weight distribution on ships more specificaly battleships

[rob06waves2018]

To provide a sort of 'escape lane', here's an arbitrary question vaguely related to the thread.

Should vessels on distant foreign stations be a knot or two slower due to increased weight of stores and equipment? Extra stores on especially smaller ships could have a massive effect on handling.

[Deleted]

Well those things IMHO does not have enough massto actually make the ship that slower. Exceptions may be DDs without any large ship or port in the area.

[akosjaccik]

Yes, I'd think that the effect of aged machinery slash hull bottom would be more direct. I am fairly content with what's already present, the 'colonial service' and it's implications.

[rob06waves2018]

(still carrying on the arbitrary argument)

What about for ships not fitted for colonial service? Should they see any greater disadvantage than just not projecting as much tonnage power?

[noshurviverse]

In RtW1 we had the option of creating a "narrow" belt, which if I remember correctly meant that a certain percentage of hits that would normally impact the belt would instead hit the extended belt and some BE hits would be converted into hull hits. Would it be possible in RtW2 for there to a be "wide" belt option, that converts some BE hits into B and hull/waterline hits into BE? It seems like this could make for an interesting choice, while probably being relatively simple to implement.

[dorn]

Feb 13, 2019 6:01:43 GMT -6 noshurviverse said:

In RtW1 we had the option of creating a "narrow" belt, which if I remember correctly meant that a certain percentage of hits that would normally impact the belt would instead hit the extended belt and some BE hits would be converted into hull hits. Would it be possible in RtW2 for there to a be "wide" belt option, that converts some BE hits into B and hull/waterline hits into BE? It seems like this could make for an interesting choice, while probably being relatively simple to implement.

You can look at picutre bellow. You can see main armor belt and extended part of belt on top (extended part for game purpuses are forward and aft sections too) - HMS Dreadnought. Narrow belt means that main belt is not going so much top and extended part of belt is used.

Opposite is standard layout, the game do not have details as how high the belt is going. The different ships has different height of armor belt (look at Rodney class with has quite narrow belt in AoN scheme). Going even more opposite extended main belt even further is going to cost a lot of tonnage and you get almost nothing for it as it would not protect any important part of the ship. You can look at KGV main belt and you can see that the belt armor is going quite high in ship. The game abstracted this quite a lot as you do not specify area of main and extended belt.

source: wikipedia

[noshurviverse]

Feb 13, 2019 6:16:00 GMT -6 dorn said:

Going even more opposite extended main belt even further is going to cost a lot of tonnage and you get almost nothing for it as it would not protect any important part of the ship.

I quite agree with you, but that's almost exactly why I would like the option. For me, a large part of what makes Rule the Waves the most fun is being presented with many options in designing a ship, then determining which yield the best results. When I compare ships I made in my early campaigns to my modern designs, I can trace my understanding of naval doctrine. At first I fell for the trap of the "super semi-dreadnought", loading down a slow and poorly armored predreadnought with 11" secondaries in addition to the quartet of 12" guns. In another game I retrofitted my legacy predreadnoughts with 16" guns in the belief that they would be valuable additions to the battle line, which still mostly used 14" guns. Soon enough I realized the folly of those designs and shifted to other strategies. The point being, the game gave me options that were highly sub optimal and it was only through experience that I came to determine that.

Belt Extended doesn't usually protect things that are vital to the ship, no. But I have had many a ship that is significantly reduced in combat effectiveness due to BE hits. The allure of a "wide" belt that could catch those rounds could be quite tempting. Of course, you could also just increase the thickness of your BE, but I thought that giving the players this alternative choice would be fun and make for some interesting designs.

[dorn]

Feb 13, 2019 7:22:25 GMT -6 noshurviverse said:

Feb 13, 2019 6:16:00 GMT -6 dorn said:

Going even more opposite extended main belt even further is going to cost a lot of tonnage and you get almost nothing for it as it would not protect any important part of the ship.

I quite agree with you, but that's almost exactly why I would like the option. For me, a large part of what makes Rule the Waves the most fun is being presented with many options in designing a ship, then determining which yield the best results. When I compare ships I made in my early campaigns to my modern designs, I can trace my understanding of naval doctrine. At first I fell for the trap of the "super semi-dreadnought", loading down a slow and poorly armored predreadnought with 11" secondaries in addition to the quartet of 12" guns. In another game I retrofitted my legacy predreadnoughts with 16" guns in the belief that they would be valuable additions to the battle line, which still mostly used 14" guns. Soon enough I realized the folly of those designs and shifted to other strategies. The point being, the game gave me options that were highly sub optimal and it was only through experience that I came to determine that.

