Armor weight - is it too light?

[The Land]

so now I am a bit confused!

Using the data found in this article - 1930s USN source: https://www.naval-history.net/WW0Book-USN-Armour1937.htm

the relative value of different armours is as follows. First row is equivalent thicknesses of armour. Second row is ratios of weights for equivalent protection (assuming equal density, which is reasonably close). Third row is ratio of effectiveness. Krupp2 is 'modern' Krupp from the perspective of the mid-30s

Iron	Steel	N-Steel	Compd	Harv	Krupp	 Krupp2
20	15.9	15.9	15.4	13.3	11.3	10.18
1.00	0.79	0.79	0.77	0.67	0.57	0.51
1.00	1.26	1.26	1.30	1.50	1.77	1.96

In the game, better armour has BOTH less "armour weight" and more "armour strength". E.g. Harvey to Krupp goes from 0.85 to 0.75 Weight AND 1.45 to 1.70 Effectiveness.

The way Effectiveness works suggests that the thickness of the armour is what's actually stated - 10in Harvey replaced by  10in Krupp is as effective as you'd think.

BUT there is also the Weight term, which means that the Krupp armour also WEIGHS 12% less. 

Basically - the  ship designer is double-counting the benefits of better armour.

Though, all of this is before you start thinking about the benefits of citadels etc.... *shrugs*.

[jokash]

4 hours ago, coalminer said:

Ironically, I'm purely educated in the metric system but for ships its just soooo intuitive to go with inches... even comparing things like tanks, planes, etc mm RHA is alot easier for me to handle... maybe its just that the numbers get bigger with mm and it gets lost somewhere in the calculations 😰

My first documentary i watched on battleships expressed everything in mm (cause we metric)also in every book i read.Its not until i started online reading that inches started to appear.And i dont care for them at all.Bismarck has 380mm guns,KGV has 356mm Iowa has 406mm and Yamato has 460mm...thats how i was learning about it all,thats how i would like it to stay.

[Evil4Zerggin]

The weight reduction especially has an outsized effect at high tech levels. When I last checked, not only do you get -40% weight from Krupp IV, you get an additional -21% from techs, for a total of -61%. That's more than 2.5x the armor thickness per weight!

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

This is weird.

I just made a historically accurate Iowa Class ship, with the historical armor values, components and armor.

It weigths 69,473 tons, which is 11,013 tons heavier than it should.

This further proves that armor isn't too light, on the contrary. Or, at least, there is something that it way too heavy right now.

 

 

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

Bismarck on the other hand, is far closer to reality, being "just" 2,972 ton heavier, with a 53,272 ton figure compared to the real 50,300 one.

 

[Cpt.Hissy]

Seems like Armor weight per unit is individual for each hull and not necessarily corresponds to something else. That's the reason.
in short, let's just wait till editor rework, because current version is total crappy mess and it's a well known fact.

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

20 minutes ago, Cpt.Hissy said:

Seems like Armor weight per unit is individual for each hull and not necessarily corresponds to something else. That's the reason.
in short, let's just wait till editor rework, because current version is total crappy mess and it's a well known fact.

 

I hope one day we will be able to fully customize armor, not only the thicknesses but also extensions and surfaces, placement, etc.

 

Also... make "all or nothing" armor useful: right now, it's worthless to use this doctrine, as pens and over pens on the extended parts of the hull result in massive damage, so it's worthless.

Edited February 3, 2021 by SPANISH_AVENGER

[Evil4Zerggin]

10 hours ago, SPANISH_AVENGER said:

This further proves that armor isn't too light, on the contrary. Or, at least, there is something that it way too heavy right now.

Why don't you look at the Weights & Costs breakdown?

[Reaper Jack]

12 hours ago, SPANISH_AVENGER said:

Bismarck on the other hand, is far closer to reality, being "just" 2,972 ton heavier, with a 53,272 ton figure compared to the real 50,300 one.

 

Get rid of that extra TEN THOUSAND tons you've slapped on for no apparent reason, and the ship weight will also be reduced to well under Bismarck's historical tonnage. She should also have Long Range and Barbette II at the most. Her Extended Armor is also nowhere near that thick and her Anti-flooding should not be above level II. Her turret armor was a known weakness and her TDS was bad on paper, though turned out pretty decent in actual combat. Her Shells should also be Light, not Standard with her guns having full Reload in game, between these two things the 380mm guns will reach about their historical 28 second reload with roughly 1 ton shells, as was also historical.

[The Land]

17 hours ago, SPANISH_AVENGER said:

This is weird.

I just made a historically accurate Iowa Class ship, with the historical armor values, components and armor.

