Gunnery Accuracy in RL Jutland

[Bullethead]

I found this to be a fun read when I found it. Especially the part about which smoke column the turret was supposed to be firing at. :laugh:

Welcome aboard, if I haven't said so already .

This is one of my favorite quotes from the whole war. And the thing I find most interesting about it is that nowhere at all is there any mention of problems caused by the enemy .

 

[HMSWarspite]

Anyway, in general, accuracy is proportional to 1/R^2, where R is distance to the target. So if in real life battlecruisers were able to get 3% hits on 11.5km range - that means at 8 km percentage of hits have to be 11.5^2/8^2=6%, and at 4.3km = 21%.

It is proportional to 1/R^2 + constant. Some elements do not scale. For a start, bearing rate is an inverse relationship with range (gets worse the closer you are).

That is emphasized by the fact that on close distance bullet trajectory become very flat, and that increases the hit ratio even more.

Ironically this can make it harder.Unless you hit the ship, the flat trajectory means that overs will travel hundreds of meters past the target, and make it difficult to know how close you were (a shell passing 1 foot off the deck will not hit the sea for a long way past the target)

Once again - in reality destroyers were no able to get so close to BBs even in kamikadze-style. That was simply impossible. But DD is much faster ans smaller, and it rarely can be stopped by just one hit. In game we may get no hits at all on such a huge target...

Please find a source that has a WW1 capital ship even firing main armament at a destroyer. The British scouting light cruisers spent a considerable time pressing closer to the HSF when first spotted by Beatty's force, and only took minor damage. They got to 16000yds IIRC, and then backed back out...

 

[Bullethead]

Please find a source that has a WW1 capital ship even firing main armament at a destroyer.

Iron Duke blew a German DD out of the water at Jutland with 13.5" shells. Nassau blew away Spitfire's bridge just with 28cm muzzle blast. Or so says Campbell .

The British scouting light cruisers spent a considerable time pressing closer to the HSF when first spotted by Beatty's force, and only took minor damage. They got to 16000yds IIRC, and then backed back out...

And had a rough time of it, even without getting drilled. See attachment:

 

[HMSWarspite]

Iron Duke blew a German DD out of the water at Jutland with 13.5" shells. Nassau blew away Spitfire's bridge just with 28cm muzzle blast. Or so says Campbell .



And had a rough time of it, even without getting drilled. See attachment:

I forgot about S35. The point is 2nd LCS spent 20+ mins being fired on by the HSF with 1 or 2 hits from MA. he range closed to 14000yds or so.

The DD hits are a little harder especially for the ones that sank, but Campbell gives 2 British DD hit by heavy shells (and one of them was a ricochet that did not expload), vs 19 hit by 5.9 and smaller. Spitfire actually collided with Nassau so she has to be an exteme data point .

German side 1 (S35) was probably hit by 2 13.5 from Iron Duke, and 13 took hits from 6" and below. There are an additional 2 (G86, and S52) that took splinter damage from heavy shell near misses (but of no consequence in S52's case)


My point is DD excessive invulnerabilty is a SA problem not a MA one.

 

[Strompy82]

The sun's position will have a huge affect on firing accuracy, huh? In the 'run to the south' & the 'run to the north' it was in the Germans favor, isn't that correct? The fleet action, due to Jellicoe deploying east, was heavily in the British favor. I wonder if too much credit is given to German accuracy due to the position of the sun?

 

[HMSWarspite]

The sun's position will have a huge affect on firing accuracy, huh? In the 'run to the south' & the 'run to the north' it was in the Germans favor, isn't that correct? The fleet action, due to Jellicoe deploying east, was heavily in the British favor. I wonder if too much credit is given to German accuracy due to the position of the sun?

That is a valid point, and Campbell makes it. However as examples of hit rates the stats are valid, it is just you cannot put them all down to one factor (training or equipment). OTOH, 5BS were firing in as bad or worse conditions than Beatty, so their result is a valid back to back on ship capabilty as opposed to conditions. Iron Duke certainly had good conditions for her spell (HSF could barely see the GF but could be seen quite well), but on the other hand she didn't have long, got the range and exploited the conditions. Tiger was not in that poor visibility at Dogger Bank. I would say training is worth twice what conditions are as a judgement. That is, a poor ship might get 1% hits in bad conditions, a good ship might get 3%. The bad ship would get say 2% in better conditions, where as the better ship might get 5%. Pure judgement, but in other words bad conditions might halve the hit rate, but poor training cuts by a factor of 3 or 4...

 

[Invincible]

Good summary of actual shooting accuracy by capital ships at Jutland in post #1 by HMSWarspite.