sail in reverse

[Cairo1]

1 minute ago, Steeltrap said:

I think, for understandable reasons, you've mistaken the bit where I said "find me examples" to mean stopping under risk of fire.

That was sort of a second part of a discussion. The examples for which I was asking was in reference to this whole "bow tanking/coming to a stop and slowly backing" absurdity so rife in WoWS.

Which is why I said navies didn't add it to doctrine, and I certainly haven't ever found an example of it. So I was referring to an open sea battle where enemy ships are exchanging fire.

As I said, I can see the reason for why you viewed it as you did, however.

Cheers

Ah sory, I don't play with trash, so i dotn understand everything said about Wargaming's products

Please enjoy this Colorized picture as an apology.

[Steeltrap]

3 minutes ago, Cairo1 said:

I will fill in the information when i find where i read the story but this one is pretty good.

Did you know the Japanese navy  trained crews and performed experiments with High speed reverse maneuvering? The Japanese had concerns about their precious carriers taking catostrphic damage to the bow and thus taking in great water in the event of withdraw, thus trials began to be conducted and speeds clocked with Carriers, destroyers, and light cruisers in reverse. these trials actually saved the destroyer Amatsukaze who had her bow ahead of her bridge entirely blown away by a torpedo, she sailed away in reverse to prevent taking on greater water, and later had a temp bow affixed.

In "Clear the Bridge", Dick O'Kane tells the story of firing a spread of torpedoes from USS Tang while going full astern having backed off a sandbank while submerged and having the bow and stern planesmen in revered positions, lol.

[Steeltrap]

7 minutes ago, Cairo1 said:

Ah sory, I don't play with trash, so i dotn understand everything said about Wargaming's products

Please enjoy this Colorized picture as an apology.

LOL, no need for an apology, but I'll happily enjoy the pic thanks.

I played WoWS from Alpha to release then dropped it. I had played WoT from beta in 2010 to about 2013 and left it after it became absurd and boring, which was a shame as for a while at least it could be quite good fun and required some knowledge and skill to play well.

Cheers

Edited November 19, 2019 by Steeltrap

[Cptbarney]

2 minutes ago, Steeltrap said:

LOL, no need for an apology, but I'll happily enjoy the pic thanks.

I played WoWS from Alpha to release then dropped it. I had played WoT from beta in 2010 to about 2013 and left it after it became absurd and boring, which was a shame as for a while at least it could be quite good fun and required some knowledge and skill to play well.

Cheers

I wouldn't bother playing it now, CV's are broken and most of the mechanics are horrible, like radar detecting ships behind islands (lol), questionable bugs, lack of QoL improvements, too many bloody temp time-gate events that make you stressed out trying to get the next premium ship, subs which will be a disaster like CV's have been (ironically enough RTS was the most balanced version of it).

And all dem russian ships that are now flying out of nowhere. The game has been dumbed down massively just to cater to a gobby minority who didn't like their BB's getting torped or using WASD hacks (yes the playerbase is that bad that basic SA and common sense were non-existant to the point peeps forgot there were other keys).

Check out world of objects (tanks) which seems to be spamming russian tanks (heavies mostly) from god knows where.

Surprised an FPS hasn't been made by them with 25% rng to everything you do lol.

[Steeltrap]

22 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Well they can still add it in regardless, just have an option to toggle it off. It would be better if it was just limited to player choice anyways.

Again there is no reason not to add it in. also with bow tanking your never stationary anyways, your either in reverse or going forward but keeping the bow pointed at an angle.

Guess it makes the game more interesting though, but i guess would tax the AI somewhat if you suddenly went to stop then reversed.

At least have a stop option to suddenly stop the ship even if it causes problems.

Yeah, on reflection I might have been a bit too aggro in my response. I personally hate it because I know it's utter baloney and just should not happen in combat.

Provided the AI doesn't get utterly stupefied by it, I suppose it doesn't matter.

Even so, it ought to take several minutes to achieve at the very least. Bear in mind, too, as I pointed out before, even ships like RN County Cruisers took 10 minutes to reach 25 knots ahead from a standing start, and their performance astern is going to be considerably worse in terms of acceleration and achievable speed.

Something like a BB or nearly all the older ships using pre-turbine engines will take minutes even to stop, let alone reverse.

[Cptbarney]

Just now, Steeltrap said:

Yeah, on reflection I might have been a bit too aggro in my response. I personally hate it because I know it's utter baloney and just should not happen in combat.

Provided the AI doesn't get utterly stupefied by it, I suppose it doesn't matter.

