After being shelled By U-48 the 6,903 ton Louisianne sank in 10 minutes!

[NEON DEON]

At 19:00 hours on October 12th after shelling and sinking the the 14,115 ton Emile Miguet the U 48 pursued and engaged in a gun battle with the 5,202 ton Heronspool shortly after midnight on the morning of the 13th. The Heronspool fought back with fore and aft deck gun forcing the U 48 to fire six torpedoes only one of which exploded. The Heronspool then sank. On the same day after two gun engagements the U 48 ran across the Louisianne a 6,903 ton merchant and preceded to shell her.

"At 08.14 hours on 13 Oct, 1939, the Louisiane, a straggler from convoy OA-17, was stopped with gunfire by U-48. After the crew abandoned ship, the vessel was shelled from 08.35 until 08.45 hours and sank ten minutes later."

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/64.html

one day later the U 48 preceded to Shell the 2,677 ton Seaton. The crew was then allowed to abandon ship and the U 48 torpedoed her causing her to sink.

So in 3 days the U 48 sank about 29,000 tons of shipping as result of having a deck gun. 21,000 tons was sunk directly by the deck gun. An 88 mm (3.47") gun with a magazine of 220 shells!

Maybee the deck gun is an uber gyro stabalized ray gun of death after all

[tater]

Modding (or unmodding) the deck gun takes less work than a single one of these threads.

[rifleman13]

I believe this depends on the training of the gun crews.

[NEON DEON]

Originally Posted by tater

Modding (or unmodding) the deck gun takes less work than a single one of these threads.

You might be right. But then people would still be laboring under the assumption that deckguns were worthless weapons that couldnt hit the broad side of a barn.

Not so. IF it were so, You couldnt sink all these ships by gunfire.

US doctrine was flawed and over cautious when it came to the deck gun. So much so that it did not include finishing off a merchant that had been torpedoed. Not untill late in the war did they realize what the Germans had known since WW I that the gun could sink ships and save torpedoes. By that time, Japanese Shipping had been reduced to such an extent that if you ran into a big merchant you could afford to fire a bunch of torps at it simply because there was nothing left to shoot at. Sea trucks and lots of them were all over the place and they were shot up.

So in 1941/42/43 lacking strong ASW opposition, it was quite possible to sink merchantmen when your faulty torpedoes screwed up.

[tater]

US boats used their DGs all the time vs smaller targets. Typical hits for gewrman guns to sink targets were about the same 60-80 hits based on the uboat.net narratives.

Here's a jap merchant ship that we have in game as she actually was in 1942:





4 3 inch or better DGs, and as many AA MGs (either 25mm type 96s or 13.2mm HMGs). Her sisters were similarly armed. This is Nagara in mid 1942, she was like this before the war started.

[LukeFF]

a straggler from convoy OA17

There's the key right there.

[LukeFF]

Originally Posted by NEON DEON

US doctrine was flawed and over cautious when it came to the deck gun. So much so that it did not include finishing off a merchant that had been torpedoed. Not untill late in the war did they realize what the Germans had known since WW I that the gun could sink ships and save torpedoes.

[cough]







[/cough]

[tater]

Not all ships were as heavily armed as the IJN commandeered Nagaras. That said, most IJN commandeered ships were at least as heavily armed as the armed versions of merchants in SH4, and quite a few considerably more so. The IJN commandeered ~1/3 of jap merchant shipping.

The IJA also took ~1/3. Their ships would have had fewer purpose-built DP guns like that Nagara, but they would be heavily armed with AA MGs (13.2mm MGs), and since they frequently carried troops, would have huge numbers of small arms MGs (.30 cals) (at the ready for carried troops).

That leaves another ~1/3 civilian ships. These were unarmed at the start of the war, then lightly armed with AA MGs in many cases.

A random encounter has then maybe a 2/3 chance of being decently well armed.

So, you need to look at the time periods and locations.

US boats certainly could have made better use of their DGs.

In the last few nights I have been on a single patrol in RFB/RSRDC. I forgot to turn off recharging, and followed my shifted patrol area without realizing my fuel state. I was enough under 50% I was worried about reaching Midway, so I put in at Darwin for fuel, and ended up with a few more sinkings heading towards Pearl.

