Shore Batteries

[Edwin P.]

I wonder if the ability to build shore batteries in cities, in addition to anti-aircraft emplacements was considered.

Shore batteries would increase a defending units defense against bombardment by naval units. The level of shore batteries you can build would be limited by your tech level in rockets.

[rleete]

Nice idea, but I'd rather see it tied into AA or gun laying techs than rockets.

[jon_j_rambo]

Sounds more like a U.S. Civil War feature where forts were a big deal.

[Liam]

This idea was brought up by myself before. It seems an attacking Ship if hitting a Port or a City may take damage, representing Shore Batteries and antiair, it however doesn't ty in with just any unit sitting on the coast. Should this be improved with Say a Tech, Heavy Guns, Anti-Air, Defense Tech, etc... Perhaps... AntiAir is there and that equals Heavier Gun better, better coordination, perhaps even radar driven air defense. A defense never the less

[Blashy]

A city has a standard defense value vs. shore bombarding, that simulates having batteries.

If it was tied to a tech that each level increases it automatically, I would vote for rocket tech as well. It would make investing in tech more spread out.

[Yogi]

Hey, how about the classic "Guns of Naverone" (Sp?)

[Liam]

Originally posted by Yogi:

Hey, how about the classic "Guns of Naverone" (Sp?)

That's why my thought that a fortification should be able to fire back, but Navarone were some MASSIVE guns no? If you have weather effects perhaps crossing unfriendly territory with a certian supply should have a random Salvo hit? just as kewl and just as historical

That would be strategically tied into Crete

[xwormwood]

I would like to see some kind of shore batteries tech as well.

At least there should be a random chance that ships get hit by mines while sailing in enemy seas.

Maybe some kind of homeguard tech, increasing the possibility for partisans, mines or devastated zones where the enemy needs more movement points because of disrupted streets, railway or bridges.

[jon_j_rambo]

Okay, how about sub nets? Water mines?

[Guest Mike]

Perhaps "coastal defences" is a better term.

The defences of Oslo did manage to sink the Blucher - UIIRC they had 3 x 280mm guns and 3 x 280mm mortars plus command guided torpedoes and command detonated mines?

[jon_j_rambo]

Coastal defenses haven't been a factor since the U.S. Civil War.

[xwormwood]

Allright, maybe coastal defenses were not a decisive factor, but they were still a factor to consider in WW2.

Singapore

"Since the Japanese attack on Singapore, a myth has developed and has been kept alive by those who really do not know the truth. This myth is that the Singapore guns faced the wrong way, i.e. South. This is incorrect, the guns did not face the wrong way. With the exception of the Buona Vista Fifteen-inch Battery and the southern-most 15 Inch gun of the Johore Battery at Changi, all the guns were capable of all-round or near all-round traverse. The guns were wrongly placed for an attack from the north, but as coastal artillery, which they were designed for, they were ideally situated.

To make things worse, for an attack from land, the guns did not have a lot of high-explosive (HE) ammunition. For the big guns, there was apparently only one fifteen-inch HE shell on Singapore Island. Being coastal artillery, all of the guns had plenty of armour-piercing (AP) ammunition 9.2 Inch Shellwhich, as the name implies is designed to burst through armour plate before exploding inside a warship where it would do most damage. HE ammunition has a relatively thin casing, and explodes on or near the surface at the point of impact and the shrapnel from the de fragmenting shell causes tremendous damage to nearby troops and equipment. AP shells have a thick casing for penetrating armour plate. Used against land targets such as troops or artillery, AP shells bury themselves deep in the ground before exploding, and do not fragment like HE shells, therefore are not suitable for counter battery or anti-personnel use. Despite this, when the Japanese attacked, all the guns that could, fired on them using what HE shells they had followed by AP. The photograph shows a 9.2 Inch shell fired from Fort Connaught in February 1942 on the advancing Japanese. The shell was recovered from the Pasir Panjang area. It shows how little fragmentation there could be from an AP shell. Two of the 15 Inch Guns of the Johore battery at Changi actually fired across the island on Japanese forces at Tengah during the battle for Singapore.

Having adequate stocks of HE shells may not have stopped the Japanese taking Singapore, the battle had been lost many years before it started, but Japanese casualties would have been much higher. The battle may have lasted longer and eased the pressure on Burma.

All three batteries on Blakang Mati saw action during the Japanese attack on Singapore in February 1942. The Siloso guns engaging targets on land and sea. Tragedy struck on 10th February when the guns at Siloso opened fire on small boats approaching from the west. These boats contained gunners escaping from the gun battery at Pasir Laba which had been over-run by the Japanese.

