|
|
Post by bcoopactual on Sept 26, 2016 19:19:39 GMT -6
I was browsing on the internet looking at some of the Royal Navy's WW1 designs and when I got to the C class light cruisers I noticed the Caroline sub-class carried 2 single mount 6" guns aft and 8 single mount 4" guns forward and on the sides. It got me to ask the question, could main gun directors work with multi-caliber guns simultaneously? You already have to compensate each gun for the horizontal and vertical distance between the director and the guns themselves, transmitting range data to the guns should just have them move to different elevations so that the smaller, shorter range guns can achieve the same range?
That doesn't sound impossible so assuming it's not, did any of the nations attempt it? And if so, should we recommend it for RTW2? The way I envision it, you would have a check box that would couple the main and secondary armament into attacking the same target with the same or similar accuracy bonuses based on the fire control technology. Then the tertiaries would be uncoupled from the secondaries and would attack their own targets as normal.
This is just an out of the blue question. If the answer is no, no navy attempted it in real life, then no need to discuss it further than that. Thanks.
|
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 26, 2016 21:10:32 GMT -6
I was browsing on the internet looking at some of the Royal Navy's WW1 designs and when I got to the C class light cruisers I noticed the Caroline sub-class carried 2 single mount 6" guns aft and 8 single mount 4" guns forward and on the sides. It got me to ask the question, could main gun directors work with multi-caliber guns simultaneously? You already have to compensate each gun for the horizontal and vertical distance between the director and the guns themselves, transmitting range data to the guns should just have them move to different elevations so that the smaller, shorter range guns can achieve the same range? That doesn't sound impossible so assuming it's not, did any of the nations attempt it? And if so, should we recommend it for RTW2? The way I envision it, you would have a check box that would couple the main and secondary armament into attacking the same target with the same or similar accuracy bonuses based on the fire control technology. Then the tertiaries would be uncoupled from the secondaries and would attack their own targets as normal. This is just an out of the blue question. If the answer is no, no navy attempted it in real life, then no need to discuss it further than that. Thanks. The answer is maybe. The Mark 51 FCS could control a 40 mm Bofors gun and 5" 38's. Even though the ballistics might be right, you could correct with the Mark 51 sight. However, the older FCS's might not have been able to perform in such a manner so you have to research the precise FCS in question. A FCS with an analog computer might be able to have multiple setting, you fire one set of guns, then change the ballistic settings, then fire the other set of guns while the first is reloading. Just a thought. If you have never worked on an analog computer, you haven't lived; more darn gears and sprockets than you can believe. The Mark 1 Ford Computer was able to provide fire control data for multiple guns. |
|
|
|
Post by ccip on Sept 26, 2016 22:08:44 GMT -6
Well, I think the capability for what you are describing is already more or less there in the game - you can have a director for secondaries, and I think the only thing missing is getting the primary and secondary directors to share the same modifiers when firing on the same target.
I would, however, avoid describing it as "multi caliber main armament" because that's technically not what that is. As we discussed in another recent thread, RTW calculates gunnery performance, targeting, and hit effects on a per battery basis rather than as individual guns. All guns in a battery are assumed to be the same. That makes it very simple to handle, both in terms of design and computationally, because a battery shares the same basic numbers for things like range, shell drop over distance, base fire rate and penetration, which are then modified by everything from weather and crew quality to the ship's facing angle and enemy maneuvers. Trying to mix different calibers per battery under this system would be needlessly more complicated (if not impossible) than just getting two different batteries to share targeting modifiers when firing at the same target.
Otherwise, no reason why the 6in can't be treated as primary, 4in as secondary, but both still share some of the numbers from the primary director. I don't think it even needs a separate option for it, because it's easier to just share the primary director data with the secondary battery by default when the two batteries are firing on the same target, and the technology to do so exists. The choice whether to use that in a given situation should really be left to ship captain AI, since that's way down towards the kinds of tactical micromanagement that RTW isn't really designed for.
