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Post by abclark on May 26, 2019 10:40:49 GMT -6
Littorio also did, even if the belt had the decapping plate it was not internal. It was provided in modules that had both the decapper and the main belt that were attached to the ship's sides on the outfitting pier after launch. And the 8-8 fleet neverweres had external inclined belt too. none of the ships in the picture actually have a decapping belt though only littorio actually had a proper decapping belt which would be usefull you need a plate atleast 0.1 caliber the size of the gun firing at you for example a 45 mm plate has 0.09 the caliber of a 460mm shell to a 460mm shell will ignore it and a 35mm plate is 0.0983 the caliber of a 14 inch shell thus will also not decap www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-085.phpIf you look a little closer into that topic you'll see that at an impact angle of over 15° only 0.0805 caliber plate is required to remove a type 1 cap. Because 0° impacts almost never happen in combat, you could expect a 35mm plate to decap a 434mm shell in the vast majority of cases. |
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Post by orkel on May 26, 2019 11:53:46 GMT -6
Exactly, the manual states:
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.
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Post by christian on May 27, 2019 15:51:43 GMT -6
none of the ships in the picture actually have a decapping belt though only littorio actually had a proper decapping belt which would be usefull you need a plate atleast 0.1 caliber the size of the gun firing at you for example a 45 mm plate has 0.09 the caliber of a 460mm shell to a 460mm shell will ignore it and a 35mm plate is 0.0983 the caliber of a 14 inch shell thus will also not decap www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-085.phpIf you look a little closer into that topic you'll see that at an impact angle of over 15° only 0.0805 caliber plate is required to remove a type 1 cap. Because 0° impacts almost never happen in combat, you could expect a 35mm plate to decap a 434mm shell in the vast majority of cases. true but at the same time it also states ONLY TYPE 1 CAP KNOCKED OFF which pretty blatantly means that decap belts are still not used except for on the italian ships |
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Post by abclark on May 27, 2019 19:45:44 GMT -6
If you look a little closer into that topic you'll see that at an impact angle of over 15° only 0.0805 caliber plate is required to remove a type 1 cap. Because 0° impacts almost never happen in combat, you could expect a 35mm plate to decap a 434mm shell in the vast majority of cases. true but at the same time it also states ONLY TYPE 1 CAP KNOCKED OFF which pretty blatantly means that decap belts are still not used except for on the italian ships To my knowledge (and to Mr. Okun's), the only naval projectiles with type 2 caps are Krupp hard capped projectiles and the USN's 3" Mk 29/30. That's a very small percentage of all the projectiles used. And while I don't believe that any other ships were designed with that in mind, most ships with an internal belt effectively have decapping plating that works at most realistic combat ranges. |
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Post by aetreus on May 27, 2019 19:56:33 GMT -6
true but at the same time it also states ONLY TYPE 1 CAP KNOCKED OFF which pretty blatantly means that decap belts are still not used except for on the italian ships To my knowledge (and to Mr. Okun's), the only naval projectiles with type 2 caps are Krupp hard capped projectiles and the USN's 3" Mk 29/30. That's a very small percentage of all the projectiles used. And while I don't believe that any other ships were designed with that in mind, most ships with an internal belt effectively have decapping plating that works at most realistic combat ranges. Italian projectiles performed similarly, hence why they adopted a 70mm+280mm system and wanted a 100mm decapping plate(but weight reasons made this impossible). It's hard to guess at how Japanese projectiles performed given that they never did these sorts of tests. Basically thin decapping plates would work against USN and UK shells, as they did in testing, and wouldn't work against KM and RM shells, unlikely to work against VMF shells(as they were working off of Italian designs for their new heavy guns), and possibly would work versus MN or IJN shells. |
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Post by abclark on May 27, 2019 21:57:57 GMT -6