On the night of 13/14 February 1942, a ship was detected outside the minefields protecting the approach to Keppel Harbour. Information about this ship, stating that no British ship was in the area, was signalled from Fort Canning to C.C.M. Macleod-Carey, Second-in-Command of 7 Coast Artillery Regiment, who was in his Command Post on Mount Faber. Macleod-Carey ordered the searchlights at Labrador, Siloso and Serapong to sweep the area for the ship. A vessel of some 8,000 tons was quickly illuminated by the searchlights. It was then challenged by means of an Aldis lamp, but failed to respond with the correct identification signals. A naval rating, using a copy of ‘Jane's Fighting Ships’, identified the vessel as being a Japanese landing craft carrier, and the 6 Inch batteries at Labrador, Siloso and Serapong were ordered to open fire. Hits were registered almost immediately on the ship and it sank within a few minutes. This was what the guns had been designed for, and they performed exactly as required. MacLeod-Carey's version of events has been criticised for being incorrect, and it has been stated that no large ship was sunk, only a Tongkang (wooden trading vessel)."

from: http://www.fortsiloso.com/history/1919.htm

Oslofjord

"During the invasion of Norway, operation Weserübung, the heavy cruiser Blücher sailed together with the other German cruisers Emden and Lutzow and several support and escorting ships in the so-called Kampfgruppe V, which included the destroyer Albatros who also was lost the day after Blücher. The task force were supposed to occupy Oslo and capture King Haakon VII and his family. The German plans for the operation were destroyed by the Norwegian fortress Oscarsborg who opened fire on the German task force in the Oslofjord. Blücher was rapidly hit by gun shells and torpedoes and sunk just north of Oscarsborg close to Askholmene. During the operation the German battle group sunk the Norwegian ship Sørland which were so unlucky to be in the same area as the Germans, and several private civilian houses were hit in the small city of Drøbak. Some six hundred German soldiers lost their lives in all the fires and the cold water when Blücher went down! Blücher lies today with her keel up in deep waters down to a depth of sixty five to ninety meters...")

from: http://www.skovheim.org/located/akershus/blucher/blucher.htm

D-Day

("WORLD WAR 2,by AL HUGHES, TM/2C, USS SHUBRICK (DD 639), 1944-1945, Part 1: Year 1944

>>Normandy Invasion and Southern FranceOne shore battery fired 68 rounds, (75 or 88 mm) at us. Thirty before we knew he was firing at us. He finally got our range, and the last 4 shells landed about 25 yd. off our port stern. We lifted anchor and started doing figure 8's firing at the battery which seemed to be near a church steeple in a village on the beach. No more shells came from this battery.

Meanwhile, Destroyer Corry was sunk by shell fire to our right, (lost some men). We fired about 1,000 rounds of 5 in. shells during the initial landing. Rocket barges, (LCR's) went in and released their rockets.

A small landing craft brought 7 wounded soldiers aboard for our doctor to treat. They had been aboard an LCT which had hit a mine on the beach. Only one was not wounded, and only the seven survived the explosion which blew up the LCT. Two of the seven died on our way back to England that evening when we went back for fuel and ammunition. An English war correspondent was aboard taking pictures of the invasion. We were relieved by the Butler that afternoon, and we returned to Portland England.

June 7-We were back off the coast of France bombarding shore batteries. We were anchored in an unswept mine field. Every now and then a mine would go off after the sweepers started to sweep the area. Some went off too close for comfort. Watched a flight of B-26's just about wipe out a village on the beach still held by the Germans.

Fifteen amphibious ducks were headed over toward German held territory on the end of the peninsula. We watched them through glasses on the bridge. A shore battery started firing at them. Later that evening only 3 ducks came along side and said they were lost. They were the only ones left out of the 15. The shore battery had just about wiped them out.

The Destroyer Glennon hit a mine to our right, and her stern from the No. 4 gun aft was blown away. Heard they had about 35 casualties. She stayed afloat a couple of days, and then German shore batteries sank her."<<)

from: http://www.ussshubrick.com/hughes.htm

[Guest Mike]

IIRC Coastal defences played some role at Dieppe too?

[Cheese Panzer]

"Coastal Defenses" covers a lot of different systems, not just big guns. Properly designed, the big guns are just part of a total package. In addition you are going to want mine fields, anti-submarine nets, small ships like torpedo boats, searchlights, rangefinder towers, and ideally some on-call aircraft. You can't do this everywhere since it's very expensive and takes time and men, so you usually limit it to important areas like ports and obvious beach sites.

Historically, both Finland and Russia got a lot of use out of their Baltic shore batteries - one of the goals of the Winter War was to capture enough territory so that Finnish shore batteries could no longer reach Kronstadt and Leningrad.

Whether this can be applied at the level of SC2 is good question. I'm inclined to leave the current system in place since that's what entrenchments are for. I might allow units on open terrrain costal squares to entrench one level higher than normal (3 vs. 2) to reflect this, but I'm not if that can be modded with scripts.