AON before AON

[malthaussen]

If I design a ship with 0 BE and DE armor before AOE armor, will that be very detrimental to the ship?

  -- Mal

[w2c]

Jun 2, 2023 12:17:27 GMT -6 malthaussen said:

If I design a ship with 0 BE and DE armor before AOE armor, will that be very detrimental to the ship?

  -- Mal

You CAN do it, but it definitely comes with its downsides. DE you can sacrifice a bit more of in the early years, but as time and techs progress you'll want more of it. But in general, you're going to take a lot more hits to these locations than you would have in RTW2, at least from what I've heard from the people in the know on these things. Without having the flotation benefits that AON provides makes it an exceptionally risky decision. It's usually best to try to have at least 2 inches to have shrapnel protection at the very least... Again except for DE in the early years. I often run with a single inch for that for a good while.

[malthaussen]

Fact is, I'm playing RtW 2 (I am running on an ancient laptop with Widoze 7).  I just asked in this forum, because, well, everybody's playing RtW 3 now.

So, I guess I should rephrase: what's the advantage/disadvantage of AOE before AOE protection in RtW 2?  My scientists steadfastly refuse to research it, which is ironic because I'm playing the US.

  -- Mal

[kriegsmeister]

AON tech reduces the amount of floatation damage you lose when taking hits to your BE/DE and fore/aft hull. I don't recommend doing it because you take a lot of hits to those places from medium caliber guns and that floatation will rack up quickly.

[t3rm1dor]

I did prefer AoN back in two, but it is definetly risky. I don't think ignoring 2 inches of BE and 1 of DE is going to save much weigth, and you run the risk of extra damage from splinters and making ships more vulnerable to smaller shells. However it realy depends on the ship, for CL for instance after 1920 I think is fine specially if wanting to max speed, but in a BB I would keep sloped with BE until AoN.

[wlbjork]

CLs I deign without BE and DE, CAs will usually just get 2" splinter protection for BE and DE, BBs I try to armour against 6" shellfire and BCs 4".