>>>Alpha-3 General Feedback v65<<<

[RAMJB]

17 minutes ago, captinjoehenry said:

I mean you say that and I agree.  But it's still a problem even having 30 5" guns blazing away every few seconds with fully modern everything and failing to hit.  With 30 rounds flying towards an enemy DD every couple of seconds you'd expect to get a single hit per volley fairly often instead of only rarely as it is now.

Depends a lot on the range involved. If it's point blank, I agree. I already commented on that too: at point blank range the to hit modifier penalties because of ship size and speed should be MUCH lesser than at any longer range for destroyers.

At anything beyond point blank - I'll be frank and please don't take it as offensive or rude because it's not intended to be that way at all: whatever you expect is irrelevant ;). What matters is what's historically relevant - and as mentioned in this thread we have shining examples of a couple destroyers dancing in front of two full fledged capital ships, which took 58 minutes (Ardent) and almost an hour and a half (Acasta) of their total and indivisible attention to be sunk by secondary batteries guided by the same fire control equipment that had put 280mm shells on HMS Glorious from 27000 yards of range

So I think the problem here is that people have far too high expectatives placed on those guns, not that they aren't accurate or damaging enough  

Edited December 11, 2019 by RAMJB

[RedParadize]

I do not have high expectation for Smaller caliber guns, however they must have some use. Currently not only they are not worth their mass and cost. They also have huge negative impact on the main battery because of roll. I feel roll stack way too quickly, but that's another subject. Even when centerline Secondary just do not pull their weight.

So I basically never use them.

[RAMJB]

16 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

@RAMJB What do you think is better?

This?


Or that?

Because I did the test.

Neither. Both are highly unbalanced designs that aren't efficient at all. One has a completely ridiculous ammount of secondaries (on triple turrets, which suffer from much lower rate of fire as when compared with twin mounts. They pretty much kill the idea of individual volume of fire - you'd be outputting the same rounds per minute out with a lesser numerous battery of twin mounts). The other has no secondaries at all. Both are designs that deserve no consideration to build.

As for the rest, you have a long list of reasons why secondaries were there. If you want to debate them be my guest. The card you're playing is that a single hit of a massive main battery will KO a small destroyer in just one hit. Not that it'll achieve more hits. And not that it'll achieve the desired result (mission killing the destroyer, NOT necessarily sinking it) faster than a proper secondary battery.

Besides the list I provided mentions several not only in-battle considerations why the secondary guns were critical. Again, if you want to waste your 100 rounds per gun on destroyers, be my guest. I'm sure that if then a cruiser comes around he'll also be thankful you have absolutely no weapons left to fire at them. The shipyard will be also thankful given how many times you'll be putting your ship on their installations for (rather expensive for guns that size) barrel relining, or outright barrel swaps. Probably the latter one won't be really important in a campaign. But your lack of a heavy AAA battery will certainly be, from a certain point in said campaign.

You asked why you wanted secondaries on a capital ship. Well, you got the answers. Now I'll be the last guy around telling you how you MUST design your ships. This is a single player game so up to you how you want to deal with the challenges it brings ;). But no, reducing the challenge when it was a very real one in real life too just because of your personal perception of how things should be, rather of how things actually were,  should not be an option in a game that tries to replicate real life naval warfare of the big gun era :).

Edited December 11, 2019 by RAMJB

[RedParadize]

@RAMJB I was expecting that as a answer.

Ok then, show me a better balanced CA that make use of secondary and that would not be better without it.

[Skeksis]

@RAMJB in your text-walls, claiming historical correct ineffective secondaries would be added into our ships designs as a deterrent from AIs is misleading to say the least. The fact is, as status-quo, no one will use ineffective secondaries on their ship designs. 'Waiting' for secondaries to land close range shots makes for poor gameplay.

Games are about ‘it feels right’ too, you seem to be excluding this very important gaming criteria.    

[captinjoehenry]

1 minute ago, Skeksis said:

@RAMJB in your text-walls, claiming historical correct ineffective secondaries would be added into our ships designs as a deterrent from AIs is misleading to say the least. The fact is, as status-quo, no one will use ineffective secondaries on their ship designs. 'Waiting' for secondaries to land close range shots makes for poor gameplay.

