[REL] Real Fleet Boat

[Beery]

After all this deck gun talk, I'm proposing rethinking the deck gun ROF and basing it more directly on Wahoo's ROF. Until now I've held back on speeding it up too much since my aim has been to go for a medium-high ROF that represented a good but not elite crew. The idea being that we're simulating good captains but not genius captains (in deference to the real genius commanders such as O'Kane, Fluckey et al).

Anyway, here's what I'm considering:

Make RFB's deck gun reload at 23 seconds per round. This is the precise average ROF of Wahoo's gun for all the ammo expended on the day of the report I've been using as the primary basis for RFB 1.29's deck gun.

My reasoning is as follows:

Wahoo was manned by an elite crew at the top of their game. Two of the best commanders of the war were in the command room and on the bridge on the day this action took place. As such it seems to me that this boat was likely to have one of the highest rates of fire of any boat in the Navy.

Given the above, SH4's crew quality feature will reduce ROF to more average results (30 seconds per round or slower) if the player ignores deck gun crew quality. After a couple of patrols increases the crew's abilities players who manage their crew well will be able to achieve the 23 seconds per round of an elite crew like that of the Wahoo.

SH4 does not allow two ROFs for ready-use ammo and ammo store ammo. So we are forced to go with ready use or ammo store ROF, or a combination. I'm still fairly convinced that a combination gives the most realistic result, since if we go with ready-use ammo that gets us to 17 seconds per round but in reality this couldn't be sustained for more than 90 rounds. If we go with post-ready-use ammo that gives us a ROF of 30 seconds per round. Both of these are extremes that only represent a minority of the deck gun's ammunition whereas the average represents nearly all of it.

I'm thinking that all three guns will reload at the same base rate (23 seconds). This is because the 3" shell was lighter and could be transported to the gun faster but the early boats it was mounted on were not optimized for the deck gun as well as later boats. Conversely although the 5" gun was mounted in a way that optimized its ROF the round was much heavier and getting it to the gun would take longer. Until we have some data on which to base a realistic ROF for these guns I feel that using the same ROF for all three is probably a good compromise.

The final reason - it's only another two seconds faster than what I was thinking of before, plus it binds the ROF directly to an actual 4" gun action that has lots of specific details and is fairly bulletproof. The 4" gun is the middle gun of the three types in the game, so it represents an average from that standpoint. Also this is an example of a Gato boat - the sub that had the longest service period of any sub in WW2 - so this isn't some boat that's 'nearly' one of the game's subs - it's right in the middle of what we're likely to be commanding in the game.

What do the mod's users think of this idea? By the way, don't anyone get the idea that knocking another two seconds off the reload time will make the slightest difference to the deck gun's detractors - they won't be satisfied until the deck gun is firing with a ROF that matches the stock game. Hell will freeze over before I go that far (unless a combat report comes to light that supports it).

[Fearless]

Sounds good to me Beery I've got no hazzles with it the way it is now but hey I'm probably one of the few.

[tedhealy]

Originally Posted by Beery

Weird. I'm looking this up in my sources and I can't find any claim made for Grouper on that date (24 December 42), nor do I see anything confirmed on that date. Also, the commander's name is listed as Greg Turner but according to 'Subs Against the Rising Sun' Grouper's commander in December '42 was called McGregor.

Could this be some sort of paper and pen sub sim whose report mistakenly got added to a historical sub database? It wouldn't be the first time I've seen such a thing. Last month I nearly posted an account that looked extremely realistic, but on further investigation it became clear that it was a very realistic-looking patrol report made by a realism nut like us from a WW2 sub game.

LOL, you are exactly right. At the bottom, TDC: AUTO. Definitely a game AAR. The Tang patrol reports are correct though. Confirmed with O'Kane's book.

[wstaub]

Originally Posted by tedhealy

LOL, you are exactly right. At the bottom, TDC: AUTO. Definitely a game AAR. The Tang patrol reports are correct though. Confirmed with O'Kane's book.

