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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 1, 2015 7:07:13 GMT -6
As Wash so delicately indicates, 'interesting' can have a variety of different meanings, depending upon context. Some of those meanings are not a bad thing... but some can make us realize that we are facing something that are very bad indeed. One of those meanings appeared in my current game (which BTW, is going to be my first AAR game) when I entered my 36th month at war with Russia. The lead ship of my new Tennessee class battleships was finishing her first year in the queue, and her sister Sequoya is only about 9 months behind. Some quick background on the class - imagine the historic Satsuma class had she been completed as an 'all big gun' ship as planned instead of a mixed battery vessel, replacing the twin 10" wing mounts with single 12"/L45's. Indeed, she is unintentionally almost identical to the intended design of the Japanese vessel in every way - armor scheme, secondary battery, the whole nine yards. Now, I noticed in my messages that Russia had completed a new battleship. Anxious to see what my main adversary (at war for 36 months!) had produced, I open the almanac and immediately know how Wash felt: Yes, you are reading that right. I know it defies logic, physics, and the handling characteristics of heavy guns... but you're seeing it right. FOURTEEN CASEMATED ELEVEN INCH GUNS.
My big question is this: When these beasts are facing my ships in line of battle - and they will, because this war seems to have the necessary ingredients for a long stalemate - will these unreasonable monsters be facing any kind of penalties for those unholy gun mountings - ROF, accuracy, etc? And if they aren't... why aren't they?
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Post by alchenar on Sept 1, 2015 7:30:54 GMT -6
Those 11 inch guns aren't going to have any kind of fire control bonus at all, so as long as you don't go broadside to broadside with them you should be fine.
e: in reality that design would imply the whole length of the ship is one big ammo explosion waiting to happen, but I'm pretty sure the game doesn't model that
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Post by cwemyss on Sept 1, 2015 8:18:00 GMT -6
What you need to do is upgrade to V1.11 immediately. :-)
From the release notes:
Changes: * Added risk of flash fire explosions when heavy secondary gun batteries receive penetrating hits.
Just try to not take too much shrapnel damage when Tsesarevich blows up.
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Post by jdkbph on Sept 1, 2015 14:09:24 GMT -6
Flash fire is only a partial fix for this. I've been looking into this subject ever since it was first mentioned. I just don't think it's practical, and perhaps not even possible to mount such large guns in such a way.
The problem is shot and powder. How do you get it from the magazine (we are assuming magazine storage, yes?) to the mount? The shell and powder hoists for 5" and 6" secondary casemates and turrets were complex enough that servicing more than a handful of these things per side is prohibitive in terms of weight and manpower. Ready stowage is a trade off between efficiency and catastrophic risk. How many 11" shells and powder bags are you going to store unprotected above the armored deck and belt? Not many if you want to survive to fight a second battle. That means every round - shell and powder separately - needs to be hoisted from the magazines to the gun deck and, unless we assume that every gun will be serviced by hydraulic/mechanical loaders, basically hand loaded into the gun. From magazine to breech, we're probably talking hundreds of crewmen per side. And even then what sort of rate of fire can you expect? Three or four rounds per hour?
There's a reason why, even amongst all the bizarre trial and error designs that came out of this era, this was never done.
So how to fix it in the game? Here are a couple of suggestions:
1. You can flat out prohibit it.
2. You can place an exorbitant weight and crew penalty on it... perhaps to the point where any ship that mounted such heavy secondary armament would not be useful for anything other than a floating battery.
3. You can place huge RoF penalties on such a mount.
4. You can make them prone to catastrophic damage with most any penetrating hit.
Option 1. obviously solves the problem entirely, but may not please some players.
Options 2. and 3. go together to allow such silliness, but place reasonable limitations on other aspects of the design.
Similarly, options 3. and 4. together allow it but make it so dangerous that reasonable people would not choose to employ it (hopefully the AI would be smart enough to avoid it for the same reasons).
MHO...
JD
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Post by baggers on Sept 1, 2015 14:23:32 GMT -6
First, note that thecarthaginian may have been fooled by a tricky spion ^^ Intelligence in RTW doesn't alway give accurate informations. Counter-intelligence can give false ennemy ship's caracteristics.
But I don't think 14 casemateds 11" guns is more problematic than 8 dual turrets in terms of shells and powder management.
