WW1 Royal Navy quality worse than the Hochseeflotte in wargames

[Warship NWS]

Yes it does. Thanks Chris. :)

No problem.. take care friend.

[besilarius]

Sorry that I missed this thread earlier.  May have something for everyone to chew on, but I cannot recall where this came from.
Someone did an article, maybe in the mid 1980s on World War I ammunition loads for capitol ships.  According to the article, the british carried a significantly higher amount of high explosive rounds versus Armor Piercing.  Curious as to why, he dug further.
What he reported was that the pre-war british gunnery testing showed that the chance of getting a shell to hit a critical spot on an enemy ship, and then penetrate, and then to explode within the enemy's armored citadel, was cumulatively very small.  Too many things could happen.
Supposedly, the british accepted this, and then quietly changed their doctrine.  To damage the control functions of an enemy ship, is overall much easier to accomplish.  This can be done without penetrating a ship's vitals, but by hitting the target with High Explosive rounds.  The blast and shock effect would more easily render fire control equipment inoperable, put communication lines out of action, and knock those pesky command and control personnel on the bridge, signal bridge, and other surfaces, into a jelly - thus making it harder for the target vessel to fight back effectively.
This person's idea was that the RN saved their AP rounds to use after the enemy ships were degraded from the damage of the HE rounds.  After the fire control and command/control functions were lowered, you could dare to close the range and use the AP where the range made hitting easier.
For those with a historical bent, this scenario is very similar to how the british sank Bismarck, and how SMS Seydlitz was so badly beaten up.
As the surviving gunnery officer of Bismarck writes in his book, both fire control directors were knocked out very early in the battle.  Now if this were done using AP rounds, you would need pinpoint accuracy to hit the directors.  They are relatively small targets and are up high over the hull of the ship.
However, if you blanket the enemy with HE rounds, the blast will do a lot of secondary damage.  Then you can close in for the kill at ranges where it is much easier to get hits with armor peircing ammunition.  Whether you agree with this concept or not, it seems to have worked for Admiral Jack Tovey.
This also makes it reasonable to close the enemy battleship with your treaty cruiser, HMS Norfolk.  The armor on Norfolk was quite poor and she would have suffered greatly if hit by Bismarck.  Her little 8" guns had no chance of penetrating the Bismarck's armor.  So why hazard her in the ring?
Well, the 8" HE round didn't have to penetrate in this scheme, and most commentators believe it was one of Norfolk's rounds that put the after FC director on Bismarck out.  This is shooting that would make Davy Crockett proud if you were using an AP round.  With High Explosive, or Semi-Armor Piercing (SAP), you only need to hit around the director.

Regrettably, I cannot recall where this idea was written up.  Maybe in an old Naval Institute Proceedings.  My sludgy memory is suggesting it was in a book, The Pollen papers, about RN range finder development, but I'm not sure.

[Warship NWS]

HE vs SAP/COM vs AP ..

First lets start on this point.. there is not a LOT of difference between ammo types except for a thicker casing replacing HE filler or the addition of an AP cap (the CAP would assist a shell on biting into and penetrating the armor). Filler capacity only ranged from around ~2-12% depending on the shell type. When figuring, as an example, a ~1,900lb shell that is only a difference of 38-228lb of explosive. Many air to air missiles carry around 20-75lb of explosive, and most medium sized anti-ship missiles carry around 300-500lb of explosive. Point being, vs a large well compartmentalized and armored warship it can take a lot of explosives to do significant damage. KE (kinetic energy) however could do considerable damage, especially if the shell penetrated multiple compartments and/or caused damage various critical systems on a warship. Overall, the difference in damage effect between the shells was not so much based on the type of shell as it was where the shell impacted and how many systems and/or compartments were effected by the impact.

