Shoud Bombardment increase Sys Damage?

[Tankerace]

LOL, I'm with you Mog. I just want more shells on my battlewagons [;)]

[freeboy]

OK, I guess I didn't realize the game modelled individual guns out, they would listed in the ship screen? Please advise.

[Tankerace]

Weapon; Number Turret Facing Ammo

14"/45 mk 8 6 3 F 9

It means there are 6 14"/45 Mk 8 guns facing forward, in triple turrets (i.e. two turrets). The ammo 9 means 9 rounds per gun.

[Caranorn]

ORIGINAL: Tankerace

Weapon; Number Turret Facing Ammo

14"/45 mk 8 6 3 F 9

It means there are 6 14"/45 Mk 8 guns facing forward, in triple turrets (i.e. two turrets). The ammo 9 means 9 rounds per gun.

9 in game rounds to remove potential confusion:-).

Mogami already came up with a good conversion rate to real number of shells, namely 9 WitP rounds represent roughly 135 actual rounds.

Maybe one way to control the entire matter would be to switch bombardment missions to surface after first use. Then allow switching back only in ports and using up added supplies. On the other hand, actual bombardment should use a lesser percentage of ammunition (I think it's indeed 6 WitP rounds per phase, I doubt any commander would have sent out a battleship with only 33% ammo useable in the ship's primary role of surface combat (though wasn't ammo loadout an issue when the two japanese BB's met two US off Guadalcanal?)).

Marc aka Caran...

[Nikademus]

The problem isn't that ships are allowed to bombard too much......its that they have too many targets of opportunity. Many of the base locations on the map (example, Rabaul, Rangoon, Port Morosby) did not have airfields (the #1 motivator for bombardments....actual invasions excluded) that were accessible to bombardment....not in the sense that the enemy ships could have hoped to have acheived any degree of fire control due to distance from the coastal line.

I would agree that additional SYS to curb bombardment is not desirable as it would impact ships preforming the funciton even in geographical areas where its perfectly legitimate (i.e. Solomons chain) and large warships (BB/CA) already tend to quickly accumulate incidental SYS as it is.

[freeboy]

how would you get around this problem? have a group of special non bombardment bases?

[Nikademus]

Drongo came up with a clever idea about this. I dont recall all the details but it had to do with the current size of the base and/or SPS potential. Perhaps he might elaborate as it was a long time ago.

My solution was simpler [;)] add a flag option in the editor and code that makes certain base's airfields inelligable for bombardment. Now insert Mogami's "Mandark laugh" at the term "simple". I'm sure such a change would have required a big rewrite. [;)]

[pompack]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

ORIGINAL: Mogami

Hi, Anyone sending TF's on repeated bombardment missions is doing so dispite the ships increasing sys damage from use. Main guns in WITP carry 9 rounds. Each gun only fires 9 rounds before the ship is out of ammo. On a bombardment mission the heavy guns only fire 1 or 2 rounds per tube. The normal service life for the gun liners of the period was between 300 to 600 rounds per tube. So before a ship would be requiring changing the liner it could conduct 150 to 300 bombardment missions. (WITP style) Last I heard the USN still had several hundred liners for WWII era 16in /45 gun tubes.
If we began tracking rounds expended per tube the impact should be noticed in accuracy not system damage.

Or did I misunderstand and you mean break a gun from time to time?

Are you mixing up reality and WITP? Ships fired more than a few rounds per gun on a Bombardment mission. Come up for air Mog![;)]

Also, the Americans developed a lighter, reduced charge bombardment round. For example the AP round for the 16"/50 was 2700lb, the bombardment round was 1900lb and rated at .06 FSR (Full Service Round. the AP round was rated at 1.00 FSR). Since the 16/50 tube life was rated at 300 FSR, this allowed the New Jersey to fire thousands of rounds in Vietnam without having to re-barrel.

I know that there was a bombardment round for the 14/50 on the old BB's (tube life rated at 225FSR for the Mark11) but I don't know the bombardment round rating.

(Friedman Battleship Design and Development has at least a couple of paragraphs on gun life; that is where I found the 16/50 bombardment round rating)

[Nikademus]

Barrel wear didn't become "an issue" until the advent of the USN's major amphibious landings, in which old battleships were used for sustained shore-bombardment support....a different animal from a quick-bombardment such as those done by the Japanese. In cases of extreme use, replacement barrels were shipped in for the battlewagons, some salvaged from the refloated Oklahoma.

