Haven't read the d20 modern system, so don't know if there is a d20 ruleset that cover colossal super dreadnoughts class battleships like the german Bismark or the japanese Yamato, and don't think UC vehicles rules have been built for such monsters.
I know i can always resort to GURPS vehicles, but takes months to build something like those with that book.
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iirc d20 modern srd doesn't really handle that well, but there are heaps of 3rd party d20 modern books that do.
But something you'll want to answer for yourself is where are you going with it? If you want to run an adventure set on a battleship, it's better treated as a mobile building. If the main batteries are relevant (such as, infiltrate and disable the ship before it gets in range of the coastal base) let the GM powers dictate the plot. Match your plot-imposed deadline to the range of the guns. Let the guns flatten whatever you decide they should be able to.
If you want to run a naval warfare rpg where fleets of ships will blast away at enemy counterparts, you're asking a much bigger question. What you're really doing is stepping into the wargaming arena (there are plenty of possibilities for a WW2 simulation) and adding roleplaying.
Having tried to build mobile fortresses in the past with GURPS Vehicles i know the problems that such a build involves.
Anyway no, i don't need it for a campaign, i simply like to read stats of colossal ships/battleships/spaceships and the likes.
There was a spell jammer d20 supplement that introduced a new size category of awesome sized. Ships like that were 124+ feet long they had in the range of 800 hp with hardness depending on material. there were also some ok space battle rules in that book as well. i believe it was an old issue of dungeon. I believe it was Dungeon Magazine #92.
Oooh. Can't help you there. I don't know of any sources. I know how you could make some (Get D20 Future and reskin the spaceship rules for ocean combat, which actually wouldn't be overly difficult), but not where you could find some premade ones.
I have many books of the Star Wars d20 including Spaceships of the galaxy, i though of trying to adapt that system....but again i should need to have a campaign to play in.
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Haven't read the d20 modern system, so don't know if there is a d20 ruleset that cover colossal super dreadnoughts class battleships like the german Bismark or the japanese Yamato, and don't think UC vehicles rules have been built for such monsters.
I know i can always resort to GURPS vehicles, but takes months to build something like those with that book.
Are you looking for real stats or just want to know what it might be considered in Pathfinder?
Consider the hulls to be adamintine (modern armoring steel alloys are too far ahead of steel in the PHB to be considered the same thing) and work out the DR and HP from there. Main guns deal damage equal to the target's HPx2.
Are you looking for real stats or just want to know what it might be considered in Pathfinder?Consider the hulls to be adamintine (modern armoring steel alloys are too far ahead of steel in the PHB to be considered the same thing) and work out the DR and HP from there. Main guns deal damage equal to the target's HPx2.
I would say stats for a d20 system, i have a lot of documentation about the hystorical, real ships (but would like to read how d20 handles damages for 380-460mm naval batteries,including direct impact, frag and fire damage)
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Well, if you've got the historical data, you can apply the system's hardness and HP guidelines to all the armored structures (belt, turrets, deck, etc.) to get that info.
Damage on a d20 scale would be vary depending on shell type. A single HE or Common 14-inch shell would probably do enough damage to defeat the same amount of deck armoring (i.e. overcome its hardness and wipe out the HP total fairly easily). An AP or APHE shell would be enough to overcome vertical belt or turret hardness, but it usually took a few direct hits to punch through.
So, if you wanted actual numbers, deck armor of the Bismarck was 50mm or hardened steel (about 2 inches), meaning a hardness of 20 and 80 HP. A common shell would have to do a minimum of 100 points of damage and have a high crit range to reflect their tendancy to cause critical explosion damage.
The Bismarck's belt armor was 320mm (12.5 inches) of KC n/a (Special Krupp alloy), probably a bit harder than fantasy adamantine, so that works out to hardness fo 25 and 500 HP. That means an AP shell has to do a minimum of 25, but a max of somewhere near 525 in a single blow to reflect a round that does penetrate completely.
The problem with d20 rules is that it doesn't reflect ablative armor very well.
Well, if you've got the historical data, you can apply the system's hardness and HP guidelines to all the armored structures (belt, turrets, deck, etc.) to get that info.
Damage on a d20 scale would be vary depending on shell type. A single HE or Common 14-inch shell would probably do enough damage to defeat the same amount of deck armoring (i.e. overcome its hardness and wipe out the HP total fairly easily). An AP or APHE shell would be enough to overcome vertical belt or turret hardness, but it usually took a few direct hits to punch through.
So, if you wanted actual numbers, deck armor of the Bismarck was 50mm or hardened steel (about 2 inches), meaning a hardness of 20 and 80 HP. A common shell would have to do a minimum of 100 points of damage and have a high crit range to reflect their tendancy to cause critical explosion damage.
The Bismarck's belt armor was 320mm (12.5 inches) of KC n/a (Special Krupp alloy), probably a bit harder than fantasy adamantine, so that works out to hardness fo 25 and 500 HP. That means an AP shell has to do a minimum of 25, but a max of somewhere near 525 in a single blow to reflect a round that does penetrate completely.
