Deck Gun Tutorial

DelphiUniverse · 08-07-10, 02:55 PM

Using the Deck Gun manually

Benefits of using deck gun manually:

Avvoid wasting ammunition
Increased accuracy
Much greater range potential
Get more experience for yourself

Why and when to use deck gun:

To save torpedoes for more important targets
If you are facing unarmed vessels
If obstacles is preventing the use of torpedoes

What ammunition to use:

To understand what ammunition you should use you must quickly identify your problem.
Are you facing a merchant ship, you are not facing a serious threat and you can easily
match or outrun the ship's speed and have time to deal with the threat.

Then you might want to consider using (H)igh (E)xplosive shells to blow up the radar
room preventing it from alerting nearby task forces.

If you are facing a serious threat, like an escort or a destroyer which are heavily armored
in comparison with the sort of ammunition you have in your ship. You might want to use
(A)rmor (P)iercing shells for these kinds of ships and aim for the waterline.

When hitting the ship just below the waterline you will penetrate the armored ship and
cause it to flood, eventually to sink.

When to attack:

In a war there are no "perfect conditions" for survival, you just have to do your best to
survive and any kind of situation will do as long as you are able to inflict damage to your
opponent.

Attacking from greater distance will require more planning and fire experience. Firing
from shorter distances will give you faster and more precise results.

Benefits and disadvantages of firing over short distances:

Greater accuracy and better ammunition conservation
Will give quicker, better and more efficient results
Better odds of preventing enemy from alerting nearby task forces
Enemy will obtain correct fire coordinates much quicker
Enemy will locate you much quicker
Enemy is probably able to return fire and will do so

Benefits and disadvantages of firing over long distances:

With careful planning it can give you stealth advantages
Some ships will not be able to fire back due to range problems
Enemy will spend a long time attaining correct fire coordinates
Less accuracy and greater ammunition waste
Requires that you have greater fire experience
Great risk of enemy alerting nearby task forces

Positioning of ship for better firing results:

Consider Situation A and B from the image above. Your U-boat is positioned 90 degree from the enemy and you have to turn
the deck gun 90 degree in order to hit it.

When your deck gun is rotated 90 degrees it will pitch correspondently with the rolling of your u-boat. The angle of the deck
gun will always be vounerable to the rolling of your u-boat from this position.

This position will expose all of your submarine surface to counter fire and the enemy surface will be hidden and hard to target.

From Situation A it will require less work attaining a good range solution to your target as the length of the target's ship
will help you with that because the shell is travelling in the same direction as your target, likely to hit a spot.

In Situation B when the enemy is exposing all of its surface to you, you will need less aiming experience, however you will need
careful range skills as the length of the ship is no longer a benefit here.

In Situation C and D when your ship is turned straight towards the enemy your deck gun will not pitch with the sideways rolling
of your u-boat and will greatly improve range accuracy.

The deck gun is positioned close to the center of your u-boat so when the u-boat is pitching from bow to stern the deck gun
will have much less impact on range than if the deck gun were rotated 90 degrees.

In Situation C you have a few advantages. You are following the ship in the same direction and you can mirror the ships speed
to stay at a constant distance while you are firing. This give you better range accuracy.

However with the less exposed surface of the enemy ship you will need much better aiming skills.

Situation D is probably any u-boat captains preferred situation. The fully exposed surface of the enemy ship, the hidden surface
of your own u-boat combined with little or no pitching of your deck gun from sideways rolling of your u-boat you will have an
optimal fire solution at hand.

Finding a good range:

By using the image above you can clearly tell that by using the formula for calculating the circumference of a circle
you can use the distance to the target as radius.

The purpose is to find the length (in metres) of each degree of turn from your binoculars will produce at any given
distance.

If you scroll your binoculars one degree from a distance of 4000 metres from your target, you will scroll by almost 70
metres at the far end where the target is located.

If you know the length of the ship you are about to target, you can calculate a good firing distance so that
it doesnt influence precision too much while using binocular equipment.

Choosing a good speed:

Speed control is good for improving range accuracy. You should always reflect both course and speed
of the target before you launch an attack.

If you are not exactly behind the ship you should use map tools to obtain the exact course of the ship
then set your own course to the same, even if you are sailing parallell with it.

Next, obtain the target's speed and set your own speed to the exact same speed. Now it doesnt matter
from what angle you attack, in theory you should now be able to fire without changing range or bearing
anymore.