[Mike Scholl]

It would probably make more sense and be simpler to understand if you thought of the "9" as
nine 10-minute "units of fire". The basic truth is that the normal ammo carrier on almost any
ship is enough for one hour's fire at the maximum rate. As the "maximum rate" is rarely at-
tained or maintained for extended periods, giving each ship 90 minutes of "fire" at more
realistic rates is not a bad compromise.

[Joel Billings]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

It would probably make more sense and be simpler to understand if you thought of the "9" as
nine 10-minute "units of fire". The basic truth is that the normal ammo carrier on almost any
ship is enough for one hour's fire at the maximum rate. As the "maximum rate" is rarely at-
tained or maintained for extended periods, giving each ship 90 minutes of "fire" at more
realistic rates is not a bad compromise.

My guess is that this is very near what Gary had in mind. This is a good way of stating it.

[Feinder]

In short, I think things are being over-complicated here. The real issue(s) are :

1. The pace of action in WitP. Players are a LOT more agressive than our historical counterparts. We drop bombs and pound shore installations at every turn of the dime. Historically, the pace of the conflict in the Pacifc was probably 1/10th of the intensity that we players use.
2. Slow down ops. The fact that you can completely reload even the largest warship and be ready to get under way in 24 hours, is impressive to say the least. It would often take a week or more, to completely refit/reload a BB or CV. There was some discussion before, about having preparedness point in a port (like repair/ops points, except used to make ships ready to put to sea). You might get Size x 10,000 points per turn. DDs would take 1000 pts. CLs maybe 3000. BBs maybe 12,000. Or whatever. As you add ships to your TF, you spend the prep points, so it might actually take you a week to gather up the prep points to "add" a CV, 2x CA, and 6x DDs to your TF.
3. All things considered, players LIKE the intensity. If we actually had to camp our ships in port for a week or two between sorties, the game wouldn't be nearly as much fun. Basically, Matrix has given us a pair of Baseball Bats, and said "Go to it!" for 1500 turns. But if we had to wait every 15 turns to take a full swing, folks would complain about the inhibition.

[Nikademus]

I'm still waiting to use my Baseball Bat on Frag.........

[8D]

[Pier5]

Why trivialise over 5 system points for bombardment when 75mm howitzers have just put 18 system damage points on your bombardment BB's? The whole bombardment scenario is blatantly ridiculous. Why make it moreso?

Pier5

[Mr.Frag]

I'm still waiting to use my Baseball Bat on Frag.........

No my fault, my ships will not load [:'(]

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag


No my fault, my ships will not load [:'(]

oh now its "My ships wont load"

Before that it was:

My airgroups wont fly....

My computer needed it's motherboard replaced.

My hard drive required deFRAGing

My dog ate my battle-plan

woosie.....

[Tankerace]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

It would probably make more sense and be simpler to understand if you thought of the "9" as
nine 10-minute "units of fire". The basic truth is that the normal ammo carrier on almost any
ship is enough for one hour's fire at the maximum rate. As the "maximum rate" is rarely at-
tained or maintained for extended periods, giving each ship 90 minutes of "fire" at more
realistic rates is not a bad compromise.

My guess is that this is very near what Gary had in mind. This is a good way of stating it.

Well, in that case I can live with it. I was under the assumption it was 9 salvos firing, not 90 minutes of salvo firing.

[Caranorn]

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

It would probably make more sense and be simpler to understand if you thought of the "9" as
nine 10-minute "units of fire". The basic truth is that the normal ammo carrier on almost any
ship is enough for one hour's fire at the maximum rate. As the "maximum rate" is rarely at-
tained or maintained for extended periods, giving each ship 90 minutes of "fire" at more
realistic rates is not a bad compromise.

True, I wonder what I was thinking.

I should know as one of my interests in naval warfare is the comparison of 8" armed cruisers and 6" armed cruisers where one balancing factor is the increase RoF on the 6" (there are other factors leveling the field for the 6", others are in favor of the 8").

Marc aka Caran...

[Ol_Dog]

ORIGINAL: Mogami

A ship operating in one location may have to make a trip of considerable distance just to get a mount fixed. Break everything (random chance) Radar, depth charge mount , torpedo tube. These things go down all the time.
I'm not sure the game needs this but if the complaint is over using guns why would you add system damage that didn't effect the fire power or accuracy of the ship?

I agree with Mogami - both as to need and to the proposed solution

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: Pier5

Why trivialise over 5 system points for bombardment when 75mm howitzers have just put 18 system damage points on your bombardment BB's? The whole bombardment scenario is blatantly ridiculous. Why make it moreso?

Pier5

You have a point!