Izumo turret layout

[VC381]

I don't play this ship and don't really have an intention to grind for it but I'm curious about the turret layout. Why did WG decide to have the third turret facing backwards when every sketch and concept art of the A140 design that she is presumably based on has all three turrets pointing forward?

[Shapemaker]

I don't play this ship and don't really have an intention to grind for it but I'm curious about the turret layout. Why did WG decide to have the third turret facing backwards when every sketch and concept art of the A140 design that she is presumably based on has all three turrets pointing forward?

 

I would hazard a guess that it'd be "too powerful" for tier 9 if all turret rotations were in sync.

[Poster_2015]

​

As you can see not every sketch, the D is pretty obvious.

[Elenortirion]

because at some point some "genius" japanese engineer decided that a "pyramid" turret layout is a good thing.....

 

I don;t remember which exacly design was izumo modeled after but considering WG I'd guess that this design indeed was intended to have pyramid turret layout on the front....

 

[but then I gain I still wonder what the guy who invented that turret layout was smoking to think that it'd be anyhow good thing.....]

[Poster_2015]

The thing is, the pyramid turret layout was not stupid. You can argue if it was a good one, but reality is not this game, and that turret layout has multiple advantages.

 

- By putting all the turrets in the front, you shorten the citadel area considerably making huge savings on armor. It means you can put bigger guns, more of them or add speed. That was used on a few notable BBs (and given that there was maybe 150 total dreadnought battleships constructed thats not that few), like Nelson/Rodney or Richelieu. 

 

- Pyramid layout is necessary if you want 9 guns thus 3 turrets. 3 superfiring turrets just wont work on a BB (too much weight at too much height), and making 3rd turret fire forward removes a lot of advantages of shorter ship. Condensing guns into quad or quintuple turrets is on other hand very bad for dispersion, and makes a lot of firepower easy to lose to one shell - thats why 5gun turrets never left drawing boards, and 4 gun turrets had a lot of problems among them.

 

- The whole "deadzone" problem thats so bad in this game, actually was not that huge deal IRL. The ships were MUCH slower, so the turrets were very fast compared to the ship rotation/movement even on BBs. Izumo manages to go easily 300km/h in the game - yes the speed is THAT inflated to give the game more action . Also the angling that came to WoWs from WoT, was a lot less important IRL - shell overmatching and normalization was better, and the accuracy suffered most in the distance part - most misses were "too close" or "too far" shots - meaning that accuracy vs broadside or head on ship while different wasnt that much different as in game. 

[VC381]

 

I would hazard a guess that it'd be "too powerful" for tier 9 if all turret rotations were in sync.

 

Why though? It would not be able to fire that turret forwards either way. It might be stronger if it can get all 9 guns from port to starboard across the bow quicker but it would be even more screwed if something was behind it.

 

because at some point some "genius" japanese engineer decided that a "pyramid" turret layout is a good thing.....

 

I don;t remember which exacly design was izumo modeled after but considering WG I'd guess that this design indeed was intended to have pyramid turret layout on the front....

 

[but then I gain I still wonder what the guy who invented that turret layout was smoking to think that it'd be anyhow good thing.....]

 

I don't know what WG call it, but I'm going with this:

 

 

 

[mr3awsome]

I don;t remember which exacly design was izumo modeled after 

A140 J2

[Unintentional_submarine]

I'm pretty certain that a dev or other WG representative mentioned that they wanted Izumo to be different from the Nelson class.

Now, you can argue that it was a pretty vain and foolish position to take, but here we are. It should be noted that Izumo can point two turrets at a very extreme angle backwards. Not exactly evening out the poor forward firepower or the lack of any firepower directly rearwards, but it is a small compensation, and one that wouldn't have been possible with a more usual 2-1 setup (the reason B turret can point so far backwards is because it is so far from the superstructure).

[Jormungandr603]

Having this turret layout can give you some useful firing position without showing all your ship to an enemy.

