Tertiary armament

[Deleted]

Imagine this: you are designing a ship (one that can have tertiary armament), and you change 14x casemate gun into 14x single mount. What exactly is the difference? Is there even a difference if I put it into double, triple or quad mount?

[wlbjork]

Deck height for the most part. Turrets - as well as unarmoured pedestal mounts - are mounted above the main deck, giving a greater angle of fire, as well as increasing the elevation the weapons can be trained at

[garrisonchisholm]

Physically the amount of work done to the ship as far as the guns wouldn't have to be that major- "plate over" the ports, bolt the guns to the deck with at best a light shield. The work would come as far as the ammo feed system. You would need ready-use lockers on deck, and the crews would prefer hoists be installed I'm sure. I'm not entirely sure the players pay the full price of such relocation.

[marauder]

Feb 22, 2020 17:16:25 GMT -6 @pavelsvt said:

...you change 14x casemate gun into 14x single mount. What exactly is the difference?

Assuming tertiaries work the same way secondaries do, it should reduce the effects that bad weather and rough seas have on combat performance, as well as protect the guns from being disabled by heavy flooding. Putting them in deck-mounted turrets also reduces deck space, limiting the amount of AA guns and directors you can fit on the ship.

Is there even a difference if I put it into double, triple or quad mount?

Putting them into multi-gun mounts decreases the amount of deck space they use up, allowing you to put on more AA. Also, once again assuming tertiaries work the same way secondaries do, the mounts will be split between both sides of the ship in pairs of two. Any leftover mounts are assumed to be on the centerline, allowing them to fire to both sides.

So if you put your 14 guns into double mounts, you'd have 3x2 guns on starboard and port, as well as 1x2 sitting on the centerline for an effective broadside of 8 guns, as opposed to the 7 gun broadside you'd get with single mounts.

I'd also imagine that multi-gun mounts lose barrels much faster when splinters and shells strike the deck/hull, due to multiple barrels sharing the same position.

[aeson]

Within the game, casemated guns are more severely affected by rough seas than deck mounts, but deck mounts consume AA positions (with single mounts consuming more AA positions than twin mounts, twin mounts consuming more AA positions than triple mounts, and triple mounts consuming more AA positions than quad mounts).

Realistically speaking, a casemated gun would probably also offer the gun crew a greater degree of protection than an open deck mount would, because a casemate is at least more or less fully enclosed within a steel box even if it is not, properly speaking, armored, but I don't know if that's modeled within the game and as long as it's not actually protected by proper armor the real protection would likely not be that significant anyways. Unprotected multi-gun deck mounts could also increase the potential severity of damage since concentrating the guns allows more of them to be knocked out at a blow, but on the other hand that's somewhat offset by the fact that concentrating the guns also makes it less likely for a gun position to be threatened by any given hit. Again, I don't know if or to what extent the game models that.

Another advantage that multi-gun mounts would have in reality - but which almost certainly isn't modeled in the game - is that concentrating the guns into a smaller area simplifies the ammunition supply problem. If I have 14 guns in 14 different places scattered along the length of the ship, I need to be able to get ammunition to fourteen different points of the ship reasonably rapidly; if those same fourteen guns are in just seven positions, I only need to get ammunition to seven different places quickly. The lower number of gun positions might also allow for the mean length of the ammunition supply route to be shortened or make dedicated magazines and hoists for each gun position more practical, which could affect crew requirements and sustainable rates of fire.

[13th Fleet]

By the time AA is relevant any tertiary guns mounted will almost certainly be DP guns anyway, so them taking up AA positions is less important because they are AA. This also limits your mounting options since DP guns are limited to single and twin mounts, and the twin mounts come a good while later. 

For ships in the pre-dreadnought era, I almost always use turrets for my tertiary weapons because there really doesn't seem to be any reason not to. They're small enough to not have any apparent RoF penalties, I don't need to worry about AA deck space, they work better in bad weather, I'm pretty sure tertiary casemates are just as unarmored, and they don't have any weight difference.

[Fredrik W]

Tertiary guns can be destroyed by superstructure hits. Tertiary guns in casemates are sligthly less likely to be destroyed, as they are aassumed to be somewhat better protected from blast and splinter damage, even if not armored.

[seawolf]

Feb 25, 2020 11:14:33 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

Tertiary guns can be destroyed by superstructure hits. Tertiary guns in casemates are sligthly less likely to be destroyed, as they are aassumed to be somewhat better protected from blast and splinter damage, even if not armored.

Can 6 inch tertiary guns flash fire?

[cabusha]

Feb 26, 2020 18:32:25 GMT -6 seawolf said:

Feb 25, 2020 11:14:33 GMT -6 Fredrik W said:

Tertiary guns can be destroyed by superstructure hits. Tertiary guns in casemates are sligthly less likely to be destroyed, as they are aassumed to be somewhat better protected from blast and splinter damage, even if not armored.

Can 6 inch tertiary guns flash fire?

Not that I'm aware of.  6" guns and below are classified as "small" which don't blow.  7", OTOH, is the break point which can flash.  That said, I've never actually placed 6" guns in the Tertiary role.  

*EDIT:  I believe the one exception to 6" flash fires may be if they are used as the primary armament.  I believe I have seen 6" primary CLs flash, but am not 100% certain.  Those flashes may have been because of torpedo detonation, for example.  

[cabusha]

For what it's worth, just exploded a 6" armed CL via a belt penetration, igniting the target's magazine.  See attached.

Attachments:

[griffin01]

Feb 26, 2020 20:09:00 GMT -6 cabusha said:

For what it's worth, just exploded a 6" armed CL via a belt penetration, igniting the target's magazine.  See attached.

Magazine detonation are possible for every kind of ship, as far as I am aware. DDs, for example, routinely sink due to magazine detonations. Small guns are also vulnerable to flash fires when used as primary armament.

[seawolf]

Feb 26, 2020 18:53:44 GMT -6 cabusha said:

Feb 26, 2020 18:32:25 GMT -6 seawolf said:

Can 6 inch tertiary guns flash fire?

Not that I'm aware of.  6" guns and below are classified as "small" which don't blow.  7", OTOH, is the break point which can flash.  That said, I've never actually placed 6" guns in the Tertiary role.  

*EDIT:  I believe the one exception to 6" flash fires may be if they are used as the primary armament.  I believe I have seen 6" primary CLs flash, but am not 100% certain.  Those flashes may have been because of torpedo detonation, for example.  

6 inch primary and secondary guns can flash fire as confirmed by the devs, and are the lowest size weapon that can
I'm just not sure if tertiary guns, which are always unarmed, can flash fire

[aeson]

Feb 26, 2020 20:23:14 GMT -6 seawolf said:

6 inch primary and secondary guns can flash fire as confirmed by the devs, and are the lowest size weapon that can

The only developer statement of which I am aware on this subject says that 6" secondary guns can NOT suffer flash fires:

There should be zero chance for flash fires for secondaries of 6 in calibre or less.

It's for RTW1, though.

Also, main battery guns of ANY caliber can suffer flashfires, it's just that for 6" and lighter main guns it's less likely.