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The belt armor is designed to prevent projectiles from penetrating to the heart of a warship. When struck by an artillery shell or underwater torpedo , the belt armor either absorbs the impact and explosion with its sheer thickness and strength, or else uses sloping to redirect the projectile and its blast downwards.
Naval armor refers to the various protections schemes employed by warships. The first ironclad warship was created in 1859, and the pace of armour advancement accelerated quickly thereafter. The emergence of battleships around the turn of the 20th century saw ships become increasingly large and well armoured.
The belt armor (A) is on the exterior, at the waterline. Also indicated is the main deck (B), the sloping deck armor (C), and the torpedo bulkhead (D). A torpedo bulkhead is a type of naval armor common on the more heavily armored warships , especially battleships and battlecruisers of the early 20th century.
Homogeneous armour was typically used for deck armour, which is subject to more high-obliquity impacts and, on some warships such as Yamato class and Iowa class battleships, for lower belt armour below the waterline to protect against shells that land short and dive underwater.
Traditionally, a warship's armor system was designed both separately from, and after, the design layout. The design and location of various component subsystems (propulsion, steering, fuel storage and management, communications, range-finding, etc.) were laid out and designed in a manner that presented the most efficient and economical utilization of the hull's displacement.
Armored warships (dreadnought battleships, armored cruisers and later light and heavy cruisers) of the early 20th century carried their main protective armor above the waterline – the "main belt" – which was intended to stop flat-trajectory gunfire from piercing the hull. Below the belt, the armor generally tapered away, to reduce overall ...
The placement of the belt armor was based on the draft from the design, which was 24 feet (7.3 m) with a normal load of 400 long tons (406 t; 448 short tons) of coal on board. Her total coal storage capacity was 1,600 long tons (1,626 t; 1,792 short tons), and fully loaded her draft would increase to 27 feet (8.2 m), entirely submerging the ...
The ships' main armor deck was 3.8 cm (1.5 in) thick in the central citadel, and the sides of the deck sloped downward to connect to the bottom edge of the belt. The sloped portion increased in thickness to 5.8 cm (2.3 in), and the resulting compartment created was used as a coal bunker, which would provide additional protection for the ships ...