Italian projectiles performed similarly, hence why they adopted a 70mm+280mm system and wanted a 100mm decapping plate(but weight reasons made this impossible). It's hard to guess at how Japanese projectiles performed given that they never did these sorts of tests. Basically thin decapping plates would work against USN and UK shells, as they did in testing, and wouldn't work against KM and RM shells, unlikely to work against VMF shells(as they were working off of Italian designs for their new heavy guns), and possibly would work versus MN or IJN shells. Do you have any sources for that? Unless they were using the same style of extra high strength solder that Krupp used, it doesn't seem that they would be type 2 caps. Granted, the literature on Italian projectiles is a bit slim, but one of the test results used in writing this article was an Italian 32cm Type II APC projectile. As for Japanese projectiles, their original shell designs were based on British projectiles and I haven't seen any evidence that they had any Krupp design influences. Considering that their Type 91 AP shell design was adopted in 1931, I would expect that to be a bit early for German technical developments to have been sent to Japan. |
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Post by christian on May 28, 2019 1:58:23 GMT -6
true but at the same time it also states ONLY TYPE 1 CAP KNOCKED OFF which pretty blatantly means that decap belts are still not used except for on the italian ships To my knowledge (and to Mr. Okun's), the only naval projectiles with type 2 caps are Krupp hard capped projectiles and the USN's 3" Mk 29/30. That's a very small percentage of all the projectiles used. And while I don't believe that any other ships were designed with that in mind, most ships with an internal belt effectively have decapping plating that works at most realistic combat ranges. yeah nevermind had a misunderstanding of the diffrent cap types although it is to be mentioned that according to the article decapping is not gauranteed (such as the 50 50 flip on 15-20 degree hits with a 0.1-0.12 armor to gun value) either way south dakota and iowa can still get penetrated with no problem by their respective most likely opponents |
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Post by abclark on May 28, 2019 13:05:23 GMT -6
yeah nevermind had a misunderstanding of the diffrent cap types although it is to be mentioned that according to the article decapping is not gauranteed (such as the 50 50 flip on 15-20 degree hits with a 0.1-0.12 armor to gun value) either way south dakota and iowa can still get penetrated with no problem by their respective most likely opponents You're right, those are not absolute values, but they are "most likely" values in addition to being the best source we have. As for SoDak and Iowa, that's not a point I was trying to make but I can definitely elaborate on that. All my calculations for belt armor are done with FaceHard, which is the most accurate program I'm aware of. At 20k yards Yamato's 18.1" guns will penetrate an Iowa class' belt with a 0° target angle. BUT, the shell will be shattered, and only counts as a complete penetration due to >80% of the shell (by weight) passing through the belt. The remaining pieces will be traveling at ~426 f/s and are unlikely to penetrate very much farther. Were the shell not decapped, it would penetrate intact and in "effective" bursting condition, likely causing significantly more damage. With only a 15° target angle a decapped shell will not make a hole of any kind in the belt. If the shell is not decapped it will be a complete penetration, but again in a shattered condition, with the pieces having ~400 f/s remaining velocity. At 30k yards a decapped shell will not hole the belt armor even at a 0° target angle. Even a shell that is not decapped will not penetrate intact. With a target angle of 0° a capped 18.1" shell will penetrate an Iowa class' belt in an intact, "effective" condition out to ~28k yards. The decapping effect cuts that down to just over 20k yards, where the angle of fall reaches 15°. A decapped 18.1" shell will not penetrate an Iowa class' belt armor intact at a 0 range, 0° impact. That's the difference losing a shell's AP cap makes. A capped 18.1" projectile will penetrate an Iowa class' belt in a shattered condition out to almost 30k yards. The decapping effect cuts that down to under 24k yards, with only a partial penetration occurring past 22k yards. So an Iowa class ship has an immunity zone from a little under 24k yards out to almost 32k yards. Considering that the Yamato class' belt is not immune to an Iowa class' 16" shells until between 24k and 26k yards, that's pretty impressive. The decapping effect of the Iowa class' hull plating takes a rather thin belt and makes it roughly equivalent to some of the thickest belt armor ever. Something we should all keep in mind is that by WWII guns had effectively beaten armor. The belt armor required to protect a ship against close range (<10k yards) fire would be prohibitively expensive in terms of weight. A US 16" Mark 8 shell fired from a Mark 7 gun will penetrate 27.9" of uninclined British CA (the best face hardened armor against large shells) at 10k yards. No ship can be protected at close range against that kind of firepower, and that also shows that armor is way over powered compared to guns in the game. |
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Post by christian on May 28, 2019 13:51:07 GMT -6
