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.
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.
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
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.
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 ...
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 RUclips. Might even be some overlap in viewership (besides me.)
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.
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.
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.
Evading torpedoes: Torpedos are homing on your engine sounds and pings. Make a radical turn and drop a noisemaker at the same time. The Torp should see the noisemaker and the disturbance from the turn (called a Knuckle) in the water and go for that instead of the ship. But you can't be on the other side of the knuckle so, to put it in DCS Terms, you've got to notch the torpedo by being elsewhere.
Also I don't know if Iowa has her towed decoy in game (I know some ships have them) but that is designed to be towed behind the ships to distract torpedos. Also you forgot after putting the noise maker down then you need to slow so it's louder than your engine
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
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 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.
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
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.
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.
Battleship Gunnery is all about doing a lot of math very quickly and guessing where their target will be at the time of arrival of the shell. A very well known example of Battlship Marksmanship is HMS Hood fighting Bismarck & Prinz Eugen, the 5th Salvo from Bismarck penetrated Hoods deck and detonated the Magazine, splitting the ship in half and killing all but 3 Sailors on board instantly. This salvo was fired from 10 miles away. The shells being fired at this range would 'Plunge' from above the ship, negating their thick belt armour and instead, smashing their way through the lightly armoured Deck.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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
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
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 . . .
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.
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
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.
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...
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).
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.
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.
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.
An interesting scenario might be to run a situation where you have tankers/cargo ships moving with torpedo boats hugging the side opposite a blue fleet, then have them head in at 2-3 miles, fire torpedoes, then move to hide behind shipping again. Blue's job is not destroy the shipping but get the torpedo boats. I have no idea how to model that in Sea Power. Might need a human opponent?
Torpedo boats are very limited in range and do not handle rough seas. Second Torpedoes have a very limited range, the harpoon was specifically designed to kill these boats. Remember the US never fight without air cover and air launched surface search radar, either an E2 hawkeye or Seahawk S-60. This gives you an extended range detection. That gives you a lot of capacity to use their hapoons.
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.
Originally, DDs were called, torpedo boats as they carrier torpedos, then they became multi use for ASW and escort and eventually graduated into their own designation. This is what i can remember so do not quote me on it.
What we know as modern Destroyers were originally called Torpedo Boat Destoyers. With the idea that they would destroy torpedo boats. (Duh) and were intended to escort battleships and protect them from torpedo boats. Eventually they evolved beyond the escort role. With Destroyer Escorts (small) Destroyers (medium) and Destroyer Leaders (often light cruisers or big destroyers)
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 .
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.
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?
Cap. Delete will remove waypoints. You can alao click and drag existing waypoints. Also, idk about in game, but in real life Battleships were more accurate at low speed. Theyd usually go ahead slow for naval bombardment and around 16 knots for surface to surface. Finally the main guns would be horriblly ineffectice against torpedo boats. The main guns are designed to explode after penitrating. Meaning they only explode under water if they miss. So no shrapnel. The 5 inch guns and escorts would have the job of dealing with 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.
Soviet style torpedo and small asm ships which are essentially the same thing are purpose built to sink a carrier fleet and the USA didn’t have any carrier fleets to sink
I think what I would have done with the Iowa would have been to start by going directly away from the torpedo boats. as they get closer, I would have started to turn so that my bow guns are shooting "over the shoulder" as another commenter phrased it. I'm not sure what distance that would have been, however if my 5 inch guns are in range, but cant fire when my bow guns are firing over the shoulder, I would then turn to allow them to do so. As we noticed, the longest range torpedoes almost overlapped the range of the 5 inch guns, so at this point I would most highly prioritize firepower. Also, since I'm ensuring it will take a long time for them to get close to me, I would only launch one harpoon at a time. This is to ensure that either the torpedo boats have time to sink, or to allow my targets for follow up harpoons to be at a greater distance from sinking torpedo boats and therefore negating the problem of multiple harpoons going for one target. Generally I wouldn't recommend this tactic with harpoons, but given how bad these torpedo boats were at intercepting them, I would take that risk
If you let them work it out on their own instead of designating contacts then it takes much longer to engage. If you know something is hostile (especially when like here where range matters) they'll start shooting much sooner
At the visually depicted impact distance the sixteen inch shells are landing, the PT boats would be shattered. It's a one ton bomb with a massive shockwave amplified by being in water. Destroyers in WW2 would sometimes break their welds by their own depth charges. It's a great simulation. But it's nothing near accurate
"By the time the shells get there the ships have moved" bro do you even gunnery? And no, no tracers. Some of the shells had colored powder inside so when they exploded the gun crews could tell which turret they were fired from.
