Rate of fire, why its too low in game, and the 4 rpm cap

[christian]

Reason for posting this thread
I don't particularly care if the devs want to make the base game (unmodded game) more realistic or if they want to follow what they think the best balance decisions are.
What i would however appreciate is if stuff like the rate of fire cap could be removed, so modders can make guns fire faster than 4 rpm. as currently there is a hardcoded cap to rate of fire so that it never exceed 4.
And also the tools so modders can make the game as realistic as possible.

And yes while being able to modify rate of fire at all is really nice, not being able to go past 4 rounds per minute is very annoying.

This thread is also to show that RTW combat is far slower paced than real naval combat, due to the highly decreased rates of fire found on all gun calibers.

Tech level used in turret mountings: 20. Year and month of test: 1941 in march
These are the results

In game tests
All ships crew level 0 and firing in smoke advantage unless stated otherwise.
Guns used on all ships are quality 1 and thus the best possible gun obtainable of the size
All tests were made against a 1 knot super heavily armored 90k ton barge at arond 17k yards the firing ships were moving 1 knots next to it.
4 inch gun tests were made at 6k yards.

Battleship rate of fire
Both ships mounting 12 barrels of 16 inches
First battleship
Total time of fire 94 minutes, ammunition use 493 rounds, turret Y jammed for 26 minutes. Sustained rof of 0.437 achieved
Second battleship
Total time of fire 94 minutes, ammunition use 564 rounds, no jams. Sustained rof of 0.5 achieved

Cruiser rate of fire

Both ships mounting 12 barrels of 8 inches
First cruiser
Total time of fire 90 minutes, ammunition use 729 rounds, turret jammed for 31 minutes. Sustained rof of 0.675 achieved
Second cruiser (CREW LEVEL 1 INSTEAD OF 0)
Total time of fire 90 minutes, ammunition use 865 rounds, no turret jams. Sustained rof of 0.8 achieved

Destroyer rate of fire

Time of fire 28 minutes for all 4 ships each ships each has 8 barrels of 4 inch guns in 4 twin turrets. no jams recorded

dd: 1 303 rounds sustained rof 1.35
dd: 2 447 rounds sustained rof 1.99 Crew level 1
dd: 3 264 rounds sustained rof 1.17

dd: 4 192 rounds 0.85


Few disclaimers about real battles which reduces rate of fire below what was actually achieved by each gun.

Ships dont always have all their guns firing constantly just like in RTW, thus the time when a gun is not able to fire should not be counted.
This is hard to do because finding exact cease and begin firing times for guns during a battle and ammo expenditure is hard.
In addition to that finding turret jams or other malfunctions is not always easy during a battle, thus turrets not suffering from failures might experience dramatically higher rates of fire.

List of battle instances showing the rate of fire achieved
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5"/38 mark 12 Source: "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors"
Samuel B. Roberts had lost all electrical power to both its turrets earlier in the battle. This meant its Gas ejection system was knocked out leading to very increased overheating due to hot gasses not being ejected. (used to eject the hot gasses in the barrel)
This also means that the 5 HP electric motor in the ramming mechanism was not powered, and thus the ammunition had to be manually rammed.
The fear of overheating could also have lead to lower rate of fire to try to keep the barrel cool and keep it from exploding.

The aft mount had fired almost all of its 325 rounds in 35 minutes and kept firing until a breach explosion caused by the overheated gun igniting a powder charge 
This is a sustained rpm of 9.28 assuming all rounds fired around 9 assuming 10-25 still remaining (
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Gun 8"/50 Mark VIII, Source: chuckhillscgblog.net/2016/12/16/the-mk38-gun-mount-and-ballistics-and-weapons-effectiveness-lessons-from-pursuit-of-the-graf-spee-part-1/
Exeter rate of fire at the battle of river plate, Aft turret firing 177 rounds in 70 minutes on local fire control, average rate of fire during battle 1,26 rpm 
Aft turret (which is being measured as the 2 front turrets were quickly knocked out) was not able to fire for at least a minute if not more, due to her angle to graf spee, and the need to turn the gun 180 degrees twice.

