Shiki

What I would like to see from any hotfix patch in the coming days is to also include the French experimental battlecruiser hull - suitably downscaled - to the heavy cruiser category, from 10,500 to 14,000 tons. It's a clear candidate for re-creating classes like the C5 A3 and C5 SA1 proposals, as well as being a better hull for France's cruisers as opposed to something like, say, the downscaled Bismarck and Yamato hulls we have in that category right now.

It's my belief that the average quality of the armour plates may help to explain the difference. The Americans and British simply had higher-quality armour than the Germans were capable of manufacturing (though not the Italians, as Terni Variable-Face-Thickness Cemented was the best shipboard armour to ever go to sea). The reasons for this difference are numerous but we can point out two main factors: the relatively long hiatus in the production of cemented naval armour post-World War I, and Krupp's testing procedures, which appear to have used uncapped AP projectiles. As for the Japanese, they did discover defects in face-hardened plates over 400 mm thickness: the cooling rate for the interior of these plates was different from the outer layers, and so the brittle steel crystal bainite (shirome) formed in lieu of the desired martensite. They developed a quenching and tempering process to deal with the problem but by that time, no new battleships were being built, as Shinano was being converted to an aircraft carrier. They also developed new armour plates around the same time - if you look on Navweaps, I believe Nathan Okun has an article on the subject. As for A-150, the known requirements for the resistance of its own projectiles from 20,000 to 30,000 metres have led me to calculate a required belt of 460 mm and a 250 mm deck. At least one 51-cm turret was apparently under construction, so if I ever find data on that, I will be very happy.

'Questions have been raised as to the wisdom of providing a vertical side belt less than the traditional standard—thickness equal to the bore of the main battery. Gunnery tests of the new composition KC n/A 320-mm armour plate showed that its thickness and resistance capabilities equaled an optimum thickness of 360 mm, but as thickness was increased, little was gained (the point of diminishing return). Krupp considered the thickness of 320 mm to be optimum and 400 mm neared the limit of effective production.' —Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II, Garzke & Duilin (section on the Bismarck class)

I believe the penetration table already accounts for angle of fall. They didn't want to move away from the distributed armour scheme because they were concerned with medium-calibre shell holes as well as containing the damage of large calibre shells (see Lützow at the Skagerrak battle). I won't deny that you might have the displacement left over to up-armour the turrets, but it would probably be reinvested back into hull protection (such as in KGV, which also left her turrets and barbettes woefully underprotected). However, I can't necessarily agree with being able to reinvest that weight solely back into vertical protection; you might get a 330-350 mm belt (I profess doubts that it would be inclined at 20 degrees, as they're not Japanese), with a deck of the appropriate thickness. One also has to note that Krupp came out with studies around that time that showed that one had diminishing returns on cemented plates past 320 mm thickness, with 360 mm being the maximum before you started to lose quality. As for your examples, I feel like I have to point out that although Denmark Strait started at 22,000 m, both sides closed the range until combat distance was around 13-14,000 metres. Renown vs. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the action off Norway was roughly the same distance; Bismarck's final battle can't really be counted, due to the circumstances (had she been in full control of speed and steering, for example, the British might have not been content to hold open the range), and the Battle of the North Cape has extenuating circumstances as well. I'm going to neglect your example concerning Glorious as it's not an engagement between major surface elements. It is worth remembering that radar was making gunnery more and more capable in all conditions, but you also have to bear in mind the short practical range of both British and German sets when it came to directing anti-surface fire, at least at the time, as well as the lack of real understanding surrounding the problems until later in the war when they had a chance to assess their experiences with the technology. None of this, of course, excludes the fact that the Germans had the wrong idea about the potential engagement ranges of modern battleships. The heavy turtleback was merely their solution to their envisioned short-range combat.