yeah nevermind had a misunderstanding of the diffrent cap types although it is to be mentioned that according to the article decapping is not gauranteed (such as the 50 50 flip on 15-20 degree hits with a 0.1-0.12 armor to gun value) either way south dakota and iowa can still get penetrated with no problem by their respective most likely opponents You're right, those are not absolute values, but they are "most likely" values in addition to being the best source we have. As for SoDak and Iowa, that's not a point I was trying to make but I can definitely elaborate on that. All my calculations for belt armor are done with FaceHard, which is the most accurate program I'm aware of. At 20k yards Yamato's 18.1" guns will penetrate an Iowa class' belt with a 0° target angle. BUT, the shell will be shattered, and only counts as a complete penetration due to >80% of the shell (by weight) passing through the belt. The remaining pieces will be traveling at ~426 f/s and are unlikely to penetrate very much farther. Were the shell not decapped, it would penetrate intact and in "effective" bursting condition, likely causing significantly more damage. With only a 15° target angle a decapped shell will not make a hole of any kind in the belt. If the shell is not decapped it will be a complete penetration, but again in a shattered condition, with the pieces having ~400 f/s remaining velocity. At 30k yards a decapped shell will not hole the belt armor even at a 0° target angle. Even a shell that is not decapped will not penetrate intact. With a target angle of 0° a capped 18.1" shell will penetrate an Iowa class' belt in an intact, "effective" condition out to ~28k yards. The decapping effect cuts that down to just over 20k yards, where the angle of fall reaches 15°. A decapped 18.1" shell will not penetrate an Iowa class' belt armor intact at a 0 range, 0° impact. That's the difference losing a shell's AP cap makes. A capped 18.1" projectile will penetrate an Iowa class' belt in a shattered condition out to almost 30k yards. The decapping effect cuts that down to under 24k yards, with only a partial penetration occurring past 22k yards. So an Iowa class ship has an immunity zone from a little under 24k yards out to almost 32k yards. Considering that the Yamato class' belt is not immune to an Iowa class' 16" shells until between 24k and 26k yards, that's pretty impressive. The decapping effect of the Iowa class' hull plating takes a rather thin belt and makes it roughly equivalent to some of the thickest belt armor ever. Something we should all keep in mind is that by WWII guns had effectively beaten armor. The belt armor required to protect a ship against close range (<10k yards) fire would be prohibitively expensive in terms of weight. A US 16" Mark 8 shell fired from a Mark 7 gun will penetrate 27.9" of uninclined British CA (the best face hardened armor against large shells) at 10k yards. No ship can be protected at close range against that kind of firepower, and that also shows that armor is way over powered compared to guns in the game. where do you get the 26k+ yard area the yamato can be penetrated in because according to what i have read the iowa needs to be at 33k yards atleast to have a chance of penetrating the deck armor which is 200 mm thick in addition to that the upper deck protecting the deck over the citadelle was 50-35mm thick which would in theory decap the iowas projectiles if they came falling from the sky while the belt could certainly be penetrated at the same range it could penetrate iowa they basically have an immunity zone against eachother that is basically the same except yamato has alot thicker deck the 50-35mm deck combined with the 200mm armor means that the iowas shells would be decapped 50-60% of the time and if it hits a 50mm area all the time the iowa has the exact same 38mm bomb deck with 178 mm deck under it which also means its basically immune to shells it gets hit by basically it comes down to either luck of a shell not being decapped or a close range brawl which in case of long range combat basically comes down to a flip of the coins does it decap or not also can i have the facehard program i have a hard time finding it ? also yeah guns in game perform way worse than they should a 20 inch gun should knock the absolute **** out of any piece of armor even if it did not penetrate the plate should straight up shatter because that 20 inch shell is assentially a 2000 kg bomb flying at 500m/s straight towards you **** aint fun (it is quite litteraly an armor piercing bomb) also do you have any articles on how shells perform decapped id be interested in that because shells becoming useless after being decapped seems slightly extreme especially because the bismarck should in theory be able to basically resist anything which is thrown at it even 20 inch guns should shatter on it for example it had a 50mm deck which decaps a 20 inch projectiles and its belt armor should decap any projectile before it hits the armored turtleback deck this should assentially mean any shell should shatter on the turtleback deck because of the extreme decapping ability yet this was not the case the ship got shelled to death quite fast despite it should be immune to basically all guns if decapping is so powerfull and decapped shells so weak |
