Analysis of Naval Gunnery Combat

[jwilkerson]

So far we have shown that BBs are completely FUBAR, failing to use their main battery when targets as big as heavy cruisers are present, something which never happened historically even down to DD sized targets and has zero justification.

Tom,

I actually think you're on to something ( an issue with gunnery ) here ... but just to point out that there are some exceptions ...


At Surigao Strait, three battleships did the majority of the shooting: West Virginia, California and Tennessee. All three ships had received total reconstructions during the war and installation of Mark 8 fire control radar. A fourth battleship contributed meaningfully: Maryland, refitted before the war and fitted with Mark 3 fire control radar during the war. Also present were Mississippi and Pennsylvania. Mississippi received a total reconstruction before the war and was fitted with Mark 3 fire control radar during the war. Pennsylvania received an extensive refit during the war and was fitted with Mark 3 fire control radar. Mississippi managed only one salvo during the engagement. Pennsylvania failed to fire.


pulled from

http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-079.htm

[Dino]

I don't know it this has any bearing on your analysis, but 5 of the DDs you listed are not British:

Voyager, Vampire, Vendetta and Norman are Australian.
Le Triomphant is French.

They all have substantialy lower experience for night battles than British DDs.

[Tom Hunter]

Dino,

Your right, and though I forgot to mention it one of the things that is intersting is that the lower night figting experience did not seem to matter too much. Voyager outperformed two of the 3 RN DDs over all and shot better than any of them. I'm not saying the experience levels do not matter, but they don't seem to matter a whole lot. That is not what I was expecting either.

[Oleg Mastruko]

Interesting discussion overall, though I will not take sides, just note that it's very informative to read [8D]

Here is my favorite example of nightmarishly bad shooting, this time from IJN ships. Whenever I see curiously low number of gunnery hits in WITP I re-read this impressive PDF to put things into perspective:

http://www.usshouston.org/images/Edsall.PDF

(If you're short on time you can skip page 1 alogether and read only pages 2 and 3 - real story is there)

Oleg

[Erik Rutins]

Tom,

I've never felt that trying to deconstruct the model from outside this way is really a good way to go. From the few times I've had a peek within, I've been surprised at the number of things that can be considered (which I would not have thought of when trying a process like this). In particular, assumptions about exact ammo usage and corresponding hit %, if incorrect, throw off your entire analysis.

It's much more valid, IMHO, too look at the end results which are the one part of the model that _are_ exposed. I understand this started with your disagreement with the end results. However, I think extending that to this level of specific analysis is likely to send you pretty far afield. I think the most likely thing to conclude is that BBs may be underperforming, rather than the whole model being out of whack.

I've seen far too many results where the end result - the approximate damage to the ships involved and the ending losses - corresponded very closely to reality, to agree that there's a major problem. It's more accurate to say that in the case of the combat you had, with that force mix and other variables, the results did not meet expectations and thus there may be a problem with the combat model in that case.

The one thing I can say for sure is that Gary's models like to use random factors and variable ranges, so that you can really get results on the extreme ends of probability that can at times challenge disbelief (as did some results in the real war) as well as results that seem completely normal and expected. One thing that is certainly realistic is that often in naval battles some ships were heavily involved, others lightly involved and others hardly involved at all, for various reasons.

I can also say with certainty that 2 by 3 has an outstanding grasp of the real naval battles in the Pacific and designed their model to reflect them, including both the most common types of results and the improbable ones. As with other models, there are combinations and cases where the designer either didn't anticipate something or the variable range is such that the results do not seem believable.

Regards,

- Erik

[String]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

Tom,

*snipÄ

Regards,

- Erik

\o/ [8D]

[el cid again]

I'm supporting my statements with refrences and anaylsis. Your welcome to any opionion you like, about the gunnery combat model or or the hit rates of big guns, but I would prefer that you either produce some stats from the game or from some written source. Of course you don't have to do this, but it would contribute a lot more if you did.

