When will a "unified main battery" actually be a "unified main battery"?

[HistoricalAccuracyMan]

This is mainly going to address the "two turret" system for gun aiming that is still in place. I feel like I've been a pretty big proponent of this, but here it goes:

I am fully aware that for, basically, every warship ever designed with a gun turret...the number of guns were the same across each turret (like the Iowa with three triple turrets, the Bismarck with four twin turrets, the New York class with five twin turrets, etc) and the guns were the same size (both shell size and caliber). Now, from what I have seen, read and can deduce from a wide array of source material...the main factor in deciding whether or not a triple turret would fit is how wide the hull was or how much space is available below decks. Take the USS Pensacola for example: it had the two triple turrets placed in the superfiring position, with the two twin turrets on the main deck. Why? Because if they went the other way around with the twins firing over the tops of the triples, they would have to redesign the hull and widen it to accommodate the added size of the machinery required to operate the triple turrets where as if they put the triple turrets where they wound up putting them, the hull was already wide enough so they would fit without any hull altercations or redesigns though it lead to the Pensacolas being very top heavy and having excessive roll (this isn't a problem in UA:D, since so long as you have the displacement left over you can basically swap out a dual for a triple no problem). The USS Nevada, by comparison, was able to use the twin and triple turrets in the more "conventional" way of the twins firing over the triples which was an improvement over previous designs that had to use 5 turrets to carry the same 10-gun compliment, whereas the Nevada's could get away with 4 turrets.

Now that the short history lesson is over, here's how it ties back into UA:D. It's no secret that the gun aiming system has it's flaws and can sometimes make certain designs unworkable or render some turrets useless due to a lack of accuracy in certain situations (just try building a USS Nevada/USS Pensacola style ship and tell me whether you like the gun accuracy/"effectiveness" at any firing angle other than broadside). It's because of the two-turret system that depends on at least two of the same turret (i.e. at least two guns of the same size and number of barrels) being able to bear against a target. Why the game treats single, twin, triple and quadruple turrets of the same gun size as different batteries with different targeting data I do not know--then again, I don't know much about developing a game either, maybe it's easier/simpler this way idk. For an example: you could build a USS Nevada style build with your twin turrets being 14" and your triples being 16" and the only difference you would get between 14" triples and 16" triples is the reload, range, weight of the turret and damage (if the guns even hit the target). Alternatively, you could build a ship that has a single, dual, triple and quadruple gun of the same caliber and the game would treat each one of those turrets as if they were all a different gun size. I've got a very hard time trying to picture somebody on the USS Nevada during WWII telling his captain, "The triples are blazing away sir, but the twin turrets are basically useless since only one of the twin turrets can bear against the target!" That defeats the whole purpose of a "unified" main battery: so long as the shell size and gun caliber (barrel length) are the same, it shouldn't matter whether or not you've got all dual turrets, all triple turrets or a mix of turrets with different numbers of guns in them. Reload times are almost guaranteed to be different since it takes less time to reload two guns than three, but that's not the issue here.

Now, onto the second point: gun caliber, or maybe better known as barrel length. The Japanese Kawachi class of battleships carried a "unified" gun size of 12", but some guns were 50 caliber and others were 45 caliber (meaning their barrel lengths were 600" and 540", respectively) which also caused problems with rangefinding and accuracy of the main battery as longer guns give you higher muzzle velocity and increased range, thus leading to the 50 caliber guns having different performance than the 45 caliber ones. If your guns are the same size but different caliber, you'll have just as much luck trying to hit a target as a ship with multiple gun sizes but equal barrel length.

And one last thing before I close: I'm fairly certain that in the game tips that pop up while you are looking at a loading screen, there is a tip about keeping your gun size the same to increase effectiveness and speed of ranging/aiming ant there is another tip/piece of info about the Kawachi class and their mixed gun length problem that led to them having issues rangefinding despite having the same gun size. If those are tips that are put into this game, by the creators, on the topic of "unified main batteries", shouldn't a unified main battery actually mean something? (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about those tips popping up on the loading screens)

Now, I'm well aware that you could argue that playing around with shell weight, propellant amounts/materials could fix or "make better" the different gun caliber ordeal and one could also argue that if you don't want half of your main battery to be helplessly stuck in the ladder aiming process...just make each turret have the same number of guns. Well, the first argument doesn't really need to happen since we can't change barrel length in this game and the second one takes away from this game's "freedom of design" aspect that allows you to, for the most part, create what you want the way you want it. Not to mention, the second argument could be reversed and the question then becomes "if the guns are the same size and caliber, and fire the same ammo...why does every turret have to have the same number of guns per turret just to be accurate or effective?" I also haven't seen anything in the patch notes for a while on gun accuracy/this issue in general...so I don't think it's been addressed or taken care of.