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16"/45 Mark 6 Source: www.navweaps.com/index_lundgren/Kirishima_Damage_Analysis.pdf 
This battle had Washington at broadside during the entire battle duration and precise cease and begin firing timers. Combat took place at around 8000 yards.
During her first 2:39 second firing time she fired 39 projectiles, after which she ceased fire for 1:30 seconds, fire was resumed for 2:45 seconds firing where she fired 36 projectiles.

Rate of fire obtained was 1.81 rpm per gun during the first 2:39 and during the 2:45 she achieved 1.63 rpm. For an average rpm of 1.72
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16"/45 Mark 5 Source: www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/ships/logs/BB/bb48-Surigao.html
Source used is the gunnery report it gives us timings of every single salvo fired.
15th salvo was a one turret salvo where left gun malfunctioned thus necessitating a 16th salvo (16th salvo was only necessary due to the misfire hence why 15 and 16th salvo only fired 1 round)15 and 16th salvo are not counted as they were 1 gun salvoes on a ship with 8 guns  
rpm with 13th and 14th salvo : 1.24 rpm (91 rounds in 9 min 15 sec) 
rpm without 13th and 14th salvo :  1.32 rpm (86 rounds in 8 min 14 sec)

Conclusion

Generally the rate of fire of in game guns is too low compared to real life.

The rate of fire for battleships is generally about 1/3rd of what it should be
Cruisers are the most realistic at this point only firing about 1/3rd to 1/2 as slow as they should
Destroyers have the worst discrepancy as they fire at about 1/7th of what they should 

How the low rate of fire influences gameplay compared to real life

Bad or wrong maneuvers are less punishing as the enemy ships can fire less shells in the same time the ship is out of position, thus punishing the mistake less.

Destroyers have an easier time surviving at closer ranges, thus torpedoes are much more effective than they should be (despite their currently TERRIBLE performance)


Battles are far far longer due to less shells being shot per minute.

Carriers are more important as the slower pace of fleet battles means that carriers can often strike 3-4 times before a fleet battle is over

Cruiser and battleship battles take longer than they should, and can quickly become low range slugfests if no destroyers are present.

Coastal forts are worse than they should be because they get a limited amount of time to fire at ships, on top of the fact they already have less guns than most battleships. This means every round fired counts even more than on other ships, so when they fire 1/7th or 1/3rd the speed they should their impact in game is really low. Most ships can straight up run past them without being hit more than once, due to their low rate of fire.

Changes required to fix this the rate of fire

Remove the rof cap so modders can make guns fire faster than 4 rpm.

[rimbecano]

I don't have too much to say about your analysis of Platte and Samar, but 2nd Guadalcanal and Surigao were both too short, and to close to gunnery practice conditions (firing from ambush against a target too surprised and/or damaged to maneuver aggressively, and taking no return fire), to be representative of the likely long term rate of fire capabilities of the ships involved. The Surigao report basically says as much:

"(a) (4) As in previous firings, ventilation of the lower handling rooms and magazines again proved entirely inadequate. The ship had been in Condition I Easy from 1940 the previous evening and ventilation was maintained up until the time for breaking out powder. With the men lying down and resting as much as possible they were exhausted due to the extreme heat and lack of air and would not have been able to continue the ammunition supply without reliefs many more minutes. When the ammunition train is filled and all ventilation is shut off the situation is greatly aggravated. A more adequate ventilation system is essential. An additional supply blower in the wing pockets, venting to the lower rooms seems feasible. This plan was suggested by the USS Maryland's letter to ComInch BB46/S38-1/S72 (of 90) (0147) of 18 July 1944. Also additional supply ducts to the magazines are required. "

[christian]

Apr 10, 2021 1:50:26 GMT -6 rimbecano said:

I don't have too much to say about your analysis of Platte and Samar, but 2nd Guadalcanal and Surigao were both too short, and to close to gunnery practice conditions (firing from ambush against a target too surprised and/or damaged to maneuver aggressively, and taking no return fire), to be representative of the likely long term rate of fire capabilities of the ships involved. The Surigao report basically says as much:

