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Post by director on Jan 14, 2019 9:40:53 GMT -6
imryn - at 10% tech rate you may never have to worry about AoN LOL. dorn - agreed. One has only to look at what happened to 'Hiei' and 'Kirishima' to see the effect of modern ordnance on WW1 armor schemes. It is possible though not likely that 'Hiei' took hits through her main belt or turrets; she was at extremely close range to US cruisers and destroyers, and the wreck has not been positively identified and examined... and something caused eyewitnesses to think she had internal fires. At any rate, 5", 6" and/or 8" gunfire rendered her hors de combat. 'Kirishima' undoubtedly did take penetrating hits from main and secondary guns on 'Washington', and according to recent evidence she took about twice as many hits as Admiral Willis Lee thought he had landed. But the direct cause of her loss was her armor scheme, which left a large open area above the armored deck. That area collected water, and as that sloshed from side to side,'Kirishima' rolled and listed. To stop the listing, damage control counter-flooded, which brought her lower in the water and made it more likely for her to roll uncontrollably from side to side. With air-filled compartments below the armored deck and heavy water above, the end was inevitable: she rolled. A more modern design would have the armored deck higher (bomb protection was not a consideration in 1912) and the space more compartmentalized. The damage to 'South Dakota' in the same engagement shows that one 14" shell did have a chance at penetrating the barbette armor (hit #26, aft turret) , but did not strike straight on. www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/w/war-damage-reports/uss-south-dakota-bb57-war-damage-report-no57.htmlAnd so 'South Dakota' took quite a number of hits and needed repairs, but was hit approximately twice outside the center of mass (both forward). This shows that the concentration of armor at the center is correct for probability of hit, and that her 12" belt was sufficient to stop 6" and 8" hits in vital areas even at point-blank range. Had she been designed with a more conventional armor scheme, the hull hits forard could have been stopped but other hits (like the 14" shell to the aft barbette) might not.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Jan 14, 2019 11:15:21 GMT -6
Well the original idea for the campaign was to see if I could capture / own all the colony's in the world, so i figured I would need a lot of time and wanted ships to stay relevant for a long time so i wasn't constantly scrapping and replacing them when new tech came along. That said I am 5 years in and already have 2 tech advances in some fields so I might have to slow it down even further.
I don't really get why you are looking at the performance of 1938 ships against 1911 ships. The main factor in that battle isn't that it is AoN against non-AoN, it is ships armoured against 14" 1911 artillery against ships armoured against 16" 1938 artillery. Even if the 1911 ships had no design flaws they should have been shot to pieces because they were up against a threat that they were not designed to counter.
In addition the US ships had the benefit of 27 years of materials research meaning that their armour was lighter for a given value of protection.
I have looked and I can't find a single engagement between an AoN ship and a non-AoN ship of similar technology levels, mainly because by WW2 battleships were quickly losing their relevance, and the nations that had AoN (or semi AoN) ships were all mostly on the same side. This is why I mentioned the German battleships from WW2 despite the fact that they are a bit out of scope for RTW1. They had an armour design that had some features of AoN but also had significant armour on both the bow and stern, and they all took a huge amount of damage before they sank. More damage than I believe and AoN ship would survive. I admit that they were mission killed long before they sank, but AoN ships are just as susceptible (possibly more susceptible?) to the kind of peripheral damage that can cause that to happen.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 14, 2019 12:21:24 GMT -6
I did some designing with Springsharp for HMS Dreadnought - The sections below show the difference with the Dreadnought as built, and the second entry with reciprocating engines. Pay attention to the space entries and waterplane area. The engine power requirements also changed from 27,000 SHP approximately to 30,000 SHP.