Even so, it ought to take several minutes to achieve at the very least. Bear in mind, too, as I pointed out before, even ships like RN County Cruisers took 10 minutes to reach 25 knots ahead from a standing start, and their performance astern is going to be considerably worse in terms of acceleration and achievable speed.

Something like a BB or nearly all the older ships using pre-turbine engines will take minutes even to stop, let alone reverse.

Yeah, i know what you mean and thats fine should probs close down the wows forum tab lol.

Either way i doubt it will be added i could careless to be honest, might just be another feature they could add in some dlc that's toggable or something.

I always assumed ships would take ages anyways (well i thought it would take hours lol, just to get to top speed).

But yeah i think everything in world of warships is like tuned up to 2-4 times or something? Except turrets they seem to be normal? (lol).

Wish i had the monies to build a modern style battleship even if just for the memes.

At least the community on these forums is far better than world of tanks/ships. You can argue without people going mental or insane lol.

And last point im pretty sure the AI would have a heart attack, it fails to disengage properly in general when formations are thing so...yeah.

[Steeltrap]

Just now, Cptbarney said:

I wouldn't bother playing it now, CV's are broken and most of the mechanics are horrible, like radar detecting ships behind islands (lol), questionable bugs, lack of QoL improvements, too many bloody temp time-gate events that make you stressed out trying to get the next premium ship, subs which will be a disaster like CV's have been (ironically enough RTS was the most balanced version of it).

And all dem russian ships that are now flying out of nowhere. The game has been dumbed down massively just to cater to a gobby minority who didn't like their BB's getting torped or using WASD hacks (yes the playerbase is that bad that basic SA and common sense were non-existant to the point peeps forgot there were other keys).

Check out world of objects (tanks) which seems to be spamming russian tanks (heavies mostly) from god knows where.

Surprised an FPS hasn't been made by them with 25% rng to everything you do lol.

Yeah it's sad what WG did to those games.

I'm an older fart who has played things like 'Tractics', a set of rules for AFV combat in WW2 using 1/72nd scale models (that you had to build yourself, of course) on a large floorspace with tape measure and making terrain using diorama materials and large cloths. Very detailed, loads of fun if you're a military history nerd as my friends and I generally are.

A game like WoT seemed like a dream for us. Indeed initially it was a lot of fun, even if Arty was clearly an appalling design choice and blight on the game. I was in a clan, the works.

It became an increasingly stupid cash grab based on 'premium ammo' and loads of BS tanks. We all left. WoWS is going same way, just not quite as badly yet.

Funny fact: I suggested in WoWS Alpha they ought to cover the period THIS game covers precisely because it had so many real ships from so many nations and it could end with the big boys that were famous in WW2 and avoid the problems of CVs entirely. I still think I was correct, lol.

[Steeltrap]

2 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

At least the community on these forums is far better than world of tanks/ships. You can argue without people going mental or insane lol.

Agree with you there. It's usually the case Alpha tests will attract those most interested in the game subject. The WoWS Alpha forum was pretty civilised.

Even the WoT beta that started with every non-Russian  player on one server and forum in EU, then the USA, then split to both EU and USA was pretty good.

Sadly letting the rabble in often doesn't improve the atmosphere, LOL.

Cheers

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, Steeltrap said:

Yeah it's sad what WG did to those games.

I'm an older fart who has played things like 'Tractics', a set of rules for AFV combat in WW2 using 1/72nd scale models (that you had to build yourself, of course) on a large floorspace with tape measure and making terrain using diorama materials and large cloths. Very detailed, loads of fun if you're a military history nerd as my friends and I generally are.

A game like WoT seemed like a dream for us. Indeed initially it was a lot of fun, even if Arty was clearly an appalling design choice and blight on the game. I was in a clan, the works.

It became an increasingly stupid cash grab based on 'premium ammo' and loads of BS tanks. We all left. WoWS is going same way, just not quite as badly yet.

Funny fact: I suggested in WoWS Alpha they ought to cover the period THIS game covers precisely because it had so many real ships from so many nations and it could end with the big boys that were famous in WW2 and avoid the problems of CVs entirely. I still think I was correct, lol.

Yeah im a lot younger played wurld of danks when it was still kinda new and in closed beta, but gold ammo along with horrible balance descisons (wheely bins going over 90km/h against a poor 120ton E100 (Tiger 4 or Emperor tiger as i would of called it) and watch it try and swing it's fat turret only to die to everysingle tank on the enemy team)

maps got worse as well (hidden village was alright but 1/3 was wasted, hated swamp with a passion).

You will be glad to know that double barrelled russian tanks are a thing and arty got nerfed.

