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[Cptbarney]

Yeah, seems liek divsions are borked and having all the ships on manual is the way to go so quiet a bit of multi-tasking (doesn't help my pc lol). But at least the enemies evade now and also speed is no longer the sole defining narrative to evading shells (with out actually evading them lol).

Ill be doing some more testing tommorrow.

[TotalRampage]

5 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Yeah, seems liek divsions are borked and having all the ships on manual is the way to go so quiet a bit of multi-tasking (doesn't help my pc lol). But at least the enemies evade now and also speed is no longer the sole defining narrative to evading shells (with out actually evading them lol).

Ill be doing some more testing tommorrow.

I still find the enemy fleets will not angle properly. So they will still go broadside on to my ships even if they have the majority of the firepower fore on there ship. I'd also like a feature were my ships if I target an enemy ship wont go broadside.

[SonicB]

3 hours ago, draconins said:

I would say I think I like this Alpha v76, as it reduced instances of crippling forever circling destroyer, which need manual rudder set, which usually plague once mission time goes few hours. Circling itself still happening but seems it is no longer require me to set rudder manually, instead I can detach, set some command, then attach it back later usually solve this. It is tedious but there at least it is workable.

Previously it is game breaking as setting rudder on many ships is very annoying, especially when I already in the game for few hours. This helped me complete remaining academy missions, especially last 2 missions which I had so many instances of it happening in alpha v74 and 75.

 

I've found myself having to use manual rudder so much more since this update, because ships are far too sensitive about collision avoidance.

[SonicB]

I've also noticed that the avoidance logic always requires ships to try to pass another ship across its bow, even when on their current course they would pass safely astern. This often causes formations to become needlessly separated and causes much unnecessary maneuvring.

Since maneuvring applies a severe penalty to accuracy and a large part of the game is about putting your ships in the right place relative to enemy ships, I would say the new evasion change is almost game-breaking.

It's a shame because the other changes in this patch I've found to be very positive.

[draconins]

15 hours ago, SonicB said:

I've found myself having to use manual rudder so much more since this update, because ships are far too sensitive about collision avoidance.

I think your use case is different, are you trying to ram or something? My problem was some ship (especially DDs), after long play, basically circling forever, and no matter what direction of command I set (including both direction command and go to location command) did not work (in formation or detached), even when my rudder is not damaged. This is unless I manually set rudder, and even then f I set the rudder manually for a while, if I return it to "automatic" it will go back to circling forever.

I kind of understand that you need manual control if you are trying to tell to ram, but yes using rudder for this purpose might not be helpful. Nonetheless I actually now have less circling compared to before.

[SonicB]

15 minutes ago, draconins said:

I think your use case is different, are you trying to ram or something? My problem was some ship (especially DDs), after long play, basically circling forever, and no matter what direction of command I set (including both direction command and go to location command) did not work (in formation or detached), even when my rudder is not damaged. This is unless I manually set rudder, and even then f I set the rudder manually for a while, if I return it to "automatic" it will go back to circling forever.

I kind of understand that you need manual control if you are trying to tell to ram, but yes using rudder for this purpose might not be helpful. Nonetheless I actually now have less circling compared to before.

I'm not trying to ram, I'm simply trying to get ships to maintain formation and not get stupidly out of place because of over-sensitive collision avoidance.

Example: on the 'Prove your Might' mission I just played, I get two destroyers which spawn in the middle of the convoy. I immediately order them to head towards the enemy. The first one heads in the right direction... the second would have passed just behind a merchant ship if it maintained course, but instead turned into the merchant trying to pass ahead of it. This caused a completely avoidable collision and the second DD to turn in a full circle until I took control of it manually. Meanwhile any chance of a co-ordinated torpedo attack from both DDs is gone.

I think you may be talking about a different bug which I haven't personally encountered, but which sounds equally annoying in a different way.

