Gunnery and Campaign Questions

[Bullethead]

[

Originally Posted by Trygvasson

I sincerely thank the Gods Above

You're welcome.

1. It seems the ships stop accumulating damage after they've reached 'sinking' status

It sometimes seems that way, but it's really not true. You can reduce the sinking time for ships by continuing to fire at them. However, it usually takes something significant to make a real difference. A few more shellholes on the waterline more or less don't really change anything. What you need is either a lot more water coming in (like from a torpedo hole) or rather less going out (like by doing more propulsion damge).

That said, however, ships get lower in the water as they flood, which brings shell holes and ruined watertight integrity that were previously harmless down to where the water is. Thus, as ships settle, they often suddenly start sinking much faster as more holes reach water level.

2. More info! Range circles for primary/secondary guns, visual detection ranges, starshell ranges, torpedo ranges, acceleration rates(aren't they a bit quick?!), armor penetration/distance - and that's only what I can't stop thinking about!

The visibilty range, plus whether it's increasing or decreasing, is shown on the weather report button. However, that's a complicated subject (see my answer to XXzard infra).

The ship information screens give you the ranges, rates of fire, and a buch of other stuff for all the weapons. Just mouse over one of the colored dots and the text at the bottom of the screen changes from being about the ship as a whole to being about that weapon.

but why a division would want to keep sailing at 4kts after the ship that slowed them down has sunk, I don't know.

I agree, this is something we could improve. Send in a bug report on it, but change its message type to SUGGESTION.

Originally Posted by Xxzard

The weather report shows visibility, and visual detection is I suppose automatic at that range.

Actually, the visual range is very dynamic and variable. The range shown on the weather report is the maximum possible for the time of day and weather conditions, but without taking any specific situational modifiers into account.

As mentioned in another thread, there's a "smoke map" keeping track of lingering smoke long after we've had to remove its graphics in the interests of keeping your computer running. Thus, the LOS in different directions can be stopped by clots of smog at different ranges. The same thing applies to rain and fog, which are not uniform over the battlespace but occur in patches of varying density.

The length of the LOS usually is not the same in both directions between 2 given ships, even though the factors above are the same for both. This is because bigger ships are easier to see than small ships. Same for ships on fire, firing, using searchlights, or under a starshell. However, ships that are hugging a coastline at night are rather hard to see from seeward. Then, of course, there are the effects of the sun and moon, which are very directional.

On top of all this, even if everything above is the same for both ships, visibility isn't an all-or-nothing thing, where you can see out to a given range perfectly and then hit a wall. Instead, the chance of spotting something tapers off to zero at max possible range. This means that spotting a ship out near the max visibility range is a matter of chance, and 1 ship might do it before the other.

Anyway, all this is why sometimes you'll see a further ship before you see a closer ship. Also, sometimes you know a ship is there, but can't see it well enough to shoot at it. This is why you'll sometimes see a ship appear on the water but when you try to target it, it says it's not visible to any of your ships.

The presentation of all this is could perhaps be improved, say like how Combat Mission does FOW. Send in a suggestion on it.

[Trygvasson]

Thanks for your answers Bullet, appreciate it. On the subject of ship sinking time, I based my statement on in-game testing, so I must admit I'm surprised. I'll take your statement at face value - and do some more testing to convince the more stubborn part of my brain. The US Ship Pack battle is actually an ideal test scenario - one poor minelayer getting hammered by several super-dreds. I'm sure I'll find you're right, eventually.

Visibility: I guess it's an old-timer's habit to think in absolute visibility ranges as far as computer simulations are concerned. Dynamic spotting ranges and chances are much better, of course, as this is much closer to the real thing.

Gunnery: my problem is that I find it hard to visually judge the range on the battlespace. I'd really like a line in the sea telling me how far my ships can fire. But I guess that's OT in this thread. On topic: how much is accuracy affected by number of ships firing at it? I just fought a destroyer battle with about 20 DD's on each side, managing to cross the T of the enemy line and staying there as he tried to close for about 15 minutes. For the start of the battle I simply let my ships target the nearest ship, i.e. the lead ship of the enemy line, but seeing the spread of shot was so great I started spreading out the fire by micromanaging ship targets. What goes on under this part of the hood? And can you take the hood off, please ?

[Trygvasson]

Another couple of things, from the Campaign:
- any way I can find info on approximate repair times?
- what happens if I assign more tonnage than a port can supply?
- since I can't assign repair priorities myself, how does the program do it?

[Bullethead]

Originally Posted by Trygvasson

Visibility: I guess it's an old-timer's habit to think in absolute visibility ranges as far as computer simulations are concerned. Dynamic spotting ranges and chances are much better, of course, as this is much closer to the real thing.

Yes, it's pretty realistic. The problem is, it's pretty much impossible to depict it visually for the players.

Gunnery: my problem is that I find it hard to visually judge the range on the battlespace. I'd really like a line in the sea telling me how far my ships can fire.

On the minimap, each ship and shore battery has a circle drawn around it indicating its maximum range. You can also read the exact maximum range for any weapon by mousing over it on the Ship Information Screen.