I am just in the discussion for fun - and I am not trying to spend a lot of time looking up scholarly or official materials. If you don't think I have a clue - ignore me entirely. While a long time simulation designer (not always in the hobby world), I originally learned gunnery in the real USN, and they were not big on telling us how we knew what we knew - just what works. My first ship had four gun mountings, and a gunnery dept dedicated to AAA that led the Atlantic Fleet, year after year. When I got a mission to defeat ASCMs, I utilized the methods I learned from her chief on my second ship, which had two gun mounts, and advocated them for others - as one of several "layers" in the defense. But it was not until 1973 that IDF demonstrated gunnery could be successful in that role. A British frigate also claims a similar success in 1982, but the Israelis claimed many and it is more convincing. My exposure was in the area called fire control, and while I was not a Fire Control Technician, I was an Electronics Technician Radar, and when the FCs got in trouble, I was the one sent to figure it out. We still had optical fire control capability, and we still had the tables, presumably worked out from extensive physical testing. We also got to actually use the guns in combat - re Russians in Norway - and whoever it was in SE Asia (it is not clear to me who was the opposition - but I would not be too shocked to learn that PLA units were involved with things other than AAA and railroad building - SOMEONE was running the ships who had more of a clue than a rice farmer). One thing is clear: in a real naval battle you have no idea whatever what you are scoring, most of the time. I am quite skeptical of stuff in books for two reasons: (a) things printed about the Viet Nam era were so different from the facts we asked "were we there?" and coined the phrase "real world" to mean "what really happened, vice the official or press version"
and (b) if WE didn't know how many hits we scored in the 1960s/70s, how much less did people know in WWII - with lower technology?
Even if you are tracking splashes on radar, no one is recording them, and it is hard to describe how little you know in a night action. In 1983 an RN captain from the Falklands wrote in the Proceedings "Our most important sensor was the Mark One Eyeball" - in surprise. Well - if it was the most important sensor in 1982, imagine how much more it was in WWII. Let me say that, in many respects, in night action, you are effectively blind. You barely know who is the enemy - sometimes you don't even get that right - and you rarely have much sense of actual numbers of hits. Further, what is a "hit"? Do you count near misses? These may do more damage than a direct hit. But from a distance, you cannot tell if it was close enough to spring seams - or not.

[el cid again]

Here is an intersting table showing what the US Navy thought it could do in the late 20s


The first number is the accuracy if the spotter is in the fighting top of the BB, the second is using an arial spotter. These are daylight tables.

Do you know what these tables are about? They are NOT about shooting at enemy naval vessels maneuvering in a battle situation. They are about shooting at a nice, slow, non-maneuvering target sled. It is the standard used by both the army (re coast defense) and navy (re ships) - and a very sound place to begin. They ALSO are shooting from ships which are stationary or moving in a nice, slow, non-maneuvering course, probably in sight of landmarks permitting a precise knowledge of position, course and speed. These sorts of exercises are never held in bad weather - except in Japan (then and now) - so they do not even produce any sense of what to expect in various sea states on the average. You can use these sorts of data as a nice indicator of relative hitting under better than ideal conditions in terms of what you might find in a naval battle. But if you do nothing whatever to deal with the speed of targets, the maneuvering of targets, the maneuvering of your own ship, and the real weather conditions really present, you are only deluding yourself to think this represents "typical" performance in combat.

[el cid again]

The one thing I can say for sure is that Gary's models like to use random factors and variable ranges, so that you can really get results on the extreme ends of probability that can at times challenge disbelief (as did some results in the real war) as well as results that seem completely normal and expected. One thing that is certainly realistic is that often in naval battles some ships were heavily involved, others lightly involved and others hardly involved at all, for various reasons.

I can also say with certainty that 2 by 3 has an outstanding grasp of the real naval battles in the Pacific and designed their model to reflect them, including both the most common types of results and the improbable ones. As with other models, there are combinations and cases where the designer either didn't anticipate something or the variable range is such that the results do not seem believable.

