Well like the title says, German battleships to just randomly explode, doesn’t seem to matter what shell hits you, HE, SAP, or AP, you just explode leaving you with a giant repair bill and no return on investment. The only one that doesn’t seem to do this regularly is the Scharnhorst. Is this just me or is this still an issue? seems like I always die to ammo explosions only when I play my German BB’s, yet they have huge repair costs, higher than some counter parts that do not have this issue.
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Cuz they lit
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All BB’s “randomly” explode on occasion - you are nothing special :)
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It only happens when I play German BB’s, other nations do not seem to have this problem for me.
Maybe you are special then - I have no problems being blown up BB’s of other nations, or indeed in blowing them up.
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maybe it is just me, but I do find them easier to make explode than other nations BB’s as well, I just think they are the worst BB’s in game because of how often they explode randomly. They should have their repair cost reduced because of it.
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If you’re saying Imperial German BB, they are usually very cramped. Very cramped with small hull but lots of magazine and ammunition storage.
Gaijin saids that HE bug is removed, but actually it’s not perfectly removed as sometimes HE penetrating armor rarely happens. But when those thing happens, Imperial German BBs with cramped modules were extremely vulnerable.
Of course this is explanation about usual circumstance when you’re fighting inside 8 km. If you’re over 8~10 km and get exploded by HE, you have to doubt that underwater shell makes you explode.
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As far as I know there are 4 capital ship (BC and BB, old pre-dreadnought classes excluded) losses in the Great War and WW2.
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SMS Lützow - took massive, hour long pounding from the british Grand Fleet at Jutland. Was slowly sinking, couldn’t be towed off, crew was evacuated. Was abandoned and torpedoed by own ships.
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Bismarck - same as above . Refused to sink, desptite heavy main calibre fire over quite a few hours. The drifting hulk had to be torpedoed by HMS Dorsetshire at the end.
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Scharnhorst - same as above. Under fire of a british battlegroup. Slowly sunk after more than 13 reported main calibre (BB guns) and 14 torpedo hits.
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Tirpitz - British (even USN) tried alot to sink it. Air Strikes, midget submarines, sabotage. At the end it had to be bombed by 32 Lancasters which dropped 12.000 lb tallboy bombs. The ship took too much water and capsized.
[5. Gneisenau - technical not a loss. But was the only German capital ship which main magazine actually lit up. While under refit in a German dockyard, she was attacked by british bombers. Violation of safety regulations: The dock officers didn’t emptied the magazines while she was under refit. Alot hatches were just left open as well. Some HE bombs detonated on the main deck and burning fumes made it through the opened venilation hatches of the B turret. The B magazine detonated. But the ship was still afload and steamed with own power to a dockyard farther east.]
So for this historic account they explode indeed a bit fast in WT. While ships which historically suffered catastrophic detonations in battle don’t show this behavior ingame.
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We don´t have Bismarck/Tirpitz in game or Lützow so drawing some statistic out of this a bit pointless.
Also comparing IRL data to WT is fools errand since they didn´t have acces to precise plans of the targets to know where precisely to aim to hit the ammo. Also in WT we have much much more precise way how to aim at specific points of the ship.
At the claim that “ships prone to detonation don´t detonate as they should” from these detonation prone ships for UK we have at best just 2 - Hood and partly the HMS Invincible.
These are only two where you could ever claim that they should historically explode. But from what I know about Hood explosion it was one in billion lucky shot not something which would be easily replicable not to mention very likely not even possible in game.
Why all the other BBs like Helgoland, Kaiser etc. where in the same battles and took dozens of hits without exploding or sinking at all.
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Because:
And honestly:
- Kaiser got hit just 2 times and that was from 12 inch gun
- Helgoland got hit just once!
- Even the Von der Tann was hit just 4 times but just 1 hit in remotely critical area for WT but failed to fully penetrate
This is much much less hits then any battle in WT.
As I said before drawing any conclusions from the IRL is pointless since all the shots IRL and their results were basically luck based. IRL you were lucky to hit the ship in WT you are able to precisely aim at the proper locations of ammo, machinery ect.
