Best ships and designs

[zederfflinger]

I think it is quite safe to say that the RN was well aware of the all or nothing armor scheme by the time Hood was constructed, they just decided not to use it.I am quite sure that the box protection in game is simulating the armor scheme of the inter war RN cruisers, not the layout used by battleships.

AON is not box protection. I don't know if Hood had a sloped deck, but it is probably the right choice as Hood didn't have AON.

[cormallen]

The game's "Box Protection" scheme is NOT just All-Or-Nothing. THAT gets it's own Tech Level in the "Ship Design" sequence and, in Vanilla games, generally kicks in in the early 20s (as Zederfflinger notes) as a simulation of the system used in a few early "Treaty" cruisers to save weight yet provide useful protection, at least for the ammunition!

See the wiki - rtw2.fandom.com/wiki/Technology#Ship_Design_(6)

Various iterations of "All-Or-Nothing" style protection schemes certainly existed prior to Nevada, and it really only went away for a decade or two when Quick Firing 6-ish inchers became commonplace and before improving fire control meant substantial increases in fighting ranges put an end to the "Hail of QF Fire" concept. (The game shows that quite well IMO as it's noticeable how many early fleet actions involve ships being burnt out by uncontrollable fires without major armour pens)

Hood should use fairly standard WW1 style sloped deck plus variable B/BE scheme but probably with Sloped Belt (though that's rarely around early enough IG to allow it). It's very hard to get her over 30 knots IG historically this early, this is a game problem as much as anything, there are some mods that adjust the game's speed calculations that are really handy, especially for all those 34+ knot cruisers in the 20/30s!

I got a passable version for my endless Quasi-Historical RN games but only by accepting a 29 Knot version (at least pre-1920).

[oldpop2000]

According to the manual, this is what the definition of box protection to magazines is:

Box protection to magazines

If this option is selected, belt and deck thickness will be halved for hits to areas other than
magazines. Belt and deck weight is reduced by 1/3.Box protection to magazines


IMHO, this is AON. So, let's find a precise definition of AON and someone in the team needs to define better, box protection.


www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-070.php



The logic of 'all or nothing' protection was that at very long ranges, ships would be attacked primarily with AP shells since hits might be anywhere on a ship, and HE would be useless against thick belt or deck armor. In consequence only the heaviest armor (or no armor at all) was worth using: anything in between would serve only as a burster. By way of contrast, the Royal Navy concluded at about this time that heavy HE shells would be extremely effective against unarmored portions of ships, and used considerable amounts of medium armor, which would resist HE fire, in its dreadnoughts. Only after World War One did the Royal Navy adopt "all or nothing" protection, in the abortive 1921 battleships and battlecruisers, and in the Nelsons, all of which were expected to fight at longer ranges than those envisioned for the earlier British Dreadnoughts. To the extent that the U.S. battleships, then, were designed specifically to fight at extreme ranges, they were well ahead of their time.


"U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History", pages 101 and 102, by Norman Friedman

[zederfflinger]

What about box protection makes you think it is the same as AON? Ships with the latter scheme still have a thick, full length belt, while box armor only provides a thin belt, concentrating the armor around the magazines, just like the game says.

The game clearly states what box protection does, and both the description and the name fits the box protection used on some cruisers, not all or nothing.

I believe AON is considered to be the absence of thinner extended or upper belts, while a box scheme is much different. If you want to know for certain, try taking your Hood out against some 8in gun cruisers and see if they can pen the belt at

decent ranges or not. Like cormallen said, it is rather odd that you can't make anything close to Hood at the historical date. I really hope they will fix the speed calculations in RTW 3.

[oldpop2000]

Jan 6, 2023 10:43:43 GMT -6 zederfflinger said:

What about box protection makes you think it is the same as AON? Ships with the latter scheme still have a thick, full length belt, while box armor only provides a thin belt, concentrating the armor around the magazines, just like the game says.

The game clearly states what box protection does, and both the description and the name fits the box protection used on some cruisers, not all or nothing.

I believe AON is considered to be the absence of thinner extended or upper belts, while a box scheme is much different. If you want to know for certain, try taking your Hood out against some 8in gun cruisers and see if they can pen the belt at

decent ranges or not. Like cormallen said, it is rather odd that you can't make anything close to Hood at the historical date. I really hope they will fix the speed calculations in RTW 3.

Here is an update on what William has said:


"AON keeps the full armor around the central vitals of the ship, and spares no armor weight for other parts of the ship.