"(a) (4) As in previous firings, ventilation of the lower handling rooms and magazines again proved entirely inadequate. The ship had been in Condition I Easy from 1940 the previous evening and ventilation was maintained up until the time for breaking out powder. With the men lying down and resting as much as possible they were exhausted due to the extreme heat and lack of air and would not have been able to continue the ammunition supply without reliefs many more minutes. When the ammunition train is filled and all ventilation is shut off the situation is greatly aggravated. A more adequate ventilation system is essential. An additional supply blower in the wing pockets, venting to the lower rooms seems feasible. This plan was suggested by the USS Maryland's letter to ComInch BB46/S38-1/S72 (of 90) (0147) of 18 July 1944. Also additional supply ducts to the magazines are required. "

Had the colorado been a frontline unit in the war in the fleet (like you often use BBs for in RTW 2) these problems would quickly have been discovered and fixed and she would have been refitted with vents for the powder handling rooms
although as with most of the american dreadnoughts they were mostly used for shelling duties throughout the war and the only time they got the opportunity to engage Japanese surface ships was during surigao strait. And despite their problems and short time of fire they still performed very well.

In this case the mountings were designed in 1913 and the ventilation system is greatly outdated to the point that we can see the magazine and powder crews (once in action and open the powder canisters and the doors and so on have to be closed for flash tightness) have no air supply and no air cooler leading to uninhabitable environments in the powder handling rooms


Also i dont really care much about the larger guns because those can currently be modded to fire up to 4 rounds per minute. Thus you can set it to what you feel is realistic
so the rpm of larger guns is not that relevant and honestly does not need to be changed (because you can do it manually yourself if you want to)

The main problem is the 4 RPM cap

[umbaretz]

Apr 9, 2021 14:54:37 GMT -6 christian said:

Cruisers are the most realistic at this point only firing about 1/3rd to 1/2 as slow as they should

Arguable. You have only one example, and only for 8-inch cruiser.
Even if we ignore trial rpm of 3-4 for most such guns, there are also smaller calibers and autoloaded guns, which should also have much higher rates of fire, due to them being automated. (Barrel overheating should be taken in the account though)

[christian]

Apr 10, 2021 12:16:19 GMT -6 umbaretz said:

Apr 9, 2021 14:54:37 GMT -6 christian said:

Cruisers are the most realistic at this point only firing about 1/3rd to 1/2 as slow as they should

Arguable. You have only one example, and only for 8-inch cruiser.
Even if we ignore trial rpm of 3-4 for most such guns, there are also smaller calibers and autoloaded guns, which should also have much higher rates of fire, due to them being automated. (Barrel overheating should be taken in the account though)

Finding examples where the rate of fire for cruisers was available was really hard and i spent probably 2-3 hours trying to find proper sources which list a firing period and rounds fired but was unable to find any outside of the source on exeter

Ive found alot of rpm sources in previous threads but they always got critized for "not credible enough" or "its not during a battle so its not realistic" and i wanted to get the most credible and accurate sources which means real combat and the exact rounds fired and firing periods
If just finding examples of gunnery chiefs reporting x during x battle then that would be easy but i doubt many will trust the numbers they report

And yes we should have 2 inch gatling guns like the hotchkiss 53mm naval gun (from 1890 to 1905 btw) (which had around 30rpm with a good crew) and stuff like the 3"/70 with 50-60 rpm but for whatever reason the devs have not acknowledged these guns or their high rpm even though multiple people have mentioned them multiple times


The problem with finding Rof on smaller guns is that they are usually tertiary guns or mounted on very uninteresting and not very documented ships which means finding combat rpm of them is impossible

[umbaretz]

Apr 10, 2021 14:05:23 GMT -6 christian said:

And yes we should have 2 inch gatling guns like the hotchkiss 53mm naval gun (from 1890 to 1905 btw) (which had around 30rpm with a good crew) and stuff like the 3"/70 with 50-60 rpm but for whatever reason the devs have not acknowledged these guns or their high rpm even though multiple people have mentioned them multiple times


The problem with finding Rof on smaller guns is that they are usually tertiary guns or mounted on very uninteresting and not very documented ships which means finding combat rpm of them is impossible

By 'smaller calibers' I meant 6inch in general and Worcester/Minotaur type cruisers with autoloaders.
5 inch-cruisers should also be viable, at least in AA/destroyer killer role.

