>>>Core Patch 0.5 Feedback Hotfix v90<<<

[aradragoon]

Two issue that I am not 100% are issues but figured I would put them down to see if others can confirm.

The first is that as of this new update it often becomes the case that I can't select or highlight some, but not all, secondaries that are attached to the super structure. This makes it difficult if I want to change secondaries.

The second issue is that the AI seems to be much more reluctant, if at all since my testing I haven't seen it in about a dozen games, for the AI to use larger caliber weapons. So far the AI CL's have almost, if not always, consistently used 5in while the CA's have almost, if not always, used 7in. I did not gather the numbers on BC/BB's. This could just be small sample size and confirmation bias.

As a side note, will be get any new light cruiser hulls for the U.S.? The current CL hull doesn't work for builds like Cleveland or Brooklyn class ships.

[lordcmdr]

Ship weights are still far heavier than real life not realistic based upon actual parameters. It's almost impossible to build a replica Scharnhorst at 35-38K tons full combat load. I can't build a replica Bismarck either and stay within 45-51K tons. 

I'm still enjoying all the added things still. I would like to design and save enemy ships for custom battles at some point like others have said.

[Nick Thomadis]

New hotfix has just become available, admirals! The freeze issue while loading should be gone now.

*Hotfix v89* (20/9/2021 UPDATE)
- Fixed various bugs of auto-design, which were also responsible for freezes while loading battles. 
- Fixed gun collider issues. You should be able to mount guns with more flexibility, especially in towers.
- Fixed bug in gun selection when it was placed on a tower.
- Fixes on other minors you reported.

[ChryssyH117]

I hate to bring bad news as I only discovered this today and have been checking it but uhh the medium 3 barbette can take and still can take in V89 20"+ guns

[ChryssyH117]

2 minutes ago, ChryssyH117 said:

I hate to bring bad news as I only discovered this today and have been checking it but uhh the medium 3 barbette can take and still can take in V89 20"+ guns

I will say I wouldnt be against this not being fixed as it is kinda comical

[vyprestrike]

When loading saved designs after restarting the game, the range slider likes to reset to minimum range, and a lot of modules (towers and barbettes) turn red with the placement error, forcing you to pick them up and replace them.

This only happens after loading a design after restarting or opening the game, it doesn't happen when loading the design during the same game session.

[Skeksis]

...

Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[DougToss]

I have to say, I'm glad to see some of the gameplay issues testers have pointed out being worked on prior to the campaign, and greater attention paid to achieving results comparable with real data on guns and gunnery.

Bravo Zulu.

[DerRichtigeArzt]

Ok so

 

Crew mechanic is kinda weird. People die from hits they have no business dying from. Like far front or aft of the ship where there is not that many people. Also crew is just glorified hp that depletes with every hit. I once had the enemy flash fire all 3 of his aft turrets (he had 3 back and 1 front) and most of his gun and controll crew still lived. Other times I had 40% of the crew die from partial penetrations from just a rain of low cal weapons. It almost seems like they are all glued to the armor tightly and take vibration damage. Decrease crew death outside of citadel, decrease partial pen lethality, increase fire and flooding death, increase overpen death a little, massively increase full proper penetration kill count and flashfire should basicly wipe the part of the ship it happened on (im talking instant wipe of 90% of the crew in that part of the ship). Also crew lethality as a whole is very low. 

 

Ship durability:

A 1915 ship that has taken 10-20 proper penetrations from a 13 inch gun has no business fighting in 90% of the cases. If I leave a ship at 20% hp with half of it flooded then I expect it to sink slowly, not be a zombie that will swallow 300 more shells. I had a battle today where I shot a 1936 CL with 10 9 inch shells, it went to 20% flood hp and 60% hull hp, ran away, and maybe an hour of ingame time later it came back with all engines fixed, 0 flooding and only 5% crew dead. When irl it would maybe run away only to have an easier time evacuating in safe conditions (not under fire) in the finished game I fully expect a ship with that kind of damage to sink 9 out of 10 times. Remember miracles are miracles because they happen rarely, we hear of those crazy surviing ships but for every one of them there is many that succumbed to their damage easily. 

