What counts as Armoured deck

[seldon]

I am not sure what counts as armoured deck. Using some of the conversions out there I get ships such as Littorio having armoured deck even though the rules don't stipulate that.

Consulting different sources I've seen the deck of the KGV presented as thicker than that of the Bismark for example, but for that matter so was that of other ships such as Littorio that have not been granted that benefit.

Anyone knows what this is based on ?

And BTW, I see the Soviet Sovetsky Soyuz counts as having torpedo belt yet I thought that the torpedo protection was the same italian anti torpedo protection in the Littorio. If such protection is not counted as torpedo belt should the Sovetsky Soyuz loose that trait as well.
I understand there might be different conceptions in DM designs but I am just trying to understand this differences for the purpose of consistency

Thanks !!

Seldon

 

[BuShips]

In doing a bit of "decoding" or reverse-engineering of the existing ship info, I see that the Nelson, Colorado, Littorio and Bismarck do not have an armored deck, but the KGV, Nagato, Iowa, S. Dakota, Yamato, and Richelieu do have one (in VaS terms). All battleships had armored decks, though it seems VaS is choosing to discriminate in this for game design reasons. According to one source (combinedfleet.com), battleship deck armor ranged in thickness from 4.7" to 9". This is a generic statistic, because there are most-likely variable thicknesses in different areas of the ship depending if the areas protected are vital or not (just as in belt protection not being homogeneously consistent). KGV, S. Dakota and Iowa are listed at 6", while Bismarck misses out as far as VaS is concerned at a level of 4.7". Setting aside Nelson with an armored deck of 6" for the present time, Colorado had a 3.5" upper and 2.5" lower deck armor. With this adding up to 6", I'm wondering why it fails the check. Littorio has 6" of deck protection, but that is only over the main magazines, and thins-out to only 4" over the machinery spaces, so it loses out earning the armored deck trait possibly based upon that info. Now let's take a second look at the Nelson. While it had 6" of protection for the magazines, it was 5" elsewhere. Thus given the previous information, I'd conclude that if a ship even had 6" of armor over its main magazines it didn't make the cut, although at least two battleships I've listed met this criteria. It is interesting that from at least some sources, the KGV also seemed to have this stat, and thus should be denied the special trait. In a ship thus far not looked at, the U.S.S. North Carolina had a good deck armor rating, but was as with some other ships divided up into separate decks of a 1.5" main deck, a 5.5" 2nd deck and a .75" 3rd deck for a total of 7.75" (nothing to be shameful of in my viewpoint). The main reason that I've seen in having a layered defense of multiple decks was to force the bomb of plunging shellfire to detonate the explosive before penetrating to the ship's vitals. Thus I would presume that almost all of these ships had layers of armored decks in various thicknesses and adding them all up might be a way for a better comparison. In closing, it's a somewhat complicated science with different solutions adopted by different navies. There obviously is a "simple" rule that they tried to use as a guide for assigning a particular ship the armored (or armoured I suppose) deck trait.

 

[seldon]

BuShips,
thanks, great analysis !

The sources I've checked, including D.K. Brown's book also confirm your statement that KGV also only had 6" over the magazines and going down for machinery.

Any thoughts on torpedo belts? I'm eager to get DM's thoughts since he came for the russian fleet and apparently did consider the Pugliese torpedo belt to count as one in the russian ships while VAS did not apply that to the Italians.

It looks like I am fighting for the Italians, in all truth I want to get a good understanding of the design system to expand the fleets when I need it for historical senarios.

Again BuShips thanks for your comments, really insightful !

I'm starting to think that all battleships should have the trait or none at all, given how arbitrary the trait is and that it has quite an impotance in damage. Seems a bit disproportionate.

Cheers,

Seldon

 

[BuShips]

For a game such as VaS seems to be designed as, I would have indeed given the trait only to BBs, and to all of them. As Hood was a BC with 3" deck, this works as Bismarck has almost two more inches of deck protection (thus BCs not being BBs, it works). I saw tonight where a site said that a ship needed 12" of deck to be impervious to plunging fire or aerial bombs :shock:. My guess as to why your Littorio class wasn't given a torpedo belt (really anti-torpedo bulge) was one event: Taranto. Although that class had a designed torpedo defense, it didn't function as well as it maybe should have :wink:. What's not fair is that other ships that were assigned torpedo belt traits might also have had weaknesses in their design but were not "tested" in the real world. Anyway, that's my guess.

 

[seldon]

I could guess that Taranto is the reason However as you say TB might be overestimated, and indeed the russian ship I mentioned had the same system so at least it would be "as the Littorio".

Again, thanks for your comments !

Seldon

 

[BuShips]

I really like the visual appeal of the Italian stuff. The French units are great loking as well, but in the same breath I'd have to mention the Japanese designs. Better be careful, as I'll go through the balance of the world's navys before long, lol. Really though, the Italian units were beautiful ships.

 

[DM]

I agree wrt the appearance of the Italian BBs; even the reconstructed ones were, IMHO, extremely good looking designs.

