Does Having 50mm More Citadel Armor REALLY Make a Difference?

[MeetTheBadger]

So I was talking about the Des Moines in a thread in the cruiser section and it was pointed out to me that, despite the fact that the Des Moines has 152mm of citadel armor, it could still conceivably be considered the worst-armored of the tier 10 heavy cruisers, even with the recent deck armor buff, because its casemate armor above the main armor belt is still only 27mm thick, which means that it doesn't reach the Magic Number of Millimeters necessary to avoid being overmatched by 406mm guns, whereas all the other tier 10 cruisers (with the exception of the Minotaur, which can fall back on smoke) do have 30mm or better in that area.  And yet, the Des Moines arguably has much better citadel armor than, say, the Minotaur (which only has 101mm at the most).  Yet that extra 51mm of armor seems to make no functional difference whatsoever.

 

I did a little trigonometry (and forgive me if my numbers are off, because my last mathematics course was a long time ago), and I figure that, at 60 degrees of angle (which is the autobounce threshold for guns other than 203mm USN), the Des Moines' main armor presents about 175.5mm of metal for shells to get through, whereas at the same angle, the Minotaur's citadel armor presents only about 116mm of total armor thickness (I'm using the Minotaur as an example because it has significantly thinner citadel armor -- one imagines that adding 50mm to an armored box dozens of meters on a side equals a lot of extra mass).  Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that the game begins autobouncing at that angle (which I'm using because I'm lazy and don't want to deal with odd non-round numbers), that means, when angled at 60 degrees, the Des Moines presents almost 60mm more citadel armor than the Minotaur.

 

Does that make any functional difference in the game?

 

 

 

As the chart shows, that extra 60mm of effective armor barely makes a difference as far as the penetration of other tier 10 heavy cruiser guns -- even the Hindenburg, with its relatively terrible penetration, will not have its AP act significantly differently between an angled Des Moines and an angled Minotaur all the way out to about 15km.  The other heavy cruisers wouldn't even notice an extra 60mm of effective armor at pretty much any range, since they can all penetrate 200mm or more of armor at their maximum stock ranges.

 

So what good is that extra 51mm of citadel armor that the Des Moines has over the Minotaur?

 

I'm aware that there are both ricochet angles (the angle at which shells start seeing bounces) and autobounce angles (the angle past which -- assuming no caliber overmatch -- all AP shells will bounce).  I'm assuming here that if a shell doesn't overmatch the armor of its impact point, and impacts at an angle between the initial ricochet angle and the autobounce angle for that shell, it has a certain chance to either bounce or penetrate, but I don't recall seeing the exact calculation ever listed.  Is the ricochet chance between those two angles based on the effective armor thickness presented by a target, or merely by the angle of the target?  Because it seems if it is simply the latter, then that extra citadel armor on the Des Moines does no good at all, although if it's the former, then having that extra 51mm of armor over the Minotaur makes sense.  But I don't recall the calculation ever being listed.

 

So is it based on angle alone, effective armor thickness alone, or some combination of the two?

 

As a side note, it seems to me that the overmatch mechanics are starting to work against WarGaming here -- no one really seems to care about differences in armor thicknesses and layouts between ships, the only thing that matters is if the bow/stern/casemate/deck meet that magic 30mm number so one can avoid being overmatched by 16-inch guns.  So a lot of ships are starting to basically become carbon-copies of each other in terms of armor thickness at the extremities.  Seems like a lot of wasted effort to model internal armor spaces in such detail when the only thing anyone seems to care about is "will I get overmatched through the bow?"

[SergeantHop]

This is referring to main belt armor, no? If this is the case, it does have an effect, but not on AP, and really, not for many ships. 101mm can be penned by German 406s and 420s. Why a German battleship would be shooting HE at a cruiser is beyond me, but that is a difference between the two.

 

So basically, no. No difference.

