AP shells dont matter

[Cptbarney]

38 minutes ago, Christian said:

eh half is a bit of an overstatement

 

it weakened the torpedo protection but the thing that matters most with any TDS design is depth sure it made the protection weaker but as both musashi and yamato showed it really did not matter much when both survived atleast 10 torpedoes with an above average warhead

sure design is to some extent important but the depth of the design is the single most important aspect of any torpedo protection this is also why the french richileu even though it did not have an amazing TDS design its still better than all other anti torpedo designs just because its deeper than every other design

Well design is vital not just important, if your design is trash then good luck making any use of it. Even if you have all the materials you need and the workers too.

Without a decent design nothing that we use would work well or at all. Regardless the only way to test designs like those ships was to ironically enough shove them into war to see what they could do.

[Christian]

7 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Well design is vital not just important, if your design is trash then good luck making any use of it. Even if you have all the materials you need and the workers too.

Without a decent design nothing that we use would work well or at all. Regardless the only way to test designs like those ships was to ironically enough shove them into war to see what they could do.

i mean it depends on what you consider trash

 

sure you could probably make a very deep tds but have it be really bad 

but even then TDS design peaked in 1915 and the fast battleships and 1940s battleships only had worse TDS designs

 

the only reason they were stronger was because of the depth of the systems which allowed them to obsorb more explosive force 

 

a good article on it which i recomend reading

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-047.php

[Accipiter]

2 hours ago, Absolute0CA said:

Actually I am, though historically it was more against torpedoes that it failed but it did, resulting in flooding that if it had been up to par wouldn't have happened.

ah yes, but that's torpedo though, i was talking about AP shells only which was the topic of this discussion.

[Christian]

back on topic

yamatos weakspot likely wouldnt matter against AP or HE shells as it would likely be unable to fuse or explode once its passed so far underwater unless its a diving shell

 

generally speaking the belt armor has a bunch of connection points since its made up of a bunch of plates but in practice they are welded and bolted so well together that their protection does not suffer from not being one piece of steel

 

i dont actually know how yamatos armor was held in place but i know iowas was held in place by a bunch of large bolts with a cement backer behind the plate to keep the bolts in properly

 

 

[Accipiter]

4 hours ago, Christian said:

i mean it depends on what you consider trash

 

sure you could probably make a very deep tds but have it be really bad 

the italians did it 😛

Pugliese torepdo Defense System, just google it.

the Japanese with Yamato, and the Americans with all of their modern BB failed to an extent at their TDS Design because both had the same idea of a long tapering belt extension that goes down to the bottom of the hull to act as a stronger torpedo bulkhead. but in practice, because it wasnt made of high tension steel that can whitstand deformation like normal torpedo bulkheads, but very high hardness steel like the rest of the belt, it often shattered or broke in pieces and was pushed in by the power of the torpedo detonation, acting like a knife and cutting trough the torpedo bulkheads behind it and facilitated flooding. overall it was worse than an equal depth of a WW1 Style TDS with multiple layers of normal high tension steel bulkheads. the americans realized this and even ordered modification of the Montana class which had been designed with the same TDS, to just have a normal TDS instead, but the whole class got cancelled anyway soon after of course. as you mentions though, even with that, both the Yamato class took enormous torpedo damage and North Carolina also relatively decently took a torepdo hit, so it wasnt catastrophic.

the italian Pugliese defense system though, epic fail lol

Edited November 4, 2019 by Accipiter

[SiWi]

3 minutes ago, Christian said:

back on topic

the topic is if AP shells matter in the game or not...

