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Post by burningtumbleweed on Aug 23, 2018 8:26:31 GMT
Is there a purpose in using layers of various materials in making armor, as opposed to simply slapping a block of steel or other mass on the ship? For the composite armor, I used Innermost 5 cm Aramid Fiber 10 cm Boron Carbide 5 cm Vanadium Steel 3 cm Graphite 1 cm UHMWPE 75 cm Graphite Aerogel 5 mm UHMWPE Fiber 1 cm Aluminum
Outermost For the mono armor, I used a single sheet of 37 cm Amorphous Carbon. The mass of the armor is identical, and testing the armors with 100mm cannons show that the armors can withstand roughly the same amount of damage (the composite one can handle roughly one more barrage of shots). However, the cost of the composite armor is more than twice that of the mono armor (52.2 Mc vs 21.6 Mc)! At this price, I could easily just buy a second ship, and I can safely say that two ships with mono armor would do more than a single one with composite.
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Post by bigbombr on Aug 23, 2018 8:39:43 GMT
Is there a purpose in using layers of various materials in making armor, as opposed to simply slapping a block of steel or other mass on the ship? For the composite armor, I used Innermost 5 cm Aramid Fiber 10 cm Boron Carbide 5 cm Vanadium Steel 3 cm Graphite 1 cm UHMWPE 75 cm Graphite Aerogel 5 mm UHMWPE Fiber 1 cm Aluminum
Outermost For the mono armor, I used a single sheet of 37 cm Amorphous Carbon. The mass of the armor is identical, and testing the armors with 100mm cannons show that the armors can withstand roughly the same amount of damage (the composite one can handle roughly one more barrage of shots). However, the cost of the composite armor is more than twice that of the mono armor (52.2 Mc vs 21.6 Mc)! At this price, I could easily just buy a second ship, and I can safely say that two ships with mono armor would do more than a single one with composite.
Monolithic armor tends to spall more, especially against hypervelocity rounds. I recommend you test your armor against high velocity projectiles. That being said, I also tend to armor my spacecrafts in a (thin) layer of amorphous carbon (and amorphous carbon whipple shields) because I figure you dodge unguided kinetic munitions and intercept guided munitions. Lasers can't be avoided, so that's what I armor against. I agree that armor can be very expensive and heavy, which is why I tend to prefer to bring more lightly armored spacecraft to the fight rather than fewer heavier armored spacecraft. |
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 23, 2018 9:03:29 GMT
Composite armor, especially the whipple armor scheme we all use, is meant to depend low mass super high velocity projectiles such as interplanetary meteorites or long range rail gun. Your testing weapon sounds like to be more conventional one, comes with high mass lower velocity. In that case whippling and anti spalling is not relevant. That's why WW2 Battleships armored with thick monolithic armor(against slow yet super heavy round), when modern tanks armored with composite armor(against super fast but rather light round).
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Post by burningtumbleweed on Aug 23, 2018 9:13:04 GMT
The gun fires 100 gram osmium slugs at 290 RPM, and I have ten of those guns firing for the test.
And out of curiosity, if that is the case, why not simply arm modern tanks with guns that fire heavy slugs, rather than one that fires APDS rounds? Low velocity, high mass rounds with some guidance on it would easily smash through the armors of modern vehicles, if what you say is true, right?
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Post by jtyotjotjipaefvj on Aug 23, 2018 9:15:49 GMT
Why do you have a hundred random armor materials mixed together? I use a simpler setup with (out to in) whipple shield, graphogel stuffing, pressure wall and finally a spall liner. That's significantly lighter and more effective than a monolithic plate. And out of curiosity, if that is the case, why not simply arm modern tanks with guns that fire heavy slugs, rather than one that fires APDS rounds? Low velocity, high mass rounds with some guidance on it would easily smash through the armors of modern vehicles, if what you say is true, right? APDS rounds still aren't that fast, the mechanics for penetration aren't that different from slower rounds. The transition to cratering starts happening around 2,500 m/s IIRC. And regardless of that, increasing muzzle velocity increases effective range as well as makes hitting moving targets a lot easier. There's little benefit to using lower muzzle velocities if faster projectiles are an option. |
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 23, 2018 9:39:38 GMT
The gun fires 100 gram osmium slugs at 290 RPM, and I have ten of those guns firing for the test. And out of curiosity, if that is the case, why not simply arm modern tanks with guns that fire heavy slugs, rather than one that fires APDS rounds? Low velocity, high mass rounds with some guidance on it would easily smash through the armors of modern vehicles, if what you say is true, right? Simple. Kinetic Energy=1/2mv^2, momentum=mv. If you make projectile lighter, it will fly faster with given momentum by charge, which leads to huge amount of kinetic energy. Furthermore, projectile goes faster, it's easier to hit target. |
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Post by burningtumbleweed on Aug 23, 2018 9:39:40 GMT
I think I’m missing something here. From what was mentioned above, the composite layout is designed to protect against low mass, high velocity rounds which would make quick work of metal plate armour, at the expense of being weak to heavier rounds, right? So, as most modern tanks have composite armors, would it not be more effective to use a weapon which can defeat this armour, which as far as I know, means big slugs at low velocities (as the mass and velocities of a round are inversely related for the same amount of propellant)?
