Shell rooms appear to be inconsistent and incorrectly modelled

[Spinflight]

Ever noticed that your Royal Navy destroyer tends to blow up if someone sneezes at it?

Each of the two front shell storage areas supposedly contain 300 rounds. Though you can see if you zoom in that each ‘crate’ is 6x4 one piece rounds. And there are 18 crates each row, 36 in total, so the full weapons load per gun should be 864.

Compared to the Moffat whose shell room supposedly contains 1400 rounds. Though we can see that each crate contains 20 rounds and there are 6 crates per gun, then the same number of shell cases, 2 piece rounds. Which is only 120 complete rounds per gun in the front turrets.

The rear turrets only seem to have 330 complete rounds per gun.

Haven’t checked all of the 5" destroyers but the Atlanta seems to have the same issue only worse.

So the frontal magazine on the Moffat and others should literally be more than 10x the size. The rear magazine should be 4 times the size too. Whereas the magazine on the Tobruk and others should be about 1/3rds the size.

Even the ready rounds below the Moffat’s turret claims to be 40 rounds when only 9 shells appear to be present.

All dat dakka got to go somewhere, what?

[Magiaconatus]

They are just visuals, and have no effect on performance.

[Shadow_CZ]

As Magiaconatus said the “shells” shown in the Xray are just visual representation of the DM (Collision model) which is just some kind of a box. The dimension of these boxes are based on the deck diagrams availible, the dimensions seems accurate for both USN DDs and RN DDs.

And from my experience the Moffets are much easier to detonate.

E: I can’t find any good deck plans for the Battle class not to mention the Tobruk. But in case of the Daring the ammo is placed correctly.

[Morvran]

Yeah, I take a couple of salvos to take out most nation destroyers but i’ve learnt down to a fine art how to one shot a moffet every single time. Though Ive had a lot of practice

[Spinflight]

Are you saying the the size and location of the shell room doesn’t affect the collision model? The armour penetration tool doesn’t seem to agree.

@Shadow_CZ

The dimension of these boxes are based on the deck diagrams availible, the dimensions seems accurate for both USN DDs and RN DDs.

From the model the beam at the point the magazine begins appears to be 2m wide. The magazine itself 1.25m wide. Hence a maximum of 9 rounds or shell casings across.

1400 shell casings alone would be 12 cubic metres (127mm x 680mm). The complete round (1207mm x 127mm ) would take up 21.39 cubic metres. Even without allowing space for hoists, personnel and racks. From the model the magazine appears to be 1.25m wide at the max. So if stacked 3 high ( 3.6m, the Porter class’ total draught was only 3.18m) that would make the minimum possible length of magazine to be 4.72m.

Basically it is impossible to fit that number of shells into the hitbox provided by a factor of 10 purely in terms of volume of the rounds alone. In terms of weight the ammunition load with 1400 rounds per turret would be 210 tonnes. In a ship with a listed displacement of 1850 tonnes. Hence over 10% of the ship’s mass would be ammunition and storage for such.

More than likely this affects most of the ships in the American blue water line.

[Shadow_CZ]

As I said the dimensions and location for the ammo storage is based on real deck plans. If you are able to show that the ammo storage was placed in a different way be my guest and bug report it.

But if are just speculating based on very very inconsistent calculations with no real proof then you will achieve nothing.

Here are deck diagrams for some of the USN DDs

Fletcher:

A. M. Sumner:

Porter:

This damage report but you still have the ammo racks anotated.

[Spinflight]

Just had a look at the Atlanta. The rear 5 turrets should have 7000 rounds between them, which is well over 100 cubic metres in volume, not counting racks and space for the loaders to move around.

On the model it pretty clearly shows just 80 complete rounds.

No wonder the meta is just to sit out in the open and spam, they’re all basically tardises which magic ammunition storage up from space that doesn’t exist.

@Shadow_CZ

As I said the dimensions and location for the ammo storage is based on real deck plans. If you are able to show that the ammo storage was placed in a different way be my guest and bug report it.

But if are just speculating based on very very inconsistent calculations with no real proof then you will achieve nothing.

This is what it should look like.

Seems they’ve only included the upper handling room and left both the shell and case magazines out.