I realize that much of the dev team's focus has been on the campaign for a while, and while they seem to have been very receptive to feedback as of late, I feel as though this issue has been around for too long now. It's not enough to make me stop playing and supporting this game if this issue is never fixed...but it still bothers me. So I guess all there is left to ask is this:

With game tips that persuade you to have a "unified main battery," gun stats that are basically identical when it comes to muzzle velocity, range, penetration, and damage between all four turret options (single, dual, triple and quad barreled) and the inability to change barrel length to effect the aforementioned stats, and no influence/limits from the ship designer in situations like the USS Pensacola's where just moving the larger turret back will allow it to fit.......when will a "unified main battery" finally mean something?

I hope I'm not the only one who feels/thinks this way, and I hope this eventually makes it's way to the eyes of @Nick Thomadis and/or the other devs. I also hope nobody is dead from reading a wall of text as this was pretty lengthy.

[neph]

2 hours ago, HistoricalAccuracyMan said:

basically, every warship ever designed with a gun turret...the number of guns were the same across each turret

While I'm sure you're already aware, I feel like the quantity & quality of the KGVs and Nevadas was enough that "basically every" is too harsh.

[AurumCorvus]

23 minutes ago, neph said:

While I'm sure you're already aware, I feel like the quantity & quality of the KGVs and Nevadas was enough that "basically every" is too harsh.

Sure, I agree with the KGVs, but I'm going to disagree with the Nevadas. The Nevadas were never really tested, as America joined after Jutland sealed the High Seas Fleet, and in WW2, they were really old ships. Also, there were only two of them ever.

With just the KGVs being the notable exception, it's not too harsh to say "basically" every warship.

[SPANISH_AVENGER]

Yeah, I would like to use more the 4-2-4 array of King Geroge V class, but the twin gun feels like it's from a completely different and independent battery compared to the 4 rifle guns and it feels weird and wrong so I avoid that scheme.

[RedParadize]

There is another issue at play here, if you have more than two turret (of the same kind) then the 3rd one and up will not fire on every volley. I am unsure of what cause that, IRL it was relatively frequent that a gun or a turret would skip a volley. But since you will never have that if you only have two turret its a bit odd. I wish we had more info on this.

[neph]

3 hours ago, RedParadize said:

There is another issue at play here, if you have more than two turret (of the same kind) then the 3rd one and up will not fire on every volley. I am unsure of what cause that, IRL it was relatively frequent that a gun or a turret would skip a volley. But since you will never have that if you only have two turret its a bit odd. I wish we had more info on this.

Yeah that's really frigging annoying & either a bug that's lasted for basically the lifetime hitherto of the game... or a horribly communicated feature

[SonicB]

This isn't the first time this issue has been raised, and I really hope the devs have it in the pipeline to fix... but since there is no published development roadmap, or even a list of issues they plan to address in the medium/long term, I'll just keep on beating this dead horse.

Basically, the performance disincentives for choosing larger turrets have very little or no basis in reality. Rate of fire, the KGV class matched pretty much every modern battleship at around two rounds per minute. Accuracy-wise, there's no evidence I'm aware of that proves the KGVs or Richelieus had any more difficulty aiming or hitting targets than contemporaries with very similar weapons in three- or two-gun turrets. (I'm aware the Bismarcks were designed with twins on the basis that a 2+2 firing pattern would help aiming, but this was never really proven, and the Bismarck design was conceptually closer to the WW1 era Bayerns than their contemporaries.)

Standardise the performance of all guns and you have absolutely no reason not to unify different types of turret as a single main battery.

For how to properly disincentivise larger turrets instead, the answer is found in history and is threefold:

- First, have larger turrets take up more physical deck space.
- Second, make all turrets easier to knock out, and introduce new types of temporary and permanent turret malfunction (single gun failure, rotation restricted, missing salvos, etc.) thereby properly incentivizing redundancy.
- Third, make early marks of multi-gun turret even more prone to the above issues until the technology matures.

As for the wing/centreline turret split on battleships and BCs, well, there's no complicated rebalance needed to fix that, nor the silly restriction that you can only have a certain number of each. Just remove the distinction between them like on every other class (and kindly let my Agincourt have its seven centreline turrets.)

