Aren't Sho and Zui's flight deck armor a little bit... overrated?!

[Feinder]

However, how does one differentiate a near miss from a complete miss in game?

 
It was my understanding that, those belt armor hits were simulating the near-misses.  But the problem is that, pretty much no bomb will penetrate belt armor (which also neutralizes skip-bombing to a large degree, as it also rolls vs. the belt armor).  Yes, a near miss and skip-bombing were VERY different in real life, but they are handled the same by the WitP engine.
 
-F-

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Iridium

ORIGINAL: Feinder

This brings up an interesting question tho, for AE, has the damage model been tweaked at all? I know there are more types of damge (engines, heavy sys, etc). But is it still an all-or-nothing sort of thing? Do near misses still go against the belt, and therefore do (pretty much) nothing - the historical situation on Akagi would inidcate that near misses are certainly *not* something shrug off.

-F-

Indeed, near misses can cause major issues for ships. However, how does one differentiate a near miss from a complete miss in game? I'm not sure it's even possible within the current game engine.

A long time ago, some dev/beta stated that "near misses" did no damage in the game... current devs have said they will do damage in AE, so i am guessing there will be some changes...

Of course, it could just mean that the "low damage" hits will be thought of as "near misses"...

[John Lansford]

Near misses should have the chance to do light flooding damage as well as a chance for a critical hit that would multiply the flooding to that of a torpedo hit, IMO.  Perhaps some low SYS damage as well, or in AE, engine room damage.

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

Goddam Shokaku received already a 1000 pounder a week ago. She just got 5 more in the face, and all I seem to have there is fire... She's not even said to be "heavily damaged" - half the bombs didn't even got through the armor

[

Over optomistic pilots.

[Bogo Mil]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso
Of course, it could just mean that the "low damage" hits will be thought of as "near misses"...

Sometimes a ship gets huge floatation, but very low sys damage (my "world records" are 13 SYS - 91 FLT and 5 SYS - 88 FLT). This might be critical damage by a near miss, then.

I think the randomness of damage reflects different hit locations quite well. It is not perfect, but other things are much less realistic in witp.

[John Lansford]

I once lost a SoDak BB to a 500 lb bomb in UV.  I know it's not the same game or damage subroutine, but a Val hit her on a turret (didn't penetrate of course), and a fire broke out.  For some reason the DC parties couldn't contain it, and the fire grew to the point where the ship was abandoned and lost.  I wasn't very happy about that.

[Hornblower]

Humm... all my books state that the Shokaku's had an unarmored flight deck.  While they did have up to 6.7 inches of armor, it was on the main deck above the machinery, mag's and the GO-GO juice for the planes.   Fishbed's picture is caused by the blast pressure of the bomb going off in the closed hanger and vented upwards.   Ever notice how in the damage pictures of IJN carriers have these massive openings from bomb hits, while pic's of the hornet & enterprise after bomb hits show these nice little holes in the unarmored flight deck and not some massive hole?  3 reasons.. 1- 550poundrs,  2- hits tended to penetrate deeper in the hull, and 3- open hanger decks..   anyway, sorry off topic.. 
 

[tigercub]

3- 1,000 pounders hits makes a mess in this case the bombs were not able to penatrate deep in the hull because the main deck armor what is under this deck saved her. (coral sea battle) and would have saved most of the carriers in midway had the all the planes not been on the decks when attacked.
if the deck was 6.75 inches the 1,000 pounders would have bounced off the the carrier also would have capsized because it would be to top heavy! the deck you see in pic may or maynot be armor (probably is thow 1inch-2 inch) and the main deck 4.75inch at a guess.

[Hornblower]

ORIGINAL: tigercub

3- 1,000 pounders hits makes a mess in this case the bombs were not able to penatrate deep in the hull because the main deck armor what is under this deck saved her. (coral sea battle) and would have saved most of the carriers in midway had the all the planes not been on the decks when attacked.

that and because they we fused to explode quicker then AP's...

[Charles2222]

ORIGINAL: Fishbed

But the problem exists for both sides, not one side but not the other.