[draconins]

 

2 hours ago, SonicB said:

I'm not trying to ram, I'm simply trying to get ships to maintain formation and not get stupidly out of place because of over-sensitive collision avoidance.

Example: on the 'Prove your Might' mission I just played, I get two destroyers which spawn in the middle of the convoy. I immediately order them to head towards the enemy. The first one heads in the right direction... the second would have passed just behind a merchant ship if it maintained course, but instead turned into the merchant trying to pass ahead of it. This caused a completely avoidable collision and the second DD to turn in a full circle until I took control of it manually. Meanwhile any chance of a co-ordinated torpedo attack from both DDs is gone.

I think you may be talking about a different bug which I haven't personally encountered, but which sounds equally annoying in a different way.

I see, yes it is different problem. Yeah I think they kind of always trying to pass ahead and often caused some collision/confusion that way, and indeed seems more prevalent in this version.

[SturmGewehr]

Hi Guys,

I'm sorry, but Alpha 8 still doesn't get it. Here's a perfect example (Thank You, BrotherMunro):

His formation is so simple. A single BB screened by two DDs. The DDs almost screw up at the beginning, but manage to recover. But then, only to lose it altogether and go into a synchronized swimming meet, followed by (coitus, according the BrotherMunro), Tea, Crumpets and a Ciggy. It took him quite a while to figure out how to get them unscrewed.

Sorry guys, but the most basic issue (formation control) is not (as of v76) being addressed.

I want you guys to be successful. It's a beautiful game. DM me guys. We'll talk. I wrote stuff like this over 40 years ago.

 

[Cptbarney]

On 8/28/2020 at 8:19 PM, TotalRampage said:

I still find the enemy fleets will not angle properly. So they will still go broadside on to my ships even if they have the majority of the firepower fore on there ship. I'd also like a feature were my ships if I target an enemy ship wont go broadside.

Well at least they don't just very slowly slide towards your shipfu's like in animes lol. I wish we had reverse gears in this game and quad plus quintuple turrets so i can build the ultimate bow tank monsta!

But ye AI still needs major adjustments me thinks, sometimes ships will just ram each other in formation with slower ships despite being unavoidable, but eh that will be fixed hopefully.

[Steeltrap]

On 8/29/2020 at 5:19 AM, TotalRampage said:

I still find the enemy fleets will not angle properly. So they will still go broadside on to my ships even if they have the majority of the firepower fore on there ship. I'd also like a feature were my ships if I target an enemy ship wont go broadside.

The game claims that it is intended to be REALISTIC. All this "angling" and "bow tanking" is bullshit most people "learn" from WoWS.

It has ZERO place in a game attempting to provide any sort of 'realistic' recreations of the realities of large gun naval warfare. There are reasons you DON'T read about ships sitting still or going slowly ahead then astern when in naval combat.

It also follows that if there are advantages to either of those behaviours then THE GAME'S MECHANICS ARE FLAWED compared with the realities of the period.

If this (or any other game) REWARDS that sort of garbage, then it has NO grounds on which to make any claims to "realism".

Edited August 31, 2020 by Steeltrap

[TotalRampage]

On 8/30/2020 at 11:30 PM, Steeltrap said:

The game claims that it is intended to be REALISTIC. All this "angling" and "bow tanking" is bullshit most people "learn" from WoWS.

It has ZERO place in a game attempting to provide any sort of 'realistic' recreations of the realities of large gun naval warfare. There are reasons you DON'T read about ships sitting still or going slowly ahead then astern when in naval combat.

It also follows that if there are advantages to either of those behaviours then THE GAME'S MECHANICS ARE FLAWED compared with the realities of the period.

If this (or any other game) REWARDS that sort of garbage, then it has NO grounds on which to make any claims to "realism".

No actually its very historically accurate not to be broadside in a ship with a majority of forward firing guns or aft if the enemy ships were chasing you or if you lost your only guns in either way. Or to Actually use historical "angling" to move away or kite enemy ships away.

