 66 16 30 kg GP Bomb 66 11
60 kg Bomb 132 33 60 kg GP Bomb 132 22
100 lb Bomb 100 25 100 lb GP Bomb 100 17
250 lb Bomb 250 60 250 lb GP Bomb 250 45
500 lb Bomb 500 125 500 lb GP Bomb 500 85
1000 lb Bomb 1000 250 1000 lb GP Bomb 1000 170
2000 lb Bomb 2000 500 2000 lb GP Bomb 2000 340
4000 lb Bomb 4000 1000 4000 lb GP Bomb 4000 670
100 kg Bomb 220 55 100 kg AP Bomb 150 55
250 kg Bomb 551 140 250 kg AP Bomb 370 140
Though a major improvement. More needs to be done IMO and i'm hoping i dont sound ungrateful to what Matrix has been doing because I am No other wargaming company has ever responded so fast and so often to player input.
I just posted new and more specific info on AP, SAP and GP bombs in my More bomb info thread a few down which gives more detail.
These ratings are indeed better but still represent an overpenetrative ability of GP bombs in the game. I acknowledge that part of this reason may be concerns over carriers that currently have armor stats that could be interpreted by the game engine as 'non penetrative' hits. Again i've preposed an easy solution to this which would require no major rewrite of the UV engine.
The 2nd part of course, is the actual test, where things really count. As of yet I have had no chance to set up static tests yet but hope to do so tommorrow.
What I've seen so far are results i'd expect given what's been posted above. A thwarted IJN bombardment of Lunga by a two BB led TF yielded me three confirmed 500lb GP bomb hits on the battleship Hyuga (125mm deck rating)
Given the new rating of 85mm for the 500lb GP, these naturally did not penetrate (two deck hits , no pen but one 25mm AA gun was destroyed) one belt armor hit (UV's equivilent of a "near miss" right now) which also did not penetrate
Result: SYS 2% FLT 0 FIRE 0
If any fires were caused they immediately extinquished....a problem but one hopefully to be addressed in WitP.
Thats all so far in terms of bomb hits......On an related note, i am loving the new air to ground routines vis-a-vis high altidue vs infantry and airbase infrastructure, the standdown button and the enhanced air to air msg interface
Given the posted bomb stats, the tests though are a bit unnecessary as the Hyuga example seems to show, after all we are all fairly familiar now with how the combat model works.....if a weapon penetrates, damage accrues, if not, none to very minor accures (but with a small FIRE chance) The exception to this though was a post HARD SARGE sent my way over on the bug forum where he claims a Hyuga class BB shrugged off two 1000lb GP hits with one penetration. Since the new 1000lb GP rating is allegedly 170mm.....this should not have happened. The possible explanation for this is that further tweaks were done. Matrix said that they'd added a few more touches to 2.0 before the release but no subsequent updated 2.0 list has been made available either in the patch or on the forum. I'm hoping an updated list will appear soon so i can confirm or dispense with the possibility that the ratings have been further tweaked.
Since understandably UV patches are mainly concerned with tweaking the existing game engine and eliminating bugs, the other more dynamic issues i've brought up with ship damage cannot really be addressed but i hope to see them attempted in the future WitP
These dynamics revolve around the damage model when weapons (such as GP bombs) do not penetrate a HL. GP bombs especially should have a large capacity to cause FIRE damage as what they lack in penetrative qualities they make up for in sheer blast effect and light structure damages. Most of all though they are a potentially serious FIRE hazzard, particularily to wooden decked carriers.
Thus even a BB must remain respectful of the presence of bombers in it's area as enough hits in a short enough "pulse" of incoming damage could start serious FIREs which might prove difficult to extinquish.
If said FIREs are either large enough or prove long lasting enough, it would be "they" that would begin to accrue SYS damage as time/turns go by in the same vein as the progressive flooding rules can accrue and sustain FLT damage. The effect of this is to cause valuable warships, even superficially damaged to withdrawl from the combat theater to focus on damage control and in extreme cases, repair the ship.
A 2nd dynamic is more a clarification and extention of the first dynamic, mainly that FIRE damage should have far greater possibilities to sustain and even increase if the damage 'rolls' go badly. Right now FIRE damage always reduces greatly per turn, rarely staying level and i've never seen it increase. Carriers in particular should be vulnerable to this as they were potential flame traps with their wooden decks, flamable planes and AVgas storage. Further there should be a posibility for explosion as well. For carriers the msg/reason should be either magazine explosion or AvGas explosion, surface warships, magazine. Such an event should be a critical event causing signifigant SYS and FIRE damage with an option for FLT damage as well. In worst case situations, it might even sink the ship.
Another dynamic that needs to be addressed (in WitP if not UV depending on the coding complexity) is the distribution of damage when a bomb "does" penetrate. FLT damage should be IMO "greatly" curtailed vs belt armor/torp hits which represent waterline damage. My research showed that even in smaller ship's cases (CA, CL , DD) that damage originating from above water....(whether bomb, kamakaze or shell that doesnt strike the waterline) often does not cause FLT damage but does cause serious topside, internal and/or FIRE damage. USN survivability studies for DD's conducted after the war determined that in cases of extreme damage (such as USS Laffey in 45), in addition to heroic damage control the other key factor that influenced ship survival was intact water-tight integrity (as most of the damage was sustained by the hull above water, most of which was flattened by over 11 Kamakaze hits!) In contrast, DD's that suffered moderate to signifigant breaches in water tight integrity were far less likely to survive statistically as war losses amoung destroyers showed
Even bombs that penetrate deep into a ship's hull will not be as likely to cause FLT damage as a torp for the simple reason that torps always breach the hull skin compromising water-tight integrity. Bombs can do this but not nearly as often as a bomb is just as likely to explode well into the interior of a ship vs the hull skin. Lexington, and Yorktown at Coral Sea and Midway as well in the latter's case suffered no FLT damage even by bombs that penetrated more than several decks into their hullls. FIRE and material damage to machinery and compartments were what were caused (SYS damage) Thus i feel that FLT damage from bombs needs to be reduced substantially to reflect this and to better differentiate them from torpedoes. Of course as is well documented, Akagi, Kaga and Soryu...all unarmored carriers in terms of flight decks, were turned into FIRE infernos by 1000lb GP bomb hits....no hull or FLT damage was suffered and FIRE caused their demise in the end.
