How much damage is heavy damage

[KPAX]

And a tech to a ship you will see often times damage, heavy damage, fire, heavy fire.

Are there any rules of thumb as to how much damage each of those above categories is? Say 10% to 20% damage to system is classified as damage versus 30+ system damages heavy damage?

Anyone have any thoughts or experience and what type and level of damage these damage levels are associated with?

[Ambassador]

You mean, as in combat reports ? There’s a heavy dose of FOW there, I have seen ships with « heavy damage » which only had damage in the 10-20’s, and others having 50+ damage when the combat report only state « damage »

Part of the reason why is that damage evolves not only during combat, but several times during the turn. You may have catastrophic damage control failures, or breakthrough. Fires may cause a lot of additional damage, or a trickle. Randomness.

[HansBolter]

ORIGINAL: Ambassador

You mean, as in combat reports ? There’s a heavy dose of FOW there, I have seen ships with « heavy damage » which only had damage in the 10-20’s, and others having 50+ damage when the combat report only state « damage »

Part of the reason why is that damage evolves not only during combat, but several times during the turn. You may have catastrophic damage control failures, or breakthrough. Fires may cause a lot of additional damage, or a trickle. Randomness.

This is absolutely correct.

This can also be seen during the air phases when naval units that have either taken damage in the prior naval phase, or been air bombed earlier in this or a prior phase, get sunk without taking any hits during the air raid. This shows up in the combat report as "and is sunk".

I have always interpreted this to represent the ship suffering fire or flooding damage during the time period (phase) of the air raid from prior wounds even though un-hit during the raid.

[RangerJoe]

Many times after an actual attack a target would be reported as

Left in a sinking condition.

Or at least words to that effect.

[Ambassador]

Nothing beats watching the actual combat animations to assess the damage inflicted. With time, you’ll get a feeling for the actual effect of a deck-penetrating 1000lb on a cruiser, or what MASSIVE EXPLOSION means. You might have 20 bomb hits, heavy fires, heavy damage on a battleship, but when you look it up, it only has 15 or so minor damage ; if you watched the combat animations, you would have seen those 20 bomb hits were all 250lb which failed to penetrate the armor, or did superstructure hits, knocking off a couple of 12.7mm AAMG.

[BBfanboy]

When you look at your damaged ships after combat you can see the range of damage which was called "HF/HD" in the combat animations or combat report. Then consider which side you are playing. The Allied side can perform some really remarkable damage control and put out heavy fires by the time the turn ends - not always but often. With the Japanese, the opposite is true - sometimes they pull off the feat and most times there are at least moderate fires still burning.

And the Japanese in particular seem to have trouble handling simultaneous fire and flood damage.

Then consider the system damage. When it gets above 30 the ship will show some adverse effects to rate of fire and accuracy. Damage control will also start to get less effective. When system damage is over 50 your ship is in danger of damage spreading unpredictably. A series of bad die rolls could lead to the ship sinking from cascading failures.

So like most things in the game, there is a lot of chance built into what "Heavy Damage" means for subsequent turns. Look to your captain's skills (unfortunately the naval skill is not visible until your ship is in port) and crew experience to help assess your chances. I tend to want to put the ship in the nearest port until I can get System damage below 30 and pump out minor flooding, but if fires persist sometimes you just have to head for a bigger port.

[RangerJoe]

Just don't be like the young ladies who drove home as fast as they could when the oil warning light came on. [X(] They did that so they would not run the engine for too long . . . [8|]

Then someone else told me about a coworker of his that would add a unit of engine oil when the engine light came on his new car. He never changed the engine oil,just added more. That engine did not last very long . . . [:(]

[Lokasenna]

As far as I can tell, the reports of "heavy damage" or "heavy fires" are never inaccurate. Never.

"Heavy" in both cases seems to mean >50 or possibly >49. And again, it's always accurate.

Keep in mind that something that isn't reported as heavy during combat might become heavy during damage control phases later in the turn, e.g. fires or minor flooding or system damage getting worse.

[Sardaukar]

Historically IJN was decently good when it came to flooding damage control. And quite average when it came to controlling fires.

Reasons were many. USN pushed damage control procedures to basically anyone on ship (apart from aviators and such) plus sturdier ships and better fire-fighting equipment etc.. In IJN damage control was solely by engineering specialists. Later war IJN "cut the corners" in training a lot and DC skills degraded even more.

As Shattered sword mention, later USN went so far as ordering essential DC people to lay down on floor/deck during combat to avoid unnecessary casualties to fragments.

[RangerJoe]

I recently had a Dutch sub attacked by a Japanese DD with Depth Charges. It was hit hard, came to the surface for a breath of fresh air, then slipped beneath the waves . . . [X(]

So I figured it sank if though there were no sinking sounds. [&:] It did not show up as sunk so I checked it right away. It had over 50% system damage, about 79 total flood damage, and some engine damage. [:(] It made it to the nearest port, then went into pierside repairs. It is ready to go to a repair yard with 56 permanent flood damage and 4 permanent engine damage. [8D]