My ships also dont need to go completely broadside if I issue a change fire order on a ship thats CLEARLY a bug if my ships could actually adjust fire without having to do so. Especially if they force the whole battle line broadside to do so when I can keep my speed away from a enemy because its alot easier to hit a target chasing you than chasing THEM. I also didnt say anything about bow tanking either so dont ASSUME thats what I mean when you are CLEARLY mistaken okay :D. 

And my historical Mr.Armchair admiral please see historical battle lines of Jutland or Cape Esperance. They didn't fight them like age of sail battles that apparently you want in a pre-and post dreadnought era game and just have ships go broadside at 5km just duking it out like a bunch of monkeys. No actually who would have guessed that they actually didn't sail parallel to each other the whole battle. Thats just MIND BLOWING. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by TotalRampage

[Cptbarney]

Well lets hope a foight doesnt break out ladz.

[madham82]

2 hours ago, TotalRampage said:

No actually its very historically accurate not to be broadside in a ship with a majority of forward firing guns or aft if the enemy ships were chasing you or if you lost your only guns in either way. Or to Actually use historical "angling" to move away or kite enemy ships away.

My ships also dont need to go completely broadside if I issue a change fire order on a ship thats CLEARLY a bug if my ships could actually adjust fire without having to do so. Especially if they force the whole battle line broadside to do so when I can keep my speed away from a enemy because its alot easier to hit a target chasing you than chasing THEM. I also didnt say anything about bow tanking either so dont ASSUME thats what I mean when you are CLEARLY mistaken okay :D. 

And my historical Mr.Armchair admiral please see historical battle lines of Jutland or Cape Esperance. They didn't fight them like age of sail battles that apparently you want in a pre-and post dreadnought era game and just have ships go broadside at 5km just duking it out like a bunch of monkeys. No actually who would have guessed that they actually didn't sail parallel to each other the whole battle. Thats just MIND BLOWING. 

I am confused what point you are trying to make. You are not actively trying to sink another ship if your forces are fleeing,. Chasing, obviously if you want to chase you have to keep going the direction the enemy is retreating. In both cases the number of guns you can bear on target dictate a far reduced chance to hit, even more so to do real damage. 

So the reality is in these cases both sides are "maneuvering" for a better engagement. No commander is actively trying to "kite", since doing so reduces their ability to do damage to the enemy. 

Also, a fleeing/chasing enemy is even harder to hit because of the reduced target size and difficulty ranging (without radar). You cannot estimate speed and range as accurately at those angles. This forces plunging fire as the only practical hit to hope for, since you can't aim for a narrow stern/bow on a flat trajectory and score reliable hits to begin with. Plunging fire doesn't care if you are kiting away since the angle the shell is coming to the deck is what matters. 

As for those battles, think you are taking some isolated instances as tactics instead of circumstance. See these battle maps. It is obvious the tactic was to close to effective engagement range, then maneuver to keep the most number of guns on target (if you are the aggressor). 

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by madham82

[Adm.Hawklyn]

Just want to say that while this game wasn't intended to run on low end netbooks, UAD will run fine in windowed mode, no crashing involved with the i630 gfx.

Will be redoing more missions later...

As for up above... Not to endorse another game here, but if you play that online ships game, you get a much better idea of why people speak of angles of attack rather than perfect parallel lines.. We'd all like to think in simple terms that a line of battle is two straight lines of ships, but not even in the age of sail were there really ships literally sailing a straight line, because each ship would strive get the best angle on their target while trying to ensure incoming damage was minimized.

So even if the general course is one way, it's entirely possible that each ship had some room to angle port or starboard depending on situational awareness. Even if the popular line of battle pictures, the ships are staggered.

Broadside always does the most damage, but also allows for the most damage to be done. The trick is to angle the broadside, effectively using the turrets range of rotation to the best effect. An example of this would be as seen in WowS with Kongo, which at least for that game, has one of the most flexible attack ranges for the time period. As for UAD, well, our own design is entirely our own fault if we design with limited range in mind yes?

