imryn
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Posts: 156
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Post by imryn on Feb 6, 2019 9:27:00 GMT -6
Yes, but I think I can find some common ground with imryn . There is a point in the game where the AoN scheme might be premature. AoN is nominally a 1911 tech to match when the first American battleship designs using the concept were finalized. Improved directors, where if I recall, you see a considerable jump in long range accuracy is a nominal 1918 tech. So you probably won't see ships in the game equipped wit it till mid-1918 or a little later. So there is a middle period where the distributed, turtleback design might still be superior because fire control accuracy isn't yet ready to take the fight to longer ranges. I can't remember if I read it earlier in this thread or on reddit in the last couple of days but someone quoted Dr. Friedman's book on American battleships in which he stated that the AoN scheme was in some ways ahead of its time. He may have only been referring to it being conceived pre-Jutland but it might also apply in-game in RTW1. The difference is that Improved directors, higher barrel elevations and such was pretty easy to refit to existing ships. Citadel armor layout was almost impossible to change, so if you want those 1911 Battleships to not become obsolete 10 years down the line it might still be a good idea to opt for the AoN armor scheme. Arguing that Turtleback still was a superior armor scheme in WW2 as imryn does is not a reasonable argument to make IMHO. WTH!!!!!! Please stop putting words into my mouth. I have never argued that that turtleback was a superior armor scheme in WW2 or that it was in any way superior at any time in real life!! I am talking about its place in RTW here!! improved fire control and extended ranges may allow for the theoretical ability to engage at longer ranges (IN THE GAME for the slow witted) but the spotting and scouting mechanics (IN THE GAME) don't improve as technology improves so the ability to hit something at 35000 yards is largely wasted and you still need to close in to get reliable consistent fire on target. |
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Post by williammiller on Feb 6, 2019 12:02:05 GMT -6
Let's cool off - any more insults and I will be forced to close this thread, which I don't wish to do.
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Post by elouda on Feb 6, 2019 21:36:27 GMT -6
I understand what you are saying about KGV and Tirpitz but you are comparing apples and potatoes. One is an flat deck on belt ship and the other is a distributed armor scheme. My proposed armor scheme did not exist in the real world so there are no ships to look at, you have to use your imagination. Imagine The German turtleback deck armor applied on an AoN ship, so no BE or DE armor and no thin upper belt armor.
I've only been partially following this, so I'm not sure if this was brought up before (if so, apologies), but as I see it main issue is that this approach is somewhat contradictory in a sense, and might end up less effective than the traditional turtleback at short range, while being less efficient at long range compared to a deck on belt type setup.
If I understood it right, what you want is to increase protected volume and hence reserve bouyancy on a turtleback design by raising the height of the protected volume (rather than increasing the length of the citadel), in other words, by raising the height of the main armoured deck. Unfortunately, I think that this is going to run into one of three problems; -Either you keep a 'traditional' slope angle on the sloped parts of the armoured deck, and run into the problem that if you raise the armoured deck any decent amount, you expose the portion of the belt not covered by the slopes. This diminishes the effectiveness of the layout, even at closer ranges. -You adopt a steeper slope on the sloped parts of the armoured deck, to cover a higher portion of the belt height, at the expense of reducing the protection offered by the slope, both to belt->slope type penetrations, and to penetrations which enter structure above the main belt and then impact the sloped deck. The counter to this is a thicker slope, but this of course costs weight (and more than adding the equivalent thickness to the belt). -You adopt a traditional slope, but the 'width' of the sloped portion will be a much larger fraction of the beam allowing it to start lower down compared to option #1, to achieve better coverage of belt height. This will increase the weight of the sloped armour for the same thickness, and make it much more vulnerable to the 'over the belt' shots, especially at mid and long range.
Oh, and all of these will raise your center of mass too, which is often a bad thing.
Ultimately it comes down to what the design intent is, but I feel like there are fundamental physical reasons that make the turtleback effective in the areas it is - trying to remedy them with a 'hybrid' design of sorts is likely going to result in diminishing that effect, without gaining you anything that going to full deck on belt type layout wouldnt, or atleast not without excessive tradeoffs in weight.
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Post by ddg on Feb 6, 2019 22:13:12 GMT -6
If in-game conditions change the incentive structure in ahistorical ways, maybe it would be better to treat the cause than the symptom? If the scouting and fire-control systems make long-range engagements less likely than historical navies believed and designed around, then—in the absence of an actual 1920s war to judge from—it makes more sense to me to change those systems than the way armor works.