My rationale for giving the Sovietski Soyuz the Torpedo Belt trait was that I believed that the design had been improved over the original Italian version (the AP41 design had a conventional SPS rather than the Pugliese system). However, I'm in discussions with a chum who is the world authority on Russian ship design (outside of Russia, at least) to see whether that really was the case, since I think SS had the Pug system and thus may not have the Torpedo Belt trait. I have his excellent book on the subject but unfortunately its in store at the moment, along with a lot of my hard copy references!!

EDIT - re Armoured Decks - this was, I believe, a qualitative assessment based in part on thickness but also on layout, system design etc. Thats why Bismarck doesn't get it (whilst she did have thick decks they were in the wrong place wrt most of the stuff that needed protecting).

 

[BuShips]

EDIT - re Armoured Decks - this was, I believe, a qualitative assessment based in part on thickness but also on layout, system design etc. Thats why Bismarck doesn't get it (whilst she did have thick decks they were in the wrong place wrt most of the stuff that needed protecting).

Wasn't the armoured deck of the Bismarck near the waterline? There were critical systems that were mounted atop that, so I see the reasoning. Here are some snippets from combinedfleet.com (great site btw)- http://www.combinedfleet.com/f_armor.htm


"Finally, the part I love: dinging ships for their flaws. Bismarck gets a half point ding for leaving some very important hydraulics above the level of the main armor deck. King George V and Vittorio Veneto both get dinged for having inadequately armored control positions topsides."

 

[DM]

Thats right. The main lines of communication for the FC system were above the armoured deck. Her guns fell silent after 15 minutes in her final battle. The two are not unconnected

 

[BuShips]

Thats right. The main lines of communication for the FC system were above the armoured deck. Her guns fell silent after 15 minutes in her final battle. The two are not unconnected

Sooo, are you saying the German's lost because of a "failure to communicate?" :roll: :lol:

 

[DM]

The battleship discussion on Combined Fleet is "interesting" and draws some interesting conclusions in places, but I wouldn't necessarily rely on it

 

[BuShips]

The battleship discussion on Combined Fleet is "interesting" and draws some interesting conclusions in places, but I wouldn't necessarily rely on it

Thanks .

 

[seldon]

mmm. it seems a bit arbitrary, seems a bit too much for the 1 point difference in a D6 damage. I still think armoured deck could have been relegated to extreme cases such as the Yamato, or simply apply it to all battleships like BuShips mentioned

Well doesn't matter, I still enjoy reading your thoughts on the matter, and I won't complain about maybe some british favoritism after all the reduced firepower of KGV's turrets is not accounted for either

Well, I still think tha KGV is a pretty ship so, its ok

cheers

seldon

 

[BuShips]

mmm. it seems a bit arbitrary, seems a bit too much for the 1 point difference in a D6 damage. I still think armoured deck could have been relegated to extreme cases such as the Yamato, or simply apply it to all battleships like BuShips mentioned

Well doesn't matter, I still enjoy reading your thoughts on the matter, and I won't complain about maybe some british favoritism after all the reduced firepower of KGV's turrets is not accounted for either

Well, I still think tha KGV is a pretty ship so, its ok

cheers

seldon

As far as favoritisms go, I wonder if the teeth were pulled from the aircraft in order to make it hard for the Japanese to sink the Prince of Wales with an air attack alone. Of course, I'm kidding the (British) designers on this... .

 

[seldon]

:lol: :lol: mjm I didn't think of that !!

 

[DM]

Actually there was a lot of pressure from (at least part) of the British involvement to have aircraft have higher ADs. IIRC there was more resistance from outside these sceptred isles to that

the reduced firepower of KGV's turrets is not accounted for either

Reduced in what way?

 

[DSV1]

the reduced firepower of KGV's turrets is not accounted for either


doesnt the KGV only get 2dd per hit


Thats reduced isnt it

 

[seldon]

Nope, that appears to be the standard DD for 14"

If it would be included I think it should be done separately.

The DD appears to come from their conversion system, which is very straightforward and has little quirks, which is great for all of us trying to represent any particular ship not on the list for historical senarios.

 

[DM]

Nope, that appears to be the standard DD for 14"

So why shouldn't KGV's guns use this?

 

[seldon]

I agree that is the DD for the 14". I was just saying that this does not reflect the problems that apparently KGV and POW were facing when it comes to rate of fire according to some material I've read, for example D.K.Brown who mentions that they were firing at less than 70% capacity at best due to problems with passing ammunition to the turrets.

The 2 DD are not a modified fire power due to these mentioned problems but rather the regular DD for any 14" gun .

In any case this is a particular thing to that class and does not appear to be a general trait, hence as I mentioned I was saying that I believe it is better for players willing to represent historical senarios to come up with their own particular rules.

The point of contact with the issue is that I thought that it could be considered a similar arbitrary decision to select armoured deck on particular considerations rather than overall deck armour.

In any case I only wanted to understand the drivers behind the armoured deck trait, and I guess the factors you mentioned were the drivers considered.

In the particular case of torpedo belts I like your (DM) alternative rules better, it seems more streamlined and a more reasonable rule than allowing torpedo belts to practically cancel or at least reroll possible crits. It seems in cases where the torpedo belts where actually seen in action the Italian tb was not the onlyone to be less of an advantage.

BTW: I am eager to see the operational level rules you keep mentioning

Cheers,
Seldon