Hiryu was similarily afflicted. Her flight deck was demolished by four 1000lb'ers that exploded either on contact with the wooden deck or shortly thereafter in the hanger causing again FIRE damage. Damage records from the carrier though state that her hull underwater and propulsion systems remained 100% intact and she actually retained 30 knot capability for a while until heat, spreading FIRES and smoke eventually trapped crewmen and choked the boilers. Next day photo well distributed since WWII clearly show the extent of the topside damage to the flight and hanger deck......the ship is at this point adrift but is on an even keel with no appreciable list or settling of the hull. She was eventually scuttled by surface torps.
In contrast, attack planes carrying torpedos were directly responsible for the death's of Yorktown, Hornet and Lexington (the latter indirectly as it was the two torp hits which released the vapors that eventually ignighted into a massive explosion later) Bomb hits on USN carriers were less vital mainly due to the their smaller size coupled with superior damage control efforts. (Wasp as we all know, was doomed by sub delivered torps and Saratoga damaged twice)
There is one notable exeptions to this.
Bombs that "near miss" very close to a hull can and often do cause FLT damage....but this is a different situation from a direct hit and is easily represented even within the confines of UV's existing model (in effect its already there as bombs can strike the belt armor......a near miss HL would be preferable as this should have a chance to bypass belt armor to loosen plates underneath this layer of protection if the bomb explodes deep enough into the water)
So starting with more realistic pen ratings for bombs is only the beginning and for the most part would represent to radical a change for an existing game. So i'm hoping these ideas will be considered for WitP
What is the goal of all this in terms of the wargame(s) Warships right now are extremely fragile, especially amoung smaller types (DD's in particular) The result in the game is excessive and quick sinkings, usually in #'s greatly inflated from real life, not all of which can be blamed on AI's or brash player tactics. Ships die hard as a rule unless struck by catastrophe, and the examples of non catastrophic damage far outnumber their more spectacular counterparts. We do not see this in UV though.....hits that penetrate tend to cause grevious levels of SYS, FLT and FIRE damage, in greater degrees of severety as weapon sizes increase and ship sizes and DUR ratings decrease. I have reguarily seen fully intact CA's reduced to 65+% damage by one or two major caliber hits (BB size) and Destroyers are routinely sunk with around a half dozen to a dozen medium caliber hits. This is a bit of a seperate issue from bombs but is related to the overall picture. What bombs and shell hits both need is a non SYS and FLT producing Hit Location that can soak up some of these hits. I have named this HL "Superstructure" as this is a very real HL.....ships, even battleships are not all armor, they contain alot of unprotected areas that while are not vital to the ship's survival or operation, are highly vulnerable to attack by incendiary weapons in the forms of GP bombs and HE shells, even little ones like 5" pop guns from destroyers. This HL should have a high chance of producing FIRE levels but zero SYS and FLT since the location does not contain any vital systems or underwater hull. Being an unarmored area all hits "penetrate" but since no SYS or FLT can accrue it wont affect Dur....only serve to soak up hits, cause FIRES, which can increase detection levels, bringing it more potential grief from enemies, suffer real SYS damage from said FIRE levels, suffer reduced efficiency if severe enough and increase surviviability, even among the little warships. Reduced sinkings to more reasonable levels will help to slow operational pace, as navies wont be sunk in a few weeks (heh, like i just did to the AI in my current game)
Here's an interesting statistic:
BuShips, (USN: Buerau of ships) compiled the following data
251 cases of war-damage involving destroyers were reported between 1941 and 45
Of 192 DD's struck by bombs, gunfire or Kamakaze, 162 or 84% survived.
In contrast, 27 DD's out of 48 damaged by torpedoes or mines went down, a survival rate of only 44%
Underwater damage is critical to a warship's health and more often than not it takes an underwater weapon to cause it. Bombs, and a large % of shellfire, will statistically tend to strike the upper portions of warship vs. striking at or below the waterline. For shellfire, range is the major factor here, as the range shortens, shell trajectories flatten increasing the liklihood of impact with a ship's upper hull or superstructure (as attested in numerous night battles in WWII as the range was very close most of the time) Bombs have a better chance in the form of punishing near misses alongside the hull but direct impacts will, like shells, tend to cause non FLT related injuries and especially FIRE damage.
Hi Apollo. I'll answer your question in two parts.
Here are the stated changes to bomb ratings posted by Matrix
Device Name Current Effect Current Pen Altered Device Name Altered Effect Altered Pen
30 kg Bomb 66 16 30 kg GP Bomb 66 11
60 kg Bomb 132 33 60 kg GP Bomb 132 22
100 lb Bomb 100 25 100 lb GP Bomb 100 17
250 lb Bomb 250 60 250 lb GP Bomb 250 45
500 lb Bomb 500 125 500 lb GP Bomb 500 85
1000 lb Bomb 1000 250 1000 lb GP Bomb 1000 170
2000 lb Bomb 2000 500 2000 lb GP Bomb 2000 340
4000 lb Bomb 4000 1000 4000 lb GP Bomb 4000 670
100 kg Bomb 220 55 100 kg AP Bomb 150 55
250 kg Bomb 551 140 250 kg AP Bomb 370 140
Though a major improvement. More needs to be done IMO and i'm hoping i dont sound ungrateful to what Matrix has been doing because I am No other wargaming company has ever responded so fast and so often to player input.
I just posted new and more specific info on AP, SAP and GP bombs in my More bomb info thread a few down which gives more detail.
These ratings are indeed better but still represent an overpenetrative ability of GP bombs in the game. I acknowledge that part of this reason may be concerns over carriers that currently have armor stats that could be interpreted by the game engine as 'non penetrative' hits. Again i've preposed an easy solution to this which would require no major rewrite of the UV engine.
The 2nd part of course, is the actual test, where things really count. As of yet I have had no chance to set up static tests yet but hope to do so tommorrow.