You can also take direct measurments in the game yourself. Select one of your ships, then move the mouse wherever you want it, on the water or over another ship. White text at the bottom of the screen will tell you the distance between the selected ship and the mouse cursor.

On topic: how much is accuracy affected by number of ships firing at it?

This only makes a real difference at longer ranges were accurate splash spotting was required. IIRC, this is about 5km in the game. Inside that, the number of ships firing at the same target doesn't really matter. Beyond that, however, only 2 ships can fire at the same target without penalty. Once you get 3 or more ships involved, nobody can tell which splashes are theirs and all of them suffer a large accuracy penalty.

Originally Posted by Trygvasson

Another couple of things, from the Campaign:
- any way I can find info on approximate repair times?
- what happens if I assign more tonnage than a port can supply?
- since I can't assign repair priorities myself, how does the program do it?

There's nothing I know of that tells you how long a ship will take to repair. In general, the time to repair a destroyed weapon is a function of its size. DD-size guns are usually repaired in a day or 2, but BB main guns might take a few weeks. Hull damage is usually repaired faster than propulsion damage, etc.

I think all ships are repaired simultaneously and independently. IOW, there's no priority to worry about.

I don't think you're able to base more tonnage at a facility than it will hold. If you're able to, then it's a bug you should report.

[alexsmith]

Originally Posted by Bullethead

this is about 5km in the game.

Is it also true for DG or just for Jutland? No doubt it's difficult to play if manual or faq operates terms like "distance where director is necessary" - too damn wanted to know exactly - WHAT distance

[Xxzard]

Aha, the information on the splash rule is very helpful, as in a few fleet battles I have seen gunfire become more accurate almost instantly when the single enemy ship all fire was concentrated on went down and my ships switched to new targets. In fact, in one battle, once the ships switched target to different enemy ships I got two lucky hits on turrets in quick succession that caused magazine explosions-- especially surprising as I was playing the British!

Meanwhile, focusing fire on one ship with the whole might of the Grand Fleet is spectacular, and will work eventually, but not as quickly as one would hope because of the dramatic falloff in accuracy.

Good to know!

[alexsmith]

You mean - switching target increase accuracy? Sorry, didn't get it

[Raptor1]

Originally Posted by alexsmith

You mean - switching target increase accuracy? Sorry, didn't get it

No, if too many ships are aiming at one ship it reduces accuracy because ships can't distinguish their splashes, so when that one target went down and his ships switched to different targets, accuracy increased.

[feld]

Originally Posted by alexsmith

You mean - switching target increase accuracy? Sorry, didn't get it

Been reading about this in Jon Sumida's In Defense of Naval Supremacy (great history of Dreadnought and Royal Navy fire control in the early 1900s - among other things). One method of aiming guns was to salvo fire one gun of each turret, have a spotter in the tops look where the splashes were, and then reset the guns until the splash pattern was centered on the enemy ship. That way, they thought that they could be sure that they were getting a few hits.

Not entirely sure how the Japanese and Russians did it in the RJW...don't know if they were using salvo fire from their main turrets or not.

r/
feld

[rubberboot]

I'm wondering about the victory conditions.... I'm 15 days in on a 1 year campaign (as the Germans) and It's currently British++. At the beginning it was German+. I've destroyed about 70 ships of their light forces which included 11 cruisers, and lost about 25 destroyers, 1 cruiser (at night, grrr) and 20 TB's (no loss there...German TB's are JUNK). They have captured about 12 freighters. I've captured 1. Is the victory conditions have to do with freighter capture only? If that's the case, I will need to destroy the bloody AC's at Lerwick!! They're killing me. Also, when do the Americans actually join on the German side in the game, as I am playing that alt reality scenario? If they join later in the year, why have them at all....

[MoToM]

Its a bug, shows the exact opposite of the truth.

SES know of it but as nearly everyone else does too they are in no rush to fix.

[Admiral Von Gerlach]

re the Imperial Russian Navy here is the best book for that info

Russian and Soviet Battleships by Stephen McLaughlin, Naval Institute Press, 2003


http://openlibrary.org/b/OL22568554M...et-battleships

re the Imperial Japanese Fleet, they used british tactics as that was where all their officers were trained so the salvo of singles from each turrent that would bear applies to them too.

[alexsmith]

re the Imperial Japanese Fleet, they used british tactics as that was where all their officers were trained so the salvo of singles from each turrent that would bear applies to them too.

Seems to be quite correct. Also during examining several sources I found a mentions which could indicate - Russians used similar tactics. There were a very common tactic of ajustment fire - I found detailed description of it in some artillery study-book. Undortunately DG seems not to use any kind of adjustment fire - at least it looks like it doesn't. As for often mentioned circles of shells explosion instead of ellipses also...

Seems like DG is considering very many secondary factors - and freely skip some major... IMHO

[Bullethead]

Originally Posted by alexsmith

Undortunately neither DG nor Jutland uses any kind of adjustment fire - at least it looks like they don't. As for often mentioned circles of shells explosion instead of ellipses also...

Dude, haven't you played Jutland at all? Most ships with directors fire 1 gun per turret and you can see them adjust onto the target.

I would greatly appreciate it if you refrained from making so many false accusations about my product.

[alexsmith]

Sorry, Dude! Don't know about Jutland - wrong.