Yep - but the AP nature of the 250kg IJN bomb must help somehow - although it makes less damage when it penetrates, it nearly always DOES penetrate.
Although, until today, I thought that 1000 pounders would always penetrate too [:D] [:(]

Well, no luck... Gonna get the guys at Noumea check the fuses, cuz the pilots didn't like that much the sight of their bombs bouncing off Japanese flight decks [:-] [;)]

Just a wee bit of comfort for you, but I wouldn't discount the effect of fire causing bombs against IJ. IJ suffers greatly from fires, unlike the USN whom from even on 12/8/41 did not have a single ship with a double digit fire (though we all know better than that) when I checked it. As well, though you probably already know this, I think the game launches all aircraft at the same time, on a given pulse turn (for example, all first day raids take off at the same time) such that if you largely destroy somebody's CV and it's planes are still coming at you it is only irregular if it were the next elgible pulse (be that night or the next day turn) that they still kept coming. This, to some degree, makes some sense, because a CV may had launched it's planes for a strike before the enemy planes arrived.

I think if you are going up against multiple CV's, as well, and got into some habit of counting the possible planes that would be incoming (such that you would discount the possibly heavily damaged CV from launching any), that even then it's may be possible that you will still see numbers incoming which at least approach the damaged CV's planes being involved, since they may had landed on the undamaged CV's and used in a strike. That's sheer speculation on my part htough, though somebody here probably knows whether re-based planes can be used very quickly, and to what degree on a different CV.

[bradfordkay]

tigercub wrote: " and would have saved most of the carriers in midway had the all the planes not been on the decks when attacked. "

According to the most recent in depth study (Shattered Sword)ut they weren't on the decks. The majority were in the hangars being rearmed. This would have to mean that the bombs penetrated into the hangars after all.

Charles22: If the surviving aircraft of an out-of-action carrier do not force the rescuing carrier to go over the 110% limit then they can be launched in an attack in the afternoon phase. If the rescueing carrier is overloaded, no aircraft will be launched on any attacks from that ship.

[tigercub]

This is true because they were not all on deck because did not all fit on deck at the same time and the main armor is below the main hangers to protect the eng,ammo,fuel and so on,not so much the planes...but deck armor would be like 1 to 2 inchs my records are on loan,not able to do a closer check just now.

[Bogo Mil]

In WITP the big bombs always penetrate if they hit a weakly unarmoured carrier deck. But in reality, a bomb can bounce off any kind of armour. If the angle is "unfavourable" enough, bombs even bounce off the surface of water (used in skipbombing). And even if the deck itself is not armoured, the bomb can be stopped by a steel girder or another tough part of the ship hull by chance.

[John Lansford]

Actually, very few if any of the KB's planes were on their flight deck when the carriers were attacked.   All four carriers were launching and landing fighter planes from the earlier attacks, and the bombers were being loaded/fueled on the hangar deck.  They couldn't have been spotted on the flight deck for launch because the fighters were still being landed/launched, so they kept them fueled and armed on the hangar deck.
 
Read Shattered Sword.  It's an excellent, definitive work on what truly happened on those carriers that day.

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

tigercub wrote: " and would have saved most of the carriers in midway had the all the planes not been on the decks when attacked. "

According to the most recent in depth study (Shattered Sword)ut they weren't on the decks. The majority were in the hangars being rearmed. This would have to mean that the bombs penetrated into the hangars after all.

Charles22: If the surviving aircraft of an out-of-action carrier do not force the rescuing carrier to go over the 110% limit then they can be launched in an attack in the afternoon phase. If the rescueing carrier is overloaded, no aircraft will be launched on any attacks from that ship.

The closed hangar design was essentially the British, not the American, approach but without significant flight-deck protection. That meant that a penetrating bomb hit wiped out much of the hangar, started large fires, and usually did hull girder damage. It wasn't just at Midway that this was a problem. The probability of a burn-out with hull girder damage (at least) after a penetrating bomb hit or torpedo hit for Japanese carriers was about 45%, two or three times the probability for American carriers. Note also that the armoured flight decks of the Illustrious and its near-sisters were designed to exclude 500 pound semi-armour-piercing bombs. 1000 pound SAP bombs could defeat it. The game needs re-calibration here.