WW1 ships too inaccurate ?

[PDF]

Recently I played WW1 scenarios, last is Coronel which was ...booooring !
Ships pounded at each others for 25 turns, expending all their ammo for a couple lucky hits, with hit chances usually in the 1-6% range. Understable at 10,000 yards, but even at ranges as low at 400 yards (!) PK chances were crappy. I remember reading WW1 battles were fought at 4000 yards or so, why do I experience such inaccuracy ? At 400m firing straight into the opposing ship (everyone at 15 kn or so) should yield a good chance to hit, isn't it ?
A few torps I could launch at 2000 yds weren't lucky neither, but had 9-13% to hit, which is ...more than the gun chances, something looks wrong here :confused:

[asnrobert]

I played the Coronel battle twice, both times as the British. The first time I played it as set up. I didn't pay much attention to the PKs, but I lost the Monmouth to progressive flooding, and my remaining cruisers were badly damaged. The Germans suffered minor damage, and the game ended after 30 or so turns, 32-0 for the AI. The second time I placed the opposing ships 1200 yards apart, and this time I got chewed up even worse. I had two ships sunk and one disabled, and hardly any damage to the German ships. My ships had a PK range of typically from 5-50% and the Germans had PKs reaching 90% at some point.
Keep in mind that there are several factors that affect gunnery and torpedoes. Weather is one- sea state is moderate so gunnery is less effective than in a dead calm). Crew quality is another- the Germans all have crack crews while the 2 British ACs have poor crews, so their accuracy will be less. The number of guns in a salvo also influences accuracy, and if the firing ship is bow on or stern on to its target, the PK will be reduced.
As for the torpedoes, the best I could achieve was a 7% PK at 1200 yards, which is to be expected (those single torpedo mounts I've found require a great degree of luck to accomplish anything with, which probably reflects actual experience.
I've attached the AARs of the two battles so you can look over them if you wish.

[Warship NWS]

Anything worse then calm sea states will degrade gunnery accuracy - especially moderate and heavy sea states. Also note, many of the pre-WW1 ships had archaic fire control systems - if any - and often fired under local gun layer control making gunnery accuracy very problematic. Remember, the entire battle of Jutland accomplished only 1-4% PKs for gunnery with thousands of shells being fired.

Without seeing your AAR or knowing the details of the combat environment and the ships involved I cannot give you a very detailed answer however PDF. Thanks.

[PDF]

Well, I was not complaining about some unfair odds - in fact neither the KM nor me were able to hit anything ! Maybe I had some sort of "bad luck for everyone" with improblable overall hit/misses ratio. But that's a known gaussian effect...

AAR attached (I didnt play to the end but stopped when most MBs were out of ammo, it should have been a draw anyway...)

[Warship NWS]

Hi PDF.. the moderate sea state had a direct effect on your gunnery accuracy. Another slight effect was the "dusk" conditions which reduced the visual optics effectiveness for gunnery. Overall.. the PKs were within the tolerances of WW1 gunfire accuracy considering the combat conditions. I have read of several historical engagements lasting for hours that ended in a draw due to few numbers of hits - it did happen. Some hits were scored in your battle.. just not very many. I would also note that only the German ships in your battle had DCTs, not the British ships which were using primarly gun layers or local control with limited range finding equipment - this shows in the general better gunnery for the German ships.

[PDF]

Still I do find this rather surprising : 3% hit at 400m ? Isn't that "shooting a cow in a corridor" as we say here ?

(A1) AC GOOD HOPE FIRING MAIN BATTERY: 9.2" SPOTTED CM
TARGET: (A3) CL DRESDEN
RNG: 400 BRG: 27 ASP: 27 HIT/STRD-PK: 3/4 B/D-PK: 100/0
*** MISS ***

(A3) CL GLASGOW FIRING MAIN BATTERY: 6" SPOTTED HE
TARGET: (A3) CL DRESDEN
RNG: 400 BRG: 27 ASP: 27 HIT/STRD-PK: 4/6 B/D-PK: 100/0
*** MISS ***

[Warship NWS]

Depends.. did the target change course? What was the target aspect? The targets were moving at 19 knots. Major changes in *range* and *course* could have a serious effect on gunnery - especially non-directed gunnery. Changing the speed and direction of the firing ship can also effect gunnery as that can further complicate the firing solutions.

[Warship NWS]

I would like to add the gunnery did not evolve on a revolutionary scale between the age of the ironclads and 1914 - prior to the use of DCTs and AFCs. DCTs aided in coordinating gunfire and spotting and AFCs improved the gunnery analysis information and coordination efficiency.

Gunnery accuracy improved at a FAR lower pace then the developments of getting a shell to fly farther down range. Remember, ironclads could barely hit anything at all beyond around 600yds back in the 1860s using gun-laying methods of targeting and what amounted to basic iron sights and, if available, crude telescopes - and they were shooting at targets moving at near walking to jogging speeds.

Guns could start shooting a bit further as time progressed sure.. but it still took more time to design improved methods of hitting moving ships - especially ships that no longer used sail and could move on their own at greater speeds with improved maneuverability. Getting a shell to go further down range was not that big a problem - simply elevate the gun and improve the ballistics and propellant for the ordnance - problem was now how do you hit a moving target further away? That was a FAR harder problem to solve for gunnery officers.

Try calculating the gunnery trajectories in your head sometime, remember, they did not have any automated systems or calculators.. it was look, shoot, and hope to hell you hit something, and then adjust fire. Often a crude range table was all they had to try and guess from and then hope their estimated range to target, motion of the target, and speed of target guesses were reasonably accurate and the further the target was from your firing ship the harder the problem was to solve.

Thanks.

[Warship NWS]

As a side note PDF.. we are keeping close watch of the updated gunnery calculations in WCNAW and we will make adjustments as needed. This is just so you know that we do take all player reports seriously and our beta testers monitor all postings and then start watching for anything that they can verify. If they verify an issue they report it to me and then I check the code to see if any changes are needed.

Keep the feedback coming.

Thanks.

[PDF]

Ok I'm sold - I mean I do realize you're taking this *very* seriously ! ;)
I'm not very litterate about late 19th-early 20th ships and guns (less than before - ie Napoleonic era- and after- WW2), and thought there were not much difference between let's say the Barham in 1917 and the... Barham in 1941 :D, and thus no big change in combat/gunnery efficiency during the 20-30s.
Seems I'm wrong, and that many WW1 ships were already 10-20 years old, so comparing them to the latest WW1 models isn't fair.

[asnrobert]

Ok I'm sold - I mean I do realize you're taking this *very* seriously ! ;)
I'm not very litterate about late 19th-early 20th ships and guns (less than before - ie Napoleonic era- and after- WW2), and thought there were not much difference between let's say the Barham in 1917 and the... Barham in 1941 :D, and thus no big change in combat/gunnery efficiency during the 20-30s.
Seems I'm wrong, and that many WW1 ships were already 10-20 years old, so comparing them to the latest WW1 models isn't fair.

In the Coronel battle in 1914, Cradock's armored cruisers (Monmouth and Good Hope) were about 10 years old, plus they had just been taken out of reserve on the outbreak of war, so they would have had older fire control systems (and having crews made up of old men and boys with little time for practice wouldn't help either).