What I've seen so far are results i'd expect given what's been posted above. A thwarted IJN bombardment of Lunga by a two BB led TF yielded me three confirmed 500lb GP bomb hits on the battleship Hyuga (125mm deck rating)
Given the new rating of 85mm for the 500lb GP, these naturally did not penetrate (two deck hits , no pen but one 25mm AA gun was destroyed) one belt armor hit (UV's equivilent of a "near miss" right now) which also did not penetrate
Result: SYS 2% FLT 0 FIRE 0
If any fires were caused they immediately extinquished....a problem but one hopefully to be addressed in WitP.
Thats all so far in terms of bomb hits......On an related note, i am loving the new air to ground routines vis-a-vis high altidue vs infantry and airbase infrastructure, the standdown button and the enhanced air to air msg interface
Given the posted bomb stats, the tests though are a bit unnecessary as the Hyuga example seems to show, after all we are all fairly familiar now with how the combat model works.....if a weapon penetrates, damage accrues, if not, none to very minor accures (but with a small FIRE chance) The exception to this though was a post HARD SARGE sent my way over on the bug forum where he claims a Hyuga class BB shrugged off two 1000lb GP hits with one penetration. Since the new 1000lb GP rating is allegedly 170mm.....this should not have happened. The possible explanation for this is that further tweaks were done. Matrix said that they'd added a few more touches to 2.0 before the release but no subsequent updated 2.0 list has been made available either in the patch or on the forum. I'm hoping an updated list will appear soon so i can confirm or dispense with the possibility that the ratings have been further tweaked.
Since understandably UV patches are mainly concerned with tweaking the existing game engine and eliminating bugs, the other more dynamic issues i've brought up with ship damage cannot really be addressed but i hope to see them attempted in the future WitP
These dynamics revolve around the damage model when weapons (such as GP bombs) do not penetrate a HL. GP bombs especially should have a large capacity to cause FIRE damage as what they lack in penetrative qualities they make up for in sheer blast effect and light structure damages. Most of all though they are a potentially serious FIRE hazzard, particularily to wooden decked carriers.
Thus even a BB must remain respectful of the presence of bombers in it's area as enough hits in a short enough "pulse" of incoming damage could start serious FIREs which might prove difficult to extinquish.
If said FIREs are either large enough or prove long lasting enough, it would be "they" that would begin to accrue SYS damage as time/turns go by in the same vein as the progressive flooding rules can accrue and sustain FLT damage. The effect of this is to cause valuable warships, even superficially damaged to withdrawl from the combat theater to focus on damage control and in extreme cases, repair the ship.
A 2nd dynamic is more a clarification and extention of the first dynamic, mainly that FIRE damage should have far greater possibilities to sustain and even increase if the damage 'rolls' go badly. Right now FIRE damage always reduces greatly per turn, rarely staying level and i've never seen it increase. Carriers in particular should be vulnerable to this as they were potential flame traps with their wooden decks, flamable planes and AVgas storage. Further there should be a posibility for explosion as well. For carriers the msg/reason should be either magazine explosion or AvGas explosion, surface warships, magazine. Such an event should be a critical event causing signifigant SYS and FIRE damage with an option for FLT damage as well. In worst case situations, it might even sink the ship.
Another dynamic that needs to be addressed (in WitP if not UV depending on the coding complexity) is the distribution of damage when a bomb "does" penetrate. FLT damage should be IMO "greatly" curtailed vs belt armor/torp hits which represent waterline damage. My research showed that even in smaller ship's cases (CA, CL , DD) that damage originating from above water....(whether bomb, kamakaze or shell that doesnt strike the waterline) often does not cause FLT damage but does cause serious topside, internal and/or FIRE damage. USN survivability studies for DD's conducted after the war determined that in cases of extreme damage (such as USS Laffey in 45), in addition to heroic damage control the other key factor that influenced ship survival was intact water-tight integrity (as most of the damage was sustained by the hull above water, most of which was flattened by over 11 Kamakaze hits!) In contrast, DD's that suffered moderate to signifigant breaches in water tight integrity were far less likely to survive statistically as war losses amoung destroyers showed
Even bombs that penetrate deep into a ship's hull will not be as likely to cause FLT damage as a torp for the simple reason that torps always breach the hull skin compromising water-tight integrity. Bombs can do this but not nearly as often as a bomb is just as likely to explode well into the interior of a ship vs the hull skin. Lexington, and Yorktown at Coral Sea and Midway as well in the latter's case suffered no FLT damage even by bombs that penetrated more than several decks into their hullls. FIRE and material damage to machinery and compartments were what were caused (SYS damage) Thus i feel that FLT damage from bombs needs to be reduced substantially to reflect this and to better differentiate them from torpedoes. Of course as is well documented, Akagi, Kaga and Soryu...all unarmored carriers in terms of flight decks, were turned into FIRE infernos by 1000lb GP bomb hits....no hull or FLT damage was suffered and FIRE caused their demise in the end.
Hiryu was similarily afflicted. Her flight deck was demolished by four 1000lb'ers that exploded either on contact with the wooden deck or shortly thereafter in the hanger causing again FIRE damage. Damage records from the carrier though state that her hull underwater and propulsion systems remained 100% intact and she actually retained 30 knot capability for a while until heat, spreading FIRES and smoke eventually trapped crewmen and choked the boilers. Next day photo well distributed since WWII clearly show the extent of the topside damage to the flight and hanger deck......the ship is at this point adrift but is on an even keel with no appreciable list or settling of the hull. She was eventually scuttled by surface torps.
In contrast, attack planes carrying torpedos were directly responsible for the death's of Yorktown, Hornet and Lexington (the latter indirectly as it was the two torp hits which released the vapors that eventually ignighted into a massive explosion later) Bomb hits on USN carriers were less vital mainly due to the their smaller size coupled with superior damage control efforts. (Wasp as we all know, was doomed by sub delivered torps and Saratoga damaged twice)
There is one notable exeptions to this.
