Information I'd love to know

Ok, in the time it took to do the math I see several others have posted. But I'll post this 'as is' anyway

svenhauke wrote:lets not argue

in my opinion

at that angels

the top and buttom are not better protected then the sides

basicly protected from the front, but not from side shots

so sorry don t leave top and bottom unprotected

Vulnerable to a rare and unlucky shot.

I went back and did some number-crunching (using the Gryphon-class SD as my base). I assume that the flat portion on top is 1/3rd the total width (so 66 1/3m wide) and that the armored side reaches all the way up to that point (so 92.5m above the centerline).

I calculated the penetration of a laser head beam that came in from a 0 deflection broadside shot, descending at the perfect angle from the outer lip of the wedge to just the point where the armor reach the top of the hull.

For what it's worth I used the highest point on the wedge along the hull (forward hammerhead face); but since the wedge height only varies by 342.75m over the length of the hull there shouldn't be a huge variation; but I gave the laserhead the advantage of more height to work with.

So it just impacts at (33.16667, 92.5)m. By the time it reaches the centerline it's continued down to (0, 79.76585)m, and it hits the backside of the far broadside's armor at roughly (-42, 63)m. So in all it penetrated to a depth of about 29m. Or to put it another way, 15% of the draught of the hull.

But if that shot was centimeters lower it would impact the upper edge of the armor, and do far less damage; centimeters higher and it'd impact the wedge, doing no damage. It basically has to make the perfect decending 21 degree angle past those points to score.

And this disregards the deflecting effects of the sidewall, or the tendency RFC [url=forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1533&p=30136]once mentioned[/url] of the sidewall to 'bend'

runsforcelery wrote:or slightly deforms the surface of the impeller wedge, pulling it "downward" to the edge of the sidewall plate, which is where the defensive "shadow" originates"

That bending of the wedge would also reduce the vulnerable zone.

So the tops and bottoms are not invulnerable. Lucky shots can hit them. (And lucky down-the-throat shots have even better chances of doing so).

But they're unlikely to be hit, and hits there aren't going to penetrate into the ship's vitals. So if you have to economize on armor somewhere, it makes sense to so so there. (Plus things like the boat bays, on the ventral side, effectively can't be armored -- they have to trust to luck and dispersion to keep some operational after a fight)

Jonathan_S wrote:And this disregards the deflecting effects of the sidewall, or the tendency RFC [url=forums.davidweber.net/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1533&p=30136]once mentioned[/url] of the sidewall to 'bend'

runsforcelery wrote:or slightly deforms the surface of the impeller wedge, pulling it "downward" to the edge of the sidewall plate, which is where the defensive "shadow" originates"

That bending of the wedge would also reduce the vulnerable zone.

Well, to nitpick, we have no idea how far down the wedge is pulled. It may or may not make the vulnerable aspect of a ships ventral sides closed or still open. After all a shallower angle shot will still penetrate.

Sine 20: .34 Cos: .94
Sine 15: .26 Cos: .96
Sine 10: .17 Cos: .98

There better be a lot of armor up there. It is much worse from a down the throat perspective. Wider opening and there is no sidewall at all. Can completely disembowel a ship by getting to the vitals from the throat. At least angled broadside shots cannot get at vitals. Aft, is nearly impossible. Not impossible, but nearly so.

A quote I know nothing about from another post ,

runsforcelery wrote:
or slightly deforms the surface of the impeller wedge, pulling it "downward" to the edge of the sidewall plate, which is where the defensive "shadow" originates"


Could a field be generated that would bend the wedge and form it into a slotted cone?

Still 2 separate parts but curved towards each other to give more protection.

Just a random thought you understand.

I do not understand this topic at all.

Wouldn't any reasonably competent in-universe ship designer be able to do this simple geometry and design the wedge / sidewall (and later bow-wall and sternwall) on the ship such that these holes to not exist?

There's actual text describing the design and addition of the LAC sternwalls where they WERE fussing over a single 'weak spot'. So you would think that an actual side GAP would also be a concern.

There's no evidence in the books that there are ANY 'gaps' on the side protection and clear evidence that everyone in Honorverse is confident that top and bottom armor is useless and unneeded.

Therefore, these hypothesized 'gaps' are simply not there.

tinfoil wrote:I do not understand this topic at all.

Wouldn't any reasonably competent in-universe ship designer be able to do this simple geometry and design the wedge / sidewall (and later bow-wall and sternwall) on the ship such that these holes to not exist?

There's actual text describing the design and addition of the LAC sternwalls where they WERE fussing over a single 'weak spot'. So you would think that an actual side GAP would also be a concern.

There's no evidence in the books that there are ANY 'gaps' on the side protection and clear evidence that everyone in Honorverse is confident that top and bottom armor is useless and unneeded.

Therefore, these hypothesized 'gaps' are simply not there.