I concur. Consider the performance of IJN cruisers at the Komandorskie's - bad enough to get captians relieved. Japan had invested heavily in fine technology, and built very tall ships to mount that gear high enough to be a tactical advantage in an optical fire control situation. Neither undamaged ships nor experienced crews combined with superior technology for rangefinding and precision bearingfinding were sufficient to guarantee success. Nothing ever guarantees success.

[mlees]

As has been mentioned before, the game engine is not a tactical simulator, but the animations can mislead a player into thinking otherwise. I don't watch the animations, and I only read the combat reports at the end of each battle. As such, the results do not seem as unexplainable because my opinion was not shaped by me watching "who shot at who" in the animations.

In the thread Mr Hunter posted a couple days ago (about three surface actions between the same opposing TF's), when I read the combat logs he posted, I thought "Well, that would be a little disappointing...". But because he watched the animations (and I didn't), he felt something was broken.

I am sorry that I missed it, but how does Mr Hunter come up with hit rates for his ships in this game? As far as I know, the animations are an imperfect cartoon of the game calculator working... which is why I dont bother watching them.

One thing is clear: in a real naval battle you have no idea whatever what you are scoring, most of the time.

I disagree somewhat. A spotter observing the fall of shot should have an idea if you are straddling a target (and hopefully getting hits when you bracket a ship) or not. The confusion comes in from a couple other things:

1) Fall of shot is obscured due to visibility conditions. (Night, smoke, etc.)
2) Other ships are also firing at the same target, and making it tough to decide exactly who is straddling and who isn't.
3) A new change in shot conditions, requiring a whole new solution. This can be from course or speed changes, for example. (The target is observed veering away and/or speeding up.)

For the Battle of Jutland, I read John Campbell, Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting. Postwar book. He had access to the detailed records (ship logs, survivor accounts, shipyard records). But he was able to piece together quite a detailed account of who hit who, and when. Granted, TBoJ is probably the most overly analysed ship battle ever (except maybe Midway). But still, I found it interesting.

There. Now I "spun up" both sides. Hehe.

[Dereck]

ORIGINAL: Tom Hunter

El Cid

I'm supporting my statements with refrences and anaylsis. Your welcome to any opionion you like, about the gunnery combat model or or the hit rates of big guns, but I would prefer that you either produce some stats from the game or from some written source. Of course you don't have to do this, but it would contribute a lot more if you did.

More sourced material and analysis coming soon.

Tom,

If your facts don't conform to El Cid's theories or beliefs then you get the standard bombardments of lectures from him to show how you're wrong and he knows all.

I went through the same thing when I posted something with facts to back up what I said and just got rhetoric in return.

[Tom Hunter]

jwilkerson,

Surago straight is a good argument for having some ships in some combats fail to fire. In the combat I analyzed Resolution would be my choice because she was torpedoed at the outset, but you could make other choices as well. Surago straight was somewhat unusual beacuse there was so much firepower aiming at so few targets.

But the key thing, and the peice that really does make me question the combat system is that the British BBs did fire, but checked fire on their main guns. Imagine if the write up your quoting said "Pennsylviana got a good fire control solution but failed to fire her main battery, using secondaries instead."

Also the WitP system does cause BBs to use thier main armament against other BBs, it breaks down when the target is not a BB. This is a big problem since BBs were designed to control the sea, but you can't control the sea if you will not fire your guns.

More analysis and answers later, I am taking the easy ones first.

[barbarrossa]

My exposure was in the area called fire control, and while I was not a Fire Control Technician, I was an Electronics Technician Radar, and when the FCs got in trouble, I was the one sent to figure it out.

I was a plankowner main battery FC2 on the ship denoted by the ship's crest to the left, and a Terrier type on a DDG in the Gulf War and at NO time ever did one of those ET types ever bail us out[:D]

The only thing I remember ET's doing was safety inspections on personal electrical devices like electric shavers and boom boxes, and calibrating test equipment.[:)]

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: barbarrossa

My exposure was in the area called fire control, and while I was not a Fire Control Technician, I was an Electronics Technician Radar, and when the FCs got in trouble, I was the one sent to figure it out.