As you can see with the example I threw together to illustrate this... Notice that nearly all the turrets have the ability to rotate fully. While this isn't entirely realistic, it is a good example of what the Kongo had in the rear, where the turrets to aim forward at a decent amount of angle. Most other designs were kept toward the compact end of hull usage because having a longer hull is also more costly in materials.

So to sum it all up, broadside doesn't necessarily mean a straight line formation, all ships in the formation need room to maneuver other wise it does end up with disaster if your ships can't so much as stray out of line for even evading an incoming torpedo. Sorry for the long diatribe.

[Skeksis]

Hey guys looks like where’re the only forum section up and still running 😀  

[1MajorKoenig]

On 8/31/2020 at 5:30 AM, Steeltrap said:

The game claims that it is intended to be REALISTIC. All this "angling" and "bow tanking" is bullshit most people "learn" from WoWS.

It has ZERO place in a game attempting to provide any sort of 'realistic' recreations of the realities of large gun naval warfare. There are reasons you DON'T read about ships sitting still or going slowly ahead then astern when in naval combat.

It also follows that if there are advantages to either of those behaviours then THE GAME'S MECHANICS ARE FLAWED compared with the realities of the period.

If this (or any other game) REWARDS that sort of garbage, then it has NO grounds on which to make any claims to "realism".

Yes - I would appreciate if UAD would not copy this angling nonsense from Tonks/Tonks on Water 

[TotalRampage]

6 hours ago, madham82 said:

I am confused what point you are trying to make. You are not actively trying to sink another ship if your forces are fleeing,. Chasing, obviously if you want to chase you have to keep going the direction the enemy is retreating. In both cases the number of guns you can bear on target dictate a far reduced chance to hit, even more so to do real damage. 

So the reality is in these cases both sides are "maneuvering" for a better engagement. No commander is actively trying to "kite", since doing so reduces their ability to do damage to the enemy. 

Also, a fleeing/chasing enemy is even harder to hit because of the reduced target size and difficulty ranging (without radar). You cannot estimate speed and range as accurately at those angles. This forces plunging fire as the only practical hit to hope for, since you can't aim for a narrow stern/bow on a flat trajectory and score reliable hits to begin with. Plunging fire doesn't care if you are kiting away since the angle the shell is coming to the deck is what matters. 

As for those battles, think you are taking some isolated instances as tactics instead of circumstance. See these battle maps. It is obvious the tactic was to close to effective engagement range, then maneuver to keep the most number of guns on target (if you are the aggressor). 

 

I think you miss understand what I mean by kiting. Kiting is just a term I use when someone keeps the enemy at range and then proceeds to block there movement to a specific location which jellico did at the battle of Jutland by stopping the enemy fleet from returning to port but refusing to definitively engage.  Also in the first picture you posted 

(5) 16:45 hrs, Beatty's battlecruisers move out of range of Hipper.
(6) 16:54 hrs, Evan-Thomas's battleships turn north behind Beatty With this action they put themselves in a position to Kite or be chased by the main fleet and scouting fleet of the Germans. Essentially making them chase them which was the appropriate action because they wanted to drag the German high seas fleet out into combat with the rest of the battle fleet led by Jellico.

Also you can see an actual example by Jellico here where he talks about the enemy actually maneuvering by turning away and I quote "The enemy constantly turned away and opened the range under cover of destroyer attacks and smoke screens as the effect of the British fire was felt, and the alterations of course had the effect of bringing the British Fleet (which commenced the action in a position of advantage on the bow of the enemy) to a quarterly bearing from the enemy battle line, but at the same time placed us between the enemy and his bases."  https://www.firstworldwar.com/source/jutland_jellicoe.htm 