I don't think anyone has said there are any gaps on the sidewalls. The text states that the (full) sidewalls merge into the impeller bands where they intersect.

what i meant is that the top and bottom are protected by the wedge from frontal shots, not that the front of the ship is protected

never said anything about the rear

svenhauke wrote:what i meant is that the top and bottom are protected by the wedge from frontal shots, not that the front of the ship is protected

never said anything about the rear

Given the wedge dimentions that David gave us there are definitely vulnerable angles where down-the-throat shots can hit the minimally armored top and bottom and blow down much of the length of the ship. The forward wedge opening is 190 km high, and the aft one is still 40 km high (specifically for a Reliant-class BC; but I doubt there's all that much variation in the size of full warship's wedges. They just dwarf the ship size too badly)

I think that's one of the reasons (though one not explicitly called out in the text) that down the throat shots were the most dangerous shots a ship could receive.
Of course the ship's going to be attempting to maneuver and play ECM games to prevent any missiles from managing to detonate when they've got that perfect view down the 20km wide "tunnel" the sidewalls form. At the speeds missiles are going being even fractions of a second off will cause the hit to be intercepted by the sidewalls.

And potentially the ship can pitch up or down to interpose the impenetrable lip of its wedge.


And, now, ships with bow walls can completely close off their forward aspect eliminating that weak spot in their defense (though you can't accelerate while a full bow-wall is up, and you can't have a full bow-wall and full stern-wall up simultaneously) [The buckler walls can both be up simultaniously, and you can mix and match a full wall on one end with a buckler on the other. But bucklers offer vastly less coverage; mostly protecting only from attacks within a few degrees of dead ahead, or astern]

One thing to keep in mind is angular armor thickening. The same amount of armor is literally thicker, the lower the angle you hit it at. If you hit 10cm of armor at a 90 degree angle to its face, your weapon will have to penetrate 10cm. If you hit 10cm of armor at 45 degrees, you have approximately 15cm of armor, and at 30 degrees, about 20cm of armor.* Considering how shallow the hits on the top of a ship must be, almost no armor will still be, from the weapons point of view, almost as much as on the weapons decks.

*I got those numbers from my memory, so I might be slightly off.

Jonathan_S wrote:

svenhauke wrote:what i meant is that the top and bottom are protected by the wedge from frontal shots, not that the front of the ship is protected

never said anything about the rear

Given the wedge dimentions that David gave us there are definitely vulnerable angles where down-the-throat shots can hit the minimally armored top and bottom and blow down much of the length of the ship. The forward wedge opening is 190 km high, and the aft one is still 40 km high (specifically for a Reliant-class BC; but I doubt there's all that much variation in the size of full warship's wedges. They just dwarf the ship size too badly)

I think that's one of the reasons (though one not explicitly called out in the text) that down the throat shots were the most dangerous shots a ship could receive.
Of course the ship's going to be attempting to maneuver and play ECM games to prevent any missiles from managing to detonate when they've got that perfect view down the 20km wide "tunnel" the sidewalls form. At the speeds missiles are going being even fractions of a second off will cause the hit to be intercepted by the sidewalls.

And potentially the ship can pitch up or down to interpose the impenetrable lip of its wedge.


And, now, ships with bow walls can completely close off their forward aspect eliminating that weak spot in their defense (though you can't accelerate while a full bow-wall is up, and you can't have a full bow-wall and full stern-wall up simultaneously) [The buckler walls can both be up simultaniously, and you can mix and match a full wall on one end with a buckler on the other. But bucklers offer vastly less coverage; mostly protecting only from attacks within a few degrees of dead ahead, or astern]

svenhauke wrote:what i meant is that the top and bottom are protected by the wedge from frontal shots, not that the front of the ship is protected

never said anything about the rear

Ah.

Yes, you are correct that it is possible to hit the top or bottom if you get a shot from a very narrow area. David has acknowledged this. And we have even seen hits like that in the text.

David never said that shots never hit the top or bottom of the ship--only that it is difficult. Also, superdreadnoughts are not completely unarmored on top and bottom. They are merely less armored than on the broadsides. Cruisers may be completely unarmored on top and bottom, but they don't have that much armor on the sides, either. A superdreadnought probably has more armor on the top than a cruiser has on the broadside. It is a balancing act--weighing the danger versus the extra cost and weight.

SWM wrote:

svenhauke wrote:what i meant is that the top and bottom are protected by the wedge from frontal shots, not that the front of the ship is protected

never said anything about the rear

Ah.

Yes, you are correct that it is possible to hit the top or bottom if you get a shot from a very narrow area. David has acknowledged this. And we have even seen hits like that in the text.

David never said that shots never hit the top or bottom of the ship--only that it is difficult. Also, superdreadnoughts are not completely unarmored on top and bottom. They are merely less armored than on the broadsides. Cruisers may be completely unarmored on top and bottom, but they don't have that much armor on the sides, either. A superdreadnought probably has more armor on the top than a cruiser has on the broadside. It is a balancing act--weighing the danger versus the extra cost and weight.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the sidewalls. They are not shields, they bend and disperse the beam coming in. To what degree we've never been told, but it's significant enough to protect the ship. In short, if the vulnerability is only a few degrees, the sidewalls may make it impossible to make that shot into the top/bottom vitals from the sides while they operate.