Naval Guns in CMAK?

[CombinedArms]

I've been reading a bit about the desert & Italian campaigns to get ready for CMAK and am hoping that BFC plans to give us some well-modeled naval guns. They had an influence on many moments of the desert campaign and played a key role in turning back counterattacks in Sicily, Salerno and Anzio. I know that CM doesn't model amphibious invasions, but at Salerno and Anzio, cruisers and such hung around the beaches for days and weeks to provide supporting fire.

Just a hope...

[YankeeDog]

Heck, I'll bite. . .

What kind of changes would you (or anyone else who feels like piping up for that matter) like to see about how naval gunfire support is modeled? After all, Naval calibres are already modeled in CMBO, though they don't really behave much differently than support from a land-based battery.

I must admit I know very little about how naval gunfire support from, say, a cruiser offshore would differ from a land based battery firing a similar weight shell.

At the very least, I guess naval gunfire support should mean a different number of tubes and also different timing between salvos. Between the sheer number of tubes and the semi-automated aiming and loading systems, some of those Cruisers and Battleships could keep up a pretty remarkable rate of fire considering the weight of projectile they were throwing. . .

In any event, I certainly agree with the statement that Naval Gunfire support should have a more noticable presence in CMAK - with the exception of the the first couple of weeks following D-Day, there are many more historical examples of its use in direct support of tactical-level ground action in the Med than elsewhere in the ETO.

What else??

Cheers,

YD

[CombinedArms]

The first thing would simply be to model naval gun sizes and blasts. IIRC, CMBO just modeled 14 inch battleship guns. You could approximate a 6 inch light cruiser gun with 155mm, 8 inch heavy cruiser with 8 inch, etc. There wasn't a real good US equivalent for a destroyer gun. But even when the inch size is equal, is the blast really similar? I don't know that, but it would be great if the good folks who make CM could research that. Similarly, I don't know what the tube effect or accuracy should be like. Reports often suggest that naval gunfire was particularly devestating to both infantry and armor, but why? Was it more accurate or higher blast than equivalent land weapons? Was the firepower more concentrated? I'm not sure, but some research and modeling based on that research would certainly be welcome. If there are any naval gunfire grogs out there, your comments would be appreciated...

[ June 25, 2003, 03:06 PM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[MikeyD]

Talk about Anzio, I wonder if CMAK's going to include "Anzio Annie", that big German rail-mounted 'naval' gun! The spotter lag time will probably be horrendous, and the rounds-per-minute (minutes-per-round?) would be really low, but the resulting explosions would be a nice Stumrtiger "KABOOOM!" without the Sturmtiger.

[CombinedArms]

Scenario designers would have free play as long as something was available in a given time frame, but might need a QB parameter that would control this element. E.g. "Within Range of Naval Guns" (or Railway Guns)--yes or no...

[Midnight Warrior]

There is another potential difference between naval gunfire and normal off board arty. In some cases (e.g. the DD's that came in close to shore at Normandy) the ships had a direct LOS to their targets on the shore. In this case the naval gunfire would be more like direct fire. Don't know if this situation occured in the Med or not. For instance, did DD's fire 5" AP rounds at a tanks and hit it given they had a LOS?

[General Lee]

There was no real difference between field based armament and sea based in reguards to lethality. The real difference came with the barral legnth and the amount of charge, both increased. Sea based fire is also more constant and a ship has many more rounds to expend than a unit the field, not to mention a lessened counterbattery threat.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by CombinedArms:

But even when the inch size is equal, is the blast really similar?

Naval guns were usually provided with two or three kinds of shell: AP with a heavy casing and a small blasting charge and HC (or High Capacity) with thinner walled casing and maximum HE filler. This latter should be reasonably equivalent to the same-sized land bound brethren. The smaller calibers (5" or less) also had starshell, but let's not go there just now.

Reports often suggest that naval gunfire was particularly devestating to both infantry and armor, but why?

Mostly because it was bigger. Most of those reports (at least the ones I've seen) usually involve 6" or 8" fire. Sometimes bigger. Although 6" equivalent was not uncommon on land, 8" and larger surely was. The fact that guns on ships usually have a lot more ammo per gun than artillery batteries on land has already been mentioned; but it needs noting also that ships usually had more tubes than an artillery battery, sometimes as many as a battalion. When doing on-call close support, they rarely fired all guns in salvo, in fact they often only had one tube in use at any one time, but it was an option, and if they did decide to go with a full broadside, I'm sure the effects must have been impressive, somewhat like the rocket artillery already in the game.

Michael

[Bruceov]

Most US crusers and Battleships had 9 tubes, and as was stated automated shell handling. Combined with the barrel length, sophistigated targeting systems meant that naval guns are absolutely devastating, much more so than regular arty

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Bruceov:

Most US crusers and Battleships had...automated shell handling.

Many cruisers did. If you know of any battleships that did, I'd love to know about it, as I am currently under the impression that that innovation was introduced post-war.

Michael

[ColumbusOHGamer]

As one who found out the hard way what a 14" gun blast will do to an ENTIRE COMPANY of inf in CMBO, I hope that naval guns become less accurate and way more expensive to purchase.

I can't imagine how lop-sided a battle would be with a 9-tube, 16" battery/ship/spotter with 18-36 rounds of ammo.

Could be fun to watch though...

[mcbeth]

I guess I read way more about the Pacific side of the war than is good for me. I had gathered/assumed that naval bombardment was largely useless. Shoot, most descriptions of D-Day state that the naval bombardment accomplished little to nothing. So, I guess my question now is, in what battles/theatres did naval bombardment make a noticable difference?

