the tirpitz shells werent especially effective at downing the planes this however can be due to multiple factors such as the mountains and other things such as the fact they smoked the intire fjord with their smoke projectors covering the ship making its fire control effectively useless
in total the germans shot down 11 heavy bombers and heavily damaged one wether or not this was due to the tirpitz we dont know
Taking into account number of actual AA mounts both on Tirpitz and everywhere around, guns with a proven capability to shot planes down(like 88mm, 105mm and 128mm) I'd say we are safe to assume those bombers were shot down by them.
the shells were also used against henderson field for bombardment and anti aircraft use in total 979 shells were used all the aviation fuel on the field was burned the runway ruined and over half of 90 planes destroyed so yes these shells were widely used
in addition to that by 1944 yamatos ammunition consisted 40% of sanshikidan shells in addition to this sanshikidan shells were fired against american cruisers as they had not yet switched to armor piercing which although not very effective did start fires and do some damage
Ok, but you you only prove that HE shells are capable of destroying soft ground targets. Ability to blow planes on the ground do not help in the slightest in finding capability of said shells to shot down or disrupt aircraft in the air, moving at 100m/sec and manoeuvring both in horizontal and vertical.
"The fact that heavy AA shells (or HE shells that could be used in this role) were developed for various guns, do not make those guns AA or even DP."
except yes it does a dual purpose gun is able to engage both aircraft and surface targets and all the guns with these shells which were DESIGNED to engage aircraft (note the proximity fuses and timed fuses for them) are anti aircraft guns
You seem to not understand idea behind DP mount. BDW it is DP mount not gun, as same gun could be used both in standard and DP mounts (and sometimes in other mounts, like 88mm in PAK/anti-tank mount. DP mount is not just any mount that can fire air bursting shells, if it was, each and every mount would be DP, as you can make air bursting shells even for XIXth century muzzle loaders. And those would be able to destroy a plane if it by chance was close enough to explosion.
DP mounts need to be able to track a moving plane and allow for high elevation firing with enough RoF to give good chance for hitting. If it is not capable of doing this it is just standard mount (even some of 5in/38 were used in cheaper and lighter standard mounts). Big guns you mention could hit a plane only if they are lucky enough to catch a plane in it's blast. In the same way you can rig 88mm in PAK mount to fire at aircraft and claim it to be AA mount...
"gun needs to be able to engage aircraft and this require not only train and and elevation fast enough to target objects rapidly moving and changing angle but also has RoF allowing to fire multiple shells in the engagement."
in short what you said here makes absolutely no sense because nobody is stupid enough to try and fire these guns at under 2kms against aircraft they simply cant aim at them also their elevation rate is fast enough most battleships and heavy cruisers sit between 6-10 degrees/s the yamato sitting at 8 degrees/s which is defeneatly enough and yes i do realise yamato actually fired sanshikidan 460mm shells at less than 2km distance but during said attack she was getting quite desperate especially because her aa mounts were getting strafed bombed and set on fire
secondly the guns dont actually need to turn or elevate because as i said if you are shooting below 2km distance they are too close
Were they effective in breaking up attacks on Yamato? I know what you mean - at long range you aim towards incoming planes. The problem - you will spot them at around 12-15 km without radar, and they will cover more than 100m/second so before your guns are aimed and loaded, they will be some 3km closer. This means you will have 2-3 shots before they scatter and begin attack runs, when your big guns would become completely inefficient.
while the shells can of course shoot down planes its mostly meant to make the approach of the enemy planes difficult and problematic which can cause the enemy planes to loose formation making them more vulnerable to allied carrier fighters and also causing the enemy planes to disengage or dodge and possibly making them turn back because of damage to the aircraft from shrapnell
again these shells were not useless and had a purpose to them else they would not have been made or produced
The fact the shells were produced, do not mean they were effective. I am asking you, are there any accounts of US pilots being forced back or shot down by those heavy guns? Especially if compared to effects of actual AA guns firing?
also the sanshikidan shells and other shells for battleships against aa were defeneatly used and did get results for example yamato firing at the pbm and the last battle it is likely the shells had some effect on the aircraft it was fired upon
and also the tirpitz against the lancasters and the british who used it in the medeterranian on their 6 inchers the french jean bart which used it against an american carrier the countless aircraft these guns destroyed in the pacific
Define countless, please.
also i wouldnt expect it to be particulairly hard to code in these weapons it would just be an extension of the 5 inch guns since the "large caliber" dual purpose guns are already in game the 6-20 inch dual purpose guns would just use the code of the 2-5 inch guns but buff the damage/effect of the explosions but make the reload time longer and possibly reduce accuracy and increase range
again coding this is not gonna be a problem they already have dual purpose 2-5 inch guns
NO DP GUN BIGGER THAN 8IN WAS EVER CONCEIVED and no bigger than 6in was used operationally. Use of air bursting shells DO NOT TURN ORDINARY MOUNT INTO A DP MOUNT.
