Question About manning guns

[Collin Dougherty]

Okay your probably going to kill me,
But is it possible to fire the deck gun?
like aim it up yourself.
Because sometimes the AI acts like a freaking idiot and misses shots it really should not be missing.

[Gerald]

Originally Posted by Collin Dougherty

Okay your probably going to kill me,
But is it possible to fire the deck gun?
like aim it up yourself.
Because sometimes the AI acts like a freaking idiot and misses shots it really should not be missing.

"But is it possible to fire the deck gun?" Of course, the purpose of the gun is that it should preferably be used against surface ships that are unarmed, I have interpreted your question correctly?

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by Collin Dougherty

Okay your probably going to kill me,
But is it possible to fire the deck gun?
like aim it up yourself.
Because sometimes the AI acts like a freaking idiot and misses shots it really should not be missing.

Yes! One of the most enjoyable parts of the game, until the merchants arm up.

Hit the deck-gun icon on the left side of the screen. You will find yourself behind "your man" on the deck gun. Hit tab to take the seat yourself, then tab again to zoom in.

And fire away.

Best results:

• Be 1000-1500m away. Too far, accuracy suffers. Too close, you can't depress the gun sufficiently.
• Aim for below the waterline. In GWX, flooding is what kills 95% of ships. What you want to see is the shell falling short of the ship, then -- a second later -- a brief, dim flash. It may not look like much, but terribly effective.
• How to do this? If his range is 1500m, aim for 1300. Walk your way up by 50m increments until you have him ranged.
• Be patient. As little as five below-the-waterline shots, from stem to stern, can sink a Large Merchant. But it won't go down in minutes. Note his speed, make your shots, bear off and observe. If the speed drops from, say, 7 knts to 4-5knts in 10-15 minutes of game time, you probably don't need to expend more ammo. If he doesn't go down in an hour, or maintains speed, go around to the other side and give 2 or 3 new punches to help things along.
• But if you are using more than 10 below-the-waterline rounds, spaced evenly along the ship, on a Large Merchant, you are not being patient enough.
• Think of your shells as 20 free torpedoes. If you are blessed with good weather and unarmed lone targets, you can easily bring down 80K-100K just with shells.

If your crew is not shooting well enough, they are probably not skilled enough. Make sure your gun crew is staffed with gunner-qualified petty officers, and that your watch officer is gunner qualified.

Also, on the watch officer station, you can instruct your gun crew to fire only at short range, and aim for the water line.

Finally, make it easy on your gun crew. Bring your boat to a course and speed that keeps it at around 1200 m range.

And, even if you do the shooting yourself, always have an elite gun crew on deck. If nothing else, they will reduce your re-load times.

[kapuhy]

Originally Posted by desirableroasted

• Be 1000-1500m away. Too far, accuracy suffers. Too close, you can't depress the gun sufficiently.

Actually, you can. If you don't zoom the view, you can point the muzzle with your mouse instead of setting range on the range indicator (which is not visible anyway in this view). This allows to depress the gun for point blank shots, without the need for ranging shots - you just have to keep close (about 500 meters) and point the gun directly at his waterline or even a pixel-two below. Works with 100% accuracy unless you accidentally shoot on the up-roll.

[Gerald]

I myself use the cannon at longer distances than 1000-1500 m, with no major problems, of course, depending on weather and other conditions.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Collin Dougherty

Because sometimes the AI acts like a freaking idiot and misses shots it really should not be missing.

I'll agree that they sometimes seem to just close their eyes and hope for the best. On the other hand, naval gunnery is probably the most imprecise of all war sciences. The average hit rate for WW2 was somewhere in the area of 7%, with the rate for shots fired under 5000 yards being about 12%. The target is moving, the boat is moving, there are no gyroscopically stabilized guns.

Author Peter Padfield, in his history Guns at Sea, likened it to shooting at a golf ball rolling across a fireplace mantle with a pistol, while sitting in a rocking chair being randomly rocked by someone else.

[maillemaker]

The GWX folks attempted to cripple the gun to make it "more realistic" in terms of accuracy. I don't care for how they went about it, though.

In any level of magnification, the gun will randomly not shoot down the vertical reticule. Each time you go into the gunnery view, it will change. It will shoot to the left or right of vertical some random amount. Once you figure out where it's dropping, you can account for this "windage". Pitching of the boat in seas obviously throws off the elevation, and you can watch the muzzle float up and down to see when it's OK to fire without shooting too high or too low, and this is realistic. But the GWX-induced windage sabotage is random and unrealistic - what it simulates is that your gunsight is broken. I understand the intent at making the gun less accurate, but the way it was gone about annoys me.

One way to avoid the problem is not to shoot using magnification - none of the accuracy impediments seem to apply in that view.

Of course, once you get into 1941 and beyond, merchants are as likely to shoot back as not. So close-range, no-mag shooting is hard to get away with. So in 1941 and beyond, I take manual control of the gun and pound away from 5000 meters. Once I get the range I can pound them in pretty good. The only reason I have gunnery qualifications for my crewmen is to speed up the reload times. I manually shoot all deck gun rounds as I'm far better than the crew.

Steve

[desirableroasted]

Originally Posted by kapuhy

Actually, you can. If you don't zoom the view, you can point the muzzle with your mouse instead of setting range on the range indicator (which is not visible anyway in this view).

I had totally forgotten that. But of course.

Originally Posted by Vendor

I myself use the cannon at longer distances than 1000-1500 m, with no major problems, of course, depending on weather and other conditions.

Yes, you can shoot and hit from far further distances. I simply said your accuracy will suffer. You might burn off 5 shots for every 1 hit, which is inefficient.

[Missing Name]

I think my range record was from 6000 meters, against a Granville. A decent-sized target, but it still burned up 50 shells for an estimated 10 hits. So DR's 5 in 1 is reasonable.

I find the AI deck gunners will be less accurate than you. Exact opposite with FlaK.

[Frontier359]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Author Peter Padfield, in his history Guns at Sea, likened it to shooting at a golf ball rolling across a fireplace mantle with a pistol, while sitting in a rocking chair being randomly rocked by someone else.

That's why I leave it in the hands of my qualified and capable gunnery crews.

[Collin Dougherty]

Yeah there capable all right...
Cpable of skrewing **** upp...

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Collin Dougherty

Yeah there capable all right...
Cpable of skrewing **** upp...

Are you using Commander? If so, add a deck gun qualification to your Watch Officer next time you're in base. Or I assume you can do it in the game's crew management screen, altho I've never tried.

You can also give one to any POs who make up the deck gun crew, but in my experience having a WO on the bridge who is qualified for the deck gun maxes out the efficiency of the deck gun station no matter who is manning it.

[Frontier359]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

...in my experience having a WO on the bridge who is qualified for the deck gun maxes out the efficiency of the deck gun station no matter who is manning it.

That.

[Collin Dougherty]

One more question.
If your with a crewman for a long time, say someone low ranked like a matrosengrefeighter, they can eventually become an officer if you keep promoting them in commander? (yeah its a dumb question but thats how i role ^_^)

[Bakkels]

Yep. I do it all the time. Find it more fun to have a matrosenthingamieguy build his own career aboard my ship instead of recruiting a top-officer. Plus, it doesn't cost me any renown.