Does wood make good spawl lining?

[Civvy]

I can't remember if the game says wood fragments or not.

[Sabertoothproton]

Yes wood does make a good spalliner

[Civvy]

Originally posted by sabertoothproton:

Yes wood does make a good spalliner

Excellent, thank you :3

[FourGreenFields]

Note that it doesn't work as in RL. You'll need a setup along the lines of "metal-wood-airgap-metal". Just using "metal-wood" won't do, and I've seen that quite often (and is closer to what RL-spallliner is, afaIk).

[Civvy]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Note that it doesn't work as in RL. You'll need a setup along the lines of "metal-wood-airgap-metal". Just using "metal-wood" won't do, and I've seen that quite often (and is closer to what RL-spallliner is, afaIk).

Alright, well-- I ain't got the cost or space, is wood going to mitigate it at least? And yeah, I know wood splinters IRL, I mean-- that's kinda' what got most lads in the Battle of the Buldge was airbursting trees n' getting the wood to fly off into people.

EDIT: Well, I say this, I suppose I could add an air gap by sectioning off rooms and citadels with metal one block out from the wood lining. I intended to do that anyway. Curious, what other shells is this effective against? Does wood stop EMP as well? Does the air pocket mitigate HEAP to some extent?

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by Civvy:

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Note that it doesn't work as in RL. You'll need a setup along the lines of "metal-wood-airgap-metal". Just using "metal-wood" won't do, and I've seen that quite often (and is closer to what RL-spallliner is, afaIk).

Alright, well-- I ain't got the cost or space, is wood going to mitigate it at least? And yeah, I know wood splinters IRL, I mean-- that's kinda' what got most lads in the Battle of the Buldge was airbursting trees n' getting the wood to fly off into people.

EDIT: Well, I say this, I suppose I could add an air gap by sectioning off rooms and citadels with metal one block out from the wood lining. I intended to do that anyway. Curious, what other shells is this effective against? Does wood stop EMP as well? Does the air pocket mitigate HEAP to some extent?

Oh, our good old friend HEAP. Seen that way too often, imo.
Assuming you mean APHE (armour-piercing, high explosive; makes sense too: pierces first, explodes 2.): Really, don't worry about it. One of the least reliable shells. Countered by shields too. Airgaps don't really help against it though: Just stacking metal armour is usually best.

Assuming you mean HEAT: Yes it does. Each airgap-"block" has 60 effective AC (= 60 pen-metric drain), greatly reducing the power of HEAT.

EMP not so much. It will avoid passing through wood, but will lose a little power going around the airgap, afaIk. So unless you encase all your internals in wood/stone, it won't help enough.




As for the 1. question, a metal-wood-gap-internals setup will likely be worse vs HESH than metal-metal-gap-internals. The thing is that wooden spalling still has an AP of 6 - enough to deal full damage against anything up to 3 AC, and most internals have less than that. On the other hand, the full metal setup has more AC, which (slightly) reduces the number of fragments HESH spawns -> lower damage but higher AP. But the AP doesn't matter, because the AC of internals is so low.

Keep in mind that HESH can be countered by avoiding airgaps. If your entire vehicle is filled with blocks (even if non-structural), HESH won't generate any spalling. I heard this may be changed in the future, making HESH generate fragments at the first non-structural block - which will make it possible to counter e.g. with mantlets (very tough for non-structural stuff) or sloped ERA (see below).

If you're very scared of getting one-hit-killed by HESH, there are two options: metal-gap-ERA-internals. That'll stop any spalling at the ERA. And external ERA - that'll stop direct hits from frag and HESH, and reduce HE by 80%. But it'll be easily stripped by airburst shells, or if stuff explodes on your shield.

[XIII]

Higher end craft tend to use thick armor plus shields. That seems to be the best defense.

Maybe you might want to use an airgrap when you got 7m armor or want to save money+weight, but even then I'm not sure if I'd sack a layer of armor for wood.

[Civvy]

Originally posted by FourGreenFields:

Originally posted by Civvy:

Alright, well-- I ain't got the cost or space, is wood going to mitigate it at least? And yeah, I know wood splinters IRL, I mean-- that's kinda' what got most lads in the Battle of the Buldge was airbursting trees n' getting the wood to fly off into people.

EDIT: Well, I say this, I suppose I could add an air gap by sectioning off rooms and citadels with metal one block out from the wood lining. I intended to do that anyway. Curious, what other shells is this effective against? Does wood stop EMP as well? Does the air pocket mitigate HEAP to some extent?

Oh, our good old friend HEAP. Seen that way too often, imo.
Assuming you mean APHE (armour-piercing, high explosive; makes sense too: pierces first, explodes 2.): Really, don't worry about it. One of the least reliable shells. Countered by shields too. Airgaps don't really help against it though: Just stacking metal armour is usually best.

Assuming you mean HEAT: Yes it does. Each airgap-"block" has 60 effective AC (= 60 pen-metric drain), greatly reducing the power of HEAT.