Belt Extended doesn't usually protect things that are vital to the ship, no. But I have had many a ship that is significantly reduced in combat effectiveness due to BE hits. The allure of a "wide" belt that could catch those rounds could be quite tempting. Of course, you could also just increase the thickness of your BE, but I thought that giving the players this alternative choice would be fun and make for some interesting designs.

Try to use narrow belt with same armor for main belt and belt extended. It weights a little more than standard armor scheme with turtle back armor but it has some advantages that it protect extended parts of ship quite well. However there is some chance of hits on edge of the belt, but it could be acceptable. You can further reduce weight of armor by using flat deck on top.

I usually used this armor scheme mostly around 1905-1910, sometimes even at different time period and it gives me quite interesting results.

[goodguy]

I think adding a super inefficient AoN turtleback scheme (as I understand it) would be awesome so we can roleplay as the wacky, ineffective nation instead of minmaxing like we know what's going to happen. Afterall, there have been worse decisions in real life that had a bigger impact on terrible warship designs so it's not out of the question.

[dorn]

Feb 13, 2019 18:13:47 GMT -6 goodguy said:

I think adding a super inefficient AoN turtleback scheme (as I understand it) would be awesome so we can roleplay as the wacky, ineffective nation instead of minmaxing like we know what's going to happen. Afterall, there have been worse decisions in real life that had a bigger impact on terrible warship designs so it's not out of the question.

Question is how long citadel need to be that turtleback scheme citadel has enough buoyancy for the ship. You need to consider that this armor scheme need to go higher than usual with full thick armor plates.

The type of this ship would have same issue as Bismarck class. The ship was much large than KGV but her protection was not better, mostly opposite way.

[imryn]

OK, I've completed some testing and confirmed a few things. "Turtleback" armour does not exist in RTW1. Comparison of the "Sloped deck" and "Flat deck on Belt" schemes has shown that in both cases only the belt armour needs to be penetrated to damage the citadel. If "sloped deck" represented the "Turtleback" scheme (as some have claimed) a hit would have to penetrate the belt and then the deck to damage the citadel, and this is not the case in RTW1. For the same thickness of belt armour both schemes have approximately equal chances of receiving penetrating hits.

I have been fighting a lot of battles using ships designed with both these armour schemes in campaigns with the 18+ mod installed and have confirmed my initial impression that long range gunnery is not a viable method of conducting a conclusive battle in RTW1. Firing 17" Q1 guns, with gunnery training applied, from a stable line of battle at 25,000 yards at AI designed ships (i.e. ships with thin decks) simply does not generate enough damage to prevent the enemy from disengaging and escaping to port. You might sink one or two ships where you get a lucky early hit that slows them down but that is it. In order to achieve a conclusive engagement you must pin the enemy fleet, either against a land feature or between two elements of your fleet, and in order to do that you have to close in on them, causing the AI to turn away from you either into the land or your other vessels, which then forces it to turn back etc etc. A consequence is that most battles that are fought to a conclusion might start out as long range duels but have to move quickly to short range if you want to pin the enemy and prevent them from escaping.

As an example, in a recent BC battle fought as GB against Germany I took on 20 AI designed German BC's with 10 of my own BC's (bigger, faster, better armor and guns). As soon as the two fleets met the German fleet turned towards their base; at this point I had a choice of maintaining range and fighting an inconclusive skirmish as they withdrew, possibly sinking one or two, or I could go for the win. I went for the win, using my greater speed to overhaul them and angling in towards them to force them in to the coast. During this phase of the battle several of my BC's were forced out of formation due to not being able to maintain flank speed, however I play in captain mode so I was able to maintain control over them. By the time I had the German fleet pinned against the coast my lead division had closed to 12,000 yards, however the German ships were hard against the coast and unable to make much forward progress as ships cannot maneuver properly when they are that confined. At that point I had not sunk a single enemy BC but I had stopped them about 15,000 yards from safety and the battle was effectively over. My BC's cruised up and down the German line pounding away (several ships shot themselves dry and I put at least 200 main gun rounds in my designs), I ordered a flotilla assault and my DD's and CL's pounded them with torps. That was that - a few German DD's escaped but nothing bigger, and I lost just one BC which was entirely avoidable and my fault (it had flooding and I didn't notice and kept it running at full speed).

