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

[Beery]

Citing a British post-war sub as evidence of what could be expected on a WW2 German U-boat is just not convincing at all. If we're going to find out about German U-boats we need to find evidence that relates to German U-boats. I've done that. So why is it so difficult for my detractors to do the same?

I mean I've read of field guns, destroyer guns, and now post-war British subs. What next? Shall we hear about Japanese sub deck guns? None of these have any bearing on WW2 German U-boat deck guns because no other guns had the same specific issues that a WW2 German deck gun had. That's why we need to get our info ONLY from WW2 German U-boat data. Anything else is completely irrelevant.

The speed at which a gun crew can fire 10 rounds is completely useless info. It means nothing unless it's a speed that's good for the entire ammo supply, and unless it relates directly to battle conditions. Most speed tests relating to reloads are tests done in better-than-perfect conditions. I simply don't see why this is so difficult for people to understand.

Plus, the British sub crewman says that there was no de-waterproofing. That only proves my point that sub types were very different. A German U-boat crew certainly did have to de-waterproof the gun, and if they forgot (which occasionally happened in the heat of the moment) it could result in crew casualties. This shows that if we want a realistic simulation we can't just ignore such things.

The SH3 Mod Team is never NEVER going to change the deck gun reload time unless compelling evidence is brought to light that shows that DECK GUNS (not field guns) on GERMAN (not English) U-boats routinely reloaded their ENTIRE AMMO SUPPLY OR A SIGNIFICANT PROPORTION OF IT (not just 10 - 20 rounds) in less time than what RUb models. If people don't like that, then they can go elsewhere to find ways to make the game suit their preference. No one ever forces anyone to use the RUb mod.

What some people don't seem to understand is that in order for RUb to retain its clarity of focus it has to have a single vision. So the RUb mod is, in the final analysis, meant to appeal to one person only - me. A lot of people have input into it, and a lot of people give me advice, and I gladly take a lot of it - I sometimes even use mods that I don't really agree with or enjoy if I'm convinced that they are more realistic than the alternative. But the advice has to make sense to me. If I start compromising my own vision for the mod I believe it will become less popular, because no one wants a mod (or anything else) designed by a committee. A big reason for RUb's success is that it is solidly focused on one uncompromising interpretation of realism. Many people like that - they want to be challenged by a game that is as real as it can get without going back in time and joining the Ubootwaffe. Players who don't appreciate that focus and that vision can go elsewhere. Players who don't agree with RUb's interpretation of what's realistic, and who can't present an argument that sways me can do the same.

[oRGy]

Originally Posted by Beery

Citing a British post-war sub as evidence of what could be expected on a WW2 German U-boat is just not convincing at all.

The S-Class was a WWII sub, comparable to a Type VII and ridgewayranger was onboard in the mid-late 40's. I'm sure he could provide more details and lots more information about all aspects of that era of submarine warfare if asked. Indeed, he should be asked for lots of information and the mod community should be very grateful for it, but this has not happened yet. I ask: Why not?

You can read about the S-class here by the way:
http://uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=52

If we're going to find out about German U-boats we need to find evidence that relates to German U-boats. I've done that. So why is it so difficult for my detractors to do the same?

"We" already have. I could trawl through the thread, if you want. It's you who is selectively ignoring evidence and choosing extreme examples as what is normal. You yourself have admitted that you treat this as an issue that engages your emotions rather than your reason and that you're not interested if the deck gun is portrayed in a strictly way or not. You want me to dig those posts up too, in case you've forgotten?

I mean I've read of field guns, destroyer guns, and now post-war British subs. What next? Shall we hear about Japanese sub deck guns? None of these have any bearing on WW2 German U-boat deck guns because no other guns had the same specific issues that a WW2 German deck gun had.

Like what? I mean, naval guns, even of the type used on a RN WWII submarine, have no bearing on the matter? Are you actually insane?

That's why we need to get our info ONLY from WW2 German U-boat data. Anything else is completely irrelevant.

Completely. Yeah. Whatever. Well, you can ignore first hand sources all you like - I won't.

