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Post by Antediluvian Monster on May 25, 2020 13:52:23 GMT -6
I don't see any reason why the maximum firing range should have any baring on a guns accuracy. In history, the biggest factors regarding accuracy were the proficiency of the fire control system, and the quality (including quality control/tolerances) of the guns, ammunition and mountings. Most navies expected to fight at the 16000 to 20000 yard range (USN at little longer), much closer than 26000 yard longest hits (Scharnhorst & Warspite) or the 40000+ yard maximum range of things like the 40cm/45 type 94 or Mk7 16"/50. In wide sense it should. I.e. the greater sectional density, and consequent greater danger space and shorter time of flight of a 12" shell should make it more accurate than 6" shell at range. It was one of the reasons for the all-big-gun ship. In more narrow scope it might not be so important, though I'm not sure it's very important in the game at the moment anyway compared to the other factors.
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lucur
Junior Member
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Post by lucur on May 25, 2020 15:02:19 GMT -6
My statement considering max range as a factor to accuracy is made on a game standpoint, not IRL gunnery. The longest range hit i know of was made with a humble 11" gun, after all... In games accuracy is often a statistic expressed as a function including increments of the maximum range as base value with several other modifiers. Not an accurate simulation maybe, but an easy enough game mechanic to grasp.
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dnl
New Member
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Post by dnl on May 25, 2020 16:10:53 GMT -6
First of all i admit that my rule of thumb is "give high priority to gun reasearch till you get 15+ Q1 gun, then swith to low" - so my standard gun is the first gun with Q1 that is 15 inch or bigger. With Q1 is enough to penetrate in most cases (i often go for close combat).
Still i think high caliber guns can be valid if you go for SAP. The problem is that you cant give SAP only to your "big gun" BC/BB and use AP for 15 inch. And changing all your ship could be to costly. Still in theory 18, or 20 inch gun with SAP should be able to penetrate every armor you can fight with, and with such a caliber and SAP shell - it could be quite powerful.
With AP - i think its not worthy, higher chances of passthrough, cost and weight - just dont justify.
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Post by rimbecano on May 25, 2020 16:28:45 GMT -6
My statement considering max range as a factor to accuracy is made on a game standpoint, not IRL gunnery. The longest range hit i know of was made with a humble 11" gun, after all... It depends somewhat on what you mean by "hit". If you mean "An entire shell fired by ship A arrived aboard ship B," then it's either the Scharnhorst -> Glorious hit you're referring to or Warspite -> Giulio Cesare, at approximately the same range (I'm finding different numbers for Scharnhorst -> Glorious, though. There seems to be some yards/meters confusion. If the number for that hit was 26,000 meters, as some sources state, not yards, then it would beat Warspite's hit handily). If "hit" means "ship A damaged ship B by gunfire", then Iowa -> Nowaki (or New Jersey -> Nowaki, the originating ship is uncertain) wins by a margin of well over 10,000 yards. No direct hits were made, but Nowaki took splinter damage from near misses.
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Post by smrfisher on May 27, 2020 11:46:56 GMT -6
The longest range hit i know of was made with a humble 11" gun, after all... That record is shared between Scharnhorst - although with a very modern 11", and Warspite with the 15in/42.
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Post by smrfisher on May 27, 2020 11:50:56 GMT -6
I don't see any reason why the maximum firing range should have any baring on a guns accuracy. In history, the biggest factors regarding accuracy were the proficiency of the fire control system, and the quality (including quality control/tolerances) of the guns, ammunition and mountings. Most navies expected to fight at the 16000 to 20000 yard range (USN at little longer), much closer than 26000 yard longest hits (Scharnhorst & Warspite) or the 40000+ yard maximum range of things like the 40cm/45 type 94 or Mk7 16"/50. In wide sense it should. I.e. the greater sectional density, and consequent greater danger space and shorter time of flight of a 12" shell should make it more accurate than 6" shell at range. It was one of the reasons for the all-big-gun ship. In more narrow scope it might not be so important, though I'm not sure it's very important in the game at the moment anyway compared to the other factors. The move toward all big gun layout was more to do with spotting the fall of shot as ranges increased. The original concept what to batter the superstructure with smaller weapons whilst your large guns punched holes in the hull. Especially important when the main guns were very slow firing. The mass of a shell will help it maintain velocity and therefore penetration capacity at range, but accuracy is still much more a factor of how good a gun, and fire control system being used.