Sounds like it would of been a good idea as well. Wargaming seem good at ignoring suggestions, especially very sound ones and with well thoughtout plans and details.

Shame really, i stopped playing wot's after 1.1 and i cba with wows atm.

Im glad this is singleplayer as the problems of multi would just end it.

Either way i can't wait for alpha 3, i predict alpha 4 for basic campaign and maybe alpha 6 with either full campaign or half (depending on what they want to test)

[Steeltrap]

^ Entirely of the same view, especially about 1P.

As I have been known to say in the past, the only time I am willing to deal with other people's stupidity when I could otherwise avoid doing so is if someone is paying me lots of money.

MMOs and I don't get along well, lol.

 

[Diabolic_Wave]

7 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

I don't see how it is. It makes no sense for me to go forward and risk broadside and kite just because i can't slow down the ship and reverse keeping my bow angled to ships which would ricohect a lot of rounds, obviously that depends on the armour profile and thickness plus type but still.

Theres no reason not to add into the game, Armour angling still works regardless, plus presents a smaller profile making it harder to hit you and easier to hit them. Unless they have something similar.

Because broadside isn't as suicidal as it seems in an arcade game. I'd personally argue that it's more suicidal to go bow in towards the enemy, even.

When targeting a ship, your problems are azimuth and range. You need to be able to point the guns in the horizontal direction of your enemy. A ship heading straight towards your own ship has very little horizontal movement, and is trival to find the correct azimuth for.
Without rangefinding radar, range is far, far harder. Let's take the battle off Samar. Due to rangefinding problems (like having no idea the size of the ship they were facing), the Japanese didn't score many hits.
Now, if you give the enemy not ten metres of range to hit you in, but 100 metres, that gives them a lot more leeway. Turning away and opening the range is a lot more sensible than remaining where you are, or reversing slowly, and waiting for the enemy warships to catch up to you.

Add to that the fact that you're, again, probably not realistically bouncing shells delivered into the bows, and I think there's a really solid argument against encouraging bow-tanking in the slightest in an even slightly realistic game.

[Mycophobia]

The actual benefit of armor angling is very questionable in reality. A plunging fire hit will care very little about how your ship is angled if it impact the deck and not the belt. A horizontal belt hit benefit from angling, especially at closer range, but then without the silly "autobounce"/"overmatch" mechanic, they are far more likely to hit bow and hit the transverse bulkhead, which will not be angled against such a hit. Not to mention in that case almost any hit you receive are likely going through the transverse bulkhead into your magazine/fore turret barbette...

Not to mention head-on turret hit should be far more deadly than they are in WoWs, and close range-bow tanking basically means shots are more likely to go to the turret.

There can be some defensive benefit to angle yourself a bit(and something like a 20 degree angling, not bow tanking....) at a shortish range, but certainly not a core-mechanic you plan battles around or do all the time. From a realistic perspective, you'd think if bow tanking was very useful people would do it where possible. Warships are designed to take hits on their belt armor, not their bow. 

[Steeltrap]

@Diabolic_Wave makes very good points about the gunnery challenge. I think the game does a pretty good job with it, too, and as a consequence I really avoid presenting too narrow an angle in a capital ship unless I have to as part of changing course.

In my experience the enemy is more likely to hit me (I'm giving them a larger range band containing my ship assuming they get azimuth correct) and, to make it worse, those hits tend to be on things like towers and funnels, neither of which are very resistant and also are rather significant to my ship's performance.

So I tend to angle somewhat. Technically an angle can matter for belt hits, although I think the game overstates it somewhat in that the more angle you present the less likely the belt is to BE hit but I'm not sure the game's engine accounts for that too well given how often I see such hits.

Which brings us to what @Mycophobia has written, to which I don't feel there's anything to add.

I still expect anyone who tries "bow tanking" as done in WoWS will find they get hit a lot more than they would were they moving at speed, and those hits will be to important and sensitive items.

IMO that's exactly as it should be.

Cheers

Edited November 20, 2019 by Steeltrap
minor additions/amendments

[Cairo1]

I think that part of the argument here may be a result of Wows, but not from their shitty gimmicky game play, People see the All guns forward in quad turrets, and think "oh wow thats a great idea" or see ships like Nelson thinking those ships were designed to sail head on and fight in such a manner. What may not be understood is the bad performance seen in quad turrets, specifically their bad accuracy, Bad, not poor Bad. Use over time, combined with the science of maths has shown us the reverberation and resonance of turrets with these layouts caused movement in the turret and loss of precision in aiming equipment. Other all guns forward designs were centered around the idea of the guns, and magazines inside a smaller area needing less heavy armor in order to comply with treaty regulations. These ships weren't designed to be powerful, they were designed to be clever. One can only be so clever before his own machinations come back to bite him. 