There’s nothing inconsistent about my mathematics, you can find all of the data here.

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_5-38_mk12.php

0.0635 x 0.0635 x 3.14 x 1.207 x 1400 = 21.39 cubic metres. As per the diagram shown. And that’s per turret, just for the magazines not including upper and lower shell handling rooms.

Hence in your torpedo damage diagram, which omits the third and 4th decks, it’s the two decks directly below the 5" turret that house it.

The magazines on the lower deck are just for the powder.

Hence the magazine for the shells and cases should be here just below the upper ammo handling room…

[Shadow_CZ]

@Spinflight

On the model it pretty clearly shows just 80 complete rounds.

Xray model is completly irrelevant so counting round is pointless

@Spinflight

This is what it should look like.

What you have shown is just ilustrative diagram for the DP mounts and likely taken from some large ship like BB. So it is completly irrelevant.

@Spinflight

There’s nothing inconsistent about my mathematics, you can find all of the data here.

Yes there is, you might have calculated volume correctly but how do measure the space which the colision model occupies? By my own calcualtions the ammo storage space for single turret has around 5-7 cubic metres and the ammo only needs aroud 5.4 cubic metres so I don´t see an issue (you for some reason are counting space for 1400 shells when the per turret it is just 680). The calculation are inherently based on perspective since you don´t have way how to make precise masurments

E: Even if I do the calculation for the most cramped ammo storage on the USS Atlanta it still fits.

@Spinflight

The magazines on the lower deck are just for the powder.

Hence the magazine for the shells and cases should be here just below the upper ammo handling room…

I had provided diagrams for Fletcher and A. M. Sumner classes. Both of these diagrams show that the placement is correct. And none of these have ammo on different (higher) decks so please show me source even remotely suggesting that there should be an ammo there.

[Spinflight]

@Shadow_CZ

By my own calcualtions the ammo storage space for single turret has around 5-7 cubic metres and the ammo only needs aroud 5.4 cubic metres so I don´t see an issue

Always happy to see someone hang themselves with their own cuck logic so feel free to show us how you worked this out…

[Magiaconatus]

Just to keep the discussion short.
None of this matter. At all.

Only the hit boxes have to correspond to the deck plans and inboard profiles.

[Shadow_CZ]

I will provide the calculations for the ammo box tomorrow since now I don’t have access to PC with asset viewer.
But for the ammo volume it is:

0,127 * 0,127 * 0,52 * 680 = 5,7
I made error and used just 0,5 for the length in previous post

To explain the numbers all in metres:

• The 0,127 is the diameter of the projectiles I use square for simplicity and it is bigger volume

• The 0,52 is length of the projectiles according to the Navweaps .

• The 680 is number of projectiles in the stores based on the info from game. This is for just one turret and doesn’t count the ready ammo in the upper handling room which is 40.

[Spinflight]

You’re actually over estimating it there, and you missed out Pi… Per gun at least.

Formula is pi r squared multiplied by the length. You’ve used the diameter squared.

So 0.0635 x 0.0635 x 3.14 x 0.52 x 680 = 4.47 cubic metres per barrel for the projectiles.

Though glad to see we are at least starting to agree that the hitbox volume should be at least equal to the volume of the ammunition. Magazines themselves would be a little bit larger to accomodate the people funnelling either shell cases or projectiles into the lower shell handling room, but not that much. They also carried about 10% extra shell cases to account for misfires.

So shell cases in the magazine would be stacked 13 high. You can see the actual magazines and lower handling room of the USS Massachusetts here, which was the same era and system only with DP rather than surface action only turrets.

Inside the History: Lower Magazine for the 5"38 gun on WW2 battleship USS Massachusetts BB-59

Shell cases per barrel would be 5.85 cubic metres.

Hence the Porter, Atlanta and possibly others need their magazines resizing. American 5" was effectively 3 parts. The shell case with propellant, the projectile and the extra powder bags as 3 charge settings were used.

So the Torpedo damage diagram shows where the powder bags were kept clearly. It also shows the forward mount’s shell handling room with 2 storage areas flanking it labelled A3082CA and A308M. These must have been the case and projectile magazines. So the current model has it on the wrong deck, and it’s the wrong size. On the current model it should be roughly from the pumps to the rear of the hoists.