[christian]

Apr 10, 2021 15:36:25 GMT -6 umbaretz said:

Apr 10, 2021 14:05:23 GMT -6 christian said:

And yes we should have 2 inch gatling guns like the hotchkiss 53mm naval gun (from 1890 to 1905 btw) (which had around 30rpm with a good crew) and stuff like the 3"/70 with 50-60 rpm but for whatever reason the devs have not acknowledged these guns or their high rpm even though multiple people have mentioned them multiple times


The problem with finding Rof on smaller guns is that they are usually tertiary guns or mounted on very uninteresting and not very documented ships which means finding combat rpm of them is impossible

By 'smaller calibers' I meant 6inch in general and Worcester/Minotaur type cruisers with autoloaders.
5 inch-cruisers should also be viable, at least in AA/destroyer killer role.

True and these guns should already be available in game as they are from before 1955 (which is the date the game simulates up to)
Though sadly the devs have not removed the rof cap or increased the rof of guns 

Devs generally speaking want combat rof numbers and dont like looking at trials theoretical or anything like it
I have had multiple threads and discussions trying to change rof but the devs always fall back on a multitude of excuses why the sources i use or the rof claimed is wrong in battle

So at this point im just trying to remove the 4 rpm cap so that i can mod the rate of fire myself 

[director]

What we have in RtW is a compromise of several factors. One of them is that secondary and tertiary guns do not require ammunition when designed except perhaps indirectly and do not exhaust their ammo in battle. Certainly we do not have to break down secondary/tertiary ammo by HE, AP, AA etc. The other is that the usual firing pattern, of slow deliberate ranging shots followed by faster full salvos and then a return to ranging, is not followed - RtW follows much more modern practice by opening at full rate and maintaining it. So far as I know, only Germany in WW2 opened fire at full rate, hoping to score enough early hits to decide an engagement, as they did at Denmark Straits.

Instead of analyzing battles by ammunition consumption I think it would be more helpful to examine them by duration (length of time guns were firing), number of shells actually fired and number of hits scored.

[aeson]

Apr 12, 2021 5:46:16 GMT -6 director said:

One of them is that secondary and tertiary guns do not require ammunition when designed except perhaps indirectly and do not exhaust their ammo in battle. Certainly we do not have to break down secondary/tertiary ammo by HE, AP, AA etc.

Secondary and tertiary guns can run out of ammunition in battle, and their ammunition supplies are divided between HE, AP, and SAP according to your doctrinal settings for that particular type of gun. For example, a cruiser which has run out of ammunition for its 4" secondary battery:

Note the line "Rounds left sec 0/0/0" - this ship has 0 rounds of 4" AP, 0 rounds of 4" HE, and 0 rounds of 4" SAP ammunition remaining. In this state, the ship cannot engage either surface or air targets with its secondary battery.

Also, a secondary or tertiary DP gun is assumed to use its HE ammunition in the anti-aircraft role, and if you run out of HE shells in battle your ship loses its HAA capability. You can get warning messages in battle when a ship has expended more than half of its anti-aircraft (HE) ammunition.

As to how much ammunition the guns get, it appears that the game assumes a nominal ammunition load of 200 rounds per gun for 2" and 3" secondary or tertiary guns, 150 rounds per gun for 4" through 6" secondary or tertiary guns, and 90 rounds per gun for 7" or heavier secondary guns, though it seems that actual ammunition loads at the start of an engagement can deviate slightly from the nominal value.

[hawkeye]

Apr 12, 2021 7:08:31 GMT -6 aeson said:

Apr 12, 2021 5:46:16 GMT -6 director said:

Secondary and tertiary guns can run out of ammunition in battle, and their ammunition supplies are divided between HE, AP, and SAP according to your doctrinal settings for that particular type of gun.

As to how much ammunition the guns get, it appears that the game assumes a nominal ammunition load of 200 rounds per gun for 2" and 3" secondary or tertiary guns, 150 rounds per gun for 4" through 6" secondary or tertiary guns, and 90 rounds per gun for 7" or heavier secondary guns, though it seems that actual ammunition loads at the start of an engagement can deviate slightly from the nominal value.

That's very interesting.
I have never looked into it, but assumed that the amount of secondary/tertiary ammunition was liked to the amount for the main guns (i.e. upping ammo for the main guns would also up the ammo for the secondary guns).

Can someone confirm that this isn't the case?

