Turret Armour warning

[maachlan]

While designing an absurdly overcompensating behemoth of a Battleship I received the following warning:

> Note: Do you really want to armour the main turrets that heavily?


The warning appeared at 16 inches of Turret armour. Is there some hidden downside (traversal, elevation, etc) to heavily armoured turrets or is the game just warning me that I'm probably over investing in armour?

[HolyDragoon]

I think it might depend on the gun calibre? I had that show up with... I think 8'' of armour? The thing was those eight inches were going to protect... 4'' guns.

[williammiller]

There are diminishing returns on armor thickness of greater than ~ 16"...in real life the relative effectiveness per inch of such thick armor declines due to a couple of factors, one being the extreme difficulty of producing such extremely thick face-hardened plates. In other words each extra inch of armor greater than ~ 16 inches in thickness grants less than an extra inch of actual protection, IIRC.

[corgi]

I figured that was there to keep you from accidentally converting a battleship into a carrier with 16" armor on its AA guns.

[maachlan]

May 20, 2019 19:22:48 GMT -6 williammiller said:

There are diminishing returns on armor thickness of greater than ~ 16"...in real life the relative effectiveness per inch of such thick armor declines due to a couple of factors, one being the extreme difficulty of producing such extremely thick face-hardened plates. In other words each extra inch of armor greater than ~ 16 inches in thickness grants less than an extra inch of actual protection, IIRC.

Good to know, it makes a lot of sense in retrospect. Does the same penalty appear on belt armor as well? I suppose 20 inch belt / turret armor dreadnoughts may be a tad impractical.

[williammiller]

I believe that applies to any face-hardened armor, so belt, turret, and conning tower would all be affected.

[tortugapower]

I got this warning when I put 12" on my legacy battleship. I noticed in the gun data that my penetration was about half of my armor. Maybe it compares general armor and general gun quality (or maybe exactly your current gun and armor) and warns you if the armor is getting along double of the penetration of your guns.

I'd curious to know myself.

[generalvikus]

May 21, 2019 0:33:49 GMT -6 tortugapower said:

I got this warning when I put 12" on my legacy battleship. I noticed in the gun data that my penetration was about half of my armor. Maybe it compares general armor and general gun quality (or maybe exactly your current gun and armor) and warns you if the armor is getting along double of the penetration of your guns.

I'd curious to know myself.

It seems unlikely that the 'overcompensating behemoth of a battleship' had guns which penetrated 8 inches or less at their maximum range. 

[maachlan]

I was building her with 15 inch guns that could pen 9.5 inches at max range.

Best guns I'd researched (been a bit slow this campaign)

Edit: I'm more worried about the British 16 inch +1 guns that will be shooting at me