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Post by seawolf on Apr 13, 2021 16:58:43 GMT -6
All of that being said I actually did my own approximation of the Illustrious and it came out pretty close
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jatzi
Full Member
Posts: 123
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Post by jatzi on Apr 13, 2021 17:00:31 GMT -6
Most bombs used in RTW2 are big ones, 1000 lbs or higher. Occasionally I get hit by 500lb bombs from fighters but rarely. 1000lb bombs would and did easily defeat the Illustrious's flight deck armor. Historically I don't think anything higher than 3.5 inches was ever used. It was too heavy and the british carriers weren't huge monsters like the Midway. What's funny to me is this thread is just emulating real life lol. Yes unarmored carriers are better, that was proven in WWII. The best defense IRL and in-game is CAP and unarmored carriers could carry far more fighters. And Illustrious and other armored carriers armor was defeated by large bombs. The difference between the game and real life is that more bombs were smaller. When Illustrious was attacked by tons of aircraft it took hits from quite a few small bombs that basically just took out some AA guns but that's it. She took some 1000lb bombs to her elevators, natural targets and weak spots, and she took a single 2000lb hit that went straight through the deck into the hanger. She had 4 Fumars on CAP, just 4 and they were basically useless. I've said this before on here but thus far my experience with carrier combat has been great and lined up perfectly with what I'd expect to happen. When my carriers are hit while refueling and rearming strikes they usually die. Which makes sense. When they're hit and not refueling and rearming strikes they tend to not die actually when the crew experience is high. I had a carrier die to a single 500lb dud bomb that started a fire which set exploded a fuelled aircraft. This might seem extreme but the crew level was -2 as I rushed the ship into combat because I really needed the aircraft. This is as Italy running 3in armored carriers pretty similar to the UK actually, minus Hanger side armor which is crazy heavy yes. I also had 70 aircraft on these carriers rather than 30-40 because of the lack of side armor. They resisted small bombs fairly well when I got hit by them. But they didn't even come close to resisting larger bombs HE or AP and that makes sense. They shouldn't. The problem lies not really in the armor characteristics, it may be too heavy but it's effectiveness is solid imo, it lies in the logistics. It's inccredibly easy to get bombers up to 2000 lb bombs, and I almost never use anything smaller than 1000 on anything except floatplane scouts. Even my fighters can generally use 1000 lb bombs. That's not realistic at all, most bombers didn't carry that many bombs especially early on. And even if they could they often didn't because of logistics. Most of the German and Italian bombers could've carried large 1000+ lb bombs but they weren't available to use. Check out this website for really detailed info on the UK Armored Carriers. It's really insightful I think. www.armouredcarriers.com/battle-damage-to-hms-formidable
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Post by seawolf on Apr 13, 2021 17:02:48 GMT -6
The problem isn't that you can't replicate them. It's that they don't appear to be as strong as they should. As pointed out above, 5.5 inches of armour doesn't on the face of it seem that effective. Yet, HMS Victorious with it's 3 inches. recieved 2 direct hits from Kamakaze aircraft 5 days apart. And, on each occasion was operational within hours and remained on station. In game, i've never bothered with armour. Just get more aircraft on there. Carriers best defence is a strong CAP. So, that's the only real way i find of protecting my carriers rather than building strong ones. I definitely think this is the bigger problem. The armour itself, even when you get it to historical thickness, isn't as effective. I'd put this down to three causes 1. Bombs have greater ability to penetrate the armor then real life. 2. A smaller proportion of bombs hit the armor than real life 3. Bomb hits that don't penetrate, or hit non-vital portions of carriers seem to do the same damage that a penetrating hangar hit does, because the majority of damage is through fire, which isn't at all affected by the ships armor in the present state of the game.