Now.. the Achilles heel of warships, the superstructure. Almost any gun of 4" or greater could cause havoc to a superstructure (SS) of most warships - larger shells might be required if the SS is reasonably armored. Now the idea of a ship firing just HE just in the hopes to cause more SS damage would not be as important as not PASSING through the SS as AP shells might accomplish depending on the hit angle and when the fuze detonates the shell. However, there is a trade-off.. the HE shells would have virtually no chance of penetrating thicker armored locations and hitting a SS that is only about roughly 1/3 the size of the target ship would be slimmer then the full danger zone of the entire ship. Example, if the HE shell smacks a turret or thick armor plate then at most you might get fragmentation effects and some dinged armor plates but little else, unless a less protected part of the ship is hit. So, do you trade the chance of possibly penetrating or damaging armor plates and/or causing shock damage with an AP shell or hope to hit a smaller SS portion of the ship with HE shells where HE shells would have their greatest chance of doing significant damage? The Bismarck did lose her FCDs - but that could have been done with any shell of reasonable size. The Gneisenau also lost her FCD when the Renown sliced the cables with a 15" shell that did no other significant damage. It should be noted that even IF AP shells did not penetrate armor completely their shock effect could be very significant and they could cause cracks or weaken the armor plates where they impact. Any type of shell could likely cause shrapnel damage even if the armor is not penetrated. It should also be noted that no matter the warship not all parts were heavily armored - even with the "all or nothing" schemes. Armor was not a shield that could keep out all bad things.. it simply improved the odds of survival by reducing the chances of taking critical damage.

Now I have read of some ships firing non-AP rounds to get the range to target and then switch to AP rounds for maximum possible effect. However, I have not read, that I can remember, of a capital ship firing non-AP rounds at a heavily armored target after the range was reasonably acquired. I have read however that SB/TB guns would fire whenever possible (especially in the early 1900s) vs the SS of enemy ships to cause as much effect on enemy gunnery as possible. As gunnery ranges increased however this effect was greatly reduced - except for lower visibility engagements where radar could not help maintain longer ranged engagements.

My overall point is that most ships, that I have read about, would use their best AP shells vs armored threats as much as possible so that *any* hit could cause significant damage vs HE shells only causing reasonable damage if the less protected portions of the target were impacted. If the gun had virtually no chance of penetrating the threat then it usually mattered little which type of shell was fired in the overall scheme of the engagement.

Thanks.

[Warship NWS]

BTW, if anyone wants to test the tactical theory of firing HE vs AP rounds at an armored warship in the hopes of "weakening" the enemy..  try it with WCNAW with "shell selection" turn on in a battle between two roughly comparable heavily armored warships with similar fire controls. I think after a series of battles the general results - unless hits are scored on the SS right way or in greater number by HE shells - would likely prove that firing AP shells as much as possible will offer better chances of winning the engagement.

Thanks.

[Nefaro]

BTW, if anyone wants to test the tactical theory of firing HE vs AP rounds at an armored warship in the hopes of "weakening" the enemy..  try it with WCNAW with "shell selection" turn on in a battle between two roughly comparable heavily armored warships with similar fire controls. I think after a series of battles the general results - unless hits are scored on the SS right way or in greater number by HE shells - would likely prove that firing AP shells as much as possible will offer better chances of winning the engagement.

Thanks.

Oh, definitely.  It's AP all the way, in WCNAW, unless you're firing at Destroyers or maybe saving your AP for the more distant big boys, when shooting at CLs.

It's been awhile since I played that one but I don't recall getting many decent superstructure hits, on the cap ships, when I had to change to HE (ran out of AP).  I think this is how they all work.  However, I'm wondering just how much of a critical is possible on SS hits, with HE, against armored targets in WCNAW.  They obviously shouldn't be the norm, just curious whether it's even worth bothering (run away after AP is expended?)

[Warship NWS]

As a note, WCNAW v1.2 was posted recently.. the shell damage modelling was updated for improved dispersion of the damage effects when a ship is hit by shellfire. Any part of a ship has a chance of being damaged per shell salvo hit. "Criticals" do not apply to WCNAW - a hit can cause an array of damage effects depending on the amount firepower that hits the target ship, armor penetration effects, angle of hit, etc... In extreme cases, a magazine might detonate.

[MengJiao]

FW just reminded me that there is an option in SAI to "reduce" the chance of "flash fires" - just in case that helps any.

I just had flashfire in the forward turret of the earliest class of RN armored cruisers.  It was 1901 (in Steam and Iron: Russo-Jap) and I was trying to see what it was about the French fleet in the Med that worried Jackie Fisher.  He was in command of the Med fleet from 1897 to around 1901 but he thought what was scary was their torpedo boats -- not his own Armored Cruisers -- though he was always obsessed with getting more and better armored cruisers (and later battlecruisers)

[Old TImer]

The French fleet is modeled in SAI-Russ/Japan War???
I've always wanted to simulate the Med in SAI but there's no French/Italian/Austro-Hungarian units
unless I'm missing something.  Always disappointed me that they didn't do a Med expansion akin to the
North Sea campaign.

