AI magically penetrates armor greater than their pen

[centurionsofrome]

This is something that has been regularly happening to me since 1.00. As you can see in the attachments, the AI somehow managed to pen my 17.5in Belt with a 16in rifle at a range my own 17in+1 rifles would bounce at.

But wait, this is even worse than it looks!

See, I built my ship with inclined armor, and according to the manual that adds +10% to the armor thickness. That means that the AI managed to penetrate 19.25in of armor at a range where their guns had less than 16.5in of penetration! And this has been happening to me since the game first released. I find myself wondering if inclined armor even works, especially since when you refit a ship built with it the box is greyed out and unchecked.

[mycophobia]

The game does not assume uniform belt thickness, and I believe it were stated that it is possible to get pens through armor that should be too thick to represent the shell striking some weak point. This should not be a regular occurrence however. I've seen these from time to time, but if its too common it might be a bug. If you aren't on the latest version then it might be due to a bug where the penetration value of the ship being hit sometime get used instead of the firing ship.

[centurionsofrome]

I can buy a penetration value variation of +/- 1in, but a 2.5+in weak spot? That stretches incredulity to the breaking point. I'm in 1.07, and I'm aware of that bug because I'm the one who found it in the first place.

As to the occurrence I regularly get them several times in every major engagement.

[dorn]

Aug 22, 2019 13:24:43 GMT -6 centurionsofrome said:

I can buy a penetration value variation of +/- 1in, but a 2.5+in weak spot? That stretches incredulity to the breaking point. I'm in 1.07, and I'm aware of that bug because I'm the one who found it in the first place.

As to the occurrence I regularly get them several times in every major engagement.

It was confirmed by devs.

Look at eg. Rodney class armour scheme. Compared it with fact that inclined belt does not increased weight which means lower part of belt is higher than non-inclined belt. This allows shells go either hit edge of belt or even bellow main belt to ships vitals.

Another thing is that belt is not in same position in whole lenght of citadel. Ship is not cuboid so the angle changes which has another effect etc.

Another thing is that armour plates need to be connected and this connection was quite often weaknesses.

Just note. You find this but you are not the first to ask about it.

EDIT: there is another change which is new in RTW2 and that armour is getting better through new technologies. This means that your old ships has inferior armour and penetration tables does not work against such older armour.

[centurionsofrome]

I think the thing that's bugging me, and a lot of other people I'm sure, the most regarding that "oh, there are weak spots, it's WAD" is that no one says just HOW weak a weak spot is. 1in? 2in? 10% reduction? 20%? Free auto pen? There's no information other than it exists.

And I still don't know if inclined armor's bonus is actually working.

[dorn]

Aug 22, 2019 14:19:52 GMT -6 centurionsofrome said:

I think the thing that's bugging me, and a lot of other people I'm sure, the most regarding that "oh, there are weak spots, it's WAD" is that no one says just HOW weak a weak spot is. 1in? 2in? 10% reduction? 20%? Free auto pen? There's no information other than it exists.

And I still don't know if inclined armor's bonus is actually working.

You are right, of course, that we do not know it.

But the game is simulating in limited way real history.
So I will put this question:

Did it know Admirals/Captains at that time in history? If you answer is no, you should not know it too. If answer is yes, it would be good to have explanation.

[williammiller]

IIRC the variation in pen can be in the range of 20% or so -- please note that this is a simplification as its a bit more complicated than that in the code...

Bear in mind that belt protection was often not 100% uniform, a few tapered at certain points (ends or bottoms), some indeed did have issues with buckling under hits at joints or weak spots, and the geometry of some belt designs did present issues with certain lower-probability hits. The belt thickness you select for a ship in the game is the *thickest* rating of the belt, and with the above issues in mind it may effectively be less than that under some circumstances when hit.

Thanks.

[centurionsofrome]

Thank you for giving the numbers, this is vastly less frustrating now that I understand why these shots are penetrating.

That said, could check to make sure that inclined armor still applies to ships that have been refitted? When I pull up a ship to be refitted that has inclined armor the inclined armor box is both greyed out and unchecked.

[christian]

Aug 23, 2019 10:05:40 GMT -6 williammiller said:

IIRC the variation in pen can be in the range of 20% or so -- please note that this is a simplification as its a bit more complicated than that in the code...