[Christian]

1 minute ago, SiWi said:

the topic is if AP shells matter in the game or not...

shh

you need to be within a very short distance to penetrate a 15" belt of krupp IV

using this we can see that a 15" krupp iv belt will make you immune to 18 inch mark 3 guns with what seems to be super heavy shells + ballistite at 10km range

this is not taking into account angling which would just reduce performance even more

 

theres a reason to why the HE meta exists

[Accipiter]

18 minutes ago, SiWi said:

the topic is if AP shells matter in the game or not...

in the current state of the Game...they do matter against Cruisers and Battlecruisers, so there's that...

against DD and TB, always better to shoot HE, against BB, almost always better to shoot HE yeah...

i've said it in another thread but, the problem with this is the armor quality multiplier.

you see, the game actually use relatively correct and accurate penetration values for the most part, but those penetration values (just like IRL) are given against RHA (rolled homogenous steel, AKA: rolled homogenous armor, the standard mesurement unit for armor penetration of weapons, even still to this day). but the game use the much much weaker wrought iron as the baseline 0% armor for armor quality mesurement, when obviously it should also use RHA equivalent (which is a massive mistake from the dev team). it's literally just a problem of unit conversion, the game's penetration values are given in a much smaller unit and so aren't comparable to the game's armor values...

so either all gun penetration values should be more or less doubled across the board to effectively convert them in wrought iron equivalence (with adjustments where needed, obviously)

or better yet, the armor quality bonus should be totally reworked to start at like -100% (half) for wrought iron and go up from there to just around 0% or 10% for the best armor. and while we're at it, we can also make it more realistic and accurate as to what these different type of armors actually did (like face hardened armor being weaker specifically to high-angle hits, ect...)

christian already made a great thread on this

 

[WafflesToo]

Is it just me or does just about every aspect of this game feel simultaneously over-powered and under-powered?  Except armor... which is vastly over-performing... mostly... except against HE.

Torpedoes are way too easy to use and hit with... but do way too little damage (Especially to turn-of-the-century hulls) when they do hit (there is no way that any warship can eat 12x 22" torps on a regular basis)

Fires are way too easy to start... but don't really seem to do much to affect the ship (until every single compartment is burning of course; when the ship sudden-deaths).

Torpedo boats are the scourge of the seven seas; being simultaneously difficult to hit (fair enough, I suppose) and able to absorb damage out-of-proportion to their displacement (though this may have more to do with goofy victory conditions than anything really inherently wrong with them, I'm just not sure).

Spotting ranges are way too close (why do I keep losing sight of a burning transport ship at 5.5km in clear weather?)

AP shells keep bouncing/shattering doing minimal (if any) damage; HE does MORE (and more consistent) damage in all cases that I've personally witnessed.  (For example; in the scenario, "Armed Convoy" the hostile CA kept bouncing 12" AP shells at a range of 5.4km, switched to HE and within 3 salvos I detonated their magazine).

Did I miss anything?

[Steeltrap]

9 hours ago, WafflesToo said:

Did I miss anything?

Ships are easily added or removed from formations, and easy to give orders when in them....and they go batshit crazy and regularly become naval clusterhello kittys.

😎

[ThatZenoGuy]

On 11/5/2019 at 1:39 AM, Absolute0CA said:

Actually I am, though historically it was more against torpedoes that it failed but it did, resulting in flooding that if it had been up to par wouldn't have happened. This flaw weakened the Yamato's TDS by over half.

I actually have significant evidence that in practice this weakness almost never occurred, and only did so when hit by torpedoes larger than its defense was ever supposed to deal with.

I have a video recorded, just need to edit and upload it.

 

On 11/4/2019 at 9:32 PM, sRuLe said:

Answer is given. 

Except said answer makes no sense. The deck doesn't lay on top of the belt, yes. But its rivetted, welded and otherwise supported by countless tons of metal. No shell is going to buckle it. And if it does buckle it, its a shell which will penetrate anyway.

[ThatZenoGuy]

Allrighty, new video uploaded, might take a little bit to process as of making this post.

I hope you guys enjoy it!

[WafflesToo]

I don't think you can consider what the USN did to Yamato and Musashi as a proper test of their TDS arrangement

(god I hope I don't have to start hearing, "It took twenty torpedoes to sink the Yamato!!!" drivel start up again... just because she was shot that many times doesn't mean that all of them were required to put them down).

[Cptbarney]

2 hours ago, WafflesToo said:

I don't think you can consider what the USN did to Yamato and Musashi as a proper test of their TDS arrangement

(god I hope I don't have to start hearing, "It took twenty torpedoes to sink the Yamato!!!" drivel start up again... just because she was shot that many times doesn't mean that all of them were required to put them down).