[Kpt. Lehmann]

Do you have any actual "hands-on" artillery experience or training Beery?

I do.

Just as nothing can convince you otherwise... (regarding sustained fire with artillery) my seven years of FIELD ARTILLERY CREWMAN experience demands that I change the settings in my simulator to something more reasonable... approaching the reality that I KNOW. Ergo my 30 second reload.

Don't change RUb... there is facility for us to change it.

To everyone else: Realism and reality are judged in the eyes of the beholder. Research can be interpreted in many ways and can often be looked at as heresay. Change your settings/reload times and don't look back.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

Do you have any actual "hands-on" artillery experience or training Beery?...

Did you ever serve a U-boat deck gun in WW2?

If not, your experience means nothing.

I can do math. I've figured out actual times of gunnery from actual WW2 U-boat attacks. That's how I got the 1 minute reload figures. You don't need gunnery experience if you have actual times of gunnery engagements.

I mean how hard can it be to understand that if you time a gunnery engagement you can get the reload rate?

[Beery]

Originally Posted by oRGy

The S-Class was a WWII sub, comparable to a Type VII and ridgewayranger was onboard in the mid-late 40's.

But it wasn't a Type VII or a Type IX. If it's not one of those subs, it doesn't count.

Come back with timed engagement figures where more than 40 rounds were fired, as I used to get my figure. That's all we need. We don't need to 'guesstimate' how long a U-boat deck gun 'might' take to reload based on similar subs. Any such guesstimate will be prone to gross error. A timed engagement from an actual Type VII or IX engagement won't be susceptible to such error.

I simply cannot use any other figures, best guesses, or any numbers based on other sub types - however similar they are to a WW2 German sub, because they are too prone to error.

[Beery]

With the times I've measured, here are the figures I'd expect from a Type VII U-boat with a standard 20 round ready-use ammo container:

The first twenty rounds could probably be fired in 5 minutes (15 seconds per round).

The first 30 rounds could probably be fired in 14 minutes (an average of 28 seconds per round).

The first 40 rounds could probably be fired in 27 minutes (an average of 41 seconds per round).

The first 50 rounds could probably be fired in 40 minutes (an average of 48 seconds per round).

The first 60 rounds could probably be fired in 53 minutes (an average of 53 seconds per round).

The first 70 rounds could probably be fired in 66 minutes (an average of 57 seconds per round).

The first 80 rounds could probably be fired in 79 minutes (an average of 59 seconds per round).

The first 90 rounds could probably be fired in 92 minutes (an average of 61 seconds per round).

The first 100 rounds could probably be fired in 105 minutes (an average of 63 seconds per round).

The first 120 rounds could probably be fired in 131 minutes (an average of 66 seconds per round).

The first 140 rounds could probably be fired in 157 minutes (an average of 67 seconds per round).

The first 160 rounds could probably be fired in 183 minutes (an average of 69 seconds per round).

The first 180 rounds could probably be fired in 209 minutes (an average of 70 seconds per round).

The first 200 rounds could probably be fired in 235 minutes (an average of 71 seconds per round).

These figures are calculated based on the long deck gun attack examples that have been listed earlier in this thread, along with the 15 second per round estimate for reloading when carrying a shell from the ready-use ammo container which was located 12 feet away from the breech - I just can't imagine it being done faster while in combat. The first 24 rounds could have been loaded at this rate (20 ready-use rounds plus 4 rounds brought up while firing the 20 rounds of ready-use ammo. After that, the gun was reloaded based purely on the speed that shells could be brought up from below decks (which must have been around 80 seconds). After the first 40 or 50 rounds the speed goes down to around 60 seconds per reload. This is why RUb models 60 seconds per round as an average reload rate. The game does not allow different reload rates based on which ammo you're using or how little ammo the player uses to sink a ship, so the only fair way is to model the average.

This average can be most easily calculated based on the start of the action, the end of the action, and how many shells were expended. This is how I arrived at the 60 second average, which I made more liberal than the 80 second rate that was measured.