The problem with d20 rules is that it doesn't reflect ablative armor very well.
You are right, my only concern is that those info seems to be taken from tech building books like GURPS Vehicles, and it takes quite the time to build a mobile fortress like the Bismarck.
I can always only use formula to calculate the damage for the 380mm guns( usually loaded with HE shells ) and use that amount to extrapolate the average DR of armor.
After all the Bismarck sank another super dreadnought with just a single barrage of one of its main turrets ( the british Hood )
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Actually the Hood was just a battle cruiser and she was hit between the stacks in a known thin armor place that then blow up ammo storage I beleve. The Brits had planned on fixing the issue but never go the chance as she was their flagship and was always somewhere in the world showing the flag.
For D20 you might want to come up with some kind of critical hits system for ships which could reflect this. It has happened more times than this (see British Battlecruisers at Jutland).
Actually the Hood was just a battle cruiser and she was hit between the stacks in a known thin armor place that then blow up ammo storage I beleve. The Brits had planned on fixing the issue but never go the chance as she was their flagship and was always somewhere in the world showing the flag.
For D20 you might want to come up with some kind of critical hits system for ships which could reflect this. It has happened more times than this (see British Battlecruisers at Jutland).
From the data i have, the Hood had just been upgraded to withstand the more powerful dreadnoughts that were being produced.
Yes, you are right that it wasn't really able to face the Bismarck just for that, and yes, she was hit in an ammo storage room.But the Hoos was sailing togheter with the Prince of Wales (which fired as well) while the Prinze Eugen that was escorting the Bismarck stayed out of the fight , at least this is what i found (my data is based on old WW2 history books, but when i lately checked on the wiki the info were more or less the same)
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From Wikipedia
"When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Hood was officially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until she had to return to England in 1939 for an overhaul. At this point in her service, Hood's usefulness had deteriorated because of advances in naval gunnery. She was scheduled to undergo a major rebuild in 1941 to correct these issues, but the outbreak of World War II forced the ship into service without the upgrades"
So it looks like she got a bit of an upgrade but not everything planned. At one point I saw some thought that it was actually the Prinze Eugen that had destroyed her as it had to be plunging fire to have hit there and that the Bizmark was too close but I haven't seen anything on that theory in several years. All in all the Prinze Eugen probably fired but stayed out of the way as she was only a heavy cruiser with 8" guns vs the 15" guns of the other three.
Now i would like to see the effects of the 460mm guns of the two units Yamato and Musashi :) which btw were slightly more armored and armed than the Bismarck, but a bit slower.
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I think the only battleships that would have had a chance against the Japanese ships were the American Iowa class BBs. 16" guns vs 18.1" guns
The US ships were about 4 knots faster with the Japanese better armored.
But On the other hand the Musashi was drive off by some destroyers/destroyer escorts and planes armed for ground support and anti-submarine duty (Battle of Leyte gulf, if you haven't read about it you should it's amazing).
It's not d20, but I found this page comparing battleships interesting.
I think the only battleships that would have had a chance against the Japanese ships were the American Iowa class BBs. 16" guns vs 18.1" guns
The US ships were about 4 knots faster with the Japanese better armored.But On the other hand the Musashi was drive off by some destroyers/destroyer escorts and planes armed for ground support and anti-submarine duty (Battle of Leyte gulf, if you haven't read about it you should it's amazing).
I know that battle, and there are some nice scene depicting it in the movie "Otoko Tachi no Yamato" (The crewmen of the Yamato) pity it hasn't been dubbed for the western market.
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You are right, my only concern is that those info seems to be taken from tech building books like GURPS Vehicles, and it takes quite the time to build a mobile fortress like the Bismarck.
I can always only use formula to calculate the damage for the 380mm guns
( usually loaded with HE shells ) and use that amount to extrapolate the average DR of armor.
I think you just answered your own question. D20 handles ship combat like a baby would handle a sledgehammer; poorly. It doesn't handle hit locations, degrees of armor penetration (for instance, does the shell penetrate? if so, does it go in and detonate insite the hull or pass completely through the other side?), crew-sided actions such as fire control or damage control, etc.
There are entire game systems that devote themselves to this topic, so transferring to pathfinder/d20 is almost pointless. If I were to handle ship-to-ship combat in an RPG, I would probably take a simple naval game (Wooden ships and Iron men is a good one) and play the ship combat out using a whole other system.
After talking about it for some days, i wanted to try and did a bit of calculations with GURPS Vehicles 3rd ed about big caliber guns of the 1939-1943 period.
Not going to list extesive GURPS rules for vehicle combat, explosions, armor slope ecc.ecc. just showing what i got.
Using as an extreme example the Yamato main guns (460mm) the book's formulas gave a gun with a damage output of 6d6x760 explosive plus 12d6 of fragmentation for each HE shell.
At a medium damage of (6d6x760=3,5x760=2660) it is likely that no armor can withstand such a blow, so it is pointless for me to calculate various degrees of armor DR for various ship locations.