A -Z Primer on firing CV 5" Guns

[Happy1]

 Greetings All    Whilst flying a Spit9, actually chasing a Zeke
towards the nme fleet, in a zig-zag manner I was surprised by my
wing being shot off    there were no cons to the sides or behind me.

I was approx. 2k away frm the fleet, I tried again, by chasing a 2d Zeke after shooting the 1st Zeke w/similar results, I was blown
out of the sky     After questioning the whereabouts of the shoo-
ter, a friendly advised me that the gunfire was from the CV.

Impressed I tried to find info, starting from the clipboard listing the necessary steps to learn to fire the deadly 5 incher, but was unable to locate the info  

Would some1 pls DETAIL THE STEP BY STEP means as to how to be able to shoot the 5" guns, from the beginning to the very end?

Any & all assistance is sincerely appreciated as I desire to print out the listed steps.  Thx 4 ur courtesies.

Cheers,

Happy1  

P.S. Should any1 prefer to mail me the steps, my addy is as follows:

                           Happy1@mfire.com

[SuperDud]

You just point and shoot. Just get close to the target and they should go boom. It hasn't been nick named the "laser gun" for nuthin.

[zorstorer]

Use a friendly as a guide...shoot at them till they are about 4-5k from you.  This will tell you how much lead to use.  Usually about 1" "hi" and 1" lead.

[Happy1]

SuperDud thx much for ur prompt reply to my query  however I
need info covering the basic elements of firing the 5" guns from the beginning of being on a CV, to get to the Gun Mount, how do I accomplish that, which key do I press, once inside the Gun Mount, what do I do next, which keys do I press, How do I elevate the gun/s, which key do I depress ....... etc .... etc ?

I'm asking for DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS 2b Listed, ie:

Do:   (1) press such & such key to get to xxxxx
         (2) press the next key (list key) to achieve etc
         (3) press the following key to achieve xxxxxx
         (4)depress key (X) to elevate the gun, etc
         (5) next u do xxxxx

In other words I'm requesting an elementary textbook to assist
a neophyte in learning, reading & doing the steps outlined in
either numeric or alphabetic order, a Beginner's Manual.  TY  

Happy1  

[fuzeman]

Select the field , in this case a TG{Task Group} you want to goto. From the bridge of the carrier, similar to the tower at a field, select 'Feild, ship, gunner' from the list in the hanger. It will display a overview of all guns, red = damaged, blue = occupied, yellow= available guns, green= the gun you are presently stationed to. Click on whatever gun you want that is avaailable and click H to deploy. Your now in the gun ready to fire.
Backspace will select between AA, anti aircraft, or HE high explosive. Then you fire using joystick to aim on target. For ground or sea targets you can use land or sea mode but you are asking about shooting planes so I'll skip that.
You need to get the feel for shooting and aiming and offline is the perfect place for this. TA with a friend will do but the offline drones are perfect to get your initial bearings down. Enable and use the LCG at first to get the feel of what lead you need. You should be able to get some planes on one shot after awhile. Then definately get a friend to fly at different ranges so you can adapt to that, again in the TA at first with LCG on so you know where to shoot. With practice you can get close to planes out of icon range and anyting within icon range should be a fair target.

Forgot to mention you want a 5" gun for AA duty. Those I believe are the medium sized circles on the hanger screen. Cruiser has 2, 1 front and back, which are the guns closer to the middle of the ship. CV has 2 dual mounts and 2 singles. The 2 dual mounts are similar to the cruiser position and the single mounts are fore and aft on the prt side.

[Bullethead]

Happy1 said:
Would some1 pls DETAIL THE STEP BY STEP means as to how to be able to shoot the 5" guns, from the beginning to the very end?

PART 1

5" vs. Planes
If you hunt birds with a shotgun, you'll have an advantage here because that's what this is like.  You fire individual shots without tracers so you have to aim each shot with what you think is the right amount of lead and hope for the best.  The trick, therefore, is learning the proper amount of lead.

You shoot at planes in direct mode, which gives you the quickest turret movement.  There is also land gunner mode, which automatically keeps the guns aimed to hit the point you click on the clipboard map regardless of ship motion, without you having to touch the stick at all.  And finally, there's sea gunner mode, which gives you very slow, very precise turret movement to make fine adjustments vs. slow-moving targets like nme CVs.  So if you don't know how to get into these different modes, or if you don't have keys assigned to them yet, go into the Setup/Controls/Keymap/Gunner screen and take a look.

