About triple (and quad) gun turrets as secondaries

[Marcomies]

I have been following the progress of this game for a while now. It mostly looks amazing but there have been two issues that have kept me from buying it. First issue was the high top speeds that could be achieved without really compromising anything else in a ship design. I'm no longer that worried about this as the achievable and practical top speeds have been toned down in couple updates. They still seem to be higher than what was historically common but maybe the requirements of campaign mode will address that.

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The second, and more significant, issue is the extreme prominence of triple-gun secondary turrets. Looking at historical ships, there are very rarely triple-gun secondaries on anything smaller than a battleship (like Yamato-class or Richelieu-class). In general, turrets with more than two guns tend to be small caliber AA-guns (40mm or less) or fairly large caliber (~155mm). I'm not aware of any cruisers with triple guns on anything other than the main turrets. Even in 1940's when triple-gun main batteries were already a common concept and naval treaties were no longer a factor, majority of up-to-date secondary armaments were still in double-gun turrets.

However in UAD the triple-gun secondaries and even tertiaries are everywhere starting from light cruisers. Regardless of caliber, triple gun turrets offer the best firepower, best weigh efficiency and best space efficiency. In UAD it always makes more sense to have have 2 triple-gun turrets over 3 double-gun turrets. If this was realistic, then surely the historical secondary turrets would have been (at least) triple-gun as well.

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With UAD's current turret weighs and sizes, the best design practice seems to be taking the largest caliber turret you can fit with most barrels available and that's it, anything else is sub-optimal. This makes me suspect that UAD doesn't really model all the downsides of triple-gun turrets. I haven't found any definitive explanation for why double-gun secondary turrets were considered preferable option. Spreading out the firepower to increase damage resistance alone doesn't explain why every navy with different doctrines came to similar conclusion. Cost and weight are also unlikely to be the reasons as triple-gun arrangement would surely still be cheaper and lighter than having same amount of guns in more turrets (and all the facilities that come with them). The best explanation I can think of is the space requirements.

Surely the turrets were not any larger than they had to be for the best (or sufficient) efficiency. As far as I know, every turret in UAD, whether single-gun or quad-gun, uses the same turret size for the same caliber. You only need to look at some of the in-game triple-gun turrets (especially the smaller ones) to see that they are often packed implausibly tightly, almost breech to breech, in a design based on double-gun turret. Reloading 3 or 4 guns packed way too tightly would probably take far more time than reloading the same amount of guns arranged more practically in double-gun turrets.

The space wouldn't be an issue just inside the turret either. Unless the ammunition transfer capacity from magazines to turret was increased in proportion with the additional guns, the total rate of fire would suffer. The space required for larger facilities and barbettes would probably be easier to arrange safely at the center-line than near the sides of the ship.

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In game I think this could be basically modeled by increasing the turret size for each extra gun: One gun turrets could be a size smaller than what they currently are, two gun turrets could be as they are and triple-gun turrets could be a size larger than they are and the quad-gun turrets a size larger as well. This would impact secondary armaments the most as the center-line main turrets usually have more dedicated space to work with. With increasing turret sizes there would actually be a real choice between 4x5", 3x6", 2x7" and 1x8" guns for example.

A more restrictive option which wouldn't require changes to the turret models themselves would be limiting triple and quad-gun turrets to main battery guns. This would limit the secondary class guns to dual-gun turrets while still allowing smaller "primaries" to be used as triple/quad secondaries (which would allow replicating designs like Yamato and Richelieu for example).

I read that the Update 9 will be increase the relative weight of triple and quad-gun turrets but I suspect that alone will mainly effect the primary turrets since most of the weight usually comes from the largest guns. With the planned change the relatively light secondaries in triple and quad-gun turrets could become even more preferable if the main guns had to be downsized.

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I realize the idea of the game is to allow the players to make their own designs but at least for me the sheer amount of implausible triple-gun turrets on almost every player-made and generated ship is just too much of an immersion breaker. Just to be clear, I'm not asking for the ships to be artificially limited to historical designs, I'm just saying that the current performance of triple-gun secondary turrets surely can't be realistic as otherwise they would have been used far more widely in reality. Other than the triple-gun secondaries the game really looks amazing and every update has been taking it into the right direction. Can't wait to see where this game goes in future.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Marcomies
Fixed nonsense sentence

[Tycondero]

Perhaps it has to do with the amount of space the individual gun barrels required and the complexity of the mechanism. I am just speculating here, as I do not have an answer why dual barreled guns for the smaller calibers where much more prolific. One could argue that the turrets between 3 and 5 inch had limited effectiveness anyway for naval battle purposes. Perhaps it was merely a design choice to limit cost and ammo expenditure by using less complex turrets. 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Tycondero

[disc]

3-5 inch guns were rarely carried in triple or quad mounts. There did exist some examples:

The British BL Mark IX 4in/45 (101.6mm) in a three-gun mount. These were on battlecruisers and on a monitor.

The French Modele 1932 130mm/45 (5.1in) in a quadruple turret. These were on battleships only.

The Italian Model 1937 135mm/45 (5.3in) in a three-gun turret. These were on battleships only.

 

Why small triple or quad mounts were not used otherwise, I can't say for certain, but I think there may be some clues.

Sheer size and number are factors. It may simply be easier to fit several singles or twins into a given space rather than consolidating them into triples or quads -- or one might just use a bigger gun. Additionally, a hit that disables one lightly-armored mount may leave the others untouched, so having multiple separate ones might be prudent.

The working area of the loaders imposes a restraint. Even if every other part of the mount scales ok, the human factors will not get much smaller. They need to stand somewhere. Common solutions were to have the loaders between the guns, or have the guns close together with the loaders behind / slightly outside.

 

On the other hand....

One can see how terribly crowded the British 4in triple was; it was disliked. The Italian turrets had an undoubtedly cleaner ammunition supply, but they may still have been cramped. Triples and quads have a more complex ammunition supply than singles or even twins, in general. The French 130mm quadruple mount suffered here.

Space, weight, and loading constraints were especially severe issues for dual-purpose guns. The French quad was a poor AA mounting due to the complexity of its systems. The British and Italian triple mounts were basically anti-suface only: the Italian triple 135s were indeed mounted alongside single 90mm mounts for AA defense. A single mount or dual mount can be made to traverse and elevate faster (or, at least, with greater ease), because they weigh less per mount rather than per gun. Since triples and quads became more popular as the air threat was developing, this was a disadvantage to those ships that carried them.

Finally, there is cost. If all destroyers in the fleet use single or twin DP mounts, why not just standardize on them? No use in developing a triple or quad mount that won't even fit on a smaller ship.

 

I don't know how the game should handle this. Perhaps there could be a further reload penalty to triples and quads of 3-5in.

Edited October 22, 2020 by disc
Fixed some broken pictures

[Marcomies]

Thanks for the example pictures disc. Those British 4" triples look really impractical. It does seem likely that UAD is currently too optimistic about the efficiency of triple turrets that haven't been up-sized.

Reload penalty for smaller calibers could be one way to encourage more historical turret choices but at the same time it risks making the triple option entirely redundant even without the anti-air specific issues being a factor.

I wonder how the various French multi gun turrets were arranged internally and how they compared size- and space-wise to similar caliber dual and triple turrets.

[AdmiralGunzo]

I really feel that the turrets themselves should be more modifiable with different choices of housing size and gun lenght and number.

[madham82]

Does anyone know any reasons why triple or quad setups would have less accuracy than a twin or single. I don't remember reading anything about the choices impacting accuracy but the game does. 

[disc]

Yes, there are a couple small reasons. When a gun shoots, it creates vibrations and a shock wave at the muzzle, which will disturb the trajectory of other shells in the vicinity. The guns in a triple or quad tend to be closer together than in a twin or several singles. The blast of one gun may therefore interfere with the others to a higher degree, if they are all fired at the same time. The shells might also collide or "kiss" midair, per US reports. This would be less likely if the shells started farther away from each other.

These issues could be reduced with delay coils, so that the guns don't all fire at precisely the same time. This comes at the slight disadvantage that the ship is moving, so firing at slightly different points might theoretically reduce accuracy a little -- but overall this worked very well in practice, as fire control transmission had gotten very good. By WWII, most twin turrets also had delay coils, for the same reason.

An alternative to delay coils is to fire half-salvoes. Only one or two of the guns in the turret would fire, and then after a time the other gun(s) would shoot a salvo. This would reduce interference. However, in certain turrets this would reduce rate of fire: in a turret where there is a fixed loading angle and the guns are locked together in elevation, the guns would have to wait for one another to fire before reloading.

In a turret like on North Carolina, where there are delay coils, wide gun spacing, and independent elevation, probably there would be functionally little difference in accuracy against a twin.