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Post by skoggatt on May 27, 2020 16:57:55 GMT -6
I don't see any reason why the maximum firing range should have any baring on a guns accuracy. In history, the biggest factors regarding accuracy were the proficiency of the fire control system, and the quality (including quality control/tolerances) of the guns, ammunition and mountings. Most navies expected to fight at the 16000 to 20000 yard range (USN at little longer), much closer than 26000 yard longest hits (Scharnhorst & Warspite) or the 40000+ yard maximum range of things like the 40cm/45 type 94 or Mk7 16"/50. Maximum firing range is dependent on muzzle velocity, so those larger ranges will need a higher shell speed. This allows the gun to fire at a lower elevation and reach the target quicker at a given range than a comparatively shorter ranged gun. While this will not make the gun more accurate or precise in an objective standpoint, versus say a static target, engaging a moving target means the enemy will move less in the time the shell is flying, making it easier to hit with a longer ranged gun at a given range. Muzzle velocity is only one of many factors in accuracy, and not even necessarily the most important. For example, a shell with a higher ballistic coefficient can be fired at a lower muzzle velocity yet reach the target with a higher velocity and have a flatter trajectory overall. Not to mention gun dispersion. Many of the highest velocity guns in WW2 had the worst accuracy because their dispersion was so high. The shells might fly a flatter trajectory, but they would spread out a lot more making hits less likely even when the target was straddled. Additionally, firing range isn't only dependent on muzzle velocity: the maximum elevation of the gun and the ballistic coefficient of the shells had more to do with maximum gun range than muzzle velocity.
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Post by orkel on May 27, 2020 17:49:44 GMT -6
Shell caliber has an effect on "dynamic probabilities for odds of and severity of flooding"
Williammiller's post on the discord: "There are two ways to lose flotation in the game: one is the 'initial' loss of flotation by a hit, and the other is through 'progressive flooding' from a hit. While these two systems have different names they are certainly related, and can affect each other. Given that the ship in question had already lost 2/3 of its flotation, a series of hits can cause much greater flooding due to the existing holes/damage/breached bulkheads, etc. This flooding can and often will be much worse than if the ship had taken no flotation loss already...in less likely cases it can cause a cascade effect where multiple bulkheads & damaged sections fail and the flooding swells out of control very quickly. This is modeled in the game by dynamic probabilities for odds of and severity of flooding based on a number of factors, such as hit location, shell size, current flotation loss, previous torpedo hits, etc..."
So a 20 inch shell has a higher chance of causing nasty progressive flooding, broken bulkhead events, etc.
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Post by polygon on May 27, 2020 19:07:49 GMT -6
I wonder if there's something to be said for simple weight of fire with something like a 12×14" or 16×12" (lol) layout, assuming you have adequate penetration. My current game had my spies steal improved quad turrets from France before I could even build non-improved triples, and so off I went to quad 12 land. It was brilliantly effective against Russia, but I'm pretty sure a fishing trawler with a pointy stick is effective against Russia (the battle took place in 1921, 80% techrate)
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lucur
Junior Member
Posts: 72
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Post by lucur on May 27, 2020 23:53:58 GMT -6
I wonder if there's something to be said for simple weight of fire with something like a 12×14" or 16×12" (lol) layout, assuming you have adequate penetration. My current game had my spies steal improved quad turrets from France before I could even build non-improved triples, and so off I went to quad 12 land. It was brilliantly effective against Russia, but I'm pretty sure a fishing trawler with a pointy stick is effective against Russia (the battle took place in 1921, 80% techrate) I've had pretty much the same happen, it was glorious, when my 12×12" battleships went to service. They were not super longlived though, despite having some core values that should take them to the next decade (speed/armor and some reserve tonnage for refits). Once your enemies field 15" and 16" guns in their battleline you feel the range difference and will receive way more damage when closing to the effectice range of your guns (at least against heavily armored units). I tried keeping at the outer ranges to get some plunging fire, but received about as many hits from the enemy's high calibre guns as i could achieve. The more smaller guns sure tear through all kinds of cruisers though (again except healy armored BCs), which i why i kept the until the mid 30s on my BCs.
