Naval "Gun Value" for Ships

[Admiral DadMan]

Currently when assigning ships to/from a TF, the "Gun Value" displayed is the Pen value of the highest rated gun. Should the displayed value be some sort of formula relative to the value of all the main caliber guns?

For example: A Fletcher class DD has 5x 5in/38 main battery and a Sims class has 4x 5in/38 main battery yet they both have a "Gun Value" of 62 as rated by their Pen value.

To me, it stands to reason that Fletcher should display Gun Value that is 25% higher than Sims. The question is then, how to compute the Gun Value using data that is currently available to the game.

Should it be Pen x # of main battery?
Should it be Effect x # of main battery?
Should it be some combination of the above?
Should current amount of ammo affect the value as it does ASW?

Thoughts/commentary (and trolling by Gorn) welcome.

[Lokasenna]

I haven't noticed current ammo amount affect the gun rating when selecting ships from that screen.

I always assumed it was some permutation of pen, effect, and number of guns.

[Admiral DadMan]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

I haven't noticed current ammo amount affect the gun rating when selecting ships from that screen.

I always assumed it was some permutation of pen, effect, and number of guns.

You're right, ammo does not affect it. The Gun Value is the individual Pen value of the largest gun. Number of Guns, Gun Effect value, nor ammo affect the displayed Gun Value.

[BillBrown]

That is interesting since ASW ammo effects the ASW value shown.

[BBfanboy]

Sounds to me that Gun Value is the naval equivalent of AV for LCUs - it is an indicator of hitting power but by no means tells the whole story. You need to dig deeper to assess what will work best for your purpose.
I just did two bombardments of an enemy base on subsequent days. The first day three BBs went in and did some damage to the AF but only about 10 aircraft were damaged/destroyed and something like 15 runway hits were achieved. The second day a small TF of one British CA and CL and one DD went in and achieved nearly 100 aircraft damage points (about 10 destroyed) and scored 51 hits on the runways.

Both TFs had recon aircraft up. Die rolls likely had some effect but I think it was the sheer volume of shellfire from CL Glasgow that spread the damage around.

[Yaab]

Admiral DadMan, just wow!

I somehow missed this thread, but you are right - the Gun Value is the Pen value of the highest rated gun. I have never noticed this! All these years I was convinced it was a grand total value of all surface guns on a ship similar to the AA value. Never really bothered to check and count the number surface guns on different ships.

I have just formed a DD TF with three DDs from three different classes. They all have the gun value of 62. The two classes have 5 x 5inch guns, while the third class (Porter class) has EIGHT such guns! This totally alters ships selection process for surface combat TFs. A DD with 8000 endurance can have 4 x 5-inch guns, and the one with 7500 endurance can have, say, 8 x 5-inch guns, and when you browse them in ship selection list they both have gun value of 62.

[geofflambert]

I've played six or seven PBEMs and never gave a fig about that or even noticed it. Should I have? I always knew what I was dealing with. What if that stat was simply removed? Would you suffer any?

[Barb]

The best you can do is to know your tools - their strengths and weaknesses, and use them accordingly! Know your ships, know the classes, know the equipment!
(Using ships like HMS Hawkins/Frobisher, HMAS Adelaide or USN flush-deckers in first line SCTF in mid 1943 by the allies is quite "strange").

[Yaab]

I mean ship AA and ASW values are a kind of an aggregate of all specialized weapons present on ships. Now imagine a DD with a single 5-inch naval gun. Its gun value is now 62 just like a DD with eight 5-inchers. If you have several DDs in the ship list you may unknowingly put the first one into a Surface Combat TF with bombardment mission, and the second one into a backwater convoy as an escort.

[BBfanboy]

You have all been concentrating on the gun value figure of individual ships. The game already takes care of the sum of gun value for SC or Bombardment purposes. See the pic below - this SCTF is about to bombard Truk.

[geofflambert]

I would say the gun value in so many circumstances might be almost irrelevant. If you are pursuing CVs, what's the point of comparing gun values? What about torpedo values? Now, especially in the case of AA, the value of the entire TF would be something you might really want to know. With counter battery fire, there are just too many variables involved and the "gun value" is just one. If you had a true "gun value", giving it consideration might be making a complicated situation seem quite simplistic. As an example (perhaps this isn't a good one but I'm trying), I used to play "Fighting Steel" and I must've played the battle of Denmark Straits 50 times, as the Brit. Every time I would have POW hove in toward Bismark by say 10 degrees more than Hood and every single time Bismark was sunk and I never lost Hood or even sustained any sort of major damage to her and POW was always a real trooper. Now the "gun value" of POW and Hood is clearly superior to Bismark and P. Eugene, but if you use any other tactic than the one I used or running away, you'd be likely to lose Hood, just as happened historically. The developers did their best to model surface actions while recognizing the supremacy of the air aspect of the war. Compromises may have had to be made, but the overall performance of the game is more than satisfactory for legions. I'm thinking averaging "gun values" of the primary batteries on the constituent ships would be a misleading statistic at best. If you set out with a CV force that has a BB screen, it (the screen) is to engage whatever come what may. I first ran into an expression in this forum, "grip it and rip it". There are just too many variables in play, and you neither control them, or in the case of weather, can even predict them. Don't get distracted wishing for data that wouldn't be helpful if it was delivered to you on a silver platter. In CV battles, in particular, no one including you can guarantee the outcome beforehand. You have enough variables that matter to juggle as it is, more I would think would be unhelpful.

