Never, never stop. Do realize how long it takes to gets thousands of tons of ship moving? Plus, it is easier to hit a non-moving target than a moving one. Battleships were designed to hit targets while moving.
Yes, even the old mechanical computers in WWII era ships accounted for the speed & heading of both the BB and the target. Trust the math, and keep moving.
Ryan Szymanski did a video where the USS New Jersey went up against the Graf Spee. Apparently there’s a bunch of stuff that has to happen in order to change the speed . I think he said they had to change the fuel sprayers. The Graf Spee, even though slower, was running marine diesels and was able to out accelerate the Jersey.
The A.I. is just dumb. Shocker, I know.... but it did everything wrong. But the dumbest thing of all; NO evasive actions from any boats at any time. WTF, over?
Yeah but with round travel times so long it becomes almost impossible to hit a target that is moving faster than a large warship. If the pilot of a small boat moves the steering wheel a tiny bit after the shells have been fired, the boat is going to be in a way different area than where the guns were aimed by the time the shells arrive.
Regarding the Iowa class and torpedo boats. Point #1: The battleship should always be moving against smaller enemy boats (particularly torpedo boats). Even the systems used on the Iowa's during their original WWII era configuration were intelligent enough to calculate the constant aim point for each barrel, so they were definitely good enough to do so after the modernization program, meaning the ship should be just as accurate while moving at flank speed compared to it not moving at all. In addition, the ship only has two real defenses against torpedoes: general movement to make it a more difficult target to hit in regards to the torpedoes firing solution and any sensors the torpedoes may have (wake homing or wire guidance) and speed, where the Iowa would be at flank speed to create as much distance as possible to run the incoming torpedoes out of energy/range. All of these factors combined point to Iowa's needing to move as fast as possible for maximum effectiveness. Point # 2: I believe SP models some damage for indirect fire (it's unclear how it models it right now, as some ships within the front of the push had many shells land really close, up to 10+, without slowing down, while it appears one close shell slowed down other targets). However, based on reality, the Iowa's would have fired HE shells and set them to explode in an airburst at an appropriate height above the water. Also, for the 5" guns, I believe they could have also used proximity fuses against the boats, just as they would against aircraft. This would achieve the most damage against personnel and targets with little to no steel armor like the torpedo boats and should have absolutely shredded the boats in this attack. This can definitely be improved within SP, but the game is relatively early in its development when you compare its current state to the "ideal" level of functionality and features included, which will take several more years of development. Per Wikipedia: "For unarmored targets and shore bombardment, the 1,900 lb (862 kg) Mk. 13 HC (high capacity-referring to the large bursting charge) shell was available. The Mk. 13 shell would create a crater 50 feet (15 m) wide and 20 feet (6 m) deep upon impact and detonation and could defoliate trees 400 yards (360 m) from the point of impact." Point #3: I think the best defensive movement for the torpedo boats would be constant changes in direction and even speed potentially, plus spreading out. If you combine the amazing power of the air-bursting shells above and then read the amazing fire control systems below, the boats would have to create space between themselves so only one would be taken out or damaged per every potential shell landing within a few hundred meters. Then, with the amazing fire control details below, staying on a constant heading and speed would be an absolute death wish. I believe the 16" and 5" guns on the Iowa were noticeably more accurate in the real world than the impacts depicted in SP, at least for boats depicted in this scenario, going in a straight line at constant speed. For those reasons, I imagine a zig-zag pattern with variable timing between each zig and zag would be their best chance, but still like 1 in a thousand to get to firing range when modeled properly. Point #4: The Iowa's had really impressive fire control and aiming systems even in WWII, so I can only imagine this was improved significantly during the modernization (as depicted in SP) too. Here are some excerpts regarding their original capabilities from Wikipedia: The early main battery fire control consisted of the Fire Control Tower, two Mark 38 Gun Fire Control Systems (GFCS), and fire control equipment located in two of the three turrets. As modernized in the 1980s, each turret carried a DR-810 radar that measured the muzzle velocity of each gun, which made it easier to predict the velocity of succeeding shots. Together with the Mark 160 FCS and better propellant consistency, the improvements created the most accurate battleship-caliber guns ever made. The major components of the Mk 38 Gun Fire Control System (GFCS) were the Director, Plotting Room, and interconnecting data transmission equipment. The forward Mk 38 Director was situated on top of the fire control tower, equipped with Mark 45 Rangefinder optical sights, and a Mark 13 Fire Control Radar antenna. The purpose of the Director was to track the target's present bearing and range; done electronically with the radar (preferred) or optically by the men inside using the sights and Rangefinder. The present position of the target was called the Line-Of-Sight and it was continuously sent down to the Mk 8 Rangekeeper by Synchro transmitters. The forward main battery plotting room housed the forward system's Mark 8 Rangekeeper, Mark 41 Stable Vertical, Mk13 FC Radar controls and displays, Parallax Correctors, Fire Control Switchboard, battle telephone switchboard, battery status indicators, assistant Gunnery Officers, and Fire Control Technicians. The Mk 8 Rangekeeper was an electromechanical analog computer whose function was to continuously calculate the gun's bearing and elevation, Line-Of-Fire, to hit a future position of the target. It did this by automatically receiving information from the director (LOS), the FC Radar (range), the ship's gyrocompass (true ship's course), the ship's Pitometer log (ship's speed), the Stable Vertical (ship's roll and pitch), and the ship's anemometer (relative wind speed and direction). Before the surface action started, the FTs made manual inputs for the average initial velocity of the projectiles fired out of the battery's gun barrels and air density. The Rangekeeper calculated the relative motion between "OWN SHIP" and "TARGET". It then could calculate an offset angle and change of range between the target's present position (LOS) and future position at the end of the projectile's time of flight. To this bearing and range offset, it added corrections for gravity, wind, Magnus effect of the spinning projectile, earth's curvature, and Coriolis effect. The Mk 41 continuously measured the angles between the deck and the horizontal plane. These deck angles were continuously transmitted to the Rangekeeper so that it could keep the guns correctly elevated as the ship rolled and pitched. The Mk 41 could be enabled to automatically fire the guns whenever the ship's deck was parallel to the horizontal plane.
thank you. just watching him sit there plugging away as an enemy group advances is madness. Work to keep distance while delivering fire. By moving away the torp range is reduced because the target moving away extends the run time... Add air burst and the actual accuracy of naval guns at this time and this should not even be a conversation. Even a night attack would fail, radar enabled gunfire would doom those ships.
Naval gunnery is an advanced math problem. Sitting still or moving at flank the shots are just math problems. sitting still only makes you a bigger target. and WWII naval battles had TONS of direct hits.
@@Conman1181 i love old mechanical tech like that. modern electronics are like a little black box of voodoo that pictures come out of. cogs and wheels are just so fascinating to watch the ingenuity
at sea sitting still is still moving relative to the enemy. youre easiest to hit running parallel courses at similar speeds because youre still relative to the other observer
@@hashteraksgage3281 i hate to be that guy but 'actually' at sea if you have at least some speed the ship is much more stable. you can watch most times when ships come along side they are always moving. its pretty interesting to watch a navy ship doing underway replenishment
Ships are dynamically stabile. Stopping to fire is a very bad idea. Just sit there and move with the water. Much more control when moving. Much steadier when moving. Never stop - Especially when there's potentially incoming fire and you have to get all that weight moving .
You want to "run away" / open the range at max speed and at an angle at which you can still fire all your forward guns back "over your shoulder" to maintain your full salvo, but reduce the closure rate as much as possible. Buying you more time to hit them, and making the math on where you need to aim easier, because the relative difference in your speeds is less and effectively making them a slow-moving target. This also forces the torpedo boats to seek a much closer launch point, so their torpedoes have the legs to chase you down, giving you more time to hit the boats before they can launch them. And ideally, if you can visually determine a torpedo boat has been hit and is smoking, or your radar sees their speed drop, you leave it to fire on one that isn't smoking and is still charging full speed, and come back to it later if needed. With regards to the Harpoons, you send 1, let it hit someone, and then send another, so they are always hitting something at the front of the group, and thus is still a live target.