Bear in mind that belt protection was often not 100% uniform, a few tapered at certain points (ends or bottoms), some indeed did have issues with buckling under hits at joints or weak spots, and the geometry of some belt designs did present issues with certain lower-probability hits. The belt thickness you select for a ship in the game is the *thickest* rating of the belt, and with the above issues in mind it may effectively be less than that under some circumstances when hit.

Thanks.

tapered belts should be an option and not a given in game just like magazine protection is it is a huge diffrence in armor thickness if you intended to have a ship able to defeat shells with 20 inch pen BUT SIKE your armor is 33% weaker on 50% of the belt


it is also to be noted i cannot find a single example of a battleship or battlecruiser having a non uniform thickness belt armor that is not using a magazine protection armor scheme if you can find one please do post it because i cant find one


we have an option for narrow belt and one for a magazine protection belt and so on but not tapered ? 

also in the instance of things like nelson and rodney which had very shallow belts (dident go very deep into the water) those belts should ONLY appear in game as the NARROW belt option

and if belt armor in game is tapered by default they are too heavy
as in game armor is already slightly too heavy (as multiple threads have showed) yet if those belt thicknesses are not even full thickness and could taper to as much as 33% weaker than their actual thickness stated thus 33% lighter armor weights way more than it should

the baltimores belt went from 150mm to 100mm
that is quite the diffrence (33%)

in game i dont know if my belt is 150 mm or 100 mm effective protection ?

i get armor had week points but 20% pen variation is something i refuse to believe and if possible would like a source on it 
the diffrence in pen from a yamato at point blank range would be insane

assuming we are firing at british cemented armor used on ww2 battleships with yamato and we are going for the EFF limit  (british cemented armor is according to nathan okun and facehard the best armor of ww2) 
standard pen is 31,7 inches but using 20% variance
we could get 34,87 inches of penetration
or we could get 28,53 inches of penetration

using the worst armor according to facehard which is US class A armor

it gives us 37,4 inches of penetration with no variance

41,14 inches of pen assuming 10% increase in pen due to variance
33,66 inches of pen assuming -10% pen variance 

in short you are rolling the dice 
source used for penetration
www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Penetration_Japan.php

facehard the most accurate penetration program to date 

THATS JUST A SLIGHT SLIGHT DIFFRENCE totally not more armor penetration diffrence than most ships have in actual armor thickness  (s)

thats 6,34 inches of armor a whole ,34 inches more armor penetration variance than the renown had in total belt thickness (assuming the british armor pen)

yes guns had muzzle velocity variation (usually less than 10m/s due to the fact any more would make them horribly inaccurate) and shells werent identical (again very close to identical as a slight weight change means higher dispersion (example is roma or any italian battleship with horrible weight diffrences in shells resulting in insane dispersion)
but usual armor pen variance in real life was closer to 5-10% depending on gun and thats as a whole which means -2,5 or +2,5 pen for the good quality gun 

also to be mentioned that hits at joints or weak spots would be impossible as the armor belts are bolted on thus there is minimal welding involved
www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ref/Seamanship/img/Seamanship-4-3.jpg
here is a good picture of it 

at best you could be lucky to hit exactly where a bolt is located although the bolt itself also serves as armor thus hitting a bolt is probably worse than hitting the armor belt 

"The installation of heavy armor plates was no easy task and the method of fastening them to the ship structure is worth mentioning. A typical upper armor belt plate is 30 feet wide and 10’ 6" high. The upper plate fits directly over three of the lower belt plates and is bolted to a backing plate with specially designed watertight bolts. Since it is impossible to fit the belt snugly against the backing plate, the bolts stand off the armor about 2 inches, creating a small void between the belt and the plate. After the installation is complete, the void space is filled with concrete, which provides support for the armor over the entire surface. One bolt for every five square feet of surface area is used to secure the plate. This method, along with welding and heavy rivets is used in the armor belt assembly process."




also lastly
its incredibly unfun when so much of the game is hidden we have no idea how the hell any of anything works as can be shown by the frustration of the auther of this thread
how effective is armor I HAVE NO IDEA how effective are oxygen torpedoes I HAVE NO IDEA and this i have no idea line can be said about a large part of the game



he made a battleship which had a designed immunity zone against HIS OWN guns only to suddenly be lolpenned by the enemy WITH SMALLER guns 
and thats before taking into account the fact his armor was angled thus giving it 10% more effectiveness

doing quick maths on his armor he should have 19,25 inches of armor and his enemies gun with +10% penetration variance (assuming enemy as using the same 17 inch guns as him which we know they arent they are using worse guns) 

