The Armored Fleet

We’ve talked, in general terms, about ship armor (see, “Armor Compendium”) and have acknowledged that it was a grave mistake to have abandoned armor protection.  We discussed how modern armor should be applied, conceptually (see, “Conceptual Armor forModern Ships”).  Now, let’s get specific and lay out a detailed armor scheme for a modern fleet based on the fleet described in the ‘Fleet Structure’ tab/page listed at the top of the blog.
  
 
General Considerations
 
Armor is not a random characteristic.  It exists for a specific purpose and to counter a specific threat and on today’s naval battlefield that threat is missiles.  Of course, shell/bomb effects would be mitigated as well by whatever armor we apply but those are far less likely threats and do not drive the armor configuration.
 
Each ship class’ armor fit is proof against a specific threat while offering mitigation against all others.  This was true of WWII ship types where, as a general statement, a type’s armor was designed to be proof against the enemy’s corresponding weapons.  Thus, a cruiser was designed to be armored against a cruiser’s weapons, a battleship’s armor was designed to be proof against a battleship’s big guns, and so on.
 
Obviously, there is no direct data available on missile effects against armor so what follows is speculation, however, it is semi-informed speculation as we do have data on heavy, high velocity (supersonic) naval shells versus armor (see, Okun’s writings at the NavWeaps site).  For example, the muzzle velocity of a typical 16” battleship shell was 2500 ft/sec = Mach 2.3 which is, essentially, a supersonic, heavy missile and battleships were armored to be largely immune to those shells.  Another piece of data is the early tests by the Navy using Harpoon(?) missiles against plates of battleship armor and the result was nothing but scratched paint.  From those kinds of data, we can apply a bit of common sense and extrapolate.  So … semi-informed.
 
Armor sets consist of ‘trigger layers’ (used to be called de-capping) to ignite the missile and make it explode outside the main armor and interior compartments.  The trigger layer is applied to the horizontal deck and, differing from WWII design, the vertical hull.
 
Interior to the trigger layer is the main armor which is the ultimate protective layer, encompassing the critical areas of the ship.
 
Transverse bulkheads are part of all ships with the number and thickness appropriate for the class of ship.
 
Void spaces are an integral facet of the overall armor set and offer torpedo resistance, in particular.
 
We won’t consider more advanced armors like reactive, bubble, flexible, spring, composite, slanted, etc. as they do not yet exist in the naval world.  We’ll consider only existing armor which mainly means traditional plate, structural thickness (transverse bulkheads, for example), and supplemental anti-fragmentation (Kevlar).  Kevlar is included in every armor set, as appropriate, but I have no information on thickness or effectiveness so I can’t offer any specifics beyond ‘it’s there’.
 
 
Threats

The table below lists the specific threat types that each armor set is intended to provide immunity against.  Note that ‘immunity’ doesn’t mean that a ship so armored can stand against an infinite number of missile hits with nothing more than scratched paint.  Armor provides theoretical immunity to a specific threat under specific conditions.  Move outside those specific conditions and damage may/will occur.  There may also be secondary damage.  For example, the missile may not penetrate and cause any direct damage but the explosive shock may cause electronics to fail, pipes to burst, electronics to become misaligned, etc.  There are also weak points in any ship, unintended but existing, that may allow unforeseen damage (Hood, Arizona, Bismarck, etc.).  Thus, ‘immunity’ means that the ship has a pretty good chance of avoiding serious damage from the specified threat or, at worst, can greatly mitigate the damage.
 

 Understanding the threats, we can no lay out specific armor sets for each ship type.
 

Obviously, the listed armor thicknesses would not necessarily be uniform.  The hull belt might vary depending on exact location along the length of the hull or the gun mount might vary between top and sides.  The thicknesses are meant to give a sense of the degree of armor rather than being an exact blueprint for construction.

 
Before anyone has a chance to make a fool of themself by claiming that armor will slow the ships down and decrease their range, note that EVERY combat ship in WWII had appropriate armor, 30+ kts speed, and great range.  If you doubt this, look it up.
 
Build a fleet of ships armored as described and we’ll have a fleet that can stand and fight and keep fighting while taking hits.  No navy in the world can currently do that and it would give us an enormous combat advantage. 
 
The next step after this basic armoring is to begin armoring the sensors, as described in many previous posts.  The sensors would be placed in retractable/closing armored cylinders/compartments.
 
This would get us off the path of cruise ships and back on the path of WARships.
 

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Note:  I’ve added this post to the “Armor Compendium” post to keep the compendium complete and up to date.