[Cptbarney]

Hmm, does that explain why shells sometimes do weird things in UA:D half the time? Quad secondaries would be noice as well.

[disc]

1 hour ago, Cptbarney said:

Hmm, does that explain why shells sometimes do weird things in UA:D half the time?

I don't think so, I believe that it's just an unusual computed dispersion value which shows up most obviously when a whole bunch of guns fire at once. I think there is no "interference", it's all baked into the accuracy stat.

[Shiki]

Modeling interference of shells in flight would require some incredibly complex computing, that would have to take into account a lot of real-world factors (barrel temperature, atmospheric pressure and temperature, humidity, windspeed and direction, etc.). It's much simpler and more efficient to apply an arbitrary percentage reduction, that you can modify as you like.

[Verum Alex Princeps]

I disagree about deleting the triple secondaries in the game, but agree that they must be bigger and heavier. I also want to see quad secondaries in the game and even want to make my strongest Superbattleship using only quad guns (4x4 457mm) both main, secondary (8x4 203mm) and terdiary (16x4 130mm) xD

[SonicB]

28 minutes ago, Verum Alex Princeps said:

I disagree about deleting the triple secondaries in the game, but agree that they must be bigger and heavier. I also want to see quad secondaries in the game and even want to make my strongest Superbattleship using only quad guns (4x4 457mm) both main, secondary (8x4 203mm) and terdiary (16x4 130mm) xD

Interesting idea. I feel like we ought to have triple/quad secondaries in this game, but with predictably massive disadvantages, so the only real reason to go with them is a very specialised design or simply for RP/flavour.

Personally, I feel this game will achieve the best balance of fun and realism if it lets you build the weirdest, most impractical ship ever suggested during the period, then proves conclusively why it was a terrible idea. I call it the 'HMS Furious' approach.

Edited October 23, 2020 by SonicB

[Cptbarney]

1 minute ago, SonicB said:

Interesting idea. I feel like we ought to have quad secondaries in this game, but with predictably massive disadvantages, so the only real reason to go with them is a very specialised design or simply for RP/flavour.

Personally, I feel this game will achieve the best balance of fun and realism if it lets you build the weirdest, most impractical ship ever suggested during the period, then proves conclusively why it was a terrible idea. I call it the 'HMS Furious' approach.

I dont think they should have massive disadvantages just some disadvantages compared to their triple, dual and single breathen, basically costing more, taking more time to build, being heavier and increasing ship profile plus being easier to hit will be enough, advantages would be more ammo and whatever else.

[SonicB]

1 minute ago, Cptbarney said:

I dont think they should have massive disadvantages just some disadvantages compared to their triple, dual and single breathen, basically costing more, taking more time to build, being heavier and increasing ship profile plus being easier to hit will be enough, advantages would be more ammo and whatever else.

Well, I'm generally going on the principle that if no sane navy built it more than once, it's probably got some pretty significant problems. Even the British 3x4" battlecruiser mount referenced above was awful enough that the RN never went back to triple mounts, mostly (iirc, don't have books with me) because it was very difficult to lay and work the guns consistently under battle conditions or high sea states.

Thus I would add a pretty significant RoF and accuracy penalty, and/or, if it's eventually implemented, a higher chance to malfunction.

[Cptbarney]

49 minutes ago, SonicB said:

Well, I'm generally going on the principle that if no sane navy built it more than once, it's probably got some pretty significant problems. Even the British 3x4" battlecruiser mount referenced above was awful enough that the RN never went back to triple mounts, mostly (iirc, don't have books with me) because it was very difficult to lay and work the guns consistently under battle conditions or high sea states.

Thus I would add a pretty significant RoF and accuracy penalty, and/or, if it's eventually implemented, a higher chance to malfunction.

Too be honest, that just sounds like a design failure really. Quads should get penalties, but nothing that makes them useless otherwise they might as well not be in the game in the first place.

Or if mods are a thing and we can change stats i would just change them so they aren't so borked as well.

[coalminer]

one big problem is the game doesnt simulate anything other than the model of the turret hence ammo handling rooms and ammo logistics etc. are left out which a triple gun mount would need to support it. The game's use of model as the fixed definition of the space the gun requires also hinders it in that aspect. why bother with dual 15"(or whatever size) if the triple turret only weighs more and has the same size? single turrets are also out because its pointless to design monitor-esque vessels since if you have the tonnage for an 18" single, it might as well be a 16" triple since the 18" single takes up the same amount of space anyway. so this results in the cookie cutter "optimisation" of everyone using triples for everything since the only downsides is minor accuracy reduction (made up for by +1 barrel) and weight for the same deck space.