In-game, I tend to use low velocity weapons because of their heavy rate of fire, capable of bringing capital ships down in seconds due to the weight of fire. This necessitates the use of low velocity conventional guns, as railguns simply lack the rate of fire needed. Is this not standard among other players?
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 23, 2018 9:45:32 GMT
I think I’m missing something here. From what was mentioned above, the composite layout is designed to protect against low mass, high velocity rounds which would make quick work of metal plate armour, at the expense of being weak to heavier rounds, right? So, as most modern tanks have composite armors, would it not be more effective to use a weapon which can defeat this armour, which as far as I know, means big slugs at low velocities (as the mass and velocities of a round are inversely related for the same amount of propellant)? In-game, I tend to use low velocity weapons because of their heavy rate of fire, capable of bringing capital ships down in seconds due to the weight of fire. This necessitates the use of low velocity conventional guns, as railguns simply lack the rate of fire needed. Is this not standard among other players? Modern tanks are faster than you think. They dodge at 80km/s, can fire moving. Mobility is new armor nowadays. To hit mobile target, you have to shoot faster. Your playin meta seems not very efficient because low velocity projectiles are easily be dodged if you're not close enough. With greater muzzle speed, you can hit them much farther, so you can dodge much easier while punching them. More "optimized" users just use laser. Long range super megawatt lasers just overwhelm everything. Your low velocity short ranged vessels would be exploded in subsecond at 10 times away from your effective range. There's actually a video of the case... |
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Post by gedzilla on Aug 23, 2018 9:48:18 GMT
I think I’m missing something here. From what was mentioned above, the composite layout is designed to protect against low mass, high velocity rounds which would make quick work of metal plate armour, at the expense of being weak to heavier rounds, right? So, as most modern tanks have composite armors, would it not be more effective to use a weapon which can defeat this armour, which as far as I know, means big slugs at low velocities (as the mass and velocities of a round are inversely related for the same amount of propellant)? In-game, I tend to use low velocity weapons because of their heavy rate of fire, capable of bringing capital ships down in seconds due to the weight of fire. This necessitates the use of low velocity conventional guns, as railguns simply lack the rate of fire needed. Is this not standard among other players? This is not standard at all. The stardard round for the majority of used guns is 1g (for me 10g is a HEAVY round, 100g just seems incredibly slow). |
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Post by AtomHeartDragon on Aug 23, 2018 9:58:19 GMT
burningtumbleweed How much delta-v can you squeeze out of your ship at reasonable acceleration? 37cm of AC is going to be disgustingly heavy. Hell, I even consider stock ships' RCC layers disgustingly massive, even though (largely due to RCC fracturing easily) they aren't all that durable. My ships are currently usually covered by a sandwich of sub-cm layers of PBO, AC and boron filament, capped with aerogel stuffed MgAlZn Whipple shield surface hardened with B 4C, TiN and diamond. Of course my ships aren't built to sustain any prolonged barrage (especially easily dodged low velocity rounds) hitting the armour face-on. The most effective part of my armour sloshes about in the propellant tanks. Being able to buy another ship is fine (and no wonder given 5cm of freaking aramid) but you are often capped just as or more effectively on mass you can move around. And, as was already mentioned, armour reacts differently to different forms of damage. Monolithic plate, unless we are speaking of "hollowed out asteroid" kind of thickness, is going to spall - hit it with small multi-km/s pellet on one side, giant cloud of shrapnel erupts from the opposite side and shreds everything in its way. Your armour needs to contend with heavy low velocity rounds, light high velocity rounds, bursts of light rounds (both high and low velocity) hitting the exact same spot in quick succession, low aspect rounds, high aspect rounds, lasers trying to burn narrow channel through, lasers trying to melt large spot, and nukes flashing your armour off. Plus, if you for example concentrate nearly all your armour in a tiny nosecone in which you put your crew and a handful of vital modules, and you also have a fairly big ship with large-is propellant tanks, then armour