IMO the best strategy would be to sail at the maximum traverse of the forward guns so they’re firing “over the shoulder” as it runs away, maximising closure time and so maximising the time it has to shoot at them. Battleships were like big floating tanks- sure, you could shoot HE rounds at it and hope to damage something, but realistically you need to punch through the armour with an armour-piercing round and destroy what’s inside. HE shells can smash lightly armoured targets like destroyers or light cruisers, but foot-thick armour on a battleship will shrug those off.
There were "torpedo boats" / E-boats in the Federal German Navy (Western Germany's navy) ... from end of 50s until mid 80s. It was the Sea Eagle Class (1959 - 1976), Jaguar Class (1959 - 1976) and the Sable class (1961 - 1984). First armed with unguided torpedoes and the Sable class was in the 70s upgraded with cable guided torpedoes. The later E-boat classes were armed with missles instead of torpedoes. I hope I didn't forget anything or made a mistake with the data ...
22:40 re. Zigzagging or not, consider the experience of Taffy 3 destroyer USS Johnston and destroyer escort USS Samuel B Roberts in the battle off Samar, charging toward battleship Yamato & cruisers etc, (“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”) Several accounts of this engagement suggest that one or both captains ordered the helmsmen to steer toward the latest shell splashes, assuming that after each volley the enemy ships were adjusting left or right to correct. This was one of the all-time great naval engagements and would almost certainly be studied in any serious naval war college.
Fire Control Systems: US Navy ships used sophisticated fire control computers like the Mark 1, which calculated the necessary aiming point based on the target's speed, course, and distance, allowing them to fire accurately at moving targets. Rangekeeping: Skilled personnel on the ship, known as "rangekeepers," would constantly track the target's position and feed this information into the fire control system to ensure the shells landed where intended. Limitations: While capable of hitting moving targets, accuracy decreased significantly if the target was maneuvering rapidly, especially at longer ranges. Ship types: Battleships like the Iowa-class were particularly adept at engaging moving targets due to their powerful guns and advanced fire control systems
The Iowa also had an extremely advanced for the time radar that fed data into the fire control system which is why U.S. ships were so much more accurate and capable than the Japanese who lacked radar.
I think survival of the BB in this scenario is the biggest mission goal. Turn and run at flank and you'll out-range those fast boats eventually. Running full-tilt like that gobbles up fuel and they can't operate far from shore. That combined with anti-ship artillery should keep the Iowa safe, unless it gets hit by a torpedo. If that happens, then top speed would drop considerably and make defending the BB much more difficult.
You should work with Ryan at the battleship New Jersey channel. I think it would be a cool tie in with an actual Iowa that has a presence on UA-cam. Might even be some overlap in viewership (besides me.)
@@grimreapershere is a start concerning torpedo defense. Battleship New Jersey’s UA-cam channel updates 5 days a week. ua-cam.com/video/pAwPe2kx2fE/v-deo.htmlsi=NKPJp2LtbpWiorvT
I thought it was obvious that the Iowa was "crossing the T"; maneuvering so that its broadside will face the enemy to give all its main guns clear lines of fire.
Its broadside was exposed from the beginning, and the turn presented its stern to the oncoming. The status bar says "engaging with RGM-109B (Target too close)". It's trying to open range and fire Tomahawks.
The United States is really the only NATO nation fully fleshed out in this game so far. The United States also does not have a lot of shallow water to defend, or that it anticipates operating in. The US Coast Guard handles most of that work, not the US Navy. Therefore, US Navy doctrine back then was all "blue water" operations. The Soviets on the other hand had several regional potential conflict zones where smaller patrol craft would be useful for anti-submarine or ambush anti-ship tactics, like the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Barents.
The 16 inch MK 13 HC shells had 2" thick walls and nearly 150 lbs of explosive D (ammonium picrate) filler - its roughly a Mk 82 GP bomb in filler size. Shell splashes were routinely 30 ft in diameter and about 100ft high. The fragmentation alone from near misses would devastate the torpedo boats
Agreed, and the shock wave through the water would do considerable hull damage. Additionally, the torpedo boats would be at great risk of being flipped / capsized by the shell splash and "running into the hole" made by the shell impact. The damage model doesn't cover it.
@@xet1sw156 probably even more devastating would be proximity fused 16 inch shells, as those shells woutonate above the surface of the water and shower a wide area with high velocity fragments, and 16 inch shells can be fitted with proximity fuses.
Torpedo boats are a way to get a lot of weapons out there without the prohibitive cost of a capital ship. The US Navy focuses on projecting power in blue water, where torpedo boats don't travel well. Coastal defense is what the enemy is doing while we smash their ships with missiles and aircraft.
destroyers are called that because they were meant to destroy torpedo boats, they were called Torpedo Boat Destroyer and were battleship escorts, the term was later changed to just "destroyers" because the boats turned to submarines and missiles appeared you should try this with 2 destroyers instead of 1 cruiser
Sweden ran torpedo boats throughout the 20th century. For the complicated archipelagos around Stockholm and Gothenburg, it's a natural continuation of cannon boats. The complicated seaways lend themselves to fast and agile ways of defending. The torpedo boats where mostly around 40m long did around 40kn, the newer ones possibly faster. Some of them would later be converted to guided missile boats using RBS-15 . A re-use of some of the technical design would become the Stockholm class of corvettes, also with RBS-15. I think you can still ride the HMS Ystad as moving museum, if you're not afraid of losing your hearing. Those gas turbines are LOUD. Boats of this size are plentiful, and I suppose the developers only had time for some of them. But they were workhorses of many a navy, and not just red ones.
1:36 Bcs blue side had CVs with torpedo bombers and are focused on a open sea Navi with almost no need for a costal ship of the type due the surplus of ww2 DD to fill the role the exception is Italian navy The red side has quite a lot I use for this costal vessels due the Baltic Mediterranean and North Sea where they are most useful
Also, the 5"/38 cal secondary guns had an easy range of 10K - 12K yards and could fire at 30 rounds/min per mount. These guns would have been pummeling these boats by the time they were 7-8 miles out and these guns were designed to shoot 200 knot aircraft.
Denmark had torpedo boats, or actually torpedo-missile boats, until year 2000, called the "Willemoes-klassen". 1 x 76 mm canon 2 x stinger missiles 8 x RGM 84 harpoons 4 x 553 mm torpedoes But it could also be used as a minelayer 😂 very versatile, and very fast 💪🤯
Cap, every time you say "why is it doing that", check the status bar. It tells you exactly what's up 90% of the time. In this case, the Iowa was turning away to open range and fire Tomahawks.
A technique that can be used with the 16" guns only is to run at max speed, doing swerves when the forward turrets are loaded and you can fire 'Over the Shoulder', maximizing both your damage and your survival potential
my guess would be that the only areas during the cold war which could have used torpedo boats were the North Sea and the Baltic. The Bundesmarine had torpedo boats to defend against a red landing but that would probably be the only area of operations for these boats in a WW3 scenario
An Iowa class battleship was designed to take six direct torpedo hits in one side simultaneously and still keep going. Combined with them being unusually agile, they should be fairly resilient against a torpedo boat attack, especially with Nixie torpedo decoys deployed. BUT YOU DO NOT WANT TO STOP WHEN UNDER ATTACK!!!!!!! It can take up to at least 18-30 minutes to change speed and you want to be able to maneuver to dodge incoming torpedoes! While the Iowa’s class did receive between 5-8 RQ-2 Pioneer drones, they only started to receive them in 1986. Considering the time frame that the game covers, it makes sense for them not having the drones The 16 inch projectiles do not have any tracer on them. But they were tracked by the fire control radar and they were so big you could practically see them. As for the destructive potential of the 16 inch guns, there were two primary types of projectiles used by the U.S. Navy. Armor piercing weighing in at 2700 lbs each and will penetrate over 22 inches of armored steel or 30 feet of reinforced concrete before exploding. The other is high explosive, weighing in at 1900 lbs. It creates a crater 20 feet deep and 50 feet in diameter. Will completely level/destroy anything within 200 yards, while completely defoliating an additional 300 yards Normally, I would agree with you on the fact that naval gunfire, especially against small, fast targets like torpedo boats, wouldn’t be accurate. HOWEVER! The 16 inch Mark 7 naval rifle with its associated fire control systems/computers are the most accurate battleship guns ever put into service. There are two cases that provide excellent supporting evidence, both involving USS Wisconsin (BB-64). First, during the Korean War, she managed to bullseye a cave, sending two HE shells through the entrance opening whereupon they detonated on the inside walls. The other happened during the First Persian Gulf War (specifically the naval portion of the Battle of Kafji), when the Wisconsin detected 4 Iraqi boghammers approaching her some 15 miles out. She proceeded to fire 12 HE projectiles, sinking three of them with at least two direct hits and causing the remaining boat to retreat One problem with scenarios like this is that the Iowa’s are firing both missiles and guns. But this inaccurate as the electrical generators couldn’t produce enough power for both simultaneously. It was either missiles or guns, not both at the same time
Those 16 inch are not correctly portrayed in sea power. No explosions unless it's a direct hit in sea power. IRL those shells would splinter and wreck the engines of the torpedo boats causing them to explode.