This isn't exactly true. At the ranges they encountered - the ranges they expected to fight at - no normal belt can be expected to keep out shells. Using German penetration curves, you're looking at a 460 mm cemented belt to break up a 38 cm shell at 15,000 metres, with a target inclination of 20 degrees (385 mm at 30 degrees). The turtleback (böschung in the Kaiserliche Marine- I am uncertain if this designation carried over into the Reichsmarine and Kriegsmarine) of German battleships like Bayern isn't in any way comparable to - or even remotely used for the same purpose as - the turtleback on Bismarck. The former's turtleback is 30 mm strong, and at best will stop splinters from the belt or shell pieces. Anything else is wishful thinking. But Bismarck's turtleback is 110-120 mm thick: well within the realm of putting up meaningful resistance against an incoming shell, especially one that's been slowed down by first having to pierce the 320-mm-thick vertical belt. Aside from a decapping scheme like that adopted for Littorio, it's the only feasible method of ensuring that a shell doesn't enter the citadel at the short ranges they expected to fight at. This isn't saying anything against your remarks about the protected volume (true), lower armoured deck (also true), and buoyancy (triply true). I'm simply explaining the German reasoning for why they went with that method. All or nothing is a much more viable method of protecting the armoured volume if your engagement range is expected to be longer (like, say, the Pacific). But in the confines and perpetually poor visibility of the North Sea, you have to accept that more often than not you'll be fighting an enemy at much shorter distances. I've also included the relevant penetration table for convenience. Ranges are in hectometres (1 hm = 100 m). The left Y-axis is the range, the right Y-axis is impact velocity, the X-axis is target angle, the dark lines are for shell breakup post-penetration and the faded lines are for an intact penetration in Fit-to-Burst condition.

Admiral Scheer wants to know your location.

If you're talking hills to die on... There's a joke here - Japanese 'A'-class (i.e. in excess of 7,000 tons prior to 30 May 1931) cruisers were named for mountains. It's funny. Laugh.

Yes and no? Japanese optical (i.e. rangefinders, binoculars, etc.) equipment was sufficiently advanced for its time and almost on par with German optical systems; certainly a bit ahead of Italian, British, and American optical-directed fire control systems, the former being plagued by certain details with regards to cleaning and glare treatment and the latter two for their small size. The primary problem wasn't with the optics, it was with the lack of a stable vertical and the decentralization of the fire process. You could say that - taking the two Pacific juggernauts as the example - that the Japanese had the better (optical) equipment, but the Americans had the better system, especially considering the large amounts of automation that went into the latter. As for the visibility and targeting factors, yes, they could provide superior optical gunfighting ability. However, that didn't matter much after October 1942, when the USN began to step up its use of radar-directed fire.

Double/triple bottoms don't seem to add oil fuel capacity and neither do the higher levels of SPS (side protection system; the fancy name for torpedo protection), so be sure to include those in your thread.

As before, last Friday of November. Possibly the last Friday of December. Perhaps even the last Friday of January next year. The point is, I'm not holding out for it dropping any time soon.

Modeling interference of shells in flight would require some incredibly complex computing, that would have to take into account a lot of real-world factors (barrel temperature, atmospheric pressure and temperature, humidity, windspeed and direction, etc.). It's much simpler and more efficient to apply an arbitrary percentage reduction, that you can modify as you like.

I have become extraordinarily jaded towards any and all promises of 'realism' and 'historical accuracy' from any game that promises it. We might ask for things, but ultimately, the only way to get something is to do it yourself - hence, I think, the continued insistence on mod support. If they won't give us realistic parameters, we'll just have to make them ourselves.

Not exactly? World of Warships bases a lot of their stuff - well, a lot of the old stuff - on actual designs and ships that existed. Now, the refits they give them (stares hard at Lyon & Normandie) are not always up to the same snuff, but that's neither here nor there. The fact is that for at least most of their lines, they have some historical basis. That's what I want, personally. More historical ships, more historical options- give me something that Wargaming can't. Give me the ability to employ ships as they were used, instead of fighting tank battles on the ocean. And by historical ships, I mean Takao. In all of her forms. Original, Takao & Atago's rebuild and Maya-type. Mostly Maya type. Just give me Maya, really.

