Ships not sinking?

[Bullethead]

Originally Posted by rubberboot

1. Does the game calculations take into account that more than 1 ship could be firing on the same enemy, with the inherent problems for the spotters (AI?) trying to discern there shells from the other ship? will this throw the accuracy off?

Yes. In fact, that was point #2 in my last post above . The way it works in the game now, it's OK for 2 ships to be firing at the same target, but when you get 3 or more, they all suffer a fairly significant accuracy penalty.

Back in the day, this was fairly simple for 2 ships to avoid mutual interference because they fired salvos at pretty regular intervals. Thus, the 2nd ship could time her fire 1/2way between the 1st ship's salvos. But that was about limit, because the splashes lasted long enough to become confusing if another ship joined in.

Later in the war, however, the Brits and US (not sure yet about the Germans--still digging on that) worked out a method to concentrate up to 4 ships on 1 target without mutual interference. The deflection scales painted on the turrets and the range dials on the masts were part of that system. If we ever get around to making enough late-war ships for this to become important, we might add this to the game mechanics.

2. Effective range for British range finders were about 15000yrds. above this range, Brit range finders read poorly. Does the game recognize this?

Actually, Brit rangefinders came in different flavors and some were quite capable of decent results out to the horizon. The QEs at Jutland were firing effectively at 20km, for instance.

3. Do near misses cause hull damage? For example, a 1400lb shell with a muzzle velocity of approx. 2400fps hitting the water within 50 - 100 feet of the ship would cause a lot of pressure (and a 75ft water column).

Yes, near misses do damage, but they have to be both big and close, and they don't do very much. From what I can tell, the ship would shake but rarely leaked from anything less than about a 500-pound bomb close aboard.

There's also a chance that a shell landing close enough and at the right angle will strike the target below the waterline, although this is a fairly rare at present. If we ever do WW2 Japanese ships, they'll of course have their "diving" shells, but that's a problem for another day.

4. Does the German accuracy fall off, in a lengthy engagement? I unfortunately haven't seen it happen, it got better if anything. This could be a perception thing.

It tends to, and the Brits tend to get better over the long run. The whole thing is of course highly variable in the short-term, but that's the long-term trend. The Germans often start hitting before the Brits, but the Brits end up with nearly the same number of hits over the time interval, if it's long enough.

Some of the predreadnoughts did get directors (King Edward Class),

True, as did some ACs. But from what I can tell, that happened after 1916. Not many dreadnoughts had directors yet in August 1914, and they had the priority. Even so, there were still a couple at Jutland without them.

BTW I've had the same results with using QE class, Revenge class and HMS Canada vs. Helgoland and Westfalen classes. Brits got mauled. But I have also won as the British (same ships) with only loss being HMS Revenge, and only German survivor was SMS Posen. This last result was after some of the updates had been applied. In all cases, 'crappy' Brit shells turned off.

Brit guns of 13.5" and bigger are the best thing for killing Germans. In 1916, these guns outrange all but a couple of German ships by 3-4km, and they're big enough to really hurt them. Even with fragile AP turned on, they still do damage, although at a slower rate.

The GF can exploit this range advantage due to its higher speed than the HSF. The Nassaus and Helgolands are slower than all Brit dreadnoughts, so even though the Konigs are nearly as fast as QEs, they're chained to the older ships unless they want to risk destruction in detail.

So what the Brit player should do is use his speed advantage to keep the range at 20-22km and pound the Germans with impunity using 13.5", 14", and 15" guns. Once the Germans are sufficiently softened up (by which time the Brits should be low on big bullets anyway), close in for the 12" ships have a go. Or, if you don't sufficiently weaken the Germans, just leave and try again another day. The Germans can't force the Brits to stay and fight, and they can't escape if the Brits want to keep things going.

I think BC issues were a result of Fisher (design) and Beatty. HMS Tiger was about the best of them (in British Fleet). She was supposed to be a 4th Lion, ended up being more a 5th IJN Kongo. Tiger took a lot of hits at Jutland. Repaired in a little more than a month. But that's for a different discussion...

Well, this is relevant to the title of this thread. Tiger was hit 15 times by 11", which sounds like a real pounding. However, she was still in pretty good shape afterwards. Why? Because as mentioned earlier, a lot depends on hit location, not to mention shell performance.

Only 2 of Tiger's hits were near the waterline, and they failed to penetrate the belt. The rest all hit well above water and the great majority of them landed, by sheer chance, in areas with zero effect on fighting efficiency, although they did some impressive-looking sheet metal damage. A number of hits were at angles too steep to penetrate, too. 3 hits, however, could have proved fatal had Lady Luck seen fit: Q turret roof, X barbette, and a hit near Q barbette that started a small 6" propellant fire and also sent fragments into the engine room, though they missed everything important.

As it was, however, the net effect of 15x 11" hits in this case was 1 turret effectively out of action for about 2 hours (while it continued firing, it took them that long to notice it had been knocked way out of calibration) and some very minor flooding. The bulk of Tiger's flooding was self-inflicted by unnecessarily flooding the aft 6" magazine after the danger had passed, but this wasn't enough water to slow her down.'

Anyway, it just goes to show how results can vary. Tiger was pretty lucky in both where she took hits and in the few dangerous hits not being as bad as they could have been. But sometimes that happens. C'est la guerre.