US 1000lb GP bomb test

[esteban]

Japanese 250 KG bombs won't penetrate the armor on American BBs either. I have done several PH raids, and I know.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi,

What was the Sys damage on those ships once the fires had run their course?

Regards,

- Erik

[MadDawg]

Thats a good point...especially is the Yamato did go down due to a fire. Do fires ever have a chance of causing a magazine explosion?

Dawg

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi,

What was the Sys damage on those ships once the fires had run their course?

Regards,

- Erik

Between 20-50
Fires did alot of damage but thats more due to piss poor Japanese damage control.

I hit the Yamato 24 times...she should be at the bottom.
There wasnt a single point of float damage on any of the ships I hit. Their should be some light structral damage from each of the 1000lb hits that causes cracks that let in some seawater. As it stands now you can hit a BB 1000 times and she will never sink.

[Fallschirmjager]

Ohh...I have a question...if the bomb splinters arnt going through metal...just what am I setting on fire?
45 fire indicates a major fire engulfing a very large part of the ship. But if I havnt hit ammo or fuel then what is on fire?

[Mr.Frag]

Not sure I see the problem here ... 1000 lb bomb has a penetration value of 70 ... it's going up against 120 deck armor + You will notice when you watch the actual battle that your bombs are exploding on impact, not going through the armor. This causes damage to non-turret guns and causes fires.

Fires continue to add damage until put out ... heres your test:

[Fallschirmjager]

What is being set on fire then? Bare metal melting? What?
3 sys damage and 40 fire damage just confuses me. If the fire is buring on the suface of the armor then just what is getting damaged?
3 sys damage to me means no cracks, no bent structural pieces and no warped plates. In other words armor is still covering everything vital and protecting it from fire damage.

I dont have near the refernece material that some others have. I posted this in hopes of getting info to what sort of damage 1000lb bombs did to BB's in WW2.

[MadDawg]

Im guessing that part of the problem here might be that consecutive bomb hits might not be taken into consideration. From what Ive read a single bomb would probably have little chance of damaging the Yamato at all, yet with 24 hits surely these would be impacting in the same locations 2 and maybe times which would, youd think, have to cause the structure in those areas to weakened somewhat and thus more vulnerable each time?

This might also explain with the US battleship seem to be harder to sink on the first turn than they were historically. Just a thought [:)]?

Dawg

[Mr.Frag]

Don't look at sys that way ...

Sys is simply the overall measurement of the ship.

100% SYS = 0% function

Floatation and Fire are special types of damage that last and can grown. While they exist at any level, more and more sys damage gets added, further reducing ship function.

A non-penatrating hit still does damage, but not critical damage (massive jumps in SYS).

Look at the Bismarck as a good example of a ship being completely rendered useless but still floating.

Just because a bomb does not go through the armor doing extra damage does not mean it doesn't cause damage. It still hurts you, just not a massive leap such as a magazine hit (Hood)

Both Fire and Flood can suffer massive increases in levels. As long as there is even 1 point, there is the risk of loosing the ship.

[Fallschirmjager]

In case anyone is wanting to replicate the exact test that I did here is how to do it:

Set up the tutorial as a head to head game.
Make sure FOW is off.

Let the first turn run and keep all subs away for the area you are going to test in. For 2 sufarce combat groups. Put the Haruna, Kongo and Nagato is one TF and sail it several hexes east of Saipan. Put the Yamato and Musashi in another TF and leave it around Guam until you need it again. MAKE SURE you put both of their reaction ranges to 0, otherwise they will react away from the carriers or into the carriers...both are bad. Put both on do not retire.
End the turn.

Form two US CV fleets putting three CV's in one TF and 2 in the other.
I hit the 3 BB's with the 2 CV TF and the Super Heavies with the 3 CV...you can use whatever.
Sail one or the other to within range of the first BB TF.

Put all Helldivers on Naval Attack with 0% search, set them to attack from 20,000 feet. Put all Torpedo Bombers on Naval Search with 10% search. This is very important because otherwise you wont find the BB's. DO NOT use 100% of otherwise you run the risk of having your torpedo bombers spotting the BB's and making an attack and thus ruining your test. I found this out the hard way.
Make sure your CV TF is within 1000 lb range. I put them two hexes away from the BB's.

Run the turn and watch what happens. Interchange out the TF's and run it again.
Big thanks to Kid for the turtorial scenario. Its a huge help in testing.

[Mr.Frag]

simpler to just set the sbc's to 10% search and ground the torp boys.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag


Look at the Bismarck as a good example of a ship being completely rendered useless but still floating.

Im sorry but that is a poor example. Shells were punctaring the upper works of the Bismark and shells were landing short and punching holes below the water line.

In my test none of the BB's was taking flood damage.
One idea I have to fix this is that when bombs dont penetrate they still do a decent amount of system damage to represent shell splinters punching holes in the upper works of the ships.
2-7 system damage is miniscule and says to me that they are not doing any damage but setting fire to bare metal.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

simpler to just set the sbc's to 10% search and ground the torp boys.

You can do that too but I was wanting 100% of my bombers attack since I usualy let LBA search planes do my searching so I can have as many of my CV planes as possible attack.

[Mr.Frag]

You will notice that a large number of guns are being destroyed.

[Fallschirmjager]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

You will notice that a large number of guns are being destroyed.

Yes. They have no armor.
Which makes this even MORE odd. You would think having a 5 inch casemant torn apart would mean a bit more than 2-7 sys damage.

[Xargun]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

You will notice that a large number of guns are being destroyed.

Yes. They have no armor.
Which makes this even MORE odd. You would think having a 5 inch casemant torn apart would mean a bit more than 2-7 sys damage.