Bombs that "near miss" very close to a hull can and often do cause FLT damage....but this is a different situation from a direct hit and is easily represented even within the confines of UV's existing model (in effect its already there as bombs can strike the belt armor......a near miss HL would be preferable as this should have a chance to bypass belt armor to loosen plates underneath this layer of protection if the bomb explodes deep enough into the water)
So starting with more realistic pen ratings for bombs is only the beginning and for the most part would represent to radical a change for an existing game. So i'm hoping these ideas will be considered for WitP
What is the goal of all this in terms of the wargame(s) Warships right now are extremely fragile, especially amoung smaller types (DD's in particular) The result in the game is excessive and quick sinkings, usually in #'s greatly inflated from real life, not all of which can be blamed on AI's or brash player tactics. Ships die hard as a rule unless struck by catastrophe, and the examples of non catastrophic damage far outnumber their more spectacular counterparts. We do not see this in UV though.....hits that penetrate tend to cause grevious levels of SYS, FLT and FIRE damage, in greater degrees of severety as weapon sizes increase and ship sizes and DUR ratings decrease. I have reguarily seen fully intact CA's reduced to 65+% damage by one or two major caliber hits (BB size) and Destroyers are routinely sunk with around a half dozen to a dozen medium caliber hits. This is a bit of a seperate issue from bombs but is related to the overall picture. What bombs and shell hits both need is a non SYS and FLT producing Hit Location that can soak up some of these hits. I have named this HL "Superstructure" as this is a very real HL.....ships, even battleships are not all armor, they contain alot of unprotected areas that while are not vital to the ship's survival or operation, are highly vulnerable to attack by incendiary weapons in the forms of GP bombs and HE shells, even little ones like 5" pop guns from destroyers. This HL should have a high chance of producing FIRE levels but zero SYS and FLT since the location does not contain any vital systems or underwater hull. Being an unarmored area all hits "penetrate" but since no SYS or FLT can accrue it wont affect Dur....only serve to soak up hits, cause FIRES, which can increase detection levels, bringing it more potential grief from enemies, suffer real SYS damage from said FIRE levels, suffer reduced efficiency if severe enough and increase surviviability, even among the little warships. Reduced sinkings to more reasonable levels will help to slow operational pace, as navies wont be sunk in a few weeks (heh, like i just did to the AI in my current game)
Here's an interesting statistic:
BuShips, (USN: Buerau of ships) compiled the following data
251 cases of war-damage involving destroyers were reported between 1941 and 45
Of 192 DD's struck by bombs, gunfire or Kamakaze, 162 or 84% survived.
In contrast, 27 DD's out of 48 damaged by torpedoes or mines went down, a survival rate of only 44%
Underwater damage is critical to a warship's health and more often than not it takes an underwater weapon to cause it. Bombs, and a large % of shellfire, will statistically tend to strike the upper portions of warship vs. striking at or below the waterline. For shellfire, range is the major factor here, as the range shortens, shell trajectories flatten increasing the liklihood of impact with a ship's upper hull or superstructure (as attested in numerous night battles in WWII as the range was very close most of the time) Bombs have a better chance in the form of punishing near misses alongside the hull but direct impacts will, like shells, tend to cause non FLT related injuries and especially FIRE damage.
Thanks!
Hi all
Thanks Nikademus - great post!!!
I hope you can find some time to test bombs vs. ships in days to come
and that we will see much better (though still not "ideal) situation
in UV...
Leo "Apollo11"
Thanks Nikademus - great post!!!
I hope you can find some time to test bombs vs. ships in days to come
and that we will see much better (though still not "ideal) situation
in UV...
Leo "Apollo11"
Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!
A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE
TEST RESULTS - 2.0
Conditions of test.
1) FOW off
2) Japanese units as targets to access non bonus DC efforts
3) US SBD's only(no torp bombers), tests 1-8 using 1000lb GP
tests 9 and 10 using 500lb GP at extended range
4) If a unit is damaged, it is detached and sent home to access repair efforts and effects of FIRE levels.
5) Tests 1 contained a BB TF, with the battleships Yamato, Mutsu, Hiei, Kirishima and CA Chokai
6) Tests 2-4, same as 1) only without the Mutsu which was badly damaged in test 1. Her presence was there mainly to confirm the new Matrix pen ratings for 1000lb GP bomb. Since her deck was penetrated every time, and since her deck armor is thicker than the Fuso and Hyuga class BB's this confirms that the ratings have not been tweaked additionally. (sorry HARDSARGE)
7) Tests 5-8 were single unit TF's containing one battleship in order to maximize hits and access damage (+ only one USN CV was attacking!!!!)
8) Tests 9-10 were extended range tests against the CA Chokai and a small DD escort to increase DL at 8 hexes distant
**Damage results will be given as numerical figures in order of SYS/FLT/FIRE**, the first set will represent immediate damage effects after attack (i.e. the following turn) with each subset of SYS/FLT/FIRE reprsenting the turn after and so on and so on until either DC efforts are concluded or the ship sinks:
Test 1
BB Mutsu: 4 x 1000lb GP hits. All penetrated deck armor
result: 55/36/40----->63/42/13---->68/63/5---->68/63/0 (port reached)
BB Hiei: 1 x 1000lb GP deck penetrated
result: 11/5/15----> 14/0/0
*********
Test 2
BB Hiei 2 x 1000lb GP deck penetrated
result: 52/22/26 ---->57/33/10---->59/45/5---->59/45/0
BB Yamato: 1 x 1000lb GP deck hit....no pen
result: 0/0/1
CA Chokai: 3 x 1000lb (2 belt hits/1 deck, all penetrated)
result: 35/66/26----> 39/72/8---->Port reached (Rabaul)
***********
Test 3
BB Hiei: 3 x 1000lb GP Deck penetrated
result: 58/03/26---->64/0/8---->64/0/2---->64/0/0
BB Yamato: 1 x 1000lb Deck hit, no pen.
