Why protect secondaries?

[ck07]

I have made a practice of not armoring < 6" at all. I have not found a downside to this. # of main or secondary gun hits does not seem to scale with # available to be hit; in battles I lose a few, but so what?

So I use lots--early B/BB/BC/CAs carry 22-24 x 6", an early CL might have 9 x 5". (Natch, this rules out 7" or 8" secondaries, but I've--almost--never wanted to.)

So far, seems to work great. But if I'm missing something, I'd appreciate anyone pointing it out.

[wlbjork]

You won't see any direct catastrophic repercussions.

However, without *any* armour at all, you are vulnerable to 'secondary gun crews cut down by splinters' critical hits which in turn could lead to an enemy vessel slipping through the gap in your defences to torpedo you.

1" and 1.5" of armour reduces the incidence of this critical, 2" of armour negates it entirely.

(Note as well that if guns are in Casemates, the secondary armour gives a bonus to belt armour if memory serves.) < Nope, rechecked the manual - see below.

[dorn]

Nov 5, 2022 6:04:51 GMT -6 ck07 said:

I have made a practice of not armoring < 6" at all. I have not found a downside to this. # of main or secondary gun hits does not seem to scale with # available to be hit; in battles I lose a few, but so what?

So I use lots--early B/BB/BC/CAs carry 22-24 x 6", an early CL might have 9 x 5". (Natch, this rules out 7" or 8" secondaries, but I've--almost--never wanted to.)

So far, seems to work great. But if I'm missing something, I'd appreciate anyone pointing it out.

I have done several years ago in RTW1 test about percentage of turrets hits on BB/BC and ships with more turrets had higher percentage of turrets hits.

[blarglol]

Perhaps I imagine this wrong, but sometimes I envision unarmored, secondary casemates as explosion-hazards waiting to happen? Can secondary batteries not have their individual ammo supplies cook off?

Also, in my head I think of them as potential weak spots in the belt. Were a casemate to be unarmored, I could envision a shell passing clean through it and deep into the bowels of the ship. I know casemates can eat shells that otherwise would have been tested for pen on the belt, but I am unsure if it's modeled whether they can pass through.

I armor anyway to be safe, and for roleplay and headcannon purposes. Min/maxing everything against the AI always seems gamey and unenjoyable to me. Hell, even cutting down deck armor on early ships makes me feel like I have an unfair advantage sometimes. Deck penetration on early guns is almost nonexistant, and yet CAs and Bs routinely mount 2" of deck armor...very heavy

[wlbjork]

6" and smaller guns either don't suffer flash-fires at all or suffer them at a massively reduced rate compared to 7" plus so there's little to worry about ammunition explosions in the OPs scenario.

As for Deck armour, can't say I've seen much splinter damage from Deck hits - but again I use 2" of armour to reduce the chance of such hits.

[ck07]

Nov 5, 2022 9:09:12 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

You won't see any direct catastrophic repercussions.

However, without *any* armour at all, you are vulnerable to 'secondary gun crews cut down by splinters' critical hits which in turn could lead to an enemy vessel slipping through the gap in your defences to torpedo you.

1" and 1.5" of armour reduces the incidence of this critical, 2" of armour negates it entirely.

Note as well that if guns are in Casemates, the secondary armour gives a bonus to belt armour if memory serves.

Yeah, sometimes I lose two at once. Consequences still don't seem serious.

Can anyone confirm whether the last claim, re casemate armor -> belt, is correct?

Thanks all for replies.

[dorn]

Nov 6, 2022 12:35:18 GMT -6 ck07 said:

Nov 5, 2022 9:09:12 GMT -6 wlbjork said:

You won't see any direct catastrophic repercussions.

However, without *any* armour at all, you are vulnerable to 'secondary gun crews cut down by splinters' critical hits which in turn could lead to an enemy vessel slipping through the gap in your defences to torpedo you.

1" and 1.5" of armour reduces the incidence of this critical, 2" of armour negates it entirely.

Note as well that if guns are in Casemates, the secondary armour gives a bonus to belt armour if memory serves.

Yeah, sometimes I lose two at once. Consequences still don't seem serious.

Can anyone confirm whether the last claim, re casemate armor -> belt, is correct?

Thanks all for replies.

No, it does not give a bonus to belt armour as casemates are above belt armour but it protect ship in unarmoured part of the ship as otherwise (no casemates or casemates armour) there is no armour at all.

So if you have a predreadnought with 8" secondary armament that you protect by relatively heavy 8" armour, than if you design your ship with secondaries in casemates instead of turrets, your ship will be better protected as plate above belt and upper armour will be somewhere protected by 8" armour.

note: same applies if you design your main guns in casemates (probably most useful for early cruisers)

[wlbjork]

My mistake, should have checked the manual.


The exact quote is:

"Secondary guns in casemates are somewhat more vulnerable than secondaries in turrets, but
casemate armour will absorb some hits that would otherwise hit un-armoured hull or
superstructure."

How that translated into me thinking it added to the belt I have no clue, lol.

Again, that to me says adding 2" of armour would help reduce splinter damage to the ship and thereby increase her survival overall.

[blarglol]

Nov 6, 2022 13:37:49 GMT -6 dorn said:

Nov 6, 2022 12:35:18 GMT -6 ck07 said:

Yeah, sometimes I lose two at once. Consequences still don't seem serious.

Can anyone confirm whether the last claim, re casemate armor -> belt, is correct?

Thanks all for replies.