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Post by seawolf on Apr 13, 2021 17:07:34 GMT -6
Most bombs used in RTW2 are big ones, 1000 lbs or higher. Occasionally I get hit by 500lb bombs from fighters but rarely. 1000lb bombs would and did easily defeat the Illustrious's flight deck armor. Historically I don't think anything higher than 3.5 inches was ever used. It was too heavy and the british carriers weren't huge monsters like the Midway. What's funny to me is this thread is just emulating real life lol. Yes unarmored carriers are better, that was proven in WWII. The best defense IRL and in-game is CAP and unarmored carriers could carry far more fighters. And Illustrious and other armored carriers armor was defeated by large bombs. The difference between the game and real life is that more bombs were smaller. When Illustrious was attacked by tons of aircraft it took hits from quite a few small bombs that basically just took out some AA guns but that's it. She took some 1000lb bombs to her elevators, natural targets and weak spots, and she took a single 2000lb hit that went straight through the deck into the hanger. She had 4 Fumars on CAP, just 4 and they were basically useless. I've said this before on here but thus far my experience with carrier combat has been great and lined up perfectly with what I'd expect to happen. When my carriers are hit while refueling and rearming strikes they usually die. Which makes sense. When they're hit and not refueling and rearming strikes they tend to not die actually when the crew experience is high. I had a carrier die to a single 500lb dud bomb that started a fire which set exploded a fuelled aircraft. This might seem extreme but the crew level was -2 as I rushed the ship into combat because I really needed the aircraft. This is as Italy running 3in armored carriers pretty similar to the UK actually, minus Hanger side armor which is crazy heavy yes. I also had 70 aircraft on these carriers rather than 30-40 because of the lack of side armor. They resisted small bombs fairly well when I got hit by them. But they didn't even come close to resisting larger bombs HE or AP and that makes sense. They shouldn't. The problem lies not really in the armor characteristics, it may be too heavy but it's effectiveness is solid imo, it lies in the logistics. It's inccredibly easy to get bombers up to 2000 lb bombs, and I almost never use anything smaller than 1000 on anything except floatplane scouts. Even my fighters can generally use 1000 lb bombs. That's not realistic at all, most bombers didn't carry that many bombs especially early on. And even if they could they often didn't because of logistics. Most of the German and Italian bombers could've carried large 1000+ lb bombs but they weren't available to use. Check out this website for really detailed info on the UK Armored Carriers. It's really insightful I think. www.armouredcarriers.com/battle-damage-to-hms-formidable"Unarmored carriers are better" is a strange thing to say, given that every USN carrier after the Essex class has had an armored flight deck. There's certainly a reason for it. And armor penetration in game is off from IRL, not in its average, but in its variance. For example, a 2000lb AP bomb in real life has approximately a 5% chance to penetrate a 6" Deck+Splinter deck. In RTW, the average penetration of an AP bomb is the same, but variance is higher, so instead that 2000lb AP bomb has a 5% chance to pen a 7" battleship deck. These are real values that I've found through testing in RTW and armor penetration software..
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Post by seawolf on Apr 13, 2021 17:08:48 GMT -6
This is what actual bomb penetration for WWII bombs looks like, averaged across countries. The top value is the average penetration, the bottom values are a 90% interval(Meaning 95% of bombs will pen the first value, and only 5% will pen the last) As you can see, a 3.5" flight deck should more than protect from 1000lb SAP bombs, which it won't in game(They regularly penetrate 4"). British early armored flight decks(The post implacable ones were actually 102mm instead of 76mm for Audacious and Malta) should be fully rated against up to 500lb SAP, and 250lb AP, both of which will easily pen a 3" FD in RTW
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Post by noshurviverse on Apr 14, 2021 1:19:20 GMT -6
One thing that I think should be mentioned is that while our conceptions of carrier battles are heavily based in WWII history, that isn't necessarily what we can or should expect to happen in Rule the Waves. A large-scale war that took place in the late 20's/early 30's would have aircraft with significantly different capabilities than we saw in the 1940s. I think it's plausible that had aircraft carriers built then had armored decks, they might have been able to resist a good number of the bombs that aircraft of the time would carry.
Another thing I think might be worth exploring is addressing how bomb loads work in game. As of now, most bomb loads consist of a singular bomb of increasing size, before going on to be double or quads. In part I think this might be because of how the loads are deemed Light, Medium and Heavy, meaning you can really only have a linear increase. You don't, for the most part, see aircraft that carry many small bombs, as historically was often the case.
If I could propose an idea: Change bomb loads from Light/Medium/Heavy to Light/Heavy 1/Heavy 2. Heavy 1 would consist of a greater number of small bombs, while Heavy 2 would consist of a singular large bomb. So for example, instead of a medium bomber having options between 1x1000/1x1400/1x1800lb bombs, the options might be 2x250/6x250/2x1000lb. Large bombs would be best for busting hard targets, while the "strings" of smaller bombs would be good for unarmored targets. And of course, an armored carrier might be able to resist the smaller bombs, while an unarmored carrier would be at great risk.