HMS Dreadnought as built
Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 75.4 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 222.8 %
Waterplane Area: 33,164 Square feet or 3,081 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 109 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 155 lbs/sq ft or 756 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.88
- Longitudinal: 3.18
- Overall: 1.00
HMS Dreadnought with complex reciprocating engines
Ship space, strength and comments:
Space - Hull below water (magazines/engines, low = better): 97.2 %
- Above water (accommodation/working, high = better): 219.7 %
Waterplane Area: 35,305 Square feet or 3,280 Square metres
Displacement factor (Displacement / loading): 98 %
Structure weight / hull surface area: 151 lbs/sq ft or 739 Kg/sq metre
Hull strength (Relative):
- Cross-sectional: 0.89
- Longitudinal: 2.90
- Overall: 1.00
Waterplane Area
The WP area of a ship is the area of the hull at which draft the vessel is afloat. For a box shaped vsl it would simply be the LxB. As it is not symmetrical for a ship, it is calculated by a formula known as Simpsons rules which provides the area for ship shapes.
The WP area is used to calculate the displacement of the vessel for different drafts & also to determine the Longitudinal center of flotation, TPC (Tonnes per cm) for immersion; the formula for which is dxA/100 where d is the density of the water in which the vsl is afloat & A is the waterplane area at that draft.
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Post by rimbecano on Jan 14, 2019 13:55:15 GMT -6
I don't really get why you are looking at the performance of 1938 ships against 1911 ships. The main factor in that battle isn't that it is AoN against non-AoN, it is ships armoured against 14" 1911 artillery against ships armoured against 16" 1938 artillery. Even if the 1911 ships had no design flaws they should have been shot to pieces because they were up against a threat that they were not designed to counter. Kirishima wasn't shot to pieces by South Dakota. She bombarded her at fairly short range without much response until Washington engaged her, and the point is not to compare the two ships, but simply to note the beating that SoDak took and what effect it had on her. One of the design principles of AoN was that the citadel should be sufficiently buoyant for the ship to remain afloat with the ends flooded. Now, if a significant number of penetrating hits were taken to the citadel, the AoN ship might well be in a worse state, but reducing the armor on the ends was done for the express purpose if making it harder to compromise the citadel. |
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Jan 15, 2019 4:21:45 GMT -6
I don't really get why you are looking at the performance of 1938 ships against 1911 ships. The main factor in that battle isn't that it is AoN against non-AoN, it is ships armoured against 14" 1911 artillery against ships armoured against 16" 1938 artillery. Even if the 1911 ships had no design flaws they should have been shot to pieces because they were up against a threat that they were not designed to counter. Kirishima wasn't shot to pieces by South Dakota. She bombarded her at fairly short range without much response until Washington engaged her, and the point is not to compare the two ships, but simply to note the beating that SoDak took and what effect it had on her. One of the design principles of AoN was that the citadel should be sufficiently buoyant for the ship to remain afloat with the ends flooded. Now, if a significant number of penetrating hits were taken to the citadel, the AoN ship might well be in a worse state, but reducing the armor on the ends was done for the express purpose if making it harder to compromise the citadel. I think a better description of AoN design is that with the improvements in naval artillery technology it was becoming increasingly difficult to provide sufficient conventional armour for capital ships; specifically with the weight of the necessary armour it was not possible to meet other desired design characteristics such as top speed. AoN armour design philosophy addressed that problem by removing armour from some areas of the ship, thus it was a weight saving scheme rather than an improvement in protection. An AoN ship might have enough reserve buoyancy in the citadel (and there is no reason a non AoN ship cannot also be designed this way) but it will still suffer if it takes damage either forward or aft of the citadel - damage to the bow can reduce speed and affect seaworthiness, damage to the stern can affect steering and propulsion. Any of these affects could mission kill the ship, and with no armour in those areas this could be achieved with smaller caliber weapons than would be needed on a traditionally armoured ship. AoN offers no particular advantage in armouring the upperworks of the ship so the potential for mission killing both AoN and non AoN ships through damage to the superstructure, fire direction, radar etc is equal. My conclusion is that AoN ships are more susceptible to being mission killed than non AoN ships while having no advantage in ultimate survivability. AoN sacrifices peripheral protection to allow for greater top speed. |
