How can you actually tell how much armour you need?

[Traslo]

As the title says, I'm struggling immensely to work out appropriate Battleship armour as Italy in 1890 start (and throughout that first decade). I'm roughly checking Britain's gun data to work out how much their guns claim they can pen, and then comfortably going past that. e.g. I'm putting 12" belt armour, 6" Belt Extended. But then I go into a fight with CAs using much smaller guns and they're just penning my engine rooms as if my armour is a third of what it is.

[ulzgoroth]

There's some variation, but that's a pretty weird story.

Does depend on range, of course.

Also notable that penetration ratings are given in modern armor (?) and particularly around the turn of the century armor goes obsolete fast. 12" of 1890 armor is worth a lot less than 12" of 1900 armor.

[Traslo]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

There's some variation, but that's a pretty weird story.

Does depend on range, of course.

Also notable that penetration ratings are given in modern armor (?) and particularly around the turn of the century armor goes obsolete fast. 12" of 1890 armor is worth a lot less than 12" of 1900 armor.

Yeah it's confusing the hell out of me. Like I'm getting told current 13" guns will pen like 9.5" armour at 1000yd and then putting 12" armour up on Belt, 6" on BE (I'm assuming the game has some factoring for that being angled, but idk, this game is obscure at best of times), then I'm still getting belt pen'd to hell and back.

[Lakel]

The big issue I can imagine is that shell AP is updated instantly with tech, the ship armor is no better than it was ordered 2 years ago.

[ulzgoroth]

I remarked on the range because it is distinctly possible to get shot up at ranges under 1000 yards, where the penetration only gets higher. If you got penetrated at 500 yards, that's that much (how much?) less that needs to be accounted for by something else.

(BE shouldn't be relevant anyway unless the hits say they are BE hits, though you do get BE engine room hits.)

Originally posted by Lakel:

The big issue I can imagine is that shell AP is updated instantly with tech, the ship armor is no better than it was ordered 2 years ago.

Definitely also a thing that moves significantly in the late-19th yeah.

[Silamon]

Aren't BE engine hits only with a narrow belt? I have not seen it very often at all and I never use narrow belts even in 1890 if I can help it.

[Traslo]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Aren't BE engine hits only with a narrow belt? I have not seen it very often at all and I never use narrow belts even in 1890 if I can help it.

I never use narrow belt, and I frequently see engine room smacks.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by Traslogan:

Originally posted by Silamon:

Aren't BE engine hits only with a narrow belt? I have not seen it very often at all and I never use narrow belts even in 1890 if I can help it.

I never use narrow belt, and I frequently see engine room smacks.

Sure, but in belt extended? I don't think I've seen that without narrow belt. It must be pretty unlikely then.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Aren't BE engine hits only with a narrow belt? I have not seen it very often at all and I never use narrow belts even in 1890 if I can help it.

I never use narrow belt, but I saw a fair number of them on early ships. Actually some battles it felt like more of them than of belt hits, though that's the kind of 'statistics' you shouldn't trust.

(I'm confused about what 'narrow belt' means that it would yield any ground to BE as opposed to BU, but that's another story.)

I never see them later on, but I don't know which advance determines that. Certainly AoN should, but it might be something else too.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Originally posted by Silamon:

Aren't BE engine hits only with a narrow belt? I have not seen it very often at all and I never use narrow belts even in 1890 if I can help it.

I never use narrow belt, but I saw a fair number of them on early ships. Actually some battles it felt like more of them than of belt hits, though that's the kind of 'statistics' you shouldn't trust.

(I'm confused about what 'narrow belt' means that it would yield any ground to BE as opposed to BU, but that's another story.)

I never see them later on, but I don't know which advance determines that. Certainly AoN should, but it might be something else too.

Hmm, maybe its more of a thing early on then. Will have to keep an eye out next time I start from 1890.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

I never use narrow belt, but I saw a fair number of them on early ships. Actually some battles it felt like more of them than of belt hits, though that's the kind of 'statistics' you shouldn't trust.

(I'm confused about what 'narrow belt' means that it would yield any ground to BE as opposed to BU, but that's another story.)

I never see them later on, but I don't know which advance determines that. Certainly AoN should, but it might be something else too.

Hmm, maybe its more of a thing early on then. Will have to keep an eye out next time I start from 1890.

Yes, it was definitely more of an end-of-the-19th phenomenon.

[Andrew Cree]

From what has been said for RtW2:

Penetration can vary by up to 20%, representing the fact that belts are not uniform thickness and that shells can vary in effectiveness.

For 1890 starts, this is likely to be even higher. As I recall, there were issues with casting thick armour plates, meaning a 12" plate would more likely consist of 2 6" plates joined together by pouring molten steel between the plates to compound them - which wasn't as effective as a single 12" thick plate.

[ThatZenoGuy]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Aren't BE engine hits only with a narrow belt? I have not seen it very often at all and I never use narrow belts even in 1890 if I can help it.

BE hits don't do engine damage

Think about a ship like this

BE-----Ammo/Engines/Belt-----BE

BE armor is to protect stuff like uptakes and the ends of the ship.

Narrow belt makes it less tall, not less long. So a shell can slip 'under' it and into the engines.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by ThatZenoGuy:

Originally posted by Silamon:

Aren't BE engine hits only with a narrow belt? I have not seen it very often at all and I never use narrow belts even in 1890 if I can help it.

BE hits don't do engine damage

Think about a ship like this

BE-----Ammo/Engines/Belt-----BE

BE armor is to protect stuff like uptakes and the ends of the ship.

Narrow belt makes it less tall, not less long. So a shell can slip 'under' it and into the engines.

Explaining something I already know man.

From the manual:
NARROW BELT
A narrow belt saves weight but risks that shells that would have hit the belt instead
might hit BE, BU or no armour at all.

I know I have seen BE engine hits with narrow belt but not with standard belt.

It seems you can get them even with standard belt early on though, which I don't think I saw happen.

[ThatZenoGuy]

Originally posted by Silamon:

Originally posted by ThatZenoGuy:

BE hits don't do engine damage

Think about a ship like this

BE-----Ammo/Engines/Belt-----BE

BE armor is to protect stuff like uptakes and the ends of the ship.

Narrow belt makes it less tall, not less long. So a shell can slip 'under' it and into the engines.

Explaining something I already know man.

From the manual:
NARROW BELT
A narrow belt saves weight but risks that shells that would have hit the belt instead
might hit BE, BU or no armour at all.

I know I have seen BE engine hits with narrow belt but not with standard belt.

It seems you can get them even with standard belt early on though, which I don't think I saw happen.

I think it's due to shells hitting BE, penning the inner bulkhead, and then causing engine damage.

[Silamon]

Originally posted by ThatZenoGuy:

Originally posted by Silamon:

Explaining something I already know man.

From the manual:
NARROW BELT
A narrow belt saves weight but risks that shells that would have hit the belt instead
might hit BE, BU or no armour at all.

I know I have seen BE engine hits with narrow belt but not with standard belt.

It seems you can get them even with standard belt early on though, which I don't think I saw happen.

I think it's due to shells hitting BE, penning the inner bulkhead, and then causing engine damage.

I always assumed that part of the armor that narrow belt reduces is counted as BE instead of Belt, and part of it counts as just hull. That's how it reads anyway from the manual, and it makes sense historically.