Naval Historywith Dr. Alex

Q&A · 1:11:20-1:12:14

What armour is needed against 8-inch gunfire?

Defeating 8-inch shells requires a cruiser-scale protection scheme rather than one nominal plate thickness.

8-inch GunsCruisersNaval ArmourShip Design
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Question

How much armour would a warship need to be protected against 8-inch guns?

Short answer

Roughly seven to eight inches on the belt and two to three inches on deck is a starting point, but range, shell, angle, and protection layout remain decisive.

Notes

A rough starting point is seven to eight inches of belt armour and two to three inches of deck protection. The required thickness still changes with range, shell design, striking angle, and the parts of the ship that must be protected. A belt sized for direct fire does not solve plunging fire or protect every opening and structural transition. The useful design lesson is therefore to treat armour as a distributed system rather than a single headline number.