How Fritz X attacked battleship deck armor

Did Fritz X avoid armor, or did air launch give it greater penetrating power?

Its steep attack made deck armor vulnerable, and the depth reached before detonation shaped the damage.

Fritz X approached armor from a different geometry than a conventional battleship shell. Its steep descent challenged deck protection designed principally around oblique shell trajectories, while the deck thickness also influenced where the weapon detonated after penetration. A very thin deck could let the weapon pass through before its explosion did maximum damage, whereas enough resistance could leave it detonating inside valuable spaces. Warspite and an Italian Littorio-class battleship illustrate how those different damage paths produced very different outcomes.