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Post by MateDow on Jan 15, 2019 5:16:03 GMT -6
Kirishima wasn't shot to pieces by South Dakota. She bombarded her at fairly short range without much response until Washington engaged her, and the point is not to compare the two ships, but simply to note the beating that SoDak took and what effect it had on her. One of the design principles of AoN was that the citadel should be sufficiently buoyant for the ship to remain afloat with the ends flooded. Now, if a significant number of penetrating hits were taken to the citadel, the AoN ship might well be in a worse state, but reducing the armor on the ends was done for the express purpose if making it harder to compromise the citadel. I think a better description of AoN design is that with the improvements in naval artillery technology it was becoming increasingly difficult to provide sufficient conventional armour for capital ships; specifically with the weight of the necessary armour it was not possible to meet other desired design characteristics such as top speed. AoN armour design philosophy addressed that problem by removing armour from some areas of the ship, thus it was a weight saving scheme rather than an improvement in protection. An AoN ship might have enough reserve buoyancy in the citadel (and there is no reason a non AoN ship cannot also be designed this way) but it will still suffer if it takes damage either forward or aft of the citadel - damage to the bow can reduce speed and affect seaworthiness, damage to the stern can affect steering and propulsion. Any of these affects could mission kill the ship, and with no armour in those areas this could be achieved with smaller caliber weapons than would be needed on a traditionally armoured ship. AoN offers no particular advantage in armouring the upperworks of the ship so the potential for mission killing both AoN and non AoN ships through damage to the superstructure, fire direction, radar etc is equal. My conclusion is that AoN ships are more susceptible to being mission killed than non AoN ships while having no advantage in ultimate survivability. AoN sacrifices peripheral protection to allow for greater top speed.
I would question the conclusion that heavier armor over vitals gives no advantage in survivability. I would rather have more armor protecting my engines, magazines, and turrets than spread out over non-vital areas of the ship. Given a finite amount of weight for armored protection, regardless of speed, that armor is most useful protecting the systems that keep the ship in battle, and hence survivability.
The other issue with placing armor in non-vital areas is that it can serve to activate shells that might have otherwise passed through. This would result in more damage to the non-vital areas because of that armored protection. This was one of the key rationales for the "nothing" part of this equation.
All of this points to the AoN system being the best utilization of weight when all else is equal. Given the same amount of armor weight, the ship with the thicker belt and deck will tend to be more survivable when fighting at normal daytime battle ranges.
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Jan 15, 2019 6:44:50 GMT -6
AoN doesn't actually provide heavier armour anywhere, it simply defines which portions of a ship should have armour and which shouldn't. The amount of armour that the protected portions of the ship has is a design decision where weight of armour is a limiting factor for other ship components. Typically a ships citadel was armoured to protect it against its own main battery at expected battle ranges. This was pretty much how they armoured ships before they came up with AoN, so the difference between an AoN ship and a non AoN ship isn't the amount of protection for the ships "vitals", its the amount of protection everywhere else.
Having said that AoN wasn't just an armour design method, it also included the general design of the ships primary systems to minimise the volume of the citadel, thus reducing the volume that needed to have maximum protection. This is much harder to evaluate because after 1912 there were no capital ships built that didn't incorporate this requirement to some extent. Conversely there were no ships built that were "pure" AoN designs either; every ship had some armour that wasn't devoted to citadel protection.
Your point about shells passing through unarmoured areas without detonating was part of the theory, but in the execution most ships were built with extra armour for crew protection which enabled such shells to detonate after all. In addition the incident with USS South Dakota discussed earlier shows that even when shells didn't detonate they could still mission kill the ship.
Your last point is obviously untrue. Sure, if two otherwise identical ships with different armour were anchored near each other and blazed away you are right, but how realistic is that? Armour is just one factor in determining the outcome of a naval battle - and probably not even the most important. Accuracy, rate of fire, range, shell penetration, and speed are all equally important given how easy it is to mission kill a ship without ever penetrating its citadel.