The French have a reputation for building clever ships, and often they are just a little too clever. Remember Bouvet which sank in just TWO minutes with just over 70 of her 700 man crew surviving.

The power of pinesol

[Cptbarney]

16 hours ago, Diabolic_Wave said:

Because broadside isn't as suicidal as it seems in an arcade game. I'd personally argue that it's more suicidal to go bow in towards the enemy, even.

When targeting a ship, your problems are azimuth and range. You need to be able to point the guns in the horizontal direction of your enemy. A ship heading straight towards your own ship has very little horizontal movement, and is trival to find the correct azimuth for.
Without rangefinding radar, range is far, far harder. Let's take the battle off Samar. Due to rangefinding problems (like having no idea the size of the ship they were facing), the Japanese didn't score many hits.
Now, if you give the enemy not ten metres of range to hit you in, but 100 metres, that gives them a lot more leeway. Turning away and opening the range is a lot more sensible than remaining where you are, or reversing slowly, and waiting for the enemy warships to catch up to you.

Add to that the fact that you're, again, probably not realistically bouncing shells delivered into the bows, and I think there's a really solid argument against encouraging bow-tanking in the slightest in an even slightly realistic game.

Yeah, i know now. Regardless a lot of peeps want the feature in so if they add it in, theres no way to turn it off. Unless they add said option of course to the game.

Plus i've never played any naval game besides world of warships (which oddly enough got me into ships in the first place and i started reading about them for the first time).

Sorry if i was rude, just from my limited experience i assumed it would work or work well enough i guess.

[Diabolic_Wave]

3 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Yeah, i know now. Regardless a lot of peeps want the feature in so if they add it in, theres no way to turn it off. Unless they add said option of course to the game.

Plus i've never played any naval game besides world of warships (which oddly enough got me into ships in the first place and i started reading about them for the first time).

Sorry if i was rude, just from my limited experience i assumed it would work or work well enough i guess.

Fair enough. Note; I'm not against reversing the engine, if only for quicker slowing down. I just thought that your rationale for it was quite suspect, if the game is supposed to accurately represent naval warfare.
Speaking of being rude, I was probably also a little rude too. Sorry if I did seem it.

[Angus MacDuff]

3 minutes ago, Cptbarney said:

Yeah, i know now. Regardless a lot of peeps want the feature in so if they add it in, theres no way to turn it off. Unless they add said option of course to the game.

I don't see any reason to not add this ability.  In any sort of realistic Sim of this period, you are just giving the player the ability to shoot themselves in the foot.  A ship SHOULD be able to reverse engines/props, slow down and eventually go astern....angle themselves so that they are bows on at the same time.  That doesn't mean its a brilliant manoeuvre and I suspect that with the quality of this sim, you will be severely punished for it.  What you want to do is make your opponents fire control solution as difficult as possible.  As mentioned above, this requires a rapid change in azimuth and subtle range changes...all the while, trying to keep your own solution as accurate as possible.  The proven torpedo counter-measure is a course change, ideally "combing" the spread or turning out of it entirely.

[Cptbarney]

3 minutes ago, Diabolic_Wave said:

Fair enough. Note; I'm not against reversing the engine, if only for quicker slowing down. I just thought that your rationale for it was quite suspect, if the game is supposed to accurately represent naval warfare.
Speaking of being rude, I was probably also a little rude too. Sorry if I did seem it.

Nah thats ok lol, i think im getting too hyped about the game spamming ideas here and there.

Maybe we could have a sudden stop or slow down button? But add penalties that you would get in real life maybe to both sides if it applies to both.

Yeah thats ok, i need to read moar about naval warfare clearly. Hmm i wonder if engine boost would/could be a thing in this game?

[Skeksis]

Steaming in "formations" is already crazy enough for Dev’s, adding reverse into the mix is probably going to be really “problematic”. IMHO I doubt reversing fleets in a "tactical wide theatre" is going to be a valuable manoeuvre anyway. Emergency stop has merit though. 😎

Edited November 20, 2019 by Skeksis

[disc]

I think reverse is a good idea, provided ramming is added. May need to back out after the ram. A "crash stop" button is a good idea too. Most warships really could perform a crash stop, which does not require a double rudder, only a reverse. The double rudder can add to this effect.

