Grey Wolves AP shells 105mm

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by NEON DEON

I am not sure U Boats had an ammunition scuttle, but U. S. fleet boats did. That way they could easily get the ammo up to the gun without having to pass it thru the hatch. Still doent mean that the bucket brigade would not work.

Hi!

I have read that a bucket brigade approach was used since U-boats did not have an ammunition scuttle. Ammunition was lifted by hand up through to the top of the conning tower, sent through a chute down to the deck, and then carried across the deck to the gun once the ready ammunition supply (about 20 rounds in a watertight container built into the deck near the deck gun) was used up.

From a "realism" (dare I say the word) perspective I think there should have been some waiting period from the time the "man the deck gun" order is given until the time the gun is ready to fire to account for the time the deck gun crew needed to prepare the gun to fire, but in SHIII the gun is ready pretty much instantaneously. I don't know if there is any way to change the simulation to recreate this effect.

There were apparently a couple of instances during the war when the gun crew forgot to remove the gun barrel plug (that stopped sea water from filling the barrel while the U-boat was submerged), with unfortunate results for the gun and its crew.

Pablo

[NeonSamurai]

Well fortunatly im not blind enough yet to be unable to tell a warship from a transport ship at night, I ment more for telling its nationality.

Yep the bucket system was used for moving shells, however it was still a slow and carefull process, you dont exactly want to drop a 88mm or 105mm shell inside a uboat onto a steel deck. Personaly i think 8-10 seconds is a reasonable comprimise.

I havent had any troubles selecting different shells when the ammo for one runs out, starshells included in GW.

Unfortunatly i dont know of a way of slowing down the gun manning process, just as i dont know how to make the game stop auto filling the conning tower with out diving. Not sure either is possible.

Another comment on starshells is i noticed in stock GW the damage attached to them was fairly high, which i thought odd given a starshell is mostly made of phosphorus, and has a parachute attached. No real explosives (phosphorus is an incindiery chemical that reacts to oxigen), and the shell is designed to be light so it stays up longer. So its unlikely to penetrate the side of the ship, it doesnt burn when immersed in water, at most it might set fire to something above deck.