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Post by alexbrunius on Jan 15, 2019 7:41:57 GMT -6
An AoN ship might have enough reserve buoyancy in the citadel (and there is no reason a non AoN ship cannot also be designed this way) Yes there is. More total armor weight to try and cover everything with thinner armor = less buoyancy. There is also the question about how effective the Citadel as a "guarantee" will be if it is more thinly armored. but it will still suffer if it takes damage either forward or aft of the citadel - damage to the bow can reduce speed and affect seaworthiness, damage to the stern can affect steering and propulsion. Like Bismarck suffered? So not only could non AoN ships suffer such damage, there is even historical examples to back it up! Any of these affects could mission kill the ship, and with no armour in those areas this could be achieved with smaller caliber weapons than would be needed on a traditionally armoured ship. AoN offers no particular advantage in armouring the upperworks of the ship so the potential for mission killing both AoN and non AoN ships through damage to the superstructure, fire direction, radar etc is equal. At the end of the day you need to ask yourself what the job of your Battleship is. If the job of your battleship is to duel enemy small caliber weapon ships like destroyers in close range in night combat, you probably shouldn't even be designing a Battleship to begin with! In any engagement looking like the environment the Battleship was designed to operate in ( good visibility, long range gunfire duels with enemy battleships ), AoN will be far superior both in terms of preventing mission kill and increasing survivability while a non AoN design basically ensures that no matter where the enemy hits your armor will be too weak to stop their shells and your ship will take damage. The non AoN design also ensures any Battleship enemy shell will encounter some armor thus setting of it's fuse and ensuring an internal explosion, instead of going right through and detonating after hitting the water on the other side of the ship. That isn't some theory, it's how shells used by all sides worked, and just looking at any battle where heavy shells hit thinly armored or ships without armor proves that point ( for example the Battle of Samar ). |
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Jan 15, 2019 9:30:40 GMT -6
An AoN ship might have enough reserve buoyancy in the citadel (and there is no reason a non AoN ship cannot also be designed this way) Yes there is. More total armor weight to try and cover everything with thinner armor = less buoyancy. There is also the question about how effective the Citadel as a "guarantee" will be if it is more thinly armored. but it will still suffer if it takes damage either forward or aft of the citadel - damage to the bow can reduce speed and affect seaworthiness, damage to the stern can affect steering and propulsion. Like Bismarck suffered? So not only could non AoN ships suffer such damage, there is even historical examples to back it up! Any of these affects could mission kill the ship, and with no armour in those areas this could be achieved with smaller caliber weapons than would be needed on a traditionally armoured ship. AoN offers no particular advantage in armouring the upperworks of the ship so the potential for mission killing both AoN and non AoN ships through damage to the superstructure, fire direction, radar etc is equal. At the end of the day you need to ask yourself what the job of your Battleship is. If the job of your battleship is to duel enemy small caliber weapon ships like destroyers in close range in night combat, you probably shouldn't even be designing a Battleship to begin with! In any engagement looking like the environment the Battleship was designed to operate in ( good visibility, long range gunfire duels with enemy battleships ), AoN will be far superior both in terms of preventing mission kill and increasing survivability while a non AoN design basically ensures that no matter where the enemy hits your armor will be too weak to stop their shells and your ship will take damage. The non AoN design also ensures any Battleship enemy shell will encounter some armor thus setting of it's fuse and ensuring an internal explosion, instead of going right through and detonating after hitting the water on the other side of the ship. That isn't some theory, it's how shells used by all sides worked, and just looking at any battle where heavy shells hit thinly armored or ships without armor proves that point ( for example the Battle of Samar ). I think you don't understand me at all. To be absolutely clear: A non AoN ship can be built with a citadel and have just as much protection for it as an AoN ship, as well as having more protection elsewhere. It would mean a trade off for something else so it would be slower or bigger or carry fewer guns in it main battery for example, but it would benefit from just as much citadel protection as an AoN ship and more protection for its bow and stern. Yes, Bismark actually had armour on its bow and stern and was still mission killed. AoN ships have none and are even more vulnerable than Bismark was. In good visibility firing at long range AoN offers no advantage whatsoever over a sufficiently armoured non AoN ship. I repeat; there is no reason you can't protect a non AoN ship just as well as an AoN ship, it will just weigh