result: 0/0/0
**********
Test 4
BB Kirishima: 1 x 1000lb GP Deck penetrated
result: 22/9/11---->25/2/3---->26/0/1---->26/0/0
BB Yamato: 1 x 1000lb GP Deck hit, no pen
result: 0/0/0
********
Test 5
BB Kirishima: 9 x 1000lb GP (deck penetrated)
result: 57/71/49---->63/76/15---->68/97/9---->sank
****
Test 6a
BB Kirishima: 8 x 1000lb GP (deck penetrated)
result: 83/40/47---->86/68/15---->89/73/5---->89/81/1---->89/84/0---->89/92/0----sank
****
test 6b
CA Chokai 9 x 1000lb GP (2-belt, rest deck--all penetrated)
result: 73/88/45---->80/97/14---->sank
****
Test 7
BB Yamato: 6 x 1000lb GP deck hit, no pen
result: 3/0/4---->3/0/0
****
Test 8
BB Hiei: 4 x 1000lb GP deck penetrated
result: 53/29/19---->57/29/7---->61/44/3---->61/45/0---->61/55/0---->Port reached
****
Test 9
CA Chokai: 1 x 500lb GP** deck penetrated
result: 2/0/0
DD Umakazi: 1 x 500lb GP deck penetrated
result: 6/11/5---->7/3/1---->7/0/0
****
Test 10
CA Chokai: 2 x 500lb GP Deck penetrated
result: 20/31/16
DD Suzukazi: 1 x 500lb GP Deck penetrated
result: 47/21/29
DD Uzuki: 1 x 500lb GP (Weapon mount destroyed/deck pen)
result: 14/0/14
Conclusions:
1.)Well first off, It would appear that the orig 2.0 bomb pen stats have been confirmed. With the 1000lb GP bomb still able to penetrate a very impressive 170mm of armor, all IJN BB classes remain hidiously vulnerable to this high explosive weapon save for the Yamato class battleships. USN is in better position as they only face 250kg but more importantly the only ships in the game for them are modern BB's with armor decks proof against them. (the rating for the 250kg'er is still too high....not even British armored carriers which could resist a 1000lb would withstand this bomb with it's current rating)
**-I noticed this phenomenem several times in the 10 tests which may explain HARDSARGE's claim that he saw 2 1000lb GP hits not penetrate the deck of Hyuga. CA Chokai was reported hit by a 500LB GP bomb, the msg "Deck penetrated" followed, however after there was no msg with the usual report of heavy damage or fire etc etc. This may represent a random that pops up from time to time when the "effect" rating of the weapon penetrating is compared to the DUR rating of the ship, resulting in minimal damage. If so thats great. However it may be a glitch too as i saw this effect pop up two other times during the test and even more curiously, the "Hits" though reported penetrations were not counted in the after battle report. (Fog of war was turned off as mentioned for these tests)
Either that or the Sarge possibly mistook a "Belt armor hit" for a deck hit. The new ratings do not allow the Mutsu, Hyuga, Kongo and Fuso class BB's to be penetrated from that HL.
2.) Effect of FIRE levels
This is a piece of good news! FIRE damage is indeed resulting from heavy FIRE levels when they are achieved aboard ship. I like this. Since the turns are 24 hour turns i can also understand why these levels would go down most of the time....however i would still like to see a bit more of a dynamic involved here where fire levels can either increase if severe enough, or if an explosion occurs (This should definately be in place for CARRIERS!)
The bad news is that FIRE levels appear to also cause additional FLT damage along with SYS damage. This should be supresssed. The reason for this is because of the severe progressive flooding rules in the game. By itself, esp for the IJN player with no DC bonus though even the USN gets hit by this too, it increases the effect of ship fragility in the game. FIRE level damages causing additional FLT damage should only occur IMO, once SYS damage reaches 99% at which point the ship could be considered so heavily damaged that scuttling would be warrented. If at 99% and fires still rage it could also be considered that the fires are burning so hot that water-tight integrity becomes compromised (assuming the fires are below said waterline...not always the case.) Numerous reallife examples exist to confirm this......esp amoung carriers....(Hiryu.....Hornet....Lexington, even Wasp to a degree) A ship can burn for a long time without sinking, prompting more desperate measures (such as scuttling) when a naval force has to withdrawl or move on and they dont want the enemy to either capture the ship or have the "honor" of dispatching an enemy warship.
3.) With extremely rare exeptions (DD Uzuki after her combo weapons hit/deck pen) bomb penetrations *always* cause a ratio of SYS/FLT/FIRE damage. This again helps lead to ship fragility as most ships with moderate FIRE and FLT damage ususally become cripples as a result of the combined progressive flooding rules and FIRE damage rolls per turn as they burn. In many of the cases, the ship sinks as FLT damage above 30% never stabilizes, but always rolls to increase or decrease. Even the USN damage control bonus cannot always save a ship when this happens.
Sometimes a hit will give a much larger SYS to FLT ratio which is good, but at least some FLT is done every time too (which is bad). More often the ratio of FLT to SYS is around 2:1, but not always......sometimes the ratio is even or reversed in some cases (often caused by belt hits that penetrate....though the mine effect is a reallife threat, these hits would not disgrace a Long Lance torpedo in the FLT effect they are causing!!)
FLT damage from direct bomb hits should be a rare thing. I would like to see bomb hits that cause zero FLT on pen the majority of the time, causing SYS and FIRE damage as seen in numerous wartime examples.
4) Non penetrating hits.
I like that little to no SYS is being caused as this rating represents critical systems on the warship, protected by armor. However, i do believe that there should be a greater chance for FIRE levels, especially for larger bombs such as 1000lb (and of course the late war 2000lb) The best I observed was in Test 7 using the Yamato to test out the effect of non-pen large GP bomb hits...... 4 FIRE levels was the best result achieved. Now i'm not suggesting one go overboard with this and one see 40 FIRE levels but as with small HE shells, there needs to be a better chance of setting ships on fire even in non-penetration. Remember the experience of the Hiei at Guadalcanal.....all those small caliber HE hits started heavy fires which took over a day to extinquish which should result in light SYS damage if they burn long enough. Right now, the effect is little better than the slow acumaltory buildup of SYS damage from being out at sea!
5) Last but not least......GP Bomb pen ratings remain too high. These weapons retain AP qualities that I would expect from the pre-war and early war converted AP shells that were in the USN inventory at their stated time periods. A Mk-1 1590lb AP Bomb i would expect to penetrate battleships such as Fuso, or a Kongo (in a 300kt dive) but GP bombs of 1000lb weight are more than 1/2 explosive and thin nose and body shells and would have little armor piercing capability. Their primary purpose is to damage lightly protected targets with blast damage and fire. These weapons were particularily devastating against wooden decked carriers but are a far lesser threat against battleships and latewar cruisers. (most early war cruisers would be vulnerable as their average deck protection is 1.5 inches......splinter level protection on battleships)
However as mentioned....even in penetration they should not cause FLT damage nearly as much as they do which is pretty much 98% right now. Bombs in other words remain steeply angled torpedoes resulting in extreme fragility among warships. (Shells have the same problem as every Belt penetration almost always if not always causes FLT damage......the additional HL Superstructure would help address this issue)
1) FOW off
2) Japanese units as targets to access non bonus DC efforts
3) US SBD's only(no torp bombers), tests 1-8 using 1000lb GP
tests 9 and 10 using 500lb GP at extended range
4) If a unit is damaged, it is detached and sent home to access repair efforts and effects of FIRE levels.