The rate of fire can also be calculated based on the speed of reloading from the ready-use ammo container and the speed of reloading from the magazine. This is how I've arrived at the above calculations.

Calculating based on any other criteria is prone to gross error.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by Shadow9216

Respectfully, I must disagree.
It may not be the best, most accurate metric for data, but to say it means nothing is to blithely dismiss all sources which can be used to fill in existing gaps in the historical record.

You can only fill gaps in the historical record if you have something that relates specifically to the matter. Anything else is pure speculation based on potentially flawed data. I'd rather use data that IS available, and there IS data available for this.

How can we call into question data that is clear and unambiguous, by using data that may be very flawed indeed? That is ridiculous. It would not be the scientific method in practice - this is an example of data mining. You have a conclusion that you'd like to reach, and you're willing to use any data - however poor or irrelevant - to support it. There is clear evidence from actual U-boat combat reports that supports my figures. My opponents in this discussion are using anything but real U-boat combat reports. They prefer to dismiss such reports out of hand. In fact they don't even dismiss them - they ignore them completely, because those combat reports don't support their conclusions.

[joea]

Interesting figures. :hmm: How many crew on the gun at a time according to the evidence and records of the u-boats? Was it possible to get a chain going to feed ammo? Has anyone ever read of such a case?

[Beery]

Originally Posted by Kpt. Lehmann

...The available crew for moving rounds to the gun on a uboat were far mor plentiful. I believe that as the deck ammo locker is being emptied other rounds were being readied and brought up... stockpile that I don't believe you accounted for...

I certainly do account for this. Your calculation doesn't take into account the need to restrict access to the deck. The number of crew available for taking a round from the conning tower onto the deck was at most two. There was no chain of men from the ammo store to the gun. The threat of air attack prevented this. There was probably a chain of men inside the sub, but certainly not on deck. This is why the game itself restricts deck access. Deck access was strictly limited, since it was essential that a sub was able to dive as fast as possible.

[oRGy]

Oh, I encourage everyone to read the entire thread as well as others like

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=39341

Here, what seems to have happened is that the deck gun unrealism was realised as an issue, changes were proposed, and based on one example you jumped the gun (pardon the pun) so the new figures were as unrealistic as the old - and since then, you've spent enormous effort avoiding any counter-arguments in order not to change your 'vision'.

You asked for a counter-example, I just gave you one in the above post. Read the post again. You also fail to deal with my point that your data is probably skewed for the reasons I mentioned. Perhaps you could answer that instead of complaining about "politicisation"?

Also, to be constructive, what needs to looked into more is:

1) Getting rid of the red crosshair for deck gun aiming
2) Getting rid of the stabilisation
3) Reducing crew ai accuracy

As far as I can gather no serious effort has been made in these areas.

[oRGy]

As a postscript, here are more counter examples culled from the earlier linked thread:

30 Apr 1942 - U-507 sinks US tanker FEDERAL (2,881 grt) using only the deck gun. According to the American report, U-507 surfaced about 450 yards away and began shelling the ship about five miles north of Gibara, Cuba. After approximately 30 rounds at the rate of three to four rounds per minute the crew of eight officers and 25 men abandoned ship in one lifeboat and two rafts. U-507 approached the tanker close to the port side and put more then 100 rounds into her. The wooden bridge was set on fire and three men were killed. FEDERAL settled on even keel, then listed to port, capsized and sank stern first an hour after the first shot was fired.
(Devastating attack, sunk in one hour).
http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/...pril/30Apr.txt

23 Apr 1942 - At 1120, the unescorted Reinholt (4,799 grt) was attacked by U-752 with gunfire for about 20 minutes. The U-boat fired about 40 rounds of which 20-25 hit, but had then to break off the on Apr. 23-1942, when on a voyage from Santos to New York with a cargo of hides, having departed Santos on Apr. 6, according to the cattack because two destroyers were spotted. Reinholt had returned fire with 14 rounds from the stern gun without success. The Reinholt had caught fire, which was brought under control by the crew after 20 minutes and reached New York the next day.
Shelled continuously for 20 minutes by U-752 (Schroeter). Reinholt's gunners replied by firing a round every 30 seconds, but while they were defending the ship, it caught on fire after having been hit where the ammunition was stored, so after 14 rounds had been fired they could no longer get to the ammunition.
(40 rounds in about 20 minutes, ship saved-merchantmen replies with a round every 30 seconds!)
http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/...pril/23Apr.txt
http://warsailors.com/singleships/reinholt.html

