Firing with Fleet Guns

[SpitLead]

Yesterday I was on a CV when its path crossed an nme CV's.  I've witnessed this on several other occasions so this is not unusual.  Rather than fly thru the hail of ack I decided to set up shop in the battleship 16" guns and wail away.  Both CVs were only probably 12-14 miles away from each other, easily within range of battleship guns.  Well, after 15-20 minutes of blasting, I didn't get one single hit.  I tried bracketing the nme CV by watching for splashes.  Most were in front, some were behind, others were hard to tell due to other guys firing at the same time.  I'd fire, wait 5-10 secs for the shells to land, then bump the range by 1/10th of a mile (the minimum allowed) and fire again.  As one can imagine, after 15-20 mintues of this I'd pretty much bracketed the whole dang CV from here to kingdom come and didn't hit squat. That's ridiculuous. Also, with ship to ship fighting the movement of BOTH ships compounds the problem.  You'd think there'd be a way to use the targeting crosshair to click on a target within visual (i.e. zoomed) range and get a "snapshot" range value.

I need some help here.  Other than watching for splashes from shells which is difficult when many others are firing and when the target is 12-15 miles away sighting is a bit of a problem does anyone have a much better way to range find a target with a ship gun???
At this rate, I won't bother wasting my time any longer manning ship guns.  I also had this same problem shelling a VH while parked offshore maybe a month ago.  Watched for explosions in front and behind target and tried bracketing but without ANY success.  There's GOT to be a better way.

[flakbait]

Battleship? All we've got is a Baltimore-class cruiser with 8" guns. Firing HE rounds to boot, which are useless against ships (technically speaking). Myself and several others have said, and I for one will continue to say, we need a better way to fight ships with ships. As it stands all you can do is get a rough bead, fire, and wait for the shell splash. You can't customize the sight, and it's impossible to get a remotely close range guess.

For now, you'll have to SWAG (Scientific, wild-ass guess) it.

-----------------------
Flakbait [Delta6]
Delta Six's Flight School
Put the P-61B in Aces High
"For yay did the sky darken, and split open and spew forth fire, and
through the smoke rode the Four Wurgers of the Apocalypse.
And on their canopies was tattooed the number of the Beast, and the
number was 190." Jedi, Verse Five, Capter Two, The Book of Dweeb
 

[Vosper]

I've only manned the guns (CA and CV) in ship to ship battles twice, but what I found worked for me is this;

1 - Take broad range changes at first to bracket the tgt, ie, fire at 4k, if short fire at 5k, etc, until you have the last 2 salvos on both sides of the tgt.

2 - Range in with smaller increments, about 1/2 of the initial changes.  Keep splitting the difference by 1/2 of the previous until you're hitting, or see that the last 2 salvos landed on the same side of the tgt - if this happens, repeat step 1.

3 - For ships, be very aware of your direction and the tgt direction.  I think fleets are moving at 40 kts/mph/whatever, so it's a darn fast change if both fleets are closing.

4 - Practice any chance you find - maybe offline if you can set the cv's close to each other?

In both fleet engagements, by the time I was able to man the guns the ships were rather close, and I was able to get hits.  You might want to try using the AA guns, set to HE, since they fire a lot faster than the 8" guns on the CA.

Cheers

[SpitLead]

Sure looked like a battleship to me.  Maybe its a heavy cruiser on steriods :-)

At any rate, thanks for the tips Vosper.  I noticed that someone was firing AA guns off the rear of the CV at a much faster rate.  This was confusing with all their shells landing it was hard to tell which were mine. I was looking for the "quick" kill figuring if I landed with the BIG guns it would go down with only a few hits.

Bascially, with both fleets on the move it's damn near impossible to hit anything given the changes in direction and location due to speed of BOTH points of reference.  You may have tried a range of 9.7 miles at one point in time and that was short but the ship has moved to a where 9.7 miles is now a hit.  Seems like you have to constantly be bracketing.  Maybe we need a watered down range finding device but not quite as accurate (similar to how when in a bomber you can't miss the target as long as the crosshairs are on it no matter what speed or altitude you're at).  

