Trying to play UK in naval is near impossible, you get immediately ammo detonated by everything and a major part of this problem seems to be that their ammo storage is giant. Its 5 to 10 times larger than comparable ships of other nations while holding smaller ammunition.
If you look at the Cadiz for example, it gets 600 x 114mm shots for each turret and its ammo takes up the entire frontal section of the ship.
Compare it with the Spokoinyy which gets 500 x 130mm shots, slightly less ammo but larger ammo and its all tucked away in 1 small little section
Or the Moffett, that gets 720 x 127mm shots, a larger quantity of larger ammo and it still takes up far less space
Its more the logic of it, Sure depending on how you stack it the same amount of ammo will up different amounts of space, but why would UK ships use such an inefficient way of storing the ammo it takes up so much more space than is required. Space was at a premium on these ships, designers would try to waste as little of it as possible
Its like the Kugelblitz vs AMX DCA. Both carry 1200 x 30mm ammo. Kugelblitz somehow magically fits all of it into 2 small box’s that fit under the gunner/loader seats. AMX has 2 ammo feeds each larger than a person holding 300 each and 2 huge box’s taking up the entire front section holding 300 each
I am assuming that like lots of things in game those are HISTORICAL values…didn’t check, but it is the most likely explanation…
As said above…graphical representation may de incorrect. And i also assume that the lower caliber shells are much smaller…
The frontal magazine is a weak point among all the battle class destroyer’s the trick is simple, DONT sail at or parallel too your target, shot over your shoulder as much as possible and dont stop.
I actually love the battle class the cadiz my second most profitable ship below the southampton with the armada coming in 8th place netting me a total of just over 1mil each in under 200 battles.
As for the moffetts they are no real threat as long as you can hit the rear magazine, they pop quite nicely, its why they are getting replaced with the frank knoxs as farming bots
I sometimes wonder this for many ships and I guess for the brits it could be down to shell size / if it it’s fixed or separate ammunition although that’s speculation yet it’ll likely down to plans mostly.
Still the ammunition storage of a Battle class is imho nothing NOTHING compared to the Mikura/Hiburi class Kaibōkan which has a secondary AA magazine practically twice the size of a Kongō class Battlecruiser yet holds a third of the shells.
Now that’s is an incredible question to ask yet that may need it’s own posting.
Still iirc of all 4.5"/50 cannon ships in game the Battles definitely have the larger magazines.
If visuals are meaningless what is point of making X-ray? Isn’t X-ray exist to help player assume where to shoot at? Gaijin must work on matching visual X-ray model with damage model.
There’s also the issue that the Battle class(and many other ships of all nations) have waterlines that are well below their IRL deep load waterlines. This makes the ammo racks more vulnerable than they should be. This really needs to be fixed.
I can’t think of a single historical instance of an RN Destroyer or light cruiser being ammo racked by shellfire. Notably the Battlecruisers in the first world war were prone to such, yet the DDs by comparison were not. That even wartime construction destroyers were seemingly immune to magazine detonations was extensively referenced in the post Jutland reports. It was noted that many had been heavily damaged by shellfire without any instances of magazines going up.
Yet at BR 4.x it seems like about a 1/3 of the time I’m being one shotted in British destroyers… The models seem to be several metres higher in the water than they should be?
Also a larger compartment shouldn’t mean more vulnerable. More likely shows that the shells were spaced out and housed in protective containers therefore should be less vulnerable to shellfire than a smaller magazine where you have large numbers of shells concentrated into a small area?
The way it works at present is deeply inaccurate historically and greatly reduces my confidence in playing.
Actual magazine hits IRL are extremely rare - WT is well divorced from reality in this respect.
They didn’t blow up to magazine hits - they blew up to turret/barbette/shell handling rooms hits and poor ammunition handling procedures that let the flash down into the magazine - something WT can occasionally almost replicate if you don’t put fires out.
And that applied to the Germans too - except they figured it out earlier due to Seydlitz surviving such a hit at Dogger Bank (didn’t penetrate the barbette but the explosion flash did), and they fixed the problem.
Developers are well aware of the fact that hits on magazine irl happened rather rare and, in case where magazine was hit, fatal detonation neither always happen. The current system in which ships are often destroyed by one-shot was designed on purpose to control the TTK, as there must be some compromise in between realism and gameplay in this context.
I wouldn’t have thought DD’s are hard to kill with most of the DD guns in the first place - fast firing 4, 4.5, 4.7 and 5" guns, 130’s and 138’s are all pretty lethal to ships heir own size!!
I just think wheoever designed the system was watching a documentary on the Battle of Jutland or Battle of Denmark Straits (Hood vs Bismark) at the same time :P
