[WIP] Historical Guns Specs

[V13dweller]

I just ran another test, the Graf Zeppelin wrecked a Liberty Cargo, And a Rawalpindi Armed Merchant Cruiser.
With nothing but 40mm anti air guns, they seem to shred anything in their path, including U-boats.
The Liberty Cargo was sunk before it could even aim it's 4 Inch'ers at the carrier.

At this rate, the 15 inch'ers on Battleships will be replaced with batteries of 40mm machine guns.

Hmm, I wonder if there is a mod, that could loadout my Submarine with this kind of Ordnance...

[gap]

The Graf Zeppelin is not among the ships originally included in game. You are probably referring to the carrier featured in OHII, which actually is a copy of the stock Bogue class escort carrier. On a side note, Uekel's MTNS (More traffic, nations and ships) comes with a more accurate model of the carrier, which was inported from SHIII and which (correctly) isn't equipped with any gun.

I will revise non-stock units and equipments only after having finished reworking the vanilla ones. Nonetheless, your suggestion is putting me in the right direction. If needed I will reduce Bogue's armaments, and I will make low caliber guns into lesser deadly weapons for good

Originally Posted by V13dweller

At this rate, the 15 inch'ers on Battleships will be replaced with batteries of 40mm machine guns.

Hmm, I wonder if there is a mod, that could loadout my Submarine with this kind of Ordnance...

P.S: I've just found this good post by TDW about damage modding:
http://www.subsim.com/radioroom//sho...56&postcount=3

I suggest all the concerned ones to have a look to it. Pity he ignores how shell's armor piercing at any given distance is calculated from the AP values stored in shells.zones

[V13dweller]

Indeed, the Graf Zeppelin is just a Bogue Escort Carrier, but I do think that the 40mm guns should not be able to damage enemy ships. It still could damage uboats, I m not sure what caliber their armour could resist.
It is weird that the 40mm can wreck ships in seconds.

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

Indeed, the Graf Zeppelin is just a Bogue Escort Carrier, but I do think that the 40mm guns should not be able to damage enemy ships. It still could damage uboats, I m not sure what caliber their armour could resist.
It is weird that the 40mm can wreck ships in seconds.

I've found the following armor penetration figures relative to a 40 mm Bofors gun firing 1.960 lbs. (0.889 kg) AP shells against "Class B" homogeneous armor, at an angle of inpact of 90 deg:

source: NavWeaps

2.70" (69 mm) @ 0 m
1.20" (30 mm) @ 1,829 m
0.60" (15 mm) @ 3,658 m
0.45" (11 mm) @ 5,486 m

I ignore what was the armor of HMS Rawalpindi, but likewise normal merchant ships (British merchant raiders weren't armored ships), it had to be very basic. Therefore, I think, it is likely that a 40mm gun cold have standed some chance against her, especially at close range. But not in a matter of seconds anyway.

Take a medium armored warship, instead: Dido class light cruisers, for instance. They had a typical figure of 3" (76 mm) of armor at their belt. Even at very close range a Bofors woudn't have had any chance of scratching their hull

Let's see game settings now: bofors guns are set to fire either the 40mm_AP_Shell or 40mm_AA_Shell, whose AP parameter on turn is set to 20 and 10 respectively. On the other hand, Rawalpindi and Dido's main ArmorLevels are set to 20 and 30 in their respective zon files. This is confirming our expectations: Rawalpindi can take damage from 40 mm AP shells fired ad close range, but not Dido.

[V13dweller]

Is there anything else you want me to test? Any weapons?

And does anyone have a download link for Cerberus's Historical weapons because the link on his page doesn't work for me.

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

Is there anything else you want me to test? Any weapons?

I am currently working on the Appalachian class USS command ships, the way Cerberus62 did with his "Historical Ship Equipment" mod (giving them correct armament configurations and specs, historical camouflages, etc) but developping his idea a bit further.
Moreover, I will rework 20/40 mm guns according to their historical specs.