The torpedos were litterally the reason she started to flood badly and also rolled on to her side and started to list over.

and of course its a proper test, she was engaged in combat, no better test than that.

She got hit by at least 11-13 torps and 6 bombs (not too mention any unconfirmed reports since over 280 aircraft attacked her).

Both ships had major design flaws and their torpedo protection didnt live up to par either.

[Hellstrike]

Yes, but given enough time, the Japanese BBs could have very well gone done from fewer hits. The USN simply didn't feel like sitting around 6 hours between hits to see how many torps it really took. And on Musashi, they attacked from both sides, which actually helped the Japanese as they effectively counterflooded the ship. So she took more torps to put down compared to if they had attacked just from one side, which they did against Yamato.

[ThatZenoGuy]

6 hours ago, WafflesToo said:

I don't think you can consider what the USN did to Yamato and Musashi as a proper test of their TDS arrangement

(god I hope I don't have to start hearing, "It took twenty torpedoes to sink the Yamato!!!" drivel start up again... just because she was shot that many times doesn't mean that all of them were required to put them down).

Yamato when struck on one side only and with destroyed damage control took 11.

Ergo a working Musashi which took hits from both sides would logically take around 20.

And these are from torpedoes STRONGER than they were designed to deal with.

It was an excessive use of force, and they still held up wonderfully.

The idea that Yamato class was 'weak' in any way to torpedoes is all but a myth.

[Steeltrap]

One ship that doesn't get mentioned much in TDS discussions is Bismarck, which is odd because that saga is so famous and visits to the wreck provided very useful information.

From everything I've read/seen, that TDS system worked pretty much exactly as intended with damage being contained pretty well. Of course the screws/rudders/shafts are always an Achilles' heel, just look at Prince of Wales.

Bismarck also proved pretty responsive to the helm, Captain Lindemann doing a good job of avoiding several. Kind of ironic in that I seem to recall the fateful strike occurred while coming back to a straight course; perhaps he wasn't aware of it or couldn't see it as it came from the rear quarter at a peculiar angle? Very unlucky, frankly.

If it's true that those that hit the TDS caused some minimal flooding, but only in areas expected to do so, then that's exactly what it ought to do. None of the hits impaired Bismarck's fighting capacities or seaworthiness, and I don't think any naval architect can really ask for more.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Steeltrap

[ThatZenoGuy]

16 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

One ship that doesn't get mentioned much in TDS discussions is Bismarck, which is odd because that saga is so famous and visits to the wreck provided very useful information.

From everything I've read/seen, that TDS system worked pretty much exactly as intended with damage being contained pretty well. Of course the screws/rudders/shafts are always an Achilles' heel, just look at Prince of Wales.

Bismarck also proved pretty responsive to the helm, Captain Lindemann doing a good job of avoiding several. Kind of ironic in that I seem to recall the fateful strike occurred while coming back to a straight course; perhaps he wasn't aware of it or couldn't see it as it came from the rear quarter at a peculiar angle? Very unlucky, frankly.

If it's true that those that hit the TDS caused some minimal flooding, but only in areas expected to do so, then that's exactly what it ought to do. None of the hits impaired Bismarck's fighting capacities or seaworthiness, and I don't think any naval architect can really ask for more.

 

Bismark's TDS wasn't bad, it was a fairly general design but was quite effective.

 

[Steeltrap]

Wall of text follows, so here's a TL;DR

All in all I think the appearance of crazy randomness does not do the game justice and the devs might well do themselves and the players a service by taking the time to be reasonably explicit about how things ought to work. We can provide better feedback if the devs let us know what they regard as things working as they intend, rather than us listing what we think seems peculiar but not being sure one way or another.

Back on topic re effectiveness of AP shells, I've found a few things to be true.

In part the choice between AP and HE is a matter of extremes.

If the AP will likely bounce off as the armour around or greater than pen, or if it will over-pen with the armour much lower than the pen, HE is better. If the AP value is around that of the armour, logically that's the time one would expect to use AP. Simple enough in theory.

