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Small vessels underpowered.


Spitfire109

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2 hours ago, Cairo1 said:

Steeltrap get it, Akebono is the correct answer, I was hoping other then looking from back Images or from the easy option reading the Katakana, the give away would be the air intakes on the exhaust funnels or the 7 on the hull indicating Des-div.7 Akebono, Sazanami and Ushio. There are actually slight differences between the first batch of Ayanamis, and the second half of the batch, which bare likeness to the Akatsukis, but their tiny fore funnel is the give away.

I recommend a read on Des,div.7 as they all had interesting careers especially Ushio the only ship in the pearl harbor attack force to survive the war, Also notable for rescuing numerous crews of both Allied, and Japanese ships, Shelling Wake Island, and saving a flaming Akebono despite orders to abandon her and, enormous danger to herself.

I started doing a bit of reading about them as they are interesting. Akebono, too, was interesting.

As I said, I'm no expert on small ships. I have spent near 40 years reading naval history (the first ever prize I won at school was in year 7 and I chose a book, "Famous Sea Battles"; must've been about 11yo), so have a pretty good general knowledge.

As an example, my closest friend (we met in year 5!!) and I took the combat rules from the board game "Bismarck" (from the great Avalon Hill, original 1962 revised 1978!) and added every single battleship of every nation operational as at Sept 1939, and most of the CAs and CLs, too. That meant we had to produce the damage/information card for each of them, including appropriate hit boxes, armour values and all sorts of other things.

Bismarck's combat rules involve flat cardboard ship markers with generic on one side and specific on the other, obviously turning them over when identified, and moving them around on a floor with a measure indicating distance to move based on speed, and range measured with 'rangefinder' and shooting rules etc. That was fun; he has a library in what was his bedroom at his parents' place (they're still alive) insured for ~AUS$100,000. All sorts of magnificent reference quality works, including some rather uncommon ones (at one point he had one copy of a book of which only 7 were in Australia). He has, for example, perhaps 5 books if, taken together, you'd be able to understand most things about the development of design and building techniques of castles throughout Central and Western Europe.

I'm starting to show my age, lol.

p.s. I can't read Katakana, didn't even know the word. Curse my monolingual state.

Edited by Steeltrap
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On 11/6/2019 at 6:30 PM, Spitfire109 said:

Crew should be something the game eventually takes into account. If we want true realism (and the true horrors of war) then we need casualties to affect vessels.

Yes i believe the devs have said this will.be the case and those who delved into the campaign before it was disabled confirmed this too. Crew morale and training will be a factor.

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On 11/6/2019 at 1:55 PM, Spitfire109 said:

So what you're telling me is when the Campaign is released it's just better all together to completely ignore anything smaller than a Battlecruiser. Causd thatz what I'm seeing. And the mission where it let's you design a modern battleship is absolutely ridiculous. There is no world where one ship, even if it's of WW2 tech vs WW1 can annihilate a small fleet on it's own with minimal damage. Yamato was scared of and damaged enough to be of concern for it to retreat by an Escort fleet! And the accuracy achieved is completely ludicrous. Bismarck and Hood took shots at each other from 24 km out and couldn't hit a damn thing, and Bismarck had some of the best rangefinders in the world at the time.

do keep in mind that bigger ships usually means more space for firecontrol and directors 
an example is the yamato who had the largest rangefinder (to my knowledge) ever mounted to a ship (and no less than 5 of them)

if we could build 50 battleships to go around patrolling everywhere and do everything which CL and DDs did in real life like escorting fire support convoy protection and the countless countless other things they did then yes that is how its gonna be in the campaign

problem is we dont have the resources to build 50 battleships to do that (and if we do thats highly unrealistic even for USA)

 

a battleship will always out gun a cruiser it just has better firecontrol, guns, armor and directors simple as that problem is you dont have 50 to 100 battleships to go around doing the job that destroyers, destroyer, escorts, cruisers and minesweepers do

 

battleships were made to fight fleet engagements and sink anything they face so that once the enemy fleet is destroyed they can go around bombarding islands and positions with immunity  (in the case of fast battleships also go around hunting down and sinking anything they wish) they cant do the special jobs with the same versatility as smaller ships can 

also battleships take way more to run in supply costs

 

also the loss of a battleship hurts way way more than a cruiser or destroyer so it makes alot more sense to send those on missions like convoy escort patrolls and light firesupport compared to sending a battleship

 

though historically battleships were used for escort (like renown in ww2) though that was mostly due to the germans sending out battleships for raiding convoys

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On 11/6/2019 at 2:45 PM, Spitfire109 said:

So I've noticed that Cruisers, destroyers, and etc. are faaaaar too weak. Their guns dont nearly deal the damage or have the accuracy they should. I feel Cruisers and Destoyers need a massive buff, because a battleship of practically any kind is worth almost a fleet of smaller vessels, where in reality it wasn't this severe.

Advanced battleships also are a bit too extreme compared to dreadnoughts. It makes sense for Dreadnought vs Pre-dreadnaught but I feel it's a little bit extreme with Dreadnought vs WW2 era Battleship. 

While this game has some leeway with how things realistically worked, it however is supposed to be a fairly realistic game.

Ergo the larger the ship, the more powerful it is. A cruiser stands no chance against a battleship in both game and reality.

 

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On 11/7/2019 at 12:02 AM, SwaggyB said:

When it comes to battleships having superior fire direction systems, this is nonsense. The Fletcher class destroyer had far superior fire control systems than any japanese battleship. 