If you have a speed of 15 knots, your target have a speed of 10 knots, both are sailing with the same
course, you are approaching your target at 15-10 (5 knots), which means every 40 second you gain
a hundred metres towards the target.

Each line in the binocular represents a hundred metres. So if you keep that speed you would have to
reduce range by one line every 40 second to keep the range correct.

Press 'O' to bring up the clock in-game. Use it as a reference to how often you should reduce range.
But don't turn a blind eye on your visual experience either.

Waves is a problem when using the deck gun. Look at the image above: When you reduce or stop your u-boat when the
sea is uncalm, you will be sucked in and out between the curve of the waves (Situation B)

If you increase speed you will "float" over the top of the curves and the boat will become more stabilized (Situation A)
ultimately leading to more precise firing, it might be better to have your ship in motion in times of uncalm seas.

Planning a fire solution to your target:

Begin by positioning your u-boat to your preferred situation. Match the enemy ship's speed to stay at a constant distance if possible.
If this is not possible, it may be better to set speed to very slow or even stop your u-boat.

Now you need an estimate distance to your target to avvoid wasting too many shells. Open the map and use the ruler to draw a line
from your u-boat to the enemy ship. Note the distance.

Now walk up to your deck gun, click the binocular icon in the upper left corner twice to zoom in fully. Use the mouse wheel to set gross
distance. Each number represents one thousand metres. Each line represents a hundred metres.

Now is the time to choose and set the correct type of ammunition. Scroll up in this article about what type of ammunition you should
use.

Now we want to find bearing to your target, you can use the map tools to find bearing to your target, but chances are you can use
the minimap to find bearing AS you are firing.

The mini map will show splashes in the ocean as the shells hit the ocean on its way to the target. Use those splashes to adjust range
and bearing.

If the splashes are short of your target, increase by scrolling your mouse wheel upwards. Fire again until the range is correct.

Next, adjust the bearing, keep firing and scroll the binoculars left or right very carefully until you hit the target. It takes a bit of time
until the shells hit your target, so dont change range or bearing too quickly between the splashes.

Imagine the sea as a huge square of grids:

This kind of warfare is best looked upon as a chess game, it's not a pistol game. We're not "aiming" for anything, we're merely
playing chess. If you are able to mentally prepare for this as a chess game, it will be alot easier to play this game. Your job is
to move the pieces by using binoculars and splashes.

To better understand and practice this "chess skill" you should try to practice this in complete darkness in stormy weather. Find
a target that is 8-9 km away from you and target it solely by using the mini map and range and bearing data from the binoculars.

You should be able to target any ship in complete darkness and in stormy conditions. When you are able to do that you have
become a certified deck gun guru.

If you observe stationary ships that could potentially pose a threat to you, locate the ship by using the periscope, plot a mark on the
map where it is located, then sneak out of there, surface the boat and target that position from behind a hill or an island. Use the surrounding
landscape as a "shield" to hide and protect your vessel.

Let nature do the rest:

There comes a time and situation when the shell just hits randomly around a target, in front of it, behind it, on its sides. This usually
happens when you're targeting from extreme ranges.

When you find yourself in such a situation, there is nothing that you can do to improve on it, you just have to rely on random hits
from here on. The range is simply too great to improve on it.

The key is to not overwork yourself if there is no gains. Your job is to push buttons, observe and readjust. Let nature take care of
the shell, don't try to control nature.

If you got it right, you should be able to kill targets 10-12 km away from you, it takes a bit of skill. Practice this important skill.

Takeda Shingen · 08-07-10, 03:33 PM

You, and anyone else giving tutorials, should consider adding them to the Tactics and Tips sticky at the top of the forum. Otherwise, it will eventually sink and be lost.

robbo180265 · 08-07-10, 07:02 PM

Nicely done tutorial

DelphiUniverse · 08-09-10, 11:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

You, and anyone else giving tutorials, should consider adding them to the Tactics and Tips sticky at the top of the forum. Otherwise, it will eventually sink and be lost.

Can you move it for me so that it doesnt sink into the deep?

Actually, I don't know if it has any purpose of moving it in the first place, to put it in a huge thread people will probably not find it very quickly. They would be forced to search, and then they will find this thread anyway.

But do you think it should be moved?

happycynic · 08-12-10, 02:40 AM

A couple of pointers that have worked for me.