 

Games are about ‘it feels right’ too, you seem to be excluding this very important gaming criteria.    

 

Totally agree with you.  And there's the fact that American WWII 5" secondaries had an effective range of about 10km vs DD sized targets.  Which is VERY much not the case in game.  Not to mention as it is in game the darn secondaries end up feeling like a total waste of deck space unless you want to let DDs get so close to your ship that your ship has no chance in hell of dodging and even then the DDs don't take all that much damage from even obsene amount of secondaries.  Frankly it takes the main batter like 2 volleys at 10km against manuvering DDs to completely kill them.  It takes very very little time to kill a whole fleet of DDs using the main battery while the whole time the secondary battery will probably land less hits than the enemies have DDs which is just and renders the secondaries more or less worthless.  Your better off investing that weight in more torpedo protection to negate the torps and then just nuke the DDs with main battery as things are now even if secondaries end up being able to kill DDs at point blank range.  As at point blank it's far too late.

[RedParadize]

@Skeksis @captinjoehenry Exactly. Atm, under 2.5km range 3x9" will do better than 30x5" and it will cost/weight more.

In one of my test, I had 51 5" guns firing at least 10 salvo at 15% hit chance (0.6km) against a DD. So of the 510 shot fired +-75 hit. Ignoring the low accuracy, 75 5" to sink a DD is a bit much.

Large volume of low caliber do not work in UA:D.

Edited December 11, 2019 by RedParadize

[RAMJB]

you know, I actually went into the game and went into the trouble of designing a 1935 warship and pitted it against 5 destroyers. I collected screenshots and samples that proved that at ranges under 7km, in a warship with 9x9'' and 16x5'' guns, the secondaries were adding effectively an extra 30% of chances to hit under 6km, an extra 60% chances to hit under 5km, and under 4km (with the paltry battery of 2'' guns getting hits too) effectively doubling the number of hits I was expected to score (and getting hits accordingly). Of course the lion's share of the damage was done by the 9'' battery, but the 5'' one scored quite a lot of hits too (something that is claimed is not the case), and I wouldn't have felt bad at all in a scenario where my main guns were targetted at an enemy cruiser while I left the job of close range protection for my secondaries.

I was getting ready to post the screenshots up to back up those statements...but know what?.

 

1 hour ago, Skeksis said:

Games are about ‘it feels right’

Why bother taking the time to do so.

If the argument is "I want to see in the screen what it *feels* right to ME" and not "I want to see in the screen what it really was it like", then I just don't care about it. Because if that's your standard, then whatever information I bring won't be worth crap. Because whatever it proves, it doesn't matter. What it matters is how YOU Feel about the topic regardless of how accurate it is.

See, "Games that are about it feels right" are what have led to thing as WOWS. Nothing wrong with that. If that's what you enjoy, fast paced action with no consideration with respect for how the real thing was, by any means, go play it. But stop trying to push your personal agenda on the rare, few, and precious games that try to base themselves around the idea of how things WERE, not whatever random thing you think "should feel like".

Because that's not the premise of games that are marketed under the premise of giving an accurate portrayal of how real things worked. There, in that niche where this game supposedly belongs, games are about "it feels like it was in reality". Not "it feels like someone who has never enjoyed a naval simulation wants to be it like".

Balans is for WOWS. Not for here. And if the only reason this whole thing is going on is because it is based on the highly uninformed "opinions" of people who aren't familiar with the topic at all, no ammount of information brought here will change those opinions. For what they're looking for is not what this game is supposed to be (and hopefully, gosh, I really hope so, never turns out to be).

 

1 hour ago, captinjoehenry said:

And there's the fact that American WWII 5" secondaries had an effective range of about 10km vs DD sized targets

Please quote definite sources for that statement. Book, author and page, if you please. Also please include at which dates, and using which fire control equipment in particular, if you're so kind. A proper list of estimated % of hits achieved by US battleships with their 5'' secondaries against japanese ships (specially destroyers) in the night engagement of Guadalcanal would be also be enlightening, if you please.


 

57 minutes ago, RedParadize said:

In one of my test, I had 51 5" guns firing at least 10 salvo at 15% hit chance (0.6km) against a DD. So of the 510 shot fired +-75 hit. Ignoring the low accuracy, 75 5" to sink a DD is a bit much.

Large volume of low caliber do not work in UA:D.

Oh, but It does. In what respects to the capabilities historical designs and guns provided for, it certainly does. That you want it to be different doesn't mean the game, in that particular regard (and without being perfect as again, point blank engagements render too few hits), should be different. History didn't care about balans. A game intended  to portray historical naval combat should not either. There are already enough "world of..." and "war thunders" in the market for you to pick from if what you look for is "balance". Please be as kind as not to ruin the precious few that are targetted at a different kind of audience that wants something different. That audience also exists (as things like DCS shows and proves)


As for the number of hits you achieved, I refer back to Ardent-Acasta vs Scharnhorst-Gneisenau. Do you know how many hits those destroyers took in total during the whole engagement?. Do you know the total expenditure of ammunition by the german ships?. Why do you think they lasted as long as they did in front of such superior firepower?. because the idea that each other shell was connecting even at the close ranges involved in the engagement...let me tell you...is wrong.

Edited December 11, 2019 by RAMJB

[Teckelmaster]

3 hours ago, Skeksis said:

I have to admit I’m in two minds about this.

First we are testing scenarios through academy missions and if Dev’s make changes then we need to redo them to suss out bugs and frustrations.

On the other hand, we are playing a game too and losing progression is frustrating in itself. And that frustration has been amplified with the ease of using cheat mode and now the removal of it.

I agree, I want to blast away and take the shortcut but the historical enthusiast are against us and Dev’s seems to be shoring up their stance in the same direction.

You/we aren’t whining, its all feedback anyway. 

You are right, we are alfa testers all in all.

And i feel a bit stupid now, as it is right, what you say.

That said:

hey dev team, the performance on my system made a huge leap in the right direction, game runs so much smoother now, even on higher settings. Stability for me is excellent, sometimes i get error messages, none of which affected my gaming experience yet, since a3.

I mark my critics as minor balance issues, that in this stage of the game should be considered normal. On the other hand, there are few missions where mentioned tools might still be nice to have. And if alone to find out, how to balance stuff out.

Just so you know, still a fan

But, i think frustration factor should be minimized. Just my oppinion.

 

[Skeksis]

2 hours ago, RAMJB said:

trying to push your personal agenda

And you’re not! 🤣

To clarify my opinion, not agenda, is for 'complete ship designs', I oppose anything that might lead to a big gun only meta, therefore secondaries are as important as any other deck component. Includes AA mounts, spotter planes, spotlights, etc and there reason for them, like everything has to be 'Plausible' too.

So some balancing is required or non-historical application is needed to achieve completed and fully design ships.

Edited December 12, 2019 by Skeksis

[RAMJB]

No. No I'm not pushing "my" agenda. I'm pushing the game's self proclaimed one: accurate portrayal of naval decisions and battles during the big gun era.

If the game was trying to be anything different I wouldn't be here, to begin with. So no, I'm not pushing "my" agenda - I'm pushing the intended game's goal.

There's no such thing as a "meta" in a single player game. The "balance" you demand and are looking for is the same one that caused the most common ship being the destroyer, the 2nd most common being the cruiser and the least common (and by a far and large margin), the battleship: Cost/effectivity. In any campaign where you try to build only battleships you're not going to achieve much. You'll only have a handful of ship, in so few numbers as to make your task to protect your nation as the CiC of the navy, a completely impossible one. Even worse - your limited numbers of very expensive to build, very expensive to operate, and limited to certain ports only (only those with big enough piers to accomodate them, and big enough drydocks to maintain and repair them) big ships will be exceedingly vulnerable to things as destroyer attacks and submarine attacks. Whole areas of your litoral (and foreign enemy one) will be out of your practical reach because battleships have pretty hefty drafts - you'd need lighter ships to protect/attack those kind of areas.
 You won't be able to properly protect your merchant navy's interests against concerted submarine campaigns, or enemy commerce raider sorties, because you won't have enough ships to cover for all the ship lanes for their protection needs, while keeping enough to defend your nation proper at the same time. Etc.