5) Tests 1 contained a BB TF, with the battleships Yamato, Mutsu, Hiei, Kirishima and CA Chokai
6) Tests 2-4, same as 1) only without the Mutsu which was badly damaged in test 1. Her presence was there mainly to confirm the new Matrix pen ratings for 1000lb GP bomb. Since her deck was penetrated every time, and since her deck armor is thicker than the Fuso and Hyuga class BB's this confirms that the ratings have not been tweaked additionally. (sorry HARDSARGE)
7) Tests 5-8 were single unit TF's containing one battleship in order to maximize hits and access damage (+ only one USN CV was attacking!!!!)
8) Tests 9-10 were extended range tests against the CA Chokai and a small DD escort to increase DL at 8 hexes distant
**Damage results will be given as numerical figures in order of SYS/FLT/FIRE**, the first set will represent immediate damage effects after attack (i.e. the following turn) with each subset of SYS/FLT/FIRE reprsenting the turn after and so on and so on until either DC efforts are concluded or the ship sinks:
Test 1
BB Mutsu: 4 x 1000lb GP hits. All penetrated deck armor
result: 55/36/40----->63/42/13---->68/63/5---->68/63/0 (port reached)
BB Hiei: 1 x 1000lb GP deck penetrated
result: 11/5/15----> 14/0/0
*********
Test 2
BB Hiei 2 x 1000lb GP deck penetrated
result: 52/22/26 ---->57/33/10---->59/45/5---->59/45/0
BB Yamato: 1 x 1000lb GP deck hit....no pen
result: 0/0/1
CA Chokai: 3 x 1000lb (2 belt hits/1 deck, all penetrated)
result: 35/66/26----> 39/72/8---->Port reached (Rabaul)
***********
Test 3
BB Hiei: 3 x 1000lb GP Deck penetrated
result: 58/03/26---->64/0/8---->64/0/2---->64/0/0
BB Yamato: 1 x 1000lb Deck hit, no pen.
result: 0/0/0
**********
Test 4
BB Kirishima: 1 x 1000lb GP Deck penetrated
result: 22/9/11---->25/2/3---->26/0/1---->26/0/0
BB Yamato: 1 x 1000lb GP Deck hit, no pen
result: 0/0/0
********
Test 5
BB Kirishima: 9 x 1000lb GP (deck penetrated)
result: 57/71/49---->63/76/15---->68/97/9---->sank
****
Test 6a
BB Kirishima: 8 x 1000lb GP (deck penetrated)
result: 83/40/47---->86/68/15---->89/73/5---->89/81/1---->89/84/0---->89/92/0----sank
****
test 6b
CA Chokai 9 x 1000lb GP (2-belt, rest deck--all penetrated)
result: 73/88/45---->80/97/14---->sank
****
Test 7
BB Yamato: 6 x 1000lb GP deck hit, no pen
result: 3/0/4---->3/0/0
****
Test 8
BB Hiei: 4 x 1000lb GP deck penetrated
result: 53/29/19---->57/29/7---->61/44/3---->61/45/0---->61/55/0---->Port reached
****
Test 9
CA Chokai: 1 x 500lb GP** deck penetrated
result: 2/0/0
DD Umakazi: 1 x 500lb GP deck penetrated
result: 6/11/5---->7/3/1---->7/0/0
****
Test 10
CA Chokai: 2 x 500lb GP Deck penetrated
result: 20/31/16
DD Suzukazi: 1 x 500lb GP Deck penetrated
result: 47/21/29
DD Uzuki: 1 x 500lb GP (Weapon mount destroyed/deck pen)
result: 14/0/14
Conclusions:
1.)Well first off, It would appear that the orig 2.0 bomb pen stats have been confirmed. With the 1000lb GP bomb still able to penetrate a very impressive 170mm of armor, all IJN BB classes remain hidiously vulnerable to this high explosive weapon save for the Yamato class battleships. USN is in better position as they only face 250kg but more importantly the only ships in the game for them are modern BB's with armor decks proof against them. (the rating for the 250kg'er is still too high....not even British armored carriers which could resist a 1000lb would withstand this bomb with it's current rating)
**-I noticed this phenomenem several times in the 10 tests which may explain HARDSARGE's claim that he saw 2 1000lb GP hits not penetrate the deck of Hyuga. CA Chokai was reported hit by a 500LB GP bomb, the msg "Deck penetrated" followed, however after there was no msg with the usual report of heavy damage or fire etc etc. This may represent a random that pops up from time to time when the "effect" rating of the weapon penetrating is compared to the DUR rating of the ship, resulting in minimal damage. If so thats great. However it may be a glitch too as i saw this effect pop up two other times during the test and even more curiously, the "Hits" though reported penetrations were not counted in the after battle report. (Fog of war was turned off as mentioned for these tests)
Either that or the Sarge possibly mistook a "Belt armor hit" for a deck hit. The new ratings do not allow the Mutsu, Hyuga, Kongo and Fuso class BB's to be penetrated from that HL.
2.) Effect of FIRE levels
This is a piece of good news! FIRE damage is indeed resulting from heavy FIRE levels when they are achieved aboard ship. I like this. Since the turns are 24 hour turns i can also understand why these levels would go down most of the time....however i would still like to see a bit more of a dynamic involved here where fire levels can either increase if severe enough, or if an explosion occurs (This should definately be in place for CARRIERS!)
