AA in Taskforces
Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 9:48 am
Does every ship participate with all its guns in defending the TF? Does every type of ship do that or only CLAAs? Would an AK with a lot of AAA also participate in defending a TF?
ORIGINAL: Historiker
Does every ship participate with all its guns in defending the TF? Does every type of ship do that or only CLAAs? Would an AK with a lot of AAA also participate in defending a TF?
In reality, there was barrage and point defence AA. Barrage AA employed large calibre guns that fired at formations using delay fusing, while point defence used small calibre guns that were aimed at individual aircraft and either used contact fused explosives or impact kill to generate the terminal ballistics effects. Later in the war, proximity fusing was introduced for weapons down to 3 inches, typically tripling the probability of a kill. Barrage guns were centrally controlled, with destroyers having a single AA controller, cruisers typically two, and capital ships four. (Local control was ineffective at getting kills. It did disturb the bomber's aim enough to be valuable.) Weapons of calibre less than 40 mm were "revenge" weapons as their maximum effective range was less than the bomb/torpedo release range. Most barrage guns ranged between 3 and 5.25 inches, although the USN deployed 6 and 8 inch AA-capable weapons on very-late-war cruisers. Low angle guns up to 18 inches were trained and used against torpedo attacks. Point defence AA ranged up to 40 mm prior to the development of proximity fuses. With the introduction of proximity fuses, guns up to 3 inches were developed for point defence. (Post-war, for example, the quad 40 mm mounts were replaced with dual 3 inch mounts in the USN.) Almost all guns were limited by rate of traverse to ranges between their maximum effective range and about a third of that range, so you can estimate their effectiveness against an optimally organised attack by integrating their pKill as it varies as a function of range between their maximum and minimum ranges.
USN CVTFs deployed in a circle formation when under air attack, allowing most ships to engage an enemy formation at some point. The barrage guns defended the formation, while the point defence guns defended the individual ships. Japanese CVTFs initially deployed in a dispersed formation, with each ship defending itself with manoeuvre and fire. Later in the war, I believe they adopted the circle formation.
Does that help?