Ship identification

[Rak1445]

I was recently wondering how exactly the process of spotting and identifying an unknown ship on the high seas worked during and prior to WW1.

I imagine lookouts were stationed on the masts, reporting smoke pillars on the horizon etc. However, how would a crew go about identifying a sighted unknown vessel? Especially in poor conditions or long range, where identification / national flags would be hard to see? Did ships carry something akin to an encyclopedia, like Jane's Warships at a glance? Were they general issue?

[Rak1445]

Follow-up question - in the abovementioned publication (Jane's Warships at a glance), available through the link in the original post, the ships each have a one or two letter acronym assigned. Does anyone have a clue as to what it might correspond to?

Additionally, in the top right corner of pages there is sometimes 'X Cone (1913 system)' written. Is anyone familiar with such a system, and what does it mean?

I'll be very grateful for answers to these questions. Cheers!

[Aceituna]

13 hours ago, Rak1445 said:

 

I imagine lookouts were stationed on the masts, reporting smoke pillars on the horizon etc. However, how would a crew go about identifying a sighted unknown vessel? Especially in poor conditions or long range, where identification / national flags would be hard to see? Did ships carry something akin to an encyclopedia, like Jane's Warships at a glance? Were they general issue?

Yeah as you wrote there were sailors on watch at the masts. Which were reporting smoke, light and (i don't know how to say it in english but that thing when sun shines at something polished it makes that visible affect), and about the identification from what i read: during time of
peace captain knew exactly what ship will he meat long before he actually meet her. He knew it from radio communication and from usual seiling schedule. 

During war when watch sightes unknown vessel, captain might know what ship it is because he received report about this ship being located in this area (he might get this report from other ships, planes or from intelligence and radio interception)

For example: If captain receives massage that there is enemy BC raiding in the area and he knows that there Is no friendly capital ship in area and he spottes big warship it's quite easy for him to identify it.

 

When you asked if ships carried some ,,encyklopedia''.                                                     Ships (i don't know if all of them) carried Lloyd register which includes all merchant ships. I don't know if there was something similar for warships.

About identifiying warships: watch/captain can't really identify the ship by the flag because you have to be quite close to actually see the flag even if weather Is good. Ships Are usually identified by characteristics these ships have (captains were usually familiar with how enemy ships look like from pictures or friendly visits etc.) 

One example: Raider 16 (Atlantis-German auxiliary cruiser) was raiding in Indian ocean in 1941 and one day watch spotted big unknown warship. There was a panic on-board because they thought it's british warship and anything besides merchant is almost invincible to auxiliary cruiser. 

But they calmed down quite quickly because they didn't have to wait until they could see the flag but they only had to get close enought to see that the ship has 2 turrets with 3 cannons each which is spesific only for Deutschland-class (it was Admiral Scheer)

 

By the way: the identifiying ships by their characteristics is not always reliable.           For example: In 1940 US Navy selled some destroyers to Royal Navy and then german ships (eslecially submarines) couldn't really say if it's british or neutral American destroyer until they could see the flag.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Aceituna

[Rak1445]

Thank you for your reply! I suspect warships must have carried some sort of 'fighting ship register' as well.

I'm also thinking about naval warfare prior to radio communication, say Russo-Japanese war, where I imagine the situation was more chaotic.

 

In Jane's Warships at a glance the broadside silhouettes of all the world's fighting ships (presumably) are systematically categorized by country, following by funnel count and ship class.
I imagine the funnels and masts were among the most easily-seen ship attributes to aid in the identification, and could significantly narrow the search down.

Then once the lookouts had the name of the ship, they could look for more detailed ship statistics such as armour thickness, armament or speed in other publications, such as The illustrated guide to the Royal Navy and foreign navies. I wonder if these or similar were standard issue, or just officers' prized personal belongings.

[SiWi]

3 hours ago, Rak1445 said:

Thank you for your reply! I suspect warships must have carried some sort of 'fighting ship register' as well.

I'm also thinking about naval warfare prior to radio communication, say Russo-Japanese war, where I imagine the situation was more chaotic.

well in submarine films or videos at the time of WW2, you quite often see a book with black silhouettes of ships.

 

I also know that Drachenfiels in his video about Taff 33 notes that the Japanse Admiral didn't have identification charts for Escort carriers.

[WhoCares]

In WW2 at least for the USA they had ship recognition charts, I guess other Navys had similar handbooks - like in Tora Tora Tora you see the Japanese pilots getting trained with similar silhouette drawings of American ships on cardboard.

During peace-time it is not that difficult to get such information about the exteriors, as many major ship launches were prestigious public events, photographs freely available, and ports/docks rarely so isolated that you couldn't take a glimps and/or photographs. Not to mention many ships visited many foreign countries/ports in peace-time service.

And you also see that the information is still "sketchy", like what the Japanese consider the Myoko class, as Myoko was first laid down, the US recognition chart calls Nachi class for the first ship launched; also with respect to tonnage etc.

That's no longer possible in wartime, which would explain why the Japanese don't know about the escort carriers, or the Americans about the Yamatos.

Fun fact - in TF1942 they used such a recognition chart as "copy protection" - you had to have the physical game handbook with such recognition drawings and identify a ship at the start of the game.

Also in other games, especially U-Boat simulations like the Silent Hunter series, a proper ship identification with such charts is very important to properly estimate distance and speed, which is needed to plot target solutions.

Edited June 10, 2020 by WhoCares

[BobRoss0902]

On 6/8/2020 at 1:42 AM, Aceituna said:

(i don't know how to say it in english but that thing when sun shines at something polished it makes that visible affect)

I think the word you are looking for is reflection.

Edited June 10, 2020 by BobRoss0902

[BobRoss0902]

I mean I play various submarine simulators, usually its process of elimination and assistance with a book of their silhouettes.

So the way I go about it is.

Size and shape of hull, it is usually very easy to guess ship class from this.

Mast count and funnel count, this will narrow it down significantly.

Location, and size of said funnels which will narrow it further.

Guns/torpedo count and location, this will usually be the final identifier I need.

If I can't identify it by now I start looking at the finer details. Does the bow have a solid area in the front to prevent seawater from getting on the deck? How many hardpoints are there for guns if there are no guns mounted?

The actual superstructure at least in my experience is almost never looked at, unless its something obvious like Nelson's but even then ships with really unique superstructures are even more unique in the other places I described. Additionally some ships are just difficult to identify, it would be very easy to miss identify a Hipper as a Bismarck, and so then your reading with your range finder clocked in to find the distance of a Bismarck would say it is way further away than it is.

On top of all of this, most of this is assuming you have a perfect 90 degree angle to the enemy, if he is angled to you it makes it a ton more difficult to identify his angle, and speed, although it is still quite possible to measure the range so long as the highest point of the ship is visible.