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Post by captaintrek on Apr 14, 2021 1:50:32 GMT -6
I can't see that flight-deck armor (as opposed to deck armor) is of any value in the current state of the game. I just lost a 34k-ton carrier with 80 aircraft, 2" deck and 3" flight-deck armor and an elite crew to one 600-lb bomb hit that set off catastrophic fires... I know that carriers are basically floating cans of ordinance and av-gas, but the actual damage record of carriers in WW2 shows the difference between damage that harms the structure of the ship (like Lexington and Taiho) and damage that leaves the basic hull and machinery operable (Franklin, Shokaku, Illustrious). RtW currently models carrier warfare as it was envisioned in the 1930s by the USN - one hit on a carrier equals one kill. What I find particularly frustrating is not the loss of a carrier but the fact that my crews are never able to learn anything from the disaster: every carrier remains as vulnerable in 1950 as they are in the 1920s. I could accept the loss of an otherwise savable ship (like Lexington or Hornet) if that led to better fire-fighting and damage control, or the provision of fleet tugs, or something of that type. But carrier warfare now is basically a game of building lots of disposable, cheap units that can't carry much in the way of an air wing but which don't hurt much to lose. Investing the money and three years of construction in a ship that can't take even one near-miss, and which can never ever be protected to any meaningful degree, is... well, I'll say 'deeply frustrating' and 'not cost-efficient' and leave it at that. This is exactly why I scrimp like a miser when I build my CVs - I do give them torpedo protection IV (because, again, unlike deck armour, torpedo protection will actually save you from a stray torpedo hit) and a plethora of AA, but they invariably have very little armour, 24 knot top speed, and low freeboard. They pretty much never exceed 30K tons even though I build them with 96 planes (and in testing it just now with 1936 tech, if I scrimp even more heavily I can quite feasibly get it down to 27K), which I do because the maximum number of CVs that can spawn in a given battle is limited, so every individual CV needs to bring as much CAP as humanly possible (again, my carriers all operate 75% fighters and 25% torpedo bombers), because CAP is the only reasonably reliable way of dealing with the inevitable forests of enemy land-based air. My overall experience with air power in RtW is pretty much the opposite of jatzi's - it's technically functional, but it isn't particularly fun or interesting and there only really being one viable way to build carriers doesn't help with that. Also, just while I'm complaining - can we please make it so the AI doesn't just get handed dive bombers, torpedo bombers, and the ability to build purpose-built CVs when it doesn't even have the research unlocked for any of them? It completely breaks low research percentage campaigns.
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Post by janxol on Apr 14, 2021 2:26:38 GMT -6
That's one way. Another would be to take a look at the AP vs SAP bombs and give us an actual selection. As it stands, once AP bombs are invented, appropriate aircraft will carry AP bombs only. Perhaps add ammo selection to air strike window similarly to priority target selection (carrier, bb, etc) to select if aircraft are to use SAP or AP bombs (if able and researched). AP bombs should have higher penetration but less explosive mass than the SAP bombs.
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Post by williammiller on Apr 14, 2021 8:09:58 GMT -6
AP bombs should have higher penetration but less explosive mass than the SAP bombs. AP bombs should do less damage per pound in the game than SAP bombs, which should do less damage per pound than GP bombs (assuming full penetration of each bomb, of course). The rest of your points I will let Fredrik W review.
Thanks!
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 14, 2021 8:32:44 GMT -6
In 1944, the Office of Naval Ordnance released a three volume set of Terminal Ballistics Data. Volume 1 was bombing, Volume 2 was Artillery, and Volume 3 was bombs, Artillery Mortar Fire & Rockets. Here is an example of the types of data: I have all three volumes but they are too large to upload. Anyway, you might research those three volumes for very good, precise tested data on bombs, penetration and effects. Just search official naval websites for Terminal Ballistic Data, from the Office of the Chief of Ordnance, August 1944. Three volumes, 1,2, 3. I hope this information can help all of you.
