AON armor scheme is a death trap

[Entropy Avatar]

It seems like it would relatively simple for the game to change how it calculates which sections are covered by main belt and deck. Instead of the main belt always being the central 3 and the extended being the outer 4, you say that any segment with a primary turret or an engine is covered with main belt and deck. If you decide to cover your entire ship with primary turrets, congrats, everything is covered by main belt and deck (and you pay the cost in terms of weight and dollars). 

Edited August 27, 2020 by Entropy Avatar

[Hangar18]

On 2/19/2020 at 4:36 PM, Cabusha said:

You'll note in your example of the Iowa, the main armored belt extends all the way to protect Turret A.  That is the issue here, as currently Turret A is unprotected in a full AoN scheme.  0inches or 6inches in the BE, it doesn't really matter as the protection scheme in game is wrong.  Often testing in the extreme is best to explore flaws in a system, such as this early access game.

 

I completely agree no one in their right minds would design a ship with 0 protection in those areas, and as you show, have at least some protection.   I've had plenty of fun before looking over and replicating Iowa equivalent ships in say Rule the Waves, within it's limits.  

 

Good information,  but the lecture is misplaced.  

The A turret is absolutely behind the main armor belt in game if the ship is built correctly.

[1MajorKoenig]

On 8/27/2020 at 3:09 PM, Entropy Avatar said:

It seems like it would relatively simple for the game to change how it calculates which sections are covered by main belt and deck. Instead of the main belt always being the central 3 and the extended being the outer 4, you say that any segment with a primary turret or an engine is covered with main belt and deck. If you decide to cover your entire ship with primary turrets, congrats, everything is covered by main belt and deck (and you pay the cost in terms of weight and dollars). 

That would actually make a lot of sense! 
 

And the way you build the Lay-out would determine the length of the main belt (and therefore it’s weight) as a result. Sounds like a good idea to play around with different designs and to optimize citadel length (the shorter the lighter)

[Cptbarney]

13 hours ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

That would actually make a lot of sense! 
 

And the way you build the Lay-out would determine the length of the main belt (and therefore it’s weight) as a result. Sounds like a good idea to play around with different designs and to optimize citadel length (the shorter the lighter)

World of warships does a good job with that, using its multi-layer system so bottom belt is usually torp belt, mid main belt with maybe a section poking out and the deck side armour as well. Plus any internal armour and spaced armour as well.

This would mean that with a new armour system you could customize the armour layout more effectivly and with far greater freedom.

[1MajorKoenig]

1 hour ago, Cptbarney said:

World of warships does a good job with that, using its multi-layer system so bottom belt is usually torp belt, mid main belt with maybe a section poking out and the deck side armour as well. Plus any internal armour and spaced armour as well.

This would mean that with a new armour system you could customize the armour layout more effectivly and with far greater freedom.

True but what I meant was that the guy is right: main belt shouldn’t be fixed the three center compartments but dynamically calculated by the placement of main guns / barbettes and machinery space. This would allow us to save weight by trying to reduce citadel length which I would put equal to main belt length. 

[akd]

On 8/27/2020 at 8:09 AM, Entropy Avatar said:

It seems like it would relatively simple for the game to change how it calculates which sections are covered by main belt and deck. Instead of the main belt always being the central 3 and the extended being the outer 4, you say that any segment with a primary turret or an engine is covered with main belt and deck. If you decide to cover your entire ship with primary turrets, congrats, everything is covered by main belt and deck (and you pay the cost in terms of weight and dollars). 

The “sections” would then need to be variable in size and number.  I mean, having the area armored increasing by 20% because a turret extends maybe 1% into a section would be a bit daft.

[Tycondero]

19 hours ago, 1MajorKoenig said:

True but what I meant was that the guy is right: main belt shouldn’t be fixed the three center compartments but dynamically calculated by the placement of main guns / barbettes and machinery space. This would allow us to save weight by trying to reduce citadel length which I would put equal to main belt length. 

I agree with you 100%. This would be the best way to tackle the cidadel design issues. Furthermore it will make ship design a lot deeper and offer you more meaningful choices. Want to have a lot of gun turrets? You will need to take into account the increased main belt size and compensate accordingly.

The only thing I fear is that the AI may not be able to cope with flexible values for the main belt. Furthermore it may require heavy calculation, though if the boundaries of the main belt size would be limited to the edges of the compartments I think this could be fairly limited.

[Tycondero]

On 8/27/2020 at 3:09 PM, Entropy Avatar said:

It seems like it would relatively simple for the game to change how it calculates which sections are covered by main belt and deck. Instead of the main belt always being the central 3 and the extended being the outer 4, you say that any segment with a primary turret or an engine is covered with main belt and deck. If you decide to cover your entire ship with primary turrets, congrats, everything is covered by main belt and deck (and you pay the cost in terms of weight and dollars). 

Fully agree. As responded already above. I fully agree that this would be simple enough and effective. Furthermore, indeed if someone places the turrets as such as to cover almost the entire ship then they will pay heavily for it due to reduced efficiency in weight, speed and potentially even armament.

[1MajorKoenig]

55 minutes ago, Tycondero said:

The only thing I fear is that the AI may not be able to cope with flexible values for the main belt. Furthermore it may require heavy calculation, though if the boundaries of the main belt size would be limited to the edges of the compartments I think this could be fairly limited.