I checked the logs on my ships after the battle and didn't find a single deck hit. One of my BC's sustained 34 heavy hits (none on the deck) and 3 torp hits but made it back to port. The BC that sank only took 2 torps but it took them early and, as I said, I didn't notice and kept it running at flank speed. I also checked many of the German BC's logs and couldn't find any deck hits there either.

Now, personally I like to fight my battles this way but that is just me. I am sure that there are others who would rather fight inconclusive long range battles that slowly whittle the enemy fleet away, and I get that that is a more historically accurate way of fighting but I am not interested in recreating history. After my battle most of my BC's were in for repairs, but I didn't need them any more so I flipped them into an empty rebuild and as soon as they finished put them into reserve, saving loads of money. Historically this is complete nonsense, but within the mechanics of RTW1 it is the optimal course of action; by destroying all of the enemy's BC's in one battle I could put most of my BC's back into reserve and spend all that lovely war boosted budget on building more ships. That war with Germany lasted 18 months but I had destroyed all of their BB's and BC's after two, so I got 16 months of wartime budget to spend on new building.

For the type of battles I favour I firmly believe that a properly implemented "turtleback" armour scheme would be the optimal protection method. If it were properly implemented in the game a belt hit would have to first penetrate the belt armour and then penetrate the deck armour before it could cause citadel damage (i.e. machinery, magazines). I believe the simplest way to implement it in the game would be at the ship design phase and it could be achieved by adding the value assigned to deck armour to that assigned to belt armour giving a derived "effective" belt armour value. E.G. 12" belt and 6" deck gives an effective 18" belt). To minimise changes to the ship design screen this could be represented by simply adding the value assigned to deck armour to the value shown for Belt armour, but showing the weight and cost of the belt armour value minus deck. This will appear as if the Belt armour is much lighter and cheaper for this armour scheme however it will be in line with other schemes. E.G. I add 6" to Deck and Belt changes to 6" however 0 weight and 0 cost is shown for Belt. I then change Belt to 18" and the weight and cost shown is that for 12" of armour.

The "turtleback" armor scheme would not get the reduced weight of deck armour benefit that the "Flat deck on belt" scheme gets, and would not get any weight savings for "all forward" turret layouts such as ABL, ABQ etc. This would represent the need for a longer citadel - effectively making it a fixed size on the ABXY layout and therefore historically correct. The addition of BE and DE armour should be optional (as it really should be for "Flat deck on belt").

To clarify the use of "All or Nothing" design principals it should be added as a check box in the design screen that is unlocked by the existing research item, and "Flat deck on Belt" and "Turtleback" should be alternative choices in the armour scheme drop down list, each unlocked by its own research item. The lock out for adding DE and BE armour if it is needed at all, should be linked to the AoN check box rather than linked to an armour scheme selection.

[MateDow]

Feb 14, 2019 6:43:25 GMT -6 imryn said:

OK, I've completed some testing and confirmed a few things. "Turtleback" armour does not exist in RTW1. Comparison of the "Sloped deck" and "Flat deck on Belt" schemes has shown that in both cases only the belt armour needs to be penetrated to damage the citadel. If "sloped deck" represented the "Turtleback" scheme (as some have claimed) a hit would have to penetrate the belt and then the deck to damage the citadel, and this is not the case in RTW1. For the same thickness of belt armour both schemes have approximately equal chances of receiving penetrating hits.

How did you test this? Did you have ships with the different types of armor exposed to the same guns, at the same range, and the same angles? That would seem important to testing whether there is an effect either way.

From the manual..

Belt and sloping deck
This is the standard WW1 era armour configuration. These ships will have extra protection against shells penetrating the belt damaging their vitals.

Flat deck on top of belt
These ships will have a larger volume protected by the belt and deck, but lack the extra protection offered by the sloping deck behind the belt. Note: An "all or nothing" ship (once you have researched it) should have this kind or armour layout and no BE or DE armour.

Without evidence, I would tend to believe the people that designed the game and wrote the manual.

imryn said:

I believe the simplest way to implement it in the game would be at the ship design phase and it could be achieved by adding the value assigned to deck armour to that assigned to belt armour giving a derived "effective" belt armour value. E.G. 12" belt and 6" deck gives an effective 18" belt).