I wouldn't recommend aiming for Shikishima specifically. takes deep breath, Japanese Navy nitpick is about to begin Shikishima emulates the final design studies for the A-150-type battleships in extremely few ways. In fact, she doesn't resemble them much at all, except in the number and calibre of the main battery - and even then, the shells are much heavier than they ought to be. What few surviving records of the A-150 that exist indicate - to point out a major difference - that she was to be armed with a homogenous dual-purpose battery of 10-cm guns, dispensing with the split LA/HA 15.5-cm/12.7-cm appropriations. She's actually closer to an up-gunned Yamato type than she is to any proposal for A-150 (and while an upgunned Yamato was the original plan for Yamato, those provisions were deleted after Fujimoto's death and his replacement with Hiraga). ...Instead, you should shoot even higher and go for the original A-150 design, which called for nine 51 cm guns and sufficient protection against those shells from the expected combat distance of 25,000 to 30,000 metres (implying a 46 cm belt and a 25 cm deck, with a known turret face thickness of 80 centimetres). Obviously, this plan was rejected as it was simply outside of the capabilities of Imperial Japan to construct- even the notoriously shoot-for-the-moon (and in this case, hypocritical considering their other life choices) Imperial Japanese Naval General Staff rejected it out of hand because it was "too big and too expensive." But those choices don't apply to a video game, so don't just copy Wargaming. Go one better.

But what about Super Alsace No.2 with a standard arrangement of 3x3 431mm instead?

That's only if we're able to place guns on the rear, which it doesn't look like we'll be able to. Judging from the way it was presented, if we had been offered an Alsace-type hull as well, it would have been shown off along with the all-forward Richelieu model.

Well, we have Yamato, Iowa/South Dakota/North Carolina, Bismarck, and now Richelieu... that leaves just King George V, Sovetskii Soyuz, and Littorio for our cadre of modern battleships.

I hope that the weight increase isn't by too much, as the primary historical advantages of the concentration of the armament was that it didn't weigh as much as something like four or five twin turrets, since one could shorten the length of the armoured citadel drastically.

I'll say the last Friday of next month.

1. It is not a shortsighted tactical consideration in the context of a short war fought with on-hand resources, centred on a single decisive outcome between surface fleets. 2. It is both practical and feasible to go for the larger calibres in the case of the Japanese. As you've pointed out before, Japan's industrial base and resources aren't as sufficiently advanced as the Americans (the product of going from medieval to modern in the span of a decade) so they need the calibre gap to make up the disparity. Additionally, you never once mentioned 46 cm / 18 in. You said explicitly to go to a 56 cm / 22 in calibre in two years flat, which is ridiculous. 3. I am referencing the only timeline there is. If you want to talk ahistorical scenarios, we can go on about illogical and unreasonable things all day. Tillmans, for example. This leads into the crux of the argument that America wouldn't act differently: if they lost their aging Standard fleet in the Marianas - as your ahistorical scenario might go, I don't know - and then needed to rebuild it quickly to counter a supposed 510-mm-gun-armed Japanese battleship, they would rather produce a large number of modern 406-mm-gun fast battleships than a small number of 558-mm-gun 'super battleships.' 4. The graph isn't inaccurate. That was the time they spent on the slips. However, of the time that they spend building, only part of that time was when construction was actually being done. There's a difference between being labeled as 'under construction' and actually 'building.' 5. Design difficulties factor into production immensely. The Iowa-class ships were a result of wartime expediency and the yards building them had already had experience building previous modern warships with a high efficiency rate; the two Yamatos were unlike anything Japan had attempted previously, with their last battleships having been built in the early 1920s. They had to dig into a hillside in order to extend the reach of the slip at Nagasaki. 6. Because even without a carrier fleet slowing you down, you don't just get to produce 'more battleships.' There is a hard upper limit to armour production capacity and naval ordnance; carriers require comparatively nothing in terms of armour plate, so they can be assembled relatively rapidly. But light surface elements still take priority for surface construction; unless you want to cut the production of all heavy and light cruisers, which you cannot do without dooming your fleet to destruction at the hands of torpedo-armed Japanese fleet elements, your production will still be bottlenecked. Even the industrial might of the U.S. wasn't enough to produce more than the ten battleships they did build. Finally, I'm going to retire from the discussion. I've already said everything I wanted to say. I hope this has been informative.