we have no idea knowing how many tirpitz shot down because she did fire even if smoke was in the way although not from her own directors
second of all in the second attack on the tirpitz where she was hit by a bomb the smoke was not activated as the enemy planes were spotted too late
in the last attack there was no smoke involved as tirpitz was moved to another location
"Ok, but you you only prove that HE shells are capable of destroying soft ground targets. Ability to blow planes on the ground do not help in the slightest in finding capability of said shells to shot down or disrupt aircraft in the air, moving at 100m/sec and manoeuvring both in horizontal and vertical."
first of all planes dont move 100m/s up or down thats 360km/h going up or down unless its straight diving or straight climbing thats not the case and if you are moving
also planes cant move sideways they can turn to one direction but they cant move sideways
when did i state no aircraft were in the air
also these shells were no HE shells as you though they were "Ok, but you you only prove that HE shells are capable of destroying soft ground targets."
these were sanshikidan anti aircraft incinderary shrapnell shells
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/San-shiki_dan_explosion.jpg/220px-San-shiki_dan_explosion.jpgmy point stating the bombardment of henderson field was to show that they were used and in quite large numbers
and they were used more than that
another Japanese naval force attempted to bombard Henderson Field but before they could reach their target they were intercepted by American cruisers and destroyers. The first few salvos from the battleships Hiei and Kirishima consisted of the Sanshiki anti-aircraft shells, as their crews were not expecting a ship-to-ship confrontation and took several minutes to switch to armor-piercing ammunition, with several Sanshiki shells hitting the cruiser USS San Francisco, causing less serious damage than what would have been inflicted by armor-piercing shells.
"You seem to not understand idea behind DP mount. BDW it is DP mount not gun, as same gun could be used both in standard and DP mounts (and sometimes in other mounts, like 88mm in PAK/anti-tank mount. DP mount is not just any mount that can fire air bursting shells, if it was, each and every mount would be DP, as you can make air bursting shells even for XIXth century muzzle loaders. And those would be able to destroy a plane if it by chance was close enough to explosion.
DP mounts need to be able to track a moving plane and allow for high elevation firing with enough RoF to give good chance for hitting. If it is not capable of doing this it is just standard mount (even some of 5in/38 were used in cheaper and lighter standard mounts). Big guns you mention could hit a plane only if they are lucky enough to catch a plane in it's blast. In the same way you can rig 88mm in PAK mount to fire at aircraft and claim it to be AA mount..."
except you seem to fail to understand what a dp gun actually is
first of all no you cant get a muzzle loader to fire anti aircraft shells because of several reasons first of all the fuse the round spins alot on these and the lack of space inside a cannonball which means the fuse could be damaged when its fired due to grinding against the smoothbore due to rotation and you dont have a fuse setter and it takes time to load the projectile thus the fuse setting time is likely also completely diffrent from what you actually need
a dual purpose mount is a mount that enables the guns mounted on said mount to engage aircraft
capability of the mount dosent matter just that its able to do it (which cannonball era ships do not have such a mount 1940s battleships do)
almost all ships were able to fire to atleast 45 degrees of elevation with elevation degrees/s usually from 6-10 now this dosent sound that good until you realise its actually pretty damn good this means in essence that the yamato could fire at its maximum possible range against aircraft within 5 seconds from having reloaded
reason their elevation is this fast and good is because it directly goes into the reload time the longer the barrels take to return to 0 elevation the faster reload is as you cant load while the guns are pointed upwards
and lets take the tirpitz mount then shall we
the 380mm gun of the tirpitz has these values for its turret
Elevation -5.5 / +30 degrees
Coastal artillery: -3 / +55 or more degrees
Elevation Rate 6 degrees per second
Train -145 / +145 degrees
Train Rate 5 degrees per second
while the maximum elevation of the tirpitz was very low compared to others (under 40 degrees) it still had quite good range at 36km
now lets compare it to a russian 152mm dual purpose mount which was designed to shoot aircraft down
Weight MK-4: 145 tons (146 mt)
MK-5: 240 tons (243 mt)
MK-5bis (turrets 1-3): 250 tons (253 mt)
MK-5bis (turret 4): 243 tons (246 mt)
MK-9: 187 tons (190 mt)
MK-17: 134 tons (136 mt)
Elevation Twin Mount: -5 / +45 degrees
Triple Mount: -5 / +45 degrees
Rate of Elevation MK-4: 13 degrees per second
MK-5: 13.4 degrees per second
MK-5bis: 13 degrees per second
Train MK-4 (mid turrets): 180 degrees
MK-4 (end turrets): 135 degrees
MK-5: +150 / -150 degrees
MK-5bis: +148 / -148 degrees
MK-5bis (turret IV): +140 / -140 degrees
Rate of Train MK-4: 6 degrees per second
MK-5: 7.2 degrees per second
MK-5bis: 7 degrees per second
and oh whats this
this gun has twice the elevation rate BUT
it barely has more train rate than the bismarcks guns how could this be but this gun is dual purpose
look into the guns performance and see if its actually capable of shooting down aircraft the short answer is basically any large gun can shoot aircraft down they arent as sluggish as you think
now lets take the yamato for example
Elevation -5 / +45 degrees 1b
Elevation Rate 8 degrees per second 2b 3b
Train about +150 / -150 degrees
Train Rate 2 degrees per second
the train rate is garbage but the elevation rate is good
a dual purpose mount is not a gun but its a mount for the gun to sit on and the gun plays a large role in what makes a good dp mount
with regards to japanese ships these guns were designed to use the sanshikidan shells and type 0 HE shells the same can be said with the other guns they were designed to be compatible with these anti aircraft shells thus by difinition they are Dual purpose mounts
also a dual purpose gun and a dual purpose mount is 2 intirely diffrent things
a dual purpose gun is a gun which can shoot shells which are designed for antiship/anti ground and anti aircraft
while a dual purpose mount is designed to mount dual purpose guns which can shoot at ships/ground and aircraft
"Were they effective in breaking up attacks on Yamato? I know what you mean - at long range you aim towards incoming planes. The problem - you will spot them at around 12-15 km without radar, and they will cover more than 100m/second so before your guns are aimed and loaded, they will be some 3km closer. This means you will have 2-3 shots before they scatter and begin attack runs, when your big guns would become completely inefficient.