If you watch to the end some of the torpedo boats are damaged from this. That being said, Sea Power is accurate for armor piercing shells. They only arm after penitration so would explode underwater. The French and the Germans had shells designed to explode to damage ships on near misses, but everyone else used more standard fuses
The naval guns are radar controlled, it doesn't matter if your moving at 35 knots or sitting still or the target is moving 50 knots or sitting still. The gun accuracy will not change. Also you give the attacker a better torpedo calculation. Most Russian torpedos are wake homing.
The U.S. Coast Guard has some gun boats of that speed... but no dedicated torpedo boats. Some Coast Guard boats have torpedo tubes -- but mostly for ASW. The difference between blue water and brown water. If we ever have an opponent close to our shores, I think we can expect the coast guard to be employed. I cannot speak to other NATO countries.
The Bundesmarine (West German Navy) had Speed Boats for example the Albatros Class which were equipped with two 533mm Torpedos and four Exocet Rockets in the 1970s to the 1980s.
I think moving away at speed while limiting the number of guns that could fire would have increased accuracy because it woukd have slowed the target speed relative to firing position .
Late WW2 U.S. ships tied fire control to radar. You zigzag between shots when you see the flash.. the worst possible thing to do is go in a straight line...
Slight correction, naval gunnery at this stage was absolutely meant to be able to directly hit the target. The Japanese from Tsushima to WW2 developed shells to go underwater and explode beneath the waterline, but most ships just aimed to hit the target (with more accurate fire being done in point blank range situations). The issue that Iowa is facing with the guns is that these were never meant to hit ships this small going this fast. Anything this small was best left to the secondaries or other ships.
Shows you how good her anti-torpedo boat defenses really were. Her 5" turrets were almost the exact same turrets on Atlanta-class light cruisers. In her WW2 configuration, Iowa's secondary broadside on each side was almost equal to the Atlanta's FULL broadside. Think about that: its secondary alone is a light cruiser's firepower in and of itself.
Until 2016, Germany used so-called speedboats, which were boats the size of torpedo boats, but these ships were armed with barrel and missile weapons. I only know from memory that the Jaguar-class speedboats had torpedo armament. All other types of speedboats had missile and tube weapons when I was in active service around 1990. All torpedo speedboats such as the Sable class, Huginklase and Jaguar class were decommissioned before my active service until 1984. At the time until 1989, the German Navy had the task of blocking and monitoring access to the Baltic Sea in the event of a crisis, so it was equipped with a few frigates and destroyers as well as many speedboats and minelayers.
I think most of those rounds went high was because if the target was a frigate or something they would be right on. The game probably has the math for a ship and is getting confused by the smaller cross section.
The radar station firing would be able see if it hit or not, also would be seeing the speed drop off. Given the way the 16 inch rounds explode, even near misses could be severely damaging especially to smaller craft like torpedo boats. I'm curious of your slow moving boats in fight 1 were damaged on the way to target?
Also secondary comment most gunnery ships have 2 types of shells minimum which would include an H.E. (high explosive) and an A.P. (armor pirecing) HE would definetly spinlter upon contact with the water where AP would penetrat the water then explode
Ahead two thirds away from the threat at an angle to allow the front guns to fire over the shoulder. You would have to do long zig zagz. If they launch go flank and continue because they would have to get closer to hit with Torps. Think a jet running away it reduces your missile range.
@grimreapers Unfortunately with the current state of the AI that does seem likely. It trying to open the range for Tomahawks against boats with 15-20 knots better speed should have been a glaring "uh, no" -- for the sorts of other reasons given here, sure, but not that.
Also from Wikipedia "The first seagoing torpedo boat was the Batoum, completed for the Russian government in 1879. Her length was 100 feet, beam 12 feet 6 inches, horsepower 500, and trial speed 22 knots." Russia seems to have been all in on torpedo boats before and after everybody else.
The received wisdom about trying to evade torpedoes is to run at a 60 degree angle from the track of the incoming torpedo. That seems to be the best compromise between reducing closure rate and getting off the weapon's track.
This exact scenario is the reason destroyer's were invented. Back in the 1870's when the modern torpedo was being introduced naval planners realized that a swarm of small speed boats armed with torpedo's could overwhelm an ocean going fleet of battleship's coming up to a coastline. And the weapons on pre-dreadnaught battleships weren't remotely accurate enough to effectively shoot back. So they needed an ocean going ship able to keep up with the fleet but small and agile enough to intercept and and destroy torpedo boats. A "torpedo boat destroyer" which was eventually shortened to just "destroyer".
I know nothing about naval engagements, but here's my 2c worth. I would turn away and go to flank speed allowing the rear turret much longer time on target while presenting the narrowest target to enemy torpedoes. Would this work?
Battleships always had destroyer escorts to intercept torpedo boats. The destroyer class was originally called "torpedo boat destroyer" as their original purpose was to protect capitol ships from small, swift torpedo boats.
I don't know if this would work or not these days but the American destroyers that went against the Japanese cruisers and battleship chased the water spouts from the big ships guns. The thinking was they'd over compensate wouldn't hit the same spot twice.
In Cold Waters, TASMs have a min range of 8 000 yards, which is just under 4nmi. Assuming Cold Waters is accurate, you should’ve been able to launched your TASMs. There might be some other mechanic preventing your TASM launch. Maybe you were outfitted with TLAMs?
@grimreapers I guess that’s the game mechanic. I’m not sure if that’s true to life. On another note, Cap, how are you finding Sea Power as compared to DCS? Have you received any feedback as to which is more realistic? The ship-borne defences in DCS (SMs, CWIS, etc) seem to be more accurate against incoming targets.
I ran some gun battles with the few ships I could find that aren't bristling with missiles. The Russian Sverdlov vs the American Gearing FRAM-II is pretty good, with the range going to Sverdlov's 152mm and accuracy going to Gearing's 5-inch guns. I also found that 6 Sverdlovs match up pretty well against 1 Iowa.
The Iowas have gyro triggered guns, meaning the computers make a firing solution for a perfectly level ship and the firing circuit won’t close until the ship is level. Also the Iowa can fire “over the shoulder”, meaning you could maintain speed away from them while still firing all 3 turrets by sailing at an angle away for the target.
FWIW, Cap, the Iowa-class carried at least two different types of shell for the 16" guns : high-explosive and armour-piercing. I'd assume that you'd load armour-piercing rounds when you're expecting to score direct hits. BTW, get that rate of fire! IIUC, a really good Iowa gun crew could fire a salvo of three every 35 seconds or so. But they wouldn't be able to keep that rate of fire up for very long. Partly because the intense activity quickly tires the crew, and partly because each set of three rounds is a little bit farther from the shell hoists. Once you've fired all the shells that were closest to the shell hoists, the crews have to travel a greater distance to bring the next round to the hoist. It may only be a foot and a half farther each time; but it still takes time. And the same applies to the bags of powder in the powder magazine (though these, being lighter than a 16" shell, could be sped up by the application of more manpower).
My grandfather severed on the Iowa in Korea. It was named the grey ghost of the Korean coast for a reason. Its main guns could fire past the horizon and it could fire extremely accurate for its time.
Hi cap...Iowa class have torpedo bulges that protect the hull, old school torpedoes used contact or magnetic detonators that hit the bulge and exploded harmlessly...
Not harmlessly - they'd still cause a fair bit damage, but much less than they would without the bulges. Torpedoes have always been something battleships are worried about, hence adding torpedo defense bulges.
During the Cold War the U.S. navy was focused on the “blue water navy” and torpedo boats are not ocean going vessels. They deployed torpedoes off aircraft with carriers.