A nitpick, but Yamato was getting perfect straddles at 30k yards. No fletcher could do that. Even Iowa failed to do it. Be it very well trained guys in the operating room, perfect optics, or radar assistance, Yamato had eerily good accuracy going for it.

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10 hours ago, ThatZenoGuy said:

A nitpick, but Yamato was getting perfect straddles at 30k yards, Yamato had eerily good accuracy going for it.

Where dose this statement come from? From what i have heard the Japanese 46cm guns had poor accuracy at best, while the US 41cm guns were magnificent.

If i am not mistaken Either of the Yamatos never scored a hit with their 46cm guns, it is disputed if Kongo, or Musashi's secondary fire hit Samuel B. Roberts, but most scholars agree it was likely Kongo, and this exchange was at close range. Keep in mind as well, this was after Roberts sank 2 Japanese heavy cruisers with 5'' gun fire alone.

Have you read this

http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ Reports/USNTMJ-200E-0633-0764 Report 0-30.pdf

This is a post war assessment of Japanese fire control systems and it is a fairly good read "if you are a nerd like me" the TL;DR is more or less though japanese techolology was more or less on par with their american equivalents modernization was poor, and most ships still carried out of date, obsolete, or in cases no centralized fire directors, the best systems were present on or were in storage for late war destroyers, carriers, like Ryuhou, Ibuki, and Katsuragi, the Yamatos them selves had some fire directors that were less modern then those used in the 3rd Kongo modernization, though Japanese fire calculation computers were worth bring back to the US to study, we don't really know if they were present on the Yamatos, and much information on them was destroyed.

In regards to weight in sea-warfare, I ask you to think about the battle of the yellow sea between the Japanese fleet, and the Qing Beiyang fleet, The Qing fleet included to well made, (poorly stocked) Ironclad battleships, but fell to the Japanese fleet without.

6a2028a9.jpg

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31 minutes ago, Cairo1 said:

Where dose this statement come from? From what i have heard the Japanese 46cm guns had poor accuracy at best, while the US 41cm guns were magnificent.

If i am not mistaken Either of the Yamatos never scored a hit with their 46cm guns, it is disputed if Kongo, or Musashi's secondary fire hit Samuel B. Roberts, but most scholars agree it was likely Kongo, and this exchange was at close range. Keep in mind as well, this was after Roberts sank 2 Japanese heavy cruisers with 5'' gun fire alone.

Have you read this

http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ Reports/USNTMJ-200E-0633-0764 Report 0-30.pdf

This is a post war assessment of Japanese fire control systems and it is a fairly good read "if you are a nerd like me" the TL;DR is more or less though japanese techolology was more or less on par with their american equivalents modernization was poor, and most ships still carried out of date, obsolete, or in cases no centralized fire directors, the best systems were present on or were in storage for late war destroyers, carriers, like Ryuhou, Ibuki, and Katsuragi, the Yamatos them selves had some fire directors that were less modern then those used in the 3rd Kongo modernization, though Japanese fire calculation computers were worth bring back to the US to study, we don't really know if they were present on the Yamatos, and much information on them was destroyed.

In regards to weight in sea-warfare, I ask you to think about the battle of the yellow sea between the Japanese fleet, and the Qing Beiyang fleet, The Qing fleet included to well made, (poorly stocked) Ironclad battleships, but fell to the Japanese fleet without.

6a2028a9.jpg

Wasnt it a combo of poor shells, ok gun barrells and very meh rangefinders? Compared to the americans who had very good shells, good barrells and excellent rangefinders and firecontrol? (thanks to gen 2 radar made in 1939 i think).

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15 hours ago, Cairo1 said:

Where dose this statement come from? From what i have heard the Japanese 46cm guns had poor accuracy at best, while the US 41cm guns were magnificent.

Then whoever informed you on such is mistaken. US 16 inch guns were indeed magnificent, they were a rushed job but much resources and design was put into making them, resulting in lightweight but high power guns.

Yamato's guns were fairly 'heavy' for their size, but were reliable, accurate, and had no significant flaws. They were fairly 'mundane' in terms of hottness, resulting in good accuracy.

Something like, say, Soviet or Italian guns were much hotter (more powder) resulting in questionable accuracy when not used with perfectly made shells.
 

15 hours ago, Cairo1 said:

If i am not mistaken Either of the Yamatos never scored a hit with their 46cm guns, it is disputed if Kongo, or Musashi's secondary fire hit Samuel B. Roberts, but most scholars agree it was likely Kongo, and this exchange was at close range. Keep in mind as well, this was after Roberts sank 2 Japanese heavy cruisers with 5'' gun fire alone.

Yamato herself scored four hits in history, including the single longest ranged hit by a warship on another warship, when Yamato herself hit White Plains (escort carrier) at 34 thousand yards).

Yamato also hit USS Johnston with three direct 18-inch hits.

16 hours ago, Cairo1 said:

Have you read this

http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ Reports/USNTMJ-200E-0633-0764 Report 0-30.pdf

This is a post war assessment of Japanese fire control systems and it is a fairly good read "if you are a nerd like me" the TL;DR is more or less though japanese techolology was more or less on par with their american equivalents modernization was poor, and most ships still carried out of date, obsolete, or in cases no centralized fire directors, the best systems were present on or were in storage for late war destroyers, carriers, like Ryuhou, Ibuki, and Katsuragi, the Yamatos them selves had some fire directors that were less modern then those used in the 3rd Kongo modernization, though Japanese fire calculation computers were worth bring back to the US to study, we don't really know if they were present on the Yamatos, and much information on them was destroyed.

