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Post by whyme943 on Jun 30, 2019 15:15:27 GMT -6
Hello! I just wanted to showcase some historical DP mounts that were planned or put into service, but are unable to be used in-game.
First off: 5 and 6-inch twin DP mounts. Examples include Atlanta-class and Dido-class for twin 5-inch DP, among others, and the Worcester-class for twin 6-inch mounts. All saw active service, and any reliability problems are, IMO, best represented with a reliability penalty rather than being unavailable.
Second: Triple DP mounts. One example is the planned Neptune-Class cruiser, which was cancelled with the end of the war. The other is the Town-Class cruisers, which could elevate their triple 6-inchers sufficiently, but had crap turret tracking and fire control. This one is, IMO, questionable.
Finally, I will repeat the call for Atlanta- and Dido- style double superfiring arrangements.
That's all I have to say. Let me know what you think.
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Post by rycoba on Jun 30, 2019 15:34:04 GMT -6
If I may be so bold as to enlighten you - Dual mounted 3,4,5,6in. guns can have Dual Purpose mountings already at higher techs, and if I'm not mistaken, there were no functional three-gun dual purpose mounts actually built and employed, but of course, I could be wrong there.
I will second the desire for super-super firing configurations on smaller gun fittings, as my Dido-esque trade protection cruisers are a little sad given the current state of affairs.
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Post by aeson on Jun 30, 2019 15:37:43 GMT -6
First off: 5 and 6-inch twin DP mounts. Examples include Atlanta-class and Dido-class for twin 5-inch DP, among others, and the Worcester-class for twin 6-inch mounts. All saw active service, and any reliability problems are, IMO, best represented with a reliability penalty rather than being unavailable. 5" and 6" DP twin mounts are legal in the game. You should be able to use 5" DP twin mounts at some point in the mid- and late-1930s if you've developed 5" DP mounts, and similarly for 6" DP twin mounts, or at any rate I was able to do so - I have a group of carriers laid down in 1934 and a group of cruisers laid down in 1935 which used 5" twin DP mounts in their main batteries as built, and while I did not build it I was able to design a 6" DP cruiser that used twin mounts around the same time.
I don't know if it's automatically available after a certain time if you already have 5"/6" DP mounts or if there's a particular combination of techs required for it (3"/4" DP twin mounts and 5"/6" DP mounts would be a plausible set of requirements), but it's in the game. An additional example would be the triple 15.5cm turrets on the Mogami class as built (later removed and reused on the Yamato and Oyodo classes).
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Post by aetreus on Jun 30, 2019 16:06:31 GMT -6
If I may be so bold as to enlighten you - Dual mounted 3,4,5,6in. guns can have Dual Purpose mountings already at higher techs, and if I'm not mistaken, there were no functional three-gun dual purpose mounts actually built and employed, but of course, I could be wrong there. I will second the desire for super-super firing configurations on smaller gun fittings, as my Dido-esque trade protection cruisers are a little sad given the current state of affairs. The French built triple DP mounts for the Richelieu class, and quad DP mounts for the Dunkerque class. Personal suggestion though, add a tech for 6" DP mounts that are "good," making them capable of competing with 5" DP or even superior on a weight to weight comparison, and have 6" DP mounts before then be distinctly inferior.
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Post by christian on Jun 30, 2019 17:48:09 GMT -6
If I may be so bold as to enlighten you - Dual mounted 3,4,5,6in. guns can have Dual Purpose mountings already at higher techs, and if I'm not mistaken, there were no functional three-gun dual purpose mounts actually built and employed, but of course, I could be wrong there. I will second the desire for super-super firing configurations on smaller gun fittings, as my Dido-esque trade protection cruisers are a little sad given the current state of affairs. The French built triple DP mounts for the Richelieu class, and quad DP mounts for the Dunkerque class. Personal suggestion though, add a tech for 6" DP mounts that are "good," making them capable of competing with 5" DP or even superior on a weight to weight comparison, and have 6" DP mounts before then be distinctly inferior. the russians had triple 152mm dual purpose mounts also yeah the french made use of their quad and triple dp turrets do note these dp mounts were used on both light cruisers and their battleships and the quad mounts only ever for dunkerque class triples were Richelieu the american des moines which had a 3x3 turret layout had dp mounts for its 8 inch guns being autoloading at all angles of elevation triple and quad dp turrets should be in game
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Post by whyme943 on Jul 1, 2019 14:50:51 GMT -6
Thanks everyone for replying- Interesting to know about the French developments, thanks for that. I will also mention the County-class cruisers, which had twin 8-inch 'DP' mounts, made mostly useless by slow rotation speed and bad fire control. Could be fun to have in the game, if ineffective.
