danielh Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 I've tried for the first time the big naval guns, and couldn't believe what i saw. Target area had no LOS, so area fire. I did 4 tests. Result: out of 6 shots 4-5 land within a rectangle of around 50 x 50 m the craters overlap almost. To me that seems very unrealistic. What makes this guns so accurate ? They fire from around 20 or more kilometers away and travel a lot of different airlayers and then land within 50 x 50 m ?! They are by far the most efficient standoff weapon. I could hit and blow any non moving target on the map with 4 shots ! The pattern is actually much tighter than an 80 mm mortar area fire pattern. That's the pattern i suspect when i have LOS with 10.5 cm or 15 cm artillery but there the pattern is around 100 x 150. Why that ? Greets Daniel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wayne Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 I'm just guessing but naval gunfire has to be accurate in order to hit a small moving target at sea. Those guys were probably the best in the world. The navy had 2 years experience conducting shore bombardment in both the Pacific and Mediterrainian so what you see is the results. ------------------ Blessed be the Lord my strength who teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maastrictian Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 Consider: The goal of these guns is to hit a 200m by 30m oposing ship at 20,000m. They are made to be that accurate. A mortor was hastily setup and its not even quite sure exactally where it is. A big ship, with sextants and dead reconing and compases and landmarks on shore can be exactally sure where it is. The mortor was dropped a couple of times by a tired GI throwig it slightly out of whack. The naval gun is permanently mounted. I find the accuracy of naval guns very realistic. --Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C16_Blackhorse Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 The size of the projectile, the length of the gun tube, and the number of turns in the tubes(rifling). Self-propelled and pulled artillery could not be self-propelled and pulled at these sizes. Also, their firing platform provided more predictability. Go figure? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielh Posted September 28, 2000 Author Share Posted September 28, 2000 So the most accurate guns were the big german trainguns ? With them you have then actually a somewhat oversized sniperrifle ?!! As far is i know the smaller guns were placed much nearer the target and should therefore have about the same acuraccy. And trigonometrie is much easier on land than on water. Moreover the shipguns were fired on enemy ships on sight and thus didn't need max elevation, and still most shots missed. And Mortars were actually almost in the frontline maybe 1 - 2 kilometers away at most, communication for correction was easier and faster. If it would not be that way the whole world would only use the biggest calibers, because the others are a waist of effort... Greets Daniel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maastrictian Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> As far is i know the smaller guns were placed much nearer the target and should therefore have about the same acuraccy. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The first statement is true, but the second does not nessesarlily follow from it, especially considering the other concerns that have been brought up. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> And trigonometrie is much easier on land than on water. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Explain this remark? How was it easier? <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> Moreover the shipguns were fired on enemy ships on sight and thus didn't need max elevation, and still most shots missed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Again, explain this remark. Why does having the target in sight make a difference? Battleships of the era used spotting planes to judge the fall of shot for them. This would have been directally analogous to having an FO judge the fall of shot when the battle ship was used for indirect fire. And how does having the target in sight make a difference to the elevation used on the guns? That is just pure balistics. Its not like there were any mountains they had to get the shells over. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> And Mortars were actually almost in the frontline maybe 1 - 2 kilometers away at most, communication for correction was easier and faster. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> This is taken into account interms of the delay for arty. Small mortors that would have been attached to companies and battalions take a short amount of time. Regimental arty takes longer and divisional type stuff like naval fire takes even longer. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> If it would not be that way the whole world would only use the biggest calibers, because the others are a waist of effort... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> The advantages of mortors are the fast rate of fire, capacity for mass production and portability. The 14inch guns were much less effective on the Rhine. To review, the reason for the high accuracy of naval gun fire, as brought up by everyone who has posted so far is: -highly trained crews who need to bring fire in on small moving targets. -guns knowledge of its exact location -the rifling of the tube -the length of the tube (I'll add some too) -the greater capacity for balistics calculation on a battleship (I've been on a WWII battleship, in crew area of the 16inch guns. They had a mechanical sort of balistics "computer" that did the grunt work for them. conventional arty just has static tables of info. These people could dynamically calculate the shot. -Mass production vs. craftsman ship. (with the small number of battleship guns produced, I immagine that each one was carfully tested and to some degree indivudually built. Mortors and the like were mass produced and were probably not as perfect (this is speculation).) --Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slapdragon Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 I thorw up trying to do trig on land, imagine how bad it would be at sea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 Before everybody gets carried away with the whys and wherefores of naval gun accuracy vs. land gun accuracy, just remember 1 simple thing: The reason you are seeing such tight patterns for NGFS is because CM resolves naval guns with the same routines as all other OBA guns. That is, they ALL have