akd

There is no LOS effect from smoke. If you are talking about the green line extending from your ship, that is radio-direction finding and should show the bearing to the nearest enemy ship. Distant radar contacts beyond vision are shown as intermittent green circles at their actual location. Unfortunately, radar also modifies visual sight distance, so this can all be a bit confusing.

You can report typos with the report shortcut from loading screen.

The point is with the primary and secondary tower and funnels all at the back, the engine spaces should be there also. The current model has the citadel and engine spaces fixed in the center regardless the of turret / tower+funnel placement.

I think F11 is screenshot, not smokescreen. Only destroyers and light cruisers can produce smoke screens and the option is in the bottom of the screen commands. The mechanic is poorly connected to how things worked in reality and affect on tactics. It is really more of a per ship accuracy malus “cloak” on an arbitrary timer. The green circles are radar spots, and I don’t believe there are any false returns.

Yes, this needs additional work, but it’s not quite so simple: Range with the originally planned 2,240 lbs. (1,016 kg) AP Mark 5 was 40,200 yards (36,760 m) at a muzzle velocity of 2,520 fps (768 mps). http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-45_mk6.php So still heavier shell than HC and lower MV, but ever so slightly longer range. And for same two shells described at the North Carolina site (2700lb AP, 1900lb HC) fired from the later 16”/50 Mark 7, the slower, heavier AP has greater range at 20 degrees elevation and higher. Range Ranges of projectiles fired at new gun muzzle velocities Elevation AP Mark 8 HC Mark 13 10 degrees 17,650 yards (16,139 m) 18,200 yards (16,642 m) 15 degrees 23,900 yards (21,854 m) 24,100 yards (22,037 m) 20 degrees 29,000 yards (26,518 m) 28,800 yards (26,335 m) 25 degrees 33,300 yards (30,450 m) 32,700 yards (29,901 m) 30 degrees 36,700 yards (33,558 m) 36,000 yards (32,918 m) 35 degrees 39,500 yards (36,119 m) 38,650 yards (35,342 m) 40 degrees 41,430 yards (37,884 m) 40,600 yards (37,163 m) 45 degrees 42,345 yards (38,720 m) 41,622 yards (38,059 m) http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php

Well, he’s not wrong if you were going to fire them at the same M/V, which is I think what the game does (can’t check right now).

In fact, the 16”/45 Mark 5 which could not fire the Mk 8 superheavy shell was heavier than the Mark 6 gun that could. The difference was the handling gear.

I believe the way around this was to accept lower muzzle velocity, which was balanced out by better velocity retention at range. Shell hoists and other aspects of the loading mechanisms would need to be designed for the shell length used.

As noted, that is a damage model problem (and one that is highly circumstantial) not an accuracy problem. I have seen a single 9" penetration sink a pre-dreadnought, which is a bit extreme the other way.

Yeah, too much special magic being assigned to the term “turtleback” in the OP. Just look to contemporary writing: https://books.google.com/books?id=wTU8AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA942&lpg=PA942&dq="turtleback"+AND+protected+cruiser&source=bl&ots=ceLIGIYOoX&sig=ACfU3U2gaJ3zsbEvEIZx-EVuuU6agrQ6Xg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit-6et_J3nAhXCZs0KHU_5CFkQ6AEwF3oECAsQAQ#v=onepage&q="turtleback" AND protected cruiser&f=false

The one in the pop-up is effective thickness after quality modifier. On the right actual thickness is shown followed by the modifier in parentheses.

Actually built? No. Sketched after too much vino? Yes. https://stefsap.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/ferrettis-10381-in-quintuples-battleship-design/

As I recall, the best possible pattern achievable was 200-300 yards for range.

But Narvik is very good example of a floatplane playing a very important role at the smallest tactical level (straight up destroying direct threats and orienting guns onto other threats in near real time, not just bringing a fleet into the vicinity of another, as the same pilot did at Matapan, but Narvik was a pretty unique tactical situation).