 

New hulls and parts:

Allow me more range of displacement, late game all I can build is 60kt+ behemoths. I really enjoy the restraints of the various naval treaties, I like building around them and make the best of what I have got on my hands, it defeats the point of design when I can just build the biggest, fastest, most armored and best armed ship out there every time. Also next patch definetly focus of pre dreadnoughts. More ww1 and interwar hulls could be cool but we need more variety early game, especially that those hulls are very limiting in what you can do so there really needs to be many of them and unique ones as well. 

 

Performance: drops after a longer while in the designer and overall designer performance is very bad, in battle there is no problems I have noticed. The fix to designer performance drops untill its fixed is to leave and enter again, now that we can save ships its a good stopgap measure. 

 

Overall a good patch that needs work on balance more than bug fixing, so a success. I love the new cruiser hulls and the small dreadnought for germany and Austria(tho it might actually be a little op I have to test more) 

 

Good job on this one, I hope we get campaign in a similar state to this patch, balancing is not as hard as fixing bugs after all. Cheers

[DougToss]

I think to build on what @DerRichtigeArzt is saying, gunnery, ballistics and protection remain large areas of concern. I really wish we could move away from HP to Buoyancy/Stability(Capsize)/Crew/Essential Systems/Uncontrolled Fires. I understand that's more complex - but that's what we're here for. 

The advantage of doing this is that the behind armour effect will be just as much in what was hit as how hard it was hit, and so we can look at getting terminal ballistics, penetration tables and armour thicknesses more in line with historical values. 

As always, compared to the written sources for the Dreadnought Era, before fire control radars, ships are still hitting too often at all ranges. I understand players new to naval sims may be frustrated, but that's the reality of the era, and understanding how infrequently ships were hit goes a long way to explaining why they were armoured as they were - the expectation prior to Jutland was that any large warship would have to be pummelled by large guns, as at Tsushima, or sunk by torpedos. Nobody really expected large warships to be disabled by single hits, and were not protected to keep every single possible hit out. 

[neph]

1 hour ago, DougToss said:

I think to build on what @DerRichtigeArzt is saying, gunnery, ballistics and protection remain large areas of concern. I really wish we could move away from HP to Buoyancy/Stability(Capsize)/Crew/Essential Systems/Uncontrolled Fires. I understand that's more complex - but that's what we're here for. 

The advantage of doing this is that the behind armour effect will be just as much in what was hit as how hard it was hit, and so we can look at getting terminal ballistics, penetration tables and armour thicknesses more in line with historical values. 

As always, compared to the written sources for the Dreadnought Era, before fire control radars, ships are still hitting too often at all ranges. I understand players new to naval sims may be frustrated, but that's the reality of the era, and understanding how infrequently ships were hit goes a long way to explaining why they were armoured as they were - the expectation prior to Jutland was that any large warship would have to be pummelled by large guns, as at Tsushima, or sunk by torpedos. Nobody really expected large warships to be disabled by single hits, and were not protected to keep every single possible hit out. 

Amen!

[Speglord]

9 hours ago, lordcmdr said:

Ship weights are still far heavier than real life not realistic based upon actual parameters. It's almost impossible to build a replica Scharnhorst at 35-38K tons full combat load. I can't build a replica Bismarck either and stay within 45-51K tons. 

I'm still enjoying all the added things still. I would like to design and save enemy ships for custom battles at some point like others have said.

I've found it depends on the ships. For a lot of variants, yeah. I tried recreating the Indiana-class battleships (America's first pre-dreadnought class) a few days ago and I was coming in like 5 or 6,000 tons overweight. I think I had a similar experience when making Yamato, but I could be confusing it with something else (Iowa, maybe?). But with a few other ships (Littorio, Hood, and Bismarck) I was approximately correct, if not nearly spot-on. The former is probably due to the fact that those hulls are the oldest, plus Nick said they plan on introducing a lot more early-game and cruiser hulls with the campaign patch. So I suppose we'll see.