In 1944 at the Battle off Samar, Cdr Ernest Evans ran his Destroyer USS Johnston from splash to splash to close the distance before firing his torpedoes at heavy Cruisers and Battleships of the Japanese Navy.
Someone may have already answered this, NATO focused on sea control. The ships that are best suited to that are the carriers and their escorts. The Soviets, unable to compete with NATO countries at sea control, opted for a sea denial strategy. That’s why they operated smaller shorter range boats and submarines with disproportionately high levels of firepower. The idea is you can stop some of them, perhaps even most of them, but something should be able to get through. Russia still operates this way. China does as well to a certain degree.
Do the 16" shells even detonate when hitting the water? The hundreds of photos of WW2 near misses don't appear to be detonations - just water impacts. Corrections requested.
I agree, I don't think those shells are modeled right. Not to mention as pointed out in other comments: the range finder would have lead those shots better (so those misses at 20:00 would have probably been dead on). The other note on that: the attacking captains would have altered their courses more between volleys instead of a straight charge. Another note is that this is a purely hypothetical situation. Iowa would have never been alone while transiting an area like that. Personal suggestion: instead of going pure standup and fight or pure run, go at a slight angle (i.e. 30%). It keeps all batteries in arc while drawing out the engagement time. We have a similar tactic in my LARP circles for when you and up fighting with a pole weapon alone: if you can string them along to have to engage in a line you draw out the engagement while bottling them up on top of each other.
Cap, WW2 naval gunnery was designed to hit a ship. It did it by purposely firing the 9 shells to land in roughly a 100 yard wide by 200 yard long oval. This dispersion gave the best chance of accounting for target movement and errors in calculation. Most capital ships like battleships and heavy cruisers were armored to shake off near misses and splinter damage. Only direct hits had a chance of taking them down. In a situation like this with targets moving at you in a straight line, at a consistent speed, and within radar range you have the best chance for naval gunnery to work. That kind of target is pretty easy for the calculations since there are few changining variables.
I believe you can set different vessels to go the same speed via the formation editor if they are in a formation together. I am not sure if you can set this for enemy AI vessels, but I know it is a feature for the player controlled formations.
Iowa is called a fast battleship, so running is a thing if they need time to take more shots at a target. If you run away at an angle, you can still use all 9 16 inch guns. Also, WWII ships evaded torpedoes by notching them the way you guys evade missiles with your jets. Also by maneuvering between them, swinging the ship out of the way, etc.
You should do Gearing vrs Torpedo boats next. Old school ww2 destroyer with the same guns as Iowa's secondaries Also what I would do is put the torpedo boats in groups of four to make it eaiser to place a bunch.
The Iowa has radar tracking the shells that they fire, allowing the system/crew to correct the target solution. Often in WWII at long range the shells from a turret would be fired a slightly different ranges to bracket the target. There were exception, at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal the USS Washington hit with over 85% of her 16" shells, turning the Kirishima into a hulk in a matter of minutes.
I think NATO doesn't use pure torpedo boats, but many ships have torpedo tubes. Counting on air superiority, they fire their torpedoes by planes and helicopters?
During the first Gulf War, the USS Nicholas (an OHP Frigate) was engaged with 3 Iraqi Patrol Craft when the Captain of the USS MIssouri (BB-63), Captain A.L. Kaiss, asked permission from the commander of the region to engage the patrol craft in Surface Action - Guns. The request was denied, which would have made it the first time that a Battleship engaged in surface combat with it's guns since WW2. I was aboard the Missouri from 1990-1992.
Torpedo boats like these are meant as ambush attackers. They'll hide in inlets, behind islands and headlands. Supporting them just needs a few trucks full of spares and other gear, so a base can be set up quickly and easily anywhere they have suitable access. Using them in open sea conditions is suicide against US warships of the modern era. They'd ideally wait in a fjord or something, hoping for fog and a little bit of surface chop, dash in against the heavies, ripple their torps and flee. The USN style at the time is/was more based around "come out and play" in blue water where these things are useless. The 5"/38 on Iowa would reap them like wheat. Iowa would never be on her own without escorts.
Naval gunnery is absolutely about hitting the enemy. Fire control computations take into effect not only your angle to target, speed, enemy speed, course, range, but also things like air pressure, barrel wear, propellant temperature. These kind of things are rarely modelled in games as they're absolute number crunching at its best. All of these values are pushed into one end of a fire-control table and out of the other end comes elevation/direction/charge settings that are then fed to the individual gun mounts. Naval fire control systems make artillery look like chimps throwing rocks.
Check out the story of the uss Washington in ww2 its gunnery tactics and lessons were before the time of the Iowa and so accurate its captain could often aim for bridges and funnels. These lessons eventually spread to the Iowa class who also got some of the first ballistic calculators.
It is a strange one that so many western nations gave up on fast attack craft after the second world war. Scandinavia still carries on building some. The Pegasus was a failure in its designated role but made a great anti-smuggling boat! Be great to get hold of someone like Drachinifel to tell us why. There were (are?) HE rounds for the 16" guns. I wonder if they can be fused for airburst? Be like cluster bombs going off.
Probably admirals prefered blue water ships. Pegasus were a bit niche and quite expensive for limited versatility. Would have been good maybe for a med navy with a req for fast attack.
My thought on what a large ship would do against smaller faster aggressors is circle the advancing force, making the smaller ships use more fuel by making them arc. As they get closer, the larger ship's gun would become more effective. You can't outrun the smaller force so running is not likely best and stopping doesn't help in any way. Keep moving and circle. Don't become a sitting duck.
The torpedo defences on an Iowa-class are the best that were available at the time. It's all passive, built around void spaces the flooding of which would be acceptable in the short term. This is, of course, defence against a torpedo that is trying to hit the target directly. Modern torpedoes detonate beneath a ship's keel. I don't know which type is on board those torpedo boats . . .
When they go crazy Cap. Pause, right click the ship or in the menu hit cease fire, go to the navigation tab remove waypoint then place the new waypoint and then unpause. Then you can assign fires or go back to weapons free. It works 98% of the time for me
wow the tico is good. where does the perception that it doesnt have ASW capability come from? people seriously think the US navy would build a cruiser that cant kill ships?
Never, never stop. Do realize how long it takes to gets thousands of tons of ship moving? Plus, it is easier to hit a non-moving target than a moving one. Battleships were designed to hit targets while moving.
except certain homing torpedos couldnt actually hit an immobile target according to Tom Clancy lol.
Yes, even the old mechanical computers in WWII era ships accounted for the speed & heading of both the BB and the target. Trust the math, and keep moving.
Ryan Szymanski did a video where the USS New Jersey went up against the Graf Spee. Apparently there’s a bunch of stuff that has to happen in order to change the speed . I think he said they had to change the fuel sprayers. The Graf Spee, even though slower, was running marine diesels and was able to out accelerate the Jersey.
Exactly what I was thinking when Cap hit All Stop. Inertia can be your friend when it's time to evade torpedoes.
The A.I. is just dumb. Shocker, I know.... but it did everything wrong. But the dumbest thing of all; NO evasive actions from any boats at any time.
WTF, over?
The Iowas (and a lot of other warships at the time) had automated methods to come up with a firing solution, and had the ability to lead targets
Yeah but with round travel times so long it becomes almost impossible to hit a target that is moving faster than a large warship. If the pilot of a small boat moves the steering wheel a tiny bit after the shells have been fired, the boat is going to be in a way different area than where the guns were aimed by the time the shells arrive.
Regarding the Iowa class and torpedo boats.
Point #1: The battleship should always be moving against smaller enemy boats (particularly torpedo boats).
Even the systems used on the Iowa's during their original WWII era configuration were intelligent enough to calculate the constant aim point for each barrel, so they were definitely good enough to do so after the modernization program, meaning the ship should be just as accurate while moving at flank speed compared to it not moving at all. In addition, the ship only has two real defenses against torpedoes: general movement to make it a more difficult target to hit in regards to the torpedoes firing solution and any sensors the torpedoes may have (wake homing or wire guidance) and speed, where the Iowa would be at flank speed to create as much distance as possible to run the incoming torpedoes out of energy/range. All of these factors combined point to Iowa's needing to move as fast as possible for maximum effectiveness.
