Its time for Gaijin to remove shell rooms ability to detonate. While in certain cases they don’t doom the ship, their explosion is still so large that they set off the magazines.
This is ahistorical and completely unrealistic, most shells encase their explosives in 50mm of steel while also being very stable. Yet they get set off like dynamite as if operating under cartoon logic.
This causes ships to have a unhistorical Achilles heel to ships that store shells in the barbette. The whole reason nations that choose to store shells in the barbette was because they knew that shells were very difficult to almost impossible to set off. Indeed, after Jutland the British realized the practice of putting shell rooms below magazines was flawed.
American battleship, specifically the standard type, are very weak thanks to this unrealstic issue. Since every US battleship afterwards follows the same practices will basically turn all those fast BBs that people like into Lion and RP piniatas.
EDIT: At the very least reduce the size that shell rooms detonate. They should cause fires to be put out but their explosive size should be very reduced and localized.
What you refer to as a “shell room” is called a magazine onboard a naval vessel. There are multiple records of ships being lost due to the magazines being compromised and exploding. So, I will disagree with your statement that, “This is ahistorical and completely unrealistic”.
I served in the U.S. Military and have over ten years of sea service under my belt. Let me tell you, there is a reason that magazines and fuel tanks are designed and placed the way they are. Nothing scares you as much as when a fire gets close to either.
Sorry, but this is incorrect. Ships, especially battleships separately categories propllent and shells. The true danger to the ship is always the propellant, they’re stored in silk bags and more prone to being set off by sparks rather than shells where their explosives is encased in steel.
This is why the US practice has shells stored above the warerline, they’re almost no danger to the ship when hit besides being unusable for firing.
Copy that. I should have read the OP’s statement with a more critical eye. At the end of the day though, the removal of shell room detonations is unrealistic imho. Just look at how the Hood perished.
Back in the day all an explosive needed was heat and pressure to go off. Those shells are encased in metal already. Combine that with the heat of a compartmental fire and… You get the picture.
I still stand by my statement that shell room detonations are realistic and should not be removed from the game. There’s a reason you can only smoke on the fantail, and only when the smoking lamp is lit.
o7
Not quite accurate. The 4" ammunition on the Hood was fixed ammo. So there was no separate magazine and shellroom (as in game, where secondary/fixed ammo magazines are unitary).
That secondary 4" magazine explosion did chain-detonate the 15" magazine though, in the most commonly believed sequence of events for its destruction.
Well said good sir. You make a valid point and have shifted my point of view on this.
I’ve been reading about this matter since the Baltimore was introduced to W.T. a few years ago and have been on the fence ever since.
But, with that said, if a magazine (which is usually directly under the shell room) is hit, I could see the shell room still detonating.
o7
So while it’s true shells are more inert to fire than powder bags, the issue is a little more complex. The Hood itself had its 15" magazines physically above the shell rooms… there was active debate about what was the safer arrangement in event of catastrophe in either. The whole stack below the turret is to some degree an explosion hazard.
The real underlying issue is the suddenness of ammo explosions, as HK Reporter talked about back in 2021. Almost all the ammo explosions that blew up capital ships took a little while to manifest as the fire grew out of control. This is a “War Thunder-ism” in that to make battleships remotely playable in 15-minute long games, they have to die when they die much more suddenly than the real ones did, and this TTK-reducing mechanic is part of that.
Not saying it shouldn’t be fixed, just saying the current behavior is there for a reason and dramatically increasing battleship lifetimes by making the semifixed ammo more inert than it is, as realistic as that might be, isn’t something the game devs want to do at the moment.
While I understand the game devs concerns, the issue of inert ammo makes an entire class of ships useless against the competition.
While i agree that magazine strikes should be an auto kill it still makes ships with over the waterline shell rooms significantly more vulnerable to those without.
Kongo, for an example, will almost always win against most standards simply because it just needs one hit to the barbette to set them off.
A lot of processes in War Thunder are time-accelerated for greater playability. Tank repair is the obvious example.
I think everyone accepts damage and damage repair processes must be massively sped up for this to work as a game. The issue is if those accelerations are applied unevenly to lead to weird or ahistoric results.
Again, not to say anyone’s wrong here. It’s a complicated issue. But if anything the chaining of main armament explosions should go magazine to shell room, not the other way around. Recent game changes have made shell rooms more inert so they no longer instantly explode the ship the way they did in 2021 when HKReporter wrote about it, but they may not have gone far enough. I don’t think you can make them completely inert though.