Re the dye in the shells they would have different colours for different ships so you wodnt mistake your splashes for someone elses. At i think dogger bank tiger mistook some one elses splashes for her own when she was firing several thousand yards over.
wanna be more boring what about VLS tyco,how fast could it do that,i am intrested in how fast it could take it out also how fast the iowa and pre 1985 tyco can take out :O :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 😊
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 RUclips. 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!
"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
Thanks for doing my suggestion!
Pleasure
Never stop moving!!!
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.
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.
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.
Keep up the great videos legend
why aren't the 5" 38's engaging?
Evading torpedoes: Torpedos are homing on your engine sounds and pings. Make a radical turn and drop a noisemaker at the same time. The Torp should see the noisemaker and the disturbance from the turn (called a Knuckle) in the water and go for that instead of the ship. But you can't be on the other side of the knuckle so, to put it in DCS Terms, you've got to notch the torpedo by being elsewhere.
Also I don't know if Iowa has her towed decoy in game (I know some ships have them) but that is designed to be towed behind the ships to distract torpedos.
Also you forgot after putting the noise maker down then you need to slow so it's louder than your engine
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
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
Enjoyed this one Cap, never a waste of time with Sea Power scenarios.
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.
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
Cap : " . . . and you can still pummel them with the 16-incher."
You're just showing off now, Cap.
For the love of god, I beg you, please make the game audio lower! I can't hear you
Really enjoyed this scenario. Good work.👌
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.
you would zig-zag, for sure!
I love how Cap is voicing doubt right as the 16” guns land a salvo all over one of the torpedo boats!🤣
Awesome battle! The Iowa is a sheer class act!
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.
Battleship Gunnery is all about doing a lot of math very quickly and guessing where their target will be at the time of arrival of the shell. A very well known example of Battlship Marksmanship is HMS Hood fighting Bismarck & Prinz Eugen, the 5th Salvo from Bismarck penetrated Hoods deck and detonated the Magazine, splitting the ship in half and killing all but 3 Sailors on board instantly. This salvo was fired from 10 miles away. The shells being fired at this range would 'Plunge' from above the ship, negating their thick belt armour and instead, smashing their way through the lightly armoured Deck.
What a hilarious idea. Can't wait to see how it turns out. :)
This is a really fun video
Nice one Cap 👍
"Oh! Crap in a hat" , I never heard that one before. lol!
seeing the iowa move so fast almost doesnt seem possible
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.
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.
Those naval guns are more accurate than you think. Radar and computer guided even back in the day.
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.
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.
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?
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.
For a challenge use a Gearing, Garcia or Knox class. Or one of the British WW2 destroyers. (C class I think)
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.
Thank you
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
The Shersehn uses the USET-40 anti-submarine torpedo, which makes it completely useless in this scenario as it is not dual purpose.
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
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 can take control of the ship with WASD. Thanks for your videos!
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.
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
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.
Is it possible to do a free for all, every ship fighting every other ship?
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...
Right. Next question then, how many torpedo boats does it take to overwhelm an Iowa or a Tico?
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).
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.
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.
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.
Now do an Iowa with an escort group. Tico and a couple destroyers. Hostile destroyers leading a swarm?
those boats are insanely small, imagine how many hits you would've gotten if they were destroyer! the iowa did good for the size of the targets
Many things go boom, bang, boom, boom, bang.
An interesting scenario might be to run a situation where you have tankers/cargo ships moving with torpedo boats hugging the side opposite a blue fleet, then have them head in at 2-3 miles, fire torpedoes, then move to hide behind shipping again. Blue's job is not destroy the shipping but get the torpedo boats.
I have no idea how to model that in Sea Power. Might need a human opponent?
Torpedo boats are very limited in range and do not handle rough seas. Second Torpedoes have a very limited range, the harpoon was specifically designed to kill these boats. Remember the US never fight without air cover and air launched surface search radar, either an E2 hawkeye or Seahawk S-60. This gives you an extended range detection. That gives you a lot of capacity to use their hapoons.
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.
SM-1 also has a surface mode
Originally, DDs were called, torpedo boats as they carrier torpedos, then they became multi use for ASW and escort and eventually graduated into their own designation. This is what i can remember so do not quote me on it.