[Zim_Xero]

Your lengthy question on this topic, kind of sums it up.  You are at the subject of limiting returns because only some targets are viable.  IMO, jury is still out.  Experience will be the final indicator.  It's not possible to statistically determine.

[csp0811]

So I was talking about the Des Moines in a thread in the cruiser section and it was pointed out to me that, despite the fact that the Des Moines has 152mm of citadel armor, it could still conceivably be considered the worst-armored of the tier 10 heavy cruisers, even with the recent deck armor buff, because its casemate armor above the main armor belt is still only 27mm thick, which means that it doesn't reach the Magic Number of Millimeters necessary to avoid being overmatched by 406mm guns, whereas all the other tier 10 cruisers (with the exception of the Minotaur, which can fall back on smoke) do have 30mm or better in that area.  And yet, the Des Moines arguably has much better citadel armor than, say, the Minotaur (which only has 101mm at the most).  Yet that extra 51mm of armor seems to make no functional difference whatsoever.

 

I did a little trigonometry (and forgive me if my numbers are off, because my last mathematics course was a long time ago), and I figure that, at 60 degrees of angle (which is the autobounce threshold for guns other than 203mm USN), the Des Moines' main armor presents about 175.5mm of metal for shells to get through, whereas at the same angle, the Minotaur's citadel armor presents only about 116mm of total armor thickness (I'm using the Minotaur as an example because it has significantly thinner citadel armor -- one imagines that adding 50mm to an armored box dozens of meters on a side equals a lot of extra mass).  Ignoring, for a moment, the fact that the game begins autobouncing at that angle (which I'm using because I'm lazy and don't want to deal with odd non-round numbers), that means, when angled at 60 degrees, the Des Moines presents almost 60mm more citadel armor than the Minotaur.

 

Does that make any functional difference in the game?

 

 

 

As the chart shows, that extra 60mm of effective armor barely makes a difference as far as the penetration of other tier 10 heavy cruiser guns -- even the Hindenburg, with its relatively terrible penetration, will not have its AP act significantly differently between an angled Des Moines and an angled Minotaur all the way out to about 15km.  The other heavy cruisers wouldn't even notice an extra 60mm of effective armor at pretty much any range, since they can all penetrate 200mm or more of armor at their maximum stock ranges.

 

So what good is that extra 51mm of citadel armor that the Des Moines has over the Minotaur?

 

I'm aware that there are both ricochet angles (the angle at which shells start seeing bounces) and autobounce angles (the angle past which -- assuming no caliber overmatch -- all AP shells will bounce).  I'm assuming here that if a shell doesn't overmatch the armor of its impact point, and impacts at an angle between the initial ricochet angle and the autobounce angle for that shell, it has a certain chance to either bounce or penetrate, but I don't recall seeing the exact calculation ever listed.  Is the ricochet chance between those two angles based on the effective armor thickness presented by a target, or merely by the angle of the target?  Because it seems if it is simply the latter, then that extra citadel armor on the Des Moines does no good at all, although if it's the former, then having that extra 51mm of armor over the Minotaur makes sense.  But I don't recall the calculation ever being listed.

 

So is it based on angle alone, effective armor thickness alone, or some combination of the two?

 

As a side note, it seems to me that the overmatch mechanics are starting to work against WarGaming here -- no one really seems to care about differences in armor thicknesses and layouts between ships, the only thing that matters is if the bow/stern/casemate/deck meet that magic 30mm number so one can avoid being overmatched by 16-inch guns.  So a lot of ships are starting to basically become carbon-copies of each other in terms of armor thickness at the extremities.  Seems like a lot of wasted effort to model internal armor spaces in such detail when the only thing anyone seems to care about is "will I get overmatched through the bow?"

 

 

Agreed. Thanks to Wargaming's overreliance on overmatch mechanics, the only armor that matters is that which can autobounce BB AP or not. The citadel armor differences only matter when it comes to DD guns, which is hilarious IMO.