more. Every single ship that was supposedly AoN also had additional armour plate that served to arm shells but offered no protection against them. Every single one. No ship was built completely to AoN standard. Why you ask? Because a truly AoN ship would leave 3/4 of its crew with absolutely no protection and i guess the navy didn't think that would be good for recruitment. If ships had been built that way then shells would have been built which used an alternative arming method, but they weren't because they were not needed. I can't for the life of me figure the relevance of the battle of Samar. Are you referring to the one on 25 Oct 44? or is there another one? If that is the one then OK, Halsey abandons his post leaving a bunch of small carriers and even smaller escorts to face an IJN task group with 4 BB's 6 CA's 2 CL's and 11 DD's. The escorts attack, get cut up by the IJN screen but succeed in convincing the IJN that they are facing the heavy forces that Halsey stupidly took away, and they withdraw. Not Halseys best day by a long shot but I don't see its relevance here. |
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Post by ddg on Jan 15, 2019 18:26:24 GMT -6
imryn What change do you want to see in the game, precisely? It sounds to me like you want the Sloped Deck armor scheme to be superior to the Flat Deck on Top of Belt armor scheme at all points in the game. It's difficult to evaluate whether you have adequately supported (or others adequately opposed) your thesis without knowing what it is. That notwithstanding, you've made several references to the benefit of all-or-nothing design philosophy being higher speed. I disagree. To convince me (which, granted, you are under no obligation to attempt), you must explain (1) why the first series of battleships designed to this standard were no faster than their traditionally armored counterparts and predecessors and (2) the high speeds of late non-all-or-nothing battleships (chiefly Bismarck, as always). I believe the passage of time (and consequent changing design priorities and advancements in propulsive technology) is a more parsimonious explanation for the faster speeds of later ships. I consider the all-or-nothing design philosophy primarily a weight-saving tool; that weight could be plowed back into horsepower, but it could also go to protection and often did. This is, substantially, what the AoN technology accomplishes in RTW by making Flat Deck competitive with Sloped Deck for capital ships.
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Post by director on Jan 15, 2019 20:15:29 GMT -6
In my opinion, the faster speeds of post-treaty capital ships is simply the speed that would have been incremented up to, had there been intervening designs.
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Post by dorn on Jan 16, 2019 0:39:21 GMT -6
imryn - at 10% tech rate you may never have to worry about AoN LOL. dorn - agreed. One has only to look at what happened to 'Hiei' and 'Kirishima' to see the effect of modern ordnance on WW1 armor schemes. It is possible though not likely that 'Hiei' took hits through her main belt or turrets; she was at extremely close range to US cruisers and destroyers, and the wreck has not been positively identified and examined... and something caused eyewitnesses to think she had internal fires. At any rate, 5", 6" and/or 8" gunfire rendered her hors de combat. 'Kirishima' undoubtedly did take penetrating hits from main and secondary guns on 'Washington', and according to recent evidence she took about twice as many hits as Admiral Willis Lee thought he had landed. But the direct cause of her loss was her armor scheme, which left a large open area above the armored deck. That area collected water, and as that sloshed from side to side,'Kirishima' rolled and listed. To stop the listing, damage control counter-flooded, which brought her lower in the water and made it more likely for her to roll uncontrollably from side to side. With air-filled compartments below the armored deck and heavy water above, the end was inevitable: she rolled. A more modern design would have the armored deck higher (bomb protection was not a consideration in 1912) and the space more compartmentalized. The damage to 'South Dakota' in the same engagement shows that one 14" shell did have a chance at penetrating the barbette armor (hit #26, aft turret) , but did not strike straight on. www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/w/war-damage-reports/uss-south-dakota-bb57-war-damage-report-no57.htmlAnd so 'South Dakota' took quite a number of hits and needed repairs, but was hit approximately twice outside the center of mass (both forward). This shows that the concentration of armor at the center is correct for probability of hit, and that her 12" belt was sufficient to stop 6" and 8" hits in vital areas even at point-blank range. Had she been designed with a more conventional armor scheme, the hull hits forard could have been stopped but other hits (like the 14" shell to the aft barbette) might not. I do not think comparison Heie or Kirishima with modern battleship is completely fair. They were WW1 battlecruisers with minimum armor.
AoN armor was better for long range duel and volume protected however we do not know how well old ships armor would protect.
RN, Italians and IJN have old battleships from WW1 without AoN armor scheme but almost none of them fight battleship vs. battleship engagement.