"
loaded torpedo planes usually dont exceed 300 km/h which reduces that to 83m/s even the btd-1 torpedo and divebomber has a max straight line speed not using combat power of 330 km/h and thats a postwar high capability torp/dive bomber
pretty much every single ship had some form of radar in 1943+ the japanese mounted radar on their destroyers cruisers and battleships the yamato could detect single planes out to 44 km and groups of planes out to 60km or more the japanese cruisers had a worse radar giving them 20km range against single craft the destroyers were quite a bit worse but we are still talking 10km carriers had diffrent capabilities but they usually matched battleships which sat at 30-35 km range against single craft
these radars werent bad they could see the enemy aircraft
lets say you start using yamatos maximum range and start firing at aircraft values are like this
40 km start firing range (due to bullet drop i would expect the last 5km to be below normal flight altitude for the enemy planes)
their speed is 300km/h fully loaded which alligns nicely (likely slower to not burn as much fuel aka in cruise flight but we will take it as battle approach so max speed)
according to my calculator that gives it EIGHT MINUTES TO FIRE and lets say the yamato is constantly firing at max range (aka it gets a reload debuff due to elevating and de elevating barrels)
this means that you can get THIRTEEN 13 shots off before they get too close and by this time 454 seconds have passed while 8 minutes takes 480 seconds
i dont know about you but 13 salvoes of 460mm shells is quite good against enemy planes so i dont think the range is gonna be a problem they can throw plenty lead downrange
this time would of course be reduced due to tirpitz range down to 30km which means 6 minutes but tirpitz has quite a good loading system which allows it to load at a higher angle which means faster loading
the tirpitz has a reload of 26 seconds which is insanely good lets take the worst reload and the result is also 13 salvoes before the enemy planes arrive
"The fact the shells were produced, do not mean they were effective. I am asking you, are there any accounts of US pilots being forced back or shot down by those heavy guns? Especially if compared to effects of actual AA guns firing?"
the yamato fired against a PBM mariner plane which had to run due to this and kept a large distance away from the ship (outside its range presumably)
in yamatos final battle she fired sanshikidan shells against the enemy planes and to my knowledge shot down 3 with the 460mm guns take these numbers with a grain of salt but expect these to have had some kind of effect
you can imagine yourself in the cockpit of a fighter and suddenly 9 giant flaming clouds appear out of nowhere for the next 8 minutes showering your plane with incinderary half an inch darts going into the fuselarge and into the cockpit into the engine and basically anywhere
even if you are not hit such an explosion is enough to scare the **** out of you
also these shells arent purely shotgun shells at the bottom of them there is a large explosive charge which when detonates scatters the darts and also throws the shell walls of the sanshikidan shells out in fragments which means these work as small high explosive shells also while also having the needle effect
"Define countless, please." we cant count how many were shot down due to lack of reports
"NO DP GUN BIGGER THAN 8IN WAS EVER CONCEIVED and no bigger than 6in was used operationally. Use of air bursting shells DO NOT TURN ORDINARY MOUNT INTO A DP MOUNT. "
despite the fact that the japanese 18 inch gun was litteraly a dual purpose gun in every single sense of the word the gun was designed to be used against both aircraft and naval vessels the japanese guns are by the very difinition dual purpose
EXCEPT YES THERE WAS ONE WHICH WE KNOW FOR SURE WAS DUAL PURPOSE BECAUSE ITS REFFERED TO AS SUCH IN THE LITTERAL TRAINING FILM SO STOP MAKING UP **** YOU DONT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT
ever heard of des moines its a really dank anti aircraft ship with some dankass 8 inch guns which had a reload of 6 seconds and quess what it was designed to be dual purpose it was an AA mount too i mean the cruiser is litteraly an aa heavy cruiser
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXJIE50jxdwat around the 12 minute mark they talk about its anti aircraft role
to quote the video
"not of course a normal use for an 8inch gun but against heavy bombardment aircraft at a great distance a very practical one" no idea what the **** a heavy bombardment aircraft is but nevertheless
the 8"/55 mark71 also exists
www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_8-55_mk71_Hull_pic.jpgit is dual purpose