 

Like the Myoko and the Atago ( and maybe the Tone). Instead of using 2 turret, you can use all your turret for more firepower.

 

If you are a Yamato (or Iowa and Montana) and you want use all your guns for full broadside, you will need showing all your ship to an enemy (very good to catch some citadel hit).

 

 

[lobsterden]

the D hull would have been better Izumo to be honest. tho the current Izumo isn't that bad.... if the main guns stays alive from the first salvo...

Yamato with the H-hull or the C-Hull would have been nice counter for the Montana... more guns more booms = more fun 

[Elenortirion]

The thing is, the pyramid turret layout was not stupid. You can argue if it was a good one, but reality is not this game, and that turret layout has multiple advantages.

 

- By putting all the turrets in the front, you shorten the citadel area considerably making huge savings on armor. It means you can put bigger guns, more of them or add speed. That was used on a few notable BBs (and given that there was maybe 150 total dreadnought battleships constructed thats not that few), like Nelson/Rodney or Richelieu. 

 

- Pyramid layout is necessary if you want 9 guns thus 3 turrets. 3 superfiring turrets just wont work on a BB (too much weight at too much height), and making 3rd turret fire forward removes a lot of advantages of shorter ship. Condensing guns into quad or quintuple turrets is on other hand very bad for dispersion, and makes a lot of firepower easy to lose to one shell - thats why 5gun turrets never left drawing boards, and 4 gun turrets had a lot of problems among them.

 

- The whole "deadzone" problem thats so bad in this game, actually was not that huge deal IRL. The ships were MUCH slower, so the turrets were very fast compared to the ship rotation/movement even on BBs. Izumo manages to go easily 300km/h in the game - yes the speed is THAT inflated to give the game more action . Also the angling that came to WoWs from WoT, was a lot less important IRL - shell overmatching and normalization was better, and the accuracy suffered most in the distance part - most misses were "too close" or "too far" shots - meaning that accuracy vs broadside or head on ship while different wasnt that much different as in game. 

 

well I don't say that grouping turrets was that bad Idea in itself - I mean more like having third turret facing backward on "default position" was rather weird decision to make giving it worse firing angles than if the same turret was places slightly further behind but by default facing forward - not to mention removing the risk of someone accidentally firing that turret into your own superstructure

 

also pretty much all cruisers that actually fielded such a layout have mayor issues of being top heavy, which brings the question if such a solution is really better than for example layout you can see on WoWs version of Mogami cruiser [Mogami as an upgrade from myoko-atago cruisers as a design had that one advantage to its precedessors that its top-heavyness was not as big thing as for atago-myoko classes]

[lobsterden]

I don't play this ship and don't really have an intention to grind for it but I'm curious about the turret layout. Why did WG decide to have the third turret facing backwards when every sketch and concept art of the A140 design that she is presumably based on has all three turrets pointing forward?

 

 

I would hazard a guess that it'd be "too powerful" for tier 9 if all turret rotations were in sync.

 

Iowa players would have cried a river if IJN would have had decent tier9 or 10 ship.. they cried of the Zao => it got nerfed, they cried of the IJN DDs in average => got nerfed. they cried of the plane set up on IJN CV => they lost one squad of planes from tier 7 to 10. They cried of the range and accuracy IJN BBs had => it got nerfed as well. So yeah anything USN player says OP is nerfed but if IJN player says it's OP NO FIXES WHAT SO EVER

[lobsterden]

 

well I don't say that grouping turrets was that bad Idea in itself - I mean more like having third turret facing backward on "default position" was rather weird decision to make giving it worse firing angles than if the same turret was places slightly further behind but by default facing forward - not to mention removing the risk of someone accidentally firing that turret into your own superstructure

 

also pretty much all cruisers that actually fielded such a layout have mayor issues of being top heavy, which brings the question if such a solution is really better than for example layout you can see on WoWs version of Mogami cruiser [Mogami as an upgrade from myoko-atago cruisers as a design had that one advantage to its precedessors that its top-heavyness was not as big thing as for atago-myoko classes]

 

Basicly they learned how to balance the ship and prevent it from capsizing.... hence the lay out.