Essentially its just as you put it maneuvering which the AI does none of. Which goes back to my previous point of they just go broadside even your very own AI when you give an attack order completely burning there speed and also decreasing the accuracy of your own guns by making an extreme turn. In the example link I posted before you see prince of wales angle accordingly to Bismark during the battle of the Denmark straight not go completely broadside thus giving a bigger target to bismark. And Graf Spee at the river plate actively angles away to provide less of a target. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Denmark_Strait#/media/File:090102_PoW_gunnery_plot.png

Also here is Graf Spee "kiting" away from enemy contacts during the battle of river plate. At the time stamps you can see that graf is actively trying to angle away from Achilles and ajax at first to give those ships "who had the majority of the firepower in terms of number of cannons" as little a target as possible to then focus its guns at Exeter to essentially fight as little people are possible while getting rid of the biggest threat to her. Which once she did she didn't capitalise on. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_River_Plate#/media/File:HMSO_Graf_Spee_battle_map.jpg

This just supports my statement that the AI makes no engagement maneuvers what so ever to get out of fire range to re-position for another engagement or adjust fire on a side with the wind more advantageous for them. They just go broadside. 

Also when you say isolated instances I know an admiral doesn't go into a giant fleet battle thinking "im going to kite them away" That's not the point I was trying to make at all. Angling refers to how much a target you make yourself and historical admirals were very well aware of how to get all guns on target without completely going broadside which was my main point. The ships dont ANGLE properly they just go broadside which is a bug. If i can get all my guns on target at 45 degrees why am I sailing at 90 degrees to the enemy? It makes no sense what so ever so not only will you keep your speed and be able to continue to move away or pursue based on if the enemy is larger or smaller than you. 

[Skeksis]

57 minutes ago, TotalRampage said:

they just go broadside which is a bug

I think the default AI attack is to travel in an 'arc' from its target, maybe not a bug just simplistic.

But what you’re saying is it’s too simplistic and maybe what's needed is a 'vectored' approach or retreat, to make the AI alittle bit more effective, smarter.

Edited September 2, 2020 by Skeksis

[TotalRampage]

2 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

I think the default AI attack is to travel in an 'arc' from its target, maybe not a bug just simplistic.

But what you’re saying is it’s too simplistic and maybe what's needed is a 'vectored' approach or retreat, to make the AI alittle bit more effective, smarter.

I just mean its very basic atm. We wont have fleet battles we will have slug fests and as it stands now unless the AI extremly over techs you the human will always win. But the auto broadside is kinda stupid when im issuing attack orders then have to re order my ship to keep its course.

[madham82]

13 hours ago, TotalRampage said:

I think you miss understand what I mean by kiting. Kiting is just a term I use when someone keeps the enemy at range and then proceeds to block there movement to a specific location which jellico did at the battle of Jutland by stopping the enemy fleet from returning to port but refusing to definitively engage.  Also in the first picture you posted 

Also when you say isolated instances I know an admiral doesn't go into a giant fleet battle thinking "im going to kite them away" That's not the point I was trying to make at all. Angling refers to how much a target you make yourself and historical admirals were very well aware of how to get all guns on target without completely going broadside which was my main point. The ships dont ANGLE properly they just go broadside which is a bug. If i can get all my guns on target at 45 degrees why am I sailing at 90 degrees to the enemy? It makes no sense what so ever so not only will you keep your speed and be able to continue to move away or pursue based on if the enemy is larger or smaller than you. 

Indeed I was misunderstanding. Since WoWS was thrown into the conversation, I was thinking of the tactic used there to keep your ship at a sharp angle (certainly without all guns on target) to increase the chance of non-pens. These are the guys who also come to a stop and reverse while firing. Which I think is what @Steeltrap thought as well. We won't get into why that works suffice to say, WoWS is purposely not realistic. 

I also understand your point about the AI tactics (or lack thereof). I believe some of the issue is the battles lack real victory conditions like forcing the enemy to retreat, or block an enemy's advance. The rest is obviously the AI needs to be able to calculate threat better and try to reposition for a better engagement. Exactly what you are referring to as "kiting" in your examples.