1. Manual aiming. Though less realistic, it is easier to aim with the arc reticle thingy rather than the binoculars. The green horizontal line disappears on hulls, so for long range targets walk up the reticle until the horizontal line disappears. You are now aiming right at his waterline.

2. Tactics. In later missions armed merchants can make using the deck gun risky. What I like to do is, when at 90 degrees to the target's course, to line up the second dot of the automatic TDC with standard G7a torpedoes set to maximum speed. At that range, right before the dots line up you will be close enough to get a good look through the scope at the target to see if it is armed. If armed, fire torpedoes. If not, surface and you are at an excellent range to use your deck gun.

CaptainMattJ. · 08-13-10, 05:15 AM

what he forgot to realize is that no one in their right mind would duke it out with a DD with a deck gun.

Btw, if you surface to fiere and after about a minute you find the merchants are tearing you up, put around 10 shells of AP through the waterline while ordering full astern and depending on targets either hard port or starboard. i once was trapped in an autosave loophole nightmare. where it autosaved 30 seconds after i surface to finish off a merchant i torpedoed. i kept getting mssacred by 10 merchant ships firing both deck guns. until i found the best combo, which was unleashing as many shells as possible while going hard to port and full astern.made it out with 2% hull integrity

Takeda Shingen · 08-13-10, 07:55 AM

Using the deck gun is an established tactic for finishing damaged merchants that have either been left behind by the convoy or sailing independently in early war. I would advise caution when engaging armed merchants, although it can be done at range, but would not at all reccomend attacking any warship with deck armament.

CaptainMattJ. · 08-13-10, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Using the deck gun is an established tactic for finishing damaged merchants that have either been left behind by the convoy or sailing independently in early war. I would advise caution when engaging armed merchants, although it can be done at range, but would not at all reccomend attacking any warship with deck armament.

with respect, i think some1 would be either crazy foolish or crazy desperate to attempt to try and attack a warship with a deck gun. i wonder though. what if sum1 were to surface RIGHT alongside her? would she be able to fire her mains? in real life no, but this is a game.

Takeda Shingen · 08-13-10, 06:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainMattJ.

with respect, i think some1 would be either crazy foolish or crazy desperate to attempt to try and attack a warship with a deck gun.

Well, that is what was advocated in the above tutorial.

KaleunMarco · 07-27-15, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaptainMattJ.

with respect, i think some1 would be either crazy foolish or crazy desperate to attempt to try and attack a warship with a deck gun. i wonder though. what if sum1 were to surface RIGHT alongside her? would she be able to fire her mains? in real life no, but this is a game.

matt,
i did exactly what you suggested by accident. i surfaced next to a IJN light cruiser. she could not depress her guns to hit me. i took some light arms hits but i got several good hits and she went down. i got my sh!t together and dove the hell out of there. luck favors the bold (and the lucky).