Also hits in WT do significantly less general damage than hits do IRL (assuming the ship doesn’t blow up! :))
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Depends. Torpedos do definetly more damage ingame…or the internal torpedo defenses are not correclty modeled… Also autocannons seem to. I can’t imagine an SKR-7 with two 2x75mm autocannon mounts and 4-6 RBU anti submarine rocket launchers might sink several destroyers in a row and a light cruiser as tasty snack in between.
Yup, though hits are orders of magnitude more likely.
Think it was Battle of the Java sea where a British and Japanese DD shot at each other for 10 minutes at 3000 yards broadside to each other without either registering a hit. Single hit from 5" to the engine room then sank the British DD.
Warthunder Naval is always going to be an abstraction of reality, though ideally one in which the flavour and balance is retained.
If the OP doesn’t think that other Capitals explode upon contact with a slightly angry squirrel then he should play the Renown.
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I think you’ll find she was scuttled actually Dorsetshire was given the kill though I believe
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You are engaging people in warthunder at 10km or less in perfect weather conditions which never normally happens in real life. If you play british ships you would understand that they instantly detonate because aswell as having the ww1 choice of pack as much ammunition and charge bags into every available place, they also have a citadel focused armour scheme which is not the heaviest, leading to them instantly detonating.
If you face any ships head on there will always be the risk at very close distances (below 15km) that a shell will go through the front bow armour which is thin (ignoring the deck), heading right into bulkheads and hitting ammuniton below the water line behind them. Or you are side on in dreadnoughts or battleships, your coal bunker or main armour belt gets decimated by enemy shells hitting you at very close range, and then the very next shells have almost no resistance except some thin anti-torp armour (if your lucky) to go plunging into your ammunition stores.
There is no random exploding, take less ammunition and you survive longer like all ships do of that era. Scharnhorst and others were designed with much more layered armour schemes with ammunition not crammed into every empty storage room, so when lowering your ammunition count to unhistorical levels when engaging an enemy it “looks like” they survive better/explode less. But thats just interwar armour schemes.
Take the Scharnhorst and fill her up with ammunition to the brim and see a dreadnought instantly kill you with a very very lucky shot on the first salvo. Same for the Hood and other nations top naval ships in the same position. It’s all random luck based but that luck increases unrealistically since you have VERY accurate firing control systems in naval realistic and ESPECIALLY naval arcade.
Warthunder is alot more realistic than you realise (not 100% realistic but getting there), so don’t expect world of warships damage models where you can take millions of shells and if your armour says a certain number you will survive outright if you keep “repairing”, no matter where the ammunition stores where placed or fuel stores where placed on that ship in real life.
And like others have said, the warthunder firecontrol system is alot more accurate compared to ww1 battleships, and you know for certain where enemy ammunition stores are located so you can do a ranging shot/salvo first, then adjust and “nuke” an enemy instantly if they are unlucky enough to see your scharnhorst, hood, kongo broadside.
I spend most my time in battleships taking advantage of distracted opponents, crippling them by destroying their ammunition stores in the front or rear allowing me to face an opponent at half strength and allowing my teammates that are currently occupying that enemies attention to have a better chance to keep the incoming fire raining down/into them.
BB’s still shouldn’t explode within the first few salvos. It’s not good gameplay when you are paying 30k SL or more per death. Ammo racks should explode about 1/10th as often as they do in game.
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Then ask for battles that start at 30-40km. And make sure you take no more than 300-500 secondary shells and around 100-200 primary shells. If you play a gamemode where battleships are fighting eachother at a range where the shells have near max penetration, expect the damage those battleships would do against eachother at that range.
Plunging fire would make this worse. Deck armour was not the greatest on a lot of BBs.
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I’m not sure that’s a thing in Naval.
I’ve tried reduced loadouts on British DDs, Abdiel and Renown… They spontaneously combusted just as often. Which was a lot.
Would be simple to test, just get someone to take 0 shells and see if they still get ammoracked.
Also longest ranged hit in history was 26,000 yards so 40km is fantasy land.
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