Edited September 21, 2021 by Speglord

[Hangar18]

7 hours ago, DougToss said:

I have to say, I'm glad to see some of the gameplay issues testers have pointed out being worked on prior to the campaign, and greater attention paid to achieving results comparable with real data on guns and gunnery.

Bravo Zulu.

The gunnery model is still bonkers. It really drives larger calibers because not only do they do significant damage, but they also have a far greater chance of hitting their target at closer ranges.

[DougToss]

9 hours ago, Hangar18 said:

The gunnery model is still bonkers. It really drives larger calibers because not only do they do significant damage, but they also have a far greater chance of hitting their target at closer ranges.

That's on me for extrapolating from the changelog before really going deep. 

Would it be possible, even if it was just for us discussing it amongst ourselves and with @Nick Thomadis here, and the Testing Forum, to have some sort of baseline we agree on? What I mean is - for us to compare the game to historical sources, it would be nice if we could say "Fire Control 1 is Scott's system of Continuous Aim, 2 is the Dumaresq, 3 is the Dreyer Table" etc. It would let us use sources more easily - Particularly Vincent O'Hara, Norman Friedman and D.K Brown, who all extensively reproduce Royal Navy test results, firing tables, penetration curves, and damage reports. 

 

This would be particularly useful - I'll go further and say mandatory -  for guns and shells! If we knew that "12 Inch Gun 2" was the 12in BL Mk XI, XI* or XII, imagine how much easier it would be! Not only for us, but for @Nick Thomadis, because in Naval Weapons of World War One we can see how much it weighs, the mounts, range and penetration tables, shells and their effectiveness etc. etc. 

Quote

 

“As understood before 1914, the central fact in gun tactics was that the effect of fire was cumulative. Moreover, guns were unlikely by themselves to sink ships. Ships would probably be disabled and left to torpedoes for sinking. The old adage was that, to damage a ship, fill her with air; to sink her, fill her with water (from underwater hits). For example, the Royal Navy constructed ‘knock-down’ tables showing how long a ship had to be under fire before she was considered disabled. War game rules issued in July 1913 stated that at a range of 7000yds it would take about 20 minutes for a 13.5in super-dreadnought (King George V class) to neutralise an equivalent ship, and about 26.5 minutes at 10,000yds. Somewhat earlier documents show much longer times; presumably the 1913 figures took account of emerging new fire control technology, such as directors and computers. German war game rules (produced in 1909) show much the same perception: a ship was counted as disabled after having been under fire for half an hour.”

“Until about 1908 British shells had 2crh heads (the 31lb 4in was 3crh). Experiments then showed that a sharper-nosed shell would enjoy much greater range and a flatter trajectory. For example, at 6000yds the 2crh 12in capped shell with 2crh head hit at 1861 ft/sec, but 4crh hit at 2075ft/sec and 6crh at 2203ft/sec. Corresponding penetration of Krupp Cemented (KC) armour was 10.4in, 11.6in and 12.4in. At 9000yds velocities were, respectively, 1540ft/sec, 1810ft/sec and 1987ft/sec, armour penetrations being 8.6in, 10.l in and 11.l in. The really long (6 and 8crh) shells turned out to be unsteady in flight; the Royal Navy standardised on 4crh shells. For capped AP shells (APC) the 4crh modification was made by changing the cap on the shell. At the same time it was decided to design all types of shell of the same calibre to range alike as far as possible at battle ranges (generally it was impossible to give them exactly the same ballistics, so they drifted differently). That was presumably due to dramatic improvements in fire control. ”

 

Friedman, Norman. “Naval Weapons of World War One”. 