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Post by polygon on May 28, 2020 0:19:49 GMT -6
I wonder if there's something to be said for simple weight of fire with something like a 12×14" or 16×12" (lol) layout, assuming you have adequate penetration. My current game had my spies steal improved quad turrets from France before I could even build non-improved triples, and so off I went to quad 12 land. It was brilliantly effective against Russia, but I'm pretty sure a fishing trawler with a pointy stick is effective against Russia (the battle took place in 1921, 80% techrate) I've had pretty much the same happen, it was glorious, when my 12×12" battleships went to service. They were not super longlived though, despite having some core values that should take them to the next decade (speed/armor and some reserve tonnage for refits). Once your enemies field 15" and 16" guns in their battleline you feel the range difference and will receive way more damage when closing to the effectice range of your guns (at least against heavily armored units). I tried keeping at the outer ranges to get some plunging fire, but received about as many hits from the enemy's high calibre guns as i could achieve. The more smaller guns sure tear through all kinds of cruisers though (again except healy armored BCs), which i why i kept the until the mid 30s on my BCs. Triple 12" upgrade to twin 15". Unfortunately quads don't refit at all.
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Post by holoween on May 28, 2020 0:53:35 GMT -6
I wonder if there's something to be said for simple weight of fire with something like a 12×14" or 16×12" (lol) layout, assuming you have adequate penetration.
Just fire he. Ive finished a game where i had every gun only ever fire he and was runing up to 16 13" guns on my ships. This was the first time ive easily beaten the RN in an all out fleet battle.
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Post by director on May 28, 2020 1:17:03 GMT -6
I ran a test game where I never went above a 14" gun. At the end I was building 18x14" monsters... but I was able to effectively engage and destroy enemy capital ships. The number of shell hits achieved per turn by a 15 or 18-gun battery can be, um, quite sufficient - especially if you have enough DDs and torpedoes to finish off the cripples. Had I been playing with a smaller budget I could have built a lot of 12x14" ships and done very well.
The lesson I learned from the exercise is that you don't have to penetrate the armor a lot to kill the ship. Smash the superstructure, open up the ends and put the turrets out of action (if only temporarily), wreck the funnels and your DDs can do whatever else is necessary.
The 14" is, I think, a bit light after say 1935, but if employed in masses it can still get the job done. I don't think I would care to take on a major power with anything smaller - not saying it cannot be done, it just isn't my preference. RtW offers many ways to win...
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Post by dorn on May 28, 2020 2:51:58 GMT -6
I build in 30s Scharnhorst type battlecruisers, heavily protected (14" inclined belt) with just 3x3x11" guns, speed 31 knots within about 32000 tons.
She was still good ship as you do not need high caliber gun to demolish superstructure, destroying fire control or disabling turrets.
She cannot face 40000 tons battleship in one to one combat, but she can outrun them and she was still very dangerous ship, slowing down enemy, damaging or finishing them.
It always matters what you have and how you use it.
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Post by skoggatt on May 28, 2020 6:03:37 GMT -6
I've had pretty much the same happen, it was glorious, when my 12×12" battleships went to service. They were not super longlived though, despite having some core values that should take them to the next decade (speed/armor and some reserve tonnage for refits). Once your enemies field 15" and 16" guns in their battleline you feel the range difference and will receive way more damage when closing to the effectice range of your guns (at least against heavily armored units). I tried keeping at the outer ranges to get some plunging fire, but received about as many hits from the enemy's high calibre guns as i could achieve. The more smaller guns sure tear through all kinds of cruisers though (again except healy armored BCs), which i why i kept the until the mid 30s on my BCs. Triple 12" upgrade to twin 15". Unfortunately quads don't refit at all. Can you not refit quads into triples? That seems like an oversight considering the North Carolinas were designed with quad 14" turrets that had the same turret ring diameter as the triple 16" designed in case the escalator clause was invoked.
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