American post war studies are...Dubious. I've found way too many issues with them to take them at face value, to the degree that one could say they're close to propaganda.

In the case of fire control, Yamato certainly had the most modern of their fleet, and experiments with radar fire control were done on her. The results weren't very good so they canned it, but her radar still could provide assistance to her fire control systems.

Japanese had some of, if not the best optics of the war, aiding with rangefinding, and ships like Yamato had the longest rangefinders of any warship afloat.

It is obvious that the refitted old WW1 battleships and battlecruisers they had were not quite up to snuff with modern US battleships, but that shouldn't even need discussion.

If we are discussing the modern ships they had, then their fire control was good enough, and they proved themselves accurate with Yamato's feat of "Longest hit ever done by a warship".

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On 11/19/2019 at 1:13 PM, Cairo1 said:

Roberts sank 2 Japanese heavy cruisers with 5'' gun fire alone.

Hell no.

She sure fired a lots of shells. Probably some torpedoes and probably hit Chokai with them. But she surely didn't sink 2 freakin heavy cruisers with 127mm gunfire alone. There was TBD in the air and other destroyers fired torpedoes as well.

In what world did Sammy B. score two kills with gunfire alone?

Edited by Tousansons
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The Information I present is largely from Japanese sources as opposed to American ones, I know White plains Claims the kill on Chokai, and Chikuma is credited to TBMs in US sources, however The Japanese Credit both kills to Samuel B. Roberts, Torpedoes did take Chokai's stern, but Japanese sources Credit Roberts for the torpedo rack detonation. TBMs did Hit Chikuma, but she was also scuttled by Naganami, The loss of command systems from Roberts gun fire is where the credit comes from. Perhaps 5'' gun fire alone was a bit much :3, but it was that which gave the crippling blows. (as a neat aside the little brother of one of Roberts crew works at the War of the pacific Museum in Fredricksburg Texas, I met him while i was there with a Japanese congressman)

Keep in mind The Japanese Score Credit for kills differently then the US dose, to them its not about who gets in the last hit, but who strikes the fatal blow.

All I have read about fire from either of the Yamatos in combat was of type 3 shells, to my knowledge that was what she was firing at White plains, these are Anti air, or used for bombardment, air bursting shells. Further more I though it was Kongo that hit Johnston with her main guns. Area of effect shell not directly fired at ships don't count.

I don't find the US intelligence reports to be that biased, I figure mistakes are from lack of information. Most of them were marked secret, and for legitimate assessment, not post war anti Japanese propaganda. we certinally wanted to take advantage of anything the Japanese knew we did not.

Here is the one for the 46cm''L45 mounts.

https://web.archive.org/web/20141022175714/http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ Reports/USNTMJ-200F-0384-0445 Report O-45 N.pdf

Edited by Cairo1
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I knew this was going to be an issue. WOWS is a fun game to play but oh boy has it done incredible damage in what regards to spreading the completely wrong information on the internetz... and as most players are the way they are they suddenly think things should work like they do in that game, because of "balans".

There was no balance in history. There's a reason the battleship was the unchallenged queen of the sea for more than half a century, and only the airplane could dislodge it from that priviledged position.

In naval design terms, and as long as designers do their job reasonably well (which indeed was not the case in quite many an instance - I'm looking at you, Scharnhorst...), if we take two contemporary designs (meaning, technologically similar), the bigger ship is going to be the best one. The larger the size difference, the much larger the real power differential between both. It's merely a matter of weight and space: in the bigger ship with the larger tonnage you can pack a lot more goodies. Bigger machineries, bigger guns, more armor, better electronics, better subdivision, more stable platform, etc.

Then there's the fact that, unlike in WOWS, weapon power escalated in a very non-linear fashion with size. You may think that because your cruiser has 8'' guns it should pack a punch compared with, say, a battleship with 16'' guns, right?. It's, after all, "only twice the caliber". And in WOWS a 16'' hit only hits for maybe 3 times the power of a 8'' shell, right?.

Problem is - it's not. A 8'' average shell weighed around 100kg a 16'' average shell weighed around 1000kg. Even "minor" differences in caliber spell a massive change of power. A 11'' shel average weight was around 300kg. Three times the weight on just three extra inches of caliber. So your 8'' gunned cruiser hitting power is pitiful even against an oldish battleship with 11'' guns. First because the battleship is going to be quite bigger and 100kg shells will do a lot less to him than if they were hitting you (the bigger the ship, the better it's at absorbing hits). And second because his 11'' guns are going to make such a number on your smaller ship that it's going to be anything but pretty. Just to name an instance HMS Exeter got all but disabled with just one well placed hit from Graf Spee. Now think what a 16'' shell would do on her.


Another big problem with the "WOWS" effect is the tergiversation of the effects of certain things on big ships. I remember when I made my video series on Atlantic Fleet that quite a good number of viewers asked me about why I wasn't using HE on cruisers that were "angled". the whole "angling" thing misinformation WOWS gives to it's players is stunning. And that's a complex result of various things such as the whole made up "overmatching mechanics" in that game, the artificial way ships are plated like, or the idea that an "overpenetration" wasn't a big deal. Overmatch is a real effect, but it doesn't work like implemented in arcade games with 3d warship models (for obvious reasons) to begin with, so the whole thing falls down from there. 