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Post by MateDow on Feb 6, 2019 22:50:08 GMT -6
I am not talking about a distributed design - as I have repeatedly stated I am talking about an AoN design with Turtleback armor scheme... I think that the point that people are trying to make is that you can't have an armor system designed for the principles of AoN and have a turtleback deck armor system. The drawing of the Tirpitz's armor scheme compared to the AoN schemes adopted by the US, British, French, and Japanese ships (see Yamato's scheme below). The additional surface area of the turtleback costs weight that you either take from the deck thickness or belt thickness. If you are optimizing for a shorter range engagement, prioritize belt thickness.  You be better off flattening your deck to reduce that surface area. That is why deck armor schemes are so heavy. You are looking at the difference between 15 feet of belt height with 100+ feet of deck width. The single thick deck will be a more efficient use of weight than the angled deck. Yes, you could use more weight to make a turtleback deck, but it would still make more sense to use that extra weight to have thicker armor. When you mention that it "did not exist in the real world" you have to start to wonder why. The Japanese had a virtually unlimited budget of weight for armor and still selected an AoN scheme for Yamato. The Germans chose to use a scheme that was basically the one that they used for their final designs of WW1. Other countries had this option, including other powers that were designing ships for operations in the North Sea and Atlantic.  Looking at Dunkerque, which is often classed as a battlecruiser, she has the same amount of deck armor as Bismarck. Not bad for 2/3 of the tonnage. |
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Post by abclark on Feb 6, 2019 22:51:01 GMT -6
If in-game conditions change the incentive structure in ahistorical ways, maybe it would be better to treat the cause than the symptom? If the scouting and fire-control systems make long-range engagements less likely than historical navies believed and designed around, then—in the absence of an actual 1920s war to judge from—it makes more sense to me to change those systems than the way armor works. I thought about bringing up the fact that there are mods which do just that. The 18+ armor mod makes long range engagements the default in the late game. It also gets rid of those pesky night engagements at 1500 yards as well as the obvious change of allowing heavier armor than the base game. |
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Post by alexbrunius on Feb 7, 2019 2:00:04 GMT -6
WTH!!!!!! Please stop putting words into my mouth. I have never argued that that turtleback was a superior armor scheme in WW2 or that it was in any way superior at any time in real life!! I am talking about its place in RTW here!! improved fire control and extended ranges may allow for the theoretical ability to engage at longer ranges (IN THE GAME for the slow witted) but the spotting and scouting mechanics (IN THE GAME) don't improve as technology improves so the ability to hit something at 35000 yards is largely wasted and you still need to close in to get reliable consistent fire on target. You used extensive arguments based on real life warship designs and linked to real life AoN armor scheme definitions for the last 3 pages arguing about AoN + Turtleback armor from a real life viewpoint. Can you explain for the slow witted what does these have to do with in game??? My proposed armor scheme did not exist in the real world so there are no ships to look at, you have to use your imagination. Imagine The German turtleback deck armor applied on an AoN ship, so no BE or DE armor and no thin upper belt armor. If your proposed armor scheme would be as superior as you seem to think. Can you think of a good explanation why not a single real warship was built combining these two at the time very well known and accepted concepts in armor design? This must have been something pretty much everyone was considering at the time, since evaluations of various designs for Battleships frequently had over 50 different proposed design layout/combinations to consider each and every design possibility and find the best compromise. Why was it rejected by everyone? |
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imryn
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Posts: 156
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Post by imryn on Feb 7, 2019 2:43:58 GMT -6
WTH!!!!!! Please stop putting words into my mouth. I have never argued that that turtleback was a superior armor scheme in WW2 or that it was in any way superior at any time in real life!! I am talking about its place in RTW here!! improved fire control and extended ranges may allow for the theoretical ability to engage at longer ranges (IN THE GAME for the slow witted) but the spotting and scouting mechanics (IN THE GAME) don't improve as technology improves so the ability to hit something at 35000 yards is largely wasted and you still need to close in to get reliable consistent fire on target. You used extensive arguments based on real life warship designs and linked to real life AoN armor scheme definitions for the last 3 pages arguing about AoN + Turtleback armor from a real life viewpoint. Can you explain for the slow witted what does these have to do with in game??? My proposed armor scheme did not exist in the real world so there are no ships to look at, you have to use your imagination. Imagine The German turtleback deck armor applied on an AoN ship, so no BE or DE armor and no thin upper belt armor. If your proposed armor scheme would be as superior as you seem to think. Can you think of a good explanation why not a single real warship was built combining these two at the time very well known and accepted concepts in armor design? This must have been something pretty much everyone was considering at the time, since evaluations of various designs for Battleships frequently had over 50 different proposed design layout/combinations to consider each and every design possibility and find the best compromise. Why was it rejected by everyone? I don't know how I can make myself any plainer, and I am honestly trying to avoid throwing any more insults, but I can only assume that you are trolling me by deliberately taking me out of context. The game RTW is a simulation of real life navy combat so the ships in the game are simulations of the type of ships that were around during the games time period. This means we can look at real world designs to draw inspiration when designing ships for use in the game, HOWEVER the game is not a perfect simulation. There are technologies that are not represented in the game which had a very big impact on real world designs (aircraft, radar etc). Also, the behavior of the game AI has some quirks that have to be factored in when evaluating any design. So we can use real world designs, but to evaluate their effectiveness we have to factor in how they will work in the game not how they worked in real life. |
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imryn
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Posts: 156
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Post by imryn on Feb 7, 2019 2:46:34 GMT -6
I understand what you are saying about KGV and Tirpitz but you are comparing apples and potatoes. One is an flat deck on belt ship and the other is a distributed armor scheme. My proposed armor scheme did not exist in the real world so there are no ships to look at, you have to use your imagination. Imagine The German turtleback deck armor applied on an AoN ship, so no BE or DE armor and no thin upper belt armor.