3 Apr 1942 - At 0340, the unescorted and unarmed David H. Atwater was attacked by U-552 about ten miles east of Chincoteague Inlet, Virginia. Topp had followed her underwater, surfaced and began to shell the vessel without warning and never allowing the crew to abandon ship. 93 shots were fired from 600 yards distance, hitting her with about 50 shots and set her on fire. USCGC Legare observed the gunfire and headed for the ship, upon arrival at the scene 45 minutes after the attack, they saw the vessel sinking, leaving two feet of mast above water.
http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/...pril/03Apr.txt

[Beery]

Originally Posted by oRGy

30 Apr 1942 - U-507 sinks US tanker FEDERAL (2,881 grt) using only the deck gun. According to the American report, U-507 surfaced about 450 yards away and began shelling the ship about five miles north of Gibara, Cuba. After approximately 30 rounds at the rate of three to four rounds per minute the crew of eight officers and 25 men abandoned ship in one lifeboat and two rafts. U-507 approached the tanker close to the port side and put more then 100 rounds into her. The wooden bridge was set on fire and three men were killed. FEDERAL settled on even keel, then listed to port, capsized and sank stern first an hour after the first shot was fired.
(Devastating attack, sunk in one hour).
http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/...pril/30Apr.txt

This is not a counter-example. It's only a bit faster than my rates of fire list I posted above. If anything, this example confirms my figures. 24 rounds would have been fired at a rate of about four rounds per minute on average. Only the last 6 shells would have brought down the average. For the first rounds my figures fit pretty well. For the last, my figures show that a U-boat could put 70 rounds into a target in an hour. Plus, my average figure has to assume that the player is firing a lot of ammo (not just 30 rounds), and there's the fact that U-boat deck guns in the game are far more accurate than real life deck guns.

23 Apr 1942 - At 1120, the unescorted Reinholt (4,799 grt) was attacked by U-752 with gunfire for about 20 minutes. The U-boat fired about 40 rounds of which 20-25 hit, but had then to break off the on Apr. 23-1942, when on a voyage from Santos to New York with a cargo of hides, having departed Santos on Apr. 6, according to the cattack because two destroyers were spotted. Reinholt had returned fire with 14 rounds from the stern gun without success. The Reinholt had caught fire, which was brought under control by the crew after 20 minutes and reached New York the next day.
Shelled continuously for 20 minutes by U-752 (Schroeter). Reinholt's gunners replied by firing a round every 30 seconds, but while they were defending the ship, it caught on fire after having been hit where the ammunition was stored, so after 14 rounds had been fired they could no longer get to the ammunition.
(40 rounds in about 20 minutes, ship saved-merchantmen replies with a round every 30 seconds!)
http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/...pril/23Apr.txt
http://warsailors.com/singleships/reinholt.html

My figures (above) account for 40 rounds in 27 minutes. It's just not that far off. Plus, (again) my average figure has to assume that the player is firing a lot of ammo(not just 40 rounds), and there's the fact that U-boat deck guns in the game are far more accurate than real life deck guns. As for the ship's ROF, what does that have to do with it? The ship is not a U-boat.