But probably the worst thing is that people whose only (or main) "source" of information comes from that game have ingrained in their brain is that somehow a 1000kg shell passing through your ship from side to side is not going to cause a catastrophic scene, even if it doesn't detonate inside. Well, let me tell you, if your humble 2000ton destroyer got hit by a 16'' passthrough shell, consecuences could range from "just" two enormous holes on your ships sides and a butcher's scene in the affected compartment, to a completely disabled machinery, or worse. And those ships didn't have a "crew repair" that would fix things magically only to be put on a 2 minute cooldown - you get "overpenned" by a shell like that, your day is ruined for good, and quite likely it won't get any better in the near future.

Between all that (and more) the affixed idea of "let's angle" produces abbhorrent tactics from an historical perspective. Now, this is not saying that relative angling wouldn't cause an increment of effective armor towards incoming shells - it would, to an extent. But to a quite limited one. No naval officer with a working brain would ditch 33 or 50% of his main battery firepower "because of angling". In naval terms a broadside is not something you're looking for to shoot at - is something you look at in panic because you know the dude is going to fire with every weapon of his back at you.

So compound all that: absurd "angling meta", awfully misrepresented shell damage, point and click gunnery model, absurd visibility and spotting rules, etc, with completely unrealistic fire mechanics, etc, in that game...

Again, its an arcade, it's meant to be fast paced and "balanced", it's not realistic, it's never been intended to be, whatever idea you have of historical ship classes based on that game is non relevant because it's wrong. World of Warships could perfectly be reskinned as sandcrawlers fighting over the sands of Tatooine and called "Star Wars Desert Battles", and it'd be as "realistic" and historically relevant as it is right now with 3d models of historical (and paper) ships.


Now to the facts:
There was no such thing as "inter-class" balance historically. Cruisers were dead meat in front of battlecruisers and battleships. Destroyers were dead meat against cruisers and battleships. The idea that somehow you're going to be able to "switch to HE and burn a battleship" on a destroyer is just ludicrous.


Now someone, somewhere in this thread mentioned how dissapointed he'd be if this game would be all about battleships. Because why bother building anything other than them?. That's actually a good question, and a good starting point. Why would you build a, say, 10k ton cruiser instead of a 40k ton battleship?.

First of all - cost. A battleship cost doesn't scale linearly with size. By the price of that one battleship you'll probably be getting quite more than 4 cruisers. 4 cruisers can be in 4 places at the same time. A battleship can not. There are plenty of applications where you want numbers before anything else - a good instance would be if your nation in the campaign is a big world-wide empire, with huge trade routes that need protection in case of war. If you're in that position probably you'll want as many ships as your navy can have, yet if all you build are battleships, you won't have many.

Second of all - operating cost. A battleship takes an inordinate ammount of money and resources to just keep running. Not just the guys in the crew - which already be bigger in a big BB than in a cruiser, let alone a destroyer, but in man hours of refitting in port. You'll need a lot more materials to keep a big ship running than a small ship running. You'll also need FAR more pier space for bigger ships. If damaged, you'll need far bigger drydocks to repair the damage, and the repairs themselves will take longer and be a lot more expensive. Big ships are also much more fuel intensive than smaller ones (one of the biggest reasons the Yamatos were never used in action until the situation was desperate for Japan was that those 70k ton behemoths were massive fuel hogs and Japan didn't exactly had a lot of fuel in stock to begin with). You'll also need a far larger logistic train to keep those ships operational.

A corollary of all that is that big ships are VERY constrained in where they can operate from. Their size demands infrastructure of matching capability and the larger the ship, the less places you can operate it from. This has enormous strategic implications. For instance, the only reason the german battlecruise raids on the coast of Britain during WWI (designed to try and attract a part of the grand fleet and destroy it in detail) only could happen because the closest british bases able to handle ships of dreadnought size were in Scotland. The british naval base at Harwich couldn't accomodate them, so all the british could muster there was a mixed force of light cruisers and destroyers.
Another instance, in WW2 the famous St Nazaire Raid happened because the Normandie drydock there was the only one in the whole atlantic coast of europe capable to handle a ship of the size of Tirpitz. The germans never intended to deploy her there after the loss of Bismarck, but even if they wanted to, after that attack they just couldn't.


Third of all -tactical considerations. Battleships tend to be slower than smaller ships. Not just in top speed - their cruise speed usually is lower aswell. Speed is highly desirable in combat - it allows you to keep a slower enemy at arm's reach, out of effective range but close enough to shadow it (HMS Norfolk vs Bismarck scenario, for instance). It allows you to keep your distance, or close it rapidly when needed (destroyer flotillas doing concerted torpedo attacks on ships that are distracted by other threats, for instance).

Fourth of all cost-effectiveness. Your budget is limited and you want your ships to be as cheap as possible for the mission you want them to fullfit. You want a merchant raider?. Well, you don't need 15'' guns to kill merchants now, do you?. What you want is a fast ship to run away from enemies with big guns, long range to reach to the enemy rear areas where you're going to hunt merchants, enough weapons to kill merchants and fend off smaller, faster attackers, and just enough armor to fend off those small ships. If what you bring is a 50000 ton battleship with 16'' guns you're giving a whole new meaning to the world "overkill". 