I've only been partially following this, so I'm not sure if this was brought up before (if so, apologies), but as I see it main issue is that this approach is somewhat contradictory in a sense, and might end up less effective than the traditional turtleback at short range, while being less efficient at long range compared to a deck on belt type setup.
If I understood it right, what you want is to increase protected volume and hence reserve bouyancy on a turtleback design by raising the height of the protected volume (rather than increasing the length of the citadel), in other words, by raising the height of the main armoured deck. Unfortunately, I think that this is going to run into one of three problems; -Either you keep a 'traditional' slope angle on the sloped parts of the armoured deck, and run into the problem that if you raise the armoured deck any decent amount, you expose the portion of the belt not covered by the slopes. This diminishes the effectiveness of the layout, even at closer ranges. -You adopt a steeper slope on the sloped parts of the armoured deck, to cover a higher portion of the belt height, at the expense of reducing the protection offered by the slope, both to belt->slope type penetrations, and to penetrations which enter structure above the main belt and then impact the sloped deck. The counter to this is a thicker slope, but this of course costs weight (and more than adding the equivalent thickness to the belt). -You adopt a traditional slope, but the 'width' of the sloped portion will be a much larger fraction of the beam allowing it to start lower down compared to option #1, to achieve better coverage of belt height. This will increase the weight of the sloped armour for the same thickness, and make it much more vulnerable to the 'over the belt' shots, especially at mid and long range.
Oh, and all of these will raise your center of mass too, which is often a bad thing.
Ultimately it comes down to what the design intent is, but I feel like there are fundamental physical reasons that make the turtleback effective in the areas it is - trying to remedy them with a 'hybrid' design of sorts is likely going to result in diminishing that effect, without gaining you anything that going to full deck on belt type layout wouldnt, or atleast not without excessive tradeoffs in weight.
Not what I am proposing at all. It is traditional to actually read something before commenting on it. |
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imryn
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Posts: 156
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Post by imryn on Feb 7, 2019 2:50:45 GMT -6
If in-game conditions change the incentive structure in ahistorical ways, maybe it would be better to treat the cause than the symptom? If the scouting and fire-control systems make long-range engagements less likely than historical navies believed and designed around, then—in the absence of an actual 1920s war to judge from—it makes more sense to me to change those systems than the way armor works. I completely agree with you, however RTW is done now and no further updates will be made, and RTW2 will incorporate technologies that should make the situation much better such as radar and float plans for spotting. Given all of that I have been focused on adapting my ships and game play to work within the existing RTW game. |
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imryn
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Posts: 156
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Post by imryn on Feb 7, 2019 3:02:34 GMT -6
I am not talking about a distributed design - as I have repeatedly stated I am talking about an AoN design with Turtleback armor scheme... I think that the point that people are trying to make is that you can't have an armor system designed for the principles of AoN and have a turtleback deck armor system. The drawing of the Tirpitz's armor scheme compared to the AoN schemes adopted by the US, British, French, and Japanese ships (see Yamato's scheme below). The additional surface area of the turtleback costs weight that you either take from the deck thickness or belt thickness. If you are optimizing for a shorter range engagement, prioritize belt thickness. You be better off flattening your deck to reduce that surface area. That is why deck armor schemes are so heavy. You are looking at the difference between 15 feet of belt height with 100+ feet of deck width. The single thick deck will be a more efficient use of weight than the angled deck. Yes, you could use more weight to make a turtleback deck, but it would still make more sense to use that extra weight to have thicker armor. When you mention that it "did not exist in the real world" you have to start to wonder why. The Japanese had a virtually unlimited budget of weight for armor and still selected an AoN scheme for Yamato. The Germans chose to use a scheme that was basically the one that they used for their final designs of WW1. Other countries had this option, including other powers that were designing ships for operations in the North Sea and Atlantic. Looking at Dunkerque, which is often classed as a battlecruiser, she has the same amount of deck armor as Bismarck. Not bad for 2/3 of the tonnage. I think you can have a turtleback armor scheme designed using AoN principals and I have argued extensively to that effect. Yes a sloped deck weighs more than a flat deck but so what? Yes a sloped deck sits lower in the hull giving a shorter citadel, but this is a good thing and again so what? In the game you can design around these issues. A sloped deck gives better vertical protection than a flat deck so how can you suggest using a flat deck on a ship that is designed to fight at close range? Finally please stop mistaking RTW for the real world. Things work differently in RTW than they do in the real world, so I try to base my designs on what works in RTW, not what works in the real world. |