We can also see from the torpedo diagram that the area to the rear of the shell handling room is taken up with fuel. Hence the magazine for the B 5" turret must have been on the deck above as there just isn’t room according to the torpedo diagram to fit all that ammo into that space.

So to store 1360 shell casings which are stacked 13 high ( about 2 metres) in 2 rows you’d need a compartment 2m x 1.4m x 7m. Which looks about right for A-308-M.

1360 projectiles would be 2m x 1.1m x 7m. So A-308-2CA.

The hitbox currently on the model is probably about right for the extra propellant bags storage. Case and projectile storage on the other hand appears to be completely absent.

It appears on British destroyers that the shell handling room is considered to be part of the magazine. I don’t personally disagree with this as there would be a lot of ammo flowing through it given the dakka dakka ability of the guns. It should however be consistent across lines, hence the shell handling rooms of the American destroyers should also be part of the magazine for hit box purposes too.

Hence the upper handling rooms should have 40 shells cases and 40 projectiles, which were arranged on the port and starboard walls I believe. 3 rows would give 2m x 2m x 0.12m for the cases and 2m x 1m x 0.12m for the projectiles.

If we can get this fixed it will be a massive bonus for naval gameplay on all sides. Destroyers were squishy, generally unarmoured and quite cheaply built on the whole out of mild steel. They were expendable and relied upon speed, smoke, firepower and manoeuvrability.

I more than suspect that the current playstyle of sit there and spam is a result of the incorrect models. Rectifying this would also alleviate the bot problem I think.

[FleursDuMal79]

And are you sure they really do? I strongly doubt that the british destroyers had the magazines reaching that high above the water-line as I also doubt that our british destroyers even have the correct water-line modelled. Check some drawings and photos and you´ll notice that plenty of them sit too high in the water.

[Shadow_CZ]

@Spinflight

You’re actually over estimating it there, and you missed out Pi… Per gun at least.

Formula is pi r squared multiplied by the length. You’ve used the diameter squared.

So 0.0635 x 0.0635 x 3.14 x 0.52 x 680 = 4.47 cubic metres per barrel for the projectiles.

As I said I intentionally overestimated by just using “boxes” instead of cylinder to aproximate the volumes.

And as I promised I now calculated the volume of the projectile storage. The volume of the collision model of the projectile storage in metres is:

2,64 * 1,69 * 1,62 = 7,2 m

To explain the numbers:

• The 2,64 is lenght of the storage and I estimated this lenght by comparing it to the turrets where I know the sizes of several components thanks to the Navweaps and the diagram of the 5 Inch, Mk 22 mount here is the picture I used to do this:
  

  

• The 1,69 is height of the storage which I calculated from the lenght as shown here:
  

  

• The 1,62 is width of the storage and I estimated this lenght by comparing it to the turrets where I know the sizes of several components thanks to the Navweaps and the diagram of the 5 Inch, Mk 22 mount here is the picture I used to do this:
  

  

This means that the shells more then comfortably fit into the hit box, the charges box is even bigger so I think that there aren´t problem with fitting the charges in there.

@Spinflight

Though glad to see we are at least starting to agree that the hitbox volume should be at least equal to the volume of the ammunition. Magazines themselves would be a little bit larger to accomodate the people funnelling either shell cases or projectiles into the lower shell handling room, but not that much. They also carried about 10% extra shell cases to account for misfires.

To be precise in WT we might have the absolutely largest possible load so the 10% reserve isn´t taken into account.

@Spinflight

So the Torpedo damage diagram shows where the powder bags were kept clearly. It also shows the forward mount’s shell handling room with 2 storage areas flanking it labelled A3082CA and A308M. These must have been the case and projectile magazines. So the current model has it on the wrong deck, and it’s the wrong size. On the current model it should be roughly from the pumps to the rear of the hoists.

We can also see from the torpedo diagram that the area to the rear of the shell handling room is taken up with fuel. Hence the magazine for the B 5" turret must have been on the deck above as there just isn’t room according to the torpedo diagram to fit all that ammo into that space.

So to store 1360 shell casings which are stacked 13 high ( about 2 metres) in 2 rows you’d need a compartment 2m x 1.4m x 7m. Which looks about right for A-308-M.