AA escort would be another. Granted that a BB is a big ship with lots of space for AA guns. But if what you want is to give your carrier force a strong AA coverage, it's much better to have it both being more numerous, and dispersed on more platforms (so you can cover more approach angles), so a smallish light cruiser full to the tops with double purpose mounts is a far better proprosition for the role - they'll be individually not as strong as one BB, but you're going to get a lot of them for the cost of one battleship.

How about escort tasks?. Well if the enemy has some commerce raiders, you'll want something big enough to deal with them, but not too big as to be overkill again.

Etc etc etc.

Then of course there are roles that cruisers or destroyers can do, while big BBs can not. Operating on shallow litorals and coastal waters where big draft warships are at a constant risk of runnign aground but smaller, less drafty ships are not. Torpedo attacks and ASW escort for destroyers. Reconnaisance and scouting. Picket duty. And a very long etcetera of tasks and missions, some of which are either impossible to do with a massive battleship, some of which are just absurdly cost innefective to do with them.


At any rate there are plenty of reasons to balance your fleet with different classes of warships, not just big bad (and absurdly expensive) boys.

Doesn't mean that the classes have to be "balanced" between themselves. they were not historically, they should not be in a game like this one where the emphasis is on realistic naval combat and realistic fleet management (in the campaign mode). Meaning, you're going to need a shit ton of cruisers in your campaign game. But woe you if a couple of them get tagged by an enemy battleship or battlecruiser if you don't have any nearby, because then you're going to have a very very VERY black day in your navy.
 

Edited by RAMJB
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The other alternative before saying that some type of vessel is underpowered is seeing her in the campaign environnement. We don't really know how fleets will be used/formed, do we?

If my DD's are able to screen my Battleboats in an engagement, they are useful. If they can protect some convoy against submarines without sinking by the dozen, they are useful.

I agree they are weak (as all low tonnage ships should be) in the naval academy environnement because they are often pitted against ships way stronger, in total contradiction with their actual roles in naval warfare.

Even if your post is a bit long, I agree with you RAMJB. Don't take WoWs as an exemple and don't forget the cost of each ships, there is a reason DD's were the most numerous and active ships in major navies. Sure I would be happy if sometimes one of my tincan fight like a battleship against overwhelming odds, but let it be an exception.

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11 hours ago, RAMJB said:

I knew this was going to be an issue. WOWS is a fun game to play but oh boy has it done incredible damage in what regards to spreading the completely wrong information on the internetz... and as most players are the way they are they suddenly think things should work like they do in that game, because of "balans".
 

You might enjoy reading the thread

I made the following comment in it, lol:

I've said it before, the ONLY realistic thing about WoWS is the graphical representation of the ships, although their relative scale is often out of whack.

Every other aspect of that game involves various degrees of horseshit and it gives more or less a totally erroneous view of naval warfare in terms of the true nature of the relative power of various guns (a 12" shell is not twice as powerful as a 6", it's much, much greater),  damage control, ship manoeuvrability both with respect to changing course and especially with respect to speed, naval tactics, gunnery, and on and on and on. The whole "national flavour" aspect to WoWS is almost entirely bullshit as well, with the torpedo defence numbers and accuracy and "fire starting" to name just three all being ridiculously unjustified by actual data and known combat examples.

As I once pointed out in WoWS' Alpha, the less you know about all aspects of naval warfare of the period the more likely you are to enjoy that game.

The most useful thing anyone who wants this game to be reasonably 'accurate' is to forget they've ever heard of WoWS, let alone played it.

Happily enough, I suspect the devs won't indulge WoWS nonsense even if 90% of us asked for it. I admit I'm biased, as so far I've been on the side losing every poll by a large margin, LOL.

Edited by Steeltrap
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On 11/20/2019 at 9:57 PM, Cairo1 said:

All I have read about fire from either of the Yamatos in combat was of type 3 shells, to my knowledge that was what she was firing at White plains, these are Anti air, or used for bombardment, air bursting shells. Further more I though it was Kongo that hit Johnston with her main guns. Area of effect shell not directly fired at ships don't count.

She was firing Type 1 shells (variant of Type 91, basically the same). 100 was fired in total, with 4 hits. 
Type 3 was shot during that battle, but only at planes, approximately 24 were fired in total.

Yamato hit Johnson according to new information from cross checking all sources.
 

On 11/20/2019 at 9:57 PM, Cairo1 said:

I don't find the US intelligence reports to be that biased, I figure mistakes are from lack of information. Most of them were marked secret, and for legitimate assessment, not post war anti Japanese propaganda. we certinally wanted to take advantage of anything the Japanese knew we did not.

Here is the one for the 46cm''L45 mounts.

https://web.archive.org/web/20141022175714/http://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ Reports/USNTMJ-200F-0384-0445 Report O-45 N.pdf

I find some of their intelligence biased, and some accurate.

For example, British studies of Japanese armor was quite pleased by their quality and ingenuity. American studies focused on specifically bad quality plates and seemingly assumed they were the norm. I have doubts that an old Shinano turret was top of the line quality for Japan after building Yamato and Musashi.

Its good to see America praising the 18 inch mounts, as while they were heavy, they were reliable and very impressive.

 

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On 11/19/2019 at 11:30 PM, ThatZenoGuy said:

Yamato herself scored four hits in history, including the single longest ranged hit by a warship on another warship, when Yamato herself hit White Plains (escort carrier) at 34 thousand yards).
 