A lot of the questions seem to resolve around various unknowns, or at least unknown to me so perhaps others can help.

How does pen of HE vs AP work? One thing that seems a bit misleading are the big numbers you can get with pen of extended deck/belt with HE. Worse, however, is you can see big numbers and pen of what one would expect to be the normal armoured deck section amidships. That's a bit of a mystery to me because when I look at my own guns' deck pen values, normally they're way lower than the likely deck armour of my targets at normal ranges until you're using late tech with plunging fire at 20-30km.

The bit I struggle with is seeing that happen to my own ship. I can see what gun hit me and from the enemy class, go to their info cars, look up their gun performance, and that info would have me believe it simply ought not be possible. If my deck is 4" of Krupp III, for example, how is a 14" mk2 gun doing a large number with an obvious HE shell? How is an HE shell seemingly doing significant damage to a well-armoured target when an AP shell, designed to do that, frequently is being ineffective? It's sometimes the exact opposite of what we know was true in reality (I try to avoid using that word, lol).

Then there's the damage model. Kills by "structure loss" are far too common, although it's also true that ships like transports remaining afloat with 1% structure while absorbing hits that would wreck a WW2 Cruiser seems bonkers.

AP to my mind IS the most dangerous ammo when effective. It's the one that will KO main guns, start flooding and do all sorts of internal mayhem. The trouble appears to be HE can be just as good at much of that, in fact sometimes more so, and in cases where it simply to my mind ought not to be the case.

There's also the situation of lots of ships going "pop" as soon as they present a largely bow or stern on aspect as a large calibre HE shell, or sometimes a smaller AP one, triggers ammo explosions. Seems the AI design logic might not have been amended to reflect the altered performances of shells with the last update, particularly with respect to citadels and bulkhead upgrades.

"The Modern BB" scenario can see you blowing huge chunks out of enemy BBs at range with plunging HE fire. That just can't be correct. Wrecking the upper works, superstructure generally, funnels etc, sure. Damaging areas not covered by "all or nothing", sure. But doing large damage through multiple deck levels on the compartment graphic, including right down to the bottom and starting flooding? Sorry, no, that's just bunkum. Multiple decks of various thicknesses designed to trigger fuses then absorb resulting explosions and splinters was obviously a widely studied design question, with varying results. But I'm all but certain what we're seeing with HE shells against decently armoured large targets is just not correct. At the same time, those same HE shells sometimes do next to nothing.

And, yes, the armour multiplier system v penetration seems off as well. We know that "immunity zones" were a thing, but they typically operated at range band that was quite distant, at least for WW2.

In WW1 leading up to Jutland, Jellicoe had quite specific instructions for the ranges at which he expected the various guns of the fleet to open fire and also that the fire was to be "deliberate" and not to shift to rapid fire until hits/straddles were occurring. He also quite specifically stated he didn't believe the gunnery would become decisive until at ranges of 10,000 yards or closer, because the Lyddite AP rounds were not expected to be able to penetrate to vital parts of the main German battle units outside that range. He stated he believed the longer range shots would be disruptive to the superstructure and upper works, but not killing blows. As an aside, I read they were aware of French experiments with different alloy shells and TNT that were proving significantly more effective, but the RN had already ordered more of their current ammo and doing the extensive work on improving shells wasn't seen as viable at the time.

All of which in my mind points to the devs having to do a significant rethink about the damage model, right down to the hit boxes, armour calculations, shell impact and non, partial, full and over penetrations. Also the limits on HE damage and "structure kills" at least for warships of greater than a certain tonnage, although there is a case to be made that for the purposes of a battle and campaign that might still be acceptable. Bismarck, after all, was structure killed before sinking, and even if the RN had sailed off and left her there, she wasn't ever going to do anything other than sink eventually.

So here's what I'm after:

- greater clarity about how the system does AP and HE penetration calculations.