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imryn
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Posts: 156
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Post by imryn on Feb 7, 2019 3:09:53 GMT -6
If in-game conditions change the incentive structure in ahistorical ways, maybe it would be better to treat the cause than the symptom? If the scouting and fire-control systems make long-range engagements less likely than historical navies believed and designed around, then—in the absence of an actual 1920s war to judge from—it makes more sense to me to change those systems than the way armor works. I thought about bringing up the fact that there are mods which do just that. The 18+ armor mod makes long range engagements the default in the late game. It also gets rid of those pesky night engagements at 1500 yards as well as the obvious change of allowing heavier armor than the base game. I do use that mod and find that having 16,000 yards as the minimum sighting distance is a huge help generally, but doesn't really make long range gunnery any easier. More often than not the sighting range in a scenario is down to 16,000, which is much better than the default minimum range but still not really adequate for long range engagements. |
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Post by cwemyss on Feb 7, 2019 7:28:41 GMT -6
This has become a debate with very limited participation, which contributes nothing to the game. Everything being argued has long ago been coded. And the participants are having a really hard time remaining civil.
For me, the thread has devolved to scroll to the bottom and see whos been banned. The tone is terrible, and it seems to be spilling into other threads. I'd not be upset to see it locked.
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Post by noshurviverse on Feb 7, 2019 10:11:43 GMT -6
Yes a sloped deck sits lower in the hull giving a shorter citadel, but this is a good thing and again so what? To my understanding, this would result in two things: 1. Less space for the vitals, requiring a longer citadel with vital equipment spread out and 2. a reduction of reserve buoyancy protected by the citadel as a direct result of the decreased volume. Both of these things to my knowledge would have to be compensated for by extending the citadel lengthwise, which to me seems to be somewhat counter-intuitive. This has become a debate with very limited participation, which contributes nothing to the game. Everything being argued has long ago been coded. And the participants are having a really hard time remaining civil. For me, the thread has devolved to scroll to the bottom and see whos been banned. The tone is terrible, and it seems to be spilling into other threads. I'd not be upset to see it locked. Personally I disagree, but that's coming from someone who generally frequents forums where this thread would be considered quite civil. I think the main issue is that the 'thread' of the debate has gotten rather lost, since some people are concerned with game logic, others real-life practicality and most something in between. |
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Post by williammiller on Feb 7, 2019 10:31:14 GMT -6
I am this >.< close to locking this thread. Let me quote part of our TOS directly as a reminder to certain posters: ----------------------------
PROFESSIONALISM: The NWS forums are PROFESSIONAL forums, and as such members are expected to act accordingly. By using the term 'professional', we intend the following: a) Our forums are held to a higher standard than some other forums you may be aware of - we will not tolerate behavior that is childish, obscene or disrespectful to other users or to our staff members in any manner or form. Treat others as you would have them treat you, and be respectful. b) Our forums are primarily intended for discussion of our (Naval Warfare Simulation) games and all related topics (with the exception of the off-topic sub-forums). Please use/keep the proper subject matter on the proper forum. c) Our forums are our (NWS') "electronic home". They are one of our primary means of directly helping our customers with issues/questions/etc, and any behavior we allow that reflects badly on our forums will also reflect badly upon us. We share our 'home' with you, so please act as you would expect a guest to act at your own home. PERSONAL ATTACKS: In order to maintain a positive atmosphere, no personal attacks or insults will be tolerated. While discussions may become heated, it is not an excuse to turn to attacks or insults. There is a difference between a passionate, respectful discussion and one that delves into personal matters. Think of it as debating issues, not individuals. When that line is crossed, the discussion may be closed by the moderation team. Violators will be warned and potentially banned if the behavior is repeated. -------------------------------
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