As machinery space is fixed at the moment and main gun turrets and barbettes are in multiple fixed spots it should be possible to calculate the length once in the design process. Even if it would be just multiple snap points between the program measured the length - would still be better and probably relatively simple to program

[The_Real_Hawkeye]

9 hours ago, Tycondero said:

I agree with you 100%. This would be the best way to tackle the cidadel design issues. Furthermore it will make ship design a lot deeper and offer you more meaningful choices. Want to have a lot of gun turrets? You will need to take into account the increased main belt size and compensate accordingly.

The only thing I fear is that the AI may not be able to cope with flexible values for the main belt. Furthermore it may require heavy calculation, though if the boundaries of the main belt size would be limited to the edges of the compartments I think this could be fairly limited.

Agreed.

IIRC, for some of the "all forward" designs, like the Nelson class, this design was specifically chosen in order to shorten the citadel.

[draconins]

On 8/27/2020 at 8:09 AM, Entropy Avatar said:

It seems like it would relatively simple for the game to change how it calculates which sections are covered by main belt and deck. Instead of the main belt always being the central 3 and the extended being the outer 4, you say that any segment with a primary turret or an engine is covered with main belt and deck. If you decide to cover your entire ship with primary turrets, congrats, everything is covered by main belt and deck (and you pay the cost in terms of weight and dollars). 

I also support this, though I would like UAD to use similar concept used by game Naval Ops warship gunner, in which the length of citadel should basically determined by furthest weapon which need to pierce the deck, this includes main gun, however this is not limited to main gun, some large sized secondary should be part of this. This is visualized in Naval Ops as "Vital Points/Percentage", which determines length of the "citadel" compared to length of the ship. That game calculates whether you have All of Nothing or Turtleback based on how high you VP. If it is 53% or lower it is basically AON (described as core armor) with hit on bow and stern causing more status damage but you get 20% lighter armor. If VP is higher, it is basically turtleback (described as full length armor).  I once read somewhere that the highest VP for historical AON ship is 53%, the Yamato, so i believe this is based on that. Do remember there is no "pure" AON ship as pure AON would basically vulnerable to small arms fire or even blast for your own gun.

I think using this concept probably better than citadel always in central 3, though I would not recommend the measure of using 53% as hardcoded value between AON and full length. UAD should use existing separation between main armor and extended armor. I do expect, when you choose AON, if you set same value of main and extended armor, the weight and protection level should be basically similar with turtleback.

[disc]

I do not exactly understand the Naval Ops system, so perhaps I am misinterpreting it.

All-or-nothing does not depend on length of protected citadel relative to ship length. The first AON design, Nevada, had its citadel extend 400ft out of a waterline length of 575ft. This gives a protected percentage of about 69.6% of waterline. The following US Standard battleships were designed to meet this fixed protected waterline percentage, with the Colorados amounting to 68.6%. Additionally, heavy armor extended aft of the citadel proper, so as to cover the steering gear, so even more waterline space was protected than just the citadel.

USS Nevada. One can see the great length of the citadel here. The steering gear armor covered approximately 80 feet, so total protected length was about 480ft/575ft = 83.48% of total waterline length. I am uncertain of the armor profile of the steering gear; Friedman seems to indicate it was a turtleback without a belt.
 

By contrast, the Nelson class had an armored waterline percentage of only 58.6% (probably neglecting the steering gear box).

The North Carolina had a lower percentage of armored length compared to the Nevada, but it appears to have been still substantial.

 

The North Carolina.

 

Later US AON designs partially abandoned these ideas of percent protected length. The South Dakota had a citadel 360ft long at a waterline length of 666ft, while the Iowa had a 464ft citadel at a waterline length of 860ft. This gives percentages of 54.04% and 53.95%, respectively. That said, the South Dakota and Iowa also had long steering gear belts that joined to the rear of the citadel, so protected waterline space was somewhat greater than these numbers suggest. Likewise, the actual volume percentage enclosed by armor was greater than might be assumed from length, as the ends of Iowas especially were very slim compared to the midships section.

The Iowa. One can see the great length of the steering gear armor belt.

Edited September 5, 2020 by disc

[draconins]

Naval ops does not model the heavy armor extending the citadel for protecting underwater stern, it only uses the citadel proper only at waterline, similar how you don't usually use term citadel for the Barbette protection extending upward. For the percentage, I only remembered from the reference mentioning it before, I simply don't remember where, I may be wrong too though in this part I remembered when I read this, I was surprised that the number matched how naval ops model the VP. This is also why I said not to use hardcoded 53%, it is simply limiting and you may want make "monster" ship. And yes, in many definition citadel does include those transverse bulkhead.

Just for fun to I checked diagram of side drawing Yamato, if you just based on side drawing, it would instead yield 47-48%ish, even with extended angled citadel.

And probably the correct term what we refer as turtleback is incremental armor,as usually turtleback only protected top, not adding belt armor.

Edited September 5, 2020 by draconins

[BobRoss0902]

Ever played RTW? There's a reason why all ships above destroyers require at least 1 inch of armor on *all* parts. It's to suck up small secondary hits.

[draconins]

Another check to my library, and the one I use did mentioned that the protection on aft steering is considered outside citadel. From Anatomy of The Ship Battleship Iowa, pg 12

I also scanned the armor arrangement scan from later page as part of configuration should be clearer than the one shared by @disc

 

Edited September 11, 2020 by draconins