The bad news is that FIRE levels appear to also cause additional FLT damage along with SYS damage. This should be supresssed. The reason for this is because of the severe progressive flooding rules in the game. By itself, esp for the IJN player with no DC bonus though even the USN gets hit by this too, it increases the effect of ship fragility in the game. FIRE level damages causing additional FLT damage should only occur IMO, once SYS damage reaches 99% at which point the ship could be considered so heavily damaged that scuttling would be warrented. If at 99% and fires still rage it could also be considered that the fires are burning so hot that water-tight integrity becomes compromised (assuming the fires are below said waterline...not always the case.) Numerous reallife examples exist to confirm this......esp amoung carriers....(Hiryu.....Hornet....Lexington, even Wasp to a degree) A ship can burn for a long time without sinking, prompting more desperate measures (such as scuttling) when a naval force has to withdrawl or move on and they dont want the enemy to either capture the ship or have the "honor" of dispatching an enemy warship.
3.) With extremely rare exeptions (DD Uzuki after her combo weapons hit/deck pen) bomb penetrations *always* cause a ratio of SYS/FLT/FIRE damage. This again helps lead to ship fragility as most ships with moderate FIRE and FLT damage ususally become cripples as a result of the combined progressive flooding rules and FIRE damage rolls per turn as they burn. In many of the cases, the ship sinks as FLT damage above 30% never stabilizes, but always rolls to increase or decrease. Even the USN damage control bonus cannot always save a ship when this happens.
Sometimes a hit will give a much larger SYS to FLT ratio which is good, but at least some FLT is done every time too (which is bad). More often the ratio of FLT to SYS is around 2:1, but not always......sometimes the ratio is even or reversed in some cases (often caused by belt hits that penetrate....though the mine effect is a reallife threat, these hits would not disgrace a Long Lance torpedo in the FLT effect they are causing!!)
FLT damage from direct bomb hits should be a rare thing. I would like to see bomb hits that cause zero FLT on pen the majority of the time, causing SYS and FIRE damage as seen in numerous wartime examples.
4) Non penetrating hits.
I like that little to no SYS is being caused as this rating represents critical systems on the warship, protected by armor. However, i do believe that there should be a greater chance for FIRE levels, especially for larger bombs such as 1000lb (and of course the late war 2000lb) The best I observed was in Test 7 using the Yamato to test out the effect of non-pen large GP bomb hits...... 4 FIRE levels was the best result achieved. Now i'm not suggesting one go overboard with this and one see 40 FIRE levels but as with small HE shells, there needs to be a better chance of setting ships on fire even in non-penetration. Remember the experience of the Hiei at Guadalcanal.....all those small caliber HE hits started heavy fires which took over a day to extinquish which should result in light SYS damage if they burn long enough. Right now, the effect is little better than the slow acumaltory buildup of SYS damage from being out at sea!
5) Last but not least......GP Bomb pen ratings remain too high. These weapons retain AP qualities that I would expect from the pre-war and early war converted AP shells that were in the USN inventory at their stated time periods. A Mk-1 1590lb AP Bomb i would expect to penetrate battleships such as Fuso, or a Kongo (in a 300kt dive) but GP bombs of 1000lb weight are more than 1/2 explosive and thin nose and body shells and would have little armor piercing capability. Their primary purpose is to damage lightly protected targets with blast damage and fire. These weapons were particularily devastating against wooden decked carriers but are a far lesser threat against battleships and latewar cruisers. (most early war cruisers would be vulnerable as their average deck protection is 1.5 inches......splinter level protection on battleships)
However as mentioned....even in penetration they should not cause FLT damage nearly as much as they do which is pretty much 98% right now. Bombs in other words remain steeply angled torpedoes resulting in extreme fragility among warships. (Shells have the same problem as every Belt penetration almost always if not always causes FLT damage......the additional HL Superstructure would help address this issue)
-
Hoplosternum
- Posts: 663
- Joined: Wed Jun 12, 2002 8:39 pm
- Location: Romford, England
Hello Nickademus,
A great post. But I do have one query with your arguments. In your effects of fire point you say that fire should not cause extra floatation damage which at first appears reasonable. But of cause this could be in the game to represent the effect fires are having on hampering damage control efforts. This seems to be reasonable to me. Progressive flooding is more likely to occur if it cannot be tackled efficently due to fires restricting the crews movements and the equipment.
Just having fires cause extra SYS damage would not really reflect this as SYS damage doesn't sink the ships, FLT damage does.
A great post. But I do have one query with your arguments. In your effects of fire point you say that fire should not cause extra floatation damage which at first appears reasonable. But of cause this could be in the game to represent the effect fires are having on hampering damage control efforts. This seems to be reasonable to me. Progressive flooding is more likely to occur if it cannot be tackled efficently due to fires restricting the crews movements and the equipment.
Just having fires cause extra SYS damage would not really reflect this as SYS damage doesn't sink the ships, FLT damage does.
-
HARD_SARGE
- Posts: 168
- Joined: Mon May 27, 2002 9:58 am
- Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Hi Niki
well from my battle, as I said, it was with the patch, but with the last OB, so the armor rateing may be off (FOW is on)
I attacked a BB TF, with had the Kirishima and the Naguto (?)
1 1000 bomb hit on the Kirishima and I could swear it said deck armor hit, and nothing, 2 hit the Naguto and same thing, 3rd hit, and got the pen/heavy damage, and ship put up a big black smoke trail after the hit
the next day, my CV's got in range as they limped for home, I again hit the Naguto, with 6 more 1000's, but this time 5 Pen and only 1 hit the deck armor
later out of wondering what had indeed happened, I checked out the JP side, and the Naguto made it home, but is in Japan for the next 378 days
which from this game, do not think I will see many more BB's, all the CV's are down (1 CVE in Truk and 1 in Japan)
I don't know, but the IJN AP's seem to be as strong as the BB are now, I got my CV's between Kavang and Truk, and have hit a number of TF's and 4 to 6 1000 hits on one AP are common, along with 1 or 2 Trops and the ship sails away (or seems to, TF's are picking up men from the water, but normally the next day or day after, not when the hits are happening)
HARD_Sarge
well from my battle, as I said, it was with the patch, but with the last OB, so the armor rateing may be off (FOW is on)
I attacked a BB TF, with had the Kirishima and the Naguto (?)