I will post an update of my work asap. Let me know in the meanwhile if you find any bug/mistake that needs for a quick fix

Talking on AA guns specs, I've asked several times on the thread about realistic manual training/elevation rates for 20/40 mm guns (Oerlikon, Bofors, and german Flaks). No one was able to help me. Do you happen to have any idea? These are the current in game settings:

 SPEEDS (deg/sec)
				____________________
GUN				TRAINING | ELEVATION

Oerlikon 20 mm			 60	    90
(single and double
pedestal, AI)

Flak 20 mm C/30			360	   180
(single pedestal, playable)	

Flak 20 mm C/38			360	   180
(double pedestal, playable)

Flak 20 mm C/38			360	   180
(double pedestal, with and
w/o shield, playable)

Flak 20 mm C/38			360	    90
(quad mount vierlig,
 playable)

Flak 20 mm C/38			 30	    30
(quad mount vierlig, AI)

Flak SK C/30U 3.7 cm/L83	 45	    75
(single mount, playable)

Flak M42 3.7 cm/69		 45	    60
(single and twin mount,
 playable)

Bofors 40 mm			 26	    24
(single, twin and
quad mount, AI)

Are they fair? I doubt it...

Originally Posted by V13dweller

And does anyone have a download link for Cerberus's Historical weapons because the link on his page doesn't work for me.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/show...4&postcount=37

[V13dweller]

Thank you for the download link, I have been searching for quite a while for this.

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

Thank you for the download link, I have been searching for quite a while for this.

It was only my duty. After all we are business fellows in the development of this mod, isn't it?

P.S: do you have any suggestion on the table I've posted below? I understand that some compromises have to be done for playability, but it is normal for you that the same gun (the vierlig 20 mm) is aimed from 3 to 12 times faster on our U-boat than aboard AI ships?

[V13dweller]

I personally think that the AI and the U-Boat's guns should perform the same, and I have noticed that the U-Boats anti-air guns do not explode in the air like normal Flak's would. It could be that the U-boat is only equipped with 20mm AP rounds, and no 20mm AA rounds.

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

I personally think that the AI and the U-Boat's guns should perform the same

Okay, so should I increase the aiming speed of ship mounted AA guns, or decrease it for U-boat mounted Flaks? Or maybe we should find a compromise midway?

In other words: how good are you/your crew at shooting planes? When you man the Flaks yourself, do you feel their handling to be realistic? And how is ship's AI against planes? Do they shoot them down way too easily, or they have an hard time doing it?

Originally Posted by V13dweller

and I have noticed that the U-Boats anti-air guns do not explode in the air like normal Flak's would. It could be that the U-boat is only equipped with 20mm AP rounds, and no 20mm AA rounds.

You are right, the AA guns selectable as U-boats upgrades are set to fire just AP shells. I can easily make them to fire any type of shell, but are you sure that German 20 mm shells were exploding in the air?

According to navweps, the 2 cm C30 / C38 fired two types of shell:

API: armor piercing projectiles that included a tracer (Incendiary)
HEI: high explosive projectiles that included an Incendiary

Outfits were about 75% HEI and 25% API

Anyway no mention is made about the presence of a time fuze. Personally, I think they just ignited after being fired, letting a trace behind them, and exploding only if they actually hit a target. I can be wrong though.

Something that might be worth is trying wether sub Flaks can be assigned more than one type of shells, like the deckgun.

[volodya61]

Originally Posted by gap

In other words: how good are you/your crew at shooting planes? When you man the Flaks yourself, do you feel their handling to be realistic? And how is ship's AI against planes? Do they shoot them down way too easily, or they have an hard time doing it?

From my experience, when I shoot the aircraft myself it's hard to me..
But when the AI-ships do it, it's very easy and fast.. they immediately force down all the crafts which I request in the Mediterranean..

[V13dweller]

I do think that the Player's U-Boat crew doesn't seem to take out planes very often, I usually just take over to stop them from spending all of my ammunition.

