The RUb Deck Gun discussion, since it keeps coming up.

[Beery]

I just want to bump this because there's a lot of talk about the deck gun and I think it would be good for players to see the actual process we went through on deciding this, rather than have some people take comments out of their context to suit their agenda.

[gAiNiAc]

Originally Posted by Frederf

Could you possibly make a kind of torpedo loading system for the deck gun?

Have 20 or so "shell tubes" on deck. Or two "ten shell" tubes. Four "five shell" tubes. Ect.

Then have shell reserves loaded to the "tubes" via the deck gun crew. With 60 second (xhow many shells are in a "banana bunch") load times from reserves to the "tubes."

That way you could shoot fast from the locker and the locker would be slowly (likely using auto-reload, especially if they are handled individually) refilled from reserves to the locker and you could continue firing at a slower rate.

Or a different system where the one "tube" is the chamber, internal reserves are the locker, and external reserves are the in-boat ammo reserves.

Side benefits: Have to refil the locker before next attack. Able to choose your own "mix" of shells in the locker"

Your idea came to me this morning at 4AM as I was finishing up my first patrol with Rub 1.43.

Good to see that someone else has thought of this.

The mechanism is already inplace in the game engine. How would it be adapted for the deck gun.......?

Modders, have you guys thought of or tried the above idea already?

[oRGy]

Don't think the above would be possible, the deck gun and torpedo's are totally different systems ingame, though I suppose I could be wrong.

By the way Beery - deckguns are removed post 1943, right? This action reduced underwater drag, right? Is this modelled ingame - i.e. do the uboats travel any faster underwater without them? If not, could be a neat thing to do via SH3 Commander.

[ICBM]

With the knowledge we have today we know that DG are practically useless in combat and just create extra drag

Could Kaleuns back then decide to remove the DG prior to 43' or was that 'against the rules' or something? (don't know better word)

[oRGy]

Deckguns were used in nearly 10% of attacks and so weren't "useless".

I wonder how much drag they did create though? Anyone with figures?

[Beery]

Originally Posted by oRGy

Deckguns were used in nearly 10% of attacks and so weren't "useless".

Deck guns alone only succeeded in sinking 5% of all ships sunk by U-boats (the figures are at U-boat.net - the figures are there - 2919 ships sunk, 158 by the deck gun, which is 5.41%), and I would imagine that if we could look at tonnage, the deck gun would be even more useless. As I look at it, the deck gun can hardly be said to have been 'useful' when it can only account for 5% of all sinkings. 5% means that you'd expect to sink 19 ships before you sank a single one with the deck gun. Even in RUb, with a severely nerfed deck gun, players can still get about 25% of sinkings with it. In order for the deck gun to be as 'useful' as it was in reality, it would need a further heavy duty nerf.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=42152[url]

Read on. Excellent research by community member Charos regarding deck gun reload times which contradict Beery's stance on the same.

This includes very recent posts with what appears to be new information to the discussion.

[stljeffbb1]

All I know is that I'm NOT changing my gun settings again!

30 second reload and 14 degree max error

This makes it so I have to close very close in near perfect conditions to even have a chance of hitting...

I do find it interesting that all 55 shells in the description missed!

Maybe I need to change my max degree error to 45 or something!!!

I JUST DON'T KNOW ANYMORE!!!!

-Jeff

[Kpt. Lehmann]

stljeffbb1

All this old artilleryman is saying is there is room for more than one school of thought in the realm of "historical possibility/probability."

Keep your settings and feel good about them. My settings are comparable.

Regarding aim... the above link says it all and matches with my own crew's accuracy lol. They can't hit the broad side of a barn from the inside.
:rotfl:

[el_Salmon]

30 second reload and 14 degree max error

Well. I think that's a good agreement between "reality" and "gameplay". 60 seconds from RealUboat 1.41 are too long, but 10 seconds from SHIII 1.4 are too short.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by el_Salmon

Well. I think that's a good agreement between "reality" and "gameplay". 60 seconds from RealUboat 1.41 are too long...

Based on what? I keep hearing that from many people, but the only clear real world examples suggest 60 to 80 seconds average reload time per shell. The only contradictory evidence comes from sources that provide incomplete information. I'm not in the business of making realism conform to what people are most comfortable with, or what's as realistic as they can take. I make realism conform to what history tells me is realistic, even when that is unpalatable for some.