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Post by mycophobia on May 28, 2019 14:01:28 GMT -6
You're right, those are not absolute values, but they are "most likely" values in addition to being the best source we have. As for SoDak and Iowa, that's not a point I was trying to make but I can definitely elaborate on that. All my calculations for belt armor are done with FaceHard, which is the most accurate program I'm aware of. At 20k yards Yamato's 18.1" guns will penetrate an Iowa class' belt with a 0° target angle. BUT, the shell will be shattered, and only counts as a complete penetration due to >80% of the shell (by weight) passing through the belt. The remaining pieces will be traveling at ~426 f/s and are unlikely to penetrate very much farther. Were the shell not decapped, it would penetrate intact and in "effective" bursting condition, likely causing significantly more damage. With only a 15° target angle a decapped shell will not make a hole of any kind in the belt. If the shell is not decapped it will be a complete penetration, but again in a shattered condition, with the pieces having ~400 f/s remaining velocity. At 30k yards a decapped shell will not hole the belt armor even at a 0° target angle. Even a shell that is not decapped will not penetrate intact. With a target angle of 0° a capped 18.1" shell will penetrate an Iowa class' belt in an intact, "effective" condition out to ~28k yards. The decapping effect cuts that down to just over 20k yards, where the angle of fall reaches 15°. A decapped 18.1" shell will not penetrate an Iowa class' belt armor intact at a 0 range, 0° impact. That's the difference losing a shell's AP cap makes. A capped 18.1" projectile will penetrate an Iowa class' belt in a shattered condition out to almost 30k yards. The decapping effect cuts that down to under 24k yards, with only a partial penetration occurring past 22k yards. So an Iowa class ship has an immunity zone from a little under 24k yards out to almost 32k yards. Considering that the Yamato class' belt is not immune to an Iowa class' 16" shells until between 24k and 26k yards, that's pretty impressive. The decapping effect of the Iowa class' hull plating takes a rather thin belt and makes it roughly equivalent to some of the thickest belt armor ever. Something we should all keep in mind is that by WWII guns had effectively beaten armor. The belt armor required to protect a ship against close range (<10k yards) fire would be prohibitively expensive in terms of weight. A US 16" Mark 8 shell fired from a Mark 7 gun will penetrate 27.9" of uninclined British CA (the best face hardened armor against large shells) at 10k yards. No ship can be protected at close range against that kind of firepower, and that also shows that armor is way over powered compared to guns in the game. where do you get the 26k+ yard area the yamato can be penetrated in because according to what i have read the iowa needs to be at 33k yards atleast to have a chance of penetrating the deck armor which is 200 mm thick in addition to that the upper deck protecting the deck over the citadelle was 50-35mm thick which would in theory decap the iowas projectiles if they came falling from the sky while the belt could certainly be penetrated at the same range it could penetrate iowa they basically have an immunity zone against eachother that is basically the same except yamato has alot thicker deck the 50-35mm deck combined with the 200mm armor means that the iowas shells would be decapped 50-60% of the time and if it hits a 50mm area all the time the iowa has the exact same 38mm bomb deck with 178 mm deck under it which also means its basically immune to shells it gets hit by basically it comes down to either luck of a shell not being decapped or a close range brawl which in case of long range combat basically comes down to a flip of the coins does it decap or not also can i have the facehard program i have a hard time finding it ? also yeah guns in game perform way worse than they should a 20 inch gun should knock the absolute **** out of any piece of armor even if it did not penetrate the plate should straight up shatter because that 20 inch shell is assentially a 2000 kg bomb flying at 500m/s straight towards you **** aint fun (it is quite litteraly an armor piercing bomb) also do you have any articles on how shells perform decapped id be interested in that because shells becoming useless after being decapped seems slightly extreme especially because the bismarck should in theory be able to basically resist anything which is thrown at it even 20 inch guns should shatter on it for example it had a 50mm deck which decaps a 20 inch projectiles and its belt armor should decap any projectile before it hits the armored turtleback deck this should assentially mean any shell should shatter on the turtleback deck because of