Originally posted by Major Tom:
HMS Repulse, modernized in 1936, did NOT have anything of a modern compartmenalization system of battleships built or refitted in the late 1930's, with the lessons learned by Repulse's modernization. Even still, the Repulse took a direct air-torpedo hit from a Nell, and shrugged it off, the next hit damaged the ship's steering, which caused the next 3 hits in quick order. The Repulse, probably the worst protected capital ship in the British navy not only took 5 torpedo hits to sink, but, was not even phased by the first hit.
Unfortunately, we are not posting as to WHERE these torpedo's hit in order to give this superficial damage, or critical hits, either in our repeats of history, and neither does the game. Many ships that are just damaged by torpedo's get hit in un-critical areas, others get nailed in their only weak spot.
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It is true that the Repulse did not benefit from from as exentensive a compartmentalization as other ships classes, namly the German WWI designs and later the US Turbo electric driven BB's. She was however bulged and when talking torpedoes you are invariably talking hits *below the armor* of the ship, in which case Repulse's being labeled as the "weakest" ship do not carry full weight. One could argue lack of beam. That is valid, however i think any BB, short of Yamato class that takes 5 torps in quick succession is going to be in a world of hurt
I submit again, anyone to give me an example of a BB, Yamato and Musashi excluded, which suffered more than 3 torpedo hits at sea and either lived in some operational status without being crippled, or was not outright sunk. You wont find one. Does this mean that all should be crippled by two or three hits? No. But they should'nt routinely be able to take ***12*** and be only around 50% damaged.
I realize the game cant tell us 'where' the hit is scored but please, are we to assume that most of these non-penetrating hits are always hitting near the stern or bow stem?
A good preportion of the hits will fall closer to the middle and here you are talking on average a hole of between 10-30 feet by 5 to 12 feet being blown in a ship's side. A good TDS might keep the internals safe, but they are rare. I would have high confidence of Tennessee class since California took two torps and retained her WT integrity on the 5th elastic Torpedo bulkhead in both cases, but Nevada, having only three, did not. The bulkhead worked as expected, but because it was forced back, there was some seperation between deck and bulkhead joints which allowed water to enter the boiler room.
In WWI any German battleship, with the exeption of Seydlitz, struck by a torpedo hightailed it back to harbor, sometimes in difficulty, other times not. Here, during this period of time we probably have the best
chance of a ship taking five or more torpedos and not sinking, due to sub-compartmentation, anti-torpedo bulkhead and the initally weak charges of the torps.
By WWII however, with the exception of the British Fleet Air Arm, torpedoes were much deadlier.
Bismarck is a good example, yet also a good example of the point i'm trying to make. She shrugged off three hits initially. There was a reason, the torps were weak and they hit the armor belt. More often than not a torp will hit below the armor belt.
Make her take 6 - 8 torpedoes and the issue is in much greater doubt.
Prince of Wales, a 40000 ton ship, despite her sub-compartmentation, would never be able to take 12 torpedo hits and live. They even proved that her wing sandwich compartments were too small to absorb the blast effect and would not have remained WT.
South Dakota and Iowa had flawed TDS systems, both because the TDS was connected at the top to the internal belt, cassion tests postwar proved that it would not have remained WT. (Yamato had the same problem only worse since her bulkhead was more rigid and brittle....a torp in 43 i believe showed that with the bulkhead failing and causing the #3 main armament shellroom to flood....again 'one' torpedo)
Kongo was blown out of the water by between two - four torpedo hits (probably four)
and the battleship Fuso was blown in half by four torpedo hits.
Cavour sank after one
Littorio would have sunk in all likelihood after three.
The examples of some form of signifigant damage far outweigh the 'theoretical' mussings of the engineers who designed the treaty BB's
Going back to Prince of Wales, her designers envisioned the ship being able to retain some measure of stability (under the best possible circumstances, and before i might add, it as proven her wing compartments were too small) after taking six torpedoes on one side. Thats alot smaller number than the # of hits you will see in the Historical first move of Pearl Harbor and she was a 40000 ton modern, with a TDS designed to "resist" a 1000ILB charge at its optimum point.
My arguments here are not for uber-torps. Let me once more emphasis that. My argument is that a torp, when it hits should cause some signifigant level of damage (light, moderate, severe) more often than it does in the game, where unless being struck by Type 93's, will often not penetrate and cause maybe 1% of damage)
If a Battleship could 'routinely' take more than a half dozen torpedo hits and live, the BB would not have been made obsolete by carrier aircraft.....aircraft of which the main ship killer were the torpedo carrying planes.
As for other ship types. I agree. Often CL and even DD type ships could take tremendous punishment that belied their small stature and lack of armor. However were still not talking a dozen or more torpedo hits. Most of those examples were above WL type hits (Laffey)
Superb damage control got the Houston home but had she been struck by a 2nd torpedo the ship would undoubtedly have been abandoned and lost.
ah. I did just remember yet one last example. USS Chicago. Took a total of six ariel torpedos and eventually sank. A good case of durability, but her example should be the *exception*, not the rule.
As things stand right now, the rule is that ships are extremely durable against most of the torps in the game.
I'm four months into the test so far and i can say that not 'every' torpedo that has struck a ship, BB, CA, or even CL as penetrated and certainly not every ship has sunk. However, the ratio of damage to hits seems much more in line with historical events.
An Illustrious carrier was sank by 6 torpedo hits eventually (only two led to the sinking of Ark Royal)
Hermes was badly damaged by three torps, but ate seven more before surcombing.
A london class CA took one torp and suffered moderate damage (15 - 25%)
Observing the Submarine campaign. 85% of MCS ships are sinking with one hit. and only about 70% of the TK class (Mark 13)
Type 93 has not been tested yet. Here yes, the issue is more in doubt as their warheads were of adequate strength but i felt it unfair to only single out several and wished to retain their ratio of strength.
The issue of too many torp hits from bombers may be valid and might be the better answer to claims of disperity. However i'm only seeing decent levels of hits from the 90+ exp Japanese planes. And this in low/moderate flak environments. Once the Flak ratings start skyrocketing, the # of hits starts to go down dramatically.
Durability may need to be raised with the CV and DD types. but that remains in the future.
