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Post by abclark on Jul 23, 2020 15:31:00 GMT -6
I haven't looked up the circular probability error for an Iowa's guns, but - given other gunnery from WW2 - you'd be wasting shells and killing fish while praying for the golden BB of a hit. Until or unless you use spotting aircraft or get some sort of fins and guidance package to make a 16" projectile 'smart', being able to reach that far doesn't mean you can hit a target - even something 800 feet long - because of error, wind, inability to spot and too long a flight-time to make correction meaningful. I'm a great believer in gunnery, gunnery control systems and radar... I just think you're over the limits of what the system can reasonably do and over the limits of ammunition stowage. If you fire your stocks dry trying to land a couple of hits, you'll need the Iowa's speed to disengage. So... I do think the game should let you do it. Maybe there should be a naval 'Doctrine' checklist for things like that. If the game doesn't permit, protecting the inexperienced player from a serious mistake is a likely reason. You, being quite experienced, should be able to do as you like - I'm just stating reasons why I wouldn't, if I could. The 16in/50 Caliber Mark 7 Naval Gun was so accurate it was outright insane at least in the 1980s, with a shell-to-shell dispersion of 123 yards. To put this in perspective, a standard NFL Football Field if you count the endzones is 120 yards in length. For Battleship guns that is sniper rifle levels of accuracy and even the 18.1in guns on the Yamatos with their optical systems were pretty accurate guns too, Navweps which is the source I used for the Mark 7 Naval Gun source, notes that those had a grouping of 400 to 500 meters at maximum range of the gun which could hurl a shell over 42,000-meters. Source
Plus the identification thing could be solved at long range by having spotter aircraft they spot the target at oh, say some 30,000 yards and then they give you identification of the target as well as its class. The appropriate comparison with Yamato's group size is not the 123 yard shell to shell dispersion. The same source says that "14 out of the 15 landed within 250 yards (230 m) of the center of the pattern", which gives us a pattern roughly 460 meters across at its widest point. I have no idea if the data for Yamato's guns is radius or diameter of the pattern, but it does say at maximum range, which was 46Kyds. The data for Iowa is at 34Kyds, so we should expect the pattern size to be smaller for guns with similar precision.
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Post by abclark on Jul 23, 2020 16:17:33 GMT -6
thorthemighty - I understand the accuracy of the 16"/50. Being able to hit somewhere inside 120 yards is... well, a battleship would be less than 40 yards wide and 250 yards long, and if moving at 25 knots would pass through 800 yards per minute. So in theory, and keeping it very simple, the target could be anywhere inside a triangle composed of its initial point, 800 yards out at a 45 degree angle one way, and 800 yards out at the other 45 degree angle. The target is going to pass through at least three times its own length every minute. As I stated in my last post, a 120 yard pattern at 34Kyds would be... exceptionally optimistic. That being said, I agree with your premise here, although the triangle should probably be closer to an ellipse in shape.The 16"/50 has a muzzle velocity of 2500 fps at maximum. Let's assume it maintains that for the entire flight-time. If the target is 30,000 yards away (90,000 feet - very roughly, leaving out the difference between sea and land measurements) then the flight time is at least 36 seconds. The battery can continue to fire at where the target is projected to be - but it can fire off its AP load in 10 to 30 minutes. Flight time to 30Kyds is 50.3 seconds for Mk8 AP. It takes a long time to travel the kind of arc a shell requires for long ranges, especially as they're slowing down for a lot of the trip!I don't see anything here to convince me that naval gunnery is anything but an exercise in probabilities. I don't think ships can accurately get a firing solution from funnel smoke or a bit of superstructure - you need speed and bearing, and with a flight-time of half a minute while both ships are steaming fast you'd need good predictive ability and a large component of luck, or at least a target steaming toward you with minimal deflection (IE Hood). It's absolutely an exercise in probabilities. However, a lot of very intelligent people have spent a lot of time over the years finding ways to improve on those probabilities.
It is certainly possible to find speed and bearing by ranging on a single defined point, such as a superstructure. Change in bearing and change in range will give you that information if you have the appropriate ways to calculate it. With the advent of "long" range gunnery came ways to predict the motion of a target, and the predictive systems only improved over time.