|
|
|
|
Post by bcoopactual on Sept 27, 2016 12:43:57 GMT -6
Sounds like the idea is plausible but probably wasn't done historically and also probably not worth the programming trouble. oldpop2000 , I watched this video on Youtube a little while back that shows how the pieces/parts of a mechanical computer functioned. Crazy how they could make the math work just by combining specially shaped cams and gears and what-nots together. ccip, I must have missed the discussion you are referring to but thanks for bringing it up and this idea probably would be needlessly complicated based on the way the programming works. Thanks both of you for the replies. |
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 27, 2016 14:34:14 GMT -6
I watched this video on Youtube a little while back that shows how the pieces/parts of a mechanical computer functioned. Crazy how they could make the math work just by combining specially shaped cams and gears and what-nots together. ... Interesting series of video's, I downloaded them all. I will also get the rest. Now....  if you are really interested, I can give you a link to the manuals both theory, operation and the maintenance. It might help you sleep.... If you shrink those gears, cams etc. down to a smaller size, you now will get an idea of the complexity of working on the inertial navigation system, ASN-36, for the F4B. |
|
|
|
Post by Bullethead on Sept 27, 2016 15:14:00 GMT -6
I was browsing on the internet looking at some of the Royal Navy's WW1 designs and when I got to the C class light cruisers I noticed the Caroline sub-class carried 2 single mount 6" guns aft and 8 single mount 4" guns forward and on the sides. It got me to ask the question, could main gun directors work with multi-caliber guns simultaneously? You already have to compensate each gun for the horizontal and vertical distance between the director and the guns themselves, transmitting range data to the guns should just have them move to different elevations so that the smaller, shorter range guns can achieve the same range? The short answer is "no", the Brit directors of the time could not work with both 4" and 6". However, the issue never arose. When the mixed-battery Arethusas and early "C" cruisers were built, Brit CLs did not have directors. By the time these ships had directors fitted in 1917-1918, that was part of a major overhaul where their 4" guns were replaced with (fewer) 6", adding more AA guns, and usually built a hangar into the bridge structure with a flying-off platform over the forward gun. The later "C" cruisers (starting with Centaur) had a uniform 6" battery and had a director from the get-go. The mixed battery of the early ships was intended to engage multiple targets simultaneously, not all converge on 1 target. These ships were conceived as "destroyer-killers" and expected to be involved in melees between the lines as opposing flotillas and their accompanying CLs clashed. The 4" were for destroyers, the 6" for the enemy CLs. And these ships were the 1st fleet CLs to have enough crew to man the 4" on both sides simultaneously, again envisioning a melee and multiple targets. The reason the early "C" cruisers had both 6" aft instead of 1 on each end like the Arethusas was to have more guns available up front when chasing DDs. Wartime experience, however, showed that 4" were of little value and guys like Tyrwhitt wanted all 6" instead, so that's why things changed. Once the battery was uniform, then the ships could have a director. |
|
|
|
Post by bcoopactual on Sept 27, 2016 16:32:35 GMT -6
oldpop2000, yeah, I wouldn't mind getting a look at those manuals. Thanks. Bullethead, that's interesting. I was thinking the dual armament was a weight/space compromise but I was aware that they eventually went to a uniform caliber of 6" guns in the latter sub-classes so your description explains the mixed armament of the earlier vessels quite well.
|
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 27, 2016 16:41:18 GMT -6
|
|
|
|
Post by galagagalaxian on Sept 27, 2016 18:16:39 GMT -6
What about "Semi-Dreadnoughts" like Satsuma? Were the 10" guns directed by the same fire control stations as the 12" guns? In RtW, a ship like that would be hampered by the fact those 10" guns lack fire control. |
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 27, 2016 20:11:24 GMT -6
What about "Semi-Dreadnoughts" like Satsuma? Were the 10" guns directed by the same fire control stations as the 12" guns? In RtW, a ship like that would be hampered by the fact those 10" guns lack fire control. Satsuma was built about the time of the Russo-Japanese War. She was ordered in 1904 . My guess is that she used the same as the Mikasa, Barr and Stroud Range Finders. So the answer is that they were locally controlled. Just a SWAG, you understand. |
|
|
|
Post by Bullethead on Sept 27, 2016 20:16:23 GMT -6