Funny way of spelling Warspite and Guilio Cesare. 

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I think he's trying to convey, albeit with some sarcasm, that Yamato's hits off Samar don't seem to be based on any hard, 1st account, evidence. Yes, I know certain works mention them. Many, in fact, the large majority of the others don't - and this is the kind of thing sources don't tend to ignore mentioning. Specially not when at the time the US still wasn't truly aware of the size of those guns being that large, as the US Navy official identification manual listed the Yamatos as 16'' gunned ships (there were suspicions, but nothing beyond that). The far larger effect of the much heavier 18'' shell hits on an unprotected escort carrier would've been unmistakeable for everyone - and would've made a pretty massive fuzz around the US Navy.

But yet again, there's no mention of such kind of damage in most sources, nor any hard evidence that proves they happened at all to begin with.

I'm not denying (or confirming) those hits took place - all I'm saying is that documentation about it is sketchy at best. In fact documentation about it can be reduced to ... Claims. And claims are easy to make - far harder to back up, specially when there's no evidence that White Plains was actually hit by anything.
And given that those claims come from a very, very, very limited selection of sources, which don't seem to be backed by any hard evidence, they're that. Claims. But nothing beyond that.

Meanwhile Warspite's hit on Cesare is very well documented. So is Scharnhorst's on Glorious (it's actually a tie between both encounters). Both are still listed as the longest ranged gunfire hit achieved by a warship on another. Yamato's record...is nowhere to be found.

BTW,
Wikipedia's entry about the engagement (I know, I know, Wikipedia - but I've read plenty about the subject and this whole paragraph seems accurate according to almost every source I've ever read about the engagement):

Yamato opened fire at 0659 at an estimated range of 34,544 yards, targeting White Plains with her first four salvoes. Yamato's third salvo was a close straddle landing at 07:04. One shell from this salvo exploded beneath the turn of White Plains port bilge near frame 142, near her aft (starboard) engine room. While the ship was not struck directly, the mining effect of the under-keel explosion severely damaged her hull, deranged her starboard machinery and tripped all of the circuit breakers in her electrical network. Prompt and effective damage control restored power and communications within three minutes and she was able to remain in formation by overspeeding her port engine to compensate. Fortunately the black smoke resulting from the sudden loss of boiler intake air pressure convinced Yamato and Nagato (which was also firing her main battery at White Plains at the time) that they had scored a direct hit and they shifted fire to other targets.

Here I must add that a near miss does not qualify as a hit. Even if it caused pretty serious damage. I'll also go on to mention that Yamato would've eventually scored a hit as her shooting was remarcably accurate (even more keeping in mind the ranges involved). She switched fire because she thought the carrier was history - there's little to debate, a 18'' shell direct hit on a CVE was more than enough to send it to kingdom come so when heavy smoke coming from the ship was detected, the ship understandably switched to other targets. That the longest range hit accolade doesn't belong to Yamato was, thus, purely accidental. But the fact remains that lacking any hard evidence of such a hit, she didn't score it, hence that accolade isn't hers.



And also the official Guinness Record entry about the subject:

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-range-hit-by-a-ships-gun/

Tie between Warspite and Scharnhorst. Yamato is not even mentioned...because again, there's no real evidence of Yamato hitting White Plains. Hence, until someone comes with hard evidence of those hits - those hits officially never existed...which means that in reality they probably never existed either.

Edited by RAMJB
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2 hours ago, RAMJB said:

I think he's trying to convey, albeit with some sarcasm, that Yamato's hits off Samar don't seem to be based on any hard, 1st account, evidence. Yes, I know certain works mention them. Many, in fact, the large majority of the others don't - and this is the kind of thing sources don't tend to ignore mentioning. Specially not when at the time the US still wasn't truly aware of the size of those guns being that large, as the US Navy official identification manual listed the Yamatos as 16'' gunned ships (there were suspicions, but nothing beyond that). The far larger effect of the much heavier 18'' shell hits on an unprotected escort carrier would've been unmistakeable for everyone - and would've made a pretty massive fuzz around the US Navy.

The difference in size between a 16 inch and 18 inch hit isn't too crazy, even a 14 inch splash.

The Navy knew that Japan at most had 16 inch guns, and thus assumed Yamato and Musashi was firing 16 inch shells.

They did not even consider 18 inch guns.

2 hours ago, RAMJB said:

Meanwhile Warspite's hit on Cesare is very well documented. So is Scharnhorst's on Glorious (it's actually a tie between both encounters). Both are still listed as the longest ranged gunfire hit achieved by a warship on another. Yamato's record...is nowhere to be found.

That's a logical fallacy however. Just because no one talks about it, doesn't mean it never happened.

Does a falling tree make any sound when no one is around to hear it?

2 hours ago, RAMJB said:

BTW,
Wikipedia's entry about the engagement (I know, I know, Wikipedia - but I've read plenty about the subject and this whole paragraph seems accurate according to almost every source I've ever read about the engagement):

Yamato opened fire at 0659 at an estimated range of 34,544 yards, targeting White Plains with her first four salvoes. Yamato's third salvo was a close straddle landing at 07:04. One shell from this salvo exploded beneath the turn of White Plains port bilge near frame 142, near her aft (starboard) engine room. While the ship was not struck directly, the mining effect of the under-keel explosion severely damaged her hull, deranged her starboard machinery and tripped all of the circuit breakers in her electrical network. Prompt and effective damage control restored power and communications within three minutes and she was able to remain in formation by overspeeding her port engine to compensate. Fortunately the black smoke resulting from the sudden loss of boiler intake air pressure convinced Yamato and Nagato (which was also firing her main battery at White Plains at the time) that they had scored a direct hit and they shifted fire to other targets.