and i get 18,315 inches of penetration and thats before accounting for things such as angle of ship and so on and so on
in short he had almost an intire inch of freedom FROM MAXIMUM VARIANCE  on the enemy shells IF NOT MORE due to 16 inch shells
thats using that 20% variance aka -10% performance to +10% performance
in short he should not have been penetrated by the enemy

there is something giving the enemy atleast 1 to 2 inches of extra penetration than they should have (assuming +10% -10% variance) 



as far as i know there are 3 possibilities

range is not what he said it was 
the enemy has higher ap projectile research
he has bad armor research 




also there is not a single example of a battleship battlecruiser which has a tapered belt above the waterline

all the tapered part of the tapered belts on battleships and battlecruisers are UNDERWATER

should be 7 ships as examples i can find more if needed
frm-wows-us.wgcdn.co/wows_forum_us/monthly_2017_10/Yamato.PNG.6ccb05203e5a65e84951f3201cb89fde.PNG
external-preview.redd.it/AHPU14QFYSsprgEIeoLsGe-UCfQXfkTIRXZqmPv_EsQ.png?auto=webp&s=420db222c050f1f5eac6d9d6bc7ebd0e2351553f


miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*iiJsTWOFF_YSc8TXeQxGMw.png



and yes i know this is probably not where to post this and il be making a suggestion for a reworked armor system sometime as i feel the current one really does not do naval warfare armor justice (nor guns but i already made a gun suggestion which seems ignored so)

[nobody]

Aug 29, 2019 3:58:41 GMT -6 christian said:

it is also to be noted i cannot find a single example of a battleship or battlecruiser having a non uniform thickness belt armor that is not using a magazine protection armor scheme if you can find one please do post it because i cant find one.

also there is not a single example of a battleship battlecruiser which has a tapered belt above the waterline.

Sorry for resurrecting this, but I found it searching if anyone else had noticed the inconsistent penetration table.

To answer your first question: e.g. any german capital ship, or even better look at the cross-section you posted. It shows the tapering for most of those ships.

For the second questions: Ever looked at a cross-section of HMS Hood? What values for B and BE would you use describe it? Maybe 12" narrow belt and 7" BE? Or 12" Belt and 5" BE? Either way there remain sections above and below that with lower thickness.


Than there's also the problem of where the designer thought the waterline was and where it actually was in battle. Waves alone weather or by movement can change the waterline by several meters. As can roll. Roll can also change the striking angle, vastly increasing penetration above what you expect.

But yes it is extremely angering to see your carefully designed, overprotected ship being blasted away/crippled by inferior enemies that you feel shouldn't be able to do that.

[Antediluvian Monster]

Most historical ships with the sloped deck armour scheme had a belt that narrowed in thickness both above and below the waterline. This does not mean that the armour became any weaker for sake of protecting the vitals though. For hits below the waterline the projectile would lose velocity when passing through the water. Accordingy a thinner plate could provide equal resistance. The deeper the location the more velocity the projectile would lose. For hits above the waterline you need to consider both main belt and the decks, but overall: the higher you strike the the lesser the chance of even impacting the main deck; the higher you strike the more decks you need to penetrate; the higher you strike the greater angle of fall your shell needs to have in order to impact the main deck with favourable obliquity (and as this obliquity becomes more favourable, that for impacting vertical armour becomes less so).

Once ships started using AoN the previous considerations WRT sloped deck were not relevant anymore and ships, AFAIK universally, stopped using belts that tapered above the waterline.

[polygon]

Aug 23, 2019 10:05:40 GMT -6 williammiller said:

IIRC the variation in pen can be in the range of 20% or so -- please note that this is a simplification as its a bit more complicated than that in the code...

Bear in mind that belt protection was often not 100% uniform, a few tapered at certain points (ends or bottoms), some indeed did have issues with buckling under hits at joints or weak spots, and the geometry of some belt designs did present issues with certain lower-probability hits. The belt thickness you select for a ship in the game is the *thickest* rating of the belt, and with the above issues in mind it may effectively be less than that under some circumstances when hit.

Thanks.

It would be very nice to be able to set both thinnest and thickest sections of the main belt. For example, if I'm armoring a light cruiser, I would like the thickest sections covered by 3" of plate, but the *thinnest* armor should be no thinner than 2" (for total splinter protection). Or on a armor focused BB, perhaps the thickest part of the belt is 16", but I don't want any point to be thinner than 12".