Composit Construction.

Wood takes compression well, but tears in tension, when hit by a shell it defects in causing tension in the inward part of the wood, failing and producing splinters. So what if there were two layers of iron or steel with the wood as a core. A sandwich with steel being the bread and wood the meat. IIRC such a sandwich was tried in some early ironclads but I'm far from an expert on this, so comments desired.

Basically, it's not a good idea. The reisitance of multi-layered armor is always less than of solid of same thickness.

The sandwich armor was a wrong solution, generally seemed as attempt to find some compromise between the steel plates - which was strong, but prone to cracking - and wrought iron plates - which crakced less, but also have a much less resistance. The two-layered armor, in theory, provided some solution.

Eventually, this kind of armor proved to be a complete dead end, and the compound iron-steel armor was used instead.

The main disadvantage of this kind of armor is the enormous weight. This was possible in late 1870s - when the main idea was to protect the ship most vital parts from the enormous 13"-18" rifles, that appeared in this time as main anti-ironclad armament. Because this giant guns have a VERY long reload - about 10-15 minutes, usually - and the HE shells wasn't invented yet, they, basically, represented a threat only if they managed to hit some vital part of the ship. So, in 1870 all the protection that ironclad really needed is the protection for her machines, boilers and guns (and the armored deck to protect against plunging hits). The HMS "Inflexible", with her enormous sandwich armor about a meter thick (!!!) have a very short belt, that protected only a central part with the machines and guns.

I really doubt that Destroyermen's or Kurokawa would made this mistake. They may hit a problem with high-grade steel armor - that need a lot of additional industry to produce - but they probably would use the iron-steel compound instead.

P.S. Hovewer, the Dom's may make that mistake - they have no real experience with armored warhips.

And probably have more wood than steel for ship construction.

And probably have more wood than steel for ship construction.

Yes, actually. The Alliance and Griks used wood only because they are forced to: they have no real experience with iron hulls (and the Alliance haven't got a lot of iron until recently), and they need ships now - even if their ships aren't good. But the Dom's have neither experience, nor understanding, and - seems like they haven't got too may iron also.