City Bombardment

[RUPD3658]

In Pac War when a bombardment TF attacked a city with industry there was a chance that the industry would be hit. I have bombarded sereval Japanese cities and have not seen any damage so I am assuming that this feature was not carried over to WiTP.

I would like to see this added since Bombardment TF take less losses (In VPs) than city attacks vs cities with good air defense.

Follow the logic:

1 BB with 9 16in or 18in rifles at 2000lb each = 18000lb of warhead per volley. Figure 6 shots per gun (Assuming 1 ammo = 1 round) and you have 108,000lb of warhead on target per BB or the same as 216 500lb bombs which equals the bomb load of 4.5 B-29s (48 each if I recall correctly .....at work right now)

Multiply this by 20BBs (My beloved "Task Force Thumper") and you are putting the same amount of hurt on target as 90 B-29s!

While they would not have the incidiary bombs to start the fires their accuracy would be higher allowing for specific targets to be hit.

Keep in mind that this is only counting main guns and assuming 1 ammo = 1 round.

So, anyone interested in petitioning for having collateral damage to industry if it is present?

Can anyone find any recorded cases of ships bombarding industrial targets in WW2?

All I can think of off the top of my head is the Japanese I boats that bombarded oil facilities on the west coast but these did very little damage.

[AmiralLaurent]

ORIGINAL: RUPD3658

Can anyone find any recorded cases of ships bombarding industrial targets in WW2?

14 June 1940: the French fleet pounded Italian refineries near Genoa.

? February 1941: a British Fleet (BB and escort) pounded Genoa again.

July-August 1945: several shellings by Allied BB on Japanese shores, mainly against industrial targets.

[Ron Saueracker]

NOT UNTIL THE ABILITY TO REARM LARGE WARSHIPS IS CURTAILED LIKE SUBS, MINELAYERS, DESTROYERS ETC!!!!! This would just be so much more BS.

[tsimmonds]

Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Alabama, South Dakota, and Massachusetts participated in strikes on the Japanese homeland 14-15 July and bombarded Muroian, Hokkaido, destroying steel mills and other targets. The city of Hitachi on Honshu was given the same treatment on the night of 17-18 July 1945. British BBs joined in this bombardment as well.

This was not an especially efficient use of these ships, given the value of the targets and the wear and tear on expenisve machinery. It was done for morale purposes as much as anything IMO.

Naval bombardment is too easy and too effective in the game as it is. I say leave it.

[tanksone]

I remember reading some where that a full broadside of an Iowa battleship is something like a square quarter of a mile [:D]

[Feinder]

Actually, I believe that's the "You're gonna die" diameter for -each- shell. Granted, that's modified by interposing structures, but still you figure...

1/4 mile = 5280 x 1/4 = 1320' diameter
1320 x 1/2 = 660' radius

660' = 220 yards.

Yeah, that's probably about right. You DON'T want to be within 2 football fields of where one of those things lands. So a broadside of of Iowa would probably level about 2 city blocks (easily).

A 16" shell has a LOT of bang.

-F-

[rogueusmc]

And to think the castle in Okinawa City still has some original wall left...talk about earthquake reinforcement...[:D]

[Skander]

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

And to think the castle in Okinawa City still has some original wall left...talk about earthquake reinforcement...[:D]

I was there (Shuri castle and another whose name escapes me at the moment) in October. Shuri has been destroyed and rebuilt 17 times in history. They have a place where you can see some of the original walls (it's an excavated trench about 2-3 meters deep). Of course it's quite hard to destroy blocks of stone with explosives, though not as hard to knock blocks of stone off of one another. Shuri is mainly a fortified hill, with low but thick walls, which in the gunpowder era is a lot better than a storybook medieval castle. Nonetheless it was pretty devestated by the battle (they have quite a few photos of the different areas), and extensively rebuilt.

[AmiralLaurent]

Iowa, Wisconsin, Missouri, Alabama, South Dakota, and Massachusetts participated in strikes on the Japanese homeland 14-15 July and bombarded Muroian, Hokkaido, destroying steel mills and other targets. The city of Hitachi on Honshu was given the same treatment on the night of 17-18 July 1945. British BBs joined in this bombardment as well.

This was not an especially efficient use of these ships, given the value of the targets and the wear and tear on expenisve machinery. It was done for morale purposes as much as anything IMO.

Naval bombardment is too easy and too effective in the game as it is. I say leave it.

Agree that naval bombardment is way too effective. First of all naval guns were only able to hit parts of those 60-miles hexes (except atolls) and few airfields were really pounded in WWII.

Then I don't think that WITP is taking in account the fact that firing a broadside with a BB was damaging the firing ship. Concussion of the fire usually threw away everything onboard, often inflicted so much damage to floaplanes aboard that they were thrown away after the battle and could even reduce somewhat the structural integrity of the boat.

For example, POW was more damaged by the side-effect of her own fire than by German shells during the meeting with Bismark in May 1941. Hood has not this chance.

It's also funny that 360mm shells (for BB) are easier to find than torpedoes in WITP.

[rogueusmc]

ORIGINAL: Skander

ORIGINAL: rogueusmc

And to think the castle in Okinawa City still has some original wall left...talk about earthquake reinforcement...[:D]

I was there (Shuri castle and another whose name escapes me at the moment) in October. Shuri has been destroyed and rebuilt 17 times in history. They have a place where you can see some of the original walls (it's an excavated trench about 2-3 meters deep). Of course it's quite hard to destroy blocks of stone with explosives, though not as hard to knock blocks of stone off of one another. Shuri is mainly a fortified hill, with low but thick walls, which in the gunpowder era is a lot better than a storybook medieval castle. Nonetheless it was pretty devestated by the battle (they have quite a few photos of the different areas), and extensively rebuilt.

They were rebuilding it last time I was there...that was...oh @#$%...I feel old now.