I quote those passages to show that none of this stuff is intuitive, and yet that's the reality of naval gunnery. As I said, nobody expected the long ranges of the First World War, and the low hit rate, which lead to more ammunition being stored and a desire for a higher rate of fire, which lead to the BC  Squadron's fate at Jutland. If people expected ships to hit reliably at all ranges and that they might be destroyed by a single hit, then none of the warships historically built would have been designed as they were - they would have had impervious armour to keep every possible shell out. 

It's been 2 years - we can confidently say that trying to find "Balance" by judging how guns "Feel" is not going to work! 

Edited September 21, 2021 by DougToss

[DougToss]

On 9/15/2021 at 7:05 AM, Nick Thomadis said:

Crew losses are supposed to simulate realistic conditions. Despite players wanting crew to die by the hundreds, in history ships were not having extreme losses, unless they were sunk or detonated. You can read about the casualties of Derfflinger and Seydlitz in the Battle of Jutland for the matter.

We try to properly simulate the conditions of crew casualties caused by direct hits, fire and flooding and do not want to go to extreme levels of unrealistic damage just for the shake of playing a game.

I just wanted to say, @Nick Thomadis I genuinely appreciate this, and would like to see this attitude going forwards. It makes an Old Grog happy to see that you are adhering to simulating real results, and hope that carries over into buoyancy etc.  

[Hangar18]

57 minutes ago, DougToss said:

I just wanted to say, @Nick Thomadis I genuinely appreciate this, and would like to see this attitude going forwards. It makes an Old Grog happy to see that you are adhering to simulating real results, and hope that carries over into buoyancy etc.  

In the given context, I'm not sure i agree. flash fire in a turret should probably vaporize the crew in that turret. But i dont think this is a huge problem at the moment, i would rather focus on gunnery model.

also, phoning in from the request line: case mate torpedo launchers. you cant fit torps on a lot of hulls now because of how big they are.

[DougToss]

1 hour ago, Hangar18 said:

In the given context, I'm not sure i agree. flash fire in a turret should probably vaporize the crew in that turret. But i dont think this is a huge problem at the moment, i would rather focus on gunnery model.

also, phoning in from the request line: case mate torpedo launchers. you cant fit torps on a lot of hulls now because of how big they are.

I think just as @Nick Thomadis has separated shell filler from propellant, it may be time to start looking at "Flash Fires" as two separate things. It's important to distinguish the flash from a penetrating hit, which is of course dangerous, to that same flash touching off unsafely stored ammunition, which is catastrophic: 

Quote

 

After Jutland Admiral Jellicoe wrote a contradictory letter back to the Admiralty. His fleet had, he said, done what was considered safe – but he also supposed that putting Cordite in turrets and handling rooms and exposing cartridges at the foot of the hoist would leave a powder train back from turret to magazine, so that a penetrating turret hit would destroy a ship. Since that was actually what had been done on several ships, and probably not only on board battlecruisers, in effect Admiral Jellicoe was admitting that the disastrous battlecruiser explosions were not due to superior German gunnery or to the often-mentioned problem of steeply-descending shells passing through decks. It would seem that such explanations were necessary because to admit culpability would have been disastrous for fleet morale.

This explanation is credible because the same ships engaged at Dogger Bank as at Jutland. Neither side suffered catastrophic damage; the German ships were sunk or disabled by exactly the sort of cumulative damage expected pre-war by all navies. The difference at Jutland seems to have been much worse magazine practice by the Royal Navy. Usually that is described as locking hoist doors open, so that flash could travel down from penetrated turrets, and certainly post-Jutland the Royal Navy took the flash problem more seriously than any other navy. It also conducted experiments in 1917–18 to examine the consequences of flash. However, the absence of catastrophic flash damage at Dogger Bank suggests that something more was happening, and Admiral Jellicoe’s litany of really deadly magazine practices seems a likely explanation.”

