KhalAl

Silly pedantic response. The draughtsmen and engineers involved would have been reasonably able to estimate the rate of fire. Also, a couple of guns of the 51cm/L45 type advanced to the point of construction and were not far off completion. The USN 18" design was actually built and tested, there is even a picture of it if you bother to check the links. The 46cm/L45 on the Yamato class, which had an approximate rate of fire 1.5-2 rounds per minute, is in-line with the other 18" class guns I mentioned. Japan 40 cm/45 (15.7") Type 94 - NavWeaps

I've noticed that the rate of fire, particularly on the larger caliber guns, is much too low. For instance in the game I tried a triple gun 18" turret with regular shells and with 1940 latest and maximum autoloader tech, yet the rate of fire was still only around 0.9-1.0 rounds per minute or less. The British 18"/L45 triple turret design meant for the N3 class battleships of 1920-1922 period would of had a predicted rate of fire of 1.5-2 rounds per minute. The 18" designs of the USN firing super heavy shells would of had a predicted rate of fire of 1.5-1.75 rounds per minute. The case is even worse for the 20" guns, typically being only around 0.4-0.6 rounds per minute in the game depending on tech and shell weights. The Japanese 51cm/L45 guns were estimated to have an approximate rate of fire of 1-1.25 rounds per minute, double what is in the game. The rate of fire seems to drop off too quickly as gun caliber increases, which makes battleships armed with larger caliber guns much weaker than what they should be. Hope this gets fixed in a future update. United Kingdom / Britain 18"/45 (45.7 cm) Mark II and other Proposed Guns 1920-1922 - NavWeaps USA 18"/48 (45.7 cm) Mark 1, 16"/56 (40.6 cm) Mark 4 and 18"/47 (45.7 cm) Mark A - NavWeaps Japan 51 cm/45 (20.1") "A" Type 98 (?) - NavWeaps Washington Cherry Trees II./ Part 3 – Warship Projects 1900-1950 - Scroll down and contains a table with some info on some experimental large caliber guns- such as the French 450mm/L45, USN 20"/L45 etc.

I finding that when it comes to some of the super battleship hulls the game seems to punish you too heavily for trying use the larger guns, which makes the hulls of limited use. The ~150,000 ton hulls from Japan and Germany for example, with the tonnage, beam, and draft sliders maxed, you should comfortably be able fit 12 x 20" guns in 4x3 turrets without massively sacrificing other aspects of the ship. Often it seems like struggle just to put 12 x 18" guns on the hull, and anything less than 20" guns on a hull this size is quite undergunned. Testing similarly sized hulls in spring sharp I was able to easily put 12 x 20"/L52 guns in four triple turrets and have 24 x 8"/L60 secondaries (plus more smaller guns), 30 knots speed, 10000nm range and excellent armour coverage.

Any enjoyment of the campaign so far has been significantly hampered by the AI insisting that I fight huge Jutland sized 100+ ship battles every time. Playing as Austro-Hungary starting from 1890, a few years in and Italy and Germany are already at war with France and then upon the next turn I'm also at war with France. No matter what I do with my fleet or where I put them, after trying the save multiple times and across different games as well, I'm immediately faced with an unavoidable battle against 80-90% of the entire French fleet, consisting of several battleships, 40+ cruisers, 20-30 torpedo boats etc. So, to have any chance of winning I need to field my entire navy. The result is an unwieldly lag fest with nearly 200 ships battling it out. The 100 or so ships on my side always start in some random jumble facing in all different directions crashing into each other, no organisation at all and some ships are as much as 20-30 km away from each other. The sheer scale makes the battle and all the micromanagement a chore. Also, I find that the AI constantly runs away from battle, most of the time I never see a single shot fired or even see the enemy ships as they vanish off into the distance, which can be particularly annoying, especially when dealing with slower ships from the 1890s.

I’ve noticed some of the Hull dimensions in-game don’t seem to match up to the tonnage you’d expect for their size and seem inconsistent. Here are in-game examples of four of the largest hulls for reference when maxed out (dimensions are length x width x draft): Japan Super Battleship 125,000 t 1192' 5" x 164' 5" x 68' 1" Germany Super Battleship II 130,000 t 1155' 3" x 163' 7" x 61' France Super Battleship II 95,000 t 1131' 4" x 153' 1" x 82' 2" United States Super Battleship 109,000 t 1063' 3" x 137' 10" x 77' First of all the main thing that stands out is that the hull drafts are huge. For instance the 82 ft draft of the French hull seems excessive and is what might be expected for hull design typically 1900-2100 ft long and mounting ~ 850mm - 1000mm (~ 33.5” - 39.4”) guns! Even a 60 ft draft is massive (the 131,000 t H-44 design was 41.67ft) and is what might be expected for a hull 1400-1600 ft long. For the hulls listed above a draft of 40-45 ft seems more reasonable. Using SpringSharp and assuming a battleship hull block coefficient of 0.65 (somewhat conservative as I believe many battleship designs had block coefficients exceeding this, the Tillman IV-2 design had a block coefficient of >0.8 for example) I put in the hull dimensions stated above and here is what I got for the tonnage: Japan Super Battleship 248,000 t Germany Super Battleship II 214,000 t France Super Battleship II 264,000 t (!) United States Super Battleship 209,500 t

I’m not so sure about the in-game weight including propellant, as that would make the “Light” shells very light for their calibre. For example the 16 inch Light shell, if the weight included propellant, the shell would end up being something like ~ 600-700 kg, which seems a bit too light for a 16 inch naval rifle, and would render having 16 inch guns somewhat redundant: you may as well have 14 inch guns with normal shells. For example the British 929 kg shell used in its 16”/45 Mark I guns was considered light weight for the calibre. Also, it doesn’t make make much sense to include separate propellant charge bags as part of the projectile weight.

The normal, heavy, and super heavy shells in this game are far too heavy for their relative gun calibres, and the shell weights in game at the moment would imply very long shells. Looking at some examples in the game (Explosives set to "High TNT"): 16 inch in-game: Light = 930 kg Normal = 1,224 kg Heavy = 1,592 kg Super Heavy = 1,775 kg 20 inch in-game: Light = 1,519 kg Normal = 2,170 kg Heavy = 2,822 kg Super Heavy = 3,147 kg Already the "Normal" 16 inch shell is the same approximate weight as the real life 16 inch Super Heavy shell used by the United States. The Heavy and Super Heavy shells seem impractically heavy for their gun calibres. This seems to be the case with all gun sizes in game. It's quite straight forward to get an approximate weight of shell for a given gun calibre. For instance I calculated some realistic approximate weights for the two examples given above to illustrate how the in-game weights seem greatly exaggerated: 16 inch realistic: Light = 931 kg Normal = 1,035 kg Heavy = 1,138 kg Super Heavy = 1,241 kg 20 inch realistic: Light = 1,819 kg Normal = 2,021 kg Heavy = 2,223 kg Super Heavy = 2,425 kg