Tiornu -> RE: Belt Armour - what is it good for ! (2/14/2010 1:13:59 AM)
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Three battleship designs had the main belt armor integral with the torpedo protection--Yamato, SoDak, and Iowa. In none of these cases is the armor considered to have been a boon to the torpedo protection. In Yamato's case, there were problems with the joint between the upper face-hardened armor and the homogenous lower belt, while the American ships had their issues at the base of the lower belt. Other battleships had significant armor applied to torpedo bulkheads but not contiguous with the main belt. NC is chief in this category. The torpedo that hit her exploded abreast the armored inner bulkhead; seams were opened, but the extent of flooding was remarkably small, only about 1000 tons including counter-flooding. The main belt did suffer some damage directly above the detonation, and it's been said that she retains the cracked plate to this day. The Montana design also had an armored inner bulkhead, and unless I'm mistaken, all the modernized Japanese battleships had armor added to a torpedo bulkhead. Note that many IJN heavy cruisers also had belts continuing all the way to the bottom through the TDS, but a cruiser's TDS is about as useful as a lizard's bra. The bulges added during a battleship's modernization are ostensibly a form of torpedo protection, but their primary purpose is to keep the ship afloat after someone slapped 1500 tons of deck armor onto it. The bulge does good service in placing the torpedo's detonation farther away from the centerline, but it also creates the opportunity for some extreme off-center flooding. That would fall into the non-good category.
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