The effect of the massive explosion involved is accurate enough for these purposes. The real issue desired here seems to be more related to the instantaneous conversion of the real life fire you would get with an ammo room hit and would have a chance to put out to a shell room explosion that would eventually result as the room heated up. You should have better chances than you do to put out a shell room fire and avoid the massive destruction in time than currently… literally lengthen the flash-to-bang time, in other words. But we need to be cognizant that would lead to lengthened TTK for every class of vehicle and consider what that would do to playability.
One possibility to consider could involve improved magazine-flooding mechanics, where you had the choice as a player to accept partial flooding and loss of compartments and what’s in them, in return for not blowing up… if you activate it in time. Would people like to have the choice to keep fighting their ship with basically just their above-waterline secondaries a bit longer instead of blowing up completely by flooding the magazines? I don’t know, but it’s the kind of new mechanic we’d be talking about here if the goal was adding more realism across the board.
Agreed, its a complicated issue. But the current system is just too favorable to turtleback ships such as Scharnhorst or ones with very deep magazines with no shell rooms to chain detonate them.
Combine this with the current barbette armor bug, where sometimes the game just doesnt model said armor, leaves a very small list of ships that can take a hit.
As you said, a more comprehensive damage mechanic is needed. One that I made on the Scharnhorst thread is that belt armor penetrations should lead to extensive flooding. Which should force the player to flood the other side of the ship, lowering the waterline of the ship until it sinks.
Agreed, better list mechanics and counter flooding would also be cool.
The trouble is just making it work speed wise without making it a no brainer the game decides for you. To decide if a fire in the shell room is threatening enough you’ll have to flood the magazine under it to save the ship, the U/I had to tell you:
–your shell room is on fire
–how long to put it out and whether that’s soon enough
–if magazine flooding is an option
The trouble is some ship designs are just going to be better with game mechanics as they are. Irl they didn’t have to design for surviving War Thunder conditions and a lot of the things that make a ship easier to save or a vehicle to repair are left out.
The obvious example again is ground. Replacing a power pack on a Panther took much more time than a Sherman, but in game they have the same repair time. Ship damage control differences that offset things like turtle backs that do give an advantage in game and irl are missing, similarly.
It is a shame and even embarrasing to see how the community has been fighting for ammunition load-related fixes, and Gaijin has only ignored them for THREE years!
The reason why American Battleships absolutely suck ingame is because a single shell into their barbettes lead to their instant death, since their shell rooms are located there… even though not only should these not detonate or cause such damages, but, as HK Reporter said… they should actually function as additional protection!
Which actually surprised me when you can’t distinguish “shell rooms” and “magazines”. They are completely different things.
Both US Navy and Royal Navy irl conducted trials on the safety of shell storage on ships and both came to the conclusion that large calibre shell storages are almost impossible to detonate because the chain reaction cannot be sustained.
Not too sure why it would surprise you. Considering that we don’t have shell rooms anymore and just what we called magazines. At least on all the vessels I’ve served on, not one had what a compartment referred to as a shell room as our ammo is all one piece.
If you know of a modern-day ship that still uses shell rooms and magazines, I’d like to know.
Can you distinguish between presumptuous and snooty?
TBF I am not unhappy of shell rooms exploding as long as they don’t destroy the ship instantly. Alaska being a perfect case study as she’s ten times more survivable than those standards battleships with thick armour on paper only because her shell room explosion doesn’t destroy the ship in most cases. That being working properly on basically every ship in game except the standard battleships.
Some guy on another forum made a list he had compiled of ships sinking due to a direct hit on the magazine.
I have not verified any of it but I will post for you guys to look at for what it’s worth. WWI
6 August 1914
Amphion, British, Active class Scout Cruiser
Sunk by mine from the German auxiliary mine-layer Konig Luise in the English Channel. Amphion had sunk the German ship the previous day. Mine exploded under the bridge and soon after the ship was abandoned a magazine exploded sinking the ship.
5 September 1914
Pathfinder, British, Pathfinder Class Scout Cruiser
Torpedoed by German submarine U21 near St Abbs Head. Hit by a single torpedo that hit the forward magazine causing it to explode, Pathfinder sinking in 4 minutes. She was the first British warship sunk by a submarine in World War 1.
11 October 1914
Pallada, Russian, Bayan class Armoured Cruiser
Torpedoed by the German submarine U26 whilst patrolling in the Gulf of Finland. Single torpedo hit amidships and the ship exploded and sank with no survivors.
26 November 1914
Bulwark, British, London class Pre-Dreadnought Battleship
Exploded whilst lying at anchor at Sheerness with only 12 survivors. During that day she had been taking on board ammunition and it was thought that the shells had been stacked too close together and too close to a boiler room which caused some of them to ignite and cause a magazine explosion.