[JeffroK]

All this assumes you have choice, I'm playing Andy Macs Ironman III and had a TF of a DE & 4 PG's as my main anti invasion force, probably 7-8 x 4" guns between them!

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

All this assumes you have choice, I'm playing Andy Macs Ironman III and had a TF of a DE & 4 PG's as my main anti invasion force, probably 7-8 x 4" guns between them!

Are you telling me you failed to park any M36 tank destroyers on your decks? Why do you come here asking for advice or instruction if you've failed to even do that? [:D]

Pay no attention to that foolish gorn.

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

ORIGINAL: JeffK

All this assumes you have choice, I'm playing Andy Macs Ironman III and had a TF of a DE & 4 PG's as my main anti invasion force, probably 7-8 x 4" guns between them!

Are you telling me you failed to park any M36 tank destroyers on your decks? Why do you come here asking for advice or instruction if you've failed to even do that? [:D]

Pay no attention to that foolish gorn.

Closer to the truth than you might think. I just finished reading "Juno: The Canadians at D-Day" (not sure I got the subtitle exactly right - book has been passed to my son). There is a very detailed section about the Artillery regiment that had one officer develop a very detailed fire plan for their 25 pounders to fire from the landing craft as they approached the beaches. Took something like three months to figure out LC positions and targets, then work out the ballistics to get the constantly changing gun settings required. Secrecy required that he and a couple of others drew all the maps and fire charts for hundreds of landing craft for distribution only after Eisenhower said "Go".

Having finished the week before D-Day, the unit was suddenly "upgraded" to 'Priest' SP 3" guns which had entirely different ballistics. So in one week of 18 hour days the poor guy had to re-do the entire plan! It seemed to work - other than hardened bunkers impervious to small shells the Germans did not seem to field many troops in the trenches in the Canadian sector (Juno).

[Yaab]

Wait, what happens when a BB which has three turrets of 16-inch guns (penetration 742, gun value 742), has two of her turrets destroyed by bombs. Is her gun value still 742? Would be totally misleading then.

[Yaab]

OK, I checked the values in the game. Here is what I found so far

Ship list:
Gun value - static value (always the pen value of the biggest gun, even if only one such gun active on a given ship)
AA value - dynamic value ( changes to reflect the number of active guns. The discrepancies can be seen on Dec 8 in Pearl Harbor
ASW value - ?
Torp value - ?

TF screen:
Gun value - dynamic vlue
AA value - dynamic value
ASW value - ?
Torp value - ?

Now some thoughts.

Porter class DD has the gun value of 62 in the ship list. Once one such DD is in a surface TF, the TF value jumps to 110. Guess the value measures the weight of the full broadside salvo. Others DDs of 62-value had 68 and 55 values in single DD TFs.

Now, consider a one-on-one gunnery duel between a 110-value DD and 55-value DD with no torps involved. Both firing broadside salvoes and having identically valued leaders.

But a real surprise is the submarines. SS Narwhal has two 6-inch guns and whopping value of 140 in the ship list. However, once created as a single SS TF, its value drops to 52. Still, if you put an aggressive captain as its leader, it theoretically should win gunnery duel with a DD thanks to a greater range of its 6-inch guns.

Other subs, however, have it worse. Their value of 30-40 range get dramatically reduced to a measly 3-8 range in a TF!

So if you are hoping to shell xAKs on the surface, put your most aggressive leaders in SSs with biggest guns.

I have been playing this game for five years and haven't paid attention to these numbers. Go figure.

[BBfanboy]

Your example of the Narwhal vs DD is flawed - the sub had no long-range gunnery rangefinders or computers to calculate ballistics and deflection. And the rate of fire for the sub would be very low given manual handling of the shells and powder/casing.

[Yaab]

Well, that could explain the dynamic gun value in TF screen. USS Narwhal got downgraded from 140 value to 55 value. Basically, all subs get downgraded pretty hard once created into single SS TFs.

[RayYoung]

Isn't this a matter of the notation being for the individual gun barrel as opposed to the number of barrel on hand?

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: RayYoung

Isn't this a matter of the notation being for the individual gun barrel as opposed to the number of barrel on hand?

I think the TF Gun Value is the total weight (in pounds) of broadside - one shot from every non-AA gun.