Anyway, back to killing planes....

To start with, go offline, get in a CV's forward twin 5" mount, and shoot at the drones.  Don't zoom in, but put the crosshairs about 1" to 1-1/4" ahead and about 1/8" above the target (as measured on your screen), hold side pressure on the stick to track around matching the target's speed, and hold the trigger down for non-stop firing.  You'll know when you're on target because you'll see the shells burst.  They have proximity fuses so unless you're close, you see nothing at all.  Vary the crosshair's position relative to the target until you start to see puffs.  Then tweak your aim some more until the puffs are right on, or just an RCH in front of, the target.  Remember what this amount of lead looks like and repeat on the next drone.  Just remember, the target is 2-2.5k away, so the shell takes a long time to get there.  When you see a burst, it's for the shell you fired 2 or 3 shots ago, not the one you just shot.

Keep doing this offline skeet-shooting until the drones don't stand a chance.  You should easily be able to kill a drone with 1-4 shots max once you get the hang of this.  Of course, you're not the center of their circle, so at different points around your arc you need a different amount of lead and more or less elevation.  Get so you can slaughter the drones at any point of the compass without having to move the guns more than 10^ left or right.

You should get several things out of this.  The most important thing is that you can extrapolate your knowledge of the lead required for 90^ shots at slow targets at 2-2.5k to shoot the variety of online targets and usually hit them.  Second, you will see that the shells do more damage the closer they burst to the target.  Not only that, shells that burst in front do the most damage, then shells directly in line with the target, and shells behind the least.  So it's better to lead too much than too little.  1 very close burst right in front of a fighter will usually kill it, whereas 2 might be needed right on it, and 3-4 right behind hit.  You can also sometimes get direct hits instead of proximity bursts, which of course are instant death .

Shooting online is often easier than hitting drones.  After all, the targets you really have to worry about are those coming right at your ship.  These are zero-deflection shots, so you just have to aim a bit high at longer range, drop to an RCH high at 2.5k or so, and then aim dead on closer in.  All bursts will be right in front of the target, so they do the most damage.

The real artistry, therefore, comes in when shooting at high-alt buffs or fighters that aren't attacking your ship.  This is where your drone experience pays off handsomely.  Observe the target's range and judge its speed and deflection, and adjust your anti-drone aim accordingly.  If you can slaughter drones in 1-4 shots every time, then you should hit a fair number of online crossing targets.  Even at very long range.  I've killed MANY nmes that were just dots in the far distance  

High-alt buffs are harder to hit because the AI puffy acks confuse the issue--it's hard to tell which bursts, if any, are yours.  The main way to tell yours from the AI's is that the AI's shots appear in periodic bunches of 4-6 simultaneous bursts, so if you see any bursts between these AI barrages, they're either yours or those of another 5" gunner.  To tell that difference, and to help you find your bursts (if any) amongst the AI barrage, fire single shots and wait to observe results before firing again.  Count about 3-5 seconds after you shoot, depending on the buffs' alt.   That's about when you should see your burst, assuming you're close enough.    Keep doing this until you see a burst you're reasonably sure is yours, then keep that aim and go into rapid fire.

NOTE:  You need to adjust your head position in the 5" gun.  The default position is inside the metal box so you can't see any direction but forward.  However, it's possible to move your head around to see around or over this box in all directions.  This makes it much easier to spot new targets and get on them quickly.  Also keep an eye on what the AI tracer acks are doing and use them to point you in the right direction.

5" vs. PTs
This shouldn't be legal, it's such a slaughter .  The only hard part is beating the other 5" gunners to the kill.

PTs are total sitting ducks with almost no visible relative motion relative to your POV.  If they're close enough to give icons, you just line up left-right directly over them and match the range readout on your screen for the gun elevation to the icon range, or perhaps 100-200 yards further.  Then just hold the trigger down and you'll smother the PT under a storm of black puffs.

If the PT is further out so it's just a dot, it's usually close to a spawn point.  Quickly shift into land gunner mode and click on the spawn point that looks closest to the target.  Let the guns aim themselves there and fire a shot.  Observe where it lands (counting seconds again to help tell your shells from other gunners'), then move the stick and fire another shot.  Repeat until on target and the PT dies.  You can stay in land mode or switch back to direct, or even go into sea mode.  I like to go back to direct in case an nme plane shows up before I kill the PT.  You have to lead PTs at this distance, however, because of the motion of your own ship.  Aim a bit off target in the direction your ship is moving relative to the target.  IOW, if your ship is moving left-to-right, aim a bit right of the target.  

