http://www.geocities.com/pentapod2300/nam2/hullhits.htm
The hull section was the most confusing section in the NAM book. Eleven years ago, it took me a few tries to get my first designs right ( basically I had to first recreate both the Kennedy and the small craft examples to check my spreadsheets/formulas).
Here are the formulas from GDW's ( now FFE's) NAM restated
in a clearer manner.
Material Volume is abbreviated ( MV).
"/" means division, and "*" means multiplication.
Unarmored/armored volume is the volume of the ship's skin, NOT the
total interior volume of the hull's shape.
It is either an unarmored hull or an armored hull. You do not layer the armor part on top of the unarmored hull ( the Punyuang example demonstrates that it is NOT layered).
If your ship is unarmored ( There are NO unarmored Advanced Composite hulls, see below), then use just this pair of formulas:
If your ship is armored, then use just this pair of formulas:
Advanced Composite hulls: These equations also mean that hulls of this type have an automatic Armor Level of 1 ( The Kennedy properly should have armor level 1 because of this fact). The minimum safe hull thickness using Advanced Composite materials is the same amount that is needed for level 1 armor protection, so only use the armored ship pair of formulas.
Remember you either use EITHER the unarmored OR armored pair of formulas,
but NOT both pairs.
The hull hit points formula simplifies down to the following: