Ships not sinking?

[Task Force]

Anyone else ever had a issue with ships not sinking... I had one of my BBs attacking about 10 brit DDs. but 2 just would not sink, I put over 60 shells in that thing and it just would not sink. The damage just would stay at heavy.:hmmm:

[Bullethead]

A lot depends on where you hit them. Ships only sink from hits that let in water. If all your hits are above the water, then they ain't gonna sink, or at least not rapidly.

Quite often, however, ships that show heavy damage are technically sinking. Remember that the current color of the dot and the name of the current damage status are just that--current values. Neither of these things show trends. Many times, but not always, ships that are heavily damaged will have water coming in faster than they can pump it out. They will often eventually go to sinking status as a result. However, you might not see that happen.

[Task Force]

Well. It was still moveing. I eventualy gave up after a hour of shelling it, I dont know how it could have survived, the ships hull was ripped open like a tin can. Other than this dd, I had been tearing through them. But this one just would not sink. I had a torpedo boat do the same thing, it was under constant shelling from distroyers, and just would not go past heavy damage.

They will often eventually go to sinking status as a result. However, you might not see that happen.

So the ships might actualy be regestered sunk, but still visiable as if they are not??? If Im getting what your saying.

[Raptor1]

So the ships might actualy be regestered sunk, but still visiable as if they are not??? If Im getting what your saying.

Yes, a ship on heavy damage might well be doomed to sink, it's just doesn't happen to be sinking at that particular moment

[Bullethead]

Yes, a ship on heavy damage might well be doomed to sink, it's just doesn't happen to be sinking at that particular moment

What happens is, the damage model is dealing with flooding rates. X amount of water coming in per time vs. Y amount able to be pumped out per time. X is a function of hit location and the damage done by any individual hit, and Y is a function of propulsion damage, crew losses, fire level, etc, all of which can be damaged by the same hits that let in water, but might not be.

If the water is coming in faster than it can be pumped out, and it's one of your own ships, you'll see the dreaded red text "flooding exceeds pumping capacity" on the Ship Info Screen. This info, however, isn't shown if it's an enemy ship so you never know except by what you can observe, such as the colored dot getting closer to black, the list increases, the speed reducing, etc.

It's possible for ships to recover from this condition, but not all that likely. It all depends on what happens to them.

Another thing to consider is what you're shooting at the DD in question. If you're shooting anything 6" or smaller, the only ammo you've got is HE, whcih is good for killing such things. Anything bigger shoots AP, which has a pretty good chance of going right through without making much of a hole. But even with HE, a ship might get lucky on where you hit it. Hits in funnels and masts make the same graphics as hits on the waterline, so sometimes it's hard to tell.

However, if an enemy ship is shot up enough to sink eventually, it will either sink at or shortly after the end of the battle. If happens soon enough, you'll see it as dead when the battle ends. But it might take hours, and you won't know unless you have another battle with that enemy force and see it happen.

And just for instance, I have 2 neighbors alive today who were shot 6 or 8 times in the torso by somebody in the same room with them. All bullets were fired with intent to kill, but none hit anything vital enough to kill them quickly (obviously, I wasn't shooting them :rock:). The badguys ran out of ammo and left, and help then arrived, and so they're still with us. They were messed up, and still ain't what they used to be, but they're far from dead.

Our games ain't like most naval sims, where ships have "hit points" and ever shell that hits contributes to sinking them. In our games, each shell is tracked throughout its trajectory and the location it hits the target is very important as to how much damage is done, and to what gets damaged. IOW, we have a lot of meaningless hits in our battles, just like in real life. So sometimes you just get unlucky and all your shells hit nothing quickly fatal.

[rubberboot]

My biggest issue with ships not sinking, is how accurate the German side is. I made a scenario that pitted 20 older Brit battleships/pre-dreadnoughts, versus 4 Westfalens and 4 Helgolands. I had to turn it off. The brits were mauled, badly. I think I sank a (read 1) Helgoland class ship, and 2 others had heavy damage. The British fire was not systematic or scientific (Percy Scott and Fiske are rolling in there grave right now...) as the salvos were all over the place. 1st salvo near (100yrds short approx), next way over, and then followed with a way short. When they did hit, it was with 1 shell only, not a group of shells. I like the shell camera by the way, its neat. Deflections were good, just range finding was really bad. Germans were much more consistant, when they found the range, you get hammered. Historically, German range finding was more accurate, using longer base sterioscopic rangefinders (Zeiss), while the British relied on the shorter base coinidence type from Barr and Stroud, which caused an overestimation of range. It was more the length of the rangefinger than the type that made the difference (size does matter...:up:). I don't know if this factor was taken into account in this game, but it still can't justify the odd rangefinding, unless all the British spotters had too many pints of stout/lager right before the battle and were seeing all kinds of splashes. From what I have read, the German long range fire was accurate at the beginning of a battle, but tended to go off as they did not use as detailed a battle tracer/plotter like a Dreyer table that the British used. The British were much more consistant and deliberate. Please understand that I am only a history buff/enthusist, and throwing in my unqualified observations.

In the aforementioned senerio, I had Human control of both fleets, slightly closing paths, fire open at about 20000yds. I got frustrated and turned the german fleet so that the British Battleships were crossing the 'T', and the fire didn't improve. It was the same scattered shooting.

I really like this game, just think the balance needs to be tweaked a bit. Mind you, it could be that I am just a bad commander.....

BTW, I was down to 6 ships remaining when I turned it off. Had lots of magazine explosions.

Regards,
Glenn

[MoToM]

For a lively and sometimes bitter debate on just this subject check out the Jutland Gamesquad forums. Some people got put on ignore lists after that.

[rubberboot]

WOW!
You weren't kidding. I had know idea about that forum when I posted. After reading it though, I noticed that nobody really answered the 'root' question. He was asking about the odd accuracy that was displayed. As I observed, there wasen't a 'ladder' system with regards to shell splashes. It was random. The other Forum broke down the armour penetration, bad shells etc., and yelled at each other. I can accept that ships, 18000yrds away sailing almost parallel to each other as well as moving at 21 knots, it would be difficult to place a salvo where the ship is going to be in approximately 25-30 seconds from now. This is why the Dreyer table, Z 31 EU/SV-Anzeiger, and Sperry fire control systems (British/German/American, ref. Guns at Sea Peter Padfield) were created. These systems were used and corrected with visual corrections provided by spotters. Unfortunately, in the game, the British spotters are drunk, and the Germans have had a couple of shots. As observed, both fleets sailing parallel courses at 14 knots, the fall of shot is all over the place. It should be closer. I am ok with hits, armour penetration, armour protection, etc. I just think the fire control needs work.

For example,
1st salvo over, and deflection fwd (as seen by spotter)
2nd salvo under, deflection braketed
3rd salvo under (but closer), def bracketed
4th salvo straddle, no hits
5th salvo straddle, 2 hits (shell grouping adjusted)
6th salvo under - enemy adjusted course
repeat corrections.

This is all I'm suggesting, it is not this way in the game.

Regards,
Glenn

[MoToM]

Carefully now.

[rubberboot]

Please don't read into it....I'm a gamer first. I'm just posting my comments. As a whole, the game is great, and I'm glad I bought it. Things have improved with the updates. If you get a chance, check out the website 'the dreadnought project'. Toni (the sites owner) has completed some fantastic videos on fire control and posted them for download. definitely worth the time. The forum there is good too.:yeah:

Regards,
Glenn

[Bullethead]

I made a scenario that pitted 20 older Brit battleships/pre-dreadnoughts, versus 4 Westfalens and 4 Helgolands. I had to turn it off. The brits were mauled, badly.

Bear in mind that the whole gunnery system has a very large number of variables, so that in any given trial, results can be rather different from what you expect. However, the long-term averages are pretty close to what you find in Campbell.

Now, let's consider your scenario. There are quite a few reasons why the Brits force is not as powerful as its numbers would make it appear. Off the top of my head:

1) Predreadnoughts Suck
You can pretty much leave them out of the equation. They have very little chance of hitting anything outside about 10km, because they lack sophisticated fire control. They have a lower rate of fire than dreadnoughts, and fewer guns, so they take more time to get on target, have a harder time staying on target, and are less likely to get as many hits even when they are on target. Plus, their guns are only 40-cal so aren't as powerful as other 12" anyway. And predreads a lot easier to kill than dreads, due to being of older design and smaller as well. So for the most part, they contribute little or nothing in a fight between dreadnoughts, so shouldn't really be considered in the overall numbers of this fight, provided the Germans stayed at long range.

2) Overconcentration of Fire
In 1916, having any more than 2 ships firing on the same target imposes severe accuracy penalties on ALL ships firing on that target (this changed later in the war). If all Brits were firing at once, and fire was distributed as evenly as possible, 20 Brits vs. 8 Germans means that 4 Germans had 3 Brits shooting at them, and 4 Germans had 2 Brits shooting at them. This means that 1/2 of the total German force was getting off lightly due to the overconcentration, while at the same time 3/5 of the Brit force was neutralizing itself with the same concentration. IOW, this alone changed the NUMERICAL odds (counting predreadnoughts) from 2.5:1 in favor of the Brits to 1:1.25 in favor of the Germans (8 effective Brits vs. 6 out of 8 effective Germans, but only 4 Germans likely to take much damage). And this is before you take the predreads out of the equation.

3) Silly Brit Design Issue
I don't know what "early" Brit dreadnoughts you used, but Dreadnought, the Colossi, and the Orions had the foretop behind the forefunnel. These ships shoot rather badly as a result, no better than Brit battlecruisers. So if you had any of these in your line-up, they're weren't contributing much even under the best conditions.

4) Crappy Brit Shells
If you were playing with the Advanced Critical Hit for fragile AP on, then the Brits weren't going to do much damage to the Germans if all they had was 12" guns. And even if you had this turned off, the Germans ships were a bit better at taking 12" hits than the early Brit dreads and predreads.

Above, I said the Germans had only 6 effective ships. That's because 2 of the Nassaus lack directors so are only marginally more effective at hitting that predreads, due to shotgunning larger salvos giving them a slightly higher chance to hit when their solution isn't quite on.

But anyway, at the bottom line, and without even thinking about how you actually played the fight in terms of manuevering, who had the wind and sun advantages, etc., I'm just saying that the force mix wasn't likely to have been anywhere near as favorable to the Brits as the overall numbers make it appear at 1st glance. So it shouldn't really be surprising that the Brits could lose such a fight.

Now, as to gunnery corrections......

Remember that with the numbers given above, 12 out of 20 Brits would be suffering the accuracy problems of overconcentration. This is going to make their salvos look odd, because they're correcting off some other ship's splashes instead of their own.

Another thing to keep in mind is that naval gunnery wasn't anywhere near as simple as many folks seem to think. Many people say that if a ship sees its splashes in a certain position relative to the target, then it just needs to apply a simple correction and the next salvo should be right on target. That's their expectation, and they complain when they don't see that happening. But they're basiing this expectation on false assumptions. It wasn't that way at all in real life. If it had been, ships at Jutland would have shot much better than the 3-4% hits they actually achieved.

The main false assumption people have about naval gunnery is that the firing ship knows the exact range, bearing, course, and speed of the target. If you did know that, then yes, it would be very simple to correct salvos, and in fact there'd be little need for corrections at all. However, this level of accuracy was only approached with late WW2-vintage radars. In WW1, things were very different.

In WW1, the target's range, bearing, course, and speed were all estimates, which rarely, if ever, actually matched reality in all respects, and were usually off in several areas, sometimes significantly. But it was these estimates that the firing ship used to aim her guns. IOW, the firing ship was shooting at where she THOUGHT the target would be when the shells arrived, based on where she THOUGHT the target was at present and what she THOUGHT it was doing. In reality, the target was usually both somewhere else and doing something different to a greater or lesser extent. Call this the "simulated" target data.

However, the spotters were looking at the target itself, not some pencil marks on a plotting table, and were reporting their own estimation (never 100% accurate except on straddles, and sometimes not even close to right) of where the shells landed in relation to the target's actual current position. This correction was fed into the system, which was still based on the target's "simulated" data, not the target's actual data. Thus, because the "simulated" target position and motion were unlikely to correspond to their real values, the correction was definitely not guaranteed to result in a hit next time. In fact, it usually didn't, which is why WW1 hit rates were as low as they were.

Basically, don't be surprised if you see a ship shoot several salvoes that miss fairly close to the same place off the target. What you're seeing is the firing ship's "simulated" target data not agreeing with the actual target data, which is often what happened in real life. But the firing ship would see this happening, and eventually realize her "simulated" data was wrong. So then somebody in the system would make a SWAG correction to the "simulated" target data, and they'd try again.

This is also one of the reasons why WW1 ships had trouble staying on target for more than a few salvos. Picture the "simulated" enemy ship and the real enemy ship on converging courses. Where their paths intersect, and for some distance on either side of that point due to the dispersion in range of the salvos, the 2 sets of data are close enough to equal for hits and straddles. But note that while hitting and straddling, the firing ship has no reason to assume her "simulated" target data is wrong, and in fact quite the opposite. Thus, the paths will eventually diverge and it will take the firing ship some number of salvos to realize she's lost the range.

And then, of course, there was the common tactic in WW1 for target ships to make long, slow zig-zags about their base courses. These were minor enough not to throw that ship's fire control solutions off enough to matter, and were imperceptable to the enemy. This had the result, often enough, of convincing the enemy he'd lost the range completely, when he really hadn't. Then he'd make a spurious SWAG "correction" to his "simulated" target data, with the result that he'd throw himself way off target and have to start over groping for the range again.

I highly recommend watching Tone's numerous and very well-done videos on WW1 fire control systems over at the Dreadnought Project. After watching these, you'll be amazed that anybody was able to hit anything back then.

Here's the link: http://www.dreadnoughtproject.org/sim/

Anyway, all things being equal, in the game there are 5 types of fire control systems:

German Directors: Used by BBs, BCs, and newer CLs. Fires a ladder to start with, and usually starts getting hits earlier, but fades over time. Slightly the most accurate system overall, but not by much.

Brit BB Directors: Used by Brit BBs with foretops ahead of the forefunnel. Not quite as accurate as the German type, but the difference is slight over the long run. Thus, it starts out slower getting hits than the Germans, but builds up a nearly identical total number of hits eventually.

Brit BC Directors: Used by most Brit BCs, Brit BBs with the fortetop behind the forefunnel, and Brit monitors. Shoots considerably worse than either of the above. This is due either to lack of training, smoked out foretops, or too few guns for accurate spotting.

Central Aiming System: Used by BBs, BCs, ACs, and CLs that lack directors. Essentially an updated version of RJW-vintage systems. Fires full broadsides instead of 1 gun per turret. Less accurate beyond about 10km than Brit BC Directors, but the volume of fire makes up for that at shorter ranges.

Local Aiming System: Used by all DDs and other ships without any centralized fire control system, plus the light guns of bigger ships. Basically just the gunner's eyeballs. Not very effective at anthing but very short range, but quite effective there.

[rubberboot]

Thank you. That was a very detailed answer and much appreciated.... now I have some more game related questions

1. Does the game calculations take into account that more than 1 ship could be firing on the same enemy, with the inherent problems for the spotters (AI?) trying to discern there shells from the other ship? will this throw the accuracy off?

2. Effective range for British range finders were about 15000yrds. above this range, Brit range finders read poorly. Does the game recognize this?

3. Do near misses cause hull damage? For example, a 1400lb shell with a muzzle velocity of approx. 2400fps hitting the water within 50 - 100 feet of the ship would cause a lot of pressure (and a 75ft water column).

4. Does the German accuracy fall off, in a lengthy engagement? I unfortunately haven't seen it happen, it got better if anything. This could be a perception thing.

As I wrote earlier, I can accept that ships, 18000yrds away sailing almost parallel to each other as well as moving at 21 knots, it would be difficult to place a salvo where the ship is going to be in approximately 25-30 seconds from now. Some of the predreadnoughts did get directors (King Edward Class), but I had hoped that the sheer numbers I had would be enough to annihlate the enemy. Guess not. Hopefully with these answers, I can figure out way to beat the Germans.

BTW I've had the same results with using QE class, Revenge class and HMS Canada vs. Helgoland and Westfalen classes. Brits got mauled. But I have also won as the British (same ships) with only loss being HMS Revenge, and only German survivor was SMS Posen. This last result was after some of the updates had been applied. In all cases, 'crappy' Brit shells turned off.

I think BC issues were a result of Fisher (design) and Beatty. HMS Tiger was about the best of them (in British Fleet). She was supposed to be a 4th Lion, ended up being more a 5th IJN Kongo. Tiger took a lot of hits at Jutland. Repaired in a little more than a month. But that's for a different discussion...

I have to agree, Tone's videos are great. His site offers lots of information on this subject. I set his site as my home page a couple of years ago.

Thanks again, keep up the good work!

Glenn

[Bullethead]

1. Does the game calculations take into account that more than 1 ship could be firing on the same enemy, with the inherent problems for the spotters (AI?) trying to discern there shells from the other ship? will this throw the accuracy off?

Yes. In fact, that was point #2 in my last post above :). The way it works in the game now, it's OK for 2 ships to be firing at the same target, but when you get 3 or more, they all suffer a fairly significant accuracy penalty.

Back in the day, this was fairly simple for 2 ships to avoid mutual interference because they fired salvos at pretty regular intervals. Thus, the 2nd ship could time her fire 1/2way between the 1st ship's salvos. But that was about limit, because the splashes lasted long enough to become confusing if another ship joined in.

Later in the war, however, the Brits and US (not sure yet about the Germans--still digging on that) worked out a method to concentrate up to 4 ships on 1 target without mutual interference. The deflection scales painted on the turrets and the range dials on the masts were part of that system. If we ever get around to making enough late-war ships for this to become important, we might add this to the game mechanics.

2. Effective range for British range finders were about 15000yrds. above this range, Brit range finders read poorly. Does the game recognize this?

Actually, Brit rangefinders came in different flavors and some were quite capable of decent results out to the horizon. The QEs at Jutland were firing effectively at 20km, for instance.

3. Do near misses cause hull damage? For example, a 1400lb shell with a muzzle velocity of approx. 2400fps hitting the water within 50 - 100 feet of the ship would cause a lot of pressure (and a 75ft water column).

Yes, near misses do damage, but they have to be both big and close, and they don't do very much. From what I can tell, the ship would shake but rarely leaked from anything less than about a 500-pound bomb close aboard.

There's also a chance that a shell landing close enough and at the right angle will strike the target below the waterline, although this is a fairly rare at present. If we ever do WW2 Japanese ships, they'll of course have their "diving" shells, but that's a problem for another day.

4. Does the German accuracy fall off, in a lengthy engagement? I unfortunately haven't seen it happen, it got better if anything. This could be a perception thing.

It tends to, and the Brits tend to get better over the long run. The whole thing is of course highly variable in the short-term, but that's the long-term trend. The Germans often start hitting before the Brits, but the Brits end up with nearly the same number of hits over the time interval, if it's long enough.

Some of the predreadnoughts did get directors (King Edward Class),

True, as did some ACs. But from what I can tell, that happened after 1916. Not many dreadnoughts had directors yet in August 1914, and they had the priority. Even so, there were still a couple at Jutland without them.

BTW I've had the same results with using QE class, Revenge class and HMS Canada vs. Helgoland and Westfalen classes. Brits got mauled. But I have also won as the British (same ships) with only loss being HMS Revenge, and only German survivor was SMS Posen. This last result was after some of the updates had been applied. In all cases, 'crappy' Brit shells turned off.