One method I would suggest is again to look at warship gunner series of games. A single gun should take less space and not just weigh less. this way on a smaller vessel i can choose to go with triple 11"s or roll with dual 15"s not go big or go home sort of mentality when it comes to building ships.

[SonicB]

20 hours ago, Cptbarney said:

Too be honest, that just sounds like a design failure really. Quads should get penalties, but nothing that makes them useless otherwise they might as well not be in the game in the first place.

Or if mods are a thing and we can change stats i would just change them so they aren't so borked as well.

Yeah, I accept that's likely true, but I can't really think of any medium-calibre triple or quadruple mounts that worked well enough to become commonplace. That indicates to me that the compromises required to design an effective mount of that type were considered great enough to not be worth the advantages.

That said, the maths might be different if the campaign allows/requires us to design ships to different priorities than existed in historical reality. For instance, triple turrets probably didn't make sense on a large battlecruiser, but if the Royal Navy found itself designing coastal defence battleships with limited deck space but enough beam and topweight to support them, the tradeoff may well have been worthwhile. For instance, had they been fitted to RN monitors operating at low speed in littoral waters, they might have proved more successful.

So I maintain that in most cases triple and quad turrets should be as disadvantaged as they clearly were historically. However, I'll add that there should be a minority of situations (or hulls) where the disadvantages are outweighed, and a good campaign should allow us to discover those niches.

[Bluishdoor76]

3 hours ago, SonicB said:

Yeah, I accept that's likely true, but I can't really think of any medium-calibre triple or quadruple mounts that worked well enough to become commonplace. That indicates to me that the compromises required to design an effective mount of that type were considered great enough to not be worth the advantages.

That said, the maths might be different if the campaign allows/requires us to design ships to different priorities than existed in historical reality. For instance, triple turrets probably didn't make sense on a large battlecruiser, but if the Royal Navy found itself designing coastal defence battleships with limited deck space but enough beam and topweight to support them, the tradeoff may well have been worthwhile. For instance, had they been fitted to RN monitors operating at low speed in littoral waters, they might have proved more successful.

So I maintain that in most cases triple and quad turrets should be as disadvantaged as they clearly were historically. However, I'll add that there should be a minority of situations (or hulls) where the disadvantages are outweighed, and a good campaign should allow us to discover those niches.

Stares at Baltimore class, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Town, Mogami. Main reason triple guns didnt become common place was due to the rise of missiles, triple gun were well on their way in becoming commonplace but technology caught up with them at the end of the 1950s and thus guns began to lose their importance as missiles could deliver a much bigger blow and could reach further.

[madham82]

1 hour ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

Stares at Baltimore class, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Town, Mogami. Main reason triple guns didnt become common place was due to the rise of missiles, triple gun were well on their way in becoming commonplace but technology caught up with them at the end of the 1950s and thus guns began to lose their importance as missiles could deliver a much bigger blow and could reach further.

Contrary to what most people would think, Surface to Surface Missiles (SSMs) did not appear as we think until the 1960s with the SS-N-2. I don't know exactly what year, but the first one mounted on a US ship was actually the SM-1 which was a SAM with secondary ship strike ability. So no they didn't contribute to the diminishing number of guns on surface ships post WW2.

The real reason is aircraft and submarines became the preeminent anti ship weapons. In the '50s the US Navy struggled for funding. So if it didn't protect the carriers from air/sub attacks, and didn't have a nuclear strike role, it didn't seem important at the time. In the 70's when the Russians started deploying large numbers of supersonic and cruise missiles on their ships, the US finally started developing specific SSMs for the fleet. 

[Marcomies]

2 hours ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

Stares at Baltimore class, Cleveland, Brooklyn, Town, Mogami. Main reason triple guns didnt become common place was due to the rise of missiles, triple gun were well on their way in becoming commonplace but technology caught up with them at the end of the 1950s and thus guns began to lose their importance as missiles could deliver a much bigger blow and could reach further.

Without getting into the subject of post-war developments and military priorities, I was never arguing against triple-gun turrets being the go-to primary weapon of 1930+ cruiser sized and bigger warships.

