Salvo capacity sits rather high with these Mark 15's. 3-4 rounds per minute works out to be 27 to 36 rpm for the ship. Figure 2-3 hits to blow each hangar and you've got a real mess. A single 3 minute salvo would level an entire Medium Field in short order. Here's where things get fun. If you don't put fields within range of a Cruiser's guns, people will get bored. Then again, if you work it as above with 2-3 hits per hangar, people will scream about it.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. My biggest worry is how they're working the sighting. Either a Lat-Long system [cheap GPS] or direct observation by a forward observer. The latter could be done, but they'd have to really make improvements. I was hearing strikes on my Panzer this morning from an Ost shooting in the dirt 50 feet in front of himself. I was a LONG ways off. I did have one idea, regarding artillery. Below are a few ideas of mine, from a post on arty a while back.
My ideas regarding Arty:
Indirect fire could be done with a range card just like the real thing. HTC could publish a small range card for arty use. When in the gunner position you would have two scales. One vertical scale indicating elevation, the other a compass. As you moved the gun, each would change in relation to gun movement. In short, put a compass ring around the Panzer's turret and add an elevation indicator.
Instead of laser-guided shells, your accuracy would be minute-of-hangar instead of minute-of-angle.
Minute-of-angle is one inch [24mm] at 100 yards. Minute-of-hangar would be about 120 feet of accuracy variation at 5 miles. This could be done by adding in various effects. Wind effects, ground instability, dispersion, and recoil effects and you've got a gun capable of nailing a hangar at 5 miles. At 7 miles you should be able to hit a field with some degree of accuracy.
Now, you could increase the range those effects happen at to compensate for each gun caliber. 8" APC standard shells can be fired a long way [17.1 miles]. Say minute-of-hangar accuracy at 12 miles, minute-of-field accuracy at 17 miles. This might work, depending on how it comes together.
Sights would be simple enough, as you could do what I proposed above. Place a compass ring around the turret, and add an elevation marker. The compass ring would give you degrees in 10º increments, elevation would be done in 5º steps. Naturally there'd be hash marks indicating each degree.
Turret control for these guns is beyond me, although you could take one idea a little further. I figure two possible choices as far as gun control go:
1) Allow more than one person to join as gunner. You could simply read off your sight indications to them for accurate hits.
2) Work it as now, with a single gunner on board. All 3 turrets would track the one you're in, just like bomber guns. You could fire each turret in the following manner.
A: Single fire. Each gun is fired independantly of the other guns.
B: Linked fire. Firing the #1 gun in a turret would cause all 3 #1 guns to fire.
C: Mass linked fire: Pull the trigger once and all nine 8" guns open up.
Gun selection could be done like engine select in bombers, only with a seperate key. Use Alt-1 as Single Fire, Alt-2 as Linked Fire, and Alt-3 as Mass Linked Fire.
What do you think?
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Flakbait
Delta 6's Flight School"My art is the wings of an aircraft through the skies, my music the deep hum of a prop as it slices the air, my thrill the thunder of guns tearing asunder an enemy plane."
Flakbait
19 September 2000[This message has been edited by flakbait (edited 11-06-2000).]