Takao- class and Myoko-class were prone to capsize.

PS Atago isn't a class it's Takao-class WG screwed with the Atago-class thing. No such class existed, Atago is a Takao-class heavy cruiser

[Elenortirion]

 

Basicly they learned how to balance the ship and prevent it from capsizing.... hence the lay out.

Takao- class and Myoko-class were prone to capsize.

PS Atago isn't a class it's Takao-class WG screwed with the Atago-class thing. No such class existed, Atago is a Takao-class heavy cruiser

 

thx for straightening up indeed the class name was takao indeed

and then the only warship with pyramid layout that I haven't heard of being top heavy and prone to capsizing that exists in WoWs would be the Izumo class

 

and correct me if I'm wrong isn't izumo in WoWs based on never actually build battleship design?

 

point of mine stays - japanese concept of pyramid turret layout with their implementation was weird idea that was not working all that well.....

[Historynerd]

The thing is, the pyramid turret layout was not stupid. You can argue if it was a good one, but reality is not this game, and that turret layout has multiple advantages.

 

- By putting all the turrets in the front, you shorten the citadel area considerably making huge savings on armor. It means you can put bigger guns, more of them or add speed. That was used on a few notable BBs (and given that there was maybe 150 total dreadnought battleships constructed thats not that few), like Nelson/Rodney or Richelieu. 

 

- Pyramid layout is necessary if you want 9 guns thus 3 turrets. 3 superfiring turrets just wont work on a BB (too much weight at too much height), and making 3rd turret fire forward removes a lot of advantages of shorter ship. Condensing guns into quad or quintuple turrets is on other hand very bad for dispersion, and makes a lot of firepower easy to lose to one shell - thats why 5gun turrets never left drawing boards, and 4 gun turrets had a lot of problems among them.

 

- The whole "deadzone" problem thats so bad in this game, actually was not that huge deal IRL. The ships were MUCH slower, so the turrets were very fast compared to the ship rotation/movement even on BBs. Izumo manages to go easily 300km/h in the game - yes the speed is THAT inflated to give the game more action . Also the angling that came to WoWs from WoT, was a lot less important IRL - shell overmatching and normalization was better, and the accuracy suffered most in the distance part - most misses were "too close" or "too far" shots - meaning that accuracy vs broadside or head on ship while different wasnt that much different as in game. 

 

That is true, but on the other hand with such designs you lose something in other areas, it's not a win-win situation; take the Nelson-class, on which this layout was chosen because of the need to keep the displacement down and still fit a powerful armament. Results were not exactly encouraging (although not total failures, of course): you got a ship with a main armament that gave a lot of trouble (although they were the first RN battleships with triple turrets, and the first turrets such as these created issues to everyone), an armor layout that give me a few doubts (for example, the belt seems a bit too short to cover up a lot of space, compared to other designs, and the long and unprotected bow section might have been a nightmare in case of torpedo attacks).

The Dunkerque- and Richelieu-classes are much better examples on what can be achieved with such a design, in my opinion.

[VC381]

Guys, nobody is talking about having the third turret superfiring and all guns being able to fire directly forward. The question is purely about orientation, which makes no difference to stability. It's only about being able to train all guns across the bow to quickly change from one side to another with all guns together (something that was basically never needed IRL) but still Nelson had all turrets "parked" forward as did many of the A140 designs except WG decided to find and implement the one that didn't.

[mr3awsome]

PS Atago isn't a class it's Takao-class WG screwed with the Atago-class thing. No such class existed, Atago is a Takao-class heavy cruiser

In multiple pieces of literature its referred to as the Atago class. 

[VC381]

In multiple pieces of literature its referred to as the Atago class. 

 

Also WG didn't screw anything up because it's a premium ship, which don't carry the class name. But yes, class names are sometimes ambiguous, this isn't the only example and really it doesn't matter as long as people know what you're talking about.