Point # 2: I believe SP models some damage for indirect fire (it's unclear how it models it right now, as some ships within the front of the push had many shells land really close, up to 10+, without slowing down, while it appears one close shell slowed down other targets). However, based on reality, the Iowa's would have fired HE shells and set them to explode in an airburst at an appropriate height above the water. Also, for the 5" guns, I believe they could have also used proximity fuses against the boats, just as they would against aircraft.
This would achieve the most damage against personnel and targets with little to no steel armor like the torpedo boats and should have absolutely shredded the boats in this attack. This can definitely be improved within SP, but the game is relatively early in its development when you compare its current state to the "ideal" level of functionality and features included, which will take several more years of development. Per Wikipedia: "For unarmored targets and shore bombardment, the 1,900 lb (862 kg) Mk. 13 HC (high capacity-referring to the large bursting charge) shell was available. The Mk. 13 shell would create a crater 50 feet (15 m) wide and 20 feet (6 m) deep upon impact and detonation and could defoliate trees 400 yards (360 m) from the point of impact."
Point #3: I think the best defensive movement for the torpedo boats would be constant changes in direction and even speed potentially, plus spreading out. If you combine the amazing power of the air-bursting shells above and then read the amazing fire control systems below, the boats would have to create space between themselves so only one would be taken out or damaged per every potential shell landing within a few hundred meters. Then, with the amazing fire control details below, staying on a constant heading and speed would be an absolute death wish. I believe the 16" and 5" guns on the Iowa were noticeably more accurate in the real world than the impacts depicted in SP, at least for boats depicted in this scenario, going in a straight line at constant speed. For those reasons, I imagine a zig-zag pattern with variable timing between each zig and zag would be their best chance, but still like 1 in a thousand to get to firing range when modeled properly.
Point #4: The Iowa's had really impressive fire control and aiming systems even in WWII, so I can only imagine this was improved significantly during the modernization (as depicted in SP) too. Here are some excerpts regarding their original capabilities from Wikipedia:
The early main battery fire control consisted of the Fire Control Tower, two Mark 38 Gun Fire Control Systems (GFCS), and fire control equipment located in two of the three turrets. As modernized in the 1980s, each turret carried a DR-810 radar that measured the muzzle velocity of each gun, which made it easier to predict the velocity of succeeding shots. Together with the Mark 160 FCS and better propellant consistency, the improvements created the most accurate battleship-caliber guns ever made.
The major components of the Mk 38 Gun Fire Control System (GFCS) were the Director, Plotting Room, and interconnecting data transmission equipment.
The forward Mk 38 Director was situated on top of the fire control tower, equipped with Mark 45 Rangefinder optical sights, and a Mark 13 Fire Control Radar antenna. The purpose of the Director was to track the target's present bearing and range; done electronically with the radar (preferred) or optically by the men inside using the sights and Rangefinder. The present position of the target was called the Line-Of-Sight and it was continuously sent down to the Mk 8 Rangekeeper by Synchro transmitters.
The forward main battery plotting room housed the forward system's Mark 8 Rangekeeper, Mark 41 Stable Vertical, Mk13 FC Radar controls and displays, Parallax Correctors, Fire Control Switchboard, battle telephone switchboard, battery status indicators, assistant Gunnery Officers, and Fire Control Technicians. The Mk 8 Rangekeeper was an electromechanical analog computer whose function was to continuously calculate the gun's bearing and elevation, Line-Of-Fire, to hit a future position of the target. It did this by automatically receiving information from the director (LOS), the FC Radar (range), the ship's gyrocompass (true ship's course), the ship's Pitometer log (ship's speed), the Stable Vertical (ship's roll and pitch), and the ship's anemometer (relative wind speed and direction). Before the surface action started, the FTs made manual inputs for the average initial velocity of the projectiles fired out of the battery's gun barrels and air density. The Rangekeeper calculated the relative motion between "OWN SHIP" and "TARGET".
It then could calculate an offset angle and change of range between the target's present position (LOS) and future position at the end of the projectile's time of flight. To this bearing and range offset, it added corrections for gravity, wind, Magnus effect of the spinning projectile, earth's curvature, and Coriolis effect. The Mk 41 continuously measured the angles between the deck and the horizontal plane. These deck angles were continuously transmitted to the Rangekeeper so that it could keep the guns correctly elevated as the ship rolled and pitched. The Mk 41 could be enabled to automatically fire the guns whenever the ship's deck was parallel to the horizontal plane.
For torpedo defence the had 2 dixies, noise makers on a cable, and standard noisemakers
thank you. just watching him sit there plugging away as an enemy group advances is madness. Work to keep distance while delivering fire. By moving away the torp range is reduced because the target moving away extends the run time... Add air burst and the actual accuracy of naval guns at this time and this should not even be a conversation. Even a night attack would fail, radar enabled gunfire would doom those ships.
Naval gunnery is an advanced math problem. Sitting still or moving at flank the shots are just math problems. sitting still only makes you a bigger target. and WWII naval battles had TONS of direct hits.
The mechanical computers they used always fascinated me.
@@Conman1181 i love old mechanical tech like that. modern electronics are like a little black box of voodoo that pictures come out of. cogs and wheels are just so fascinating to watch the ingenuity
at sea sitting still is still moving relative to the enemy. youre easiest to hit running parallel courses at similar speeds because youre still relative to the other observer
To be fair standing still gave ships the best accuracy, but they are also a sitting duck.
@@hashteraksgage3281 i hate to be that guy but 'actually' at sea if you have at least some speed the ship is much more stable. you can watch most times when ships come along side they are always moving. its pretty interesting to watch a navy ship doing underway replenishment
Ships are dynamically stabile. Stopping to fire is a very bad idea. Just sit there and move with the water. Much more control when moving. Much steadier when moving. Never stop - Especially when there's potentially incoming fire and you have to get all that weight moving .
You want to "run away" / open the range at max speed and at an angle at which you can still fire all your forward guns back "over your shoulder" to maintain your full salvo, but reduce the closure rate as much as possible. Buying you more time to hit them, and making the math on where you need to aim easier, because the relative difference in your speeds is less and effectively making them a slow-moving target. This also forces the torpedo boats to seek a much closer launch point, so their torpedoes have the legs to chase you down, giving you more time to hit the boats before they can launch them. And ideally, if you can visually determine a torpedo boat has been hit and is smoking, or your radar sees their speed drop, you leave it to fire on one that isn't smoking and is still charging full speed, and come back to it later if needed.
With regards to the Harpoons, you send 1, let it hit someone, and then send another, so they are always hitting something at the front of the group, and thus is still a live target.
Excellent answer
IMO the best strategy would be to sail at the maximum traverse of the forward guns so they’re firing “over the shoulder” as it runs away, maximising closure time and so maximising the time it has to shoot at them.
Battleships were like big floating tanks- sure, you could shoot HE rounds at it and hope to damage something, but realistically you need to punch through the armour with an armour-piercing round and destroy what’s inside. HE shells can smash lightly armoured targets like destroyers or light cruisers, but foot-thick armour on a battleship will shrug those off.
There were "torpedo boats" / E-boats in the Federal German Navy (Western Germany's navy) ... from end of 50s until mid 80s. It was the Sea Eagle Class (1959 - 1976), Jaguar Class (1959 - 1976) and the Sable class (1961 - 1984). First armed with unguided torpedoes and the Sable class was in the 70s upgraded with cable guided torpedoes. The later E-boat classes were armed with missles instead of torpedoes. I hope I didn't forget anything or made a mistake with the data ...
Thanks!
@@grimreapers You're welcome 😊
They used the old e-boats post war for SAR and minesweeping duties.
22:40 re. Zigzagging or not, consider the experience of Taffy 3 destroyer USS Johnston and destroyer escort USS Samuel B Roberts in the battle off Samar, charging toward battleship Yamato & cruisers etc, (“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”) Several accounts of this engagement suggest that one or both captains ordered the helmsmen to steer toward the latest shell splashes, assuming that after each volley the enemy ships were adjusting left or right to correct. This was one of the all-time great naval engagements and would almost certainly be studied in any serious naval war college.
Fire Control Systems:
US Navy ships used sophisticated fire control computers like the Mark 1, which calculated the necessary aiming point based on the target's speed, course, and distance, allowing them to fire accurately at moving targets.