1 May 1915
Recruit, British, ‘30-knotter’ class Destroyer
Torpedoed by the German submarine UB6 off Galloper Light Vessel, the torpedo explosion cut the vessel in half and she sank rapidly.
8 September 1915
G12, German, V1 class Destroyer
Collided with V1 in the North Sea causing one of her torpedoes to explode and the loss of 47 crew.
31 December 1915
Natal, British, Warrior class Armoured Cruiser
Internal cordite explosion whilst at anchor at Cromarty.
20 October 1916
Imperatrista Mariya, Russian, Imperatrista Mariya class Dreadnought Battleship
Accidental internal explosion at Sevastapol.
9 July 1917
Vanguard, British, St Vincent class Dreadnought Battleship
Exploded whilst at anchor at Scapa Flow with 804 casualties and just 2 survivors. The most likely cause was thought to have been that blocking of magazine ventilation had caused a rise in temperature and then spontaneous combustion of cordite.
20 January 1918
Raglan, British, Abercrombie class Monitor
M28, British, M15 class Monitor
Midili (ex Breslau), Ottoman, Magdeburg class Light Cruiser
Sunk by the Ottoman battlecruiser Yazuv Sultan Selim and cruiser Midili off Imbros whilst the Ottoman ships were attempting a raid. Raglan was hit repeatedly and sank when her 12 pounder magazine caught fire and exploded. Likewise M28 was hit repeatedly and eventually suffered a magazine explosion and sank. Afterwards the Ottoman vessels ran into a minefield and Midili was sunk.
Etruria, Italian, Umbria class Protected Cruiser
Destroyed by the accidental explosion of an ammunition barge that was along side at Leghorn.
16 September 1918
Glatton, British, Gorgon class Monitor
Internal explosion in Dover Harbour. It is thought that hot ashes were put too close to a magazine wall that caused the magazine to overheat and explode. There was also a strong suspicion that newspaper had been used in the insulation for the magazine rather than cork and this was vulnerable to ignition.
May 2, 1916, in harbour.
Leonardo di Vinci
Fire aft followed by explosion. Ship capsized and sank in 25 minutes.
Jan. 14, 1917, at anchor in Yokosuka harbour.
Tsukuba
Blew up and sank immediately.
July 1, 1918, at anchor in Tokuyama bay.
Kawachi
Explosion forward. Ship capsized and sank in 3 minutes.
Mar. 11, 1916, at anchor in Valparaiso harbour.
Capitan Prat
Explosion in after magazine.
WWII
Maillé Brézé (France)
Lost by accidental explosion, 30 April 1940, Greenock, Scotland.
SS Malakand (Cargo Liner)
Destroyed by explosion 4 May 1941
USS Mount Hood
Exploded on 10 November 1944
USS Serpens
Destroyed by explosion, 29 January 1945
USS Arizona
Destroyed by explosion in forward magazine. Pearl Harbor.
IJN Yamato
Destroyed by magazine explosion.
HMS Hood
Destroyed by explosion in after magazine.
Taiho
Sank after a single torpedo hit caused a fuel leak and two subsequent explosions* ripped the ship apart.
Roma (Italy)
Exploded after being hit by two Fritz X guided bombs while en route to surrender to the Allies.
Shōkaku
Sunk after an aerial bomb detonated fuel vapors released during a previous attack on the ship.
Shinyo
Sunk after 3 to 4 torpedoes struck her and detonated her fuel stores.
Mutsu
Blew up while at anchor. Cause of the explosion never determined, but believed to be a fire in one of her magazines.
Bretagne
French battleship which exploded as a result of gunfire from Hood, Valiant, and Resolution.
Aikoku Maru (Cargo/Passenger ship)
Bomb penetrated the ammunition stores of the cargo ship and blew her bow clean off. Ship sank in two minutes.
HMS Barham
Capsized due to flooding. As the ship’s list reached about a 10 degree list, the ship suddenly exploded due to a magazine fire.
Nachi
Broke into three parts after two large explosions and sank in about ten minutes.
Erinpura
Sank when an aerial bomb penetrated her forward hold and detonated the munitions stored there.
Taiyō
Sank when a submarine torpedo caused the ship’s aviation fuel to detonate.
Kashii
Sunk when an explosion in her depth charge magazine ripped the ship apart.
Paul Hamilton (Liberty Ship)
Sunk when a torpedo detonated the ammunition she was carrying.
Ukishima Maru
Exploded and sank when entering the port of Maizuru.