[BuccaneerBill]

 

That is true, but on the other hand with such designs you lose something in other areas, it's not a win-win situation; take the Nelson-class, on which this layout was chosen because of the need to keep the displacement down and still fit a powerful armament. Results were not exactly encouraging (although not total failures, of course): you got a ship with a main armament that gave a lot of trouble (although they were the first RN battleships with triple turrets, and the first turrets such as these created issues to everyone), an armor layout that give me a few doubts (for example, the belt seems a bit too short to cover up a lot of space, compared to other designs, and the long and unprotected bow section might have been a nightmare in case of torpedo attacks).

The Dunkerque- and Richelieu-classes are much better examples on what can be achieved with such a design, in my opinion.

 

Well the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes are much later designs, may as well call Dreadnought a bad design because ships 10-15 years later were better? Besides the Nelson class was battle tested and proved a capable weapons platform against Bismarck, were the French, which also had noted problems? Dunkerque was more like a battle cruiser anyway, not really comparable. 

[_Flyto_]

Guys, nobody is talking about having the third turret superfiring and all guns being able to fire directly forward. The question is purely about orientation, which makes no difference to stability. It's only about being able to train all guns across the bow to quickly change from one side to another with all guns together (something that was basically never needed IRL) but still Nelson had all turrets "parked" forward as did many of the A140 designs except WG decided to find and implement the one that didn't.

 

Well, mostly true, but giving C turret a forward arc would require moving it aft a little, which would lengthen the armoured area required for barbettes / magazines / etc. - so perhpas having it aft-facing is a weight saving.

On the other hand, if considered as a single armoured zone from A turret to engine rooms, then that orientation makes no difference to the required length. I don't know enough about the armour scheme on these ships to know whether it's a material factor.

[Historynerd]

Well the Dunkerque and Richelieu classes are much later designs, may as well call Dreadnought a bad design because ships 10-15 years later were better? Besides the Nelson class was battle tested and proved a capable weapons platform against Bismarck, were the French? Dunkerque was more like a battle cruiser anyway, not really comparable.

 

That is true, but both the Dunkerque and the Richelieu had their armament in quadruple turrets, a layout even more troublesome than the triple turrets on the Nelson.

 

I can concede the point about a "capable weapons platform", but "battle tested" seems a bit too much, compared to ships that had much heavier and challenging engagements (say the South Dakota and the Washington, or even the Duke of York); the Bismarck was far from its ideal shape by the time its last battle began, the relativity of forces was heavily against it, and her firepower was gradually reduced and hampered until it ceased after forty minutes of fire, after which the British ships kept shooting for fifty minutes more. The Rodney did well, but it had relatively little to fear.

Other happenings instead point to what might be weaknesses of their design. For example, when Nelson was torpedoed by an Italian torpedo-bomber, her long and unprotected bow suffered a degree of damage and flooding that raise doubts about the convenience of leaving too large of a ship's length unprotected against such offences; and the fact that it took a rather long time (from October 1941 to May 1942) for the Nelson to be fully repaired only deepens my doubts at the practicity of such layout.

 

The Dunkerque-class was more apt at fighting the German panzerschiffe and the Scharnhorst-class than at slugging it out with more orthodox (and armed) battleships, I fully concede that. However, their design proved instrumental in designing the Richelieu.

 

As for battle testing, given that few were the battles between battleships throughout the conflict, I'm afraid that the Richelieu-class cannot claim any (exclusing the engagement at Casablanca, which again is not very significant, both because of the staticity and incomplete status of the Jean Bart, and both because a fight against battleships such as the Massachusetts were not predicted by the designers). But I've already said why I don't consider the Nelson "battle tested", either; not more battle tested than were, in regards to surface engagements, the American battleships that fought at Surigao Strait.