I was a plankowner main battery FC2 on the ship denoted by the ship's crest to the left, and a Terrier type on a DDG in the Gulf War and at NO time ever did one of those ET types ever bail us out[:D]

The only thing I remember ET's doing was safety inspections on personal electrical devices like electric shavers and boom boxes, and calibrating test equipment.[:)]

[:D]

[el cid again]

One thing is clear: in a real naval battle you have no idea whatever what you are scoring, most of the time.

I disagree somewhat. A spotter observing the fall of shot should have an idea if you are straddling a target (and hopefully getting hits when you bracket a ship) or not. The confusion comes in from a couple other things:

1) Fall of shot is obscured due to visibility conditions. (Night, smoke, etc.)
2) Other ships are also firing at the same target, and making it tough to decide exactly who is straddling and who isn't.
3) A new change in shot conditions, requiring a whole new solution. This can be from course or speed changes, for example. (The target is observed veering away and/or speeding up.)

You may be trying to disagree, but I agree with you. My list of "other things" could be longer than yours (e.g. you can be using more than one battery on your own ship, or your mounts might be using different fire control solutions - in which case how do you know what splash belongs to whom? - but you got the biggies). What I tried to express is that you really don't know as much as it seems like you would know reading in your living room. Naval battle is often quite confusing, and while gamers "know everything" real naval officers do not know everything that someone in the same ship or force knows, instantly, perfectly, real time.
It is astonishing how different events can be from what you expected when planning for those very events. That sort of thing.

[Sardaukar]

ORIGINAL: mlees

As has been mentioned before, the game engine is not a tactical simulator, but the animations can mislead a player into thinking otherwise. I don't watch the animations, and I only read the combat reports at the end of each battle. As such, the results do not seem as unexplainable because my opinion was not shaped by me watching "who shot at who" in the animations.

I have also discovered that watching animations are good way to get really frustrated. Like "What the hell are those guys doing ?!?"
Result seem lot more feasible when seeing only the combat reports. In many instances combat animations give too little information anyway to actually figure out why something happened.

[el cid again]

But the key thing, and the peice that really does make me question the combat system is that the British BBs did fire, but checked fire on their main guns. Imagine if the write up your quoting said "Pennsylviana got a good fire control solution but failed to fire her main battery, using secondaries instead."

The key point is that we do not know what the code says. There are reasons that main guns may not fire - and it really happened even in USN as Joe pointed out. It might even be wise not to shoot - I once did that for most of a convention game of Java sea. At night shooting betrays your position and attracts enemy fire. At the same time, you might not be sure of target identification. If you are not, is it wise to shoot anyway? Even if it is, would every officer make the same choice you would, in all circumstances? Normally, there are die rolls in Grigsby routines, and the bad (don't shoot) rolls are meant to cover the possibility things go wrong - which they really do. I have no real problem with that - and think it is better than everything must always go right.

[el cid again]

I was a plankowner main battery FC2 on the ship denoted by the ship's crest to the left, and a Terrier type on a DDG in the Gulf War and at NO time ever did one of those ET types ever bail us out

I believe you too. But sometimes things go wrong. Imagine losing 17 out of 19 of your fire controlmen in a single night! [They went to the same place, and caught the same disease, which was deliberatly planted for their infection by the enemy]. When you are down so many, and really have things to fix, you might ask for help.

The other thing is you may have the wrong idea about what an ET is (or was)? This was so long ago it was almost before the invention of the alphabet! "Solid state" was oo and ah - and you almost never saw any of it - but if you did it was discrete transistors - no one had invented even the smallest integrated circuit yet. Digital was not yet a concept, although radar used pulse circuits that were truly the same sort of thing.
But almost everything - even radar - was substantially or entirely analog.
The really big deal was that things were not modularized - that was an evil Russian idea and we "knew" it was inferior "because they have no real technicians." [Never mind an operator could fix his whatever in five minutes and didn't need to know why it worked]. So in those ancient days (long before any of you were born I am sure) they actually had long schools and taught a lot of theory. You were expected to make things - to get inside and fix things. I was consulted by precision instrumentmen about "which dimension to cut first" on theoretical grounds - because I was expected to be able to answer such questions. [It was not an informal question - it was an official question.] When we stood up for Viet Nam they cut back the long school - probably to save money. That made the "old timers" (you know - 21 or 22 years old) more valuable. Even if we weren't any good, we got so much practice we became pretty good.

