Does belt armour affect torpedo damage

[Tandemchart6126]

Does main belt armour reduce incoming torpedo damage?

[mlangsdorf]

It shouldn't. The entire point of torpedoes was to hit below the belt armor.

[StoneofTriumph]

No, it doesn't- the things that reduce torpedo damage are base hull resistance, anti-torpedo bulges, citadel protection (Maybe?), and I think hull layering plus any associated technology improvements.

[Nitemares]

Bulkheads help to reduce flooding as well.... kind of "after the fact" protection true... but good bulkheads can be the difference between sinking, and flooding.

[Kuma]

The armour belt directly effects torpedo damage. The armour belt goes from the deck down past the waterline.

While the armour belt is sometimes supplemented by a torpedo bulkhead, the armour belts main job is to protect the warship from torpedoes and plunging fire from shells that hit near or below the waterline.

[mlangsdorf]

The armor belt went below the waterline, but mostly to provide protection when the ship was turning and the side of ship tilted. Secondarily, it was intended to provide limited protection from diving (not plunging) shells that hit the water short of the ship but continued. Protection from torpedoes was a tertiary concern at best, and torpedoes were usually set to travel below the expected depth of the target's belt.

The armor belt is meant to protect from shells traveling mostly horizontal and hitting near or above the waterline.

[Kuma]

Originally posted by mlangsdorf:

The armor belt went below the waterline, but mostly to provide protection when the ship was turning and the side of ship tilted. Secondarily, it was intended to provide limited protection from diving (not plunging) shells that hit the water short of the ship but continued. Protection from torpedoes was a tertiary concern at best, and torpedoes were usually set to travel below the expected depth of the target's belt.

The armor belt is meant to protect from shells traveling mostly horizontal and hitting near or above the waterline.

Please educate yourself of what an armour belt is before commenting any further online.

Again, the armour belt goes past the waterline almost half way down most warships and protects the warship against torpedoes and plunging fire. Once the armor belt ends, you have water tight compartments and oil fuel tanks for the rest of the length. These water tight compartments and oil fuel tanks offer excellent protection against torpedoes and are almost always used right near the shell rooms or magazines on warships.

You can refer yourself to diagrams of the TIrpitz and King George which are readily available online on how an armour belt works.

[chiyen]

In reality: It depends on ship design, and torpedo depth settings. It can be times that the ship's belt armor doesn't go deep enough, and the torpedo runs at a deeper setting.

In game: Sometimes the torpedo damage displays it hits the "belt (armor)", which means that should have protection effect. If, the program does not have logic flaws in that.

[Hidden Gunman]

There is a popup ingame that says belt armour extends below the waterline.

Improved damage control and pumping in combo with bulkheads is a big factor in saving even badly torpedoed ships.

[RipoffPingu]

Originally posted by Kuma:

Originally posted by mlangsdorf:

The armor belt went below the waterline, but mostly to provide protection when the ship was turning and the side of ship tilted. Secondarily, it was intended to provide limited protection from diving (not plunging) shells that hit the water short of the ship but continued. Protection from torpedoes was a tertiary concern at best, and torpedoes were usually set to travel below the expected depth of the target's belt.

The armor belt is meant to protect from shells traveling mostly horizontal and hitting near or above the waterline.

Please educate yourself of what an armour belt is before commenting any further online.

Again, the armour belt goes past the waterline almost half way down most warships and protects the warship against torpedoes and plunging fire. Once the armor belt ends, you have water tight compartments and oil fuel tanks for the rest of the length. These water tight compartments and oil fuel tanks offer excellent protection against torpedoes and are almost always used right near the shell rooms or magazines on warships.

You can refer yourself to diagrams of the TIrpitz and King George which are readily available online on how an armour belt works.

i dont think the lord nelson pre-dreads had their belt armour stop halfway between the waterline and the bottom of the ship, nor do i think they ever had oil fuel, let alone oil fuel tanks. :P

point is, the real answer is that it depends:tm: - don't act so snobbish or high-and-mighty when you, yourself, don't know the real answer (that being "it depends").

[jfoytek]

Originally posted by Kuma:

The armour belt directly effects torpedo damage. The armour belt goes from the deck down past the waterline.

While the armour belt is sometimes supplemented by a torpedo bulkhead, the armour belts main job is to protect the warship from torpedoes and plunging fire from shells that hit near or below the waterline.

Wrong....

Belt armor was NEVER intended to stop torpedo's....

Belt armor would extend a short distance below the water line because the water itself acts as armor and stops shells from being able to penetrate the thinner non armored hull BELOW the BELT armor.

So again the only reason that belt armor does extend a "SHORT distance below the waterline was to once again stop incoming shell's" The entire existence of Belt armor is to stop Naval Gun Fire.....

The Creation of torpedo bulkheads, Blisters, utilization of Water, and Fuel in tanks along the bottom edge of the ship all these things came about to counter torpedo's but NEVER was Belt armor intended to be used to stop a torpedo....

In fact it would have been a waist of weight... While its true that some of the older torp's detonated via an impact detonator their were still plenty of older torps capable of magnetic detonation.

Why does this matter in this discussion.... Because the Fallacy here is that these old torpedo's simply punched a hole into the ship below the water line to cause it to flood, and that is true to some extent that drastically underscores the damage potential of a torpedo...

You see underwater explosions near a ships hull create high pressure pockets of destructive air and gas... the closer too the keel these explosions happen the more likely of the ship being pushed upwards out of the water and causing even more damage then just a simple hole that creates flooding....

hence why navy's were eager to make the magnetic detonator work so they could take advantage of this extra destructive force that NO AMOUNT OF ARMOR could have any effect on....


**** To the OP to answer your question ****
NO main belt armor does not reduce Torpedo damage....

Things you can do to effect torpedo damage...
Give your ship a Larger Beam
Anti Flooding Tech
Anti Torpedo Tech in the form of torpedo blisters
Aux Engines for Water Pumping...
More Bulkheads for water tight integrity.

But no Belt armor will do nothing for a torpedo....

[MasterFool]

While not modern, certainly a Dreadnought era ship, this site shows the USS Texas had it's main belt run 6ft below the water line. With how the blisters were designed, that would be about into the top third of the added on torpedo blisters.

[link]https://battleshiptexas.info/images/Structure/Armor/Armor.html[/link]

No idea how effective it would be against a torpedo up at that level but certainly useless against anything below it. The blister is designed to take all the shock and energy and spread it along the outer hull surface to minimize penetration effect of the blast. If you watched the rebuild of the USS Texas, removal of the blisters and reconditioning of the hull, you can see what their job was. The belt armor seems to be more for direct fire situations, reliable depth controlled torpedoes were after the Texas' initial design period so I don't think the main belt was there by design to stop torpedo damage. Any mitigation would be a lucky event... at least looking at the ship plans.

Again, older ship, things changed as time went on. I have no idea what the newer Battleships had for protection below the waterline. You could have a belt go deeper to support the blisters. This might be the case in the All or Nothing citadel designs. You'd have to look at the armor layouts for all the various eras to see what the designers were thinking.

Different Nations probably had different approaches. It's possible some main belts were designed for this, others not. Without consulting actual data for each vessel, I don't think I'd be comfortable making a blanket statement either way.

It's possible everyone is correct on this because it morphed over time and by designer/ship.

[mpat1202003]

Seydlitz ate a torp under her armor belt, while the belt may have helped to stop the upper progression of the hole, the belt did not stop the torp from punching a rather large hole in her side. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seydlitz_torpedo_damage.jpg