 

That's why "big gun metas" are not going to happen. Outright cost, cost effectiveness, demands for numbers, and pretty much basic and essential principles of naval doctrine that demand a fleet with enough numbers of all classes as to be both flexible enough, and large enough to cover for the national needs without costing an unsustainable fortune. And if you happen to build big gun ships without secondaries, they will completely be lacking in the AAA department and be overwhelmed when in battle. Because, if you spend all your big gun ammunition on destroyers you're not spending it on the enemy big gun ships. IF you spend them on the big ships, you're not shooting at the destroyers. Either is going to have a free hand on you, because you don't have a secondary battery to deal with one threat while your main one is dealing with the other. Whatever is left alone is going to have a field day on you. And either way you'll run out ammo in short notice (100 to 133 rounds per gun don't last an eternity).

And then you'll lose your big ship because you won't have anything to fire.

Not to mention, right now we have pretty much omni-magazines. Whatever shell we pick, we fire. At some point or another loadouts will be a thing. You'll choose how many HE rounds out of your limited complement you'll be able to pack for each gun, and how many of AP. Good luck finding a compromise that lets you fight off battleships while protecting yourself against destroyers, if you don't use secondaries. Because you might very well end up not only running out of ammo ... but also running out of the proper ammo for the target that happens to pop up.

You don't need to bring "balans" into the battle factors and hit chances to neither pursue nor achieve that goal. It's integrated into the nature of the game itself. Historical nations had far more numbers of small ships than battleships for very good reasons. And every battleship ever built had a very large complement of secondary battery guns, also for very good reasons. If the game replicates the important factors that guided the needs of fleets of the time, players will also have them here...or end up failing at their task.

so the balance you claim to seek for depends actually on portraying things as they were. Not as how they "should feel like" based on spurious made up ideas, and not on how things actually were.

Edited December 11, 2019 by RAMJB

[HusariuS]

Well, this was pretty big update, but there are still some little things that didn't go too well.

For example: "Iowa-class" based superstructure.

1. If we place secondary battery just behind main turret, we can seriously block fire arc for main gun in the back, meanwhile in the front of the ship...

2. They are just too close, and one gun is blocking another.

1-1....but here everything is fine (except that fire arc ._. i don't know why it's like that but that's weird... )

3.Same as in point 2. and 1, by placing there secondary armament, we are seriously blocking firing arc of main gun.

4.I don't even know why we have a option, to put something there when we can't even fit there single 51mm gun.

5/6/8+7. They are too close to each other.

7.Also one emplacement is blocking ladder so... poor crew members.

Well... some places on this Iowa based superstructure are weird, i guess AA guns confirmed

[Dontshoot]

It would be really nice if the pagoda style masts could be used on some of the dreadnought hulls. Most of the IJN battleships with pagoda masts were updated dreadnoughts like fuso or kongo.

Edited December 11, 2019 by Dontshoot

[RedParadize]

@RAMJB You make allot of claim. About history. About what the dev plan. About how campaign will be balanced. About what other people know and not know, even their personal agenda and bias.

Are you really that sure?

Edited December 12, 2019 by RedParadize

[captinjoehenry]

1 hour ago, RAMJB said:

Please quote definite sources for that statement. Book, author and page, if you please. Also please include at which dates, and using which fire control equipment in particular, if you're so kind. A proper list of estimated % of hits achieved by US battleships with their 5'' secondaries against japanese ships (specially destroyers) in the night engagement of Guadalcanal would be also be enlightening, if you please.

I am looking for this info from a source.

Also just did some testing with super heavy BBs 120k ton to be exact.  The 5" secondaries are good vs DDs at sub 5km.  The problem is if there are DDs within 5km of you you are pretty much already dead.  And the 5" are not really effective till sub 3km at which point it's just a matter of hurting them a smidge before you die to mass torpedo.  

Meanwhile ditching the secondaries for an increased ammo main battery of 18 inch guns starting at range of 8km ( With the enemy formation putting the closest DD at sub 5km ) resulted in the main battery slaughtering the DDs within 10km or farther in a single or maybe 2 salvos per DD.  Making their torpedos worthless due to constant maneuvering at that range.

From this test it seems in game where we don't need to worry about aircraft and for super heavy BBs specifically secondaries do you no good whatsoever and you are better off just going all in on the primary battery and engage the enemy DDs from range.

As for the problem of running out of shells having increased ammo on the main battery gives you plenty of ammo.  And for shell load you'd probably want to go rather HE heavy such as using the whole bonus ammo from increased ammo load on HE and maybe 600~  AP shells and 1000~ HE shells.  As the AP shells currently in game are only really good VS light units that die to 18" HE and the rare occassion of having a flat broadside of an enemy BB to shoot at.

[Steeltrap]

On the one hand I'd like to get involved in the discussion re secondary guns etc, but on the other I'm not sure the discussion is still on topic re feedback to the devs about Alpha 3.

Perhaps all of you might want to start a separate topic to continue the discussion?

Obviously I'm not trying to tell anyone what to do, it's just that I think it's a good discussion to have but that the devs will clearly already have seen not everyone is convinced about the value and performance of smaller calibres.

One thing everyone DOES appear to agree on is the blunt instruments of "target ship size" and "target fast speed" modifiers don't scale well with close range fire. It's a point I know I and others have raised before this update.

Would like to add more, and I potentially do have some specific info that's relevant, but I think it would be better for those of us interested in continuing such a specific topic to do so elsewhere. That's purely my view, however, and of course everyone should feel free to keep posting if they think devoting several pages discussing it is appropriate for what's everyone's thread meant for Alpha 3 feedback.

Lastly, and not trying to tread on anyone's toes, could I suggest trying to keep the discussion as dispassionate and impersonal as possible?

Cheers

Edited December 12, 2019 by Steeltrap

[RedParadize]

@Steeltrap The Dev did some change on small caliber guns on alpha 3 so it is relevant. However I see your point. It did get out of hand a bit and there is probably other things that need to be discussed here.

I have a topic open about secondary if anyone want to jump in.

[TAKTCOM]

The discussion of secondary has gone in a strange direction.

Did secondary  become more effective in alpha 3? Yes, they are.

Did current meta game is still "ONLY BIGGEST GUNS"? Yes, they are.

Why is this happening? This is due to a simplified model of armor, which allows you put armor every inch of the ship, removing vulnerabilities. 

Large guns can still do something, because you can’t put 20 inches everywhere, but small and even medium guns are ineffective against something armored larger than a small cruiser.

Does it reduce the dynamics of the battle? Yes. Is this bad in terms of design limitations? Yes. Does this not correspond to how it was in reality? Yes.

How can this be fixed?

First, the secondary must be able to shoot at secondary targets. So yes, one ship must be able to shoot at several targets. And then the secondary guns will shoot at the destroyers, or merchant ships, and the main batteries will fire at the enemy’s capital ships. You don’t really need 12-18 inch guns to sink unarmored ships when Yamato is aiming at you.

Second, while game armor will look like

instead of this

...any guns other than the most powerful were useless. Just look at pictures above. This is Indiana-class battleship launched in 1893. The thickness of the armor at high is 18 inches. In fact, it was a fairly narrow strip, but in the game it will cover 2/3 of the hull profile. DIXI.

[Mhtsos]

23 minutes ago, TAKTCOM said:

The discussion of secondary has gone in a strange direction.

Did secondary  become more effective in alpha 3? Yes, they are.

Did current meta game is still "ONLY BIGGEST GUNS"? Yes, they are.

Why is this happening? This is due to a simplified model of armor, which allows you put armor every inch of the ship, removing vulnerabilities. 

Large guns can still do something, because you can’t put 20 inches everywhere, but small and even medium guns are ineffective against something armored larger than a small cruiser.

Does it reduce the dynamics of the battle? Yes. Is this bad in terms of design limitations? Yes. Does this not correspond to how it was in reality? Yes.

How can this be fixed?

First, the secondary must be able to shoot at secondary targets. So yes, one ship must be able to shoot at several targets. And then the secondary guns will shoot at the destroyers, or merchant ships, and the main batteries will fire at the enemy’s capital ships. You don’t really need 12-18 inch guns to sink unarmored ships when Yamato is aiming at you.

Second, while game armor will look like

instead of this

...any guns other than the most powerful were useless. Just look at pictures above. This is Indiana-class battleship launched in 1893. The thickness of the armor at high is 18 inches. In fact, it was a fairly narrow strip, but in the game it will cover 2/3 of the hull profile. DIXI.

Secondaries (>5") are quite effective against torpedo boats/DD/CL, IF they hit. 

That is the main problem for me. That you need to be in knife fighting range to hit anything with your secondaries, and that is not even the case with older designs that you cannot hit anything period.

Armour in game is far more relevant for BBs/BCs vs BBs/BCs engagement, not regarding secondary effectiveness.

[RAMJB]

7 hours ago, captinjoehenry said:

I am looking for this info from a source.

Name it then. And provide author's name, and the page with the relevant info, please.

[RAMJB]

2 hours ago, TAKTCOM said:

The discussion of secondary has gone in a strange direction.

Did secondary  become more effective in alpha 3? Yes, they are.

Did current meta game is still "ONLY BIGGEST GUNS"? Yes, they are.

 

Agreed on the first two accounts.

Disagree on the third. Whoever discards the secondaries do so based on a completely wrong concept of what "effectiveness" means against destroyers. Somehow the idea that battleship secondaries should (for whatever mystical reason unrelated with reality) deal with DDs with ease at ranges beyond 5km, has become widespread amongst some players. The nature of the scenarios as...well, scenarios do the rest. Some people has completely inordinate expectative of what those batteries could do (and should do here), leading to completely wrong perception of "not being worth them". While I won't discuss the design choices of any player (their game, their way to play it), however I'll challenge the claims that those guns are useless "because lack of accuracy".

That is not the case. Those guns are not useless (from my personal experience) - even while their usefulness is not as large as it should be yet. More on that later. 
But in the meantime, what we have are demands to "balance" those guns to be more accurate to "adress" an issue that does not exist in the way they perceive, that will do nothing to "fix" those guns in the ways that they're really lacking. (Which they do exist) while making the game lose touch with what reality was like. On top of it, it would add yet another problem.

See if those secondaries become unhistorically accurate, suddenly the problem will be that destroyers will be nuked with ease at ridiculous ranges, making them "irrelevant" in turn. and then people will complain because the "DDs vs battleship" scenario is too tough. And because, in the campaign once it's here, destroyers won't be worth building.

Secondary battery problems exist. But none of them stems from their lack of accuracy at normal ranges. "Fixing" what ain't broken will only break other things that currently aren't. There's ample samples of this kind of thing ruining game developments in the past. I just hope the developers pay attention to the feedback that's based on input coming from reliable sources, not from some players' "need the game to 'feel' right". 


Personally my two gripes with the current secondaries are that at too short ranges (point blank, 1.5km or closer) the chances to hit should be based on modifiers weighed differently than normal calculations at normal ranges (they arent, and at point blank there are too few hits as a result), and that currently they're not flexible. They fire at whatever the main battery fires too, preventing with one of the most notable benefits of a secondary battery - the ability to deal with multiple threats (From multiple angles) simultaneously.

The armor consideration only is important when you talk about big ship vs big ship engagements. Yes, there the armor system hurts because small gun HE has little chance to do much damage against such thicknesses applied to the whole hull instead of to select parts. But secondaries' role to deal with enemy big ships rapidly deminished as standard engagement ranges increased. It's not something that's sorely missed except, maybe, on very early predread-vs-predread encounters. 

At any rate it's a temporary thing. whatever problems exist with the secondaries currently are completely unrelated with their accuracy, which is the point I've been adressing for so many posts. Secondary accuracy beyond point blank range is currently perfectly fine. The rest of the problems eventually will be gone as the game progresses. The armor model has to change at some point (the one we have just doesn't cut it for a game like this), and obviously at some point in the development the ability to independently target enemies with different batteries will be added. The final nail in the coffin for the argument will be the campaign, where the operational advantages of having good secondary batteries will add to the in-battle advantages of enjoying the presence on one.

So the "meta" you mention only exists because of a wrong, yet widespread, assumption from players that those guns should nuke destroyers at unhistorical ranges, and because of a number reasons that stem from this being an early alpha with several things that should be implemented, not implemented yet.

So patience. Most of the things that are lacking in this regard are due to come in the future no matter what. 
In the meantime I do put secondaries on all my designs. Their lack of flexibility hurt, but what doesn't hurt is a dozen guns firing at lightning fast rate of fire when dealing with hard to hit fast enemies at close range :).

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by RAMJB

[TAKTCOM]

6 hours ago, Mhtsos said:

Secondaries (>5") are quite effective against torpedo boats/DD/CL, IF they hit. 

They do this much more often in Alpha 3 than in Alpha 2. One of the balance problems with 2-5 inch guns is that capital ships have much better accuracy than destroyers and TB. Thanks to the big bridges, for example. In fact, the secondary  were good enough against TB in Alpha 2, but... you need all tech and top equipment like the last rangefinders on you cruiser/BB. Then DD/TB turn into Swiss cheese. And in low tech can shooting turned into hell. I somehow lost the "DD vs TB" because the time is up. DD Alpha 2 can't hit things. But now they can. Progress, as for me. 

4 hours ago, RAMJB said:

Agreed on the first two accounts.

Disagree on the third. Whoever discards the secondaries do so based on a completely wrong concept of what "effectiveness" means against destroyers. 

My point is simple. At the moment in game actually there are no secondary guns that can be used against secondary targets, there are only large guns and small guns. And with the current model of armor, large guns have an obvious advantage in most cases.

4 hours ago, RAMJB said:

Somehow the idea that battleship secondaries should (for whatever mystical reason unrelated with reality) deal with DDs with ease at ranges beyond 5km

Main battery can handle this task quite effective

Edited December 12, 2019 by TAKTCOM
*

[RAMJB]

2 hours ago, TAKTCOM said:

Main battery can handle this task quite effective

Of course, because it's more accurate to a longer range (as it should) and because a single big shell will vaporize a small destroyer. But main battery only has 100 (best case scenario 133) shells. And probably you'd me more interested in that battery firing at something big that's engaging you, while your smaller guns deal with the destroyers.

That's not possible right now, you can't select different targets for your different batteries. It will be possible in the future though (has to, I mean, this is a feature that has to come at some point no matter what). That currently we only design ships for scenarios also detracts from it: campaign will go a long way in making sense in saving your main gun ammo for the big boys, and leave small ships for the small ones.

Another thing that people seem to miss is that a battleship wasn't a self-contained autonomous fighting unit intended to fight on it's own. A battleship was designed to be part of a battleline, forming the core of a big fleet. Battleships were not intended to fight it out against destroyers - theoretically your fleet would have cruisers and destroyers of it's own to deal with destroyer threats (and if it doesn't it'll be on you for not building them) as they would be far more effective at the job of intercepting and fighting them at ranges where they were not dangerous for the big boys. For instance the US Navy doctrine at one point before WW1 dictated that the fleet needed one destroyer per battleship to provide protection for it. Soon that doctrine changed drastically because the officers at charge noted that destroyers were growing in size and capability and offensive power, and suddenly the ratio was FOUR destroyers needed per each battleship (and that only for protection duties). And the battleships still were armed to the teeth with secondaries.

Secondary guns in the dreadnought era were nothing more than the "point defense" systems to be used in case that the enemy came close enough to the battleship. But it was no magic wand nor terminator tool to blap enemy destroyers from existance from 10km of range. By they very nature they were less accurate that the main battery, and that fact alone meant it's abilities against such small fast combatants would be limited to very close range from the get go. That's why you wanted lighter ships to keep those destroyers away, but you still wanted a strong enough secondary battery to protect the big battleships in case enemy destroyers came close enough anyway.

None of those things, so, mean those guns should be "buffed". They mean there are some features there are missing, and once they're here and they matter, there'll be no "buff" needed for the secondaries.

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by RAMJB

[captinjoehenry]

30 minutes ago, RAMJB said:

Of course, because it's more accurate to a longer range (as it should) and because a single big shell will vaporize a small destroyer. But main battery only has 100 (best case scenario 133) shells. And probably you'd me more interested in that battery firing at something big that's engaging you, while your smaller guns deal with the destroyers.

Largely I do agree with you.  But at least when it comes to the ammo count you need about 300~ shells to take out an enemy BB assuming you go all in on heavy main guns.  To take out a DD meanwhile takes 12 - 36 shells.  Which translates to about 1 - 3% of the main battery ammo with increased ammo load and allows you to take out the enemy DD at such a range they cannot effectively torpedo your own BB.

As it is in real life this is not at all the case as there are many good uses of secondary weapons in real life.  But frankly in game with the need to take out DDs at 10km~ away from super heavy BBs / dreadnoughts in order to avoid them hitting you with torpedos means the only real option is either escorts or the BBs main battery guns.  As once DDs get within 5km it becomes exceptionally hard if not impossible to avoid DD torpedos.

Frankly if secondaries are only doing serious damage to DDs once they are close enough to land most of their torpedo salvo they just aren't useful as your more or less already dead / heavily damaged from the torpedos in the water even if your secondaries then return the favor.

The ideal solution is to have an escort force engage enemy DDs and keep them at range.  But failing that the main battery is the only option for large unmaneuverable ships.

For heavy cruisers / battlecruisers and maybe even more modest and smaller BBs though secondaries are likely rather useful as those types of ships are agile enough to avoid DD torpedo runs while being close enough to the DDs for the secondarys to actually do something to the enemy DDs.

[RAMJB]

22 minutes ago, captinjoehenry said:

To take out a DD meanwhile takes 12 - 36 shells. 

I really hate to insist on it again, but where it is written that battleships were supposed to go around hunting destroyers?. In fact the destroyer in many ways came to existance as the "cheap" weapon to counter battleships (through the use of the torpedo). Battleships were never, ever, intended doctrinally or design wise to destroy enemy light forces. They were designed to slug it out against enemy big warships. Meanwhile light forces had specifically between their doctrinary roles, exactly that one: engage in torpedo attacks to destroy enemy capital ships. A battleship against a force of destroyers coming for it it's in the defensive, not in the offensive. What you want is weapons to fend off the attack. Sinking them would be nice but the goal of the secondary battery on a battleship is forcing those destroyers to worry about more things than just coming in for a torpedo drop. To hamper their attempted attack, and to force them to turn tails and run after accomplishing nothing.

To take out DDs, to hunt them down and sink them, you'll be using your cruisers and own destroyers. If you're throwing your battleship to do the job, you're not doing things right. Because you're putting the wrong weapon for the completely wrong job. Battleships are there to destroy enemy big warships, is their reason to exist. Not to massacre destroyers.

And as described, if the DD is the one coming for your BB, your priority isn't sinking the destroyer. Is to force it away to keep him from being a threat for your battleship. And you can accomplish that with a lot less than 12-36  secondary impacts, as destroyers simply do not take damage very well and, while not easy to sink, they are easy to mission kill. Again, of course is highly desirable to sink it too. But that's not what a battleship secondary battery is there for. If it achieves it, great. If not, that doesn't mean it didn't do it's job. When Bismarck was engaged by Vian's destroyers, she failed to sink any of them. But the secondary volume of fire was enough to force the attacking destroyers to turn tails after accomplishing nothing. Would you say the secondary battery of Bismarck had a bad performance because she didn't sink any destroyer?

Edited December 12, 2019 by RAMJB