There's a bit more than that.

Shock threw out both generators resulting in complete loss of power.
Ship twisted and lifted, crushing and tearing expansion joints at frame 101 and 146 port and starboard.
Bottom shell plating in C-902V between frames 136-152 and port shaft alley and turn in bilge dished up 6 inches. Frames and web framing torn loose and buckled, numerous welds torn loose from overhead and bottom plating. Buckling from bottom plating slightly forward of after engine room and boiler room.
Fragment 8” diameter causing deep dent at frame 141. Turn in bilge prevented fragment from penetrating shell plating. (Photo of the actual dent in dry dock shows it to be 18" in diameter)
Oil leaks in storage rooms C-401A
Bottom shell plating buckled in C903 between frames 148-149 and starboard shaft alley also buckled in.
Salt water leak in gasoline void A-406 flooding to 36” deep.
Both gasoline educators frozen and warped
After elevator out of alignment
Hanger deck shell plating cracked from deck level to one foot forward of expansion joint 146. 48 hours after battle more cracks develop indicating hull stresses with the extent of damage which can not be determined yet.

Additionally the Type 91 in an alternative role can be used as an under-the-keel weapon (No other shell has the delay or underwater performance), ergo it counts as a hit as the weapon is designed for underwater attack.

And what even defines a 'hit'? Physical contact? In that case nuclear weapons, torpedoes, mines, grenades, and more can never 'hit' someone. Which in laymans terms is 'retarded'.

Fact is Yamato almost broke an escort carrier in half with a hit under the keel at 34000 yards. Impressive.

2 hours ago, RAMJB said:

And also the official Guinness Record entry about the subject:

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/longest-range-hit-by-a-ships-gun/

Tie between Warspite and Scharnhorst. Yamato is not even mentioned...because again, there's no real evidence of Yamato hitting White Plains. Hence, until someone comes with hard evidence of those hits - those hits officially never existed...which means that in reality they probably never existed either.


Also a logical fallacy, argument from authority. What the Guiness Record says has no basis in reality. They could proclaim anything.
Additionally there's stuff like Kongo and some US battleships with alleged monstrously long range hits...Just not as long ranged as Yamato's glorious strike on White Plains.

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As an addition, White Plains had an 18.1 inch inward indentation on the outer area of her bilge, she received no other hits other than Yamato's hit, ergo this indentation must have been from the same shell.

But...


What would cause a inward dent at the turn of the bilge at frame 141, if shell detonated beneath her keel amidships below the hull? The keel being pressed up would sheer the outer shell outward not inward. If the shell detonates below her keel amidships a fragment travelling through the water would have to pass the side of the ship and reverse its direction to strike the hull with enough force to push in the plate which is impossible. The simplest explanation is the shell clipped the hull leaving a slight indentation at the curve in the bilge, passed below the hull and detonated. The gas bubble pushed in the keel cracking seams which caused some flooding and a lot of shock damage. What else could cause the 18-inch diameter dent at the turn of the bilge? It is listed as part of the gunfire damage.
 

 

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1 hour ago, ThatZenoGuy said:

That's a logical fallacy however. Just because no one talks about it, doesn't mean it never happened.

Does a falling tree make any sound when no one is around to hear it?

 



I'm terribly sorry, mate. Following your line of thought there are aliens in Antares, spider like, with big horns and dragonlike wings.

Just because noone talks about it, nor has been there to corroborate it isn't the case, doesn't mean it isn't true.

Also, I know Napoleon for sure was a traveler from a far future who used an one way time machine to put himself in Revolutionary France to be emperor.

Just because noone talks about it, nor that there's any way to dispel such an absolutely stupid idea, doesn't mean it isn't true either?. That some trees fall without anyone close enough to hear them falling doesn't mean that every time you're NOT hearing trees fall, legions or them are dropping like mad. Otherwise our problem with the Amazon being destroyed by human action wouldn't be humans destroying it, but whole forests falling off themselves, whenever no human was close enough to hear them doing so.


This is the way things work in this world: if something can't be proven with hard data and evidence, it didn't happen. Doesn't mean everything that's unproven is false. But it DOES mean that unless properly proven, and backed up with hard evidence, it's treated as a theory at best, a baseless claim at worst. Pick the one you want for this case, for there's not a third option. Whenever you're making a point and using it to back an argument, burden on proof it's on YOU. You're the one who has to provide the hard evidence that backs it up. Burden of proof is not on the rest of the world to prove it didn't happen.

Long version made short: until you can bring hard evidence of direct 18'' impacts on that carrier, those impacts never happened. Burden of proof is on you, as you're the one saying it did happen to begin with. Lack of proof means you only have a claim. Which is pretty nice, but serves of no purpose in any serious debate.


And yes, an underwater exploding 3200lb shell would do impressive damage indeed. You know, that's why magnetic pistols were used on torpedos. They were intended to explode under a battleship keel and break it. Something designed to break a battleship's back is OBVIOUSLY going to make a number on a merchant hulled CVE.