Rangekeeping:
Skilled personnel on the ship, known as "rangekeepers," would constantly track the target's position and feed this information into the fire control system to ensure the shells landed where intended.
Limitations:
While capable of hitting moving targets, accuracy decreased significantly if the target was maneuvering rapidly, especially at longer ranges.
Ship types:
Battleships like the Iowa-class were particularly adept at engaging moving targets due to their powerful guns and advanced fire control systems
The Iowa also had an extremely advanced for the time radar that fed data into the fire control system which is why U.S. ships were so much more accurate and capable than the Japanese who lacked radar.
Those naval guns are more accurate than you think. Radar and computer guided even back in the day.
I think survival of the BB in this scenario is the biggest mission goal. Turn and run at flank and you'll out-range those fast boats eventually. Running full-tilt like that gobbles up fuel and they can't operate far from shore. That combined with anti-ship artillery should keep the Iowa safe, unless it gets hit by a torpedo. If that happens, then top speed would drop considerably and make defending the BB much more difficult.
You should work with Ryan at the battleship New Jersey channel. I think it would be a cool tie in with an actual Iowa that has a presence on UA-cam. Might even be some overlap in viewership (besides me.)
Me too
Battleship New Jersey museum and memorial is supported by the New Jersey department of state . . .
Roger send him my way please!
@@grimreapershere is a start concerning torpedo defense. Battleship New Jersey’s UA-cam channel updates 5 days a week.
ua-cam.com/video/pAwPe2kx2fE/v-deo.htmlsi=NKPJp2LtbpWiorvT
@@grimreapershe also collaborates with Drachinifel: ua-cam.com/video/gAZxDJjWKFQ/v-deo.htmlsi=0AnwBWJ80xznFqQs
I thought it was obvious that the Iowa was "crossing the T"; maneuvering so that its broadside will face the enemy to give all its main guns clear lines of fire.
Its broadside was exposed from the beginning, and the turn presented its stern to the oncoming. The status bar says "engaging with RGM-109B (Target too close)". It's trying to open range and fire Tomahawks.
The United States is really the only NATO nation fully fleshed out in this game so far.
The United States also does not have a lot of shallow water to defend, or that it anticipates operating in. The US Coast Guard handles most of that work, not the US Navy. Therefore, US Navy doctrine back then was all "blue water" operations.
The Soviets on the other hand had several regional potential conflict zones where smaller patrol craft would be useful for anti-submarine or ambush anti-ship tactics, like the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, and the Barents.
The 16 inch MK 13 HC shells had 2" thick walls and nearly 150 lbs of explosive D (ammonium picrate) filler - its roughly a Mk 82 GP bomb in filler size.
Shell splashes were routinely 30 ft in diameter and about 100ft high. The fragmentation alone from near misses would devastate the torpedo boats
Agreed, and the shock wave through the water would do considerable hull damage. Additionally, the torpedo boats would be at great risk of being flipped / capsized by the shell splash and "running into the hole" made by the shell impact. The damage model doesn't cover it.
@@xet1sw156 probably even more devastating would be proximity fused 16 inch shells, as those shells woutonate above the surface of the water and shower a wide area with high velocity fragments, and 16 inch shells can be fitted with proximity fuses.
Thanks for doing my suggestion!
Pleasure
Torpedo boats are a way to get a lot of weapons out there without the prohibitive cost of a capital ship. The US Navy focuses on projecting power in blue water, where torpedo boats don't travel well. Coastal defense is what the enemy is doing while we smash their ships with missiles and aircraft.
destroyers are called that because they were meant to destroy torpedo boats, they were called Torpedo Boat Destroyer and were battleship escorts, the term was later changed to just "destroyers" because the boats turned to submarines and missiles appeared
you should try this with 2 destroyers instead of 1 cruiser
Never stop moving!!!
why aren't the 5" 38's engaging?
Sweden ran torpedo boats throughout the 20th century. For the complicated archipelagos around Stockholm and Gothenburg, it's a natural continuation of cannon boats. The complicated seaways lend themselves to fast and agile ways of defending. The torpedo boats where mostly around 40m long did around 40kn, the newer ones possibly faster. Some of them would later be converted to guided missile boats using RBS-15 . A re-use of some of the technical design would become the Stockholm class of corvettes, also with RBS-15.
I think you can still ride the HMS Ystad as moving museum, if you're not afraid of losing your hearing. Those gas turbines are LOUD.
Boats of this size are plentiful, and I suppose the developers only had time for some of them. But they were workhorses of many a navy, and not just red ones.
1:36 Bcs blue side had CVs with torpedo bombers and are focused on a open sea Navi with almost no need for a costal ship of the type due the surplus of ww2 DD to fill the role the exception is Italian navy
The red side has quite a lot I use for this costal vessels due the Baltic Mediterranean and North Sea where they are most useful
"naval gunnery wasnt designed to hit.. was designed to straddle" Nobody told that to ching lee!
He was a sniper with that 8 inch
there's an inherent inaccuracy... so, you have to fire a lot to guarantee a hit
@@andyf4292 look up fat electricians video to see what i meant. theres an inherent inaccuracy with all systems
@@andyf4292 Ching Lee sure as hell didn't
Also, the 5"/38 cal secondary guns had an easy range of 10K - 12K yards and could fire at 30 rounds/min per mount. These guns would have been pummeling these boats by the time they were 7-8 miles out and these guns were designed to shoot 200 knot aircraft.
Minor clarification: they were dual-purpose, meaning they were designed to hit both 200kt aircraft _and_ 30-50kt seacraft. 😊
This was an enjoyable one to watch, thanks for taking the time to make it.
Enjoyed this one Cap, never a waste of time with Sea Power scenarios.
Denmark had torpedo boats, or actually torpedo-missile boats, until year 2000, called the "Willemoes-klassen".
1 x 76 mm canon
2 x stinger missiles
8 x RGM 84 harpoons
4 x 553 mm torpedoes
But it could also be used as a minelayer 😂 very versatile, and very fast 💪🤯
Cap, every time you say "why is it doing that", check the status bar. It tells you exactly what's up 90% of the time. In this case, the Iowa was turning away to open range and fire Tomahawks.
A technique that can be used with the 16" guns only is to run at max speed, doing swerves when the forward turrets are loaded and you can fire 'Over the Shoulder', maximizing both your damage and your survival potential
my guess would be that the only areas during the cold war which could have used torpedo boats were the North Sea and the Baltic. The Bundesmarine had torpedo boats to defend against a red landing but that would probably be the only area of operations for these boats in a WW3 scenario
france and italy also had a few of them (freccia class, they were convetible from gun boat, to torpedo boat to missile boat)
An Iowa class battleship was designed to take six direct torpedo hits in one side simultaneously and still keep going. Combined with them being unusually agile, they should be fairly resilient against a torpedo boat attack, especially with Nixie torpedo decoys deployed. BUT YOU DO NOT WANT TO STOP WHEN UNDER ATTACK!!!!!!! It can take up to at least 18-30 minutes to change speed and you want to be able to maneuver to dodge incoming torpedoes!
While the Iowa’s class did receive between 5-8 RQ-2 Pioneer drones, they only started to receive them in 1986. Considering the time frame that the game covers, it makes sense for them not having the drones
The 16 inch projectiles do not have any tracer on them. But they were tracked by the fire control radar and they were so big you could practically see them. As for the destructive potential of the 16 inch guns, there were two primary types of projectiles used by the U.S. Navy. Armor piercing weighing in at 2700 lbs each and will penetrate over 22 inches of armored steel or 30 feet of reinforced concrete before exploding. The other is high explosive, weighing in at 1900 lbs. It creates a crater 20 feet deep and 50 feet in diameter. Will completely level/destroy anything within 200 yards, while completely defoliating an additional 300 yards
Normally, I would agree with you on the fact that naval gunfire, especially against small, fast targets like torpedo boats, wouldn’t be accurate. HOWEVER! The 16 inch Mark 7 naval rifle with its associated fire control systems/computers are the most accurate battleship guns ever put into service. There are two cases that provide excellent supporting evidence, both involving USS Wisconsin (BB-64). First, during the Korean War, she managed to bullseye a cave, sending two HE shells through the entrance opening whereupon they detonated on the inside walls. The other happened during the First Persian Gulf War (specifically the naval portion of the Battle of Kafji), when the Wisconsin detected 4 Iraqi boghammers approaching her some 15 miles out. She proceeded to fire 12 HE projectiles, sinking three of them with at least two direct hits and causing the remaining boat to retreat
One problem with scenarios like this is that the Iowa’s are firing both missiles and guns. But this inaccurate as the electrical generators couldn’t produce enough power for both simultaneously. It was either missiles or guns, not both at the same time
Those 16 inch are not correctly portrayed in sea power. No explosions unless it's a direct hit in sea power. IRL those shells would splinter and wreck the engines of the torpedo boats causing them to explode.