[arkhangelsk]

2 hours ago, SonicB said:

Basically, the performance disincentives for choosing larger turrets have very little or no basis in reality. Rate of fire, the KGV class matched pretty much every modern battleship at around two rounds per minute. Accuracy-wise, there's no evidence I'm aware of that proves the KGVs or Richelieus had any more difficulty aiming or hitting targets than contemporaries with very similar weapons in three- or two-gun turrets. (I'm aware the Bismarcks were designed with twins on the basis that a 2+2 firing pattern would help aiming, but this was never really proven, and the Bismarck design was conceptually closer to the WW1 era Bayerns than their contemporaries.)

The problem is this. The idea that quadruples lose efficiency may be theoretical

Gun Index / Turret Efficiency - Guns in multiple mounts always lose efficiency as compared with the same number of guns in single mounts. This is a factor of reduced rate of fire, handling awkwardness, interference between guns, fire control, salvo problems and so forth. To account for these factors, there is a gun-index rule of thumb that goes like this: A twin mount is roughly 1.75 times as effective a single mount, a triple mount is roughly 2.5 times as effective as a single mount and a quadruple mount is roughly 3.125 times as effective as a single mount.

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/Gun_Data_p3.php

But there's really nothing that goes against it. Please remember that KGV's guns are also smaller than most of her compatriots and Richelieus fired in what? One battle?

For the KGVs (cited from http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_14-45_mk7.php)

• Some details of the problems found in action with these mountings during the 1941 battles: Prince of Wales fired only 55 out of a possible 74 shells during her action with Bismarck. Her problems included jammed shell rings and associated fittings. King George V fired 339 shells during her engagement with Bismarck compared to 380 fired by Rodney.
• The following description of the problems encountered by King George V is taken from "The Final Action: The Sinking of Bismarck, 27 May 1941" by John Roberts:

   

  "Initially she did well achieving 1.7 salvoes per minute while employing radar control but she began to suffer severe problems from 0920 onward [Note: King George V had opened fire at 0850]. 'A' turret was completely out of action for 30 minutes, after firing about 23 rounds per gun, due to a jam between the fixed and revolving structure in the shell room and Y turret was out of action for 7 minutes due to drill errors. . . Both guns in B turret, guns 2 and 4 in A turret and gun 2 in Y turret were put out of action by jams and remained so until after the action - 5 guns out of 10!  There were a multitude of other problems with mechanical failures and drill errors that caused delays and missed salvoes. There were also some misfires - one gun (3 of A turret) misfired twice and was out of action for 30 minutes before it was considered safe to open the breech."

  [Note: The ellipsis in this paragraph is to omit what I believe is actually a reference to the performance of Rodney's 16" (40.6 cm) guns which was mistakenly included in this description]

  Admiral Sir John C. Tovey, C-in-C Home Fleet, commented upon some of these problems in his after-action report PRO Adm 234/509:

  "Comparatively little experience had previously been gained of the reliability of the turrets. The prolonged practice firing for the King George V had been carried out only in one turret. It was fortunate that the action [against Bismarck] was not prolonged, because the 25 rounds per gun practice previously planned would not have shown up so many of the defects."

• Following the Bismarck battles, King George V and Prince of Wales had numerous modifications made to their ammunition supply safety interlock system; the watertightness of the mantlet plates was improved; and the existing drains in the shell rooms were enlarged and additional drains fitted. These changes were incorporated into the rest of the class as they were being built.
• During her battle with Scharnhorst at North Cape, Duke of York was shooting for a total of two hours. Mechanical problems suffered included failures of the bridge flash tubes in the working chambers to close completely, the collapse of shell arresters in the lower hoists and a shell-cage defect in A turret, all of which caused some guns to drop out of firing opportunities. All guns suffered at least some failures to fire, with B1 gun being the most reliable, having missed only three out of the 80 broadsides. Notable among these missed salvos: Poor loading drill and a shell cage fault caused A1 to miss 73 broadsides. Three guns in Y turret were unable to fire for a 15 minute period, causing them to miss 17 broadsides. All together Duke of York fired 446 shells but missed 241 firing opportunities during the engagement.

[DougToss]

I don’t have Friedman’s book on US Battleships, but regarding the Nevadas’ performance relative the Royal Navy and High Seas Fleet, I’m curious if anyone has tinkered away with The US Ships in Jutland Pro. I think you can even simulate Jutland with the USN standing in for either fleet.

Anyone up for giving it a go? I never thought to try the US ships, but I have found it useful to evaluate French warships. I’d be curious to hear how the US ships measure up. 

[Evil4Zerggin]

2 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

To account for these factors, there is a gun-index rule of thumb that goes like this: A twin mount is roughly 1.75 times as effective a single mount, a triple mount is roughly 2.5 times as effective as a single mount and a quadruple mount is roughly 3.125 times as effective as a single mount.