If you look at the Cleveland-class that you mentioned for example, yes, it has triple-gun main turrets. A significant amount of space on a 20th century warship is usually dedicated to the primary weapon turrets so space isn't that much of an issue there. However, if you look at the secondary weapons on the Cleveland-class, those are are 5" guns in dual-gun turrets and they are packed tightly. Those turrets are basically as large as they can be and still fit on the available deck. All of the ships you mentioned had dual-gun secondaries and Mogami's primary weapons (6" triples) were even upgraded to larger caliber dual-gun turrets (8" doubles) during the war.

The Mk 12 5"/38 gun itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5"/38_caliber_gun) was very popular and effective dual-purpose weapon through WW2 and was used in various mounts on warships from Destroyer Escorts to Battleships. It came in various single and dual-gun configurations. The dual-gun turrets generally weighed more than twice as much as a single gun and their dimensions were clearly larger.

This weapon was the best US intermediary caliber naval gun of the war but I'm not aware of it ever being deployed or tested in triple-gun configuration. Many US destroyers used these in dual-gun turrets. Even the Atlanta-class cruiser, the idea of which was basically to fit as many 5" guns on a light cruiser as possible, still used dual mounts for all its 8 primary turrets. That decision might simply be due to manufacturing efficiency, but it also seems like the most likely candidate for testing a triple gun version if there ever was any interest or need for such version.

If I had to speculate why 5"/38 wasn't used in triple-gun turrets, I would guess that with the required size increase you might as well use 6" guns. The loading process on the best 5"/38 turrets was very fast and effective and squeezing in a third gun without sufficient space increase would probably have slowed down the loading to a point where it would negate the addition of another barrel.

[Bluishdoor76]

20 minutes ago, Marcomies said:

Without getting into the subject of post-war developments and military priorities, I was never arguing against triple-gun turrets being the go-to primary weapon of 1930+ cruiser sized and bigger warships.

If you look at the Cleveland-class that you mentioned for example, yes, it has triple-gun main turrets. A significant amount of space on a 20th century warship is usually dedicated to the primary weapon turrets so space isn't that much of an issue there. However, if you look at the secondary weapons on the Cleveland-class, those are are 5" guns in dual-gun turrets and they are packed tightly. Those turrets are basically as large as they can be and still fit on the available deck. All of the ships you mentioned had dual-gun secondaries and Mogami's primary weapons (6" triples) were even upgraded to larger caliber dual-gun turrets (8" doubles) during the war.

The Mk 12 5"/38 gun itself (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5"/38_caliber_gun) was very popular and effective dual-purpose weapon through WW2 and was used in various mounts on warships from Destroyer Escorts to Battleships. It came in various single and dual-gun configurations. The dual-gun turrets generally weighed more than twice as much as a single gun and their dimensions were clearly larger.

This weapon was the best US intermediary caliber naval gun of the war but I'm not aware of it ever being deployed or tested in triple-gun configuration. Many US destroyers used these in dual-gun turrets. Even the Atlanta-class cruiser, the idea of which was basically to fit as many 5" guns on a light cruiser as possible, still used dual mounts for all its 8 primary turrets. That decision might simply be due to manufacturing efficiency, but it also seems like the most likely candidate for testing a triple gun version if there ever was any interest or need for such version.

If I had to speculate why 5"/38 wasn't used in triple-gun turrets, I would guess that with the required size increase you might as well use 6" guns. The loading process on the best 5"/38 turrets was very fast and effective and squeezing in a third gun without sufficient space increase would probably have slowed down the loading to a point where it would negate the addition of another barrel.

I mentioned them cause you were talking about mid to low caliber turrets, forgot you were mentioning secondaries so yeah it is my fault. For many American ships it really just comes down to manufacturing, it is easier, faster and cost effective to keep a design that works then to create multiples. It was the same for every other nation, but with the effect that other nations didnt have the resources to make them. Many triple gun secondary as you may notice are just turrets from other ship classes, Yamato having the 155mm triples from the Mogami class, and Richelieu using the turrets from the La Galissonniere class. Its not that they were deemed to inefficient or bad, its just that they used what ever they already had at the time to cut on cost. They just didnt find that it was needed to create an entire new design when a pre existing one just did the job fine, and that goes to singles and dual as well. Of course there were exceptions, like the German dual 88-105 but those were created as anti air guns, but for the most part they used turret designs that were meant for other ships.