LOL and if you look carefully at the top of the page you see this :
U.S. Navy Historical Center page; post 1946 Submarine Patrol Reports. Scope and Content Note: Most of these are reports of simulated war patrols undertaken for training purposes by U.S. submarines.

[tedhealy]

LOL and if you look carefully at the top of the page you see this :
U.S. Navy Historical Center page; post 1946 Submarine Patrol Reports. Scope and Content Note: Most of these are reports of simulated war patrols undertaken for training purposes by U.S. submarines.

The Tang's patrol reports seem to be historic when comparing the reports and O'Kane's book, the action is the same.

If you shield your eyes form the atrocious web design, you may be able to see some the patrol reports for the Tang, Nautilus, and Harder here. These appear to be historic....:hmm:

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/1592/reports.html

[tater]

That Wahoo log shows 90 HITS in 26 minutes. The 23 seconds per round is then based on 100% gunnery at 3800 yards. Even for me with the gyro stabilized guns, that's pretty good shooting at that range.

At the 1000 ton freighter (larger than the sampan target they engaged at 3800 yards in the other example posed) they hit 50/80, 62.5% of the rounds on what should have been an easier target. That means that the other log with 90 hits was from 144 shots at the same hit % of 62.5., 10.83 seconds per round.

So we have some pretty variable numbers, even for the same boat.

Sadly the deck gun in game isn't as adjustable as we might like.

Might be interesting to try and reproduce some engagements and see what kind of results we get.

tater

[Beery]

Originally Posted by tater

That Wahoo log shows 90 HITS in 26 minutes. The 23 seconds per round is then based on 100% gunnery at 3800 yards. Even for me with the gyro stabilized guns, that's pretty good shooting at that range.

At the 1000 ton freighter (larger than the sampan target they engaged at 3800 yards in the other example posed) they hit 50/80, 62.5% of the rounds on what should have been an easier target. That means that the other log with 90 hits was from 144 shots at the same hit % of 62.5., 10.83 seconds per round.

So we have some pretty variable numbers, even for the same boat.

Sadly the deck gun in game isn't as adjustable as we might like.

Might be interesting to try and reproduce some engagements and see what kind of results we get.

tater

The logbook is a bit confusing. It wasn't 90 shots and 90 hits in 26 minutes. It was 90 shots and 60 hits in 26 minutes. If you look at the summary of attacks it clarifies this. That puts the ROF at 17 seconds for that attack (using ready-use ammo).

Also, according to the summary, both targets were being raked from stem to stern with 1000 rounds of 20mm fire. I reckon if this was done in RFB the ships would sink with a similar number of shells.

[tater]

Ah.

Course that does give us a rough 60-66% hit ratio.

We could use that to weight ROF based on a normal hit ratio in SH4. That would tend to work to support reduced ROF, actually, since in SH4 I'm sure the hit %s are higher.

tater

[kikn79]

Sorry, just catching up on some reading......

Originally Posted by Beery

As for USS Tang, the fact that she was the only sub to be torpedoed by a circle runner in no way proves that circle runners were rare - it only proves that getting sunk by one was rare.

Actually, the USS Tullibee is thought to have been sunk by a circle runner.

per -> http://www.csp.navy.mil/ww2boats/tullibee.htm

The following story of TULLIBEE’s loss is taken from a statement made by the lone survivor, C.W. Kuykendall, GM2c. He reports that the boat arrived on station, March 25, and on the night of March 26 radar contact was found to be on a convoy consisting of a large troop and cargo ship, two medium sized freighters, two escort vessels and a large destroyer.
Having solved the convoy’s speed and course, TULLIBEE made several surface runs on the large transport, but held fire, being unable to see her due to squally weather. The escorts had detected the submarine’s presence, and dropped 15 to 20 depth charges. The submarine came in to 3,000 yards, still unable to see the target, and fired two bow tubes. A minute or two later a terrific concussion shook the boat, and Kuykendall, who had been on the bridge, soon found himself struggling in the water. Since range and bearing of escorts were known, the survivor states that he is sure the explosion was the result of a circular run of one of TULLIBEE’s torpedoes.