If you watch to the end some of the torpedo boats are damaged from this.
That being said, Sea Power is accurate for armor piercing shells. They only arm after penitration so would explode underwater. The French and the Germans had shells designed to explode to damage ships on near misses, but everyone else used more standard fuses
I love how Cap is voicing doubt right as the 16” guns land a salvo all over one of the torpedo boats!🤣
The naval guns are radar controlled, it doesn't matter if your moving at 35 knots or sitting still or the target is moving 50 knots or sitting still. The gun accuracy will not change. Also you give the attacker a better torpedo calculation. Most Russian torpedos are wake homing.
Keep up the great videos legend
Cap : " . . . and you can still pummel them with the 16-incher."
You're just showing off now, Cap.
The U.S. Coast Guard has some gun boats of that speed... but no dedicated torpedo boats. Some Coast Guard boats have torpedo tubes -- but mostly for ASW. The difference between blue water and brown water. If we ever have an opponent close to our shores, I think we can expect the coast guard to be employed. I cannot speak to other NATO countries.
The Bundesmarine (West German Navy) had Speed Boats for example the Albatros Class which were equipped with two 533mm Torpedos and four Exocet Rockets in the 1970s to the 1980s.
16” gun turrets solve a lot of problems. That’s why I have one mounted above the bonus room. Complain about the weeds now, HOA.
i dont recall if its in sea power, but does iowa have her towed torpedo decoy?
For a challenge use a Gearing, Garcia or Knox class. Or one of the British WW2 destroyers. (C class I think)
Another great show, nothing boring , keep up the good work Cap
I think moving away at speed while limiting the number of guns that could fire would have increased accuracy because it woukd have slowed the target speed relative to firing position .
Late WW2 U.S. ships tied fire control to radar.
You zigzag between shots when you see the flash.. the worst possible thing to do is go in a straight line...
Slight correction, naval gunnery at this stage was absolutely meant to be able to directly hit the target. The Japanese from Tsushima to WW2 developed shells to go underwater and explode beneath the waterline, but most ships just aimed to hit the target (with more accurate fire being done in point blank range situations). The issue that Iowa is facing with the guns is that these were never meant to hit ships this small going this fast. Anything this small was best left to the secondaries or other ships.
Shows you how good her anti-torpedo boat defenses really were. Her 5" turrets were almost the exact same turrets on Atlanta-class light cruisers. In her WW2 configuration, Iowa's secondary broadside on each side was almost equal to the Atlanta's FULL broadside. Think about that: its secondary alone is a light cruiser's firepower in and of itself.
In confused. At 22:00, why aren’t the 5” guns opening up. You’re at their extreme range.
Luckily Cap isn't in charge of a real ship.
Really enjoyed this scenario. Good work.👌
Until 2016, Germany used so-called speedboats, which were boats the size of torpedo boats, but these ships were armed with barrel and missile weapons.
I only know from memory that the Jaguar-class speedboats had torpedo armament. All other types of speedboats had missile and tube weapons when I was in active service around 1990. All torpedo speedboats such as the Sable class, Huginklase and Jaguar class were decommissioned before my active service until 1984.
At the time until 1989, the German Navy had the task of blocking and monitoring access to the Baltic Sea in the event of a crisis, so it was equipped with a few frigates and destroyers as well as many speedboats and minelayers.
seeing the iowa move so fast almost doesnt seem possible
Can't outrun or outmaneuver a torpedo if your ship isn't moving.
I think most of those rounds went high was because if the target was a frigate or something they would be right on. The game probably has the math for a ship and is getting confused by the smaller cross section.
The radar station firing would be able see if it hit or not, also would be seeing the speed drop off. Given the way the 16 inch rounds explode, even near misses could be severely damaging especially to smaller craft like torpedo boats. I'm curious of your slow moving boats in fight 1 were damaged on the way to target?
Also secondary comment most gunnery ships have 2 types of shells minimum which would include an H.E. (high explosive) and an A.P. (armor pirecing) HE would definetly spinlter upon contact with the water where AP would penetrat the water then explode
you would zig-zag, for sure!
Ahead two thirds away from the threat at an angle to allow the front guns to fire over the shoulder. You would have to do long zig zagz. If they launch go flank and continue because they would have to get closer to hit with Torps. Think a jet running away it reduces your missile range.
I suspect that would need micro-managing by the human.
@grimreapers Unfortunately with the current state of the AI that does seem likely. It trying to open the range for Tomahawks against boats with 15-20 knots better speed should have been a glaring "uh, no" -- for the sorts of other reasons given here, sure, but not that.
Also from Wikipedia "The first seagoing torpedo boat was the Batoum, completed for the Russian government in 1879. Her length was 100 feet, beam 12 feet 6 inches, horsepower 500, and trial speed 22 knots."
Russia seems to have been all in on torpedo boats before and after everybody else.
The received wisdom about trying to evade torpedoes is to run at a 60 degree angle from the track of the incoming torpedo. That seems to be the best compromise between reducing closure rate and getting off the weapon's track.
This exact scenario is the reason destroyer's were invented. Back in the 1870's when the modern torpedo was being introduced naval planners realized that a swarm of small speed boats armed with torpedo's could overwhelm an ocean going fleet of battleship's coming up to a coastline. And the weapons on pre-dreadnaught battleships weren't remotely accurate enough to effectively shoot back. So they needed an ocean going ship able to keep up with the fleet but small and agile enough to intercept and and destroy torpedo boats. A "torpedo boat destroyer" which was eventually shortened to just "destroyer".
I know nothing about naval engagements, but here's my 2c worth.
I would turn away and go to flank speed allowing the rear turret much longer time on target while presenting the narrowest target to enemy torpedoes.
Would this work?
Battleships always had destroyer escorts to intercept torpedo boats.
The destroyer class was originally called "torpedo boat destroyer" as their original purpose was to protect capitol ships from small, swift torpedo boats.
I don't know if this would work or not these days but the American destroyers that went against the Japanese cruisers and battleship chased the water spouts from the big ships guns. The thinking was they'd over compensate wouldn't hit the same spot twice.
In Cold Waters, TASMs have a min range of 8 000 yards, which is just under 4nmi. Assuming Cold Waters is accurate, you should’ve been able to launched your TASMs. There might be some other mechanic preventing your TASM launch. Maybe you were outfitted with TLAMs?
I checked and it's 27 miles in game.
@grimreapers I guess that’s the game mechanic. I’m not sure if that’s true to life. On another note, Cap, how are you finding Sea Power as compared to DCS? Have you received any feedback as to which is more realistic? The ship-borne defences in DCS (SMs, CWIS, etc) seem to be more accurate against incoming targets.
I ran some gun battles with the few ships I could find that aren't bristling with missiles. The Russian Sverdlov vs the American Gearing FRAM-II is pretty good, with the range going to Sverdlov's 152mm and accuracy going to Gearing's 5-inch guns. I also found that 6 Sverdlovs match up pretty well against 1 Iowa.
The Iowas have gyro triggered guns, meaning the computers make a firing solution for a perfectly level ship and the firing circuit won’t close until the ship is level. Also the Iowa can fire “over the shoulder”, meaning you could maintain speed away from them while still firing all 3 turrets by sailing at an angle away for the target.
FWIW, Cap, the Iowa-class carried at least two different types of shell for the 16" guns : high-explosive and armour-piercing.
I'd assume that you'd load armour-piercing rounds when you're expecting to score direct hits.