The one thing I would add is kiting in the case of PoW was because of their starting position. They were trying to close the distance and cut off Bismarck's advance. Once the range is where they want to fight, the tactic was to go broadside. In fact if you look at the map with Hood plotted, you will see they had just completed a turn to broadside when Hood was sunk. The hits on PoW came shortly after forcing her withdraw. 

As for your last statement. There's an easy explanation for why you wouldn't kite unless you are doing it for better position/escape. You are changing the changing the range significantly. All ships are designed for an optimum range for the gun/armor performance. You can't keep kiting the whole time without negatively impacting one or both. Hence why all gun battles end up being fought the majority in broadside. Broadside doesn't necessary mean perfectly parallel either, but obviously enough to keep the range rate stable. You have no better example of that than the BC duel at Jutland. 

[TotalRampage]

4 hours ago, madham82 said:

Indeed I was misunderstanding. Since WoWS was thrown into the conversation, I was thinking of the tactic used there to keep your ship at a sharp angle (certainly without all guns on target) to increase the chance of non-pens. These are the guys who also come to a stop and reverse while firing. Which I think is what @Steeltrap thought as well. We won't get into why that works suffice to say, WoWS is purposely not realistic. 

I also understand your point about the AI tactics (or lack thereof). I believe some of the issue is the battles lack real victory conditions like forcing the enemy to retreat, or block an enemy's advance. The rest is obviously the AI needs to be able to calculate threat better and try to reposition for a better engagement. Exactly what you are referring to as "kiting" in your examples.

The one thing I would add is kiting in the case of PoW was because of their starting position. They were trying to close the distance and cut off Bismarck's advance. Once the range is where they want to fight, the tactic was to go broadside. In fact if you look at the map with Hood plotted, you will see they had just completed a turn to broadside when Hood was sunk. The hits on PoW came shortly after forcing her withdraw. 

As for your last statement. There's an easy explanation for why you wouldn't kite unless you are doing it for better position/escape. You are changing the changing the range significantly. All ships are designed for an optimum range for the gun/armor performance. You can't keep kiting the whole time without negatively impacting one or both. Hence why all gun battles end up being fought the majority in broadside. Broadside doesn't necessary mean perfectly parallel either, but obviously enough to keep the range rate stable. You have no better example of that than the BC duel at Jutland. 

Hmm guess I was mistaken on Hood thanks for the clarification tho!

But exactly what I mean with Jutland is it was done specifically with jellico. He sacrificed an ranged engagement to make them engage him which could be a "kite" in a sense.  This was done obviously to give him the tactical advantage and well to keep the German fleet out longer to make them try to punch through him to head to port (which also worked against him because of the torp boat threat).

And also when it comes to kiting i'm not talking about keeping him in the sweet spot of gun performance its mainly to make the enemy make a bigger mistake than you are making to well capitalize on it. While using proper angles while turning away to make yourself a smaller target on there horizon and to hopefully seize that chance. Which refers to Graf Spee and her fight! Which is probably one of my favorite naval engagements just because through the course plotting you can see where her captain was like "O shit" after he fell into there trap to then use them splitting up to his advantage by angling properly to make himself a smaller target while absolutely pummeling Exeter. 

[lordcmdr]

Armor angling becomes more important at closer ranges where firing arcs are flatter.

[Steeltrap]

10 hours ago, lordcmdr said:

Armor angling becomes more important at closer ranges where firing arcs are flatter.

"Armour angling" was NEVER a consideration of any commander of any ship of the period covered, or at least I've never found any source to suggest it was.

Edited September 3, 2020 by Steeltrap

[Steeltrap]

On 9/2/2020 at 12:24 AM, TotalRampage said:

No actually its very historically accurate not to be broadside in a ship with a majority of forward firing guns or aft if the enemy ships were chasing you or if you lost your only guns in either way. Or to Actually use historical "angling" to move away or kite enemy ships away.

