Are BB undervalued by WITP

[Long Lance]

Little off-topic, but which game is WPO?

[niceguy2005]

You may say its the age of the CV but it was the allies that built most BB in WW2 and thought they were of good use.

This is what I was addressing. Of course we mostly understand that the allies liked BBs as floaring artillery and floating AA platforms. As for as controlling the seas it was the era of the CV.

[Feinder]

I don't know that they're "undervalued", but I do think they're "under-represented".
 
1.  They rarely engage targets with their main guns.
2.  They rerely engage anyting at long range anyway.
3.  Even as bombardment platforms they play 12th fiddle to cruisers because BBs only have 9 salvos of main ammo (and only 6 available to shoot).
 
Increase their ammo and help them to actually shoot their main guns, and you'd see a more historical relevance.
 
-F-

[Mynok]

Good use of AEs will increase the effectiveness of BBs by quite a bit.

[bradfordkay]

ORIGINAL: Long Lance

Little off-topic, but which game is WPO?

War Plan Orange. It's an offshoot of WITP, set in the 1920's and based upon the premise that the Washington Treaty was not accepted. It adapts WITP to the earlier period, and aircraft are only a minor player.

It's the brainchild of Tankerace, and a nice little addition to your collection if you're a nut about WITP. A significant number of forum members are in that game as ship commanders (a nice marketing move by Justin, and saved him the time of having to research the actual officers!).

[Alfred]

Long Lance,
 
WPO is War Plan Orange.  The game is set in the 1920s ie WITP without the aircraft carriers and 4E.
 
Alfred

[Feinder]

Play WPO for a few months of time, and you'll learn all you ever wanted to know about surface actions (given the lack of carrier airpower in the game).
 
-F-

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: cavalry

After playing 500 turns of PBEM games I think I can say now I think BB are undervalued.

Now I quite confidently use CL DD TF to tackle allied BB ( OK I know its at night usually ) .
They rarely get to use their guns at extreme range , the also seem to fire secondary guns much more than main guns , their own DD do not screen them from enemy DD or torp attacks, they suffer high ops points ( with the silly immediate reduction in speed) just as much as DD ( smaller ships should suffer more then big in attrition).In bombard actually they are not much use ( unless in massed groups for some reason ) as the ammo goes in one fire. For bombard now I mainly use DD if the recon level is high the effects can be similar and they can fire almost as much as you want.

You may say its the age of the CV but it was the allies that built most BB in WW2 and thought they were of good use.

M

That's accurate. The firepower of a BB was about twice the firepower of a cruiser--the real difference was armour penetration--and the survivability of a BB was also about twice that of a cruiser--now the difference was armour protection--so you wanted to ensure your battleships had a good escort.

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: herwin
That's accurate. The firepower of a BB was about twice the firepower of a cruiser--the real difference was armour penetration--and the survivability of a BB was also about twice that of a cruiser--now the difference was armour protection--so you wanted to ensure your battleships had a good escort.

Not quite Herwin. BB's really get hurt by not being able to fire all their armament at appropriate targets. Much more than smaller craft, they had the directors and capacity to engage multiple targets at varying ranges at the same time..

[engineer]

Little off-topic, but which game is WPO?

 
WPO is War Plan Orange.  It's the "little brother" of WitP that uses the same engine but different device, plane, and ship lists for a hypothetical naval conflict in the Pacific during the 1920s.  The premise for the game includes a collapse of the Washington Naval talks so the OOB for each side is enriched with lots of dreadnought and even pre-dreadnought capital ships.  Given that aircraft are far more primitive that WW2, a large force of battleships can bull through an aerial attack to the target, and carrier aviation is still in its infancy. 
 
Feinder's right about surface actions and you may also learn about creating and running blockade operations with surface ships, something that I can't imagine in WitP. 
 
The other item is that playing the same map with and without long-range airpower makes it a whole new game and helps give you a better appreciation for what air power can do when properly employed.  Plans that would have worked fine in a WPO period are often suicide in WitP. 
 