Dreadnought indeed had reversing turbines, incidentally. The HP astern turbines were on the outer shafts, and the LP astern were integrated with the LP ahead on the inner shafts. "A lack of astern power" is often cited because they were not very powerful, not that they were nonexistent.

Contrary to what has been said before, a ship does not necessarily need to come to a complete stop to go into reverse. Your car doesn't, either -- it will work, most of the time. The issue is that it strains the drivetrain, especially the gearbox. Ships tend to have very robust drivetrains. In a direct drive ship like Dreadnought, there is no gearbox of any kind. All of Dreadnought's turbines -- ahead, astern, and even the nonfunctional cruising turbines -- were on the shaft, going straight to the propeller. Most steam piston-engine designs likewise were and are direct drive. With geared turbines, usually the gearbox consists of two to four gears permanently in sync, with no shifting, making them comparatively durable. Cruising turbines usually had a separate gear reduction, but astern turbines (at least for Japanese ships) were often integral to the ahead turbine housing and had no separate gearing.

On a steam piston-engine, reverse is selected by changing the valve timing. This is easy to do. The rotating momentum of the shaft will have to compress steam, causing a braking effect and eventually reversing the prop. This will slow the ship. Likewise, with a turbine, opening the astern turbine valve will cause pressures that actively slow the prop. Blade and vane cavitation may very well occur and blades could break, but this was hardly unusual for the time. Likewise, cavitation on the props will be high, which may damage them. If you're dodging a torpedo or trying not to ram your own flagship, possibly damaging the props or astern turbines may be justified. The ship will still take a little while to stop. Going full astern will simply slow the ship faster.

With a Diesel plant with mechanical transmission, air injection can be used to halt the crankshaft quickly. The engine can then be started in the reverse direction. Again, this leads to stress on the engine, but this may be justified.

A Diesel-electric or turbo-electric plant can apply full power astern, so theoretically it can crash stop even quicker.

A ship with controllable pitch props can change the pitch without stopping the shaft, which may effect a reverse. This is largely outside our timespan. Some German light cruisers in the interwar era had controllable pitch, but with some very extreme caveats, such that it might be irrelevant to actually add it to the game.

Lastly, as mentioned before, turning one or both rudders will slow the ship, as will deploying the anchor. Deploying the anchor for this purpose can only be done safely in shallow waters, and even then one risks a chain break or motor brake failure.

This video has some fairly good information on the subject: https://youtu.be/seUOEt4l97c?t=371

 

 

 

On another note, it's important to point out that a bow-facing line-abreast general attack was a well-accepted tactic until the First Sino-Japanese War. The Austrians experienced success with a wedge attack in 1866 at the Battle of Lissa. See below for the initial engagement: the Austrians are in red and the Italians in blue.

The Italians, who "crossed the T", actually lost. This engagement famously featured several ramming actions, which gave life to the ram idea for years onward.

Line-abreast is in the game, under the formations tab. Of course, at Yalu River, this was shown to be not so great of a stratagem -- which is why it was largely abandoned. Here, the Chinese are in grey and the Japanese in black. The bottom panel is the initial engagement. Though this diagram is "from memory," the depiction of the initial disposition is fairly accurate. 

The Chinese attempted a line-abreast attack and were defeated. 

The idea of "bow tanking," in the sense of stopping mid battle to continue firing forward, is of course ludicrous.

Edited November 20, 2019 by disc

[Skeksis]

2 hours ago, disc said:

provided ramming is added

Early to mid-game campaign recourses will be valuable, wasting them on ramming would be an inefficient strategy, end game would most likely be long range high accuracies tech, still no ramming.

Maybe as a future consideration to tidying up loose ends but I can only see ramming/reversing as a waste of development, even see it as a plight of confused WOWS players.

Checkout UA:D campaign: https://www.dreadnoughts.ultimateadmiral.com/the-playing-modes

This description is clear enough, long term strategy game.

Edited November 20, 2019 by Skeksis

[disc]

3 hours ago, Skeksis said:

Early to mid-game campaign recourses will be valuable, wasting them on ramming would be an inefficient strategy, end game would most likely be long range high accuracies tech, still no ramming.

That may well be, but it is an accepted tenet that using your resources, even with the possibility of losing them forever, is justified if it gains you something good later. Losing a vessel in a ramming attack is just fine if that helps you win the war. 

With the benefit of hindsight it is obvious ramming would become useless as a general tactic. In 1890, rams were sometimes thought valuable, and several dedicated ram-ships were then in service. The US built the big harbor-ram USS Katahdin in 1893. The Royal Navy's Archer class of cruisers was to be specially reinforced for ramming, and the Arrogant class of cruisers were literally designed as "fleet rams," commissioned 1898 to 1900.

As late as 1903 the British Director of Naval Construction was asking for reinforced destroyer bows, so as to improve ramming against other destroyers. Indeed, Royal Navy destroyers were specifically strengthened to ram submarines after an incident in October 1914, when a rammed submarine failed to sink! To my knowledge, ramming was still considered a good tactic against submarines as late as 1917 (that is, more than just an opportunistic approach). If our timespan is 1890-1945, that's halfway through.

There are several significant ramming or collision incidents during our time span. The British lost the battleship HMS Victoria to a ram in 1893, even if it was "self-inflicted." During WWI, HMS Broke rammed and sank not one, but two destroyers: SMS G42 and HMS Sparrowhawk. Postwar, the Japanese lost destroyer Warabi to a ram from Jintsu, 1927. During WWII, HMS Glowworm famously rammed Admiral Hipper in a desperate action. The cruiser HMS Curacoa was lost to a collision with RMS Queen Mary. Kennedy's torpedo boat was rammed. Recall the damage inflicted at Midway, when Mogami and Mikuma collided. They lagged behind, so Mikuma was caught and sunk shortly thereafter. That's 10% of Japan's heavy cruiser force damaged or sunk from that incident. Never mind that was but one of three collisions for Mogami....

As for submarines: K1, K17, K4, HMS Cachalot, F-1, Tembien, Cobalto, I-63, I-1, U-89, UC-75, U-103, U-66, U-100, U-223, U-224, U-357, U-444, U-665, and Щ-305, all rammed and sunk.

So I think it might be profitable to add ramming in. Not only would it look cool, it would also require a re-evaluation of that infuriating collision avoidance, and it might change our tactics to a degree.

[Steeltrap]

20 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

Nah thats ok lol, i think im getting too hyped about the game spamming ideas here and there.

Maybe we could have a sudden stop or slow down button? But add penalties that you would get in real life maybe to both sides if it applies to both.

Yeah thats ok, i need to read moar about naval warfare clearly. Hmm i wonder if engine boost would/could be a thing in this game?

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 November 21, 2019 by Steeltrap

[RAMJB]

Ok some perspective here.

First, WOWS is science fiction, it's only claim to be a "game about ships" is that the 3D models look like them and the "weapons" those 3D model vehicles use are patterned as "guns" and "torpedoes". Nothing else in that game has anything to do with the way ships fought in real life.

Let's put it bluntly: Any ship captain, admiral, officer, whatever, that gave the order to stop the ship, point it bows up towards the enemy, and fight while at a standstill, or on reverse power, would be politely removed from command, taken to his quarters, and put into a mental health institute the second the ship made it back to port. I hope the picture is clear enough.

that, which has already been stated out of the way, reverse engines. How did it work? Did it happen?. Was it useful?. Does it need to be in the game?.

a) How did it work?

In quite different ways, depending on the machinery of the ship we're talking. Now, first disclaimer here: anything labelled "gas turbine" has no place in this game. That's a modern form of machinery that wasn't used in the time period this game covers. During this period (From the predreadnoughts to the super-battleships of the end of WWII era) the machineries used were: Expansion engines, steam turbines, and turboelectric drives. Each one operated differently, and thus, reversing each one of them would be done in different way ,and how quick each one could do it varies from one to another.

Expansion engines core were big reciprocating pistons. If you have seen "Titanic" you've seen them in action (those were triple expansion engines, btw), as Titanic had triple expansion engines for the two outter screws (and steam turbines for the midline one). In order to reverse those engines, first you need to stop them. Then you need to reverse them. To do that first you need to completely shut off the intake of steam into the engines, let them slow down quite a bit before stopping them (if you try to stop those big reciprocating pieces of machinery when they're turning full on in one direction without accounting for inertia and letting them slow down first, you're going to ruin something for sure), then actually stop then. Then open the steam intake to the engines in the reverse circuit (which will make the machinery turn the opposite way), and gradually let the steam in to accelerate them. The whole process took a good while to get done, you couldn't "switch gears" from "forward" to "backwards" immediately...nor anything close to it.

Again, the iceberg scene in "titanic" is very well done -  accelerated a good bit in the way it was done (for obvious movie pacing reasons you can't have a scene of a full minute of the engine revving down before it was stopped before the audiences begin yawning) but that's the gist of it. 



Turbine engines could not be reversed. The turbine itself was built to spool in one direction only. There was no reverse possible. To give ships the ability to reverse their screws (highly desirable for tight space maneouvers such as ports, etc), the machinery of those ships usually had secondary "reverse" turbines which would be deactivated most of the time. When you wanted to reverse, you'd cut off the steam supply to the main turbines and redirect them to the reverse turbines.

It had to be carefully done, specially in ships with geared drives, because before engaging the reverse turbine you needed to let the whole transmission to slow down on itself under no power - immediately reversing power would cause an immense strain on the shaft and associated gearing. You can try it at home (you can, but I would STRONGLY advice against it ) when you're driving your car on the street. Try shifting from, say, 3rd gear at mid engine revs, to the reverse gear. And enjoy the spectacle of your car's gearbox blowing up. And the associated car downtime at the mechanic's, and the quite nifty repair costs when you retrieve it.

Gears on ships are very heavy stuff, but also very finely calibrated and balanced stuff, and pretty vulnerable to strains they are not designed to take. Such as giving high revs in one direction and suddenly being forced to turn the opposite way. Hence, unless you don't leave that shaft and associated gearing to slow down on themselves, a try to reverse them would blow up the gearing and you'd end up with an useless shaft, or worse (blowing up the gearing could twist the shaft and cause it to free turn unbalanced and drill a hole on the rear of your ship through which a mass flooding into the machinery spaces could happen. Which is what happened on Prince of Wales when the torpedo blew up the shaft and gearing of one of it's screws - such a thing could perfectly be fatal to the ship itself).

So again, doable? yes. With enough time and done properly. Doable in an emergency when you needed to reverse NOW, and not in a couple minutes?. No, unless you want to destroy your machinery and leave the ship powerless on the water. 



Turboelectric drive was quite different. Here you don't have turbines hardwire to the screws- the turbines create electricity, that electricity is used to drive electric engines, those electric engines are what drive the shafts and propellers. This required more space and weight from the machinery than an usual steam drive (that's why treaty limited warships almost never used it), but has fundamental advantages, one of which that there's no heavy gearing needed between the electric engines and the screws. Gearing on steam turbines was added to increase efficiency of the power plant. Turbines spin very fast, yet you want your screws to operate on only a limited range of speeds because once they are too fast they lost efficiency very quickly - hence it was desirable to add a gearbox in the middle between the turbines and the shaft itself to translate the very quick turbine rotation into manageable screw rotation speeds. With an electric engine you don't need that because the "gearing" between the turbines and the shafts is provided by the electric powerplant itself - the electric engines recibe electricity, and  you choose how the electric engines translate it into rotational power (to drive the shaft). Very efficient, very quick to operate.

in ships with those powerplants reversing a shaft could be done very quickly. Just stop it, let it slow down a bit (Again you don't want to go from full ahead to full reverse because the shaft has it's inertia and you don't want to break things), then engage the engine in the opposite direction. This had the added benefit that while on steam turbine warships the available power for reverse was quite limited (because the reverse turbines were rather small compared with the main ones), in an turboelectric drive you had the same power in forward than in reverse, as it was the very same engine driving it. 

It still wasn't a thing you could do in a split moment, but changing from full ahead to full reverse in turboelectric drive powerplants was FAR quicker than in triple expansion or turbine warships as there was no need to stop the steam power machinery itself at any moment (you operated the ship through the electric engines, the turbines didn't need to be stopped at any moment), and your ability to apply full power to reverse was far quicker as a result.

The only ones who really gave Turboelectric drives a proper go (in anything other than submarines) were the US Navy. The New Mexico class units were built differently: one ship would use a turbodiesel powerplant, the other two (Idaho and Mississippi)  would have a somewhat more powerful "usual" steam turbine powerplant. When completed and in service the very large flexibility of use (applying differential power to the different shafts could be done in the nick of time on a turboelectric drive ship, unlike the comparatively slow reaction times of turbines. You didn't need to go full reverse on one shaft to get the benefits of differential power, btw, but in an emergency that could also be done comparatively very quickly.) allowed for the turboelectric drive gave New Mexico a large maneouverability advantage over her two siblings. Furthermore, the drive itself being more efficient in it's power usage meant that the New Mexico actually had the same 21 knot top speed as her two steam turbine siblings, even while being less powerful, and a better cruise speed range aswell.

The Navy was convinced and the follow up classes (pennsylvania and Colorado) all had turboelectric drives, and the projected South DAkotas and the Lexingtons also were to use it. The SDs were cancelled, and only two lexingtons were completed, both with TD drive, as carriers.