Thank you for letting me know about the ability to have twin DP 5- and 6-inch mounts. The fact that there's no specific tech for them mislead me.
In regards to the triple and quad mounts- especially as secondaries on large ships- I think this would be a neat inclusion in the game. The Richelieu seems not to have used her triple 6's for AA fire until it fell into allied hands, while the Dunkerque-class was sunk before seeing much action. In any case, I have no idea how effective either mount was. If they weren't that effective historically, I still think they're a good in-game inclusion- If nothing else, they might free up space for more AA guns.
So, It's nice to know that twin 5" and 6" DP mounts are in the game. I'm now requesting triple and quad DP mounts up to 6", and potentially 7" and 8" DP mounts that have poor effectiveness against fast targets.
This IS a lot of work for the Devs, but It is my hope that we will be able to loosely be able to reproduce any design that was put into service in the 1900-1955 timeframe.
Thanks for the great discussion, everyone.
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Post by Blothorn on Jul 2, 2019 12:50:53 GMT -6
A bunch of high-elevation cruiser guns get called "DP" now and then; none of them were actually effective in naval AA combat. (In particular, very few of them allowed high-angle loading, which mostly relegates them to a single volley in a particular engagement.) If anyone has documentation of a 6"+ gun damaging an aerial target in anger, I would love to hear of it. (There were a few 6" guns considered successful as land-based AA, but they were optimized for high-angle fire and used against high-altitude level bombers, which relative to naval AA uses emphasizes ballistics much more than rate of fire or train speed.) Triple/quad small-caliber guns are another matter. I think the French 4x130mm was considered a failure due to poor reliability of its loading mechanism--its high shell weight made manual loading, as used in all successful WW2 AA guns, infeasible. The only triple AA mount I know of to have seen meaningful AA service was the British 4" Mk IX, which was a failure due to poor train rates: "The triple mountings were always extremely difficult to train, and the general procedure when moving through a large arc was for the two trainers at the 'normal' and 'director' training wheels to be assisted by the remainder of the crew pushing on the breeches or muzzles." (From www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Repulse.php). That said, I haven't heard complaints about the loading arrangement on the triple; they were definitely too heavy for the manual train they were built with, but I think that if retrofit with power training they could have been successful, being for example less than half the weight of most 5"/38 twin mounts.
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Post by aeson on Jul 2, 2019 13:53:25 GMT -6
The only triple AA mount I know of to have seen meaningful AA service was the British 4" Mk IX, which was a failure due to poor train rates: "The triple mountings were always extremely difficult to train, and the general procedure when moving through a large arc was for the two trainers at the 'normal' and 'director' training wheels to be assisted by the remainder of the crew pushing on the breeches or muzzles." (From www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Repulse.php). That said, I haven't heard complaints about the loading arrangement on the triple; they were definitely too heavy for the manual train they were built with, but I think that if retrofit with power training they could have been successful, being for example less than half the weight of most 5"/38 twin mounts. I don't think I'd call the 4" triples on Repulse to be proper DP mounts, myself - they seem to be a leftover piece of the original WWI secondary armament which for whatever reason was never replaced during the refits in the 1920s and 1930s, and if they weren't modified then their maximum elevation would only have been 30 degrees, according to the navweaps page for them ( BL 4"/45 Mk IX), which would've left them as low-angle (LA) guns. Possibly adequate for formation AA coverage, not so good for self AA coverage (though, being manually trained and elevated, the lack of HA capability probably wouldn't matter too much since it probably couldn't effectively track an aircraft close enough to need higher elevation).
