Why can’t battleships produce smoke screens?

[Skeksis]

Ditto for BCs and CAs, it seems a detachment from realism. 

 

US battleship off San Pedro steam away from the coast and throw a smoke screen in new tests of smoke screen producing fuels. 11 December 1926.

[Teckelmaster]

Prince of Wales in the Denmark Strait saved herself by covering retreat with a smoke screen, too, afaik.

100% agree

[akd]

28 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

Ditto for BCs and CAs, it seems a detachment from realism. 

 

US battleship off San Pedro steam away from the coast and throw a smoke screen in new tests of smoke screen producing fuels. 11 December 1926.

 

I understand your point, but those are clearly destroyers.

[Teckelmaster]

Can not see the ships in the background, but there are clearly more than 2, so the smokescreen totally works xD

[Shaftoe]

22 minutes ago, Teckelmaster said:

Prince of Wales in the Denmark Strait saved herself by covering retreat with a smoke screen, too, afaik.

100% agree

You are correct. Prince of Wales DID save herself by timely deploying smoke.

Lack of smoke on larger ships, like cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships is completely unrealistic and should be fixed. However, players should be able whether or not to incorporate smoke generators into their designs. Or (additionally) there should be order to set ship engines to release more smoke - at the cost of decreased efficiency. That'd be a highly situative, but quite neat feature, especially if wind will be taken into account.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Shaftoe

[Cptbarney]

Didn't even know BB's could do that.

Oh dear wait untill weegee hears about that on the forums lol.

[akd]

The type of smokescreen pictured and discussed here was not made by a special generator, but by forcing incomplete combustion in the propulsion system which would cause reduction in power in exchange for thicker clouds of hot black smoke (which would rise and dissipate fairly quickly).  As a consequence, any steam driven ship could make such a smokescreen.

Edited February 2, 2020 by akd

[Shaftoe]

10 minutes ago, akd said:

The type of smokescreen pictured and discussed here was not made by a special generator, but by forcing incomplete combustion in the propulsion system which would cause reduction in power in exchange for thicker clouds of hot black smoke (which would rise and dissipate fairly quickly).  As a consequence, any steam driven ship could make such a smokescreen.

Still would make a nice feature imo.

[Skeksis]

Please don’t focus on the picture, there aren’t many pictures of battleship producing smoke screens online, the subject is battleship smoke screens.

Edited February 2, 2020 by Skeksis

[Shaftoe]

9 minutes ago, Skeksis said:

Please don’t focus on the picture, there can’t many pictures of battleship producing smoke screens online, the subject is battleship smoke screens.

Tbh I think the subject should be widened to larger ships smoke screens. 

[akd]

Here is a smokescreen created with chemical generator:

https://ww2db.com/images/ship_hull10.jpg

[Skeksis]

13 minutes ago, Shaftoe said:

Tbh I think the subject should be widened to larger ships smoke screens. 

Yep all ships

[disc]

There's no reason a battleship or carrier can't equip chemical smoke generators, but my impression is that they were disfavored. The smoke from a chemical generator comes from the stern of the ship. If the first battleship in a division lays smoke, it fails to cover itself, and it completely blinds those behind it in a corrosive cloud. A smoke-screening destroyer or cruiser off to one side makes much more sense. I imagine the concentration of caustic substances was also not wanted on battleships.

I do not recall ever seeing smoke generators on US battleships; I think virtually all US cruisers had them.

Two can be seen on CL USS Cleveland's stern, on either side of the crane. They are the small bundles of four cylindrical tubes on the rearmost deck.

 

For the game, I don't know. The idea behind smoke was that it would limit vision, like a solid curtain at first, or as a fog as it dissipates. If you had a spotter plane or radar, you could shoot through the curtain; otherwise, it would ostensibly break contact until it started to clear up. Right now it just acts as an accuracy modifier zone, as near I can tell (does it reduce detection range?). The AI has no clue what it's good for. I think more iteration is needed.

[SmoCro]

I'd rather have the option of deploying a smoke generator on any ship during design.