Shore bombardments

[Barb]

This should be in Naval thread, but unfortunately it is closed.

I have a suggestion/question.
Dont know if this is already in WITP (i havent noticed), or planned in AE.

IRL capital ships doing a shore bombardments or landing fire support were using also their secondary armament when in range.

Say Escorts bombardment off, only 6in or greater could fire.
Escorts bombardment on, every 4inch or greater could fire (cant see a reason why should battleships or cruisers 5inch guns be silent when destroyers 5inches are blazing).

Other posibility instead of ON/OFF aproach to let players set range from which bombardment TF will do its bombardment. Say 2000,5000,10000,20000 yards. So guns in range could fire and those out of range will be silent. Of course smaller guns firing at their max range will be somewhat more inaccurate than larger guns firing on half range.

[Charbroiled]

ORIGINAL: Barb

This should be in Naval thread, but unfortunately it is closed.

I have a suggestion/question.
Dont know if this is already in WITP (i havent noticed), or planned in AE.

IRL capital ships doing a shore bombardments or landing fire support were using also their secondary armament when in range.

Say Escorts bombardment off, only 6in or greater could fire.
Escorts bombardment on, every 4inch or greater could fire (cant see a reason why should battleships or cruisers 5inch guns be silent when destroyers 5inches are blazing).

Other posibility instead of ON/OFF aproach to let players set range from which bombardment TF will do its bombardment. Say 2000,5000,10000,20000 yards. So guns in range could fire and those out of range will be silent. Of course smaller guns firing at their max range will be somewhat more inaccurate than larger guns firing on half range.

Your On/Off suggestion is already part of stock WITP. I believe it was added in the 1.6 patch.

[mbatch729]

I think what Barb was intending is that if the Escorts Bombard is On, then the BB's/CA's use their secondary armament also, in addition to the escorts. If Off, then the bombardment is from a range greater than the secondary guns.

[Barb]

mbatch729 guessed correctly what I meant.
Sorry for not making a clear statement.

[admgrraven]

One possible reason for BB/CA's not using secondary arms is that Destroyers are shallower drafted and can get close enough to use their guns where the capital ships being further out would be out of range.
 
Just a thought

[Dili]

I also suspect going near coast risks more chances of hitting mines.

[Barb]

1. Going close to shore: to risk mines is already in the on/off for escorts bombardments. You should have minesweepers there.
2. As for going close to shore with battleships:
Colorado has draft: 38 ft (11.6 m).
5"/51 caliber guns had range 9 miles (15 km).
5"/38 caliber gun had range 18,000 yards (16 km).
40mm/60 Bofors gun maximal horizontal range 10,800yards (10km)
I suspect there are not many places where is less than 38ft (11.6m) of water 9 miles (15km) off shore. (its even less than 1m depth on 1km, something like 0,1% grade)

For operatin Flintlock (Marshall islands), Kelly Turner in a briefing said to COs under his command: "I say to you, ship captains, that your mission is to get units ashore and support them to the limits of posibilities. I suppose, that we will lost some ships! If your mission requires it, risk your ship!"
Landing at Kwajalein was supported by Pennsylvania and Mississippi: "0618 february 1st Pennsylvania and Mississippi began to fire at enemy positions. Rear admiral Turner gave the order to close to the island to 1800m (2000yds), what is range, from which big battleships never fired land support mission before. Ships captains, cant believe the order is correct, so they tried to verify it. Turner decreased range by another 400m (450yds) and acknowledged the order.
3.
As to be a better target for enemy coastal batteries:
"On 24 July during the shelling of Tinian, Colorado received 22 shell hits from shore batteries but continued to support the invading troops until 3 August." This was from range 3000m (3300yds), coastal guns were 3 152mm (6in). On another occasion Turner said: "What's your armor for? Go on it!"

If I could choose and old battleship with 2000 men aboard to be sunk, or to have another Betio-like landing with 3000 casualties for each division in assault in first three days, you should know my choice.

What were my questions:
Escorts bombard ON/OFF as in WITP: Will BBs/CAs/CLs use their secondary guns when TF set to bombard with escorts?
Will/Should WITP:AE have instead a range increment setting? So also 40/20/12,7 mm guns could fire.
And new questions:
On what range coastal batteries are firing against amphibious TF in WITP?
Are ships in amphib TF counter-firing (each AK/AP/AKA/APA/LCX/LSX has few barrels on it) and suppressing enemy coastal batteries? I think not. Should be in.