the same impact pattern under the same conditions of LOS, TRP, and regular or wide pattern selection, regardless of make, model, nationality, size, or point of origin. All mortars use a slightly larger pattern under the same circumstances, and all rockets use another. Search for impact pattern sizes for their dimensions. So here's the question you all should be debating: should CM separate all naval guns out and give them their own generic pattern like it has for mortars and rockets? Regardless of the merits of either side, I don't see this happening. NGFS is only available in scenarios set in June 1944 anyway, so I doubt BTS would find it worth the effort. I do, however, find the extremely tight grouping of 14" fire with the regular pattern to be extremely wasteful. Those shells have a kill radius of AT LEAST 100m vs. light friggin' ARMOR, as determined in testing. So I recommend only using the wide pattern option for 14". And if you do that, you can't complain that the shells land too close together ------------------ -Bullethead Visit the brand new Raider Operations message board at www.delphi.com/raiderops Main site www.historicalgames.bizland.com/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisl Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Bullethead: I do, however, find the extremely tight grouping of 14" fire with the regular pattern to be extremely wasteful. Those shells have a kill radius of AT LEAST 100m vs. light friggin' ARMOR <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I recently witnessed the devastation of these things. I called on them to rain death on some Germans in the woods about 120-160 m from my troops (risky). The stuff was unobserved, and came down reasonably dispersed, but overlapped. One of the four shells was a treeburst, which was slightly short and took out about a half squad of my troops. The woods that I was targeting were sterilized, taking out about 2 platoons. I think I'd be afraid to use target wide anywhere near my own troops... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
109 Gustav Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 Ships had and have fire control computers to counter the effects of humidity, wind, range, and gun position on the ship. Gunners could feed in these values, and the computer would tell them how much to correct their aim. Sure, in WWII the computers were mechanical, not electronic like today, but they still worked. Arty, mortars, and the like had no such computers to correct their aim. ------------------ Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat. But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown. And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing. -Commercial fishing in Kodiak, Alaska Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>One of the four shells was a treeburst, which was slightly short and took out about a half squad of my troops. The woods that I was targeting were sterilized, taking out about 2 platoons. I think I'd be afraid to use target wide anywhere near my own troops...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You ain't supposed to be anywhere near the 14" impact area, regardless. That gun was designed to sink 30,000 ton enemy battleships by poking a large number of holes in them. Consider the difference in scale between that task, and thus the energy required, and poking a single 75-88mm hole in a 30 ton tank. Yeah, I know this is APC work, but it gives you an appreciation for the HE of the same calibers. Don't treat 14" like regular arty. You DO NOT have to follow the barrage closely to capitalize on suppression effects . ------------------ -Bullethead Visit the brand new Raider Operations message board at www.delphi.com/raiderops Main site www.historicalgames.bizland.com/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertanker Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 There are a surprising number of sites that deal with naval gunnery. What follows is a quote from http://www.warships1.com/W-INRO/INRO_BB-Gunnery_p1.htm , The Evolution of Battleship Gunnery in the U.S. Navy, 1920-1945, by William J. Jurens. This particular quote is regarding firing 14" guns at a range of 12,700 yards, using pre-war fire control equipment (the author notes later that the fire control equipment deployed during the war increased accuracy remarkably): "Lt. Murphy, the gunnery officer, noted laconically '. . .The first salvo had an excellent range pattern of 250 yards [and] a good deflection pattern in the neighborhood of 100 yards. Two plane spotters stated that all the shots in this salvo landed so close together that it was difficult to distinguish the individual splashes. Unfortunately, the mean point of impact was 1,252 yards over . . .'" So, it sounds like CM is about right on the dispersion, but most of the patterns should just miss the board completely. Watch your toes! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Supertanker Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 There are also many useful and educational article at warships1.com's technical page: http://www.warships1.com/default_tech.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bullethead Posted September 28, 2000 Share Posted September 28, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Unfortunately, the mean point of impact was 1,252 yards over . . .'" So, it sounds like CM is about right on the dispersion, but most of the patterns should just miss the board completely.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Remember, WW1 and later battleship guns were all of about 45-50 caliber for high velocity. Same idea as long barrels for AT weapons. So they put out shells doing 2000-3000 or more feet per second at the muzzle, again like high velocity AT guns. This means a flat trajectory. Watch a high velocity tank try to hit a target on the crest of a very slight rise of ground. If its sights are just a bit low, the round can hit a few hundred meters short. If the tank aims just a hair too high, the round lands hundreds of meters behind the target. Same thing with naval guns, only on a larger scale. ------------------ -Bullethead Visit the brand new Raider Operations message board at www.delphi.com/raiderops Main site www.historicalgames.bizland.com/index.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andre76 Posted September 29, 2000 Share Posted September 29, 2000 In all the books I've read about the fighting in Normandy, the Germans complained about the accuracy of the naval guns and the devestation they brought. So, to me it seems quite ok. ------------------ André Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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