Also, while we're on the topic, what's the damage reduction factor when your armor is higher than the opponent's piercing?
What is the penalty for naval attack when shooting at light ships with heavy battery?
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IIRC, when armor>piercing in naval combat, then the attack gets reduced by 90%. So much more significant than tanks.
Ok, thanks for the info. Does the difference between armor and piercing matter? So, would a light cruiser with 10 piercing attacking another cruiser with 12 armor suffer the same penalty as the light cruiser attacking a battleship with 30 armor?
I don't believe so. It's just like with tanks: it doesn't matter if your piercing is 0.1 or 10 greater than armor. If piercing>armor, then you get the full attack. If not, then it gets reduced.
So a cruiser with 10 piercing attacking a cruiser with 12 armor has its damaged reduced 90%. Same as if it were (futilely) attacking a BB with 30 armor.
So a cruiser with 10 piercing attacking a cruiser with 12 armor has its damaged reduced 90%. Same as if it were (futilely) attacking a BB with 30 armor.
There is not a "penalty" to heavy batteries shooting at light ships in the conventional sense.
Instead, you compare the weapon's Hit Profile to the target's visibility/speed profile. Light guns have an easier time hitting everything compared to heavy batteries, but there is no direct penalty. Ships that are slower and more visible are simply easier to hit with all guns. Since capital ships tend to be slower and much more visible, heavy batteries hit them consistently. On the other hand, DDs with super speed and low visibility and far more difficult to hit with heavy guns.
The wiki has the formula here:
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Naval_warfare#Hit_chance
Instead, you compare the weapon's Hit Profile to the target's visibility/speed profile. Light guns have an easier time hitting everything compared to heavy batteries, but there is no direct penalty. Ships that are slower and more visible are simply easier to hit with all guns. Since capital ships tend to be slower and much more visible, heavy batteries hit them consistently. On the other hand, DDs with super speed and low visibility and far more difficult to hit with heavy guns.
The wiki has the formula here:
https://hoi4.paradoxwikis.com/Naval_warfare#Hit_chance
My understand was that the armour reduction can be up to 90%, in the limit. Something like 10% of damage gets through, no matter what, and 90% is scaled as piercing as a fraction of armour. So 10 piercing against 12 armour would be base_damage*(0.1 + 0.9*(10/12) = base_damage*0.85 while against 30 BB would be base_damage*(0.1 + 0.9*(10/30)) = base_damage*0.4. So the effect is fairly gradual.
On the other hand, piercing > armour has a dramatic effect on critical hits.
Interesting. Was not aware. Does a similar dynamic apply to tanks?
Something I would like to add about ship armor and combat. I don't think the way Carrier deck armor works is right. In real life in WW2 there were multiple complete disasters from Carriers without armored decks being obliterated. Armored decks, which the US didn't use and the Japanese started using in the middle/end of the war, are a potent defense against aircraft bombs. That's what their purpose was, to protect against bombs being dropped on them. They weren't really for protection against projectiles from enemy ships.
I think having a Carrier with an armored deck should significantly reduce the chance of a critical hit from an attacking bomber/dive bomber/close air support aircraft. During the war there were some very devastating critical hits from bombs going right through non-armored decks and exploding inside. A bomb dropped from an aircraft that goes through the deck of a Carrier should have a chance of completely obliterating the Carrier from a critical hit/chain reaction.
I think having a Carrier with an armored deck should significantly reduce the chance of a critical hit from an attacking bomber/dive bomber/close air support aircraft. During the war there were some very devastating critical hits from bombs going right through non-armored decks and exploding inside. A bomb dropped from an aircraft that goes through the deck of a Carrier should have a chance of completely obliterating the Carrier from a critical hit/chain reaction.
As far as I know, for tanks it IS a sharp dividing line. Your division is either pierced or not pierced (and therefore takes less damage and deals more org damage).