Magazine Box armor keeps full armor around the magazines of the ship, but allows for reduced armor over the rest of the ship."

Based his comments and the two of you, I going to continue the use of magazine box in my designs for protection.

[zederfflinger]

Box protection will certainly get you more speed/firepower for your vessel, but I'd never put it on a capital ship unless it was a hyper specialized sniper. It makes you far too vulnerable to smaller ships in my mind.

[cormallen]

Jan 6, 2023 12:01:49 GMT -6 zederfflinger said:

Box protection will certainly get you more speed/firepower for your vessel, but I'd never put it on a capital ship unless it was a hyper specialized sniper. It makes you far too vulnerable to smaller ships in my mind.

Since actual box protection was only used on a fairly small number of cruisers and even they were often uparmoured as soon financially convenient I regard it's application (even, or perhaps especially, when the game's amiable definition is applied!) to capital units as an exploit and wildly ahistorical. The British County class, for example had 4" sided/3" top box just around the magazines and shell rooms and indeed had no side armour at all until weight savings in machinery allowed a bare inch over the machinery (barely splinter proof!)... This was (for most of them) upped to a fairly standard 4.5-ish inch belt over both mags and engines in their 1930s refit.
IG is possible to have an 18", sloped, "box" giving a 9" belt over the boring old engines. I don't know of ANY design, built or not, that approached this strange concept. And, I don't believe such exploits were intended by the designers of this game, which generally tries quite hard to reflect reality. It would be nice to be able to vary the belt/deck a little (1-2 inch maybe) as this was done to shave a few tons, especially in the IRL Post-Washington era?

Of course, it's much easier to design a "Hood" that goes 32 Knots with BP but you do end up with a huge thing that's got no real "Immune Zone" to even 11 inch guns and is fairly likely to lose to a Scharnhorst...

[oldpop2000]

I personally feel I've got the correct ideas on designing battleships and battlecruisers, so I am moving on to heavy and light cruisers. I am trying to build heavy cruisers with light cruiser hull with 8in.guns.

[oldpop2000]

I've been trying to find a simple formula for inclined armour and its relative thickness. Here is a calculator which might work. I think it is too thick in its results. I need or someone needs to find data in a battleship book about such inclined issues.


calculator.academy/relative-armor-thickness-calculator

[dorn]

Jan 30, 2023 9:12:45 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

I've been trying to find a simple formula for inclined armour and its relative thickness. Here is a calculator which might work. I think it is too thick in its results. I need or someone needs to find data in a battleship book about such inclined issues.


calculator.academy/relative-armor-thickness-calculator

In this application 90 degrees mean non-inclined armour.

[oldpop2000]

Jan 31, 2023 2:27:58 GMT -6 dorn said:

Jan 30, 2023 9:12:45 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

I've been trying to find a simple formula for inclined armour and its relative thickness. Here is a calculator which might work. I think it is too thick in its results. I need or someone needs to find data in a battleship book about such inclined issues.


calculator.academy/relative-armor-thickness-calculator

In this application 90 degrees mean non-inclined armour.

Yes, that is true. So 18 degree inclination would mean 72 degrees. Using the calculator, 72 means a relative thickness of 12.6 inches.

[oldpop2000]

HMS Hood's main belt was 12 inches and angled out at 12 degrees. It was supposed to be equivalent to 15 inches of armor. Based on the resulst of the Battle of the Denmark Straits, that might not be true.

[zederfflinger]

I've heard that Hood's armor was supposed to be equivalent to 13in, not 15.

[wlbjork]

Jan 31, 2023 7:21:04 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

Jan 31, 2023 2:27:58 GMT -6 dorn said:

In this application 90 degrees mean non-inclined armour.

Yes, that is true. So 18 degree inclination would mean 72 degrees. Using the calculator, 72 means a relative thickness of 12.6 inches.

It's using trigonometry to calculate Line of Sight thickness.

I've not checked if this is correct by comparing proofing shots made against armour of known thickness and angle. However, I understand a part of the idea of angled armour is to deflect the tip of the shell before it 'bites' into the armour which would also affect penetration.

[oldpop2000]

Jan 31, 2023 20:56:44 GMT -6 zederfflinger said:

I've heard that Hood's armor was supposed to be equivalent to 13in, not 15.

I read the 15 in. which was in a document that Goodall sent to the DNC. I will recheck.