 

Friedman,. “Naval Weapons of World War One”

Quote

The German shells probably hit the port shelter deck over the forward port 4-in. gun battery, exploded within the battery, setting off the large quantities of 4-in. cordite charges stacked for ready use, and flashed down the ammunition hoists to the 4-in. magazine. HMS Kent had a similar experience with an exploding shell causing flash to go down an ammunition hoist during the battle of the Falklands. The 4-in. magazine is located next to the forward boiler room, which represents the path of least resistance for the explosion to vent its pressure blast. The exploding 4-in. magazine would then have ignited the main magazine between A and B turrets, causing a massive explosion leading to the large debris field. The broken midships and stern section floated over the demolished bow leaving a trail of debris, including boilers, broken decks and plating, before sinking upturned to the bottom. 

Burr, "British Battlecruisers 1914-18"

Quote

 

“Despite these fifteen hits by 11in shells, Tiger remained fully capable of continuing the fight though with only six main armament guns for much of the time. It is notable how much of a ship of that era could be damaged without impairing her fighting capability. Conversely, other hits on barbettes and by the 6in hoist could have had much more serious consequences.”

“After Jutland, two constructors, Payne and Goodall, carried out a study of the damaged ships attempting to deduce the cause in the cases of those lost.12 They dismissed the idea that shell penetrated the ‘lower protective deck and exploded either in the magazine or so close to it as to ignite the contents. This is not substantiated by a detailed examination of all the reports that have been received, and in the ships that returned from the engagement there is no known case of an enemy shell travelling so far down before bursting and only one case [that of Barham] where a shell which burst a short distance beyond the point of penetration sent a fragment so far into the ship’. They also said that there were very few cases of fragments penetrating over the much larger area of the machinery spaces. With hindsight, this report is probably correct in saying that it is unlikely that any protective deck was hit by an intact shell. At the ranges of Jutland, it is unlikely that a shell descended at more than 20° to the horizontal and German shells typically burst between 16 and 24ft from first impact with structure. ”

“During the First World War there were a considerable number of disastrous ammunition explosions in British warships, some accidental and others initiated by enemy weapons. There were also a smaller number of serious propellant fires which did not lead to a major explosion.”

“The evidence on the loss of ships from magazine explosions in action is incomplete and largely circumstantial. The sequence of events in Lion at Jutland, where the ship barely escaped the fate of Queen Mary, Indefatigable and Invincible, is fairly well documented and will be described in some detail as it throws light on what may have happened in other ships.”

“She was hit on Q turret by a 12in SAP shell from Lutzow at 1600hrs when the range was 16,500yds.34 The shell descending at 20° to the horizontal, hitting the right upper corner of the left gun port where the 9in face plate met the 3¼ in roof. A piece of the 9in plate was broken off and driven into the turret and the shell exploded 3ft from impact over the centre of the left-hand gun, killing or wounding everyone in the gunhouse. The front roof plate was blown off, landing upside down 12ft away. The centre face plate was also blown off, landing 15ft away. The left-hand gun was damaged beyond repair as was most but not all of the machinery. A fire was started which it was thought was extinguished from above”

“At 1628hrs Grant was approaching the middle deck hatch to the handing room when a large sheet of flame came up it. It is assumed that the smouldering fire in the gunhouse had spread to the eight charges in the working chamber and ignited them. They burnt very violently, the flames reaching as high as the mast head. Despite the fact that the missing roof plate vented much of the pressure, the doors to the magazine were severely buckled. It is probable that the magazine was already flooded by that time in which case the water pressure would have given support to the doors. Later tests showed that such doors were not flash-tight under severe loading and it is likely that the magazine would have exploded had it not been flooded. The delay between the hit and the cordite fire in the trunk is important since the rise of pressure is so rapid once cordite begins to burn that it is impossible to flood. However, in Lion, the missing section of turret roof would have allowed good venting. It is important to note that eight full charges35 could burn violently without explosion. (It will later be argued that this is strong evidence that gunpowder igniters were not a prime cause of explosion.)”

 

Brown, "The Grand Fleet"

Good point about turret crews. I lost sight of that in the bigger pictures about shell flash / propellant train flash / magazine explosion. You're absolutely right that even if there had not been greater catastrophe after, the turret crew was killed by the initial penetrating hit. 