No, it does not give a bonus to belt armour as casemates are above belt armour but it protect ship in unarmoured part of the ship as otherwise (no casemates or casemates armour) there is no armour at all.

So if you have a predreadnought with 8" secondary armament that you protect by relatively heavy 8" armour, than if you design your ship with secondaries in casemates instead of turrets, your ship will be better protected as plate above belt and upper armour will be somewhere protected by 8" armour.

note: same applies if you design your main guns in casemates (probably most useful for early cruisers)

Ah, so the belt runs behind the casemates then? That makes more sense. For some reason I thought casemates were a sort of small gap in the belt, which is why I always wanted to armor them so much.

[wlbjork]

Just a quick note to say I am in the process of testing this.

1 battle so far, and I'll post the ships involved later.

In summary, the Howe-class B that suffered the most damage took 5*12" hits, 38*6" hits and 5*3" hits, inflicting superficial damage. The secondary and tertiary batteries are at full strength.

The Empress of India-class B that suffered the most damage took 11*12" hits and 38*6" hits, inflicting catastrophic damage. An early hit to the bridge doomed her to the fire that broke out after a (late) hit to the coal bunkers. Out of a total of 34 secondary and tertiary guns, just 3 tertiary guns remained at the time of sinking.

Hopefully, I'll add some pics tomorrow.


Edit: Added a notebook text file containing the raw logs for the ships involved, Howe-class first then Empress of India-class.

Summarising, the Howe-class, which have 6" armour for the secondaries, lost 3*3" tertiary guns between them.

The Empress of India-class, which have unarmoured secondaries, lost 35*6" guns and 14*3" between them.

Note: This is only a single test and needs to be repeated several times to confirm, but armouring secondaries is looking like a Good Thing.

Attachments:

Battle1.txt (30.28 KB)

[wlbjork]

And I've just fought the reciprocal of that Fleet Exercise, this time commanding the Empress of India-class instead of the Howe-class.

The results are, if anything, worse. The secondary guns were quickly put out of action, resulting in a very disproportionate hit ratio heavily favouring the enemy and resulting in my withdrawal under cover of darkness.

The Empress of India class, between them, lost 25*6" guns and 8*3" guns. The Howe-class ships lost nothing.


I could go a few more rounds, but I can't see this changing significantly. Despite having heavier secondary and tertiary batteries, the lack of armour makes them too vulnerable and results in them getting knocked out rapidly which results in ships with armoured secondaries earning a firepower advantage through attrition.

Notepad text file attached of battle-logs.

Edit: Going back to my original post about a destroyer slipping through disabled defences to torpedo the B? That did actually happen before I save-scummed and withdrew. With hindsight that wasn't really necessary, it proved my point just as well.

Attachments:

Battle 2.txt (14.02 KB)

[dorn]

6" casemate armour is quite enough except against 12" guns.

If both ships are semidreadnoughts than it would have more guns out of action as 6" armour could not be sufficient against secondaries.

[wlbjork]

Very true, especially once a few AP techs come through. Though I'd point out the OP was about not armouring guns of 6" or smaller.

To be honest, I thought I'd only opted for 2" splinter armour on the secondaries (not noticing until rechecking the design screen), probably forgot to change that. Mea Culpa!

For a 1900 ship, 3" or 4" of armour would be enough to protect against the mass batteries of 6" and maybe 7" guns likely to be faced. Heck, that's why I usually drop the armour on my Conning Towers and increase BE. A lucky hit from a heavy (12") gun would hammer through, but 6" and smaller will just bounce - and they're the ones that tend to get the most hits early game.

Edit: I note with interest that protecting the secondary guns *appears* to also protect the tertiary guns which seems wrong. Does this need flagging up?

Edit 2: After checking what would happen if I did drop secondary armour to 4", I freed up enough weight for 4 more 6" guns, 2 more 3" guns and an extra 60 rounds of 12" ammunition - matching the armament of the EoI class and dropping free weight to 199t. There is the risk of taking more damage from large calibre hits but for a couple of years that's not a big worry. The EoIs could be built on a lighter hull by dropping ammunition thus dropping cost slightly, but you'd be more likely to have them drydocked for repairs or even need replacing entirely.

So, early game, good armour on secondaries increases ships survivability greatly. Mid-late game, not so much but 2" splinter armour will still stop guns being knocked out by lucky hits.

[blarglol]

Very nice research, thank you

[aeson]

Nov 7, 2022 10:58:21 GMT -6 blarglol said:

Ah, so the belt runs behind the casemates then?

No, the casemates are above - i.e. further from the waterline than - the armor belt. Historical warships which mounted their secondary guns in casemates generally carried them either on the upper deck (the deck forming the top of the hull) or the deck immediately below it (for a ship with a broken upper deck, this would probably be the main deck; otherwise, it might be called the gun or gallery deck), with the top of the armor belt reaching the bottom of the casemate. Often, the part of the armor belt immediately beneath the casemate armor wasn't part of the main (maximum thickness) belt but rather a thinner upper strake.

If I am not mistaken, the game's armor model assumes that the (main and secondary) casemates are on the deck immediately beneath the upper deck, so the game's model for the side profile for a 'typical' predreadnought or First World War-era dreadnought/superdreadnought battleship should look something like this:

As an aside, you can actually see the top of the armor belt in many photographs of historical warships - it's that step in the hull that, if present, usually runs from just ahead of the forwardmost turret to just behind the aftermost turret roughly halfway between the waterline and the upper deck.