"But" you'll say "That CVE wasn't hit by a torpedo. Why do you mention torpedos to begin with?", you'll follow.

Well, it just so happens that an american Mk14 torpedo weighed 3280lbs. A German G7 torpedo was around 1500 kg (that means, 3200lbs).

 The japanese 18'' shells fired by Yamato weighed 3198lbs. Granted, their HE filler wasn't as big as that of a torpedo warhead - but still the scale of the damage out of a 18'' diving shell exploding underwater close to a merchant hull can be if not directly compared with whatever damage a torpedo would do in a direct under-the-hull magnetic detonation, at least be used as a rough estimate of how serious that kind of damage was for a ship with far less structural strenght and integrity than a battleship, as a CVE was (which was nothing other than a cargo hull modified for light carrier operations) ***


And yes, the minimum consideration for a hit to be considered as a hit, is that the projectile must have...well...actually HIT the target. You know, sounds kinda basic ;). And no, exploding next to it (Even if the near miss caused damage) does not register as a hit. It's a near miss. And yes, near misses caused damage to warships too. They still weren't counted as hits however.

As for your "indentation", well that it can't be a 18'' shell mark is plain to see. Because had a 18'' projectile actually hit that ship and gone off, it'd been shredded on place, and there would be no plate left to look for indentations on, to wonder what caused them. And if it had hit and not gone off then there'd be a huge body of evidence (namely, a 18'' undetonated projectile) lodged in that ship. And there was none to be found.


*** Magnetic pistols were disabled very early on on german torpedoes, and oficially after 1943 on american ones (skippers had been unoficially removing them way before that though). They were unreliable as heck, and rarely performed as designed, generally either failing to detonate or worse, detonate too early on the run giving away the presence of the submarine. So for the remainder of the war both submarine forces switched to contact pistols only. German torpedoes immediately returned instant success. American torpedoes still had to deal with defective contact pistols aswell, so until 1944 they remained extremely unreliable.

 Yet unreliable as they were, magnetic detonations directly under a hull **WERE** catastrophic by design. HMS Nelson got nearly sunk after a magnetic mine estimated to be in the 420-530kg range went off under her in 1939. Damage reports listed the subsequent damage as follow:

The NELSON sustained serious structural damage and flooding. Within minutes she took on a 3¼ list to starboard caused by flooding between No. 23 and No. 80 bulkheads. Her bottom was also torn in several places, mainly to starboard; the outer bottom plating for a distance of 70 feet was forced inboard by about 4 feet, and flooding extended over a distance of 140 feet. Main armament equipment, mainly the ammunition supply machinery, was also damaged by shock.


Nelson in fact would've been in very dire straits had she not been pretty much next to a harbor where she could be anchored and serviced immediately.

 

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46 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

I'm terribly sorry, mate. Following your line of thought there are aliens in Antares, spider like, with big horns and dragonlike wings.

Just because noone talks about it, nor has been there to corroborate it isn't the case, doesn't mean it isn't true.

That's just being snide and not comprehending what I am talking about. 

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It's not being snide. Is pointing out how flawed the argument of "if you don't have proof it doesn't mean it didn't happen" is at the hour of using it to prove whatever your argument is.

When you make a statement, it's on you to provide enough information and proof to back it up as valid. Not for your audience to prove it as false.
So if you do not provide it then yours is no longer a statement. It's a theory at best. A claim. And saying "as you can't prove me wrong, then what I say is true and a fact" does not work out. Again, if you make a statement burden of proof is on you.

Because if you insist in the opposite I insist there are Aliens in Antares, spider like, with horns and dragon wings, they have visited us in the past and are actively abductioning ginger male boys under 12 years old to perform experiments on to check on wether they have a soul or not.

And under the same standards you're using to claim that Yamato did hit White Plains, then unless you prove that bullshit alien story as false then we all should have to collectively agree that it's true then. That's the fallacy of your whole argument. That the example I used to illustrate it is extreme to the point of ridiculous is not the result of trying to be snide. It's only a vehicle to show up to which point applying the standards you're trying to apply to claim that hit happened is flawed.

I repeat: history ain't written based on claims. Facts are either backed up by hard, tangible, evidence, or aren't facts at all. There's absolutely no evidence whatsoever that White Plains was hit by anything, only that she suffered from the effects of a near miss ("miss" being the keyword here, being the polar opposite of "hit"). Hence, that claimed hit didn't happen.



And for the record I insist again: that this is an incidental thing. White Plains wasn't hit because Yamato stopped firing on her thinking she had hit them. Had Yamato kept on shooting, it would've taken one, maybe two salvoes to get her for good with true solid hits, as the near miss that damaged her happened in a perfect straddle. Yamato had her tight on her sights with a solid firing solution. Had she kept on firings, hits would've happened, no question about it. For me that's an instance and example of how incredibly accurate long range battleship fire was by that stage and how good Yamato's gunnery was. That an actual hit didn't happen is only a sidenote in that regard.

It is not however when dealing with records. The longest ranged gunfire hit on naval combat still is a tie beween Warspite and Scharnhorst. Those two ships *DID* hit their targets. And Yamato did not, no matter how spectacularly accurate her long range accuracy proved out to be. I insist you can't claim a "near miss" as a "hit" the same way you can't claim that the water you're bathing on is too dry, or that weather is so hot that you're freezing.

If a near miss happened, then a hit didn't. By definition you can't hit something you missed. It's pretty self explanatory, really.

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