CV flight deck and deck armour, how do they work?

[Propeel_skill]

How does flight deck and main armour deck interact in terms of shellfire and bombs protection? Do they sum up? Can I just get rid of main armor deck if I have an armoured flight deck?

[Lucky]

Yes you can. And if you must pick only one than you should armor the flight deck.

[xlq0625]

The definition of armored aircraft carrier is to move its horizontal armor to the flight deck. And all post WWII CV is armored aircraft carrier. So~ you know what to do.

[Noshur Viverse]

Flight deck armor does not cover as much square footage as "standard" deck armor. Therefore it's possible that a shell or bomb could strike in a location the FD armor does not protect. That being said, if you have 2 inches of FD armor and 2 inches of D armor, a bomb that strikes the FD armor will also have to penetrate the D armor to reach the engine rooms or magazines.

[Lucky]

The most vulnerable CV part is the hangar. Particularly while preparing a strike. Bomb to the hangar is the death sentence for the most part.

So.

If you want to protect your carrier you protect its hangar. By installing armored flight deck (and the sides if you are really into this). You couldn't care less if a bomb penned the FD and was stopped by the D. Because it means that bomb is in the hangar. And your CV is dead. There is no "lets protect anything but FD" part in this. You either armor the FD or you go with the un-armored CVs.

The only questionable thing is the era. Early on bombs are almost non-existant threat. After DB are introduced and before CAP can do something about it there is a time to actually care about your precious hangars. Good thing that there are only light to medium HE and SAP bombs at this point. Later bombs are much worse but its all about CAP now because carriers without CAP will be swamped in ordnance regardless of protection. And after that its missiles. They tend to hit the sides and after some time they just stop to care about armor in general.

[Propeel_skill]

Originally posted by Lucky:

The most vulnerable CV part is the hangar. Particularly while preparing a strike. Bomb to the hangar is the death sentence for the most part.

Well, yeah, we all know the story of 3 Japanese carriers near Midway... Thanks for the detailed reply. With the era before effective CAP I have one observation: lots of LAA do a very good work of rendering enemy airplanes useless.

Originally posted by Noshur Viverse:

Flight deck armor does not cover as much square footage as "standard" deck armor. Therefore it's possible that a shell or bomb could strike in a location the FD armor does not protect. That being said, if you have 2 inches of FD armor and 2 inches of D armor, a bomb that strikes the FD armor will also have to penetrate the D armor to reach the engine rooms or magazines.

This seems absolutely counterintuitive. D armor should cover only the vitals, while the FD armor... well, it covers the entire Flight Deck.

Originally posted by xlq0625:

The definition of armored aircraft carrier is to move its horizontal armor to the flight deck. And all post WWII CV is armored aircraft carrier. So~ you know what to do.

Yeah, you a kind of right, but I was wondering if the game has some known game mechanics bugs, e.g. the bomb or a shell (yep yep I know the carrier must never be under shellfire), can bypass the FD armor and hit you in the vitals.

[ThatZenoGuy]

Originally posted by Propeel_skill:

This seems absolutely counterintuitive. D armor should cover only the vitals, while the FD armor... well, it covers the entire Flight Deck.

In real life 'armored flight decks' didn't usually span the entire flight deck, as that'd be way too heavy and raise centre of mass. Instead FD only covered vitals.

[Propeel_skill]

Originally posted by ThatZenoGuy:

Originally posted by Propeel_skill:

This seems absolutely counterintuitive. D armor should cover only the vitals, while the FD armor... well, it covers the entire Flight Deck.

In real life 'armored flight decks' didn't usually span the entire flight deck, as that'd be way too heavy and raise centre of mass. Instead FD only covered vitals.

Well, looking at Illustrious and Implacable armour layouts I must say that they are non-armored only at the very ends of the deck. And RTW seems to reflect this correctly as FD armour us heavier than D armour at the same thickness, thus covering more area.