Except that the two separate plates of material are not additive in their protection. You don't get 18" of protection from your 12" plate and the 6" plate.

Here is an article with the exact math that explains it much better than I ever could...

www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/multiVsSinglePlate.php

[abclark]

Feb 14, 2019 22:10:28 GMT -6 MateDow said:

imryn said:

I believe the simplest way to implement it in the game would be at the ship design phase and it could be achieved by adding the value assigned to deck armour to that assigned to belt armour giving a derived "effective" belt armour value. E.G. 12" belt and 6" deck gives an effective 18" belt).

Except that the two separate plates of material are not additive in their protection. You don't get 18" of protection from your 12" plate and the 6" plate.

Here is an article with the exact math that explains it much better than I ever could...

www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/multiVsSinglePlate.php

Not only that, but the sloped part of the deck is going to be at a very different angle than the belt. Most “deck behind belt” schemes are going to have a sloped deck somewhere in the vicinity of 45 degrees from the belt.

[dorn]

Feb 14, 2019 6:43:25 GMT -6 imryn said:

OK, I've completed some testing and confirmed a few things. "Turtleback" armour does not exist in RTW1. Comparison of the "Sloped deck" and "Flat deck on Belt" schemes has shown that in both cases only the belt armour needs to be penetrated to damage the citadel. If "sloped deck" represented the "Turtleback" scheme (as some have claimed) a hit would have to penetrate the belt and then the deck to damage the citadel, and this is not the case in RTW1. For the same thickness of belt armour both schemes have approximately equal chances of receiving penetrating hits.

I have been fighting a lot of battles using ships designed with both these armour schemes in campaigns with the 18+ mod installed and have confirmed my initial impression that long range gunnery is not a viable method of conducting a conclusive battle in RTW1. Firing 17" Q1 guns, with gunnery training applied, from a stable line of battle at 25,000 yards at AI designed ships (i.e. ships with thin decks) simply does not generate enough damage to prevent the enemy from disengaging and escaping to port. You might sink one or two ships where you get a lucky early hit that slows them down but that is it. In order to achieve a conclusive engagement you must pin the enemy fleet, either against a land feature or between two elements of your fleet, and in order to do that you have to close in on them, causing the AI to turn away from you either into the land or your other vessels, which then forces it to turn back etc etc. A consequence is that most battles that are fought to a conclusion might start out as long range duels but have to move quickly to short range if you want to pin the enemy and prevent them from escaping.

As an example, in a recent BC battle fought as GB against Germany I took on 20 AI designed German BC's with 10 of my own BC's (bigger, faster, better armor and guns). As soon as the two fleets met the German fleet turned towards their base; at this point I had a choice of maintaining range and fighting an inconclusive skirmish as they withdrew, possibly sinking one or two, or I could go for the win. I went for the win, using my greater speed to overhaul them and angling in towards them to force them in to the coast. During this phase of the battle several of my BC's were forced out of formation due to not being able to maintain flank speed, however I play in captain mode so I was able to maintain control over them. By the time I had the German fleet pinned against the coast my lead division had closed to 12,000 yards, however the German ships were hard against the coast and unable to make much forward progress as ships cannot maneuver properly when they are that confined. At that point I had not sunk a single enemy BC but I had stopped them about 15,000 yards from safety and the battle was effectively over. My BC's cruised up and down the German line pounding away (several ships shot themselves dry and I put at least 200 main gun rounds in my designs), I ordered a flotilla assault and my DD's and CL's pounded them with torps. That was that - a few German DD's escaped but nothing bigger, and I lost just one BC which was entirely avoidable and my fault (it had flooding and I didn't notice and kept it running at full speed).

I checked the logs on my ships after the battle and didn't find a single deck hit. One of my BC's sustained 34 heavy hits (none on the deck) and 3 torp hits but made it back to port. The BC that sank only took 2 torps but it took them early and, as I said, I didn't notice and kept it running at flank speed. I also checked many of the German BC's logs and couldn't find any deck hits there either.

Now, personally I like to fight my battles this way but that is just me. I am sure that there are others who would rather fight inconclusive long range battles that slowly whittle the enemy fleet away, and I get that that is a more historically accurate way of fighting but I am not interested in recreating history. After my battle most of my BC's were in for repairs, but I didn't need them any more so I flipped them into an empty rebuild and as soon as they finished put them into reserve, saving loads of money. Historically this is complete nonsense, but within the mechanics of RTW1 it is the optimal course of action; by destroying all of the enemy's BC's in one battle I could put most of my BC's back into reserve and spend all that lovely war boosted budget on building more ships. That war with Germany lasted 18 months but I had destroyed all of their BB's and BC's after two, so I got 16 months of wartime budget to spend on new building.