[Degas]

the designers are flight simmers, lol.

Naval bombardment is historically accurate (for when the Trojans were using ballista off of slave galleys).

The 5" guns are the only way to go, due to rate of fire.  I sunk a CV with one the other day, but only after they got close enough to see.  I walk the shell splash up to the target and wait for hit sprites.  Hit the zoom key while you're shooting.

For shore bombardment, click the shore target in the map, match the numbers, then spray rounds for 3 km on laterally (bearing), and 1 km vertically (range).  When you start seeing hit sprites, narrow that cone of fire.

After a while, it just gets too frustrating, so I take off in a hvy chog to go SEE my ordnance hitting a target  

[eskimo]

It just takes practice.

eskimo

[Shamus]

Do what Vosper said, and then cuss like mad when some bonehead turns your cv right after your first hit sprite

Shamus

[SpitLead]

Ha ha ha Shamus.  That happened to me!  Finally felt like I'd gotten a bead once and the dang fleet started doing a circle.  

ROFL Degas.  Good inputs, especially the 5" guns.  Shore bombardment looks like almost a waste of time too.  I actually got blown up once in a PT boat by a Panzer.  I was running parallel to the shore at flank speed and I'll be danged if after about 3 shots he zeroed in a blew me up.  And I couldn't even see him he was that far away!!!  Thanks.

[Ghosth]

Actually the best way to hit with the 8" guns just takes a bit of cooperation. Soon as the 5" gunner gets a hit get him to pass you his elev & windage. Voila, your on target!

You'll have to adjust occaisionally of course as the ships move. But a good 5" gunner can be getting hits & send latest ###'s at the same time.

Did this with a couple of squad mates once and it was deadly!

[sonar732]

Hello,

I was getting request to take out specific targets...tanks, ammo dump, flak...How in the hell can we do that being more that 22k out and they weren't giving me feedback as to where I was landing, plus the carrier owner was moving the fleet so much it was rediculous.

[Soda]

sonar,
  there is a ground-tracking mode for ship guns that will hold your position on a specific point on the ground.  Check the help section and it will tell you how to turn on this mode and use it.  There is still a bit of variation though so hitting something as small as a fuel bunker is difficult unless you can visually adjust your rounds (or have someone else do it for you).  Still, you can typically land rounds within an area the size of a town with little/no problem in this fashion even if the ships are changing directions.

[sonar732]

Originally posted by Soda
sonar,
  there is a ground-tracking mode for ship guns that will hold your position on a specific point on the ground.  Check the help section and it will tell you how to turn on this mode and use it.  There is still a bit of variation though so hitting something as small as a fuel bunker is difficult unless you can visually adjust your rounds (or have someone else do it for you).  Still, you can typically land rounds within an area the size of a town with little/no problem in this fashion even if the ships are changing directions.

I was using the modes specified in the help section.  Being new and seeing request for specific spots within my target icon is what was confusing me.  Will these hits show up in my score?  If anyone was playing this morning please tell me what and where I was going with my shots.

[Eagler]

don't forget the F8 key after you zoom

this frees up your view so you can scroll down (arrow keys) and see hits further in the distance

use your mouse pointer as marker for barrell location as you will not be able to see it in this view

[Soda]

Hitting something as small as a fuel bunker or ack with a fleet gun is almost impossible.  If you are close enough to visually see it (using the zoom keys), then you can adjust fire and usually get it after a volley or two.. or three.. but if you are simply clicking on the icon that represents the field then it's pretty hard.  If I remember correctly you can certainly zoom the icon on the clipboard and if you know the "general area" that contains that object you can then try and select that spot.  Not saying you will hit it but you should be reasonably close.  The issue then is which direction to adjust when you miss..... almost no way to tell unless someone is spotting for you or you can see your hits and adjust.

[sonar732]

The airfield was A4 on the Mindanao map.  It's up on the bluff 4k and like I said earlier, pretty far away. That negated the zoom option and I was begging for spotters.