Lmao alaska cant tank a thing. It is oversized heavy cruiser and easiest battlecruiser/battleship to be ammoracked, Kronstadt currently is 2nd easiest
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“Mere 307mm”
Except that belt is inclined with 19 deg to normal which equals to the effectiveness of 350-400+mm of vertical armour depending on range and attacking shells. You can observe their effectiveness via Hood which has 305mm armour inclined at 12 deg, making it one of the most survivable ship in game along with Scharnhorst. 307mm@19deg would only be much better than that.
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Isn’t he talking about mere 307 mm for USS Iowa and her sisters? In that age 307 mm would be ‘mere’ even with 19 degree compared to escalating penetration compared to nowadays. And we know, American battleships’ shell and magazine loadout is not the worst but not the best.
Still I wouldn’t use the world “mere” as Iowa is arguably the 2nd best protected battleship class behind Yamato. Perhaps Richelieu would be slightly better on paper but she lacks sufficient protection against diving shells as Iowa does. Maybe in other words, anything that is not Yamato was insufficiently protected if using “mere” for Iowa
The thing is, those sloped 307mm were optimised against the plunging fire angles of longer ranges;
At long ranges, indeed, the combined angle of attack of the shell trajectory + the angling made up for an angle of up to 45º, in which case it would go up to 435mm of effectiveness from ranges where the shells would have lost up to 50% of their penetration power already, dropping them to values on the 440mm pen range.
However, in War Thunder, typical engagement ranges are actually <10km, which means the shell trajectories are essentially flat, making the angle of attack way lower, and the shells retain up to 66% of their penetration power.
For example, let’s say:
Mutsu’s No.5 APC shell vs Iowa, 20,000m;
No.5 APC shell penetration at 20,000m: 460mm
USS Iowa’s effective belt at 20,000m: 435mm + 40mm (external hull) = 475mm
Quite impressive! Iowa’s armor actually withstands Mutsu’s shell. Right?
Well… except that’s at 20,000m, the range Iowa was designed to fight from.
This is not the case in War Thunder. In War Thunder, they will face each other from 10,000m away… and this is what happens then:
No.5 APC shell penetration at 10,000m: 555mm
USS Iowa’s effective belt at 10,000m: 340mm + 30mm (external hull) = 370mm
So… while Iowa’s armor is nearly impenetrable at 20,000m, it just doesn’t work at War Thunder’s current engagement ranges. See what I mean?
Always remember; an armor being excellent in real life under the circumstances it was designed for doesn’t mean it would be as effective in War Thunder when it would be forced to function under circumstances it wasn’t designed for.
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King George V and Litorrio: excuse me what?
And on non-commissioned we have to remember Project 23
Personal expectation of future battleship ‘protection’ and ‘survivability’ is that ‘module layout’ precede ‘armor’. Already penetration is more than enough to penetrate enemy capital ship in 7.0. And while penetration would get bigger of at least 100 mm, armor won’t be much thicker than nowadays Scharnhorst and Mississipi. Yes angling could maximize the effectiveness of armor, but you cannot always angle against every enemy, and some ships(especially US battleships) has some obstacle when trying to angle.
You’re serious? KGV is one of the worst protected post 1930 designs that can’t even immune UK’s own 15" 6crh at nearly 30kyd due to the conservative vertical belt design. The only advantage KGV has among other designs was the generous width of the belt offered which gives sufficient height of protected volume even under full load condition.
As for Littorio if you count the decapping system as 100% reliable then it might be a good candidate for the 2nd place but again decapping is something very random and the idea itself hasn’t been fully battle tested. And also she lacks sufficient diving shell protection as most of contemporary European designs.
You’re overestimating the 16" Mark 7’s for WT purposes.
The guns will have some of the highest pen ingame, with floaty arcs leading to them having a better chance of falling into the magazines instead of sailing over them, but they also arent exactly special bursting charge-wise, at around 18kg tnt equivalent and a 30 sec reload.
For compairison, the Bismark classes 15" guns are also 18kg bursting charge. They have flatter arcs, and worst pen, bust still more pen than anything currently ingame, and have as low as a 20 second reload.
The flatter arc on the bismark guns are also interesting to note. On one hand, floaty arcs like the USN’s superheavy shells are better for penning magazines and the likes, on the other, they make shots annoyingly hard to hit on occaision.
Im sure the Iowa class will be good ingame, but mostly as a mix of all-around performance and incredible AA (which will be needed as these ships will begin to see jet bombers and the likes…)
On the gun side of things though, the Sovestky Soyuz class the russians will get will have similar pen with flatter arcs and better bursting charges (25.7kg on AP, and a whopping 88kg on SAP…), likely giving them the best guns ingame. Likely also just the best overall BB tbh, russian dreamboat style.
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Ive had situations where the Alaska were weirdly hard to kill, but yeah usually they pop if you get a decent shot on them.
Weirdly enough, those “super tanky” situations were always when the Alaskas were super super close range
Don’t try to hide the simple fact that KGV has sole 343~374 mm armor, which is surpassing the minimum effectiveness of Iowa class armor in simple mathematic calculation.
And when counting ‘overmatching’ mechanism, things become worse. War Thunder’s sloped armor got it’s effectiveness reduced when shell’s caliber is 1.3 or more bigger than the armor. And 307 mm means that every 16’’ will get this ‘reduced sloping effect’ on Iowa’s armor.
Actually, when I calculate, 400 mm RHAe is what Iowa could gain with all its STS(de capping plate, back plate, etc) implemented. pretty much the same with KGV and Lion’s main belt. And when angling started, Iowa’s effectiveness become even worse than those two.