RN - Hood fight however she was sunk quickly so we never now how her inclined belt armor would protect the ship. QEs fight with Italians however her armor scheme was not tested. Italians - old Italians battleship did not get really beating and armor was quite lite IJN - their battlecruisers were in fight but not Nagato class. Nagato has less belt armor (12") but has turtle back armor which would help.
From short range turtle back armor is better to protect vitals however more volume of ships is not protected by citadel. And this is the issue as you do not need to sink the ship you need to mission killed her. So AoN was better layout for long range fight, for short range it is questionable as armor could not protect vitals.
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Post by rimbecano on Jan 16, 2019 6:00:25 GMT -6
I think you don't understand me at all. To be absolutely clear: A non AoN ship can be built with a citadel and have just as much protection for it as an AoN ship, as well as having more protection elsewhere. It would mean a trade off for something else so it would be slower or bigger or carry fewer guns in it main battery for example, but it would benefit from just as much citadel protection as an AoN ship and more protection for its bow and stern. And if I have an AoN design with 30% armor by weight and a non-AoN design with 35% armor by weight, I can always up-armor the AoN design to 35%, in which case I once again have thicker citadel armor. For a given mass fraction of armor, an AoN ship will have thicker citadel armor. For a given citadel thickness, it will carry less weight of armor. The AoN philosophy is this: If your design is overweight and you need to remove armor, you lose less to thinning or eliminating light to medium armor from the extremities than to thinning heavy armor on the citadel. If your design meets your speed and firepower requirements and you still have mass budget left for armor, you gain more if you beef up the armor on the citadel than if you add armor to the extremities. And if your design is on-weight for armor, consolidating your armor into the citadel is an improvement. |
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Jan 16, 2019 6:20:47 GMT -6
imryn What change do you want to see in the game, precisely? It sounds to me like you want the Sloped Deck armor scheme to be superior to the Flat Deck on Top of Belt armor scheme at all points in the game. It's difficult to evaluate whether you have adequately supported (or others adequately opposed) your thesis without knowing what it is. That notwithstanding, you've made several references to the benefit of all-or-nothing design philosophy being higher speed. I disagree. To convince me (which, granted, you are under no obligation to attempt), you must explain (1) why the first series of battleships designed to this standard were no faster than their traditionally armored counterparts and predecessors and (2) the high speeds of late non-all-or-nothing battleships (chiefly Bismarck, as always). I believe the passage of time (and consequent changing design priorities and advancements in propulsive technology) is a more parsimonious explanation for the faster speeds of later ships. I consider the all-or-nothing design philosophy primarily a weight-saving tool; that weight could be plowed back into horsepower, but it could also go to protection and often did. This is, substantially, what the AoN technology accomplishes in RTW by making Flat Deck competitive with Sloped Deck for capital ships. Thank you for your response, it made me review what I have said here and realise that I have strayed quite a long way from my original point. Originally I was complaining that AoN armour is presented in RTW1 as a "top of the tech tree" option with its own check box in the ship design screen. At that time I knew that many late era battleships were not pure AoN designs and yet were effective ships, and so I was looking for less emphasis on AoN as a "tick the box" obvious option in the game. Since then, due to the many well reasoned responses my original post has received I have been forced to expand my knowledge of exactly what constitutes AoN design philosophy. Prior to AoN armour was an afterthought in ship design. The naval architects designed ships to make the most efficient use of internal volume with little or no regard to protection and once the ship was actually built the armourers then added armour plates to it. Then the designers and the armourers argued back and forth about exactly how much armour could be added without destroying the ships sailing characteristics. Seems bizarre, but apparently that was approximately how the process went. "All or Nothing" armour is a misleading title because the design philosophy covers much more than just the armour scheme. In a nutshell it is the integration of the armour scheme into the ship design process, so where a non AoN ship would have its internal systems arranged in the hull to provide the most efficient use of the space without regard for protection, an AoN ship would have its internal systems categorised as critical or non critical and the critical systems would be arranged in the smallest volume possible and the armour to protect that volume would be designed into the ship, not added afterwards. I said non AoN ship but I should have said pre AoN ship because after 1911 all battleships were built in this way. When we come to the the armour schemes we see differences in priorities. The US considered long range gunnery to be very important, whereas Britain felt the same about short range