30 second reload may be playable, but according to the information I've seen it's not realistic. Realism and playability do agree, but realism and arcade play rarely do. Let's face facts: unless someone can show that a U-boat could fire 200 rounds in 100 minutes, 30 second reloads are tantamount to an arcade mode. It's as simple as that.

[stljeffbb1]

Yeah, maybe I should just suck it up and change it back to 60 secs, and just deal......

However, 30 seconds is MINIMUM time in between shots...this assumes a PERFECT crew.....the way I play, I manually rotate out crew in between every mission (up to half of total crew...historical? I have no idea, but, just like "virtual" torpedos, you do what you gotta do!), so it will be difficult for me to have a perfect crew, if not impossible. Therefore, the time inbetween reloads has typically been about 43 seconds (trust me, I've timed it!)....I am also very intrigued, as mentioned, about ALL of the shells in that account missing their target

the U-boat tried to sink the vessel by gunfire and fired 55 rounds without hitting the ship, which was finally sunk with a coup de grâce at 20.12 hours.

Was this coup a torpedo? The story, along with many others, is rather vague....

I've said it in other threads, the game just doesn't model this very well....I see others have come up with the idea of simulating a storage locker on the top of the boat....interesting....

After reading many many posts, I am now beginning to think that the 60 second time is "realistic".... also, probably shold also consider a higher max angle error, if it is true that the deck gun can't hit the side of a barn.

Is Jurgen Oesten still around? Maybe someone should ask him! I wonder what he thought about the uber gun in the vanilla game?

:hmm:

-Jeff

[oRGy]

Hi!

My previous post was deleted so I think I'll just post someone else:

ridgewayranger in this thread explains how the gunnery worked on a WWII era S Class submarine he was stationed on.

I quote:

Incidentally, I was a British submariner for several years and several of my boats sported a gun. We expected to get 10 rounds away within 1 minute of the order for Gun action. Extra ammo was carried in watertight containers around the gun and there was a chain of men bringing up from the magazine. There was no "de-waterproofing".

The firing lock came up with the Gunlayer and that was it. Obviously, no one but a fool would fight it out with a warship, but merchants were disposed of quickly. The gun was an econimical way of disposing of small craft such as Junks (Silent Hunter 1)

And:

To clarify the ammo supply. The chain of men were inside the boat. Magazine, control room, wardroom, guntower, shells then passed through access hatch to member of gun crew on deck, the rate of fire would be the speed of passing a shell from one man to the next.

We arn't talking 15" projies here, 3 & 4" were routinely manhandled , being lighter than their surface ship counterparts by virtue of the smaller propellant charge. Maybe Uboats wern't so sophisticated , I am talking British S class, a mainstay of the war. As for accuracy, a good gunlayer was worth his weight in gold and it was not unknown for a Skipper to keep his gunlayer when he changed boats.

The essential of using the gun was getting in close with the element of surprise. Pop up,fire ten rounds and down again before the merchant could get a shot at you, then move and repeat. The gun hatch was opened before it actually broke surface.

In my opinion this information totally rubbishes the RuB deckgun setting in terms of historical accuracy. Deck guns were removed from U-boats simply because merchants became armed later in the war, began to travel exclusively in convoys, and the threat of air attack and radar detection greatly increased, not because they were 'useless' weapons. The historical data indicates a reload time of about 10seconds, which is what it will be in Improved U-Boat.

PS: Moderators, please ensure Beery does not delete this post, as has happened to several others.

[joea]

Good post, but don't you think the gunners are a bit too accurate and also the gun a bit too powerful?

[joea]

Originally Posted by oRGy

Hi!

My previous post was deleted so I think I'll just post someone else:

ridgewayranger in this thread explains how the gunnery worked on a WWII era S Class submarine he was stationed on.

I quote:

And:

In my opinion this information totally rubbishes the RuB deckgun setting in terms of historical accuracy. Deck guns were removed from U-boats simply because merchants became armed later in the war, began to travel exclusively in convoys, and the threat of air attack and radar detection greatly increased, not because they were 'useless' weapons. The historical data indicates a reload time of about 10seconds, which is what it will be in Improved U-Boat.

PS: Moderators, please ensure Beery does not delete this post, as has happened to several others.

Oh just a quote to make sure this is seen.