39k tons now, and I finished a couple merchants off with the DG, actually. I even attacked an Aux Subchaser with the DG (I torpedoed him, and he was listing to port heavily, so I Battle Surfaced on the other side. I holed him which effectively counter-flooded him, and had to submerge and finish him with a 2d fish).

[NEON DEON]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

[cough]







[/cough]

Zycam. That should help ease those symptoms.

Gregory was relieved of command after that patrol. It was said that he lacked aggressiveness and waisted torpedoes. Hell! he is the only US skipper I have ever seen battle surface spray a 4,472 ton ship with gunfire and sink it. Yet he was not aggressive. Command refused to believe they had a problem with torpedoes.
Damn dodge a circle runner fire a ton a torpedoes cant sink em and battle surface to finnish him off with the deck and he gets canned.

[NEON DEON]

Originally Posted by LukeFF

There's the key right there.

And the key is what exactly?

[tater]

Originally Posted by NEON DEON

You might be right. But then people would still be laboring under the assumption that deckguns were worthless weapons that couldnt hit the broad side of a barn.

Not so. IF it were so, You couldnt sink all these ships by gunfire.

No one has ever suggested that deck guns were worthless.

No one has suggested that a trained crew could not hit the broad side of a barn.

What people HAVE suggested is that:

1. The stock DG is rediculously easy to shoot, and gyro-stabilized. It IS. In RL, the firing pedal was pushed when the boat was level (or as close as possible on a rolling, pitching sub). In RL, they would SLOW to fire the DG for just this reason. In stock you can circle at flank with the rudder hard over, and fight multiple DDs and win (I've done this myself).

2. In RL, the number of hits required to sink a freighter was surprisingly high. Both USN and KM patrol reports show that it typically took multiple tens of hits. 30-90 being a pretty normal range, including ships already stopped by torpedo(es).

Some (you?) apparently think that a handful of shots should sink anything attacked, and that handful of shots (all of them) should all happen with the first 40 seconds of surfacing.

I sink ships with the DG in RFB and see nothing at all outside of reality in the results I get. I haven't tried TMO lately, but I imagine it's similar. Anyone using stock... as I said, in stock you can take on the IJN with your DG and win, easily, so clearly stock is not an issue where effectiveness is concerned, so you must be harping on RFB.

Have you surfaced next to an unarmed tanker in RFB and counted the rounds to sink her with the DG?

[tater]

Once again, edit not working.

I was gonna add to the last test, measure the time to expends the rounds as well.

[NEON DEON]

Tater,

The Patrick J. Hurley 10,600 tons took 30 shells to sink.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=146217

The 6,900 ton Merchant Louisiane took gunfire for 10 minutes and sank in 10 more.

The 210 ton steam trawler Leukos took one hit and sank!

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/288.html

The 6,834 ton Alcoa guide sunk with 27 shells.

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/1546.html

The 1,885 ton Catherine sunk with 12 in high seas U47 fired 113 rounds but only hit the ship 12 times. Range was not given.

http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/382.html

The 1,018 ton Vistula sank after 14 shells.

http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/59.html

The above list is from shelling only. No torpedoes.

Tater,

I went in the sub school and sank the 10,000 ton tanker in convoy with 30 shells. On the 30 th hit she exploded.


The campaign game would be a better way to test this I think.

[tater]

I've been finishing off unarmed (and sometimes armed---3 purple hearts and a fatality on my last patrol) ships with guns lately in RFB/RSRDC partially to test the complaints.

I guess I'm just not seeing the problem. I've fired at 4-5 ships, one a converted merchant gunboat (Aux Gunboat in RSRDC). I probably fired 150 rounds between all of them, with a fair % of those missing. All 4 sank, and 3 of the 4 were hit by only 1 fish, and were making way when I stopped them with gunfire. The 4th would have likely sunk anyway in time (hit by 2 fish, foundering), but I gave the gun crew soime practice

Last gun attack, as I came too far forward, and unseen 25mm gun was unmasked and swept my bridge (at like 300 yards) killing the OOD outright, and wounding 3 others.