DougToss

For sure, in the field artillery it looks like this You can see that most significant errors are errors of range, even if you are accurate and consistent. Accuracy “simply” (lol) consists of superimposing that elliptical pattern so that the MPI is on target. Again for the field artillery, but if you look at predicted errors firing on the map (unobserved, indirect fire), you can see that the bulk of errors will also be ranging errors, stretching out that oval, or moving the MPI long or short of the target coordinate. The wrinkle for naval guns is of course that this is all happening on the move, on a moving target, lol but even more than that, offset between turrets and blast dispersion. Needless to say, prior to good radars, firing unobserved was out of the question. If I recall, directors designate point targets, they don’t plot linear fires or other complex fireplans, so even if you were running on a course exactly parallel to your target, your fires are only ever going to be 90 degrees to them. Which makes sense. Trying to work out the convergence so that you fire bow to stern - besides being just about impossible even with modern fire control kit - would just mean more errors. Am I engaging with what you were saying, or did you mean something else? I can speak about Commonwealth artillery all day, and I’ve read up on the naval stuff, but it’s not always 1:1, so if I misread you, just help me “adjust on”.

You’re doing a great job. It makes me really happy to see you engage with us @Nick Thomadis. It’s noticed and appreciated, I think I can say that for all of us.

Oh, I think I see what you’re saying - is it listing energy per weight in propellant, but assuming the bagged charges are equal in weight or volume due to breach dimensions, making heavier, less energetic propellant not throw the shell as far? I’m probably overthinking this one, but I do have a copy of Brassy’s Explosives, Propellants and Pyrotechnics I could consult. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this come up, since NATO charge bags and propellents aren’t that variable. There might be a formula somewhere?

A name list would be great. The information is pretty easily available, and could be easy to implement for example: German Destroyers: “Z(XX)” British Late Destroyers: “(Indigenous Tribe)” American Cruisers: “(City)” Those lists are pretty easy to populate.

I have to say @Nick Thomadis I am really happy with the communication and frequency of updates. Genuinely, it’s been great to see this week.

You know I had just stopped to think about that and reread several times to see if I was reading it right. Heavier shells are harder to work, and since the 1890 guns are firing bagged charges, a heavy projectile and light propellant is still slow - you have to wrestle to get the heavy projectile up to the breach and seated, even if you can lift the charge bag easily once it’s in.

I think the problem is that we are so used to modern sensors and weapons systems that we think Detection = Engagement. Hence the “stealth” stats. This is incorrect. For most of these weapons, detecting the enemy, engaging them, and hitting them were three different things. It was not one continuous and speedy sequence like firing a Harpoon missile. You could see the enemy, and be unable to shoot them. You could shoot at them, and be unable to hit them. All of that to say, effective range was very close, but the range of detection, and subsequent length to close to range was very long. Friedman’s Victorian Cruisers details this very well.

This would be my ideal solution. Pretty sure this is how it works in Steam and Iron and Jutland Pro

We do. There are Royal Naval Gunnery Tables published in Warrior to Dreadnought and The Grand Fleet. I just don’t have either in front of me right now, but yes we do have that information at pretty much all combat ranges for most calibres against a variety of target sizes including TB, and Royal Navy tests on the effectiveness of various calibres at sinking or disabling TB, also published in those same books. I know @arkhangelsk is familiar with them, he might be able to help.

A million times this!! The AI preserving their force during the campaign is critical! How many near-misses were there in the real North Sea Campaign? Heck! The Germans did turn and run for home at the main phase of Jutland. For a smaller navy to preserve its force is a must. Now, finding ways to exit a battle when the enemy has broken contact, rather than searching fruitlessly, would be nice.

They should, you’d be surprised. I know this is very hard to accept, but it was considered extraordinary to hit beyond 1000 yards. This, I think might be on to something. I don’t want to get too in the weed, because I spent a decade in the artillery, and there’s a lot going on here, but there are particular patterns and distributions to fall of shot I would like to see implemented instead of a dice roll determined at the muzzle (if that’s what’s determining distribution now) Lots of info on gunnery errors here.

Maybe a better way to end battles where no contact is made. Losing the enemy in the fog or weather, or them breaking contact is all very probable (look at the Scarborough Raid) but ending the battle when it's clear no contact will be made would be great. Maybe and "Do You Want to End or Continue?" prompt when no enemy ships are sighted, and none are within X range ?

I'm also finding finances a bit tricky. I think auto-generating is somehow more efficient? A bit confused about it all tbh.

It seems strange to us, looking back from the advanced edge of the missile age, but hitting anything was a pretty big achievement before the British Mediterranean Squadron developed the continuous aim technique. Machinery vibrations, pitch, roll, and of course the state of gunnery and fire control meant that there were misses that would seem to us just about a sure thing.

There’s no reason why gameplay can’t be improved while maintaining historical values. Otherwise it will cause a ripple where there are all sorts of other unintended gameplay problems down the line because the quick fix was to make medium calibre HE shells 300% more effective or something to “balance” against torpedo boats. Duds, shallow and deep running torpedoes - particularly without reloads or with very limited amounts and lengthy times - add another dimension to decision making, and therefore gameplay. You have to risk your ships coming under fire for an attack that’s not a sure thing. Do you press the attack for a shorter run and better firing solution? Do you conserve precious torpedoes for the right moment? What do you do if you miss or have duds? How do you break off the engagement? From where I’m sitting, those would all make gameplay with torpedoes more fun, it gives me more to consider and more to risk.