From Ballantyne’s Warspite. He, of course, might be tooting his own horn a bit. That the gunfire was not conducted solely by aerial observation, however, is evidenced by the Italian destroyers blocking further accurate fire with smokescreens as the Giulio Cesare withdrew after being hit. This highlights an earlier point: spotting aircraft could be very useful for improving range corrections for long range gunnery, but targeting was still dependent on the ship’s own fire control seeing the target. Spotting planes did not act as “eyes” of the battleship allowing them to “see” and accurately target other ships underway at long range, although they did play that role for shore bombardment on many occasions (where seeing the target from the ship was often impossible). Other highlights in Rice’s remarkable service aboard Warspite can be found in his obit: http://www.militaria.cz/cz/detail-154‘ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1430473/Lieutenant-Commander-Ben-Rice.html (Login required)

Straddling a target at that range was likely not possible at Jutland, but I think Angus’s point is valid. There is a going to be a minimum dispersion pattern for a salvo at a given range that no amount of fire control correction is going to reduce. Accuracy improvements in game allow you to keep reducing this pattern until it is possible to have most of the shells in salvo strike a target in one salvo at extreme range. There should be diminishing returns on increasing accuracy at the upper ends to account for shots that are accurate, but precision that cannot be increased further. (The game of course treats accuracy and precision as a single factor.) p.s. Did you know Warspite had one of her aircraft aloft and spotting fall of shot when she hit Giulio Cesare, the longest hit between two moving battleships. That speaks to a bit more tactical relevance (contributing, not decisive) than you have allowed for in previous posts. The same pilot also played a crucial tactical role at the Second Battle of Narvik. 😜

I think we need a caveat here: in the circumstances that developed in WWII they proved mostly useless for tactical employment in ship-to-ship actions, and arguably a liability. However, we could imagine circumstances that might have developed differently that could have placed a greater premium on that role. A significant naval conflict in the Mediterranean before the advent of radar and dedicated air platforms might have seen wider employment in the spotting role. It is quite clear from doctrine and exercises conducted that they were considered a significant potential multiplier for gunfire control. That is not, however, an argument that they need to be included, which without careful inclusion of a number of factors would likely lead to them serving as a must-have combat multiplier in all circumstances (think to the secondary gun debate: if ships had these they must have been super effective, therefore make them super effective in the game and ignore actual data.)

Congratulations on the Steam accolade. This sounds really exciting as well. Hope it gives an opportunity to provide deeper fidelity for sailing and combat model, as well as allowing for more realistic time scales.

You are correct, the goal is compartmentalization either way, but since many of these designs were calculated to be able to withstand a single compartment with centerline bulkhead flooding, then the assumption must have been that would be the typical result. Underwater explosions tend to damage to a much larger area than a gunfire hit and so multiple compartments flooding simultaneously and quickly is the likely outcome. Or it was just outright stupidity.

Bulkheads aren’t armored walls. Armored bulkheads are. There were advances in design that could contribute to the effectiveness of compartmentalization beyond just increasing or decreasing numbers of bulkheads. A few off the top of my head: longitudinal bulkheads (improved protection for machinery from damage by gunfire, but greatly increased the danger of underwater damage) unpierced bulkheads (greatly improved watertight integrity and resistance to damage, but crew would have to move up and over through the ship to access lower compartments) machinery unitization (decreased the chance that damage to machinery spaces would lead to total loss of power and improved compartmentalization)

Hold CTRL and you can place the turret anywhere along the line. Doesn't work with barbettes.

For torpedo evasion, or generally just turning away from the enemy, I’d really prefer a simple toggle for “turn together” to a new heading rather than having to micro-manage the rudder settings, but the direct rudder input is appreciated and useful in other ways, particularly in overcoming some of the AI’s more boneheaded collision avoidance logic.

If they are not included in tactical combat in any way in the game, then yes.

Contributing their firepower directly, yes, the impact was near zero, but shaping movements of forces even at the tactical level simply through their possibility of encountering submarines was an important factor in some cases. A fleet encounter where you know no submarines are present might develop very differently than it did historically.

Yeah, that doesn’t make sense then. To simplify: With Mark I turrets, 8-inch can fit at front but not at rear. Only 7-inch and smaller can be mounted at rear. With Mark II turrrets, only 6-inch and smaller can be mounted at front, and as with Mark I, only 7-inch and smaller can be mounted at rear. There is no way to reconcile above with lack of space.