A bit off-topic, but the historical CO of Force Z actually wasn't a boneheaded admiral stuck in the past.  He did buy into a theory that AA was more effective than it proved to be in the field.  In fact I think he was one of the architects of that theory.  So he had unwarranted confidence to operate his capital ships in daylight within range of Japanese bombers.  Still, his work helped create the KGV class with 1000+ flak coming right out of the yards. 
     

[Cavalry Corp]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

I don't know that they're "undervalued", but I do think they're "under-represented".

1.  They rarely engage targets with their main guns.
2.  They rerely engage anyting at long range anyway.
3.  Even as bombardment platforms they play 12th fiddle to cruisers because BBs only have 9 salvos of main ammo (and only 6 available to shoot).

Increase their ammo and help them to actually shoot their main guns, and you'd see a more historical relevance.

-F-

OK this is about what I was trying to say as well
M

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: cavalry

ORIGINAL: Feinder

I don't know that they're "undervalued", but I do think they're "under-represented".

1. They rarely engage targets with their main guns.
2. They rerely engage anyting at long range anyway.
3. Even as bombardment platforms they play 12th fiddle to cruisers because BBs only have 9 salvos of main ammo (and only 6 available to shoot).

Increase their ammo and help them to actually shoot their main guns, and you'd see a more historical relevance.

-F-

OK this is about what I was trying to say as well
M

Well, I would agree that their capability, in particular against light ships such as DD and PTs are under represented. Not only do main guns fire less frequently, but I would argue so do their secondary guns.

Still, that said, my witp experience is that it is better to take any 2 BBs over any 6 CA/CLs. The Uber armor on the BBs makes them untouchable by anything other than other BB main guns and torps.


Edit: Where is Ron S when you need him. At this point I'm pretty sure he would weigh in to point out that the WitP surface combat engine has a great many flaws.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: John Lansford

Had PoW and Repulse met the two Kongo's in 1941, the Japanese ships would have suffered badly IRL.  Repulse was their age but had better guns, while PoW was better in every category but speed.  It's fortunate for the Japanese that airpower dealt with them rather than a BB vs BB engagement.

True to an extent. Japan sent Kongo and Haruna to cover the landings because to an extent they were expendable. However, the Japanese had a much larger screening force. Also, the surface search radar on PoW was non-functional at the time. With all of these factors I'd have to say it would have been bloody for both sides. It would have only taken a single Long Lance hit to completely change the battle.

In the end of course, it didn't matter, Force Z wasn't able to make contact, and the bombers out of Saigon made sure they never would.

[Long Lance]

@Engineer: Thank you!

[Big B]

One of the problems of BB's not shooting often in surface combat may be that the accuracy rating of BB main guns is very low.

Accuracy, in WitP terms of naval guns, is an abstraction of rate of fire in rounds per minute, multiplied by 10.
If you look at the accuracy rating of a US 5"38 it will say 200, that's 20 rpm (x 10). A Japanese 8"50 is 40 (I think) which is 4 rpm (x 10).
Then look at a US 14"50 (as the Tennessee or New Mexico carries) it is only 15 (1.5 rpm).

So I suspect the main reason they do not use their MA often is because of the way the game engine handles their accuracy/rate-of-fire rating.

Ammunition Load can easily be increased in the editor.
Engagement range - I have a feeling that it's hard coded.

B

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: cavalry

ORIGINAL: Feinder

I don't know that they're "undervalued", but I do think they're "under-represented".

1. They rarely engage targets with their main guns.
2. They rerely engage anyting at long range anyway.
3. Even as bombardment platforms they play 12th fiddle to cruisers because BBs only have 9 salvos of main ammo (and only 6 available to shoot).

Increase their ammo and help them to actually shoot their main guns, and you'd see a more historical relevance.

-F-

OK this is about what I was trying to say as well
M

Well, I would agree that their capability, in particular against light ships such as DD and PTs are under represented. Not only do main guns fire less frequently, but I would argue so do their secondary guns.

Still, that said, my witp experience is that it is better to take any 2 BBs over any 6 CA/CLs. The Uber armor on the BBs makes them untouchable by anything other than other BB main guns and torps.