Currently UA:D has the following figures at max tech, accounting for the reload and accuracy penalty of multi-gun turrets:

• Single: 100%
• Twin: 148%
• Triple: 187% (197% if not counting accuracy penalty)
• Quad: 200% (235% if not counting accuracy penalty)

So considerably worse than the quoted rule of thumb. Though I cannot personally vouch for that rule of thumb either, and if that rule of thumb were adopted as-is, I think we would see quad turrets being absolutely dominant. IMO quad turrets currently need some help, but not quite that much help.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Evil4Zerggin

[SonicB]

9 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

The problem is this. The idea that quadruples lose efficiency may be theoretical

Gun Index / Turret Efficiency - Guns in multiple mounts always lose efficiency as compared with the same number of guns in single mounts. This is a factor of reduced rate of fire, handling awkwardness, interference between guns, fire control, salvo problems and so forth. To account for these factors, there is a gun-index rule of thumb that goes like this: A twin mount is roughly 1.75 times as effective a single mount, a triple mount is roughly 2.5 times as effective as a single mount and a quadruple mount is roughly 3.125 times as effective as a single mount.

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/Gun_Data_p3.php

But there's really nothing that goes against it. Please remember that KGV's guns are also smaller than most of her compatriots and Richelieus fired in what? One battle?

For the KGVs (cited from http://navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_14-45_mk7.php)

• Some details of the problems found in action with these mountings during the 1941 battles: Prince of Wales fired only 55 out of a possible 74 shells during her action with Bismarck. Her problems included jammed shell rings and associated fittings. King George V fired 339 shells during her engagement with Bismarck compared to 380 fired by Rodney.
• The following description of the problems encountered by King George V is taken from "The Final Action: The Sinking of Bismarck, 27 May 1941" by John Roberts:

   

  "Initially she did well achieving 1.7 salvoes per minute while employing radar control but she began to suffer severe problems from 0920 onward [Note: King George V had opened fire at 0850]. 'A' turret was completely out of action for 30 minutes, after firing about 23 rounds per gun, due to a jam between the fixed and revolving structure in the shell room and Y turret was out of action for 7 minutes due to drill errors. . . Both guns in B turret, guns 2 and 4 in A turret and gun 2 in Y turret were put out of action by jams and remained so until after the action - 5 guns out of 10!  There were a multitude of other problems with mechanical failures and drill errors that caused delays and missed salvoes. There were also some misfires - one gun (3 of A turret) misfired twice and was out of action for 30 minutes before it was considered safe to open the breech."

  [Note: The ellipsis in this paragraph is to omit what I believe is actually a reference to the performance of Rodney's 16" (40.6 cm) guns which was mistakenly included in this description]

  Admiral Sir John C. Tovey, C-in-C Home Fleet, commented upon some of these problems in his after-action report PRO Adm 234/509:

  "Comparatively little experience had previously been gained of the reliability of the turrets. The prolonged practice firing for the King George V had been carried out only in one turret. It was fortunate that the action [against Bismarck] was not prolonged, because the 25 rounds per gun practice previously planned would not have shown up so many of the defects."

• Following the Bismarck battles, King George V and Prince of Wales had numerous modifications made to their ammunition supply safety interlock system; the watertightness of the mantlet plates was improved; and the existing drains in the shell rooms were enlarged and additional drains fitted. These changes were incorporated into the rest of the class as they were being built.
• During her battle with Scharnhorst at North Cape, Duke of York was shooting for a total of two hours. Mechanical problems suffered included failures of the bridge flash tubes in the working chambers to close completely, the collapse of shell arresters in the lower hoists and a shell-cage defect in A turret, all of which caused some guns to drop out of firing opportunities. All guns suffered at least some failures to fire, with B1 gun being the most reliable, having missed only three out of the 80 broadsides. Notable among these missed salvos: Poor loading drill and a shell cage fault caused A1 to miss 73 broadsides. Three guns in Y turret were unable to fire for a 15 minute period, causing them to miss 17 broadsides. All together Duke of York fired 446 shells but missed 241 firing opportunities during the engagement.

The NavWeaps article you linked includes malfunctions that cause salvo skipping in the calculation of average rate of fire. The passage about the KGVs which you've quoted at length talks exclusively about reliability.

Could I refer you to the second part of my post where I suggest that an increased chance of malfunctions is more realistic than a blanket nerf on rate of fire?

[arkhangelsk]

1 hour ago, SonicB said:

The NavWeaps article you linked includes malfunctions that cause salvo skipping in the calculation of average rate of fire. The passage about the KGVs which you've quoted at length talks exclusively about reliability.