And from the USS Tinosa's 11th patrol report: http://www.subvetpaul.com/Tin_11_EN.htm

At 1524 the next day TINOSA was patrolling on the surface some forty five miles north of her previous sinking when she made radar contact on a target thirty-one miles to the north. Latham fired up all four engines and headed for a position to attack. It was 1930 before TINOSA was ready to commence the approach on the target which was a 4,000 ton freighter. At 2040 she fired three stern tubes from 1500 yards.
The first unit was heard to hit but did not explode. The second torpedo made a circular run and came back at TINOSA, passing close aboard. Latham flooded negative tank and went deep to avoid subsequent passes of the errant torpedo, at the same time firing another stern tube hoping to get a hit and an explosion. It missed. The target dropped three depth charges which were not close.

Chuck

[Fearless]

Man this deck gun issue is getting boring

[Palidian]

Interesting you just admitted your gun mod is incorrect....


However I went back and read this thread, and most agree that your gun mod is out of line, except you.


I dug up the navy manual on the gun, it states a rate of fire of 8-10 rounds per minute. Its there gun, they operate it, they wrote the manual. Using one or two actual accounts, where other variables are not mentioned and basing a complete mod on that, is silly. The Hood sank with one 15” round and one 8” round, guess all battle ships sink that way. I played Napoleonic miniatures with someone like that, made for a very flawed game.


There are many factors that effect ROF, however the gun is loaded in 8-10 seconds.

Originally Posted by Beery

After all this deck gun talk, I'm proposing rethinking the deck gun ROF and basing it more directly on Wahoo's ROF. Until now I've held back on speeding it up too much since my aim has been to go for a medium-high ROF that represented a good but not elite crew. The idea being that we're simulating good captains but not genius captains (in deference to the real genius commanders such as O'Kane, Fluckey et al).

Anyway, here's what I'm considering:

Make RFB's deck gun reload at 23 seconds per round. This is the precise average ROF of Wahoo's gun for all the ammo expended on the day of the report I've been using as the primary basis for RFB 1.29's deck gun.

My reasoning is as follows:

Wahoo was manned by an elite crew at the top of their game. Two of the best commanders of the war were in the command room and on the bridge on the day this action took place. As such it seems to me that this boat was likely to have one of the highest rates of fire of any boat in the Navy.

Given the above, SH4's crew quality feature will reduce ROF to more average results (30 seconds per round or slower) if the player ignores deck gun crew quality. After a couple of patrols increases the crew's abilities players who manage their crew well will be able to achieve the 23 seconds per round of an elite crew like that of the Wahoo.

SH4 does not allow two ROFs for ready-use ammo and ammo store ammo. So we are forced to go with ready use or ammo store ROF, or a combination. I'm still fairly convinced that a combination gives the most realistic result, since if we go with ready-use ammo that gets us to 17 seconds per round but in reality this couldn't be sustained for more than 90 rounds. If we go with post-ready-use ammo that gives us a ROF of 30 seconds per round. Both of these are extremes that only represent a minority of the deck gun's ammunition whereas the average represents nearly all of it.

I'm thinking that all three guns will reload at the same base rate (23 seconds). This is because the 3" shell was lighter and could be transported to the gun faster but the early boats it was mounted on were not optimized for the deck gun as well as later boats. Conversely although the 5" gun was mounted in a way that optimized its ROF the round was much heavier and getting it to the gun would take longer. Until we have some data on which to base a realistic ROF for these guns I feel that using the same ROF for all three is probably a good compromise.

The final reason - it's only another two seconds faster than what I was thinking of before, plus it binds the ROF directly to an actual 4" gun action that has lots of specific details and is fairly bulletproof. The 4" gun is the middle gun of the three types in the game, so it represents an average from that standpoint. Also this is an example of a Gato boat - the sub that had the longest service period of any sub in WW2 - so this isn't some boat that's 'nearly' one of the game's subs - it's right in the middle of what we're likely to be commanding in the game.