Actually, high range rate targets (those sailing toward or away from the shooter) would up being the most difficult targets.Battleships carry a limited number of shells, particularly AP shells - call it 100 total or 50 AP for an estimate. IF you can land a few critical deck hits at long range then it might be worth it; if you cannot then you are out of your best ammunition, or worst case out of everything. Given 100 shells per gun, and assuming 4 shells per minute (which really can't be sustained, or 2 shells a minute for more deliberate fire) then you are out of AP in 10 or 20 minutes and out of everything in half an hour to 45 minutes. Given BEST hit percentages from other combat actions (5% was good shooting in WW1 and would be good at the long ranges we are discussing) you might get 5 hits from 100 shells. Obviously it depends on where they hit, but you can't control that at over-the-horizon range the way you can at 10,000 yards or less. So... is 5 hits worth burning through your ammo? Maybe... but I wouldn't bet on it. That's why I prefer to wait to engage, closing the range until I can reliably score more hits, even if those are against belt rather than deck armor. I take nothing away from British gunnery (except that I wouldn't have used those short rangefinders) but it is notable that Bismarck was almost unmoving and could not manuever. This is by far the largest issue with firing at long ranges. Of even the few hits that can be expected, very few of those are going to be the "Golden BBs" required to have truly decisive results. That being said, it is very hard to protect a ship against large caliber AP shells at those ranges just due to their extremely high deck penetration. Even a penetration of an engine room can have disastrous consequences for a ship.A lot of this is personal preference - IE doctrine - and depends on how the navies in question intend to fight. The US Navy intended to fight a gunnery duel at long range, trained for it and built its systems around that concept. But actual long-range battles (like some stages of Java Sea or Komandorski Islands) show that was not productive in terms of damage done for shells expended. Radar could change that... but I'm not convinced that it changes the equations enough to justify firing off a significant percentage of my ammo at long range. Hitting fast, maneuvering targets that are creating high range rates is always going to be very difficult, no matter how good the fire control systems. Even a small course change can destroy a perfect fire control solution when time of flight is measured in multiple tens of seconds.And as British experience against Bismarck showed, you can't always depend on radar to keep working once the guns start firing, or on trained fire-control people being able to separate out what the returns mean. At Surigao Strait, West Virginia picked up the Japanese at 42,000 yards but did not open fire until 23,000 yards. She did score immediately - but it is worth noting that the Japanese had been tracked for over 30 minutes and they were not manuevering. If the professional gunners, using radar, were willing to hold until 23,000 yard - and if the British, against Bismarck, opened at 25,000 yards and closed to 15,000 or less - then for my part I'd take the advice of their actions. I would discount Surigao Strait in that analysis. Waiting for the enemy to be firmly in your killbox to spring an ambush is a basic principle no matter whether on land or sea. British reliance on turret rangefinders also places them at a disadvantage compared to a mast top rangefinder (which they had, but in much smaller base length than most other nations), because turret rangefinders have a shorter distance to the visible horizon, as well as being more easily affected by spray. British doctrine was also very similar to your in-game doctrine; planning to open fire at much shorter ranges than most other nations. As you said yourself, the USN planned to fight at very long ranges. Kormandorski Islands is a much better example of that doctrine than Surigao Strait.oaktree - that is a tactic I have used against AI light forces, letting them fire away at long range while I keep my ammo ready. Sometimes they score a hit but it is rarely serious (as opposed to enemy capital ships, which can hammer a CL flat with a hit or two).
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Post by christian on Aug 6, 2020 8:39:16 GMT -6
I haven't looked up the circular probability error for an Iowa's guns, but - given other gunnery from WW2 - you'd be wasting shells and killing fish while praying for the golden BB of a hit. Until or unless you use spotting aircraft or get some sort of fins and guidance package to make a 16" projectile 'smart', being able to reach that far doesn't mean you can hit a target - even something 800 feet long - because of error, wind, inability to spot and too long a flight-time to make correction meaningful. I'm a great believer in gunnery, gunnery control systems and radar... I just think you're over the limits of what the system can reasonably do and over the limits of ammunition stowage. If you fire your stocks dry trying to land a couple of hits, you'll need the Iowa's speed to disengage. So... I do think the game should let you do it. Maybe there should be a naval 'Doctrine' checklist for things like that. If the game doesn't permit, protecting the inexperienced player from a serious mistake is a likely reason. You, being quite experienced, should be able to do as you like - I'm just stating reasons why I wouldn't, if I could. if someone wants to roll their chances at super long range i see no reason to limit that as that was also possible in real life the more options even if questionable in usability makes the game better and more realistic and if you dont wanna fire at that range just make them hold fire
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Post by abclark on Aug 6, 2020 9:17:02 GMT -6
A good addition to the doctrine page would be a slider with maximum range to open fire. Probably multiple sliders divided by gun size, just like ammo selection.