1 1000 bomb hit on the Kirishima and I could swear it said deck armor hit, and nothing, 2 hit the Naguto and same thing, 3rd hit, and got the pen/heavy damage, and ship put up a big black smoke trail after the hit
the next day, my CV's got in range as they limped for home, I again hit the Naguto, with 6 more 1000's, but this time 5 Pen and only 1 hit the deck armor
later out of wondering what had indeed happened, I checked out the JP side, and the Naguto made it home, but is in Japan for the next 378 days
which from this game, do not think I will see many more BB's, all the CV's are down (1 CVE in Truk and 1 in Japan)
I don't know, but the IJN AP's seem to be as strong as the BB are now, I got my CV's between Kavang and Truk, and have hit a number of TF's and 4 to 6 1000 hits on one AP are common, along with 1 or 2 Trops and the ship sails away (or seems to, TF's are picking up men from the water, but normally the next day or day after, not when the hits are happening)
HARD_Sarge
Hi Hoplosternum.Originally posted by Hoplosternum
Hello Nickademus,
A great post. But I do have one query with your arguments. In your effects of fire point you say that fire should not cause extra floatation damage which at first appears reasonable. But of cause this could be in the game to represent the effect fires are having on hampering damage control efforts. This seems to be reasonable to me. Progressive flooding is more likely to occur if it cannot be tackled efficently due to fires restricting the crews movements and the equipment.
Just having fires cause extra SYS damage would not really reflect this as SYS damage doesn't sink the ships, FLT damage does.
My reasons for suggesting FLT damage caused by FIRE damage are threefold
1) Progressive flooding is already well covered by it's own rules and is quite deadly. Piling additional FLT damage caused by FIRE levels only increases ship fragility in the game, a serious issue IMO.
2) FLT damage occurs far too often regardless of weapon (usually a preportion of SYS/FLT/FIRE which in a way counters the whole idea of having such a level of detail....one almost might as well go back to the old PacWar standard of a single all-encompasing Damage %.
3) Most reports i've read in regards to fires did not result in additional FLT damage. In fact for several ships that did burn at sea, they eventually had to be scuttled after fires proved unquenchable and damage too severe. Thus you are correct when you say fires causing SYS damage wont sink the ships....this is exactly how it should be. However a crippled ship (75-99% damage) is, for all intents and purposes about as good as a sunk ship, the player is left with the decision as to how to proceed. Even such extreme examples as the burning IJN carriers did not yield to progressive flooding, FIRE damage eventually led either to scuttling or explosion which then caused loss of water-tight integrity.
Of course i realize that certain "gamey" tricks could be played here, one of the reasons why Matrix implemented a rule allowing even a ship with '0' propulsion to be able to move a minimum of one hex per turn. Players will probably be loath to scuttle a ship due to VP considerations. There are three ways to counter this
a) - give a ship with 99% SYS damage a VP total very close to the ship being sunk (as it will be out of action for a very long time)
b) if FIRE levels are still burning, allow FLT damage to begin accruing once the ship reaches 99%. Additionally.....if there is FLT damage from previous hits, progressive flooding rules could be made more severe to represent structural failure and other critical damages to the ship
c) Give players an incentive to scuttle when the situation warrents by allowing crew and captain to survive (this is already in place) and by penalizing players for keeping floating hulks afloat (99%) by scoring additional Damage points per turn. I believe a similar system was in place for previous wargames.
d) ships with extreme levels of SYS damage should be expensive in terms of repair points and take a long time to repair....forcing a decision on the player's part....take up valuable repair and dock space and eat up production/repair points, or cut one's losses and scuttle.
Hey Sarge!Originally posted by HARD_SARGE
Hi Niki
well from my battle, as I said, it was with the patch, but with the last OB, so the armor rateing may be off (FOW is on)
I attacked a BB TF, with had the Kirishima and the Naguto (?)
1 1000 bomb hit on the Kirishima and I could swear it said deck armor hit, and nothing, 2 hit the Naguto and same thing, 3rd hit, and got the pen/heavy damage, and ship put up a big black smoke trail after the hit
the next day, my CV's got in range as they limped for home, I again hit the Naguto, with 6 more 1000's, but this time 5 Pen and only 1 hit the deck armor
later out of wondering what had indeed happened, I checked out the JP side, and the Naguto made it home, but is in Japan for the next 378 days
which from this game, do not think I will see many more BB's, all the CV's are down (1 CVE in Truk and 1 in Japan)
I don't know, but the IJN AP's seem to be as strong as the BB are now, I got my CV's between Kavang and Truk, and have hit a number of TF's and 4 to 6 1000 hits on one AP are common, along with 1 or 2 Trops and the ship sails away (or seems to, TF's are picking up men from the water, but normally the next day or day after, not when the hits are happening)
HARD_Sarge
Hmm, well i can only guess that you experienced that infrequent effect I noticed in two tests, where a bomb struck the deck armor location, "penetrated" but then was not followed by any damage msg and next-turn observation indicated little damage. This may very well be a random roll on the "effect" calcuation when compared to the DUR rating of the ship which would be equivilent to either a non-vital hit (despite penetrating armor) and/or a dud bomb. Either way, my tests showed, in concordance with Matrix's posted penetration figures that 170mm of armor does indeed appear to be the 1000lb GP rating, enough to penetrate all IJN BB's save the Yamato class.
A third possability (with your Nagato) example would be that FOW played a hand and gave you a phantom hit or two.
AP resiliancy and durability do continue to be somewhat of an issue, particularily with torpedoes.....its rare that a merchant ever goes down as a result of a single torp hit. I can see one surviving a bomb hit or two, less so with torps. One way to fix this would be to write in loaded Merchant ships as possibly suffering AMMO explosions, while tankers should be able to possibly suffer a FUEL explosion when loaded and hit.
Thanks Nikademus!
Hi all,
Thanks Nikademus for testing and informing us!
I hope that things will get better with, possibly, new UV
patch and certainly much better in upcoming WitP...
Leo "Apollo11"
Thanks Nikademus for testing and informing us!
I hope that things will get better with, possibly, new UV
patch and certainly much better in upcoming WitP...
Leo "Apollo11"
Prior Preparation & Planning Prevents Pathetically Poor Performance!
A & B: WitW, WitE, WbtS, GGWaW, GGWaW2-AWD, HttR, CotA, BftB, CF
P: UV, WitP, WitP-AE