[director]

I'd always assumed that ammunition for sec/tert was accounted for in the weight required during the design phase and not actually tracked. I don't recall ever running out of sec/tert ammo in battle... I always assumed the ammunition selection applied only to primary guns. Thank you for the information.

[nimrod]

Hawkeye,

Aeson pretty much nailed it from my experience and I've seen some small discrepancies on load-outs as well (think rounding issues do to ammo load-out percentages). 150 rounds is what I recall for 4" through 6" guns regardless of my main battery ammo storage (90-160ish at 11" or greater) or year. Pretty easy to check in a fleet training exercise and or battle.

I'll add that I suspect that the secondary and tertiary guns don't track ammo per gun, but ammo is held in a common magazine. If you start with 10 secondaries and 8 are destroyed, the remaining guns will have the combined ammo remaining from all 10 guns.

Good examples are at: nws-online.proboards.com/thread/2034/moments-unintended-humour-game-again?page=6 with the Gangut. I'm showing 90 rounds per gun / 180 per mount for the main battery and 150 on the nose for the single 6" guns.

ibb.co/8MgNHNn is showing 200 rounds per 3" secondary.

ibb.co/T08ySkP is showing 80 rounds of ammo per barrel / 160 per mount and 150 rounds on the nose per single 6" secondary

HMS Sydney posted by DOM at nws-online.proboards.com/thread/2034/moments-unintended-humour-game-again?page=13 is showing about 250 rounds per 6" main (its weird as it isn't showing any rounds fired but 80% ammo left 208x120% equals 250 rounded) and 164 rounds per 4" (again not showing any rounds fired and the 66% of remaining ammo is rounded.). I assume the lack of showing rounds fired is due to not counting HAA rounds.

Ibuki by Dia at nws-online.proboards.com/thread/2034/moments-unintended-humour-game-again?page=43 is showing 150 rounds per main gun and about 143 rounds per 5" secondary.

[aeson]

Apr 12, 2021 12:59:00 GMT -6 nimrod said:

HMS Sydney posted by DOM at nws-online.proboards.com/thread/2034/moments-unintended-humour-game-again?page=13 is showing about 250 rounds per 6" main (its weird as it isn't showing any rounds fired but 80% ammo left 208x120% equals 250 rounded) and 164 rounds per 4" (again not showing any rounds fired and the 66% of remaining ammo is rounded.). I assume the lack of showing rounds fired is due to not counting HAA rounds.

Ibuki by Dia at nws-online.proboards.com/thread/2034/moments-unintended-humour-game-again?page=43 is showing 150 rounds per main gun and about 143 rounds per 5" secondary.

I get exactly 150 rounds per gun for both Sydney and Ibuki - Sydney's 792 remaining 4" shells represent 66% of its nominal 4" ammunition load, so Sydney's magazines should hold 1200 4" shells for its eight 4" guns when the magazines are full, and Ibuki's 1872 remaining 5" shells represent 78% of its nominal 5" ammunition load, so Ibuki's magazines should hold 2400 5" shells for its sixteen 5" guns.

Also, I think the "missing" rounds are probably shells fired at aircraft; I seem to recall that rounds fired against aircraft weren't being included in the total number of shells fired last time I checked, and going by the information available from the posts in which those ships' data cards can be seen it would appear that both of them were subject to air attack.

[nimrod]

Thanks Aeson. I appreciate the math check / lesson - you are absolutely correct! I'm guessing I was transposing some numbers. I have a habit of swapping 3, 8, and 9, and 2s with 7s.

[christian]

One reason why people often find secondaries running out of ammo is by 1940 they need to have ammunition for both HAA and surface warfare
problem is unlike real life where ammunition load was between 300 - 500 rounds per barrel (5"/38) in game we have 150-250 and this often means that most of the ammo is used vs surface targets and when aircraft come you have no HAA because its out of ammo
For example DD 445 carried 525 rounds per gun in the magazines and 50 in the ready rack which is a staggering 575 rounds per gun on a destroyer her total ammo load being 2875 rounds


Granted she also had a much higher rate of fire and was able to empty this ammunition capacity in less than 40 to 60 minutes where as in game firing 2875 rounds from 5 guns would take between 500 minutes to 400 minutes with a 4 inch gun depending on crew skill time taken would probably be 25 to 50% higher with a 5 inch gun