What do the mod's users think of this idea? By the way, don't anyone get the idea that knocking another two seconds off the reload time will make the slightest difference to the deck gun's detractors - they won't be satisfied until the deck gun is firing with a ROF that matches the stock game. Hell will freeze over before I go that far (unless a combat report comes to light that supports it).

[tater]

Yes, the gun may well be loaded in 8 seconds. As you say, the actual Rate Of FIRE (not rate of RELOAD) is controlled by many factors.

The game gives us control of ONE of the factors so far (the gyro stabilization is a WIP if it works at all), so if we wish to control the totality of ROF, we have no choice but to use the crude tool of altering the rate of RELOADING since it's the only tool in the toolbox.

Duds and clearing them? Not modeled. Gun crew efficiency as a function of sea state? Not there, either (short of forcing them all below at some wave factor). Waiting for the right moment in the roll and pitch of the boat to fire? Not in there, gun is gyro stabilized.

So what's your point? Beery has already stated that he's trying to get battle surface actions to match historical norms using the only tool he has, controlling the ROF. Up the gun to 8-9 rpm, and most surface actions will be over in 2-3 minutes, regardless of ANY other factor. Sub at flank speed in rough seas, twisting and turning. I took out multiple DDs on a lark doing just that. Sure, I got shot up, but I sank 4 DDs, and went back to Manila for more ammo. Utter BS.

The goal is to match historical norms.

It should be pretty straightforward for you to look in your library and find a description of a submarine gun action where they put 100 rounds downrange in 11 or 12 minutes. (at ~3000-3500 yards that means the gun is fired ~3.5 seconds after the fall of the shot is observed, BTW, based on time of flight of the round).

I'm not a staunch defender of 23 seconds, either. My gut says a number more like 15 seconds (4 rpm) is probably better assuming crew quality reduces it some below "elite."

BTW< I'd love to make the SHIPS use ROFs much closer to spec for the guns since they are far far more stable platforms, and in the case of warships at the very least, have plenty of ready ammo. If the ships shot back at anything like a realistic ROF, you'd turn tail and run at the first shot from one (which is what subs usually did).
tater

[Fearless]

Originally Posted by Palidian

Interesting you just admitted your gun mod is incorrect....


However I went back and read this thread, and most agree that your gun mod is out of line, except you.


I dug up the navy manual on the gun, it states a rate of fire of 8-10 rounds per minute. Its there gun, they operate it, they wrote the manual. Using one or two actual accounts, where other variables are not mentioned and basing a complete mod on that, is silly. The Hood sank with one 15” round and one 8” round, guess all battle ships sink that way. I played Napoleonic miniatures with someone like that, made for a very flawed game.


There are many factors that effect ROF, however the gun is loaded in 8-10 seconds.

Then fix it yourself. You're boring me to tears with this constant nit picking trying to proof that the mod is wrong. Oh!! RFB is not only about deck guns!! I presume you are aware of that. :hmm:

[tater]

The mod IS wrong wrt guns.

The GAME is wrong wrt to guns.

The choice is simply HOW to be wrong.

Palidian, et al, would have the ROF match the spec sheet value. The ROF might be right. The end results in the SH4 engine would be wrong. The deck gun would be the dominant weapon of the submarine, or at least an equal to torpedos. It wasn't in RL, so that's clearly wrong. Right specifics, wrong end result.

RFB has a super slow Rate Of Reloading. Instantaneously (time between 2 shots), the ROF is wrong. It's wrong. Over an entire gunnery engagement with a likely target, it's more or less right. So the wrong specifics, but the right end result.

It's not really any more complicated than that. I think there is room for intelligent discussion on the exact ROF to achieve a historical result, and Beery is open to such a discussion for his mod. He doesn't want spec sheet ROFs, he has those, he wants logs of RESULTS because what he's trying to get at is a simulation of the right OUTCOMES for particular decisions on the part of the skipper.


tater

@tater

Applause...standing ovation