My ships also dont need to go completely broadside if I issue a change fire order on a ship thats CLEARLY a bug if my ships could actually adjust fire without having to do so. Especially if they force the whole battle line broadside to do so when I can keep my speed away from a enemy because its alot easier to hit a target chasing you than chasing THEM. I also didnt say anything about bow tanking either so dont ASSUME thats what I mean when you are CLEARLY mistaken okay :D. 

And my historical Mr.Armchair admiral please see historical battle lines of Jutland or Cape Esperance. They didn't fight them like age of sail battles that apparently you want in a pre-and post dreadnought era game and just have ships go broadside at 5km just duking it out like a bunch of monkeys. No actually who would have guessed that they actually didn't sail parallel to each other the whole battle. Thats just MIND BLOWING. 

TL;DR? Please provide any credible source that says "angling" for the purposes of "improving effectiveness of armour". Better still, ask the devs for theirs, because, as you'll see below, I've included material that shows it's a VERY DELIBERATE design choice. That doesn't make it any less nonsense, however.

======================================================================================================

Straw man utterances reflect far more on the person making them than the intended target.

OF COURSE ships steamed towards each other. If they didn't, how did they ever make it into combat range? Not colliding with islands would appear to be another reason for altering course, too, I guess. Wish I'd thought of that.

The point I have made over and over and over is that the REASONS for which they presented sharp aspects to the enemy were almost EXCLUSIVELY around wanting to close or open the range. As to WHY they might do so, of course there are many.

Seeing as you're apparently wanting not only to misrepresent my clear position on this issue (I've mentioned it several times), but also to do so in a snide way that suggests I'm something of an ignorant twat (I've only owned and read books on this subject since about 1978, so I suppose you could be correct), here's a challenge for you:

Find me ONE REFERENCE in ANY NAVY from 1890-1940 where doctrine says "it's imperative to present a sharp bow/stern aspect so as to minimise both the chances of being hit AND the likelihood of that hit achieving anything".

In fact, what WAS doctrine for large gun capital ships with respect to optimal fighting range with respect to optimal gunnery performance and theoretical immunity zones?

Jutland is a good example that makes my argument far more thoroughly than yours. I'm sure you're aware of Jellicoe's thoughts about engagement ranges, appropriate rates of fire for such ranges based on expected effectiveness of fire, plus the time he believed he had until he would need to turn away due to the expected arrival of German torpedoes, right? On top of that, what was he trying to achieve in shifting from steaming in columns to a long line ahead battle formation? Was it "angling to maximise the effectiveness of armour and reduce chances of being hit", or perhaps it was unmasking the full might of his available guns as the enemy steamed into them? In fact if doing the former was such a great idea, why did Jellicoe arrange things to hand that advantage to Scheer? What's more, why did Scheer throw it all away by doing a fleet 180 turn away, a manoeuvre they SPECIFICALLY drilled on so as to be familiar with the different handling characteristics of their various capital ships? Scheer was clearly such a noob, lol.

To suggest Captain Langsdorff was in any way considering "angling" for the reasons you suggested is not at all how I recall the engagement. His goals were perfectly clear, including trying to manage the range of engagement against the two light cruisers charging him (as an aside, their "bow on aspect" didn't exactly do them many favours as I seem to recall at least one suffering a pretty bad hit smack in the front turrets) plus also trying to be in a position to manoeuvre to avoid torpedoes, several of which were fired at him. Equally, the Brits were using the light cruisers in much the way one would expect a DD squadron to behave, closing the range to increase the volume of hits plus bringing torpedoes into the mix. Then again, I'm going off memory, so perhaps you're right all along. Just odd that I don't ever recall reading about any such consideration on his part, or indeed the part of the Brits. If I WERE aware of such things, I'd consider it evidence that commanders of capital ships DID consider such things.