[MengJiao]

The French fleet is modeled in SAI-Russ/Japan War???
I've always wanted to simulate the Med in SAI but there's no French/Italian/Austro-Hungarian units
unless I'm missing something.  Always disappointed me that they didn't do a Med expansion akin to the
North Sea campaign.

  The French fleet is there under the battle generator (Atlantic vs RN and Med vs RN 1898-1905 you pick some parameters and boom!  There's a battle).

[MengJiao]

The French fleet is modeled in SAI-Russ/Japan War???
I've always wanted to simulate the Med in SAI but there's no French/Italian/Austro-Hungarian units
unless I'm missing something.  Always disappointed me that they didn't do a Med expansion akin to the
North Sea campaign.

  The French fleet is there under the battle generator (Atlantic vs RN and Med vs RN 1898-1905 you pick some parameters and boom!  There's a battle).

  An RN protected cruiser (I don't think Jackie Fisher liked protected cruisers) just spotted this (in 1905 in the Med -- slightly unlikely but still kind of wonderful):

[MengJiao]

FW just reminded me that there is an option in SAI to "reduce" the chance of "flash fires" - just in case that helps any.

I just had flashfire in the forward turret of the earliest class of RN armored cruisers.  It was 1901 (in Steam and Iron: Russo-Jap) and I was trying to see what it was about the French fleet in the Med that worried Jackie Fisher.  He was in command of the Med fleet from 1897 to around 1901 but he thought what was scary was their torpedo boats -- not his own Armored Cruisers -- though he was always obsessed with getting more and better armored cruisers (and later battlecruisers)

  The Steam and Iron battle generator suggests that if Jackie Fisher was always careful to leave anything with 'cruiser' in the the name (except light cruisers) behind he would be okay because - no matter what -- anything in the RN with the word 'cruiser' in the name will just blow up.  This is kind of weird.  I will run more battles and see if the cruiser-blows up thing is the same in all fleets.

[MengJiao]

FW just reminded me that there is an option in SAI to "reduce" the chance of "flash fires" - just in case that helps any.

I just had flashfire in the forward turret of the earliest class of RN armored cruisers.  It was 1901 (in Steam and Iron: Russo-Jap) and I was trying to see what it was about the French fleet in the Med that worried Jackie Fisher.  He was in command of the Med fleet from 1897 to around 1901 but he thought what was scary was their torpedo boats -- not his own Armored Cruisers -- though he was always obsessed with getting more and better armored cruisers (and later battlecruisers)

  The Steam and Iron battle generator suggests that if Jackie Fisher was always careful to leave anything with 'cruiser' in the the name (except light cruisers) behind he would be okay because - no matter what -- anything in the RN with the word 'cruiser' in the name will just blow up.  This is kind of weird.  I will run more battles and see if the cruiser-blows up thing is the same in all fleets.

  So far no more "cruisers" have blown up...BUT....judging by light cruiser names, the French had a kind of internet, the Infernet, that ran through Hell and back.

[MengJiao]

  So far no more "cruisers" have blown up...BUT....judging by light cruiser names, the French had a kind of internet, the Infernet, that ran through Hell and back.

  You can see how easy it was to set up an Infernet in 1899:

[MengJiao]

  So far no more "cruisers" have blown up...BUT....judging by light cruiser names, the French had a kind of internet, the Infernet, that ran through Hell and back.

  You can see how easy it was to set up an Infernet in 1899:

  HMS Vengeance blows up: moral of the story -- don't play as the RN if you really hate just blowing up.  It does make being French more fun, though I really doubt the French navy in 1905 could shoot its way through a line of Canopus-class predreadnoughts with its weird mess of weird ships.

  Having the RN just blow up a lot seems to create a fantasy world -- which is fine unless you have an interest in playing as the RN.

[MengJiao]

  HMS Vengeance blows up: moral of the story -- don't play as the RN if you really hate just blowing up.  It does make being French more fun, though I really doubt the French navy in 1905 could shoot its way through a line of Canopus-class predreadnoughts with its weird mess of weird ships.

  Having the RN just blow up a lot seems to create a fantasy world -- which is fine unless you have an interest in playing as the RN.

  HMS Renoun blows up (now that does seem likely, but I doubt she was any more explosion-prone than French ships from the same era):