[SpootKnight]

On 9/15/2021 at 3:04 PM, CapnAvont1015 said:

Yo am I the the only one who still can't make Yamato? The five inch guns still don't fit on the superstructure and quite frankly I'm getting annoyed with that. I can't even make A-150 class with it's four inch guns. Only two and three inch guns can fit on all the slots of the superstructure.

It's like this for me as well and actually worse than the last time it's been brought up. Since CP.5 you can't even use the Yamato's superstructure accurately because placing the guns where they should be makes the secondary tower an illegally-placed object.

Edit: I know it should be 5" secondaries, but ignoring that the top three mounts don't have the nodes to even try to take them, it wouldn't be possible to mount them even if the nodes were available.

Edited September 21, 2021 by SpootKnight

[Iuvenalis]

On 9/16/2021 at 11:10 AM, Norbert Sattler said:

USS Monitor mission is pretty much impossible, because even with maximum turret armour, the main guns get destroyed every time.

I had a similar problem, so I made two light and fast (9kts or so) monitors and rammed the enemy from both sides in a pincer move.

[Hangar18]

On 9/15/2021 at 3:04 PM, CapnAvont1015 said:

Yo am I the the only one who still can't make Yamato? The five inch guns still don't fit on the superstructure and quite frankly I'm getting annoyed with that. I can't even make A-150 class with it's four inch guns. Only two and three inch guns can fit on all the slots of the superstructure.

Something in the scale is wrong. thats not the only hull that has this issue. The USN hulls now have snap points for 5" guns, but they dont fit the tower well.

[Speglord]

This is an incredibly minor cosmetic issue, but would it be possible to change the US flag to either a period-accurate flag (depending on the year), as the US didn't have 50 states/stars until 1959? That, or just use the US naval ensign (blue field with white stars).

[DougToss]

I'm going through sources on hits trying to find casualties for turret hits, and other hits behind armour. @Hangar18 this is where I've hit a bit of a wall trying to evaluate sources: 

When we look at crew casualties in gunhouses, I'm having a hard time disentangling three possibilities: 

• The casualties were the same as they would be elsewhere on the ship, hit behind armour, and with the same density of crew
• The casualties were greater than they would be elsewhere because of the confined nature of turrets and lack of compartmentalization 
• The casualties were greater than they would be elsewhere because of the contents of the turret (propellant) 

If the third option is the case, I suppose we would have to separate casualties from propellant cooking off in the turret (bad) from the handling room (extremely bad) to the magazines (whole ship lost). On the one had, that reinforces my earlier point about making a distinction between localized flash and flash in the powder train down to the magazines. On the other it may simplify things because calculating crewmen lost for a turret penetrating hit would just be a matter of deducting 100% of the crew in the turret from the ship total! 

Quote

 

Jutland and the Shell Committee
For the Royal Navy the real surprise of Jutland was that the Germans had no desire to stand and fight. Given the universal pre-war perception that damage by shellfire was inevitably cumulative, it seemed that any commander willing to enter a gun fight had to intend to stay there for a protracted period. The Germans were as surprised as the British that single hits wiped out three capital ships. They shared exactly the same perception that sustained fire was essential. In pre-war thinking, only an underwater hit could instantly wipe out a ship. It is interesting that the Germans, unlike the British, did not initiate a crash programme to increase shell effectiveness after the battle (aside from the battlecruisers, they had not had much luck against many British ships). These points were obvious to those writing at the time, but they have been forgotten because the explosion of the three battlecruisers has overshadowed previous experience and also the rest of the battle.