BTW, get that rate of fire! IIUC, a really good Iowa gun crew could fire a salvo of three every 35 seconds or so. But they wouldn't be able to keep that rate of fire up for very long. Partly because the intense activity quickly tires the crew, and partly because each set of three rounds is a little bit farther from the shell hoists. Once you've fired all the shells that were closest to the shell hoists, the crews have to travel a greater distance to bring the next round to the hoist. It may only be a foot and a half farther each time; but it still takes time. And the same applies to the bags of powder in the powder magazine (though these, being lighter than a 16" shell, could be sped up by the application of more manpower).
My grandfather severed on the Iowa in Korea. It was named the grey ghost of the Korean coast for a reason. Its main guns could fire past the horizon and it could fire extremely accurate for its time.
Hi cap...Iowa class have torpedo bulges that protect the hull, old school torpedoes used contact or magnetic detonators that hit the bulge and exploded harmlessly...
Not harmlessly - they'd still cause a fair bit damage, but much less than they would without the bulges.
Torpedoes have always been something battleships are worried about, hence adding torpedo defense bulges.
@@logansorenssenAnd traveling with torpedo boat... destroyers. 😊
During the Cold War the U.S. navy was focused on the “blue water navy” and torpedo boats are not ocean going vessels. They deployed torpedoes off aircraft with carriers.
In 1944 at the Battle off Samar, Cdr Ernest Evans ran his Destroyer USS Johnston from splash to splash to close the distance before firing his torpedoes at heavy Cruisers and Battleships of the Japanese Navy.
Someone may have already answered this, NATO focused on sea control. The ships that are best suited to that are the carriers and their escorts. The Soviets, unable to compete with NATO countries at sea control, opted for a sea denial strategy. That’s why they operated smaller shorter range boats and submarines with disproportionately high levels of firepower. The idea is you can stop some of them, perhaps even most of them, but something should be able to get through. Russia still operates this way. China does as well to a certain degree.
Do the 16" shells even detonate when hitting the water? The hundreds of photos of WW2 near misses don't appear to be detonations - just water impacts. Corrections requested.
You can take control of the ship with WASD. Thanks for your videos!
I agree, I don't think those shells are modeled right. Not to mention as pointed out in other comments: the range finder would have lead those shots better (so those misses at 20:00 would have probably been dead on).
The other note on that: the attacking captains would have altered their courses more between volleys instead of a straight charge.
Another note is that this is a purely hypothetical situation. Iowa would have never been alone while transiting an area like that.
Personal suggestion: instead of going pure standup and fight or pure run, go at a slight angle (i.e. 30%). It keeps all batteries in arc while drawing out the engagement time. We have a similar tactic in my LARP circles for when you and up fighting with a pole weapon alone: if you can string them along to have to engage in a line you draw out the engagement while bottling them up on top of each other.
Cap, WW2 naval gunnery was designed to hit a ship. It did it by purposely firing the 9 shells to land in roughly a 100 yard wide by 200 yard long oval. This dispersion gave the best chance of accounting for target movement and errors in calculation. Most capital ships like battleships and heavy cruisers were armored to shake off near misses and splinter damage. Only direct hits had a chance of taking them down. In a situation like this with targets moving at you in a straight line, at a consistent speed, and within radar range you have the best chance for naval gunnery to work. That kind of target is pretty easy for the calculations since there are few changining variables.
Awesome battle! The Iowa is a sheer class act!
I believe you can set different vessels to go the same speed via the formation editor if they are in a formation together. I am not sure if you can set this for enemy AI vessels, but I know it is a feature for the player controlled formations.
What a hilarious idea. Can't wait to see how it turns out. :)
Iowa is called a fast battleship, so running is a thing if they need time to take more shots at a target. If you run away at an angle, you can still use all 9 16 inch guns.
Also, WWII ships evaded torpedoes by notching them the way you guys evade missiles with your jets. Also by maneuvering between them, swinging the ship out of the way, etc.
The Shersehn uses the USET-40 anti-submarine torpedo, which makes it completely useless in this scenario as it is not dual purpose.
I love you Cap but you need to look up Willis "Ching" Lee. Amazing ships Captain.
You should do Gearing vrs Torpedo boats next. Old school ww2 destroyer with the same guns as Iowa's secondaries
Also what I would do is put the torpedo boats in groups of four to make it eaiser to place a bunch.
The Iowa has radar tracking the shells that they fire, allowing the system/crew to correct the target solution. Often in WWII at long range the shells from a turret would be fired a slightly different ranges to bracket the target. There were exception, at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal the USS Washington hit with over 85% of her 16" shells, turning the Kirishima into a hulk in a matter of minutes.
I think NATO doesn't use pure torpedo boats, but many ships have torpedo tubes. Counting on air superiority, they fire their torpedoes by planes and helicopters?
During the first Gulf War, the USS Nicholas (an OHP Frigate) was engaged with 3 Iraqi Patrol Craft when the Captain of the USS MIssouri (BB-63), Captain A.L. Kaiss, asked permission from the commander of the region to engage the patrol craft in Surface Action - Guns. The request was denied, which would have made it the first time that a Battleship engaged in surface combat with it's guns since WW2. I was aboard the Missouri from 1990-1992.
Maybe have a look at gulf of Tonkin scenario with dd against p6 types. You could have a carrier off at a distance for air support.. of a6s with zunis?
Torpedo boats like these are meant as ambush attackers. They'll hide in inlets, behind islands and headlands. Supporting them just needs a few trucks full of spares and other gear, so a base can be set up quickly and easily anywhere they have suitable access. Using them in open sea conditions is suicide against US warships of the modern era. They'd ideally wait in a fjord or something, hoping for fog and a little bit of surface chop, dash in against the heavies, ripple their torps and flee. The USN style at the time is/was more based around "come out and play" in blue water where these things are useless.
The 5"/38 on Iowa would reap them like wheat.
Iowa would never be on her own without escorts.
Naval gunnery is absolutely about hitting the enemy. Fire control computations take into effect not only your angle to target, speed, enemy speed, course, range, but also things like air pressure, barrel wear, propellant temperature. These kind of things are rarely modelled in games as they're absolute number crunching at its best. All of these values are pushed into one end of a fire-control table and out of the other end comes elevation/direction/charge settings that are then fed to the individual gun mounts. Naval fire control systems make artillery look like chimps throwing rocks.
Check out the story of the uss Washington in ww2 its gunnery tactics and lessons were before the time of the Iowa and so accurate its captain could often aim for bridges and funnels. These lessons eventually spread to the Iowa class who also got some of the first ballistic calculators.
It is a strange one that so many western nations gave up on fast attack craft after the second world war. Scandinavia still carries on building some. The Pegasus was a failure in its designated role but made a great anti-smuggling boat! Be great to get hold of someone like Drachinifel to tell us why. There were (are?) HE rounds for the 16" guns. I wonder if they can be fused for airburst? Be like cluster bombs going off.
Probably admirals prefered blue water ships. Pegasus were a bit niche and quite expensive for limited versatility. Would have been good maybe for a med navy with a req for fast attack.
My thought on what a large ship would do against smaller faster aggressors is circle the advancing force, making the smaller ships use more fuel by making them arc. As they get closer, the larger ship's gun would become more effective. You can't outrun the smaller force so running is not likely best and stopping doesn't help in any way. Keep moving and circle. Don't become a sitting duck.
Thank you
The torpedo defences on an Iowa-class are the best that were available at the time. It's all passive, built around void spaces the flooding of which would be acceptable in the short term. This is, of course, defence against a torpedo that is trying to hit the target directly.
Modern torpedoes detonate beneath a ship's keel. I don't know which type is on board those torpedo boats . . .
The TDS of the Iowas was sub par by WW2 battleship standards, and the SD class was even worse !
@niclasjohansson4333 😱😱😱
You should look up "Ching" Lee. BB captain that turned them into snipers. He had the most accurate BBs in any navy.
Is it possible to do a free for all, every ship fighting every other ship?
This is a really fun video
Can we get a WoWs player to square him away? 😋 Proper kiting skills are essential.
When they go crazy Cap. Pause, right click the ship or in the menu hit cease fire, go to the navigation tab remove waypoint then place the new waypoint and then unpause. Then you can assign fires or go back to weapons free. It works 98% of the time for me
wow the tico is good. where does the perception that it doesnt have ASW capability come from? people seriously think the US navy would build a cruiser that cant kill ships?
Pretty much anything that can fire SM-1 or SM-2 can kill ships easily at 15 miles.