the extreme decapping ability yet this was not the case the ship got shelled to death quite fast despite it should be immune to basically all guns if decapping is so powerfull and decapped shells so weak Bismarck is a great example of even if your belt and central machinery space are extremely well protected you can still be rendered impotent easily by focused fire. With the entire super structure knocked out and all fire control destroyed, turret either jammed or knocked. It can’t do anything to fight back. If I remember correct the survey of the wreck have shown only 3 penetrating hit on upper belt area, non of which would’ve been fatal. I’d say Bismarck is a fine example of how protection only get you so far. Also, even if a shot does not penetrate does not mean it will have no effect, there are many example of non-penetrating hits jamming turret or killing crews(e.g Richelieu, Dunkirk). You don’t need to actually pierce the belt at all to mission kill a ship, sinking it can always be left to the destroyers after the ships essentially a floating wreck. |
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Post by mmmfriedrice on May 28, 2019 14:11:08 GMT -6
Side note: angled plates on naval vessels have the top angled outward, not inward, so unless the shells are coming out of the water, they will always impact at an angle further away from normal, no matter how steeply they are coming in.
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Post by christian on May 28, 2019 14:57:22 GMT -6
where do you get the 26k+ yard area the yamato can be penetrated in because according to what i have read the iowa needs to be at 33k yards atleast to have a chance of penetrating the deck armor which is 200 mm thick in addition to that the upper deck protecting the deck over the citadelle was 50-35mm thick which would in theory decap the iowas projectiles if they came falling from the sky while the belt could certainly be penetrated at the same range it could penetrate iowa they basically have an immunity zone against eachother that is basically the same except yamato has alot thicker deck the 50-35mm deck combined with the 200mm armor means that the iowas shells would be decapped 50-60% of the time and if it hits a 50mm area all the time the iowa has the exact same 38mm bomb deck with 178 mm deck under it which also means its basically immune to shells it gets hit by basically it comes down to either luck of a shell not being decapped or a close range brawl which in case of long range combat basically comes down to a flip of the coins does it decap or not also can i have the facehard program i have a hard time finding it ? also yeah guns in game perform way worse than they should a 20 inch gun should knock the absolute **** out of any piece of armor even if it did not penetrate the plate should straight up shatter because that 20 inch shell is assentially a 2000 kg bomb flying at 500m/s straight towards you **** aint fun (it is quite litteraly an armor piercing bomb) also do you have any articles on how shells perform decapped id be interested in that because shells becoming useless after being decapped seems slightly extreme especially because the bismarck should in theory be able to basically resist anything which is thrown at it even 20 inch guns should shatter on it for example it had a 50mm deck which decaps a 20 inch projectiles and its belt armor should decap any projectile before it hits the armored turtleback deck this should assentially mean any shell should shatter on the turtleback deck because of the extreme decapping ability yet this was not the case the ship got shelled to death quite fast despite it should be immune to basically all guns if decapping is so powerfull and decapped shells so weak Bismarck is a great example of even if your belt and central machinery space are extremely well protected you can still be rendered impotent easily by focused fire. With the entire super structure knocked out and all fire control destroyed, turret either jammed or knocked. It can’t do anything to fight back. If I remember correct the survey of the wreck have shown only 3 penetrating hit on upper belt area, non of which would’ve been fatal. I’d say Bismarck is a fine example of how protection only get you so far. Also, even if a shot does not penetrate does not mean it will have no effect, there are many example of non-penetrating hits jamming turret or killing crews(e.g Richelieu, Dunkirk). You don’t need to actually pierce the belt at all to mission kill a ship, sinking it can always be left to the destroyers after the ships essentially a floating wreck. true and shells always do the most damage when they hit turrets or the conning tower |
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Post by abclark on May 28, 2019 18:35:32 GMT -6