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I’m not of the Opinion that the Post WW1 Mutsu 16.1 AP rounds are inferior to the Duke of Yorks 14" AP rounds that flat out killed the Scharnhorst.
This does also mean that it will lose penetrative ability faster over distance.
And the Bismarck doesn’t have a sustained 20 second reload rate…and they have effectively a ready rack in their turret, I’m sure that will be coded ‘not’ to instantly cook off it’s turrets on demand.
But of course! Shell rooms with fire suppression and a load of metal separating the boom-makers from each other means it’s a literal powder keg, but ready ammo is practically inert until it flies down your citadel.
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Scharnhorst got torpedoed by more than a dozen.
The Duke of York is the reason why that happened however.
The biggest issue here is the ham-handed nature of how different ships coded durability is getting used. A la the Kron (until recently) where you could all the 14"+ rounds into the magazines you want and it wouldn’t explode. Meanwhile you hit the shell room on a USN Battleship? instant karma.
A feature missing on the Scharnhorst as well.
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You do realise 343mm vertical belt first appeared on US standard battleships and those were designs from 1910s? Having a 1930s design with same standards of protection doesn’t seem great to me. Ofc magazine protection with 374mm belt with a slightly inclined angle was much better but it was in exchange with poor machinery protection. Nagato also had excellent protection for her magazine but no one would even nominate her in the list of thebest protected battleships given the poor machinery armouring.
Correct conclusions won’t come out simply from “simple facts”. Since you mentioned overmatching and calculations, I did the calculation for you with gaijin’s formula: against 16in shells with 7deg angle of descent (typically corresponding to range of around 10km), 307mm@19deg would be of 397mm RHA equivalence while 349mm@0deg equals to 389mm RHA; When the angle of descent increases to 15 deg the advantage of 307mm@19deg over 349mm@0deg gets significantly greater to 450mm RHA vs 401mm RHA.
I also calculated the scenarios with heading angles, and 307mm@19deg appears to be superior to 349mm@0deg until 55 deg to normal attack (and at this angle both would be equivalent to well over 900mm RHA so it’s really pointless to discuss at this point) You heavily underestimated the effect of that 19 deg of inclination because you overlooked a fact that the integrated angle of attack is contributed by the angle of descent, while slope effect is almost negligible at any angle below 10 deg, the extra angle of attack provided by the armour inclination combined with the angle of descent made significant difference in the final equivalence of protection. And don’t forget that I didn’t even count the external decapping STS plates in my calculation, the actual gap between the two would have been even greater.
The USS Iowa in question…
343 mm vertical as ‘poor’? Funny, keep going on.
I think calculation is little wrong? 26 degree is not that effective in WT for now. I’ve consider integrated angle of attack but still not this effective.
This is actually what I’m consider(and feel worthless) about ‘severe and impractical’ angling. Yes, maybe 55 degree angling could make your side armor good. But what about bow bulkhead? Iowa class has thinner bow bulkhead than even Arizona now is(Of course Missouri and Wisconsin got 387 mm above waterline but under waterline it is still thin). Making 55 degree of angling makes makes your ship more vulnerable, especially considering the fact that US battleships store charges around the waterline. Even now it is so easy to detonate wrongly angled Alaska, Kronshtadt, and even Scharnhorst sometimes when they show bow too much. And all US fast battleships we would see retains the internal structure that Alaska has.
On the other hand, KGV and Lion has bow deck armor that would ricochet flat angled round, and super low shell room and magazine deep below the waterline.
Oh, and finally, neither US fast battleships and KGV&Lion won’t use steep angling as they have serious firepower reduction over 45 degree. US battleships would suffer the problem what USS Mississipi currently has as they all have bofors quad mount near third turret, and KGV&Lion cannot rotate their turret over ±150 degree.
Again, sticking on a sole number without any meaningful calculation to back your statement certainly would not make you look smart here.
But since for obvious reason you can’t do the calculation properly, I did it for you again: Against UK‘s late 15" 6crh, minimal immunity of 349mm@0° is 25500 yd vs 20500 yd for 307mm@19°. As comparison, the North Carolina’s 305mm@15° had a minimum immunity range of 22500 yd.
And minimum range of immunity against 460mm Type 96 APC:
Iowa: 24500m
KGV: 31000m
North Carolina: 27000m
We all know North Carolina was often pranked by people for poor armouring, while some people believe KGV’s armouring was great because it has big numbers of thickness on paper. It turns out KGV’s protection was even worse than North Carolina :)
Thanks for proving my point, the only scenario where KGV’s thick vertical belt being more effective is when the ship’s heading angle is greater than ~55deg
They are cemented plates so both got *1.1 multiplier. Slope multiplier in WT only begins to have considerable effect when the attack angle s greater than 20deg, so having 19deg of armour inclination vs none does have a big impact. You can calculate it yourself with this link:
https://acsbicicoop.altervista.org/WT/index.html
Don’t forget to change the armour quality to “Modern rolled high hardness” (*1.1 RHA)
Ofc I won’t be surprised to see KGV to have decent survivability in this game given the current meta we have atm. But also keep in mind the DM in naval changes significantly every major update, and the recent changes in shatter count had made it dangerous to have your armour penetrated from above waterline because the shatters now have a good chance to spread into the vital modules. For example I have detonated a lot of PKs via over waterline penetration recently which would have been almost impossible to do in the past.
P.S. Discussions on KGV’s armouring also reminds me of how pathetically terrible Bismarck’s design was. Having the entire citadel submerged, the legendary 110-120mm turtleback contributes nothing to the protection of the ship’s reserves buoyancy, whereas the 320mm vertical belt is a big joke to any WW2 battleship batteries.
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Ironic as the current debate in this thread is about the protection of USS Iowa.