08-07-10, 02:55 PM	#1
DelphiUniverse 中国水兵 Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Scapa Flow, underneath a ferry Posts: 272 Downloads: 125 Uploads: 0	Deck Gun Tutorial Using the Deck Gun manually Benefits of using deck gun manually: Avvoid wasting ammunition Increased accuracy Much greater range potential Get more experience for yourself Why and when to use deck gun: To save torpedoes for more important targets If you are facing unarmed vessels If obstacles is preventing the use of torpedoes What ammunition to use: To understand what ammunition you should use you must quickly identify your problem. Are you facing a merchant ship, you are not facing a serious threat and you can easily match or outrun the ship's speed and have time to deal with the threat. Then you might want to consider using (H)igh (E)xplosive shells to blow up the radar room preventing it from alerting nearby task forces. If you are facing a serious threat, like an escort or a destroyer which are heavily armored in comparison with the sort of ammunition you have in your ship. You might want to use (A)rmor (P)iercing shells for these kinds of ships and aim for the waterline. When hitting the ship just below the waterline you will penetrate the armored ship and cause it to flood, eventually to sink. When to attack: In a war there are no "perfect conditions" for survival, you just have to do your best to survive and any kind of situation will do as long as you are able to inflict damage to your opponent. Attacking from greater distance will require more planning and fire experience. Firing from shorter distances will give you faster and more precise results. Benefits and disadvantages of firing over short distances: Greater accuracy and better ammunition conservation Will give quicker, better and more efficient results Better odds of preventing enemy from alerting nearby task forces Enemy will obtain correct fire coordinates much quicker Enemy will locate you much quicker Enemy is probably able to return fire and will do so Benefits and disadvantages of firing over long distances: With careful planning it can give you stealth advantages Some ships will not be able to fire back due to range problems Enemy will spend a long time attaining correct fire coordinates Less accuracy and greater ammunition waste Requires that you have greater fire experience Great risk of enemy alerting nearby task forces Positioning of ship for better firing results: Consider Situation A and B from the image above. Your U-boat is positioned 90 degree from the enemy and you have to turn the deck gun 90 degree in order to hit it. When your deck gun is rotated 90 degrees it will pitch correspondently with the rolling of your u-boat. The angle of the deck gun will always be vounerable to the rolling of your u-boat from this position. This position will expose all of your submarine surface to counter fire and the enemy surface will be hidden and hard to target. From Situation A it will require less work attaining a good range solution to your target as the length of the target's ship will help you with that because the shell is travelling in the same direction as your target, likely to hit a spot. In Situation B when the enemy is exposing all of its surface to you, you will need less aiming experience, however you will need careful range skills as the length of the ship is no longer a benefit here. In Situation C and D when your ship is turned straight towards the enemy your deck gun will not pitch with the sideways rolling of your u-boat and will greatly improve range accuracy. The deck gun is positioned close to the center of your u-boat so when the u-boat is pitching from bow to stern the deck gun will have much less impact on range than if the deck gun were rotated 90 degrees. In Situation C you have a few advantages. You are following the ship in the same direction and you can mirror the ships speed to stay at a constant distance while you are firing. This give you better range accuracy. However with the less exposed surface of the enemy ship you will need much better aiming skills. Situation D is probably any u-boat captains preferred situation. The fully exposed surface of the enemy ship, the hidden surface of your own u-boat combined with little or no pitching of your deck gun from sideways rolling of your u-boat you will have an optimal fire solution at hand. Finding a good range: By using the image above you can clearly tell that by using the formula for calculating the circumference of a circle you can use the distance to the target as radius. The purpose is to find the length (in metres) of each degree of turn from your binoculars will produce at any given distance. If you scroll your binoculars one degree from a distance of 4000 metres from your target, you will scroll by almost 70 metres at the far end where the target is located. If you know the length of the ship you are about to target, you can calculate a good firing distance so that it doesnt influence precision too much while using binocular equipment. Choosing a good speed: Speed control is good for improving range accuracy. You should always reflect both course and speed of the target before you launch an attack. If you are not exactly behind the ship you should use map tools to obtain the exact course of the ship then set your own course to the same, even if you are sailing parallell with it. Next, obtain the target's speed and set your own speed to the exact same speed. Now it doesnt matter from what angle you attack, in theory you should now be able to fire without changing range or bearing anymore. If you have a speed of 15 knots, your target have a speed of 10 knots, both are sailing with the same course, you are approaching your target at 15-10 (5 knots), which means every 40 second you gain a hundred metres towards the target. Each line in the binocular represents a hundred metres. So if you keep that speed you would have to reduce range by one line every 40 second to keep the range correct. Press 'O' to bring up the clock in-game. Use it as a reference to how often you should reduce range. But don't turn a blind eye on your visual experience either. Waves is a problem when using the deck gun. Look at the image above: When you reduce or stop your u-boat when the sea is uncalm, you will be sucked in and out between the curve of the waves (Situation B) If you increase speed you will "float" over the top of the curves and the boat will become more stabilized (Situation A) ultimately leading to more precise firing, it might be better to have your ship in motion in times of uncalm seas. Planning a fire solution to your target: Begin by positioning your u-boat to your preferred situation. Match the enemy ship's speed to stay at a constant distance if possible. If this is not possible, it may be better to set speed to very slow or even stop your u-boat. Now you need an estimate distance to your target to avvoid wasting too many shells. Open the map and use the ruler to draw a line from your u-boat to the enemy ship. Note the distance. Now walk up to your deck gun, click the binocular icon in the upper left corner twice to zoom in fully. Use the mouse wheel to set gross distance. Each number represents one thousand metres. Each line represents a hundred metres. Now is the time to choose and set the correct type of ammunition. Scroll up in this article about what type of ammunition you should use. Now we want to find bearing to your target, you can use the map tools to find bearing to your target, but chances are you can use the minimap to find bearing AS you are firing. The mini map will show splashes in the ocean as the shells hit the ocean on its way to the target. Use those splashes to adjust range and bearing. If the splashes are short of your target, increase by scrolling your mouse wheel upwards. Fire again until the range is correct. Next, adjust the bearing, keep firing and scroll the binoculars left or right very carefully until you hit the target. It takes a bit of time until the shells hit your target, so dont change range or bearing too quickly between the splashes. Imagine the sea as a huge square of grids: This kind of warfare is best looked upon as a chess game, it's not a pistol game. We're not "aiming" for anything, we're merely playing chess. If you are able to mentally prepare for this as a chess game, it will be alot easier to play this game. Your job is to move the pieces by using binoculars and splashes. To better understand and practice this "chess skill" you should try to practice this in complete darkness in stormy weather. Find a target that is 8-9 km away from you and target it solely by using the mini map and range and bearing data from the binoculars. You should be able to target any ship in complete darkness and in stormy conditions. When you are able to do that you have become a certified deck gun guru. If you observe stationary ships that could potentially pose a threat to you, locate the ship by using the periscope, plot a mark on the map where it is located, then sneak out of there, surface the boat and target that position from behind a hill or an island. Use the surrounding landscape as a "shield" to hide and protect your vessel. Let nature do the rest: There comes a time and situation when the shell just hits randomly around a target, in front of it, behind it, on its sides. This usually happens when you're targeting from extreme ranges. When you find yourself in such a situation, there is nothing that you can do to improve on it, you just have to rely on random hits from here on. The range is simply too great to improve on it. The key is to not overwork yourself if there is no gains. Your job is to push buttons, observe and readjust. Let nature take care of the shell, don't try to control nature. If you got it right, you should be able to kill targets 10-12 km away from you, it takes a bit of skill. Practice this important skill. Last edited by DelphiUniverse; 08-09-10 at 07:28 PM.