Later in life I became a field engineer. I worked for a major defense contractor with 26 divisions (Harris). Someone got the brilliant idea to create a "service division" to do everything. Someone else decided that anyone could fix any product from any division - if it was in your town and down - or needed installing or whatever - you do it. So it became SOP to enter a room with no clue whatever what the equipment looked like! You go ask whoever has the problem to "show you the problem" when what you mean is "show me which machine is the one that I need to fix - I have not the slightest idea what it looks like!" But I was never the sort to be dismayed by such a thing. Eventually I ended up a consultant, called in to fix a problem that specialists who lived with that project could not fix. It is all more or less what they told us might happen the first day of ET school!

[el cid again]

I have also discovered that watching animations are good way to get really frustrated. Like "What the hell are those guys doing ?!?"
Result seem lot more feasible when seeing only the combat reports. In many instances combat animations give too little information anyway to actually figure out why something happened.

I think this may be on purpose. It is meant to create the flavor of a real life commander who indeed wonders "what the hell are those guys doing?"
If you want a study in confusion, study Savo Island. The Japanese KNEW it would be confusing - so they used a very simple night formation - follow the ship in front of you and shoot at any ship not in our line! The different Allied forces had little idea what was happening - and made no effort to tell each other - or the absent admirals - what was happening to them! Every allied captain not killed outright was relieved. One committed suicide (if I remember right). These were career professionals who did not want to be confused either. They were men at war who wanted to hurt the enemy. But that is not all there is to the story. Things can and do go wrong. Especially in battle. Sort of a glorious opportunity for Murphy to pick "the worst possible moment" for this or that failure.

[el cid again]

If your facts don't conform to El Cid's theories or beliefs then you get the standard bombardments of lectures from him to show how you're wrong and he knows all.

I went through the same thing when I posted something with facts to back up what I said and just got rhetoric in return.

Actually, I almost always state facts. You just don't happen to like it when they don't fit YOUR "theories and beliefs." It is perfectly possible to know something well, use it for a long time, and not have the slightest clue what book, manual, lecture, meeting or real world testing situation taught it to you. I do not treat every fact as of equal value. I use - and teach - "key ideas" - and you know what ? It is RARE when teaching to attach scholarly cites to every single idea you teach. [If you did I bet you would be criticized, and I know you would need a lot more time]. I am strange in a hundred ways - but probably none stranger than in my collecting written materials of interest - from original documents through reference books - and everything in between. I don't charge anyone to look things up - be you analyst, author, soldier, student - I don't care. But I see no point in doing so if you don't have any respect for me? After all, you can just elect to believe I made it up, or forged the document, or that the document is wrong even though I innocently believe it. If you are CERTAIN I must be wrong, surely there is some way to rationalize anything I might say. And of course, some things are not exactly crystal clear - one may actually be reasonable and disagree. Then too there is the matter that, no matter how much you or I know, we may have incomplete knowledge - and some new datum might require we revise our former thoughts on the subject. The day you display the slightest indication you think I am a worthy source, and that there is some need for more than my understanding of a principle (say you are working under rules that require a source of a scholarly standard in order to accept a revision) - that day I will see what there may be in the room I am in - even if it takes me from what I planned to do. The currency of honest intellectual discourse is respect. It is not a subject on which I will negotiate. If I disagree, I never say you are stupid, or communist, or somehow unfit to write on this board. If I say something that sounds critical, it is meant for effect: to cause you to stop and think - it is never meant to imply actual disrespect. I don't know enough to disrespect a person I have not met. I assume you are honest and intelligent - at least until forced to another conclusion. And I don't tell you what to do either.
If I want something, I am polite, and never complain if the answer is no.
Your time and your intellectual property is yours - not mine. And vice versa.