I'm not attempting to argue whether or not the Japanese were doomed as a result of their decision to go to war with the United States - that's a subject that's been beaten to death and beyond, right into Asphodel. However, the concept of their plan - which you're saying is short-sighted - is a tactical opinion. Unless you've switched tack from the 'decisive battle' to the overall conduct of the war, grand strategy is not in the purview of the discussion. The entire point is, from a technical and tactical point of view, there's no reason to not go for the larger calibre gun if it's feasible. As far as American industrial capacity, there is still no method by which the United States can construct a super-battleship in two years or less, especially if it's armed with guns larger than 45.7 cm. The largest calibre that they seriously considered and had actual experience building was 45.7 cm, after all: you can still see the 18in/48 at the Dahlgren Naval Surface Warfare Center in Virginia today. Beyond that calibre - especially jumping to 22in/56 cm - is a completely new field that you have to design, test, and produce an entirely new weapon for. There are basic sketch profiles for twin and triple 457 mm gunhouses, but nothing for anything beyond that, because the USN's surface warfare experts came to the conclusion that - with the known limitations of naval gunnery for the time - that that was the largest calibre you would need. Going further into this, while one can produce an Essex in around 24 months, one also has to consider that you need so much less to build an Essex than a battleship of comparable displacement. Even the fastest battleship time, Indiana at 29 months, is only possible with the complete mobilization of the American workforce to a war footing - and Indiana is less than half the standard displacement of any potential American super-battleship with guns of that size. Considering that the US had a steel shortage starting in 1943 and had completely maxed out their armour production capacity by that point in time with their construction programmes, it's not unrealistic to say that any super-battleships would have been the first to be axed (the fate of Montana). If anything, the U.S. would have been tapped out for production earlier with anything on that scale - even if you axe the carriers entirely, armour production capacity as well as the speed of creating large-calibre naval guns are a hard cap on how quickly you can produce a battleship. Carriers require significantly less armour than battleships, after all. This goes without going into the other logistical infeasibilities of such ships, like their inability to use the Panama Canal (which would kill them before they made it out of sketch stage), the massive infrastructure overhaul required to transport the materials for their building (their gun turrets would be as heavy as a WWI-era light cruiser), or the requirement to build new slips and dredge anchorages to handle them. Finally, Littorio and Vittorio Veneto's building times are inflated in that the first pair didn't actually start construction until about 5 months after they were initially laid down. Their actual building times were on the order of 27 and 26 months, respectively - and their displacements were nearly the size of those afforded to Iowa by the time they were finished, despite their nominal '35,560-metric ton' designation. Basically, this entire conversation boils down to me trying to explain that: "You're right that Japan would lose, but for all the wrong reasons."

The range advantage they calculated they had was based on the superiority of their optical equipment and the known ranges of the American Standard-type battleships, which they had been able to observe discreetly during the USN's 'Fleet Problems' of the 1930s. Colorado was the basis of their assumptions, since at that time the North Carolina hadn't been constructed yet (and even during the earliest phases of her design process, was slated to receive 356 mm rather than 406 mm). Even if the U.S. decided to construct new 406-mm-armed battleships - which they knew would become a reality as soon as the naval treaties were allowed to lapse without renewal - the range advantage of the Japanese 460 mm over the North Carolina's 406 mm would be enough to ensure at least a temporary superiority. Yamato was, after all, designed not to completely surpass all American future construction - an impossibility, one that the designers were very well aware of - but rather to overwhelm existing older 406-mm-gun battleships. Practically speaking, Yamato is pretty well meant to slug it out with however many Colorados or Nelsons you want to send her way. She's invulnerable to their gunfire at all reasonable ranges (invulnerable to most gunfire period at all reasonable ranges) whilst they simultaneously have no protection against her guns at all. As far as fighting at range, the practical limit for naval gunnery is 35,000 metres, no matter the era or what kind of optical or radar-directed fire control equipment you happen to be using. The Japanese did not invest extensively into radar until after the Sea Battle off Savo Island, what is known in Western media as the Battle of Cape Esperance (11-12 October 1942), but they did drill with aircraft spotting throughout the 1930s (as did every other major navy). That may have been short-sighted on their part, but like most things, their lack of natural resources (the entire reason they went to war in the first place) and the poor base quality of those that were available precluded their adoption of quite a few advanced technologies. I have also included a rather decisive comparison of a modern battleship of inferior calibre (often-noted to have guns as powerful as 406 mm) vs. Yamato.

