Damage from ships being on fire

[vojtass]

Hello i would like to ask what to do when i want to save my ships that are on fire.
In the last version of the game i just needed to slow down to say 8 knots after disengaging from the enemi but it doesnt seem to work now. Lost 4 dreadnauts to (on fire!) just before i submited this question.
Is this a bug that needs to be repaired or am i doing something wrong?
Thanks for any help i can get.

[hereticalhermit]

Sometimes it seems the game just decides it’s
now time for your ship to die. Like yesterday when I watched one of my old battlecruisers take a hit I thought was manageable — some flooding, slowed her down to 7 knots and swung out of line. Then watched, with growing frustration, as the flooding was gradually reduced to about 20, where it sat for the remainder of the battle. Never increased, never decreased. She didn’t take another hit on the way back to port, just slooooowly filled with water and went from less than 50% damaged to 100% and sinking on a measly flood level of 21 that no one could, apparently, find? I’ve seen ships survive flooding that was initially well over that!

Meantime the only carrier I lost this weekend wasn’t even hit by the enemy — apparently someone screwed up while rearming for the next strike — lvl 1 fire shot to lvl 7 within a few turns and she was done, dozens of miles from the nearest enemy and under no threat of air attack. RIP.

My guess is the game takes a roll vs your damage control chances every turn to reduce flooding/fire. Sometimes you just get boned and that tiny fire or tiny leak does you in for no apparent reason. Carriers in my experience never survive a fire, which I suppose is reasonable. Slowing down and running away usually works. Excepting when it doesn’t. But I’d also like to know if there’s anything specific to do with burning ships. I know historically escorts were often brought alongside to help pump water onto the fire, but no idea if the game models that.

[Deleted]

When I encounter such BS, I know its a Ctrl+Alt+Del time.

[nimrod]

Jun 28, 2021 3:42:06 GMT -6 hereticalhermit said:

My guess is the game takes a roll vs your damage control chances every turn to reduce flooding/fire. Sometimes you just get boned and that tiny fire or tiny leak does you in for no apparent reason. Carriers in my experience never survive a fire, which I suppose is reasonable. Slowing down and running away usually works. Excepting when it doesn’t. But I’d also like to know if there’s anything specific to do with burning ships. I know historically escorts were often brought alongside to help pump water onto the fire, but no idea if the game models that.

That's my understanding of the game mechanic as well.

From a real world perspective and getting back to vojtass question; I don't think their is much you can do early on other than sink monies into damage control tech. Generally in game ships built in the 1920's have much better construction and damage control tech which modifies their rolls. Historically, pre-1920's, ships had very poor damage control and very little effort into limiting or controlling fire or flooding hazards (for example realizing that one needs to caulk or otherwise seal electrical wires and plumbing that goes between decks / bulkheads) on ships. A prior generation of sailors lived and fought on wooden ships and dealt with steam plants which tended to explode or otherwise have catastrophic failures; so loosing a few ships to fire / flooding / exploding was normal. Battles around the turn of the century like the Battle of Tsushima or the earlier Battle of Sinop (first main use of the Paixhan gun with HE shells) had started to make navies and sailors consider the fire hazards on their ships but I don't think their was a uniform effort across all navies to control and limit the hazards on iron / steel ships until the mid 1910's / post battle of Jutland.

I would politely disagree with you regarding the reasonableness of CVs invariably being lost to fires... CV's took a generation of sailors to figure out how to manage their unique AVGAS and AC ordnance hazards. US carriers in WWII quickly adopted the process of purging the fuel lines with CO2 when enemy AC were detected and purging the fuel lines I believe saved a few CV's / CVL's. Personally, I would like to see CV fires treated similarly to flash fires, in that every CV fire event should result in a chance to lower the risk of ship loss to a fire; as crews see what does and doesn't work and experiment with procedures to minimize their unique fire risks.

[tbr]

You can als try to reduce wind over deck, i.e. steer a course that goes with, not against the wind (opposite of carriers launching aircraft). This is how I was trained IRL, do not know whether this is reflected in game. IRL you would further modify this to "blow" the flames back from endangered parts of the ship. This is however an "old" tactic from when ships had a lot of above deck and superstructire elements that could burn, nowadays most flammable elements are inboard and fires are not as much affected by wind, it is then more of a question to use relative wind to keep smoke away from the crew, air intakes etc. and perhaps free e.g. the flight deck to receive support/evac wounded.

I only had one "real" fire aboard, and when I was OOD during a FOST in-port stay to boot. Good news were no injured, minimal damage and a passing grade for the in-port fire event (they did not make us repeat a simulated fire...).

[RvT (Dickie)]

Remember that crew quality affects damage control. So if you go to war with poor or fair crews because you've had ships mothballed or in reserve, and you haven't conducted an exercise to prepare them for war, then you will lose more ships to fire and flooding than if you have good or elite crews.

Dickie

[janxol]

Slowing down does help with fires and going with the wind possibly as well, though never tested that explicitly, as I usually just slow down and head to port, largely disregarding wind direction.

[jatzi]

Jul 1, 2021 16:02:12 GMT -6 tbr said:

You can als try to reduce wind over deck, i.e. steer a course that goes with, not against the wind (opposite of carriers launching aircraft). This is how I was trained IRL, do not know whether this is reflected in game. IRL you would further modify this to "blow" the flames back from endangered parts of the ship. This is however an "old" tactic from when ships had a lot of above deck and superstructire elements that could burn, nowadays most flammable elements are inboard and fires are not as much affected by wind, it is then more of a question to use relative wind to keep smoke away from the crew, air intakes etc. and perhaps free e.g. the flight deck to receive support/evac wounded.

I only had one "real" fire aboard, and when I was OOD during a FOST in-port stay to boot. Good news were no injured, minimal damage and a passing grade for the in-port fire event (they did not make us repeat a simulated fire...).

Didn't a carrier in port have a fire that raged for a few days last year? I remember something had a huge fire fairly recently.

[tbr]

That was the Bonhomme Richard, an LHA:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6)#July_2020_fire

The US also effectively lost a submarine that was docked in yard fairly recently:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Miami_(SSN-755)#2012_fire

"My" fire was caused by the seal of a hot-running pump literally going up in smoke. Early detection, orderly evacuation, early attack - no causalties, repair with onboard crew and spares. Could have become more serious though.