[gap]

Originally Posted by volodya61

From my experience, when I shoot the aircraft myself it's hard to me..
But when the AI-ships do it, it's very easy and fast.. they immediately force down all the crafts which I request in the Mediterranean..

Thank you Volodya. What about your crew? Are they trained gunners, or they are just as bad as you at downing planes?

I am wondering wether, paradoxically, a slower handling of the AA guns wouldn't make the aiming more smooth and accurate for the human player.

I need for assistance by U-boat captains who like doing this dirty job by themselves. I know there's plenty of them around here

[volodya61]

Originally Posted by gap

Thank you Volodya. What about your crew? Are they trained gunners, or they are just as bad as you at downing planes?

They do it even worse than me.. so I'm doing it myself.. but not often.. usually I'm diving..

Originally Posted by gap

I need for assistance by U-boat captains who like doing this dirty job by themselves. I know there's plenty of them around here

My current campaign is Mare Nostrum.. so I can help with testing aircraft machine guns and AA guns..

[gap]

Originally Posted by V13dweller

I do think that the Player's U-Boat crew doesn't seem to take out planes very often, I usually just take over to stop them from spending all of my ammunition.

Considering that our U-boat is generally equipped with just 1 (and no more that 3 in the best case) AA guns, whereas warhips got plenty of them and with almost unlimited ammunition, to some extent it could be normal that for us is harder shooting planes. I would be surprised of the contrary.

Nonetheless, ntegrating your answer with the one by Volodya we should conclude that despite (or due) to the different train/elevation speeds, our AA guns are worse than the ones fitted aboard ships.

Let's ignore human factors for the moment. Comparing our crew's and ship crew's shooting abilities will make things a lot easier. I doubt that the game got two different AIs for both our gunners and ship's gunners, so the answer should be in the guns they are shooting or in a parameter affecting their AI separately.

Talking about guns settings, besides the above mentioned train/elevation speeds, the only big difference I've noticed between ours and ship mounted guns is in two parameters, called Trav_tolerance and Elev_tolerance. They are set to 15/15 for all of our guns (except the vierlig, which is set to 5/3) and to 1/1 for most of ship's guns (with only one exception, where they are set to 0.75/0.75). I suspect that these settings might affect aiming accuracy separately for each gun.

Other parameters affecting AI's airshooting abilities globally, are found in sim.cfg (here are the IRAI settings)

[AI AA guns]
;The degrees at which the AI could be off when aiming guns at airplanes
Max error angle=4.5					;[deg]
Max fire range=3500					;[m]   was 1500
Max fire wait=6

I ignore if they are applied to both our crew and ship's crews, but I suspect that they are apply to the latter.

Finally, in CrewAI.cfg we have the following parameters (with stock settings):

[CrewAI]
; Weapons.
Cannon range 1=500			;[m] close range limit
Cannon range 2=600			;[m] medium range limit
Cannon range 3=700			;[m] long range limit
AA guns range 1=500			;[m] close range limit
AA guns range 2=1000			;[m] medium range limit
AA guns range 3=1500			;[m] long range limit

;selection
Cannon Selection Range=8000		;[m] max range to contact
AAGuns Selection Range=2000		;[m] max range to contact
Recomended Torpedo Range=2000		;[m] max range to contact
Recomended Deck Guns Range=2000		;[m] max range to contact

In this case, it seems obvious to me that they only affect "our" gunners.

All in all, my theory is that the Trav_tolerance and Elev_tolerance parameters are applied as they are in game (unit used: degrees), whereas for other guns they are multiplied with the Max error angle setting found in sim.cfg. If this was true, with the above settings we would have a max traverse/elevation error of 15 deg for most of the human selectable guns, and of only 4.5 deg for the guns used as ship armaments.

Originally Posted by volodya61

My current campaign is Mare Nostrum.. so I can help with testing aircraft machine guns and AA guns..

I will prepare a couple of patches for testing my theory in game