1360 projectiles would be 2m x 1.1m x 7m. So A-308-2CA.

There is slight problem with your theory the A-308-2CA is labeled as cold storage so I highly doubt that it would have anything to do with storing ammo. And other diagrams (of different DDs) also disprove this two stacked idea. Since there is no other source claiming that.

@Spinflight

Shell cases per barrel would be 5.85 cubic metres. … American 5" was effectively 3 parts. The shell case with propellant, the projectile and the extra powder bags as 3 charge settings were used.

Are you sure that powder and cases were stored separately? Especially on the destroyers that seems like huge waste of space. Even the video talks about the bags being inside the cases.

@Spinflight

Hence the Porter, Atlanta and possibly others need their magazines resizing.

I will need to heavily dissagree, especially with Atlanta where the magazines/stores are modeled in a way that leaves the room for passage and handling rooms.

@Spinflight

It appears on British destroyers that the shell handling room is considered to be part of the magazine. I don’t personally disagree with this as there would be a lot of ammo flowing through it given the dakka dakka ability of the guns. It should however be consistent across lines, hence the shell handling rooms of the American destroyers should also be part of the magazine for hit box purposes too.

By looking at the DM models of UK DDs it seems that only the Battle class and Tribal class has this problem, if it is a problem. Other UK DDs also have the small ammo stores.

@Spinflight

Hence the upper handling rooms should have 40 shells cases and 40 projectiles, which were arranged on the port and starboard walls I believe. 3 rows would give 2m x 2m x 0.12m for the cases and 2m x 1m x 0.12m for the projectiles.

I am not sure this is correct but it seems that only projectiles are stored in the upper handling rooms no powder.

@Spinflight

If we can get this fixed it will be a massive bonus for naval gameplay on all sides. Destroyers were squishy, generally unarmoured and quite cheaply built on the whole out of mild steel. They were expendable and relied upon speed, smoke, firepower and manoeuvrability.

I more than suspect that the current playstyle of sit there and spam is a result of the incorrect models. Rectifying this would also alleviate the bot problem I think.

I don´t think that making DDs even more squishy is good for gameplay since it promotes even more static gameplay.

[Spinflight]

@Shadow_CZ

2,64 * 1,69 * 1,62 = 7,2 m

And in comparison how big is the ammo storage on the British DDs?

You cannot fit 1360 projectiles into that space.

0.0635 x 0.0635 x 3.14 x 0.52 = 8.95 cubic metres.

Either all 4 guns were fed from the same magazine, or the 2 turrets had separate ones. It isn’t clear from your torpedo diagram which.

@Shadow_CZ

There is slight problem with your theory the A-308-2CA is labeled as cold storage so I highly doubt that it would have anything to do with storing ammo. And other diagrams (of different DDs) also disprove this two stacked idea. Since there is no other source claiming that.

The greenish room to the left is labelled as cold storage.

Same with the Fletcher class here…

The compartment directly to the rear is clearly labelled as fruits and vegetables, hence cold storage. It is also quite clearly a full deck higher and is a relatively large area.

Indeed your Torpedo diagram shows the shell room to be on the Second Platform, which the diagram above shows to be 2 decks up from where the ammo storage currently is on the Moffat. The second platform is the deck immediately below the upper ammo handling area.

You can also see from the scale on that Fletcher class that the magazines and lower ammo handling area is about 26 feet by 6 feet. 8m x 2m x 12m… Quite a bit bigger than 1.69 x 2.64 as it is currently.

@Shadow_CZ

Are you sure that powder and cases were stored separately? Especially on the destroyers that seems like huge waste of space. Even the video talks about the bags being inside the cases.

Depends which charges. There were three used. Cases came ready packed probably with half charge, which was mainly used for NGFS . There was then 2 extra charges which could be added to give higher muzzle energy for ASuW or AAW. Hence the extra propellant had it’s own magazine.

@Shadow_CZ

By looking at the DM models of UK DDs it seems that only the Battle class and Tribal class has this problem, if it is a problem. Other UK DDs also have the small ammo stores.

Well ideally it should be correct, though at the very least has to be consistent across vessel classes.