You're speaking from the benefit of hindsight, which isn't a good place to start when you're trying to say "from the perspective of the 1930s." In 1936, when the initial requirements for the Yamato class were drafted, the Japanese plan was in no way shortsighted or flawed. The 'decisive combat between surface fleets' was the fundamental doctrine of every major navy going into the late 1930s and early 1940s- and it's worth noting that, had the Americans followed War Plan Orange as they had intended prior to the destruction of their major surface elements at Pearl Harbour, we might well have seen a battleship gun duel in the western Marianas - just as the Japanese had planned for. They were counting on the morale shock of losing the majority of the American fighting fleet and even the temporary inability for the Americans to replace them in order to, if not win a short war, then at least gain a negotiated settlement with terms at least mostly favorable to the Japanese. You're also seriously overestimating American industrial capacity. Even if we assume that they can build a so-called 'super battleship' in two years or less - which they can't, not then, not now, and not ever - the design and testing process, not to mention the massive lead times necessary to construct 51-56 cm guns and their turrets, would preclude their installation on any such warship. Even if you started in 1939, you would not have those ships ready before 1944-45, as an extraordinarily generous estimate. You'd be better off building larger numbers of modern, fast 406-mm-gun combatants (which is what the USN did, for those very reasons listed among others). One can't look at carrier construction and compare it to battleship construction because battleships require significantly more extra weight that has to be produced with major lead times (armour plate - which even the industrially-giant US had maxed out its capacity for by 1943 - and heavy artillery). As far as the 'calibre race' of 406-457-506 mm (or 410-460-510 mm if you're Japanese) goes, it's a simple logic of being able to 'outrange the enemy.' If there was a real, serious threat to the American battle fleet from their Japanese counterparts, it was their fighting range. The Japanese extensively drilled to open fire from a longer range than their American counterparts - on the order of 6,000 metres or more. A larger, heavier shell keeps its stability in flight better and retains more kinetic energy on impact, losing less 'punch' over distance. It's a fault, perhaps, that the Japanese didn't develop anything like the 'super heavy' shell, but even then, Japanese shells were generally heavier than their comparable American counterparts until just prior to the war (1,020 kg for Nagato's 41 cm vs. Colorado's original 957 kg for its 16in Mk.1). Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make is this: it wasn't an unreasonable assumption to continue the pursuit of ever-larger battleships and larger artillery while they continued to be the ultimate arbiters of naval combat. You do not plan to lose a war, you plan to win one. To quote Bagnasco's The Littorio Class: From the doctrinal point of view, battleships continued to be the fundamental and indispensable part of every fleet; From the technical standpoint, only a large displacement could offer assurance from threats of guns, torpedoes, and bombs and it would have been a mistake to abandon building battleships as long as other ships with these characteristics existed or could be built, given the uncertain outcome of the conferences on the limitation of naval armaments. If you want to learn about Japanese naval doctrines and planning prior to the war, I recommend Kaigun. It's an incredibly good English-language source on the subject. If you can read Japanese, I can offer several other titles, but they're a bit pricey (one I would like goes for over $650 USD in its used condition).

I think the term you're looking for is 'chasing salvoes', a method to frustrate accurate shooting in the days of analogue fire control. As nearly as I remember, it works on the principle that most mechanical FC tables used 'Up' or 'Down' rates, based on visual spotting of the fall of shot; the manoeuvring target would therefore 'chase' the last salvo fired, turning in that direction. If the salvo landed beyond the target, a 'Down' spot would be applied: the ship would then close with the last salvo fired, causing the next salvo to be short and an 'Up' spot applied, and then so on and so forth. Of course, this all goes out with the advent of more sophisticated radar fire control and remote-power controlled mountings. By the time of the 1940s, ships could both manoeuvre and fight, rather than just one or the other.

Lacroix & Wells mention it under "Torpedo Ordnance" in Appendix H of Japanese Cruisers of the Pacific War, p.779-780. As for your other suggestions... yes, I want all of those things too. I'm also a perfectionist and I want everything to be as minutely detailed as possible so that I can build ships the way I want to, right down to the number of lands and twists in a gun barrel.