For the type of battles I favour I firmly believe that a properly implemented "turtleback" armour scheme would be the optimal protection method. If it were properly implemented in the game a belt hit would have to first penetrate the belt armour and then penetrate the deck armour before it could cause citadel damage (i.e. machinery, magazines). I believe the simplest way to implement it in the game would be at the ship design phase and it could be achieved by adding the value assigned to deck armour to that assigned to belt armour giving a derived "effective" belt armour value. E.G. 12" belt and 6" deck gives an effective 18" belt). To minimise changes to the ship design screen this could be represented by simply adding the value assigned to deck armour to the value shown for Belt armour, but showing the weight and cost of the belt armour value minus deck. This will appear as if the Belt armour is much lighter and cheaper for this armour scheme however it will be in line with other schemes. E.G. I add 6" to Deck and Belt changes to 6" however 0 weight and 0 cost is shown for Belt. I then change Belt to 18" and the weight and cost shown is that for 12" of armour.

The "turtleback" armor scheme would not get the reduced weight of deck armour benefit that the "Flat deck on belt" scheme gets, and would not get any weight savings for "all forward" turret layouts such as ABL, ABQ etc. This would represent the need for a longer citadel - effectively making it a fixed size on the ABXY layout and therefore historically correct. The addition of BE and DE armour should be optional (as it really should be for "Flat deck on belt").

To clarify the use of "All or Nothing" design principals it should be added as a check box in the design screen that is unlocked by the existing research item, and "Flat deck on Belt" and "Turtleback" should be alternative choices in the armour scheme drop down list, each unlocked by its own research item. The lock out for adding DE and BE armour if it is needed at all, should be linked to the AoN check box rather than linked to an armour scheme selection.

Turtle back armor - it exists in game as said in manual. You cannot test it because you need to take into account angle and some random and you have not both.

Deck hit - it is just bad luck but it happened to me even at distance quite short. In 20s my capital ships usually hits quite regurarly even over 20.000 yards.

Destroying all enemy capital ships in one battle - this is quite ahistorical. Game could not prevent this (it will do it better by limiting shells per gun as there would be tonnage penalty for larger magazines as I understand from developers notes), but it should happen rarely.

Value for penetration of turrtle back armor - it is more complex as some hits that penetrate belt armor could go over the deck armor (usually at short distances). And effectivity of the vertical protection vary by several factors - distance, angle, roll (I do not now if roll is implemented in RTW but I expect it is part of "random"). So you cannot have something as 12" belt and 6" deck giving you 18" of effective protection. Look at developers journal, there is new table for penetration for RTW2 - it is better however still limited information as real penetrations depends on a lot of factors.

Turtle back armor as modern armor scheme (used by Nazis battleships) - I do not know if this is included in RTW2 - probably not), but historically we knows that the scheme was quite ineffective. However it could be interesting alternative - much more structure damage, more weight, but better vertical protection of citadel.

[aeson]

In addition to what MateDow and abclark have said, I would suggest that it is unwise to say that the game does not model a shell encountering both belt and deck armor only because the game reports a hit as a belt penetration and says nothing about whether or not the shell encountered deck armor. A log entry such as 26 16:09 16 in 17298 yds Hull hit B * (BC Amphitrite, AP) should probably be taken to mean that a 16" AP shell hit the hull somewhere in the region protected by the main belt and penetrated all of the armor that the shell encountered, rather than that a 16" shell hit the hull somewhere in the region protected by the main belt, penetrated the belt armor, and encountered no other armor.

Beyond that, I see no evidence to support the idea that the game is running any particularly detailed physics simulation in the background. It could very well be the case that the game models the additional protection offered by the deck armor in a turtleback scheme by checking for a penetration against B_eff = B + f(R) * D where B_eff is the effective thickness of the armor protecting against the hit, B is the 'true' thickness of the belt armor, f(R) is a function that takes range R as an input and returns a non-negative number, and D is the 'true' thickness of the deck armor rather than by first checking for a belt penetration and then for a deck penetration if appropriate.