 

Oh also space, space was the other defining factor when it came to why triple gun turrets weren't as wide spread for secondaries, as a wider hull would mean more money and so on, but none of the factors would lead to them being any less effective then singles or duals. If ships, specifically battleships had the space to fit a triple secondary turret, they would of had one, as you can see from the Yamato's first designs. The 2 triple turrets the Yamato had on each side were replaced not because they were bad, but because the need arouse for more anti air defenses, and the space the triple turrets occupied was replaced with more AA mounts.

Edited October 24, 2020 by Bluishdoor76

[Marcomies]

1 hour ago, Bluishdoor76 said:

I mentioned them cause you were talking about mid to low caliber turrets, forgot you were mentioning secondaries so yeah it is my fault. For many American ships it really just comes down to manufacturing, it is easier, faster and cost effective to keep a design that works then to create multiples. It was the same for every other nation, but with the effect that other nations didnt have the resources to make them. Many triple gun secondary as you may notice are just turrets from other ship classes, Yamato having the 155mm triples from the Mogami class, and Richelieu using the turrets from the La Galissonniere class. Its not that they were deemed to inefficient or bad, its just that they used what ever they already had at the time to cut on cost. They just didnt find that it was needed to create an entire new design when a pre existing one just did the job fine, and that goes to singles and dual as well. Of course there were exceptions, like the German dual 88-105 but those were created as anti air guns, but for the most part they used turret designs that were meant for other ships.

I'd argue that US with its massive industrial capacity was probably the least limited by manufacturing when it came to testing and innovating. It's also not like all the 5"/38 turrets were same standard model either. That Wikipedia article alone lists 13 different production mounts, 7 of which are different enclosed dual-gun turrets for different ship types with weighs ranging from 34 tons to 77 tons and many of them were used concurrently.

With aircraft dominating the naval warfare, dual purpose gun's weren't some low priority weapon system either. If the Navy's AA-firepower could have been improved by triple-gun design then surely that would have been pursued. Losing a battleship to torpedo bombers stings a lot more than redesigning a small turret, so surely that wasn't the main reason.

Edited October 25, 2020 by Marcomies

[Griffin01]

As far as I know, more guns per turret did result in increased space and weight efficiency. However, they were quite a bite larger than dual mounts, which should be reflected in the game.

As for lack of use of triple or double secondaries, I'd say it was more because the secondary battery was often used for DP guns, and going above double mounts resulted in poor AA effectiveness. The only exception to that rule that I know of were the Germans, who used a turreted SP battery in double mounts for their batteleships. Else, if you wanted a dedicated turreted SP battery, you'd go for larger turrets.

I could have missed some cases, though

[Bluishdoor76]

On 10/24/2020 at 7:47 PM, Marcomies said:

I'd argue that US with its massive industrial capacity was probably the least limited by manufacturing when it came to testing and innovating. It's also not like all the 5"/38 turrets were same standard model either. That Wikipedia article alone lists 13 different production mounts, 7 of which are different enclosed dual-gun turrets for different ship types with weighs ranging from 34 tons to 77 tons and many of them were used concurrently.

With aircraft dominating the naval warfare, dual purpose gun's weren't some low priority weapon system either. If the Navy's AA-firepower could have been improved by triple-gun design then surely that would have been pursued. Losing a battleship to torpedo bombers stings a lot more than redesigning a small turret, so surely that wasn't the main reason.

The US did have the resources for doing the testing, but for interwar the US was more focused on recovering the economy from the Great Depression and once WW2 started the US focused on mobilizing and getting equipment to their allies that were in desperate need of support, the Brits and Philippines primarily, perfect example of the sort of desperate attempt to alleviate their allies is the M3 Lee, very mediocre tank but was the best the US could produce in a short time while something better came up. as for the Mk 5"/38, it did goe through several variants but for the most part the turret designs it was part of were all fairly similar, just look at the Atlanta's turrets vs Somer's, pretty similar, and same goes for Fletcher and the previous destroyers that used the Mk 5"/38, another example of how the US hardly deviated from what worked is the M4 sherman, once it was deemed adequate it went through a lot of changes but for the most part it stayed looking the same about the same with each iteration, biggest change was the change of the hull from rounded to more blocky on its later iterations. Perfect example of how bad doing multiple different designs and constant changes during wartime look no further then Germany, its production line was nightmare inducing with how many changes they did to all their vehicles, and became one of the many factors that lead to its own downfall.

Edited October 31, 2020 by Bluishdoor76

[Bluishdoor76]

Sorry for the late response lol, sorta forgot this thread existed with how delayed Alpha-9 is been