It weigths 69,473 tons, which is 11,013 tons heavier than it should.

This further proves that armor isn't too light, on the contrary. Or, at least, there is something that it way too heavy right now.

In my experience (see the "Will it Build" thread) you really do have to unpick every single element of your construction before you can make any conclusions about what's happening with any one of them. The armour might be too light and the engines too heavy - or the opposite.... 

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

6 hours ago, Reaper Jack said:

Get rid of that extra TEN THOUSAND tons you've slapped on for no apparent reason, and the ship weight will also be reduced to well under Bismarck's historical tonnage.

And its length will also be reduced by 30 meters, making it look like a chubby Bismarck xD

Will try the other things though

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

10 hours ago, Evil4Zerggin said:

Why don't you look at the Weights & Costs breakdown?

Oooooh, true... I will do it tonight, when I reproduce these ships again with some polishments! Maybe this could help us find out what is happening, as there’s information about each ships armor displacement.

For example, about Bismarck: “In terms of expanse, the Bismarck devoted 19,082 mt to belt, deck, turret, underwater, and splinter armour, which amounted to about 40% of its designed combat weight (47,870 mt)“

So this way we can see how close the ingame figure is compared to the real thing.

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

Armor isn't too light, and my proof:

I just re-made Bismarck with some corrections and polishments. The biggest change I made is to set the maximun displacement to the real value, instead of setting the real length as I did the last time. Therefore, UA:D Bismarck is just 231m long, which is 20m shorter than the real ship. The thing is, if I make it be 251m long as the real ship, it gets way heavier. But now we are trying to figure weigths, so that's irrelevant.

So... here's the weights' comparisons:

Real life / Ingame:

1- Displacement: 50,300 / 50,452 t

2- Armor weight: 19,082 / 20,049 t

3- Armor percentage of total displacement: 37,93% / 39,73%

Now, given the limitations of the current ship and armor designer, I would say this is a very accurate figure, and I dare to assure you that armor isn't too light as OP and some others have claimed.

On the contrary: there's something that makes ships to be heavier than they should given a length. Bismarck should be 251m long, yet ingame, if we make it be 251m long, it gains 3,000 tons it should not have. I think the base of the hulls is too heavy and increases too much with length increasements.

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2021 by SPANISH_AVENGER

[madham82]

What about getting rid of displacement as a slider, and instead length/beam sliders. Therefore your displacement becomes a factor of these and equipment, instead of us filling a set displacement with all the components as is now. 

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

1 minute ago, madham82 said:

What about getting rid of displacement as a slider, and instead length/beam sliders. Therefore your displacement becomes a factor of these and equipment, instead of us filling a set displacement with all the components as is now. 

Yes, I would like to simply set length/beam values. That would help a lot in making not just historical ships, but also original designs in a more accurate manner.

[The Land]

10 minutes ago, SPANISH_AVENGER said:

Armor isn't too light, and my proof:

...

2- Armor weight: 19,082 / 20,049 t

 

What are you including in "Armour" here? I make it 14,325. If I add bulkheads then it goes up but I don't think they are part of the 'armour' weights described in most sources as typically they are not armoured.

(Also, as the ship is shorter in the game, one would expect the game to have a lower armour weight than reality but a higher Engine HP figure.)

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

1 minute ago, The Land said:

What are you including in "Armour" here? I make it 14,325. If I add bulkheads then it goes up but I don't think they are part of the 'armour' weights described in most sources as typically they are not armoured.

(Also, as the ship is shorter in the game, one would expect the game to have a lower armour weight than reality but a higher Engine HP figure.)

Yes, I counted bulkheads, as the main source I took, counts them (as “splinter protection”, it also states the given armor weight value is the total weight of all the armor protection elements)

[The Land]

10 hours ago, SPANISH_AVENGER said:

Yes, I counted bulkheads, as the main source I took, counts them (as “splinter protection”, it also states the given armor weight value is the total weight of all the armor protection elements)

Hmmm, I am not sure this is right - it's unusual to count internal bulkheads as part of the armour scheme (as opposed to torpedo bulkheads, which are different!). Some bulkheads are armoured - the fore and aft bulkheads of the citadel always are, and Bismark had longitudinal 'splinter bulkheads' above the waterline, but most bulkheads are not. 

I take it you're looking at this: https://www.kbismarck.com/proteccioni.html ?

[Somhairle]

Anyone else noticed that draft is ridiculous? The RN BCIII (Hood) hull has a draft of 15m/49.2'. FOURTY-NINE FEET?!?!?? And it doesn't change as you adjust other things. Make it heavier and the length and beam increase, but the draft stays the same. Make it lighter, length and beam drop. Draft? Nah, it's the same. FYI, Hood's draft (at normal load) was 8.7m/28.5'.