penetration won't be what kills your crew - spin caused by propellant tank bursting and venting its pressurized contents all at once will. Then you can get mission killed by having your weapons or radiators stripped off. Why do you have a hundred random armor materials mixed together? I use a simpler setup with (out to in) whipple shield, graphogel stuffing, pressure wall and finally a spall liner. That's significantly lighter and more effective than a monolithic plate. And out of curiosity, if that is the case, why not simply arm modern tanks with guns that fire heavy slugs, rather than one that fires APDS rounds? Low velocity, high mass rounds with some guidance on it would easily smash through the armors of modern vehicles, if what you say is true, right? APDS rounds still aren't that fast, the mechanics for penetration aren't that different from slower rounds. The transition to cratering starts happening around 2,500 m/s IIRC. And regardless of that, increasing muzzle velocity increases effective range as well as makes hitting moving targets a lot easier. There's little benefit to using lower muzzle velocities if faster projectiles are an option. High-velocity also decreases recoil for given amount of kinetic energy. Kinetic energy increases with square of velocity, but momentum increases only linearily.
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Post by burningtumbleweed on Aug 23, 2018 10:00:53 GMT
Interesting. Why is 10 g already considered heavy? That’s the mass of a 7.62mm NATO round, and I’m firing them from ship guns. And, yeah, range has always been an issue for me, so I’ve taken to mounting these guns to hundreds of drones.
And are there any tips on how to design armour? I’ve been told earlier that it looks like I applied random materials to it and called it a day.
Well, the armour makes up roughly a quarter of the weight, and reduces my delta v by about 60%, as I use 4500 tons of RP1 as propellant. Other components are negligible in mass.
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 23, 2018 10:04:47 GMT
Interesting. Why is 10 g already considered heavy? That’s the mass of a 7.62mm NATO round, and I’m firing them from ship guns. And, yeah, range has always been an issue for me, so I’ve taken to mounting these guns to hundreds of drones. And are there any tips on how to design armour? I’ve been told earlier that it looks like I applied random materials to it and called it a day. Because of...reasons. First of all, we're in space so no need to hold some momentum to keep piercing through thick air. Second, as mentioned, high speed gives you longer range. Superspeed sand grain fired from 100km away can hit your maybe sub-50km range ship easily while dodging. Do you recall the effective range of 7.62 NATO round? + There are some armor threads but as a noob I don't find they're super useful. Everyone employs different tactics, so their armor scheme differs a lot. There's some rule-of-thumbs, but they wouldn't work well with your doctrine. |
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Post by burningtumbleweed on Aug 23, 2018 10:13:19 GMT
Well, a 7.62mm round flies at roughly 810 m/s (not very fast in space), and the effective range would be determined by the skill of the shooter, and not the ability of the firing computer. I do have a rail gun able to drop rounds at 50 km/s, but I’m not sure if that’s realistic at all (wouldn’t that velocity shred the barrel after a few shots?), and it works, but it takes minutes to disable ships, whereas a low velocity barrage, if it hits, can do it in two seconds. I’m impatient, which doesn’t pay well in space.  |
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Post by anotherfirefox on Aug 23, 2018 10:19:02 GMT
Well, a 7.62mm round flies at roughly 810 m/s (not very fast in space), and the effective range would be determined by the skill of the shooter, and not the ability of the firing computer. I do have a rail gun able to drop rounds at 50 km/s, but I’m not sure if that’s realistic at all (wouldn’t that velocity shred the barrel after a few shots?), and it works, but it takes minutes to disable ships, whereas a low velocity barrage, if it hits, can do it in two seconds. I’m impatient, which doesn’t pay well in space. Yeah, tactics are living thing so every tactics can fit into some certain conditions. However there's some dominance or superiority among them: If your doomfist vessel can get closer enough before broken into pieces, saying, super TWR propulsion makes you incredibly good at dodging or invisible-level stealth, it's a cool one. |
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Post by Fgdfgfthgr on Aug 23, 2018 10:20:47 GMT
The best about monolithic armor is, they require far less calculation when got hit.
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