Brit guns of 13.5" and bigger are the best thing for killing Germans. In 1916, these guns outrange all but a couple of German ships by 3-4km, and they're big enough to really hurt them. Even with fragile AP turned on, they still do damage, although at a slower rate.

The GF can exploit this range advantage due to its higher speed than the HSF. The Nassaus and Helgolands are slower than all Brit dreadnoughts, so even though the Konigs are nearly as fast as QEs, they're chained to the older ships unless they want to risk destruction in detail.

So what the Brit player should do is use his speed advantage to keep the range at 20-22km and pound the Germans with impunity using 13.5", 14", and 15" guns. Once the Germans are sufficiently softened up (by which time the Brits should be low on big bullets anyway), close in for the 12" ships have a go. Or, if you don't sufficiently weaken the Germans, just leave and try again another day. The Germans can't force the Brits to stay and fight, and they can't escape if the Brits want to keep things going.

I think BC issues were a result of Fisher (design) and Beatty. HMS Tiger was about the best of them (in British Fleet). She was supposed to be a 4th Lion, ended up being more a 5th IJN Kongo. Tiger took a lot of hits at Jutland. Repaired in a little more than a month. But that's for a different discussion...

Well, this is relevant to the title of this thread. Tiger was hit 15 times by 11", which sounds like a real pounding. However, she was still in pretty good shape afterwards. Why? Because as mentioned earlier, a lot depends on hit location, not to mention shell performance.

Only 2 of Tiger's hits were near the waterline, and they failed to penetrate the belt. The rest all hit well above water and the great majority of them landed, by sheer chance, in areas with zero effect on fighting efficiency, although they did some impressive-looking sheet metal damage. A number of hits were at angles too steep to penetrate, too. 3 hits, however, could have proved fatal had Lady Luck seen fit: Q turret roof, X barbette, and a hit near Q barbette that started a small 6" propellant fire and also sent fragments into the engine room, though they missed everything important.

As it was, however, the net effect of 15x 11" hits in this case was 1 turret effectively out of action for about 2 hours (while it continued firing, it took them that long to notice it had been knocked way out of calibration) and some very minor flooding. The bulk of Tiger's flooding was self-inflicted by unnecessarily flooding the aft 6" magazine after the danger had passed, but this wasn't enough water to slow her down.'

Anyway, it just goes to show how results can vary. Tiger was pretty lucky in both where she took hits and in the few dangerous hits not being as bad as they could have been. But sometimes that happens. C'est la guerre.

[MoToM]

If we ever do WW2 Japanese ships, they'll of course have their "diving" shells, but that's a problem for another day..

Thats the third time, here and elsewhere, I've seen you say this.
Your just itching to make the late IJN aren't you.

[Bullethead]

Thats the third time, here and elsewhere, I've seen you say this. Your just itching to make the late IJN aren't you.

Only in so far as that means we're doing well enough to get that far down the road :yeah:. Mostly, I'm just saving everybody's time by showing we know such things existed and are prepared to deal with them when and if we get there.

[MoToM]

Its really me who wants IJN, especially in an engine like this. Just wish we could ignore aircraft, they spoil all the fun.

[Raptor1]

Must...fight...urge...to...use...overdone...games. ..argument...

[Buddahaid]

Here's my two cents for the team. I've run the duel three times without changing anything. First time as the British, and the second two as the Germans. The Konig Albert lost all three. This was me against the AI.

Buddahaid

[Gammel]

Here's my two cents for the team. I've run the duel three times without changing anything. First time as the British, and the second two as the Germans. The Konig Albert lost all three. This was me against the AI.

Buddahaid
I found the scenario hard to win for the K. Albert too - i've never made it. :DL
one time i managed to damage the H.M.S. ship badly - trying to keep her in range of my medium (15 cm ) artillery, not letting her come too close using her own medium guns.

[Raptor1]

Huh? I ran The Duel a total of 3 times (That I can remember), KA came out victorious 2 out of 3 times