What we know as modern Destroyers were originally called Torpedo Boat Destoyers. With the idea that they would destroy torpedo boats. (Duh) and were intended to escort battleships and protect them from torpedo boats.
Eventually they evolved beyond the escort role. With Destroyer Escorts (small) Destroyers (medium) and Destroyer Leaders (often light cruisers or big destroyers)
The Iowa's did have an Analogue Fire Control Computer which alledgidly guaranteed a first or second salvo hit
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 .
i dont recall if its in sea power, but does iowa have her towed torpedo decoy?
Stand aside, I'm comin through.
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.
Traditionally the 5" guns would be used to go after gunboats/torpedo boats.
Britain had torpedo boats until the 1970s with the Brave and Dark Class boats
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.
Cap. Delete will remove waypoints. You can alao click and drag existing waypoints.
Also, idk about in game, but in real life Battleships were more accurate at low speed. Theyd usually go ahead slow for naval bombardment and around 16 knots for surface to surface.
Finally the main guns would be horriblly ineffectice against torpedo boats. The main guns are designed to explode after penitrating. Meaning they only explode under water if they miss. So no shrapnel. The 5 inch guns and escorts would have the job of dealing with torpedo boats
Thanks
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.
25:27 The biggest captain of all times!
the shells have a little bit more HE than a mk81 bomb,, and the fuse on them, theyd go off under the water surface
Soviet style torpedo and small asm ships which are essentially the same thing are purpose built to sink a carrier fleet and the USA didn’t have any carrier fleets to sink
Somehow you're showing why the Iowas are phased out in favor of missile boats. Or Tico in this case.
He bravely ran away away...
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?
Cap pummeling a 16 incher - again - I see...
oof
Wouldn't a near miss from a 16 inch round be able to kill a patrol boat? Oh, you just addressed that.
I think what I would have done with the Iowa would have been to start by going directly away from the torpedo boats. as they get closer, I would have started to turn so that my bow guns are shooting "over the shoulder" as another commenter phrased it.
I'm not sure what distance that would have been, however if my 5 inch guns are in range, but cant fire when my bow guns are firing over the shoulder, I would then turn to allow them to do so. As we noticed, the longest range torpedoes almost overlapped the range of the 5 inch guns, so at this point I would most highly prioritize firepower.
Also, since I'm ensuring it will take a long time for them to get close to me, I would only launch one harpoon at a time. This is to ensure that either the torpedo boats have time to sink, or to allow my targets for follow up harpoons to be at a greater distance from sinking torpedo boats and therefore negating the problem of multiple harpoons going for one target.
Generally I wouldn't recommend this tactic with harpoons, but given how bad these torpedo boats were at intercepting them, I would take that risk
If you're letting the AI use it own initiative to fire , then let them work out who is hostile, this will make a difference to engagement range
If you let them work it out on their own instead of designating contacts then it takes much longer to engage. If you know something is hostile (especially when like here where range matters) they'll start shooting much sooner
No when facing torps you never stop CAPT!
you shouln´t have used the Stenka-class, because it carries anti-submarine torpedoes.
Roger thanks, didn't really matter as it turns out.
23:13 secondary guns firing.
At the visually depicted impact distance the sixteen inch shells are landing, the PT boats would be shattered. It's a one ton bomb with a massive shockwave amplified by being in water. Destroyers in WW2 would sometimes break their welds by their own depth charges.
It's a great simulation. But it's nothing near accurate
Turn and run vs stand and fight depends on the gunners effectiveness
What about Tico vs Iowa?
turning away, she just masked her forward armament
Libelle (Dragonfly) is pronounced roughly Lee-BELL-Ah. In German an 'e' at the end is commonly pronounced as a schwa, and rarely, if ever, silent.
"By the time the shells get there the ships have moved" bro do you even gunnery?
And no, no tracers. Some of the shells had colored powder inside so when they exploded the gun crews could tell which turret they were fired from.
Re the dye in the shells they would have different colours for different ships so you wodnt mistake your splashes for someone elses. At i think dogger bank tiger mistook some one elses splashes for her own when she was firing several thousand yards over.
STOP??? omg You never stop in combat!!!
it takes TIME to get up speed time which you do not have in battle.....sheesh
wanna be more boring what about VLS tyco,how fast could it do that,i am intrested in how fast it could take it out
also how fast the iowa and pre 1985 tyco can take out :O :)
To evade youd steer to the direction of their spashes, so they correct to where your not going.