What about "Semi-Dreadnoughts" like Satsuma? Were the 10" guns directed by the same fire control stations as the 12" guns? In RtW, a ship like that would be hampered by the fact those 10" guns lack fire control. This is a good question. The semi-dreadnoughts (and even the 1st dreadnoughts) were all built before directors existed so it was still pre-dreadnought fire control techniques. You often read that this meant the 2 batteries fired independently at their best rates using their own data, but it was hard to tell whose splashes were whose, so they interfered with each other. However, the true semi-dreadnoughts like Satsuma and Lord Nelson (not ships with a few intermediate guns like King Edward VII and Efstafi) were all completed at about the same time or even after Dreadnought, so this argument doesn't really hold up. If anything, the semi-dreadnoughts just provided the mark to one-up by going for a bigger, uniform main battery. I mean, the US had already had heavy 8" batteries on battleships all the way back in the Spanish-American War and retained them in later classes, with actual combat experience to go on. Besides, if having 4x 9.2" in King Edward VII was such a problem, why did they add more in the Lord Nelson design? I don't think Satsuma ever had a dreadnought-style director installed. Lord Nelson eventually did, but only for the 12" guns (even Brit dreadnoughts lacked directors secondary directors until late in WW1, if then). I do think that the mixed battery did cause fire control problems, but only later in time when long range fire and directors were really becoming a thing. At typical pre-dreadnought ranges, however, it doesn't seem to have caused enough of a problem to stop the trend of powerful intermediate batteries being a common feature from the 1890s on. |
|
|
|
Post by ccip on Sept 27, 2016 20:18:29 GMT -6
...and again, I don't think there's actually anything technically impossible about it  I guess it's more like having enough reason in a game that fits more with the general trends rather than the exceptions - the main risk being that something unusual in reality suddenly becomes a norm in the game, especially if it was rare in real life because of factors that were important but the game just doesn't account for. But eventually, especially if RTW2 moves the timeline further towards WWII, different batteries are going to have to be sharing data from the same directors anyway, especially when it comes to things like radar-directed fire. |
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 27, 2016 20:24:31 GMT -6
What about "Semi-Dreadnoughts" like Satsuma? Were the 10" guns directed by the same fire control stations as the 12" guns? In RtW, a ship like that would be hampered by the fact those 10" guns lack fire control. This is a good question. The semi-dreadnoughts (and even the 1st dreadnoughts) were all built before directors existed so it was still pre-dreadnought fire control techniques. You often read that this meant the 2 batteries fired independently at their best rates using their own data, but it was hard to tell whose splashes were whose, so they interfered with each other. However, the true semi-dreadnoughts like Satsuma and Lord Nelson (not ships with a few intermediate guns like King Edward VII and Efstafi) were all completed at about the same time or even after Dreadnought, so this argument doesn't really hold up. If anything, the semi-dreadnoughts just provided the mark to one-up by going for a bigger, uniform main battery. I mean, the US had already had heavy 8" batteries on battleships all the way back in the Spanish-American War and retained them in later classes, with actual combat experience to go on. Besides, if having 4x 9.2" in King Edward VII was such a problem, why did they add more in the Lord Nelson design? I don't think Satsuma ever had a dreadnought-style director installed. Lord Nelson eventually did, but only for the 12" guns (even Brit dreadnoughts lacked directors secondary directors until late in WW1, if then). I do think that the mixed battery did cause fire control problems, but only later in time when long range fire and directors were really becoming a thing. At typical pre-dreadnought ranges, however, it doesn't seem to have caused enough of a problem to stop the trend of powerful intermediate batteries being a common feature from the 1890s on. This quote is from a book, written in 1905 by Fred T. Jane about the IJN.  It appears that even in 1905, there was a modicum of centralized gun direction. It was not sophisticated but it was centralized. |
|
|
|
Post by galagagalaxian on Sept 27, 2016 20:56:53 GMT -6
Then again, maybe semi-dreadnought configuration doesn't really matter for those early tech ships. How much of a bonus is Central Rangefinding again? Its pretty small IIRC, making it barely better than no director fire control.
|
|
|
|
Post by oldpop2000 on Sept 27, 2016 21:07:01 GMT -6
Then again, maybe semi-dreadnought configuration doesn't really matter for those early tech ships. How much of a bonus is Central Rangefinding again? Its pretty small IIRC, making it barely better than no director. I think it depends on the quality of the range finder and the training of the crews. For the IJN, they had both..... and Admiral Togo at Donkey Ears. |
|
if you are really interested, I can give you a link to the manuals both theory, operation and the maintenance. It might help you sleep....
I guess it's more like having enough reason in a game that fits more with the general trends rather than the exceptions - the main risk being that something unusual in reality suddenly becomes a norm in the game, especially if it was rare in real life because of factors that were important but the game just doesn't account for.