Edit: Where is Ron S when you need him. At this point I'm pretty sure he would way in to point out that the WitP surface combat engine has a great many flaws.

[Akos Gergely]

Accuracy, in WitP terms of naval guns, is an abstraction of rate of fire in rounds per minute, multiplied by 10.
If you look at the accuracy rating of a US 5"38 it will say 200, that's 20 rpm (x 10). A Japanese 8"50 is 40 (I think) which is 4 rpm (x 10).
Then look at a US 14"50 (as the Tennessee or New Mexico carries) it is only 15 (1.5 rpm).

Which is very strange 'cos IRL for a given range a larger caliber and longer caliberlength gun is almost always more accurate due to the flatter trajectory and higher shell weight (it carries the momentum further).

The funniest thing is when at night from 1000 yard nearly intact BBs pepper each other with their smallest AA guns... [:D]

[Mike Scholl]

ORIGINAL: csatahajos
The funniest thing is when at night from 1000 yard nearly intact BBs pepper each other with their smallest AA guns... [:D]

Actually, that's what I would call the stupidist thing..., more or less glaring proof of the flaws in the original design. It certainly wasn't 25mms the Kirashima knocked out SoDak's Fire control with off Guadalcanal---not was it 40mm fire with which the Washington shreaded the Kirashima in return. 2by3 let some real "howlers" slip into the Game.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: csatahajos
The funniest thing is when at night from 1000 yard nearly intact BBs pepper each other with their smallest AA guns... [:D]

Actually, that's what I would call the stupidist thing..., more or less glaring proof of the flaws in the original design. It certainly wasn't 25mms the Kirashima knocked out SoDak's Fire control with off Guadalcanal---not was it 40mm fire with which the Washington shreaded the Kirashima in return. 2by3 let some real "howlers" slip into the Game.

One has to question why BBs would close to 1000m in the first place. Actually, why would they close to the range of their secondaries by choice? The secondary batteries are for dealing with smaller vessels like DDs and CLs that are trying to close up as I understand it.

[niceguy2005]

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

ORIGINAL: csatahajos
The funniest thing is when at night from 1000 yard nearly intact BBs pepper each other with their smallest AA guns... [:D]

Actually, that's what I would call the stupidist thing..., more or less glaring proof of the flaws in the original design. It certainly wasn't 25mms the Kirashima knocked out SoDak's Fire control with off Guadalcanal---not was it 40mm fire with which the Washington shreaded the Kirashima in return. 2by3 let some real "howlers" slip into the Game.

One has to question why BBs would close to 1000m in the first place. Actually, why would they close to the range of their secondaries by choice? The secondary batteries are for dealing with smaller vessels like DDs and CLs that are trying to close up as I understand it.

While true the secondaries are going to fire on a BB if they don't have another target.

I agree no BB commander is going to close to 1000m.

I suspect that this is supposed to be an abstraction and its the escorts that are actually closing to that distance, but I'm not sure it's a well implemented...or maybe they really do mean the BBs are that close. [8|]

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

ORIGINAL: Shark7

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl



Actually, that's what I would call the stupidist thing..., more or less glaring proof of the flaws in the original design. It certainly wasn't 25mms the Kirashima knocked out SoDak's Fire control with off Guadalcanal---not was it 40mm fire with which the Washington shreaded the Kirashima in return. 2by3 let some real "howlers" slip into the Game.

One has to question why BBs would close to 1000m in the first place. Actually, why would they close to the range of their secondaries by choice? The secondary batteries are for dealing with smaller vessels like DDs and CLs that are trying to close up as I understand it.

While true the secondaries are going to fire on a BB if they don't have another target.

I agree no BB commander is going to close to 1000m.

I suspect that this is supposed to be an abstraction and its the escorts that are actually closing to that distance, but I'm not sure it's a well implemented...or maybe they really do mean the BBs are that close. [8|]

Well I've seen BBs firing at each other with 20mm and 25mm before, so they have to be that close. Which is really, really stupid.

And I've also seen smaller classes open up on each other with .50 cal MGs and 13.2mm before. I just can't understand getting that close for any ship.