Equally, HMS Hood was well aware of the potential armour issues and very deliberately charging to close the range to where she felt a plunging hit on the deck armour was deemed unlikely. So important was that consideration that she and HMS Prince of Wales sacrificed 50% and 40% respectively of their total firepower. Bismarck, on the other hand, did not do anything of the sort, firing her fore and aft main batteries deliberately as two groupings so as to continue her adjustments to the firing solution on the closing enemies (she also blazed away with her secondary armament, but I don't know there's any evidence any hits were scored with them, something people around here seem to struggle to accept). With Hood sunk, Prince of Wales didn't choose to turn to a sharp angle, instead using her full complement of guns (well, those that were working, but that's a different matter).

Meanwhile, have you read the "help" pages in the game? Under "Shell Penetration Angle" it SPECIFICALLY SAYS:

"An effective practice to lessen the chance of a shell penetration is to advance towards enemy facing with the bow of the ship. This way incoming shells have reduced penetration power due to the smaller angle of hit or they may ricochet and become completely ineffective".

Thus we have the devs saying this concept of "presenting a sharp angle" is an important tactic based on the mechanics they have chosen to implement.

Quite how that's a great idea with an all or nothing armour scheme is something they've not mentioned, but I'm sure they'll get around to it. I'm about to post in the "long list of issues" just how hilariously badly that can go, but clearly I'm missing the point and in-game examples ought not be used to suggest things aren't all they're cracked up to be.

As an aside, quite some time ago I suggested an amendment to the "penetration tooltip" because there's a rather unfortunate surprise hidden within it and I thought it would be best to cover it so as not to have a lot of new players scratching their heads. But, hey, again, what would I know?

It's not clear to me exactly what your argument is other than "ships sailed towards and away from each other in all sorts of battles for a whole host of reasons". Thanks for that, captain obvious. Not that it in any rebuts the points I was making.

Now if people CAN demonstrate that this "angling" was done with the EXPRESS PURPOSE of maximising the armour of a capital gunship, I'll be all ears.

Until they do, however, I'll say what I've been saying for a long time. This whole angling thing for the purpose of increasing the effectiveness of armour is complete bollocks. That the devs have built it this way suggests two things to me:

1. the dramatically inflated hit rates of guns has forced them to implement artificial means of mitigating those hits, and

2. they're very deliberately catering to the WoWS crowd.

The simple FACT is that hit rates were the limiting factor in these ships, and the gunnery capital ships more or less did EVERYTHING they could to maximise their chance of scoring hits. If you can push your hit rate from 5% to 6%, that's a 20% increase in accuracy. Hell, we all know (or ought to) that the whole BC debacle at Jutland was in no small part due to measures taken to increase RoF to compensate for poor gunnery. If you've read Jellicoe as I mentioned, you'd also know that was very much CONTRARY to his instructions re gunnery doctrine and how he expected his ships to engage. Then again, the BCs were rather a debacle generally, so hardly surprising, lol.

Bloat the hit rates and everything ELSE has to change. Simple, really, but it explains why one might expect to see the AI doing what it does despite the fact that doing so for the purposes of improving armour is nothing I've ever read anywhere in some 40+ years. Then again, I'm only an armchair admiral, so perhaps you can point me to appropriately authoritative source material and I will happily eat humble pie because I'll be less ignorant than prior to reading it.

Those points are also things we've discussed many times around here, but I think I've certainly said enough.

[Cptbarney]

10 hours ago, lordcmdr said:

Armor angling becomes more important at closer ranges where firing arcs are flatter.

Its why tanks like the T-34 were so successful due to its armour scheme that was slopped at a 45 degree angle a reason why the panther had slopped armour and practically almost every tank afterwards had some form of slopped armour (except the german leopard they seem to like their flat surfaces for whatever reason). It's harder to angle in boats since you are rarely ever fully stationary (waves bobbing your ship up and down plus to the sides), but at closer ranges it would work since the degree of angle would be too high for any round penetrate.

Although having a armour degrade sort of mechanic would be cool as that means you can't just bow-tank forevah, although if the enemy ship is particularly strong you might as well leg it anyways.