It's clear to see that the TD drive was the better option maneouverability and efficiency wise. Then why they were rare after those ships?. Well they weren't really rare (all the US "Fleet" submarines used a similar drive, just with diesels in lieu of steam turbines, and there were A LOT of such subs built). But in what applies to big warships, the Washington and London Treaties happened. A TD drive was a lot more expensive, but more importantly it took more space and quite more weight (for less rated power) than a conventional steam machinery set, something that when building ships under a very strict tonnage limitation makes it look far less desirable.



b) Did it happen? 

Going from full ahead to full reverse in the middle of an engagement?. No, never. Reversing the shafts was done almost exclusively on maneouvering on tight spaces such as port maneouvers...but this only applies to triple expansion and steam turbines. Turboelectric drive's ability to reverse quickly WAS used in action, however. It has to be said that it was in a very dire emergency, however. USS Maryland was subjected to air attack off Leyte in 1944. A torpedo was launched by an aircraft aimed at her, when the order to avoid on an emergency turn was given the steering gear shorted out and left the rudder on neutral. The ship resorted to differential power on screws to maneouver out of the way of the torpedo.

please notice however: the order to evasion involved rudder only, not toying with the propulsion outputs, what was done was done because of the emergency only, without the steering shorting out it'd never been used  that way.

The turboelectric drive flexibility had chances to prove it's worth in some other ocassions. For instance again USS Maryland avoided a collision with USS Arizona during prewar maneouvers when a formation keeping mishap happened which only could be narrowly avoided by adding differential power to screws to the rudder. And USS Maryland (aswell, that ship had quite an eventful career) was able to return to PEarl Harbor at an average speed of 10 knots, on reverse power for the whole way, from Saipan to Pearl Harbor when she took a torpedo forward off Saipan that damaged the fore bulkheads and risked a major flooding if the ship had been forced to do the trip sailing normally. But none of those events happened in the middle of a combat action, so the lone example of differential power outputs used to good effect during an engagement remains USS Maryland's avoiding that torpedo.


c) Was it useful?.

Well, out of the above mentioned exception of USS Maryland, in combat no. Nor in any emergency situation. Because no ship bothered with it, because by the time you were able to reverse a shaft's rotation whatever caused you to ask for it to reverse would've already happened. You'd better rely on your ship's natural turning advantage on rudder. And that's what everyone did, exception made, again, of that one-off instance of a ship with a relatively rare (and unique to the US Navy) powerplant, and only when she lost the way to maneouver the proper way (using her rudder).



d) Does it need to be in the game?.

No. You don't need the developer to invest an inordinate ammount of time refining a whole mechanic into the game when said mechanic wasn't used in real life, wasting time and resources that could be much better invested elsewhere in making the rest of the game work as it should. The rule of thumb here is that "if it wasn't standard procedure at the time, there's no need to have it here". Modelling every one-off case (like the one explained avobe) involving warships of the time would cause the developer to go crazy to add features that weren't really used at the time.

Moreover it'd give players access to things that would almost never been used in the real ships, based on "that story of that one ship that just that one time did this one thing that saved her from this or that"... Well, that's not a good standard of modelling something in. When nobody did something ever, except "that one ship that one time with that one thing", it's because every other ship out there didn't do it. Ever. At all.

 Yet you'd be able to do it here all the time - ending in a completely urealistic gameplay. This leads to exploits, and lots of people doing things that weren't really done at the time. And we don't want exploits in a game that tries to represent believable naval combat of the big gun era. Because then it won't be believable anymore.

So no, it does not need to be in this game. Not even as an option. I'd be fine with turboelectric drive ships "designed" in the game to have a pretty decent maneouvering bonus to full rudder maneouvers to represent their ability to do some shenanigans in an emergency - but nothing that involves "moving backwards", and, other than that, that's it.
 

Edited November 22, 2019 by RAMJB

[disc]

@RAMJB, I apologize for what may be seen as rudeness, but do you have citations for these statements? I am not sure they are well founded. It was my (perhaps mistaken) belief that crash stops are trialed in almost all ocean-going vessels, and have been for quite some time now. In regards to the viability of crash stops, aren't they not uncommon when avoiding ship collision? 

I cannot say for older engines, but modern ship drivetrains are certainly robust enough to weather a crash stop, gas turbine, Diesel, or steam turbine. Not something you would want to do regularly, but it won't destroy anything immediately. Are not the torsional loads imposed basically similar between a full-power start and a crash stop?

 

Titanic's outer shafts were driven by reciprocating engines, so only the central shaft was turbine driven. There was no reverse turbine, but the outer shafts could reverse. To my knowledge the crash stop was successfully trialed during proving.

Also, it is important to note that gearboxes were not in common service until ~1915. Direct drive was required before then.