08-07-10, 03:33 PM	#2
Takeda Shingen Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2000 Posts: 8,643 Downloads: 19 Uploads: 0	You, and anyone else giving tutorials, should consider adding them to the Tactics and Tips sticky at the top of the forum. Otherwise, it will eventually sink and be lost.

08-07-10, 07:02 PM	#3
robbo180265 Admiral Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Brighton, England.Party capital of the south Posts: 2,255 Downloads: 126 Uploads: 0	Nicely done tutorial

08-12-10, 02:40 AM	#5
happycynic Swabbie Join Date: Jul 2010 Posts: 6 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	A couple of pointers that have worked for me. 1. Manual aiming. Though less realistic, it is easier to aim with the arc reticle thingy rather than the binoculars. The green horizontal line disappears on hulls, so for long range targets walk up the reticle until the horizontal line disappears. You are now aiming right at his waterline. 2. Tactics. In later missions armed merchants can make using the deck gun risky. What I like to do is, when at 90 degrees to the target's course, to line up the second dot of the automatic TDC with standard G7a torpedoes set to maximum speed. At that range, right before the dots line up you will be close enough to get a good look through the scope at the target to see if it is armed. If armed, fire torpedoes. If not, surface and you are at an excellent range to use your deck gun.

08-13-10, 05:15 AM	#6
CaptainMattJ. The Old Man Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: Sin City Posts: 1,364 Downloads: 55 Uploads: 0	what he forgot to realize is that no one in their right mind would duke it out with a DD with a deck gun. Btw, if you surface to fiere and after about a minute you find the merchants are tearing you up, put around 10 shells of AP through the waterline while ordering full astern and depending on targets either hard port or starboard. i once was trapped in an autosave loophole nightmare. where it autosaved 30 seconds after i surface to finish off a merchant i torpedoed. i kept getting mssacred by 10 merchant ships firing both deck guns. until i found the best combo, which was unleashing as many shells as possible while going hard to port and full astern.made it out with 2% hull integrity

08-13-10, 07:55 AM	#7
Takeda Shingen Navy Seal Join Date: Mar 2000 Posts: 8,643 Downloads: 19 Uploads: 0	Using the deck gun is an established tactic for finishing damaged merchants that have either been left behind by the convoy or sailing independently in early war. I would advise caution when engaging armed merchants, although it can be done at range, but would not at all reccomend attacking any warship with deck armament.