Could I refer you to the second part of my post where I suggest that an increased chance of malfunctions is more realistic than a blanket nerf on rate of fire?

On that issue, I remember once someone proposed that we had torpedoes that occasionally fail, but up their damage a bit (so the amount of damage on average is the same). My thought is, No. Yes, I get it that this is more realistic, but in real life, players do not get the advantage of a Save / Load button.

The present phenomena of turrets failing to fire on time is also somewhat ... realistic. Most people think of it as "a bug". Players do not like to see this kind of randomness.

[Nick Thomadis]

@HistoricalAccuracyMan  When we improve the fire control system, we will group guns in a better way than now. Currently the unified battery is simulated in a large extend, because many guns of the same type aim much better than fewer guns. You can try to make a ship with mixed main gun caliber and compare how it shoots vs a ship with a unified main battery to understand how it works.

Indeed, we should group side guns and different barrel turrets if they are of the same caliber, but again, such a fire control system should have a small penalty to aiming, because the varied position of the guns and the different barrels, should slightly affect their ballistics. The most benefited aiming system, should be for guns of the same caliber, with the same barrels per turret, that are placed on the same height level, if we want to be more faithful to realism.

[DougToss]

20 minutes ago, Nick Thomadis said:

When we improve the fire control system, we will group guns in a better way than now.

I like how you snuck that in there! 🥳

 

Just out of curiosity, because I’m not computer savvy, are there challenges on your end in coding differences between local, central and director control, or is it pretty simple and straight forward?

I was wondering if the “nervous system” of a ship in game is the digital version of the “nervous system” period writers described: voice tubes, syncros, telegraphs etc. linking spotters, the Dreyer Table, range clock, gun captains etc. Is each “node” coded, with information passed along, or is it as simple as “telling” the ship “Director Control” and it will know what to do?

I hope that makes sense, I’m reading *Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnought Era* by
Norman Friedman, and while it’s daunting visualizing it all to me, I wonder if, as someone who works with code it’s much easier for you to see the bigger picture. I imagine if you have an interest in computing it might be more understandable and more straightforward to translate into game systems, since a warship was a computer.

 

Even if it doesn’t make it in game, I’m dying to hear what you think, because I had never really thought of it in those terms before.

Edited October 3, 2021 by DougToss

[SonicB]

9 hours ago, arkhangelsk said:

On that issue, I remember once someone proposed that we had torpedoes that occasionally fail, but up their damage a bit (so the amount of damage on average is the same). My thought is, No. Yes, I get it that this is more realistic, but in real life, players do not get the advantage of a Save / Load button.

The present phenomena of turrets failing to fire on time is also somewhat ... realistic. Most people think of it as "a bug". Players do not like to see this kind of randomness.

Perhaps I wasn't clear: I was talking about malfunctions as a result of enemy action, much as we already have engine or steering problems modelled in the game. I think there should be more ways a turret can be damaged and more chance of that happening, both in general (to promote redundancy) and for turrets with more guns than average for that level of technology.

I personally would be just fine with other types of malfunction for the sake of realism - since the player would have the choice of how reliable they want their turrets to be - but in the absence of different realism settings I accept that may be a bridge too far for the WoWS crowd.

As for the present issue of turrets missing salvos, well, it is far too predictable and always affects the same turret, therefore I've always considered it to be a bug... and if my memory serves I do recall Nick saying as much a couple months ago.
 

9 hours ago, Nick Thomadis said:

@HistoricalAccuracyMan  When we improve the fire control system, we will group guns in a better way than now. Currently the unified battery is simulated in a large extend, because many guns of the same type aim much better than fewer guns. You can try to make a ship with mixed main gun caliber and compare how it shoots vs a ship with a unified main battery to understand how it works.

Indeed, we should group side guns and different barrel turrets if they are of the same caliber, but again, such a fire control system should have a small penalty to aiming, because the varied position of the guns and the different barrels, should slightly affect their ballistics. The most benefited aiming system, should be for guns of the same caliber, with the same barrels per turret, that are placed on the same height level, if we want to be more faithful to realism.

Thank you! I've been hoping to read this for some time, and it's really encouraging to hear it's on your to-do list.
 

[DougToss]

5 minutes ago, SonicB said:

I accept that may be a bridge too far for the WoWS crowd.

ad captandum vulgus

[neph]

2 hours ago, SonicB said:

I was talking about malfunctions as a result of enemy action

Turrets absolutely need to be damagable/jammable. Excellent idea to tie that to # of barrels.