Bismarck's armour scheme might not be as OP as expected

It’s wrong unrealistic formula.
more realistic (even compare between gun)
http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Penetration_Germany.php

I mean you can take the problem with whatever formula you want, the shell is quite lighter compared to other 380mm ones, and the muzzle velocity isn’t stellar as well, with the HE filler being quite large, so it will have less pen

That and the unusual turret disposition makes the 8.3 BR they gave it not so surprising i guess

Gaijin doesn’t seem to understand that any armor can be penetrated with enough speed — whether it’s a ballistic vest or ship armor. I thought that was common knowledge. For example, in the USN empirical formula, velocity is raised to the power of 1.1, while mass is only raised to 0.55.
Compare Okun’s calculations to what Gaijin uses — just look at the penetration ratios of the shells they’ve modeled. It’s clear as day.

Figures at 0 meters and 14,600 meters (almost 15,000), all versus British Cemented Armor, for example — and effective pen (shell not broken):

  • Yamato: 31.7 and 19.3
  • Iowa: 32.8 and 21
  • Bismarck: 31.1 and 18.5
  • Richelieu: 32.9 and 18.8
  • Roma: 31.9 and 20.4

Gaijin’s values (first one for 1000 m):

  • Yamato: 870 and 630
  • Iowa: 857 and 583
  • Bismarck: 708 and 439
  • Richelieu: 738 and 491
  • Roma: 771 and 513

You get it, right?

In the end, it’s clear the Germans are nerfed — as usual — in this ‘game’.
Iowa and Yamato obviously have overestimated penetration values. Or, more likely, the 380 mm guns are heavily underrated.
Iowa’s penetration matches what’s in Battleships: United States Battleships 1935–1992, calculated using the USN empirical formula. But using the same formula, Bismarck’s penetration is actually significantly higher.
Double standards, perhaps?

That formula gives more weight to velocity than to shell mass.
Yet in Gaijin’s model, Richelieu — with the same caliber, 10% more shell mass, and 2.5% less velocity — has higher penetration.

According to Okun, close-range penetrations are nearly identical across these calibers, but heavier shells lose velocity more slowly — which makes sense.
So either the penetration values for the 406–460 mm guns are inflated (except for Rodney’s 406 mm for some reason — although SS also show inflated values in the same pattern), or the 380 mm guns are massively underrated — most notably Bismarck’s.

And all these ships will be matched against each other anyway — as we all know, BR 8.7 vs. 8.3 makes no real difference

Now let’s talk about the Sovetsky Soyuz.
Its shell, with the same caliber and penetration on par with Iowa’s, somehow has twice the explosive filler. And it’s also significantly faster. How is that even possible??
image

And its semi-AP shell is somehow more powerful than comparable HE shells — while still having penetration close to that of 380 mm AP shells. What kind of magic is this?
image

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I get it, but how do you know which one is more correct than the other ?

The pen difference between those two might as well be ignored (30mm difference at 0m ant 45mm at 10000m, since Richielieu’s shell keeps its energy better). This seems reasonable, 10% mass difference is after all not a small difference.

It’s possible because Gaijin decided to give it a gun that would be unusable after 80 shot, and the barrel would progressively lose accuracy in the mean time.
The Sovetsky Soyuz is complete fantasy, and just like the KH38, Gaijin decided to be very generous with the russians, for no good reason really. I won’t disagree with you on that point : Sovetsky’s firepower is more of a dream thing than anything else.

Note for example that they didn’t give the 830m/s on Richelieu’s gun because it eventually caused the gun to malfunction and explode IRL, and i’m fine with it, but somehow did not apply the same reasoning to the Sovetsky, because why not

Real army and military expert formula > game formula

Jacob de Marre’s formula isn’t a “game formula” but a formula implemented by a french navy engieneer at the end of the XIXth century, after he did some testing. Gaijin just implemented a tool to run it quickly

Regarding NavWeaps, same source as you used in your link :

Richelieu :
image

Bismark :
image

748 vs 742 @ 0m, in game it’s 710 vs 708 (710 being the shell going 785m/s on Richelieu)

Note that the source is not clear on the matter of Richelieu’s shell speed : 820m/s or 785m/s, but considering Richelieu never fired AP shell going 820m/s (it was either 830 pre-war, 785 after the accident, and 800 with US shells and post war), i’m going to go with the first value. Both seems a bit under their respective values in game, other than that, they match quite well in game

Cool
Bismarck and Rich maybe right.
But campare with Iowa for example.