3 Apr 1942 - At 0340, the unescorted and unarmed David H. Atwater was attacked by U-552 about ten miles east of Chincoteague Inlet, Virginia. Topp had followed her underwater, surfaced and began to shell the vessel without warning and never allowing the crew to abandon ship. 93 shots were fired from 600 yards distance, hitting her with about 50 shots and set her on fire. USCGC Legare observed the gunfire and headed for the ship, upon arrival at the scene 45 minutes after the attack, they saw the vessel sinking, leaving two feet of mast above water.
http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/...pril/03Apr.txt

There is no duration for this. '45 minutes after the attack' clearly means 45 minutes after the END of the attack. Anyway, this illustrates my point about accuracy. Topp, one of the best commanders of the war, with a crack crew, could only hit the target with 53% of his shots. In the game, we can get something like 75% with the AI firing, and 99% with the player firing. If anything, this suggests that my model simulates reality quite nicely. Even if this attack had happened in 45 minutes (which I don't believe for a second) my rate of fire is spot on if you take into account the rate of effective fire. In RUb you would get 45 shots into the tanker in 45 minutes, Topp got 50 in. It's just not that different.

We are not merely simulating rate of fire with RUb's gunnery model. It has to counterbalance the uber-accuracy issue too. Otherwise we don't get a realistic simulation. If you have a perfectly accurate rate of fire but you're using a gun that is that much more accurate than a real deck gun was, you don't have a good deck gun simulation. Plus, if the accuracy can't be adjusted you have to look for other ways to counterbalance the accuracy issue - this could be done by reducing the ammo supply and decreasing the rate of fire. All you've shown me here is that perhaps the ammo supply needs reducing by about 50% to simulate the poor accuracy you've illustrated.

[Beery]

[quote="oRGy"]Oh, I encourage everyone to read the entire thread as well as others like

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=39341

I agree. If players read through that thread they will find the whole argument for the RUb deck gun. I will re-iterate one post:

Every time we move towards a more realistic deck gun we're going to be making it less effective, and that's because the standard game's deck gun is a great deal more effective than any real life U-boat deck gun. In small part that's because of this reload issue. Extensive use of a real deck gun endangered the boat, especially in 1943-45, because the longer you were surfaced the more likely you were to fall victim to air attack. In the standard game it's not an issue because you can fire off your entire stock of ammo in about 15 minutes -well before any aircraft can find you. In RUb 1.41 you can't get away with that anymore. The realistic average reload time means that players have to play more realistically - using the deck gun only when air attack isn't likely, and only using it on targets that were unlikely to shoot back. In short, it makes the player understand the dangers in using the deck gun, it prevents players from using the deck gun against targets that a U-boat could never have hoped to engage successfully (destroyers, etc.), and it goes a long way towards making the player use the deck gun realistically.

I think the new deck gun is a good balance in terms of simulating a real deck gun: it is annoying; it's not very effective at all; yet it can be used effectively under the right circumstances. It's not quite as useless as the real thing, but it's within an acceptable range now.

[oRGy]

3 Apr 1942 - At 0340, the unescorted and unarmed David H. Atwater was attacked by U-552 about ten miles east of Chincoteague Inlet, Virginia. Topp had followed her underwater, surfaced and began to shell the vessel without warning and never allowing the crew to abandon ship. 93 shots were fired from 600 yards distance, hitting her with about 50 shots and set her on fire. USCGC Legare observed the gunfire and headed for the ship, upon arrival at the scene 45 minutes after the attack, they saw the vessel sinking, leaving two feet of mast above water.
http://www.seawaves.com/newsletters/...pril/03Apr.txt

There is no duration for this. '45 minutes after the attack' clearly means 45 minutes after the END of the attack.

No, it doesn't. I would take it to mean after the attack was radioed by the ship: at 0340.

We are not merely simulating rate of fire with RUb's gunnery model. It has to counterbalance the uber-accuracy issue too. Otherwise we don't get a realistic simulation. If you have a perfectly accurate rate of fire but you're using a gun that is that much more accurate than a real deck gun was, you don't have a good deck gun simulation.

Quite true, but you've done nothing to mod the deck gun accuracy!

Also, you still haven't answered my point about your data being skewed due to reasons mentioned, i.e. we don't know how often or for how long the uboat ceased firing to observe the ship!

By the way, here's more counter evidence:

The 8.8 deck gun would be ready to fire in roughly 30 seconds, taking this time for removing the nozzle plug and opening the ammunition stores (one in the conning tower base, the other below the grating in type IX boats). The rapid-firing 8.8 U-boat gun was usually manned by three men (and an observing officer on the conning tower, evaluating the hits and giving orders. Apart from the game during firing the conning tower was always manned by a watch crew, and the captain).