EMP not so much. It will avoid passing through wood, but will lose a little power going around the airgap, afaIk. So unless you encase all your internals in wood/stone, it won't help enough.




As for the 1. question, a metal-wood-gap-internals setup will likely be worse vs HESH than metal-metal-gap-internals. The thing is that wooden spalling still has an AP of 6 - enough to deal full damage against anything up to 3 AC, and most internals have less than that. On the other hand, the full metal setup has more AC, which (slightly) reduces the number of fragments HESH spawns -> lower damage but higher AP. But the AP doesn't matter, because the AC of internals is so low.

Keep in mind that HESH can be countered by avoiding airgaps. If your entire vehicle is filled with blocks (even if non-structural), HESH won't generate any spalling. I heard this may be changed in the future, making HESH generate fragments at the first non-structural block - which will make it possible to counter e.g. with mantlets (very tough for non-structural stuff) or sloped ERA (see below).

If you're very scared of getting one-hit-killed by HESH, there are two options: metal-gap-ERA-internals. That'll stop any spalling at the ERA. And external ERA - that'll stop direct hits from frag and HESH, and reduce HE by 80%. But it'll be easily stripped by airburst shells, or if stuff explodes on your shield.

Well, this is getting terribly expensive! I'm running through my first capaigne, and I chose Neter. What am I most likely to need to defend against with a battleship? If I can't choose every armor in the book, which one would last me the longest, or carry into another campagne? I'd like this design to be able to last long.

Originally posted by rotgtie:

Wooden spall-lining is only theoretically a soft-counter to HESH rounds. In practice, there are much better options, for several reasons:

1) Overspecialization. At a minimum, spall-lining requires 4 meters in your main armor belt, for metal-wood-airgap-metal, before starting with your internals. That makes your outer armor belt little different than just 1m of metal to most cannon fire, just so that you can reduce the AP value of spallshards. Given how many other types of shots there are in the game than HESH, it's really not a worthwhile tradeoff.

2) False sense of security. While you may think spall-lining will protect you against HESH, the reality is that it will only reduce the AP value of the shards, which only reduces the damage they deal to the next armor layer past the gap. Heavy HESH shells or a barrage of many such rounds will still spray enough shards around that even at a low AP value of 6 (the same as the shards from frag rounds, which have no problem chewing through armor in sufficient numbers), they will work over your ship in short order anyway.

3) Waste of space and other options are better. You obviously aren't going to make your ship just one big spall-lined box, so you'll have to make cuts somewhere anyway. It's better to save the room, armor your ship against the kinds of rounds it will most commonly face, and turn to other methods for defeating HESH rounds. Those better options are LAMS, which eliminate the HESH round before it can start its spalling effect by making contact with the hull, and reflect shields, which can bounce even low velocity HESH rounds harmlessly away more often than not, preventing hull contact. Either of these choices only requires you to set aside a tiny amount of area for them to function, rather than building your whole armor belt to incorporate them.

I wouldn't worry so much about HESH, even though it is among the more dangerous rounds in the game. You can counter them fairly easily with the same kind of defenses that work against other kinetic rounds, so you don't need to specialize for HESH defense. Regular spaced armor is very effective against most types of cannon fire, and it's more effective against HESH than not having any airgaps in your armor before the internals get exposed. With standard defenses in place, you should have little to worry about from HESH rounds.

So should I replace the wood spall lining with metal? I don't know if shields would be a bit expensive-- the craft is already 17000 cost with the hull alone.

[FourGreenFields]

Originally posted by Civvy:

I don't know if shields would be a bit expensive-- the craft is already 17000 cost with the hull alone.

Shields are expensive, but having your craft torn apart is much more expensive at that size.

If you're trying for something combat-capable, single-layer shields are probably mandatory at that size. Better would be two layers, especially around vital stuff (e.g. turret caps, citadel). Strength recommendation is between 2 and 6 (2 for non-vitals that are unlikely to be hit much, like the very bow of your ship; 6 for absolute vitals, if you have the power for it). If you think about passing 6, you're better off with 2 layered shields at lower strength.

Originally posted by Civvy:

Well, this is getting terribly expensive! I'm running through my first capaigne, and I chose Neter. What am I most likely to need to defend against with a battleship? If I can't choose every armor in the book, which one would last me the longest, or carry into another campagne? I'd like this design to be able to last long.

I'd probably use (on top of shields) [several metres of metal] - [1-2m gap] - [1-2 metres of metal] for citadel armour, and ERA replacing one airgap around very vital parts, as well as ammo (depends on how many redundant ammo stores you usually have - I often go all-in and simply armour the one ammo cache like hell).

It depends on the faction you're fighting though. DWG just going full metal is probably best (possibly with ERA inside around ammo - not sure, but maybe they do have a HEAT-using ship or two). OW as well. WF I'm not sure - there was some talk about them getting HEAT. LH on the other hand have loads of lasers, and neither airgaps nor layering help against lasers - so for those you'll want smoke, submarines, and/or laser-shields..