Even though many British shells failed to penetrate German armour at Jutland, in at least two cases hits on barbettes created hot spall which burned out turrets; had the Germans been using British powder these hits would have caused explosions. Conversely, although the Germans penetrated British turrets, it seems likely that the ships so damaged would not have been lost had the British not adopted extraordinarily unsafe turret and magazine procedures. The British post-Jutland interest in projectiles able to penetrate German armour in condition to burst inside a ship was connected not with any hope of destroying ships with single turret or magazine hits but rather with the need to immobilise German capital ships as they tried to escape, as at Jutland, i.e., with the ability to penetrate armour and destroy their machinery. After the wan the Germans made much of the quality of their shells, but the French considered them too light, with too little explosive, to do sufficient damage to properly-handled ships.”

A single hit by the new shell had to be enough to stop a German battleship, which meant penetrating deeply enough into her machinery spaces to disable her. A shell exploding at or near the external armour would not affect machinery much deeper in the ship. The initial report of the Shell Committee pointed out that fifty hits by existing British shells probably would not have the desired effect. At Jutland British shells did put German ships out of action, for example by creating the hot fragments which burned out two turrets aboard the battlecruiser Seydlitz. However, they did not stop the German ships and thus open them up to attack by torpedoes, which would have sunk them. Only the battlecruiser Lützow (which sank) and the battlecruiser Seydlitz (which nearly sank) were badly enough damaged, although several German battleships needed considerable repair after the battle. To see what was needed, test shells were fired against a mock-up representing the armour of the König class. They had to penetrate and then to delay exploding until well inside the belt armour.

 

Friedman, “Naval Weapons of World War One”.

Quote

 

The argument that shells would explode before reaching the protective deck did not apply to turret roofs which had to withstand the direct impact of shells. Examination of a deck plan (Orion) shows that 17 per cent of the plan area of a battleship was occupied by turrets. There were two hits on roofs at Jutland: Tiger, discussed earlier, and Malaya, whose X turret was hit on the 4¼ in roof at about 20° incidence. The roof was bulged and a very small hole made (Tiger had also been hit on the roof of Q turret at Dogger Bank). Invincible was hit on Q turret as was Queen Mary. There are indications that the frames were inadequate to withstand the impact. (Note the 1907 trials of turret roofs and the strengthening introduced in Indefatigable.) There were two hits on German turret roofs; the Y turret of both Derfflinger and Seydlitz. In the latter case the roof was bowed but without serious damage. The shell that hit Derfflinger penetrated and burst inside causing a serious propellant fire.

One of the survivors from the Invincible, the gunnery officer Commander Dannreuter, was in the foretop and says that a shell hit Q turret and burst inside, blowing the roof off. A tremendous explosion followed almost immediately as Q (and presumably P) magazine blew up. Two good photos exist, taken about  second apart, showing smoke, flame and wreckage flung high above the mast heads. There is a high-velocity jet of flame coming out of A turret containing wreckage and, apparently, further flame and smoke from X turret. The 1991 expedition found a large hole in the starboard side abreast X magazine and a considerable number of unexploded charges on the sea bed. A reasonable interpretation would seem to be that P and Q magazines exploded and that the flash and possibly hot fragments flew fore and aft in the hull to A and X magazines. It is likely that A magazine burnt violently but did not explode whilst there was a low-order explosion in X magazine. A well-informed guess would be that the multiple explosions in Indefatigable and Queen Mary had a similar cause.

The battleship Malaya had a major cordite fire in her battery in which a considerable number of 6in, bagged, cartridges burnt violently, without exploding (see Chapter 3). An interesting and possibly significant event was the sinking of the monitor Raglan. She had an American 14in turret with nitrocellulose propellant charges and was attacked by the Goeben and Breslau off Imbros (Dardanelles) on 20 January 1918. An 11in shell from Goeben penetrated the 8in barbette armour below the turret and ignited several charges. Though these burnt vigorously, there was no explosion. She finally sank, after extensive damage, when the (British) 12pdr magazine blew up. One incident is not conclusive but even in the Second World War it would seem that USN propellant was safer. The smaller monitor M 28 was sunk at the same time due to an explosion of her 9.2in magazine.