[nieon]

 

That is true, but on the other hand with such designs you lose something in other areas, it's not a win-win situation; take the Nelson-class, on which this layout was chosen because of the need to keep the displacement down and still fit a powerful armament. Results were not exactly encouraging (although not total failures, of course): you got a ship with a main armament that gave a lot of trouble (although they were the first RN battleships with triple turrets, and the first turrets such as these created issues to everyone), an armor layout that give me a few doubts (for example, the belt seems a bit too short to cover up a lot of space, compared to other designs, and the long and unprotected bow section might have been a nightmare in case of torpedo attacks).

The Dunkerque- and Richelieu-classes are much better examples on what can be achieved with such a design, in my opinion.

 

Point is, it wasnt as stupid as :

 

because at some point some "genius" japanese engineer decided that a "pyramid" turret layout is a good thing..... 

 

I don;t remember which exacly design was izumo modeled after but considering WG I'd guess that this design indeed was intended to have pyramid turret layout on the front....

 

[but then I gain I still wonder what the guy who invented that turret layout was smoking to think that it'd be anyhow good thing.....]

 

 

said.

 

Guys, nobody is talking about having the third turret superfiring and all guns being able to fire directly forward. The question is purely about orientation, which makes no difference to stability. It's only about being able to train all guns across the bow to quickly change from one side to another with all guns together (something that was basically never needed IRL) but still Nelson had all turrets "parked" forward as did many of the A140 designs except WG decided to find and implement the one that didn't.

 

And Nelson can be very well the reason for the turret layout. They didnt want to copy it in Izumo, and Nelson as a *real* BB was pretty much fixed in stone

[Historynerd]

 

I think you missed my point, I wasnt presenting the turret layout as somewhat superior or even as good. I was merely replying to 

 

and stating that it wasnt as stupid as he presented it. 

I think the fact that it wasnt really repeated after Nelson, speaks a lot about the concept - it probably just wasnt as good. Although to be fair, I think it was more of a priority change. Speed became more and more important to battleships as well seen on the example of Iowa. If you want a really fast battleship it has to be very long, and has huge citadel protecting the machinery already making it easier to fit the rear turret. 

 

 

And Nelson can be very well the reason for the turret layout. They didnt want to copy it in Izumo, and Nelson as a *real* BB was pretty much fixed in stone

 

I wasn't replying to your post, as I was merely pointing out the fact that this arrangement was chosen because it allowed to keep displacement down, both in the pyramid (Nelson and the Izumo design, probably), and in the dual quad-turret layout (the French ships).

I know it was a case of faute de mieux, have considerable firepower and protection (and, in the French ship's case, speed, given that this was no priority for the Nelson) while keeping the weight as low as possible.

 

I was just pointing out that, part because of the displacement constraints (all ships have those, but on some they prove to be a true pain in the butt) and part because of design decision that I can't figure very well (although I guess there must be some explanations for those, and very logical ones), the Nelson wasn't exactly a pinnacle of design brilliance, as it layout was more influenced by political considerations than a determinate design mentality.

[WhoCares01]

What I don't like about the Izumo turrets is the high mounting of the two forward turrets, resulting in the high barbettes. Especially when I compare it with the rear turrets of the Amagi.

As a result of the elevated first turret, the second turret has to be elevated even more, resulting in more "citadel" area for no real benefit.

 

I actually seem to remember that I read about something like this in the design phase of a different BB, can't remember which. There, the discussion was about elevating the turrets to be able to engage close range target over the bow - in the end the designers decided against it to save weight. I would imagine for an all-front turrets design like the Izumo the balance/weight question would be particularly critical...

 

The way it is today, I lose a front turret in almost every battle, and I assume this implementation is the main reason for it...

[RUSSIANBlAS]

I only played 43 games in the Izumo before I sold it to save for the Yam but I didn't recall losing turrets being a huge issue. I know others have huge turret issues, I think one guy said he lost all 3 in a game once! 

 

My biggest issues with it were its bad concealment, slow speed, poor manoeuvrability and it's seemingly permanent BBQ on it's flat wooden decks. Would have just grinded the Amagi twice over if I had the choice