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Post by thorthemighty on Aug 6, 2020 11:39:49 GMT -6
It also depends on Gunnery Training as well. The Italians IRL for example during WWII, they were damn good at long range shooting; to the point that they got consistent straddles in excess of 30k Yards, though that's also due to their guns and FCS as well.
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Post by christian on Aug 16, 2020 5:59:25 GMT -6
It also depends on Gunnery Training as well. The Italians IRL for example during WWII, they were damn good at long range shooting; to the point that they got consistent straddles in excess of 30k Yards, though that's also due to their guns and FCS as well. mostly because they had alot of redundancy in rangefinders and firecontrol which meant they got very reliable firecontrol data problem was their projectiles suffered EXTREMELY from quality control and while they got straddles their excessive dispersion meant that it was pure luck if they hit anything as their shells could land more than 700 meters from eachother
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Post by augustvonthomsen on Aug 17, 2020 20:44:07 GMT -6
So for fully realistic visual spotting ranges you would need to take into account the height of the mast of the spotting ship, and the height of the mast of the spotted ship (height of the mast of your ship determines the distance to the horizon, and the height of the enemy mast determines how far beyond the horizon they remain visible). I don't have the necessary math to confirm, but I expect the max distance at which a particular ship can spot another ship will be the spotting ship's distance to horizon (determined by the spotting ship's mast height) + the target ship's distance to horizon (determined by the target ship's mast height).
In other words, no statically set max spotting range will cut it. If you want fully realistic spotting ranges it will have to be a dynamic system that will have a different max spotting range for different source ships spotting different target ships.
I would love to see something like this implemented. But I expect that if this is even on the list of pending features, it is probably towards the end of the list. The current system, while imperfect, is probably good enough for more circumstances.
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Post by BathTubAdmiral on Aug 18, 2020 0:26:00 GMT -6
Official "Longest range hit by a ship's gun""The greatest range at which one ship's guns have successfully hit another vessel is 24 km (15 miles)."
More details:www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-006.php"Scharnhorst was 28,600 yds. distant at 16:32 when she opened fire"
(26.2km, 24.2km, 23.8km respectivly)
No more *****, please, folks: "Top mast rangefinders"
12-15" rangefinders in their armour casings where not mounted to the top of the masts, but on the top of the forward superstructure (main director) or at the aft mast or superstructure (same or lesser height, secondary director, sometimes smaller). So please do not use mast height in your calculations, but the actual mounting height.
"Rangefinders could spot ships at ..." Rangefinders where not used to spot ships - imaging spinning around a dozend-ton rangefinder again and again to scan the horizon for ship masts/funnel smoke. Nope, binoculars and MkI eyeballs where used to spot ships. Or radar.
"Yamato scored hits at 33k/38K yards (with direct rangefinding)" I would like to see any reference/source for this, other than some japanese manga comic.
At the "Battle off Samar" "visibility was approximately 20 nautical miles (23 miles; 37 km) with a low overcast and occasional heavy rain squalls which the US forces would exploit for concealment in the battle to come. ... When Yamato opened fire at 06:59 at an estimated range of 17 nautical miles (19.6 miles; 31.5 km), she targeted U.S.S. White Plains [CVE] with her first four salvos. Yamato's third salvo was a close straddle landing at 07:04. One shell from this salvo exploded beneath the turn of White Plains ... . At 07:00, Commander Ernest E. Evans of the destroyer Johnston, in response to incoming shell fire bracketing carriers of the group he was escorting, began laying down a protective smokescreen and zigzagging. At about 07:10, Gunnery Officer Robert Hagen began firing at the closest attackers, then at a range of 8.9 nautical miles (10 mi; 16 km)" [Lundgren, Robert, 2014: The World Wonder'd: What really happened off Samar, p. 15. Nimble Books LLC]
So while we see YAMATO opening fire at 31.5km, the distance rapidly closes, and she is (my estimation) around 14.5 nmi (16.7 mi; 26.8 km) when she scores her first near miss (not a hit!). Now, have we seen that figure (~25km) somewhere before?!?