"the Yamato class' belt is not immune to an Iowa class' 16" shells until between 24k and 26k yards" where do you get the 26k+ yard area the yamato can be penetrated That's the relevant bit of my quote. An Iowa class' guns can penetrate a Yamato class' belt between the ranges of 0 yards and 24k-26k yards. Because FaceHard requires exact inputs I'm using a simple range table with 2k yard increments; and to be honest I don't feel like going to the effort to make equations to generate the ranges in between. in because according to what i have read the iowa needs to be at 33k yards atleast to have a chance of penetrating the deck armor which is 200 mm thick in addition to that the upper deck protecting the deck over the citadelle was 50-35mm thick which would in theory decap the iowas projectiles if they came falling from the sky while the belt could certainly be penetrated at the same range it could penetrate iowa they basically have an immunity zone against eachother that is basically the same except yamato has alot thicker deck the 50-35mm deck combined with the 200mm armor means that the iowas shells would be decapped 50-60% of the time and if it hits a 50mm area all the time the iowa has the exact same 38mm bomb deck with 178 mm deck under it which also means its basically immune to shells it gets hit by I didn't bother with showing the other end of the Yamato class' immunity zone because it's likely outside 34k yards, and frankly that's outside realistic combat range. Also when you start getting multiple decks in the equation, things get way more complex very quickly. also can i have the facehard program i have a hard time finding it ? Absolutely. It and what is probably the best program to use for homogeneous armor as well are on Navweaps, specifically here. also yeah guns in game perform way worse than they should a 20 inch gun should knock the absolute **** out of any piece of armor even if it did not penetrate the plate should straight up shatter because that 20 inch shell is assentially a 2000 kg bomb flying at 500m/s straight towards you **** aint fun (it is quite litteraly an armor piercing bomb) Guns need to have their penetration abilities buffed overall, and from a purely relative standpoint 17"+ guns need an increase in penetration of 7-8%. But no, a 20" shell would not be the same as an armor piercing bomb. AP bombs have significantly larger cavities for the explosive filler than AP shells, and are in no way as strongly built. Compare the AP bomb shown here with early WWII era AP projectiles. The AP bombs are 14% explosive by weight, whereas the 16" projectiles are 1.5% explosive by weight.   also do you have any articles on how shells perform decapped id be interested in that because shells becoming useless after being decapped seems slightly extreme There are several articles on the same page I linked above, including the article that came with the chart that started all this. especially because the bismarck should in theory be able to basically resist anything which is thrown at it even 20 inch guns should shatter on it for example it had a 50mm deck which decaps a 20 inch projectiles and its belt armor should decap any projectile before it hits the armored turtleback deck this should assentially mean any shell should shatter on the turtleback deck because of the extreme decapping ability yet this was not the case the ship got shelled to death quite fast despite it should be immune to basically all guns if decapping is so powerfull and decapped shells so weak Because the Bismarck class' belt armor was relatively poor, the same shell used in my earlier calculations could penetrate it intact and in "effective" condition at a little over 36k yards. It does, of course, lose its windshield and AP cap. But because the sloped deck behind the belt is made of homogeneous armor, instead of face hardened armor, the only reductions in penetration will be due to the loss of weight and velocity. AP caps are meant to break up the hard face of face hardened armor which is itself meant to shatter the projectile nose and body. It's truly a case of the best defense is a good offense. Homogeneous armor defeats projectiles in a very different way than face hardened armor. It stops or deflects a projectile, whereas face hardened armor is attempting to break the projectile. The latest versions of Mr. Okun's armor penetration calculators indicate that the Mk 8 shell could penetrate the Bismarck Class' sloped deck after passing through their belt armor. But due to some uncertainties, especially with the homogeneous armor calculator, I don't plan on posting all the details here. Basically, the Bismarck class' engine rooms and magazines were very difficult to reach through the belt armor, and more difficult than some to reach through the deck armor. A diving shell could bypass all that rather easily due to the shallow belt, but that's another discussion. |
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Post by ramjb on May 28, 2019 21:33:24 GMT -6
Bismarck is a great example of even if your belt and central machinery space are extremely well protected you can still be rendered impotent easily by focused fire. With the entire super structure knocked out and all fire control destroyed, turret either jammed or knocked. It can’t do anything to fight back.