[CombinedArms]

Originally posted by ColumbusOHGamer:

As one who found out the hard way what a 14" gun blast will do to an ENTIRE COMPANY of inf in CMBO, I hope that naval guns become less accurate and way more expensive to purchase.

Thanks for all the good answers--sounds like what we've got with naval guns is concentrated, accurate (compared to rockets), high-caliber fire if the target is important enough--e.g. a key dug-in position or a heavy armored column or counterattack. Good to learn about the auto-loaders on the cruisers.

In terms of game play, I'm less concerned about getting battleship guns again than cruiser and destroyer guns. They're the ones that seemed to be used on post-landing fire-missions. My impression is that light cruisers were often used to hang around the beachhead for a few extra days or, at Anzio, weeks. Probably, they were good for this role because they had a heavy-enough gun (approx equal to a 155mm), good range, and that high rate of fire, but they were a cheaper asset to risk than a heavy cruiser (8 inch) or battleship. In game terms, perhaps these naval guns could be given a high scarcity cost, limiting their use in QBs, but still making them available for scenario designers who want to recreate historical situations.

Regarding destroyers in a direct fire role--those might be cool to have, too. I think they might have been used that way in Salerno (where, like Omaha, the troops got stuck on or close to the beach) but not much in other invasions, where they got inland pretty fast. I guess the one other place with a lot of direct destroyer fire was in the Torch invasion. It might be tricky to model, however. Anyway, I think that's a lower priority than indirect-fire naval guns.

[ June 26, 2003, 11:59 AM: Message edited by: CombinedArms ]

[SFJaykey]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bruceov:

Most US crusers and Battleships had...automated shell handling.

Many cruisers did. If you know of any battleships that did, I'd love to know about it, as I am currently under the impression that that innovation was introduced post-war.</font>

[tar]

I guess I read way more about the Pacific side of the war than is good for me. I had gathered/assumed that naval bombardment was largely useless. Shoot, most descriptions of D-Day state that the naval bombardment accomplished little to nothing. So, I guess my question now is, in what battles/theatres did naval bombardment make a noticable difference?

Well the results really depended on when in the landing the naval bombardments were made. Preparatory bombardments were rather disappointing, since in most cases the defenders were dug-in with very good cover. This was often the case for the Pacific theater, where it was found that the bombardments seemed to have fairly small effect on the Japanese bunkers.

In that area, as well, a lot of the subsequent fighting was at very close quarters, and you can't really call in artillery fire when the enemy is within 100m or less of your location. (Try it in CMxx !).

Where naval gunfire support was effective was when it could be called in on particular targets, especially when such targets were massing. Some examples of effective use were in turning back the German counterattack at Gela, Sicily. The Germans defending in front of Caen, France during the Normandy campaign also suffered from being within range of naval gunfire.

Naval gunfure in WWII also tended to have more advanced fire control procedures and calculations. Partly this was because they had a conveniently large ship in which to carry all of the stuff, and also because of the fact that naval artillery was designed to engage point targets (i.e., other ships) rather than area targets (as land artillery was).

In summary, naval gunfire works a lot like air power. If the enemy forces can disperse and hunker down in shelter, it is relatively ineffective. What causes it to be effective is to have a situation or threat which forces the enemy to expose themselves. That is why a combined-arms approach with land forces and bombardment works better. It gives the enemy a dilemma: Stay dispersed to avoid bombardment and the land forces will defeat you piecemeal. Concentrate to repulse the ground attack and the bombardment pummels you.

[Bruceov]

I referred to the mechanically assisted loading process.

[A.E.B]

During the Italian campaign there was a shootout between a German armoured column on the coast road and some destroyers.

Maybe CMAK should model that!

JasonC: There is no way a 75/L48 at 1500m could penetrate the hull belt of a Town class destroyer. Test firings show that.......

Rexford: But temperature could have effected the density of the Sheffield plate, so effective armour protection could have been reduced by.......

Regards

A.E.B

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by mcbeth:

I guess I read way more about the Pacific side of the war than is good for me. I had gathered/assumed that naval bombardment was largely useless. Shoot, most descriptions of D-Day state that the naval bombardment accomplished little to nothing. So, I guess my question now is, in what battles/theatres did naval bombardment make a noticable difference?

Depends. In the early days of the Pacific amphibious operations, the pre-landing bombardments were too brief to be effective and the dug in Japs were largely unscathed. A little later, the USN did things at a more leisurely pace and spent days on pre-landing bombardments. Simply by totally saturating the target area many times over they eventually got the job done.

This was not possible at Normandy because the troops had to get ashore within hours of the invasion fleet appearing offshore. Otherwise, the Germans would have had time to reinforce the invasion beaches. The pre-landing bombardment, such as it was, was simply not accurate or thorough enough to get most of the active beach defensive positions, especially at Omaha.

What finally turned the tide was a couple of destroyers going in dangerously close to the beach and firing at what was for them the point blank range of ~400 yards. At that range they couldn't miss and that finally did for the bunkers.

The lesson is that point targets are hard to hit with unguided munitions and almost impossible if firing indirectly unless you have the luxury of dropping shells until every square inch of the target area has been hit. For various reasons, this is usually impractical.

BTW, in the last year of the war, the Japanese learned to defend well back from the beach so as to be out of range of naval artillery firing directly. Alternatively, they dug in very deeply, as at Iwo Jima. Sometimes they did both, as on Okinawa.

Michael