Battleship guns fired 4 shells/minute No, commom across all navies was a fire rate of 2/min, with larger guns firing more slowly.
Yamatos guns could do a 30s-cycle to a range of 6000m, after that aditional time for elevating/lowering the guns reduces the fire rate linearily to 1.5 rds/min at max. elevation. www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNJAP_18-45_t94.phpFire rate is even more reduced when one has to observe that fall of the shells to range in the target. As seen above, YAMATO needed 5min to fire the first 3 salvos at the CVE USS White Plains.
Battleship guns are sniper accurate, so battleships could snipe over the horizon The gun accuracy is not the problem, but the accuracy of the targeting data and the target evasion are.
Actually, if you look at the example of Yamato above, the flight time of the shells of the first salvo was >50s. At that time, her target (if White Plains would have been going flank speed) would have moved by 500m/550yd, that's more than 3 times her lenght. Then considering that the salvo spread is said to be 400-500-600m at "maximum ranges" (I suspect the sources mean "max. practical engagement range" and "max. absolute range", respectivly, but that's just my interpretation), it is clear that it is very hard to tell if you are "spot on" or if you have to correct your aiming, so everyone* seems to have just closed distance with first (lucky) hits occuring at ~25km.
*This figures might have changed with US 10cm-radar guided FCS late in the war, but we don't have any examples that could prove this.
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Post by seawolf on Aug 18, 2020 12:13:25 GMT -6
BathTubAdmiral Accuracy is already horrible in game at those long ranges, that isn't the issue. The problem is that ships can't spot or fire past 27,000 yards in game, which is very clearly not what happens in real life Also, your calculation for Yamato is off, she opened fire at 35,000 yards, so the near miss five minutes later would be no closer than 30,500 yards, unless White Plains was steaming directly towards her A more likely range is around 32,000 yards, or 29.2 km, given their 17 knot closing speed In order to make the range you stated Yamato would have been going between 31 and 50 knots And I'm not sure where exactly you're going with this "Rangefinders could spot ships at ..."
Rangefinders where not used to spot ships - imaging spinning around a dozend-ton rangefinder again and again to scan the horizon for ship masts/funnel smoke.
Nope, binoculars and MkI eyeballs where used to spot ships.
Or radar.While Rangefinders won't be used to spot masts or smoke, once you do spot masts or smoke, its not difficult at all to point the rangefinder in that direction. (Pre-Radar FCS)It was definitely possible to open fire past where the Mk1 Eyeball could fully spot the enemy ship or shell splashes, because unless you're the British rangefinders were usually mounted high up enough in the ship to allow fire control at longer ranges. The argument I keep seeing is that firing shouldn't be possible at those long ranges because you can't spot shell splashes- that's what you can use a rangefinder for, and that was clearly what happened historically comparing ranges to sighting distance.
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Post by vidboi on Aug 18, 2020 18:04:51 GMT -6
I haven't looked up the circular probability error for an Iowa's guns, but - given other gunnery from WW2 - you'd be wasting shells and killing fish while praying for the golden BB of a hit. Until or unless you use spotting aircraft or get some sort of fins and guidance package to make a 16" projectile 'smart', being able to reach that far doesn't mean you can hit a target - even something 800 feet long - because of error, wind, inability to spot and too long a flight-time to make correction meaningful. I'm a great believer in gunnery, gunnery control systems and radar... I just think you're over the limits of what the system can reasonably do and over the limits of ammunition stowage. If you fire your stocks dry trying to land a couple of hits, you'll need the Iowa's speed to disengage. So... I do think the game should let you do it. Maybe there should be a naval 'Doctrine' checklist for things like that. If the game doesn't permit, protecting the inexperienced player from a serious mistake is a likely reason. You, being quite experienced, should be able to do as you like - I'm just stating reasons why I wouldn't, if I could.