- limitations on HE damage against more heavily armoured/larger tonnage warships

- easier destruction of non-combatant ships; TR absorbing multiple 5", 6", 8" and even 12" or greater while remaining afloat has to end. I don't mind if it takes several minutes to sink, but looking at the ship and thinking "it's flooding, afire stem to stern, structure down to 10% and flooding getting worse, I can shoot something else" only to find 5 or more minutes later it's still afloat and flooding is getting better is, I think, a bit ridiculous. (I failed a run of the Armed Convoy scenario because I left a TR like that and it didn't sink, lol).

- players being able to understand the implications of their choices when it comes to levels of armour they choose to allocate.

Edited November 9, 2019 by Steeltrap

[Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf]

As I am pretty new to the game, I can just say I had a few very good experiences with AP, wouldn't have been able to beat the semi-dreadnought scenario if my 11" AP hadn't penetrated and blown up the magazine of said BB on the fifth salvo.

[SiWi]

2 hours ago, Hjalfnar_Feuerwolf said:

As I am pretty new to the game, I can just say I had a few very good experiences with AP, wouldn't have been able to beat the semi-dreadnought scenario if my 11" AP hadn't penetrated and blown up the magazine of said BB on the fifth salvo.

I think that is kidna typical for AP right now:

often it does little or less then HE but when it does work it works wonders...

[Mhtsos]

14 hours ago, Steeltrap said:

Wall of text follows, so here's a TL;DR

All in all I think the appearance of crazy randomness does not do the game justice and the devs might well do themselves and the players a service by taking the time to be reasonably explicit about how things ought to work. We can provide better feedback if the devs let us know what they regard as things working as they intend, rather than us listing what we think seems peculiar but not being sure one way or another.

Back on topic re effectiveness of AP shells, I've found a few things to be true.

In part the choice between AP and HE is a matter of extremes.

If the AP will likely bounce off as the armour around or greater than pen, or if it will over-pen with the armour much lower than the pen, HE is better. If the AP value is around that of the armour, logically that's the time one would expect to use AP. Simple enough in theory.

A lot of the questions seem to resolve around various unknowns, or at least unknown to me so perhaps others can help.

How does pen of HE vs AP work? One thing that seems a bit misleading are the big numbers you can get with pen of extended deck/belt with HE. Worse, however, is you can see big numbers and pen of what one would expect to be the normal armoured deck section amidships. That's a bit of a mystery to me because when I look at my own guns' deck pen values, normally they're way lower than the likely deck armour of my targets at normal ranges until you're using late tech with plunging fire at 20-30km.

The bit I struggle with is seeing that happen to my own ship. I can see what gun hit me and from the enemy class, go to their info cars, look up their gun performance, and that info would have me believe it simply ought not be possible. If my deck is 4" of Krupp III, for example, how is a 14" mk2 gun doing a large number with an obvious HE shell? How is an HE shell seemingly doing significant damage to a well-armoured target when an AP shell, designed to do that, frequently is being ineffective? It's sometimes the exact opposite of what we know was true in reality (I try to avoid using that word, lol).

Then there's the damage model. Kills by "structure loss" are far too common, although it's also true that ships like transports remaining afloat with 1% structure while absorbing hits that would wreck a WW2 Cruiser seems bonkers.

AP to my mind IS the most dangerous ammo when effective. It's the one that will KO main guns, start flooding and do all sorts of internal mayhem. The trouble appears to be HE can be just as good at much of that, in fact sometimes more so, and in cases where it simply to my mind ought not to be the case.

There's also the situation of lots of ships going "pop" as soon as they present a largely bow or stern on aspect as a large calibre HE shell, or sometimes a smaller AP one, triggers ammo explosions. Seems the AI design logic might not have been amended to reflect the altered performances of shells with the last update, particularly with respect to citadels and bulkhead upgrades.

"The Modern BB" scenario can see you blowing huge chunks out of enemy BBs at range with plunging HE fire. That just can't be correct. Wrecking the upper works, superstructure generally, funnels etc, sure. Damaging areas not covered by "all or nothing", sure. But doing large damage through multiple deck levels on the compartment graphic, including right down to the bottom and starting flooding? Sorry, no, that's just bunkum. Multiple decks of various thicknesses designed to trigger fuses then absorb resulting explosions and splinters was obviously a widely studied design question, with varying results. But I'm all but certain what we're seeing with HE shells against decently armoured large targets is just not correct. At the same time, those same HE shells sometimes do next to nothing.