I know, "What does this have to do with OP about armor weight?" Well, as the Devs have said, the armor model, as currently operating, armors the ENTIRE SIDE from deck to keel at EQUAL thickness. Historically, where I can find the values, most ships armored belt was 2.5-5m/8-16' tall, with a usual deck height around 4.25m/14'. So, instead of the main belt being 4m/13' tall, it's 23.5m/77' tall (since there's 2 decks above water), but weighs LESS in a lot of cases. Even if it weighed the same, armor would be ridiculously light.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Somhairle

[Reaper Jack]

On 2/5/2021 at 3:48 AM, The Land said:

Hmmm, I am not sure this is right - it's unusual to count internal bulkheads as part of the armour scheme (as opposed to torpedo bulkheads, which are different!). Some bulkheads are armoured - the fore and aft bulkheads of the citadel always are, and Bismark had longitudinal 'splinter bulkheads' above the waterline, but most bulkheads are not. 

I take it you're looking at this: https://www.kbismarck.com/proteccioni.html ?

Using that,  Avenger has misread the extended armor as well, which should be 35mm for the belt and 60mm for the deck. Making the in game armor significantly lighter than his previous posts. 

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

I see many issues currently:

1- Armor has a too vast extension.

2- Armor is too light.

3- Hits on extended and non-vital parts deal too much damage.

Thus, it's impossible to employ all or nothing armor schemes, as hits on non-vital parts deal too great damage to leave them truly unprotected.

Solutions I propose:

1- Let us select the extension of the belts and decks, as well as belts and decks extended.

2- Divide the belt in 3: upper, middle and lower, and allow us to define the thickness of each, as well as the extension of each.

3- Overpens and pens at non-vital parts shouldn't deal nearly as much damage as they currently do. Perhaps there could be a limitation of how much damage can be dealt to the extended parts, so that you can't sink a ship merely by hitting the unarmored tip of the extended bow.

4- Make armor have the correct weight.

This way, we will be able to more realistically design ships and their armors, as well as have them beheave more realistically in combat.

[Right]

When it comes to try and be as close to see if some information is accurate just try to compare the component as itself or dont do it from the first place, the first of the two we can't unless we would be shown the programming code for it.

in game I didnt saw an indicator for deciding size and most hulls got 2-3 different fixed sizes, surely not exactly as a specific ship designe. taking into account that each mm of the ship can make a diff and that you cant actually decide accuratly the waight of bulkheads, fuel, engine, ammo and machinery, or anyhing else of a ship componants for that matter, to every single design of a ship unless the devs would decide to go crazy and put all ship construction information into this game to wish accuracy to what was in real life in this game is just a dream.

You take thousands of variables and point it to the armor, which if you want to go that far you should also take into account that most types of metals are different to this day depands on where they were made from and in large amounts would give defferant stats.

I hope the devs decided to implament the "all or nothing" armour design to the hulls which also can give a very wide effect on the waight of the ship, sadly it would or is something we would never know if it is in there somewhere.

I tried some designes that went to be very close to the actual ships as they were, that is enough for me for now.

A small pointer as well - in the game you can decide how much potential you want from your hull, in reality such a thing was never took into account in the same manner and the hull size changes the numbers by %, so you can always play with that and just not use the full waight potential just to get the numbers to your liking.

[Bigjku]

Baffling the all or nothing armor scheme actually adds weight to the ship before you modify the armor at all.  I don’t really get why they would be the case.

[Microscop]

On 2/16/2021 at 3:52 AM, Bigjku said:

Baffling the all or nothing armor scheme actually adds weight to the ship before you modify the armor at all.  I don’t really get why they would be the case.

All or nothing has bigger citadel so maby thats why

[The_Real_Hawkeye]

6 hours ago, Microscop said:

All or nothing has bigger citadel so maby thats why

As far as I understand it, AoN armor came into being after it was realized that

a) Armoring the ship vs. the larger and improved guns that navies were starting to field was impossible with the current armor-schemes

b) The few inches of armor on the weaker armored parts of the ships couldn't even keep out medium caliber shells anymore and only served to make large caliber AP shells explode.

So the decision was made to do away with armor over non-essential parts of the ships, letting AP rounds simply pass through without exploding while concentrating the armor over the vitals and by concentrating the armor on a smaller part of the ship, getting armor thickness up to something that actually could keep large-caliber shells out.

 

All of this makes it reasonable that a 15" armor belt with an AoN armor scheme should mass significantly less than the same belt-thickness with, say, a turtelback armor-scheme.