@Shadow_CZ

I am not sure this is correct but it seems that only projectiles are stored in the upper handling rooms no powder.

The idea of that room was to have 40 complete rounds ready to go, hence cases were also stored in there. Wouldn’t be any faster otherwise. Looks like projectiles vertically stacked across 3 of the walls and the propellant in a cage against one wall.

Fletcher-Class USS Cassin Young's 5" Gun: Backbone of WW II Naval Warfare, on the Freedom Trail

Earlier on it also shows the magazines too with the powder room directly adjacent to the lower ammo handling room.

@Shadow_CZ

I don´t think that making DDs even more squishy is good for gameplay since it promotes even more static gameplay.

Making US destroyers almost invulnerable in comparison doesn’t seem to have worked out too well in my opinion. I’m not sure I’ve ever been the only non US destroyer in a BR full of DDs but it’s rare you see more than one other. Moffat spam is ever present and most of them seem to be bots. Which is… great…

[Shadow_CZ]

@Spinflight

And in comparison how big is the ammo storage on the British DDs?

You cannot fit 1360 projectiles into that space.

0.0635 x 0.0635 x 3.14 x 0.52 = 8.95 cubic metres.

Either all 4 guns were fed from the same magazine, or the 2 turrets had separate ones. It isn’t clear from your torpedo diagram which.

Each turret has its own shell room and its own magazine. I did calculation for just one turret. The Moffet has another three shell rooms. As I clearly said you are for some reason calculating with ammo for 2 turrets. One turret needs just 5,7 m3 for shells while it gets 7,2 m3 so for 2 turrets the shell rooms together have 14,4 m3. But the shell rooms are separated.

@Spinflight

The greenish room to the left is labelled as cold storage.

Same with the Fletcher class here…

The compartment directly to the rear is clearly labelled as fruits and vegetables, hence cold storage. It is also quite clearly a full deck higher and is a relatively large area.

Indeed your Torpedo diagram shows the shell room to be on the Second Platform, which the diagram above shows to be 2 decks up from where the ammo storage currently is on the Moffat. The second platform is the deck immediately below the upper ammo handling area.

You can also see from the scale on that Fletcher class that the magazines and lower ammo handling area is about 26 feet by 6 feet. 8m x 2m x 12m… Quite a bit bigger than 1.69 x 2.64 as it is currently.

By reading the damage report and the naming convention I would gather that the A-308-2CA is also some kind of cold storage since the freen room is labeled as A-308-2CE also going by the diagrams walls it would seem that both are insulated.

But Fletcher has the cold storage lower and the magazine and projectile storage at the same deck. Blue - cold storage, Red - projectile storage, Yellow - Magazine

The problem is that the torpedo damage shows literally nothing which would help us to locate the projectile storage, the only labeled rooms are handling room and magazines.

I wouldn´t be oposed to fix to the projectile storage location but I still havent seen any source which would show its location. And will opose any change which isn´t properly based on evidence.

@Spinflight

Depends which charges. There were three used. Cases came ready packed probably with half charge, which was mainly used for NGFS . There was then 2 extra charges which could be added to give higher muzzle energy for ASuW or AAW. Hence the extra propellant had it’s own magazine.

Sorce on this? I haven´t seen or heard anything suggesting this.

@Spinflight

The idea of that room was to have 40 complete rounds ready to go, hence cases were also stored in there. Wouldn’t be any faster otherwise. Looks like projectiles vertically stacked across 3 of the walls and the propellant in a cage against one wall.

But that for some reason isn´t the case in WT. That is something which should be bugreported.

@Spinflight

Making US destroyers almost invulnerable in comparison doesn’t seem to have worked out too well in my opinion. I’m not sure I’ve ever been the only non US destroyer in a BR full of DDs but it’s rare you see more than one other. Moffat spam is ever present and most of them seem to be bots. Which is… great…

The surviability of USN DDs (and especially the Moffet) isn´t because of the ammoracks but becuase of the antifrag armor so they loose the crew much less. The Moffet is one of the easiest to ammorack ships so I really don´t think other nations are at a dissadvantage because of the ammorack even if it is badly placed (I have yet to see evidence of that).
I would much rather fixed the ammoracks which for some reason include the handling rooms.

