Coastal Artillery
 

Having sailed into SF and SD Bays on the US West Coast, for a tiger cruise of sorts, I didn't notice the large Coastal Artillery batteries that were suppose to exsist. Did the Japanese have like batteries, and if so, are the properly represented.

Example: Battery Davis @ Fort Funston, San Francisco, CA

http://www.geocities.com/fort_tilden/davis1948.jpg

http://www.nps.gov/history/history/o...ages/fig45.jpg
Battery Ashburn @ Fort Rosecrans, San Diego, CA

Japan being an island nation had some pretty extensive coastal fortifications. As a result of the 1922 Washington Conference on Naval Limitation, the Japanese Navy found itself with a quantity of surplus battleship twin turrets on hand. It gave them to the Army and they were happy to accept them. They were sited in enormous pits in the ground, labyrinthine complexes of magazines, crew quarters, fire control and ventilators were built. The turrets were set on top of the shafts and camouflaged. But like so many coast artillery installations built throughout the world in the 1920s and 30s they were destined never to fire a shot in anger.

And...as far as I know they're not in the game. Although they are are plenty of more smaller coastal batteries in the Japanese island possessions. But I've never seen any in Japan proper.

You will find Japanese arty guarding the entrance of many Japan-held islands in the game including Japan mainland harbors. They are sharp shooters and only a few hits will take you out. To be avoided.
-Pv-

If you have RSRD installed, you will find several shore batterys in the Marshalls. I say this because there is really not alot of action in the Marshalls and one can get a bit complacent passing through. The rascals can be really acurate at times, found out the hard way.:oops:

From the perspective of a warship, the best way to represent a shore battery is as a giant target. While they were intended to prevent amphibious assault, typically they were attacked by carrier born or land based bombers and never had the opportunity to take a single shot at a warship. That would leave the beaches covered by only inland field artillery, which in turn would be attacked by naval gun fire (since they could now get in range) and more aircraft. In the end, they looked pretty scary but never really delivered on their promise.

There are shore batteries protecting Kolonia near the Marshalls in the stock game. 99% of the time, you can get close to them at night with minimum profile.
-Pv-

Some are there...just got hit yesterday :(

They have them in the Lombok Straits and other nearby straits around Java. I try to go through those straits at night.

Anyone know if the shore batteries are destroyable?:D

I think not, I never stick around to find out. ;) I might if I had some of those 6" light cruiser guns the Narwhal class had.

I've tried to locate them several times with the free camera. Sometimes you will see a muzzle flash if you're looking in the right direction, but I have yet to see the actual gun and bunker.

They're probably significantly tougher than your submarine. If they're not there's something wrong. I wouldn't want to slug-it-out with them.

Here's a screen shot of what your typical gun battery looks like.

http://neptoon.homestead.com/CoastalDefenceGuns.jpg

Yeah...as was historically the case in the Pacific, they were probably encased in a coconut tree log bunker. Hard to see and even harder to destroy. Even battleship bombardments were often ineffective.

Oh, generally, neither would I, but this is a game, and it'd be something new to try. I expected it from Silent Hunter 3, but was still miffed when I couldn't set harbor warehouses ablaze with my deck gun.

And besides, it's not like I can get all Hornblower on them and send a shore party to take care of them. Alas.

Torplexed, thanks for the screenies. I have been to a few Japanese held islands that are very small and the gun implacement was not viewable - but they were punching holes in me all the same. I'm thinking that they may have been added by RSRDC, but just lack the 3D model.