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Post by Blothorn on Jul 2, 2019 14:16:18 GMT -6
I don't think I'd call the 4" triples on Repulse to be proper DP mounts, myself - they seem to be a leftover piece of the original WWI secondary armament which for whatever reason was never replaced during the refits in the 1920s and 1930s, and if they weren't modified then their maximum elevation would only have been 30 degrees, according to the navweaps page for them ( BL 4"/45 Mk IX), which would've left them as low-angle (LA) guns. Possibly adequate for formation AA coverage, not so good for self AA coverage (though, being manually trained and elevated, the lack of HA capability probably wouldn't matter too much since it probably couldn't effectively track an aircraft close enough to need higher elevation). Good point--and as several other guns have shown, merely making the geometric adjustments to support high elevations is no guarantee of the reliable high-angle loading needed for an effective AA gun.
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Post by mycophobia on Jul 2, 2019 15:12:08 GMT -6
Imo if the Dev already incorporated capital caliber "DP" through heavy AA shells, things like triple DP on cruisers would also warrant inclusion. While their effectiveness probably remains dubious, they are arguably in a better spot than the heavy AA shells fired from battleship main guns.
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Post by DeMatt on Jul 2, 2019 15:40:45 GMT -6
To address the original topic... I think the current limitations of 6" caliber and single/twin mounts are good enough for gameplay. If the "Large shrapnel AA shells" research topic doesn't affect 7" guns, maybe another topic ("Medium shrapnel AA shells"?) could be added to cover the gap. The only triple AA mount I know of to have seen meaningful AA service was the British 4" Mk IX, which was a failure due to poor train rates: "The triple mountings were always extremely difficult to train, and the general procedure when moving through a large arc was for the two trainers at the 'normal' and 'director' training wheels to be assisted by the remainder of the crew pushing on the breeches or muzzles." (From www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Repulse.php ). That said, I haven't heard complaints about the loading arrangement on the triple; I rather doubt the Brits would agree with that; Mr. Jacobs's after-action report definitely notes that the mounts on Repulse couldn't get more ammunition beyond their ready-use stores. And with a mount crew of 32 men, I can't imagine it would be able to maintain a high rate of fire for very long. they were definitely too heavy for the manual train they were built with, but I think that if retrofit with power training they could have been successful, being for example less than half the weight of most 5"/38 twin mounts. I rather doubt this, too. The 4"/45 Mark IX gun weighed about 15% more than the 5"/38 Mark 12 did; while the triple mount Mark I weighed in at 18.8 tonnes, compared to the twin mount Mark 28 Mod 0's 70.9 tonnes, that's comparing the unpowered and lightly armored (splinter shielding only?) low-angle triple with the powered and heavily armored (2") high-angle twin. While the Brits did make a high-angle 4"/45 in the form of the Mark XVI gun on single (Mark XX) and twin (Mark XIX) mounts, I can't imagine they'd have had much success bumping that up to a triple.
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Post by dorn on Jul 3, 2019 0:52:28 GMT -6
Some note.
Tertiary guns has same weight no matter if they are in casemates, singl/double/triple/quadruple mounts.
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Post by whyme943 on Jul 10, 2019 11:54:31 GMT -6
Thanks for all the responses. Maybe there should be some kind of system for 'Semi-DP' guns, especially large ones, that can cover other ships but not themselves. Separate from the Battleship-calibre AA shells, I mean.
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Post by alsadius on Jul 10, 2019 12:40:12 GMT -6
If we're playing with modifications here, I'd almost prefer to see an option for pure AA guns that can't fire at surface targets. Something like these historical Japanese weapons, for example. Make them a lot lighter than DP guns, of course - it looks like the Japanese could do an unarmoured dual mount for 20 tons, whereas the American 5"/38 was 37.6 tons for a minimally-armoured (1/8") dual mount, despite the American guns themselves each being a ton lighter.
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Post by Enderminion on Jul 10, 2019 12:41:46 GMT -6
If I may be so bold as to enlighten you - Dual mounted 3,4,5,6in. guns can have Dual Purpose mountings already at higher techs, and if I'm not mistaken, there were no functional three-gun dual purpose mounts actually built and employed, but of course, I could be wrong there. I will second the desire for super-super firing configurations on smaller gun fittings, as my Dido-esque trade protection cruisers are a little sad given the current state of affairs. the Three Gun Turrets of the Des Monies class Heavy Cruisers could be linked to AA Fire Control and be used as AA Guns, granted they were 8" Autoloading Rifles...
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