Frankly I think ship armour should bit a bit more binary than it is (though not as binary as tanks). Playing Rules the Waves 2 (which has a much more detailed and accurate armour model), it feels like smallish differences in armour configuration can make a big difference.
Also, I feel the armour values are wrong since a BB's armour doesn't protect itself from its own guns by very much (apart from crits).
Correct. Piercing with tanks is binary. With ships, it's granular.
Yep. There's a reason when MtG came out, I designed a 1944 BB with tier 1 heavy batteries (no speed reduction), but a 1944 engine and the raiding designer and BC armor.
Before Paradox nerfed it, the Derpitz was capable of sinking twice its IC cost in British ships with no screens escorting her, since she could dodge torpedoes and enemy heavy battery fire, but she had enough armor to ignore most light guns.
Very interesting. Do you have any recommendations for detailed guides concerning naval combat? The wiki is still partly outdated, months after 1.6.
Wow, that's a pretty ridiculous exploit. However, I don't think Tier 1 heavy batteries can even penetrate 1940 BB armor. How fast was the Derpitz? Does the speed difference actually make up for the inadequate firepower and armor?
It was not an exploit, but rather precisely what one could expect given the stats batteries had back then: 0% speed penalty vs -15% per battery for a tiny increase in power - hm?.. what do I pick?!
Besides, it worked great only in some very specific environment (i.e. fjords). I tested it a lot myself and the net gain was nowhere close to something you'd call an 'exploit'. And finally, it's not like you could evade airpower with all that speed - for NAV and CAS, 10 or 55 knots are all the same.
Tier 1 guns never have an issue of penetration - they simply deal (slightly) less damage. At the extreme, you can put a SHBB against a pack of poorest tier 1 BBs and even in that case the latter will still deal quite a lot of their regular damage.
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This post discusses it in some detail:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...hit-calculations.1161213/page-5#post-25283343
When MtG first came out, the speed and visibility of the ship made her hard enough to hit that she was fine in small engagements.
The key was to stack the Raiding designer with the trade interdiction doctrines that reduce capital ship visbility, while mounting only tier 1 heavy batteries (for minimal effect on speed and visibility). The Derpitz could get a hit profile of around 6.9% chance to get hit by incoming heavy battery fire (as opposed to the normal capped out 10% you'd expect in regular engagements). And she had only a 0.5% chance to eat torpedoes, so if you think your DDs are going to go all Taffy 3 on her, think again.
Yeah, I remember designing those. Good days... 51 knot battleships and 55 knot battlecruisers, each armed with 4 and 2 tier 1 heavy turrets respectively, and commanded by an admiral with both Ironsides and that skill wich reduces visibility.
Enemy fleets just melted when they encountered these boys.
Enemy fleets just melted when they encountered these boys.
Somewhat tangentially related, the Japanese always build Yamoto, and I have no trouble sinking it despite having nothing that can penetrate it. I know during the battle I can mouse over to see who did what damage. Is there a way to see that in the final battle report?
That is what I was thinking. I just thought it would be interesting to see if the actual damage was being done by those torpedoes or if the big guns from 10 BBs were whittling away at it.
Looking into the defines file and hopefully reading it right reveals the following factors applied when certain conditions are met:
Light Guns vs Light Ships -> 100%
Heavy Guns vs Light Ships -> 25%
Torpedos vs Light Ships -> 10%
Light Guns vs Heavy Ships -> 10%
Heavy Guns on Heavy Ships -> 100%
Torpedos on Heavy Ships -> 110%
I might have read the file wrong but this should be the damage output of each type of weapon against specified enemies.
Light Guns vs Light Ships -> 100%
Heavy Guns vs Light Ships -> 25%
Torpedos vs Light Ships -> 10%
Light Guns vs Heavy Ships -> 10%
Heavy Guns on Heavy Ships -> 100%
Torpedos on Heavy Ships -> 110%
I might have read the file wrong but this should be the damage output of each type of weapon against specified enemies.