Yeah. Early gunnery was terrible! That's why nobody was building all-big-gun battleships in 1890! You just couldn't reliably hit with the big guns, and they were much, much slower than guns of the same calibre would later be. Equally important - early torpedoes were also awful! lol that seems to be the missing ingredient. They didn't even have reliable gyros and ways to keep depth for quite a while if I remember.

I’ll write out a proper post addressing @arkhangelsk and @TAKTCOM, because I think you both raise really interesting points that mesh with my impressions of gameplay, but real quick: That’s a very good point. How Graviteam Tactics Mius Front handles that is in the options there are events the player can select that will automatically stop time acceleration or even enter a tactical pause. I don’t know if that’s feasible here, but that could be a solution. Like @arkhangelsk, I’ve been playing full battles in real time - but we’re almost definitely outliers, at least in some ways. Most people have what, 20-40 minutes for a gameplay session? Being able to save in a tactical battle would go a long way towards letting them play in “chunks”. Think about Jutland: - Battle Cruiser Action - Fleet Action - Night Action Being able to save and come back later instead of go through a monster session would make this so much more accessible. e: Theatre of War 2 also has an option of automatically pausing/ending time acceleration when certain events occur.

Coal burning ships were routinely spotted over the horizon. In clear skies, a ship at sea can be seen from the horizon at least, which from mast height is ~12km I think? Maybe more? I think the game needs to show the clear different between spotting and hitting, especially early on. You could see a ship from several kilometres, but couldn't hit until they were within a few thousand metres, closer to hit reliably. So, ideally ships can be spotted from very far away, but that doesn't translate into combat results. This was the reason for the design of Victorian Cruisers - they were expected to be in bow or stern chases for hours.

Absolutely. Even for early gunnery, with small filler in those 6in guns, and not very energetic explosives or reliable fuses in any case, shell splinters need to be a major factor, especially now that crews are present. Obviously, as time went on ships were much better protected, but at Manilla Bay and Tsushima, splinters did a lot of damage, penetrations did not. Having splinters damage crews and possibly put more equipment out of action and start more small fires I think would be helpful in getting that 1890-1900 era right. I don't expect to sink enemy ships with gunfire, at least not effectively, at the start date - I know a lot of players do - but I would like to see the "hail of fire" cause larger cumulative damage to the crew and unarmored/protected systems. I have no idea what kind of splinters would be created by a nearby hit into water though, I suppose how the projectile broke up would determine how many splinters could damage a passing TB, and how energetic and lethal they'd be.

I can't agree with @arkhangelsk enough (which is pretty funny considering we went 12 rounds over this, eh?). Secondary armaments weren't effective against torpedo boats. I'd really rather not see gunnery completely discounted from reality to match unrealistic expectations. I would really, really like to opt for realism in fire control, gunnery and damage. That's harder to put into specific feedback - sorry @Nick Thomadis - because I can't say if guns "5% stronger" will be more in line with historical results. The first solution, as I said, is to just work on time acceleration so players can experience battles faster rather than the gameplay dictating the battles are simulated faster. Ships in 1890 were expected to slug it out at point blank range, and weren't going to sink quickly considering the medium calibre guns of the time. With time acceleration, engagements with slow-firing, inaccurate guns can still be played through quickly. Better to do that than "fix" the inaccurate 6 inch guns of 1890, firing bagged charges through screw breaches to act like players may expect. I think this applies to most aspects of realism or historical accuracy - It's better to train players on what to expect and how to develop tactics around that in a Naval Academy mission introducing the state of the art in 1890, how battles in the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese Wars unfolded. If they know that things aren't "broken" when ships take dozens of hits (out of hundreds fired at single digit accuracy) in a 6in "hail of fire", but don't sink quickly, and they can turn up time acceleration to experience it at the pace they like, I think that's a good compromise. The other side of the equation is to make the torpedos of 1890 perform like it. The torpedo threat never materialized as people feared, but not because secondary guns did, or could keep the torpedo boats away on their own, but because torpedos were not particularly effective weapons.

More time acceleration would be nice - it keeps lethality and survivability historical without played battles taking too long. I want to piggyback off @ColonelHenry -early gunnery, fire control etc means that battles are going to feel slow. Most guns weren’t Quick-Firing, hitting out beyond 2000m was extraordinary, ships were slow, torpedo ranges short and their runs slow as well. I don’t want to break from historical values, but I realize that this is going to drag for players. You can see what I mean here. The battle is great - it’s also 2 hours long. Just giving players a way to speed up time allows us to still have a game without speedboats armed with incredibly lethal and rapid firing guns, or throwing crew damage, floatation etc out the window. Is that a possibility? e: I just wanted to say @Nick Thomadis being active in nearly every page of the thread is by far the best development I’ve seen so far. I really appreciate it.

I hadn’t heard that. I thought War Thunder encroaching on Cold War and modern eras was what did it in, I hadn’t heard that it was planned to have different gameplay. Can you expand on that?

Truer words were ne’er spoken.

Nice write up @DeadlyWalrus, exactly. The “Hail of Fire” of the Spanish American War was ineffective by the Russo-Japanese, and had been phased out by the Great War, only to see a revival as anti-aircraft protection in the Second World War.

The answer, of course, is to have screens.