So either the penetration values for the 406–460 mm guns are inflated (except for Rodney’s 406 mm for some reason — although SS also show inflated values in the same pattern), or the 380 mm guns are massively underrated

heh i didn’t check Iowa to be fair

image

Yeah ok, i see your point.

I’ll give you that 38cm might be a bit underrated in game, while 406mm might be overrated, and this leads to a non negligible difference

For 0 m :
829 mm for Iowa and 742 for Bismark according to Navweaps (87mm difference)
857 mm for Iowa and 708 for Bismark according to Gaijin (149mm difference)

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It’s not small.

But yeah, what really gets me is the Sovetsky Soyuz — it’s about as fantastical as it gets.

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If they switch SS to face hardened and add the ability for the plates to crack I’d be happy with it

I think it’s already starting to get on a lot of naval players nerves X)

Bismarck’s armour is now finished on DEV server, although it needs to be corrected at some places, the overall impression of its protection can be examined by protection analysis:


Turns out to be even weaker than I expected.

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Should be noted that the values given in navweaps about the armor penetration of the Mark 8 are specifically for the early one used in 1943 and 1944, while the Mark 8 Mods. 6-8 used since 1945 had enhanced armor penetration. This is why the value in WT doesn’t fit the one given by navweaps

Surprise, everyone. The patch that should bring exciting new top dogs for all nations which all have their strengths and weaknesses once again introduces a russian fantasy ship that will shoot massively overperforming fantasy shells that outclass everything putting ships that actually existed into the dust until it will (maybe) be fixed in a couple of months. Cant wait for this glorious piece of gameplay to come into the game to save naval. /s

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Bro thats just historical. Everyone knows the great naval powers of WW2 were Japan, the USA and the Soviet Union. /s

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I mean I’m not against also introducing something that is on par with the other ships for russia. Why leave them out if according to the rules the snail sets for the introduction of ships they can put something in the game that makes it possible for more nations to play at the new brs. Would be kind of boring facing the same 4 8.7 ships over and over again.

What i don’t get is why they constantly have to overexaggerate when putting russian stuff that never existed into the game. And then be surprised when theres a backlash? Maybe try a more sensible and realistic approach for once?

If this goes down how i expect it I only want yamato and bismarck to sail around in customs and to play naval ec. Unfortunately there will be countless matches in rb that need to be played until ppl have them spaded against this thing. After that theres no point in touching sub 10 km engagement range bs naval rb ever again facing overperforming fantasy bs. Will be so good for naval :-D

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Thats my point, i would be fine with having Soyuz at a realistic powerlevel alongside Bismarck, Richelieu and Roma but making the fantasy ship straight up better than Iowa and Yamato is like making a fantasy missile the best A2G weapon in the game and Gaijin would never do that. /s

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Yeah, in the end we will have to wait until the live server, but the signs are not pointing towards a balanced experience. But maybe no one’s expecting that from naval anyways. Would be kinda nice if they could actually balance stuff before releasing it for once and not wait till people are rightfully furious about it but well.

Whatever this realistic is supposed to be for a mostly blueprint ship that largely only existed on drawboards and never had to face real world limitations to its construction. Kinda easy to outperform the armor, guns and shells of ships that actually had to sail in bad weather and had to deal with fuel consumption, resource availability, reliability, construction problems if well…you never even had to float, shoot and do what all the other ships did and someone just had to imagine twice the armor and much better guns/shells and draw them.

If this is supposed to bring more people to naval and improve the gameplay in the higher naval ranks then idk…

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Soyuz is still minimum at her projected plan. She still didn’t have her best maximum engine out put, best reload, better shell velocity that really fired during test, and misses 2/3 of its rudder on blueprint, and lacks 3 hydroplane.
And her strongest part on War thunder is never related to her armour quality.

Also, ‘realistic powerlevel’ of you insisting is clueless. So just making her Br higher than making fake nerf would be better, especially considering that it is not only USSR that needs so-called ‘fantasy ship’ to compete with Iowa.

Yeah my projected plan was to become an astronaut , which is about as realistic as the soviet plan for the soyuz. I meant realistic powerlevel as in the soviets of all nations getting the strongest WW2 Battleship is an absolute joke.

Fake nerf for a fake ship sounds fair to me

Iowa being on top is absolutely fine its just a joke that a soviet ship will be better