And, yes, the armour multiplier system v penetration seems off as well. We know that "immunity zones" were a thing, but they typically operated at range band that was quite distant, at least for WW2.

In WW1 leading up to Jutland, Jellicoe had quite specific instructions for the ranges at which he expected the various guns of the fleet to open fire and also that the fire was to be "deliberate" and not to shift to rapid fire until hits/straddles were occurring. He also quite specifically stated he didn't believe the gunnery would become decisive until at ranges of 10,000 yards or closer, because the Lyddite AP rounds were not expected to be able to penetrate to vital parts of the main German battle units outside that range. He stated he believed the longer range shots would be disruptive to the superstructure and upper works, but not killing blows. As an aside, I read they were aware of French experiments with different alloy shells and TNT that were proving significantly more effective, but the RN had already ordered more of their current ammo and doing the extensive work on improving shells wasn't seen as viable at the time.

All of which in my mind points to the devs having to do a significant rethink about the damage model, right down to the hit boxes, armour calculations, shell impact and non, partial, full and over penetrations. Also the limits on HE damage and "structure kills" at least for warships of greater than a certain tonnage, although there is a case to be made that for the purposes of a battle and campaign that might still be acceptable. Bismarck, after all, was structure killed before sinking, and even if the RN had sailed off and left her there, she wasn't ever going to do anything other than sink eventually.

So here's what I'm after:

- greater clarity about how the system does AP and HE penetration calculations.

- limitations on HE damage against more heavily armoured/larger tonnage warships

- easier destruction of non-combatant ships; TR absorbing multiple 5", 6", 8" and even 12" or greater while remaining afloat has to end. I don't mind if it takes several minutes to sink, but looking at the ship and thinking "it's flooding, afire stem to stern, structure down to 10% and flooding getting worse, I can shoot something else" only to find 5 or more minutes later it's still afloat and flooding is getting better is, I think, a bit ridiculous. (I failed a run of the Armed Convoy scenario because I left a TR like that and it didn't sink, lol).

- players being able to understand the implications of their choices when it comes to levels of armour they choose to allocate.

This. 

The game devs absolutely need to rework the damage model.

IMHO one of the biggest problems with the game right now, along with the hit% of secondaries and the weird formation AI.

[Ironheart]

Comparing to the 16" Mk.1 turret in game it just seems like they suffer from drag a lot more.

 

 

Edited November 9, 2019 by Ironheart

[akd]

"Mk I" 16-inch suggest a gun from the 1890-1900 era, something more like this:

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_162-30_mk1.php

There is no direct equivalence to naming system in game to historical guns that varied nation to nation.

Edited November 11, 2019 by akd

[Mooncatt]

On 11/9/2019 at 3:17 AM, Steeltrap said:

Wall of text follows, so here's a TL;DR

All in all I think the appearance of crazy randomness does not do the game justice and the devs might well do themselves and the players a service by taking the time to be reasonably explicit about how things ought to work. We can provide better feedback if the devs let us know what they regard as things working as they intend, rather than us listing what we think seems peculiar but not being sure one way or another.

Back on topic re effectiveness of AP shells, I've found a few things to be true.

In part the choice between AP and HE is a matter of extremes.

If the AP will likely bounce off as the armour around or greater than pen, or if it will over-pen with the armour much lower than the pen, HE is better. If the AP value is around that of the armour, logically that's the time one would expect to use AP. Simple enough in theory.

A lot of the questions seem to resolve around various unknowns, or at least unknown to me so perhaps others can help.

How does pen of HE vs AP work? One thing that seems a bit misleading are the big numbers you can get with pen of extended deck/belt with HE. Worse, however, is you can see big numbers and pen of what one would expect to be the normal armoured deck section amidships. That's a bit of a mystery to me because when I look at my own guns' deck pen values, normally they're way lower than the likely deck armour of my targets at normal ranges until you're using late tech with plunging fire at 20-30km.