As well as the hits on the turrets of Queen Mary and Invincible, described above, there were one on Lion (also described) and one each on the roofs of Malaya X and Tiger Q. There were four hits on barbettes. In all the turret hits the armour was displaced or holed, but only in Lion and in Tiger X did the shell burst inside and the latter did not function properly.

At Dogger Bank between thirty-five and forty 8.2in charges burnt in the ammunition passage of Blücher. At the same battle, Seydlitz was hit on the barbette of her after turret and a piece of armour detached by the explosion ignited a charge. In all sixty-two 1 lin charges burnt without exploding.

At Jutland there were five hits on German turrets and five more on barbettes. Most failed to penetrate but two that did caused serious fires in Derfflinger’s X and Y turrets, due in part to there being too many charges in transit. There were less serious fires in Seydlitz’s X and Lutzow’s A turrets. There were three fires in the secondary ammunition of Konig and others in Seydlitz, Moltke and Schleswig-Holstein, of which one below water in Konig’s 5.9in magazine was potentially very serious.

It can be argued that turret (and barbette) armour was inadequate in both British and German ships. The roof, and in particular its supports, was vulnerable (see the 1907 trials in Chapter 2). Even the inferior British shells were able to cause fires in German turrets. It may be important that turret armour was the responsibility of the DNO whilst DNC was responsible for other armour. It is always unwise to have divided responsibility of this sort, however capable the departments concerned.

Deck armour was quite thin in both navies and intended only to keep out splinters, since it was believed that shells would burst before reaching the deck. By and large, this view seems to have been justified as there is no evidence that a shell passed through the deck of any ship, although there was a small chance of a big splinter piercing the deck as happened in Barham at Jutland. It does not seem that any of the losses were caused by penetration of the side armour though this cannot be ruled out in the case of Defence. Invincible’s side armour was vulnerable at the range concerned, but evidence makes it clear that a hit on Q turret was the cause of her loss.

Penetration of a turret or barbette will expose charges to flash and hot splinters (experience in the Second World War showed that the propellant then used was much more easily ignited by splinters than by flash). There does not seem to have been very much difference between British and German charges in this initial ignition (confirming post-war tests). One burning charge could ignite neighbouring charges as in Lion but Seydlitz at Dogger Bank and Derfflinger at Jutland showed that German charges could burn in this way without exploding. Both navies had far too many charges exposed between magazine and gun though the Germans did try to limit this after Seydlitz at Dogger Bank.

 

Brown, “The Grand Fleet”. 

I would say, and I think there's room for @Nick Thomadis to interpret here, that there are several different kinds of hits on turrets and barbettes that produce different crew casualties: 

1. Failure to penetrate - No/Low Casualties (?)
2. Partial penetration or penetration by splinters - Low Casualties (I'm not sure about that, how bad was spall?)
3. Penetration by splinters that ignites propellant in barbette/turret - turret burnt out, High Casualties
4. Armour displaced or penetrated by shell, shell fails to detonate - ??? (Medium Casualties due to spall/splinters?)
5. Armour displaced or penetrated by shell, shell detonates - High casualties (Turret doesn't burn?)
6. Armour displaced or penetrated by shell, shell detonates, ignites turret propellant - High Casualties, turret burns
7. Armour displaced or penetrated by shell, shell detonates, ignites turret propellant, flashes down - I suppose this depends on if we are making a distinction between different handling practices, magazine doors, flooded magazines etc. 

I'm having a hard time disentangling these factors, because it's hard to tell what damage is caused by the shell, what is caused by the nature of turrets, and what is caused by bad ammunition handling practices in particular. 

Any thoughts? 

[Skeksis]

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Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis

[DougToss]

Just now, Skeksis said:

@DougToss, this thread is for feedback on the actual game, as is, any other “discussions” or “comparing the game to historical sources” should be relayed in another thread.

It’s getting harder to pick out the game issues, Dev’s might miss important feedback amongst the clutter.

🤔

[Skeksis]

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Edited November 9, 2021 by Skeksis