gunnery. Britain was looking at continental enemies and the naval battlefield would be the North Sea and North Atlantic, notoriously rough seas where long range gunnery would be next to impossible. I am not sure why the US focused on long range, but the Pacific ocean as a potential theater of operations probably had something to do with it. This emphasis on short range gunnery led the RN to place less importance on the effect of plunging fire but on the whole served them well. Banded armour provided very good vertical protection, however inadequate horizontal protection (combined with bad practices in ammunition handling) contributed to the loss of several ships and as a consequence horizontal protection was improved. This armour scheme followed some AoN principals in that the citadel was heavily armoured however the peripheral areas of the ship were also armoured to some extent. The US's emphasis on long range gunnery led them to place a much higher priority on defending against plunging fire. This led to the US ships having good horizontal protection as well as good vertical protection. By 1919 the US was focused on a potential war with Japan and the feeling was that the 21 knot battleships were not fast enough to force the Japanese forces into battle. Thus a requirement began that emphasized high speed battleships, even at the expense of armour protection. The culmination of that trend was the Iowa class that had virtually no immunity zone in its vertical protection vs its own main battery and incorporated angled armour (not represented in RTW1) to allow reduced thickness vertical armour. Despite the need to reduce weight to achieve their design speeds all of the later US battleships incorporated multiple armoured decks that did not follow AoN design principals. During this period there were improvements in machinery that provided for a general increase in ship speeds, however the US had a specific requirement to make their ships faster than the general improvement provided. Historically, we have evidence of several ships that use (in RTW1 terms) sloped deck and belt armour performing very well in short to medium range battles. We have no examples of flat deck on belt armoured ships performing any where near as well at any range. Technically, every battleship built after 1911 is an AoN ship to some degree however RTW1 considers AoN to be purely an armour design and there is little historical evidence on the performance of flat deck on belt armour at any range, whereas we have ample evidence that sloped deck and belt armour performs very well at short to medium range. Given the way that the RTW AI handles spotting the enemy forces engagements into that medium to short range environment I think that the sloped deck and belt armour scheme should outperform flat deck on belt. I don't think it should be removed from RTW but I do think the ship design and the armour aspects should be separated into different tech advances. "Armoured Citadel" could offer a % weight saving for both belt and deck armour regardless of the armour scheme used, along with the current entry but that should have its affect reduced so that AoN + Armoured Citadel equals what we have now. |
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imryn
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Post by imryn on Jan 16, 2019 7:40:46 GMT -6
I think you don't understand me at all. To be absolutely clear: A non AoN ship can be built with a citadel and have just as much protection for it as an AoN ship, as well as having more protection elsewhere. It would mean a trade off for something else so it would be slower or bigger or carry fewer guns in it main battery for example, but it would benefit from just as much citadel protection as an AoN ship and more protection for its bow and stern. And if I have an AoN design with 30% armor by weight and a non-AoN design with 35% armor by weight, I can always up-armor the AoN design to 35%, in which case I once again have thicker citadel armor. For a given mass fraction of armor, an AoN ship will have thicker citadel armor. For a given citadel thickness, it will carry less weight of armor. The AoN philosophy is this: If your design is overweight and you need to remove armor, you lose less to thinning or eliminating light to medium armor from the extremities than to thinning heavy armor on the citadel. If your design meets your speed and firepower requirements and you still have mass budget left for armor, you gain more if you beef up the armor on the citadel than if you add armor to the extremities. And if your design is on-weight for armor, consolidating your armor into the citadel is an improvement. That is not the AoN philosophy at all. The AoN philosophy dictates WHERE to put armour, but says absolutely nothing about how much to put there. There are many different ideas on how much armour a ship needs to have - a commonly held one was that your citadel should be immune to your own main battery at battle range, but what this actually meant in terms of actual armour was very subjective. In the event that you design a ship and have surplus weight capacity after meeting all of your design targets it would not be logical to add additional citadel armour, it would be wasted. better to add fuel capacity, or magazine capacity, or extra redundant generators or extra fire control or or or ... basically anything that actually adds to the ships capability or survivability, which adding extra citadel armour over and above what you have determined that it needs does not do. |
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