The bit I struggle with is seeing that happen to my own ship. I can see what gun hit me and from the enemy class, go to their info cars, look up their gun performance, and that info would have me believe it simply ought not be possible. If my deck is 4" of Krupp III, for example, how is a 14" mk2 gun doing a large number with an obvious HE shell? How is an HE shell seemingly doing significant damage to a well-armoured target when an AP shell, designed to do that, frequently is being ineffective? It's sometimes the exact opposite of what we know was true in reality (I try to avoid using that word, lol).

Then there's the damage model. Kills by "structure loss" are far too common, although it's also true that ships like transports remaining afloat with 1% structure while absorbing hits that would wreck a WW2 Cruiser seems bonkers.

AP to my mind IS the most dangerous ammo when effective. It's the one that will KO main guns, start flooding and do all sorts of internal mayhem. The trouble appears to be HE can be just as good at much of that, in fact sometimes more so, and in cases where it simply to my mind ought not to be the case.

There's also the situation of lots of ships going "pop" as soon as they present a largely bow or stern on aspect as a large calibre HE shell, or sometimes a smaller AP one, triggers ammo explosions. Seems the AI design logic might not have been amended to reflect the altered performances of shells with the last update, particularly with respect to citadels and bulkhead upgrades.

"The Modern BB" scenario can see you blowing huge chunks out of enemy BBs at range with plunging HE fire. That just can't be correct. Wrecking the upper works, superstructure generally, funnels etc, sure. Damaging areas not covered by "all or nothing", sure. But doing large damage through multiple deck levels on the compartment graphic, including right down to the bottom and starting flooding? Sorry, no, that's just bunkum. Multiple decks of various thicknesses designed to trigger fuses then absorb resulting explosions and splinters was obviously a widely studied design question, with varying results. But I'm all but certain what we're seeing with HE shells against decently armoured large targets is just not correct. At the same time, those same HE shells sometimes do next to nothing.

And, yes, the armour multiplier system v penetration seems off as well. We know that "immunity zones" were a thing, but they typically operated at range band that was quite distant, at least for WW2.

In WW1 leading up to Jutland, Jellicoe had quite specific instructions for the ranges at which he expected the various guns of the fleet to open fire and also that the fire was to be "deliberate" and not to shift to rapid fire until hits/straddles were occurring. He also quite specifically stated he didn't believe the gunnery would become decisive until at ranges of 10,000 yards or closer, because the Lyddite AP rounds were not expected to be able to penetrate to vital parts of the main German battle units outside that range. He stated he believed the longer range shots would be disruptive to the superstructure and upper works, but not killing blows. As an aside, I read they were aware of French experiments with different alloy shells and TNT that were proving significantly more effective, but the RN had already ordered more of their current ammo and doing the extensive work on improving shells wasn't seen as viable at the time.

All of which in my mind points to the devs having to do a significant rethink about the damage model, right down to the hit boxes, armour calculations, shell impact and non, partial, full and over penetrations. Also the limits on HE damage and "structure kills" at least for warships of greater than a certain tonnage, although there is a case to be made that for the purposes of a battle and campaign that might still be acceptable. Bismarck, after all, was structure killed before sinking, and even if the RN had sailed off and left her there, she wasn't ever going to do anything other than sink eventually.

So here's what I'm after:

- greater clarity about how the system does AP and HE penetration calculations.

- limitations on HE damage against more heavily armoured/larger tonnage warships

- easier destruction of non-combatant ships; TR absorbing multiple 5", 6", 8" and even 12" or greater while remaining afloat has to end. I don't mind if it takes several minutes to sink, but looking at the ship and thinking "it's flooding, afire stem to stern, structure down to 10% and flooding getting worse, I can shoot something else" only to find 5 or more minutes later it's still afloat and flooding is getting better is, I think, a bit ridiculous. (I failed a run of the Armed Convoy scenario because I left a TR like that and it didn't sink, lol).

- players being able to understand the implications of their choices when it comes to levels of armour they choose to allocate.

Think you've just basically summed up what i was trying to say to start off with 😊