Anti-Ship_Artillery

[Patrick_Hillary]

Ahoy.Ahoy. Top of the morning to ye. I've been playing Silent Hunter since it's release. I wasn't a SH.III. dude until about a year ago. I have just figured out how to install the Real Fleet Boat Mod and have just started a campaign. I have just had my first experience with the deck gun and while I agree with the reload times, personally I always waited for three minutes a shot anyway, I have a confusion about the amount of three inch shells a 7 thousand tonner can take..100 H.E. plus 50 A.P.H.E. all on the water line and some on the funnel/superstructure. A two hour twilight/breaking daylight Artillery shoot. Thankfully the bitch seems unarmed. I've 30 rounds A.P.H.E. left, sun in just up, I'm 20 nM East of Formossa in command of "The Hairy Squid", S-18. I would like to hear your thoughts on deck gun damage and possible past experiences. Muchos.. Respect to salty sailors real and virtual...P.S. S.H.IV.Disc.V1.4+R.F.B mod, all updates I believe.:arrgh!:

[Platapus]

Welcome aboard! :salute:

It can take a lot of 3inchers to sink a cargo ship under RFB.

[Mescator]

In real life the gun was used for Engaging smaller targets or finishing off wounded ships. Sinking a Merchant from Deck gun fire was difficult/impossible and reported cases are rare indeed.

In TMO you can use it like that, but i generally try avoid it unless i'm finishing off :)

[TorpX]

Ahoy.Ahoy. Top of the morning to ye. I've been playing Silent Hunter since it's release. I wasn't a SH.III. dude until about a year ago. I have just figured out how to install the Real Fleet Boat Mod and have just started a campaign. I have just had my first experience with the deck gun and while I agree with the reload times, personally I always waited for three minutes a shot anyway, I have a confusion about the amount of three inch shells a 7 thousand tonner can take..100 H.E. plus 50 A.P.H.E. all on the water line and some on the funnel/superstructure. A two hour twilight/breaking daylight Artillery shoot. Thankfully the bitch seems unarmed. I've 30 rounds A.P.H.E. left, sun in just up, I'm 20 nM East of Formossa in command of "The Hairy Squid", S-18. I would like to hear your thoughts on deck gun damage and possible past experiences. Muchos.. Respect to salty sailors real and virtual...P.S. S.H.IV.Disc.V1.4+R.F.B mod, all updates I believe.:arrgh!:
Are you sure you have a 3 in. gun? I'm on a S-18 class in RFB and have a 4 in. (thank god).

It was originally a AA gun (Navy). The 3 in. naval piece was used by the Army in the M-10 tank destroyers and a similer one in the M 4 Sherman. It had a rather poor reputation. The Army HE round only about 6/10 lb. of TNT.

Considering the 4 in. was not really all that great for sinking ships, the 3 in. had to be a real dog. I doubt it was possible to sink a large merchant with even a boat load of 3in. rds. Trying to sink anything larger than 1000 tons, would IMO, be very difficult.

Mostly, I use my 4 in. for small ships or finishing off torpedoed targets. Recently, I was chasing after a med. modern comp. freighter (4,400 ton). It took 72 rds. This from a starting range of 6,000 yd., so there were a fair proportion of misses. If I had only a 3 in., I most likely would have needed to get some kind of critical hit. Overall, I think the RFB damadge model for the guns is pretty good. The accuracy is another matter. The game is probably, inherently limited in this regard.

P.S. Are you using SH 4 v1.4?

[Dogfish40]

Ahoy.Ahoy. Top of the morning to ye. I've been playing Silent Hunter since it's release. I wasn't a SH.III. dude until about a year ago. I have just figured out how to install the Real Fleet Boat Mod and have just started a campaign. I have just had my first experience with the deck gun and while I agree with the reload times, personally I always waited for three minutes a shot anyway, I have a confusion about the amount of three inch shells a 7 thousand tonner can take..100 H.E. plus 50 A.P.H.E. all on the water line and some on the funnel/superstructure. A two hour twilight/breaking daylight Artillery shoot. Thankfully the bitch seems unarmed. I've 30 rounds A.P.H.E. left, sun in just up, I'm 20 nM East of Formossa in command of "The Hairy Squid", S-18. I would like to hear your thoughts on deck gun damage and possible past experiences. Muchos.. Respect to salty sailors real and virtual...P.S. S.H.IV.Disc.V1.4+R.F.B mod, all updates I believe.:arrgh!:

Welcome aboard Patrick
During the war, most skippers were very serious about upgrading the deck guns. Adml Lockwood wanted the subs to have the biggest guns possible even with all the inherent problems of the barrels being too long to aim worth a damn or as the problem is here, the guns just being too damn small to do any good but blow up fishing boats. A great deal of damage WAS done however and the skippers wanted those guns on board. I've been reading a lot of instances lately were the guns came in handy for land defence and close order ship to ship combat were the sub ended up coming out on top. Lockwood was really exited about the 5" gun, though, many of the subs didn't have a area big enough to handle the bulk of the gun. I believe, from what I've read anyway, that the HE ammo for the 4" gun could sink most Med size merchant ships (close range) without costing a great deal of ammo.
Good Hunting
D40:salute:

[Patrick_Hillary]

The tub just went up with a bang after another 20 rnds. I'm not sure but you are probally correct about the 4 inch gun being standard issue for S-18. Certainly makes a big difference to the stock game. Ende.

[Arael]

When it comes to anti-ship artillery, I keep the rocket launcher from the A-Team movie in the conning tower. That sucker will one-hit kill anything under 100,000 tons. I need to get pretty close though.

[Armistead]

I'm fairly sure RFB uses different damage zones based more off natural sinking mechanics, so basically ship has to flood to sink. Also make sure you spread the damage to include other zones. If you damage a zone 100%, other shots there will do no further damage. Mostly, just the way RFB is designed, DG is somewhat nerfed down.