Of course, you do raise good points regarding the decision to open fire upon a spotted target, something which could do with more interaction in game
In addition though, spotting shouldn't just be for firing on a target, but also for tactical maneuvering. Moving away from a binary spotted or not system to something with more levels (e.g. "smoke spotted over the horizon at bearing..."), as well as having some sort of memory of intermittently spotted targets, which would be particularly useful during night/adverse weather
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Post by christian on Aug 19, 2020 3:51:05 GMT -6
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Post by director on Aug 19, 2020 12:07:59 GMT -6
I discount both of the very-extreme-range hits as being pure luck. Neither ship made further hits at that range, nor did those two single hits significantly affect the battle. You could shoot your entire magazine away for 2-3 hits at those ranges, and that's not worth doing. What could be worth doing is mounting a slow ranging fire and checking shell splashes against fire-control data, which I suspect is what they were about.
Add to the factors against long-range gunnery the effects of atmospheric phenomenon at moderate and high altitudes, where winds and humidity are certain to be different from those at sealevel. Battleship-caliber shells are heavy and fast moving, but even a few grams of thrust can throw them off course.
The Indian Scout in 'The Courtmartial of George Armstrong Custer' said, "Too many Yellow Hair - Too many." I'd paraphrase that as "Range too far, sir - too far."
I'm simply not convinced it is worth it. If I am declining action I'll gladly bang away, but if I am accepting action then I'll wait until my finite store of shells can score repeatedly. For accuracy at long range against a moving, maneuvering target you need 'smart' shells and a spotter, and those didn't come along until late-Vietnam era. if my enemy wants to shoot himself dry at extreme ranges (and I can still force battle on him) then I'd count myself fortunate.
I would support extending sighting range as technology improves (and masthead heights get higher). And as I said earlier, if you want to fire at extreme ranges, you should be allowed to do so.
I've never satisfied myself as th why British ships carried such small range-finders. Anyone know?
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Post by dorn on Aug 19, 2020 14:29:34 GMT -6
I discount both of the very-extreme-range hits as being pure luck. Neither ship made further hits at that range, nor did those two single hits significantly affect the battle. You could shoot your entire magazine away for 2-3 hits at those ranges, and that's not worth doing. What could be worth doing is mounting a slow ranging fire and checking shell splashes against fire-control data, which I suspect is what they were about. Add to the factors against long-range gunnery the effects of atmospheric phenomenon at moderate and high altitudes, where winds and humidity are certain to be different from those at sealevel. Battleship-caliber shells are heavy and fast moving, but even a few grams of thrust can throw them off course. The Indian Scout in 'The Courtmartial of George Armstrong Custer' said, "Too many Yellow Hair - Too many." I'd paraphrase that as "Range too far, sir - too far." I'm simply not convinced it is worth it. If I am declining action I'll gladly bang away, but if I am accepting action then I'll wait until my finite store of shells can score repeatedly. For accuracy at long range against a moving, maneuvering target you need 'smart' shells and a spotter, and those didn't come along until late-Vietnam era. if my enemy wants to shoot himself dry at extreme ranges (and I can still force battle on him) then I'd count myself fortunate. I would support extending sighting range as technology improves (and masthead heights get higher). And as I said earlier, if you want to fire at extreme ranges, you should be allowed to do so. I've never satisfied myself as th why British ships carried such small range-finders. Anyone know? You can read article 6.2 of this study. The length of rangefinders has less effect practically than was expected theoretically. But why British ships has such small range-finders, I do not know why KGV main rangefinders were smaller than the ones on turrets.
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Post by rimbecano on Aug 19, 2020 15:38:13 GMT -6
I've never satisfied myself as th why British ships carried such small range-finders. Anyone know? I think part of it may have been that they generally used fairly lightly built masts, which would have limited the size of rangefinder the mast could support, but I'm not sure if that's really the reason.
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Post by wlbjork on Aug 19, 2020 18:59:23 GMT -6
I've never satisfied myself as th why British ships carried such small range-finders. Anyone know? I think part of it may have been that they generally used fairly lightly built masts, which would have limited the size of rangefinder the mast could support, but I'm not sure if that's really the reason. There's a whole bunch of possible reasons. I'd turn that on it's head though - as these were Treaty BBs and therefore displacement limited, this was an area where weight could be saved without massively compromising the effectiveness of the design. Smaller range finders = lighter masts = less weight. Would probably also have a small positive effect on stability.
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