If I remember correct the survey of the wreck have shown only 3 penetrating hit on upper belt area, non of which would’ve been fatal. I’d say Bismarck is a fine example of how protection only get you so far. Also, even if a shot does not penetrate does not mean it will have no effect, there are many example of non-penetrating hits jamming turret or killing crews(e.g Richelieu, Dunkirk).
You don’t need to actually pierce the belt at all to mission kill a ship, sinking it can always be left to the destroyers after the ships essentially a floating wreck.
Soft kills are a threat for any battleship. Not just Bismarck. The so called "turtledeck" configuration is more prone to soft killing than AoN though, because it forces the main armored deck to be very low within the hull leaving everything above unprotected in practice again big shells, that is true, but even then being more prone to soft kills doesn't equal that battleships with more "modern" configurations weren't vulnerable to it too. The wreck surveys on Bismarck have to be taken with a huge pinch of salt. Almost the whole lower hull is embedded into impenetrable mud, and it's impossible to know what is there that we can't see. That we can see only a certain number of penetrations doesn't mean more didn't happen. For one we know there was at least one penetration under the main belt, PoW's 14'' hit, that disabled two dynamos and flooded a boiler room - and that one doesn't show up in the survey (unsurprisingly as it's sitting below a layer of several feet of mud). As far as what we know for sure Bismarck protective layout was indeed beaten at least three times, allowing shells into areas nominally covered by citadel protection, which is what the battleship armor layout is designed to protect. So, contrary to "popular" belief propagated by those surveys, Bismarck's armor was indeed defeated, at least three times, all three well documented. The first of those times was the already mentioned PoW's amidships hit. The second and third happened in the final battle. Bismarck took two 16'' rounds directly into the main machinery spaces in her final engagement. Accounts of survivors who witnessed it speak about utter havoc and superheated steam scalding machinists alive. There's little doubt Bismarck's protection was indeed defeated at least twice in that battle - which most people would be surprised to hear about given the reputation of that ship's armor at the short ranges the last action involved. Given the ranges involved in Bismarck's final battle, the best explanation for them would be virtually straight-flying 16'' rounds going through the upper belt and ricochetting off the top 50mm weather deck (which was already inclined due to the ship having a list to the opposite side) directly down into the machinery areas. Whatever the way those shells reached there, there's little debate that they reached there. And those were 16'' british shells (light for the caliber and with comparatively rather poor penetration). |
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Post by rimbecano on May 29, 2019 4:33:52 GMT -6
I didn't bother with showing the other end of the Yamato class' immunity zone because it's likely outside 34k yards, and frankly that's outside realistic combat range. I'm not sure about that. New Jersey and Iowa straddled the destroyer Nowaki several times in the 34-39-kyd range band as she escaped from Truk, and even managed to inflict splinter damage. If they had been dealing with Yamato, which would not have been so quick to run, and could not have outrun them anyway, I think they could have maintained that range and managed to land hits. The big question is if they would have known they needed to, given that the USN thought that Yamato was a considerably smaller ship. |
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