Think of sys damage as the hull and engines... Loosing a gun doesn't make the ship's hull weaker underwater or does it cause any damage to the engines. What it does do is make the ship unable to defend itself or inflict any damage to enemy targets. In my PBEM I had a MSW hit by a single 500 lber that blew it nearly apart.. After all said and done, it had 99 sys damage, but the funny thing was all of its weapons were functional except 1. The bomb basically went right through the armor and exploded inside, gutting the ship.. She would need towed anywhere but at least she could defend herself with her weaponry.

And as to what would burn on the top of a ship... Hmm.. Cloth and the bodies of sailors, paint (lots of it), ammo piled around for small weapons (mostly AA guns) as well as who knows what... Perhaps the float planes that many capital ships carried caught on fire, or the fuel lines for the planes... You would have to check with a naval architect to give you a list, but I'm sure you could find many things that would burn on a warship that you didn't think of. BTW, burning paint is not nice - lots of poisonous fumes from that lead-based paint..

Xargun

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: MadDawg

Im guessing that part of the problem here might be that consecutive bomb hits might not be taken into consideration. From what Ive read a single bomb would probably have little chance of damaging the Yamato at all, yet with 24 hits surely these would be impacting in the same locations 2 and maybe times which would, youd think, have to cause the structure in those areas to weakened somewhat and thus more vulnerable each time?

This might also explain with the US battleship seem to be harder to sink on the first turn than they were historically. Just a thought [:)]?

Dawg

Should disrupt and decimate the crew too.

[doomonyou]

for fire your also forgeting that much like smaller rounds in tank penetration, the 1000 gp bombs (Since APs are known to have penetrated Yamato armor I assume we are talking GPs only here), the explosion would punch a hole in the armor it was in contact. That spalling (molten metal chunks essentially) to the next deck might very well alight anything they touched, ammo, fuel, wood, consumables, electrical wires, etc. Certainly the holes might not be large, but it does not take significant amounts of spalling to set really anything on fire.

Sys damage must also include a level of casulties to the crew. Say more than five 1000lb gps hitting a BB a good chance exsists of officers being killed in the bridge, etc, as well as fire control, radars etc. Since higher sys reduces combat effectiveness this is appropriate.

Frankly were I programing it, any ship regardless of armor hit with any weapon of 500lbs or over would automatically take 1 sys and 1 fire up to 50%. Similar to the theory of shooting an abrams with a 40mm AA gun. Each shell cannot penetrate its main armor, but hit it with say 500 consecutive shells and see if the tank can move, fight, or fire. Even the mighty Yamato pounded with 25 1000lb GP bombs should be quite a beaten ship.

Again all of this is moot with AP bombs. They should tear the hell out of anything they hit other then sampans and PTs

[esteban]

I disagree that the level of system damage you see here is inappropriate. Battleships are armored precisely to protect the vital systems. Can you kill officers on the bridge? Sometimes. The bridge itself is heavily armored. After all, it doesn't do much good for a ship in combat to have the officers in charge killed off easily.

The AA mounts, secondary mounts, radar and range finders, all these had to be located outside of the armored zone, pretty much. They would be vulnerable and are vulnerable in the game. Even knocking out a mount in this game does not mean the mount is technically destroyed. It may be that the hydraulic or electric system to the mount is damaged, or the crew killed/wounded/driven below by blast/splinters/fire.

In the examples shown, you already see significant fires started on these ships. These fires can and probably will result in system damage. As to what is burning, there would be insulation, wood, furniture, paneling and bedding from unprotected areas of the ship, wiring, ammunition, lifeboats, hydraulic fluid, fuel for lifeboats and search planes, paper, rugs and decorations.

So I have no problems with the current system. The questions are the current ordanance. Should the Americans have 500 and 1000 lb AP bombs? If these were used, definitely. Are the penetration ratings on the current japanese AP bombs corrects? I don't know. I do know that the 800 KG Japanese bombs do not penetrate belt armor on the Prince of Wales or Repulse. 250 KG bombs do not penetrate any armor on the U.S. battlewagons at Pearl Harbor, and don't pierce belt armor on Lexington class U.S. carriers. I don't know how 800 KG bombs do against belt armor on U.S. battleships, though they do pierce Battleship Row deck armor. Should the Japanese have 500 KG bombs? Some people have said so. I myself have seen references to an "800 pound bomb" that Vals supposedly used, in various histories of the period.

However, what the American GP bombs lack in penetration, they make up for in damage. They do more damage because they have thinner skins and more explosive in them. The Japanese 500 KG bomb has superior penetration versus the Allied 500 pound bomb, but does less damage because it has a thicker, armor piercing nose and casing.

[Damien Thorn]

ORIGINAL: Fallschirmjager

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Hi,

What was the Sys damage on those ships once the fires had run their course?

Regards,

- Erik

Between 20-50
Fires did alot of damage but thats more due to piss poor Japanese damage control.

So they will be out of action for 3+ months. That's an eternity for the Japanese. If the ships were farther away from port with all of that fire they might even go up to 99 system damage. Fire is a real killer.

GP bombs aren't going to sink big ships. Face it. Bring along some torpedo bombers or maybe even one of the Uber pt boats.

Torpedoes cause mostly floatation damage. While that is nice in that it can sink ships, if the ship doesn't sink the damage will be repaired quickly. The bombs won't sink the ship but they will put it out of action for months. Against Japan that's all you have to do. It's like wanting 20mm cannons on your airplanes. They would be nice if Japan was attacking you with B-17s but the .50's you have are more than enough to deal with the thin Japanese planes. The bombs are enough to deal with the ships (by putting them out of the game for months; you don't need to sink them).