ORIGINAL: WiTP_Dude
Isn't working as designed? I've read that the big guns couldn't in many cases hit targets flying close to the ground.
The reason for "medium AAA" development was precisely this zone where light guns could not reach with effective fire
and heavy guns were not responsive enough to address. However, it is slightly misleading to disallow any impact:
heavy guns ARE useful in the case of a target on what we call "constant bearing, decreasing range" - where the rate
of traverse isn't a factor in the fire control problem.
Possibly the most famous example of this is described in Japanese Destroyer Captain by Hara -
worried about skip bombing - which rendered US bombers almost unable to miss - as they would have a long line of possible
impact points with the ship instead of needing to hit a specific, moving point in the sea -
he found a solution at the very moment he was attacked by such a bomber. Mystifying his crew - not using the
training they had - he ordered his ship to stay on course (rather than maneuver) - and come to full speed. This
gave him an unexpected bonus - the stacks erupted in black smoke from creosote - and flames - and the plane reported
he was hit! But his reasoning was based on two other considerations: (1) to give the guns a stable firing platform with
mimimal need to traverse (something his 5 inch were very poor at doing) and (2) to mess up the bomb aimer, who would
factor in the standard tactic of turning - and cause the bomb line to be astern of the ship. Both succeeded - the bomb
missed - unusual - and the plane was fatally hit at low altitude by heavy guns which normally would not have done.