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Post by christian on Apr 14, 2021 10:44:17 GMT -6
Quotes are from jatzi´s comment TLDR: very oversimplified and somewhat incorrectthis should be a good read in case you have read slades and worths essays on armored carriers which at best are factually incorrect and at worst straight up lie and misinformation i don't suspect you have but i would still recommend checking out the linked article as its good and debunks alot of myths about armored carriers www.armouredcarriers.com/were-the-armoured-carriers-worthwhileAlso consider every carrier after ww2 has had an armored flight deck in general anyone who thinks the British carriers were floating scrap should give the article a read it explains the designs and debunks a lot of falsehoods about the ships TLDR: incredibly unrealistic this should not happen in real life or in game even with -2 or lower crewA single dud bomb which does not penetrate the armored deck should not under ANY circumstances damage the carrier or set it on fire to the point it cant be saved even if every single aircraft on deck went up in flames (which did not happen in this case) the ship shouldn't sink as the entire fire is contained on top of the deck and does not get into the interior of the ship and is thus very easy to extinguish and contain if franklin can take 30 fully fueled aircraft an unpurged aft gasoline system explosion which consumes the entire deck and hangar in flames and ignites 13 tons of 16 tons of ordinance on the aircraft and still survive then i sure do expect a carrier with a single aircraft on fire on the deck to do basically nothing there are several cases of kamikazes hitting illustrious carriers and not once did they do anymore than slight dents in the flight deck and not once was a fire set that was anywhere near dangerous to the ship despite kamikazes hitting with half fueled tanks and often causing fires TLDR: The game is accurate and bomb weights are reasonably correct and realistic bombers in game are not easy to get up to 2000 lb bombs the more usual loadout is 1000 lb or 1500 lb bombs even if it was easy to get 2000 lb bombs it would not be unrealistic as almost all ww2 bombers had capacity for atleast 1 2000lb bomb or 2 1000lb bombs 2000 lb bombs were usually not used for anti shipping because they were overkill and reduced range too much not because they weren't available yes the bombs would do more damage but stukas and other divebombers would have extremely reduced combat radius thus the 1000 kg bombs on stukas were usually only used against fortresses or rarely against ships as it reduced their combat radius by around 2/3rds Secondly yes fighters could carry 1000 lb bombs here is a list of 4 aircraft (i can provide more if you want) which could carry 1000 lb + boms F-6F could carry 2 1000 lb bombs P-47 2 1000 lb bombs Fw-190A-8 1 2000 lb bomb centerline Corsair 2 1000 lb bombs Also 95% of bomb hits achieved during ww2 even in the Mediterranean was by dive bombers not level bombers dive bombers have less range (as they are smaller) and thus suffer more from range problems from large bombs and yes ju-88s made dive bombing attacks and were used as dive bombers Picture attached is the F-6F possible loadout options courtesy of oldpop2000 Attachments:
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 14, 2021 11:02:54 GMT -6
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Post by jwsmith26 on Apr 14, 2021 11:14:24 GMT -6
Quotes are from jatzi´s comment TLDR: very oversimplified and wrongthis should be a good read in case you have read slades and worths essays on armored carriers which at best are factually incorrect and at worst straight up lie and misinform which i think you have Besides being unnecessarily insulting, I'll point out that one of the first sentences in the referenced article on armored carriers is this: "I'll state right now that I think that, overall, the US Essex class carriers were clearly the superior assault carriers of World War II."
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 14, 2021 11:22:46 GMT -6
Quotes are from jatzi´s comment TLDR: very oversimplified and wrongthis should be a good read in case you have read slades and worths essays on armored carriers which at best are factually incorrect and at worst straight up lie and misinform which i think you have Besides being unnecessarily insulting, I'll point out that one of the first sentences in the referenced article on armored carriers is this: "I'll state right now that I think that, overall, the US Essex class carriers were clearly the superior assault carriers of World War II." I believe that for the theatre that they were designed for, I would agree. However, in the Med... that might not be true. Geography makes a difference.
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Post by christian on Apr 14, 2021 11:35:09 GMT -6
Quotes are from jatzi´s comment TLDR: very oversimplified and wrongthis should be a good read in case you have read slades and worths essays on armored carriers which at best are factually incorrect and at worst straight up lie and misinform which i think you have Besides being unnecessarily insulting, I'll point out that one of the first sentences in the referenced article on armored carriers is this: "I'll state right now that I think that, overall, the US Essex class carriers were clearly the superior assault carriers of World War II." Essex being better =/= unarmored carriers being better Essex class were probably some of the best carriers of ww2 due to the fact they were produced all the way into 1944 with incorporated improvements which means they are essentially ahead 4 years minimum in shipbuilding compared to other nations in addition to having the best AA and electronics and damage control installed and also having steam catapults late war All of britains illustrious carriers would be laid down in 1939 although 2 (of the implacable group) were finished in 1944 which were improvements over the 2 previous illustrious groups Also important to note the illustrious when designed in 1936 was still limited by the Washington naval treaty and obeyed it the Essex carriers designed later were able to completely ignore these restrictions this is also mentioned in the article and explains why it is stated the Essex is better And as oldpop mentions geography and use makes a large difference which is also mentioned in the article(also edited the original statement to be less insulting as it was rather harsh and was not meant that way)
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