[Spinflight]

@Shadow_CZ

Sorce on this? I haven´t seen or heard anything suggesting this.

Turns out there was actually 4, one of them flashless.

@Shadow_CZ

By reading the damage report and the naming convention I would gather that the A-308-2CA is also some kind of cold storage since the freen room is labeled as A-308-2CE also going by the diagrams walls it would seem that both are insulated.

I just found the naming convention and you’re right there. CE and CA are one of the following…

A refers to forward compartments. 308 is the number, with port being odd and starboard even.

So the Fletcher class had the lower ammo handling room on the 4th deck. Which seems to be about right in game. The Porter class however it was on the 3rd deck. Which would place it just below the upper ammo handling room. Where the crew quarters are on the Fletcher diagram.

@Shadow_CZ

The problem is that the torpedo damage shows literally nothing which would help us to locate the projectile storage, the only labeled rooms are handling room and magazines.

I wouldn´t be oposed to fix to the projectile storage location but I still havent seen any source which would show its location. And will opose any change which isn´t properly based on evidence.

There’s plenty of evidence which proves the current location is wrong. But suit yourself, I only play cruisers and the Daring now… Suspect everyone else just grinds through the Moffat spam until they can get to something which can handle them too.

The torp diagram shows the Powder storage on the 4th deck so the projectile storage must be in the Lower shell handling room itself. What else could the door on the left side of it lead to?

So what do we completely agree on?

1. Upper ammo handling room should have 40 x projectiles arrayed around 3 of the walls and a bin with powder cases in it.
2. Powder magazine is one deck too low.
3. Projectile storage is wrong though it’s correct location is debatable and I’m getting pretty bored of this.
4. Magazines on some of the British DDs incorrectly include the ammo handling rooms, rather than merely the shells themselves as on other destroyer lines.
5. I’m not being paid to fix this game.

[Shadow_CZ]

@Spinflight

Turns out there was actually 4, one of them flashless.

I still doubt that this is something which would regually done, it is extremly space inefficient and time wasteful. My honest guess would be that they would mostly carry charges based on the expected mission so some charges would already be full and some would be reduced at least that is how czech army does it with their SPG with brass cartriges.
What you suggest would negate the whole reason to have cartriges.

@Spinflight

There’s plenty of evidence which proves the current location is wrong. But suit yourself, I only play cruisers and the Daring now… Suspect everyone else just grinds through the Moffat spam until they can get to something which can handle them too.

The torp diagram shows the Powder storage on the 4th deck so the projectile storage must be in the Lower shell handling room itself. What else could the door on the left side of it lead to?

The deck numbering is clearly different in the torpedo diagram compared to the Fletcher deck plan. In the Fletcher deck plan the main deck is numbered as -1_ in the torpedo diagram it is numbered as -01_ so the numbering for Porter then goes firts platform -1_, second platform -2_ ect.
Meaning that at very least the magazines are at correct deck:

As for grinding through the Moffet spam I grinded through it but admitedly that was with Sumner and Fletcher and I am grinding through it now with UK and as I said it isn´t ammo locations but the fact that US DDs loose crew much much less then others.

@Spinflight

1. Upper ammo handling room should have 40 x projectiles arrayed around 3 of the walls and a bin with powder cases in it.
2. Powder magazine is one deck too low.
3. Projectile storage is wrong though it’s correct location is debatable and I’m getting pretty bored of this.
4. Magazines on some of the British DDs incorrectly include the ammo handling rooms, rather than merely the shells themselves as on other destroyer lines.
5. I’m not being paid to fix this game.

1. Yep
2. No, it is in correct location
3. Maybe, there just might be error in the torpedo diagram. But I would say that is unlikely, and would make sence that the projectiles are located in/around the handling room @Magiaconatus (and @HK Reporter ) what is your comment on this.
4. Not just UK DDs, the Fletchers have exactly same problem but you can´t see it in Xray.

[Spinflight]

So white is black, black is white, diagrams which say which deck something is on, aren’t and this is just an exercise in wasting my time. Basically.

Message received loud and clear thank you. I won’t bother again.

[Shadow_CZ]

It isn’t my problem that you can’t read a simple diagram which is properly labeled.