One man aimed the gun (with a stereoscopic magnifier and a range/angle scale), while the other two changed tasks rotating the gun into a rough position towards the target before it would be fine-tuned, and then loading it. The empty cases were kept for re-use and had to be counted (shortage of raw materials like brass etc.). The reloading frequency depended on sea state and the time of the gun being in use (building up heat), an experienced crew was able to fire appx. 30 shots per minute (!) in perfect conditions.

Shells would be delivered via an elevator from the interior to the "buckle" in front of the conning tower. The back of the gun was formed like a "U" to place the next shell, which only had to be pushed into the self-opening rear of the gun after firing.

Dr. H. Busch's "That was the U-boat war" (according to catfish in linked thread, though I can't find it on amazon, he also said Erich topp provided this info)

Your approach to the gun is only useful for simulating an attack where all the gun's ammo is used. But as ridgewayranger has stated, the usual attack was to pop up and fire off 10-20 rounds, and the majority of examples are using 20-50 rounds to sink a ship, and this is what the average engagement is. Thus, a reload rate of 4-5 rounds a minute simulates the vast majority of real life and player encounters. The 60 minute reload time, which is of debatable realism and only based on one example, is appropriate (if indeed your one example is correct which I don't believe) only for a tiny minority of situations.

Try fixing the crosshair, ai accuracy and stabilisation, rather than arguing over this issue in a dogmatic fashion. One can of course argue till the cows come home, but the deck gun was quick to fire, and there is mountains of evidence to prove it, all over this thread and others.

PS: Threatening to delete people's posts for 'ad hominem attacks' especially when you've been quite rude to others in the past is slightly hypocritical in my opinion and only serves to intimidate people.

[Beery]

Originally Posted by oRGy

[

No, it doesn't. I would take it to mean after the attack was radioed by the ship: at 0340.

It doesn't say that, and we can't just assume that. It could mean anything. But when someone leaves a sentence hanging like that it usually means 'after it was over'. You can interpret it any way you like, and you can model any mod you make based on your own interpretation. In terms of RUb, I assure you, this particular example DOES mean 'after the attack was over'. It means that because that's the way I interpret it, and I assemble the RUb mod.

Quite true, but you've done nothing to mod the deck gun accuracy!

The deck gun accuracy can't be adjusted. We can only compensate for the unrealism by adjusting other things like shell effectiveness and reload rate. I'm more than willing to do this, as compensating for non-modelled features is at the heart of good simulation modelling. If we just ignore such things we end up with a very poor model indeed.

Also, you still haven't answered my point about your data being skewed due to reasons mentioned, i.e. we don't know how often or for how long the uboat ceased firing to observe the ship!

It doesn't matter, since in the game we don't need to stop to observe the ship. We know instantly when it's sinking. RUb includes all realistic pauses for observation, gun jams, etc. in the 'reload rate' model because Ubisoft didn't include those facets. That is part of the reason why I chose to model it based on the start and end times for engagements - to do a sort of blanket simulation of the things about the deck gun that are hard to model. It has to be done that way because the deck gun is so overmodelled in terms of effectiveness that it's virtually impossible to nerf it enough. In my view it needs more nerfing, and given enough reason, I'll gladly do it. I've always thought that 60 seconds might be too fast, and 80 seconds is looking even more desirable right now (especially since I saw the Erich Topp attack which showed how horribly inaccurate the deck gun was). We're still getting very much increased tonnage using the deck gun compared to real U-boats. I could also reduce ammo capacity or shell effectiveness, but both of those would be more abstract than the reload time.

The point is to make the deck gun only as effective as it was in reality, and in my opinion it's fine to do this by any means necessary. If realistic restrictions can't help compensate for the areas of the sim that can't be adjusted, then we will turn to less realistic ones, because the deck gun is a minor part of the U-boat war, and if we don't get it under control we are not simulating the overall experience of U-boats in WW2.