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Post by jdkbph on Sept 1, 2015 14:58:10 GMT -6
But I don't think 14 casemateds 11" guns is more problematic than 8 dual turrets in terms of shells and powder management. It's not... at least mostly not. But then that's why you don't (or shouldn't) see 8 dual 11" turrets mounted as secondary armament either. JD
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 1, 2015 15:22:05 GMT -6
First, note that thecarthaginian may have been fooled by a tricky spion ^^ Intelligence in RTW doesn't alway give accurate informations. Counter-intelligence can give false ennemy ship's caracteristics. But I don't think 14 casemateds 11" guns is more problematic than 8 dual turrets in terms of shells and powder management. Possibly I have been fooled... but yes, a casemate is FAR more problematic than a turret for handling purposes. This is a 6" casemate on a Queen Elizabeth dreadnought... notice anything special? How about the fact that they are worked entirely by hand? This means that, with an 11" gun, 300kg shells are being handled in just this manner - no hoists to deliver the shell almost directly into the breech, no power rammers, no nothing. You have to hand-load the shell, hand ram it to the index point, then hand-load the powder and repeat the process. It would take an eternity in the heat of battle to do this... not to mention the fact that these casemates would have a risk of flash-fire and catastrophic explosion directly proportional to the amount of powder being used. Oh, and notice the 'ready rounds' lying conveniently on the deck? Yeah, that too. So, yes, an 11" gun in a casemate would be INSANE as far as having to be loaded like this - prohibitively so.
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 1, 2015 15:47:15 GMT -6
Those 11 inch guns aren't going to have any kind of fire control bonus at all, so as long as you don't go broadside to broadside with them you should be fine. e: in reality that design would imply the whole length of the ship is one big ammo explosion waiting to happen, but I'm pretty sure the game doesn't model that Not going broadside-to-broadside is kind virtually impossible in a naval battle. At some point, ships will inevitably end up doing just that. Especially since my ship is slower by one knot.
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Post by baggers on Sept 1, 2015 16:16:07 GMT -6
"casemate" doesn't mean "all by hand". You could have a casemated gun with same "automation" and shell/powder management than a turreted version. In fact, you need it for big guns and heavy shells.
The only real difference between a casemate and a turret are the way the gun pivots. In the turret, all guns and gun rooms and gunners pivots 360 degrees, when in a casemate, the gun can only pivot itself and a few degrees.
Nice and interressing pic, btw.
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Post by tmp on Sept 1, 2015 17:05:14 GMT -6
So how to fix it in the game? Here are a couple of suggestions: 3. You can place huge RoF penalties on such a mount. This is already in the game, in a way -- these guns will suffer considerable RoF penalty in rough weather, in addition to having smaller arc of fire, if i'm not mistaken. Add to it they aren't going to be as well armoured as the main turrets and thus more prone to getting quickly destroyed in combat..?
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 1, 2015 17:10:59 GMT -6
"casemate" doesn't mean "all by hand". You could have a casemated gun with same "automation" and shell/powder management than a turreted version. In fact, you need it for big guns and heavy shells. The only real difference between a casemate and a turret are the way the gun pivots. In the turret, all guns and gun rooms and gunners pivots 360 degrees, when in a casemate, the gun can only pivot itself and a few degrees. Nice and interressing pic, btw. Pic is from the NavWeps site. Everything you need to know about naval rifles after the advent of smokeless powder is on that page. And as there were no guns largrr than 6" in casemates in the modern era, there were no power assist casemates... and as such I am rather suer that is not included in their weight allowance in-game. Which means they are being loaded by manpower alone.
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Post by baggers on Sept 1, 2015 18:02:00 GMT -6
I must admit I have no knowledge about naval arty ^^ But I have pass some time on the remain of the "atlantic wall", and some costal very heavy casemated arty have power assist for handling the reloading in a way or another. At a side note, I noticed that one of the heavyest "casemate" on this wall was in fact a "observation tower" for fire control of big guns on... railroads rather than casemateds itselves ^^ (nice museum inside)
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Post by baggers on Sept 2, 2015 1:13:13 GMT -6
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Post by thecarthaginian on Sept 2, 2015 1:21:16 GMT -6
Not so much... because a 100kg shell and a 300kg shell are nothing alike when it is time to load and fire.
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Post by gornik on Sept 2, 2015 2:48:32 GMT -6
In USA press in 1906 appeared article where was mentioned "new Russian battleship project" with 4 12 in guns in casemates also there is a photo of nearly the same ship model so casemated 12 in guns considered possible in that time.
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