It helps to be zoomed way in with your view so you can tell overs from shorts easier.  But at long range, where you have to aim the guns up a lot, zooming in keeps you from seeing the water and the target.  To get around this, shift into panning view (F8).  This uncouples your LOS from your LOF, so you can leave the guns pointed up while looking down at the horizon.  NOTE:  this trick is also essential in naval battles, when manning shore guns, and when using GVs to shell fields from very long range.

You also need to have a fair idea of the time of flight of shells at fairly long ranges.  Practice offline in land mode by clicking at points at various distances from your ship and timing how long it takes your shell to land.  This is extremely important in naval battles with many gunners firing on both sides.  It's the only way to tell your splashes from theirs.

You can also spawn-camp PTs (or GVs, for that matter) in land mode.  Just click on the spawn point, let go of the stick, let the guns aim themselves, and hold the trigger down.  You've got 5000 rounds so don't worry about running out.  This quickly discourages even the most suicidal of PT dweebs.

To Be Continued....

[Bullethead]

Happy1 said:
Would some1 pls DETAIL THE STEP BY STEP means as to how to be able to shoot the 5" guns, from the beginning to the very end?

PART 2


5" vs Shore Guns and Other Ground Targets
This is something you can practice directly offline.  Just move a CV to an nme base and set it to run up and down the coast.  Then blaze away until you've got it down.

You have to be in land mode for this.  The cool thing about land mode is that when you move the stick AFTER you've clicked on the map, the system takes this as another click, and keeps the guns pointed at where you aimed them, so as the ship moves you keep shooting the same place without further input.  Or so it seems to me.

Anyway, what you do is zoom way in until you see the shore gun and can guesstimate where they are on the clipboard map.  Then go into land mode, click where you think the gun is, and fire a shot.  See where it lands (you'll probably need to use the F8 trick above), tweak your aim, let go of the stick, and fire again.  NOTE:  when setting your initial point of aim, it's best to click a bit short of where you think the target is.  This ensures you'll see your shell land.  If you miss long, you usually land behind the shore gun's hill so you won't see anything.

Keep doing this shoot, observe, tweak, repeat process until you land one right  near the gun.  You probably won't hit it directly.  However, you're as close as you're gonna get because of the dispersion in your shots.  Hold the trigger down and shells will land all around the gun, and a few of them will probably hit it.  If not, once you've seen 10 or so shells impact with no hits, tweak your aim very slightly as required.  It takes several hits to kill a shore gun.

While you're doing this, look at your range readout and count seconds from shot to impact.  Remember how long it takes shells to go this far, because this is useful in all types of long-range shooting, whether at high-alt buffs, ships, or PTs.  The more familiar you are with your ballistics, the easier it is to distinguish your shots from those of others.

Shooting at airfields is mostly a waste of time unless your ship is close enough to see the buildings clearly (or better yet, the ends of the runways).  Then you can use the same procedure as with shore guns.  If you can't see your target, however, you're most likely to hit empty space at airfields.

Shooting at towns and strat targets is more effective, however.  These things are dense with soft targets and the town especially you can't miss because it's an exact dot on the map instead of an icon.  So click on it and hold the trigger down for like 20 shots.  This will destroy everything within the dispersion radius of your point of aim.  Then tweak your aim ever-so-slightly and fire another 20 shots or so.  Repeat until you no longer get kill messages .

5" vs. Ships
This is really a waste of 5".  Not only is 8" more effective per hit, but it also has much longer range.  If the nme fleet is close enough to be in 5" range, the issue has already been decided by the 8" guns and you or the nme are just mopping up.  So don't expect this to happen often.  In fact, use everything I say here and apply it to the 8" guns instead.  This also all applies to shore guns vs. ships, except it's easier to hit with shore guns because you're higher up so can really see your overs and shorts clearly.

It's possible to practice ship-to-ship gunnery offline.  Just move fleets from different sides to the same general area, put them on courses to keep them close, and start shooting.  Start at close range to get the hang of it, then gradually increase the range until you either hit the 5"'s max or you can't see the target for the 8".  To practice shore guns, just move an nme fleet to your base and give it a path to keep it in your field of fire at whatever range you want to work on.

You have to use the F8 trick here.  You also need to be in sea mode, because you want to make tiny, tiny adjustments at the target from your long distance away.  However, use direct mode to quickly swing the guns around to point generally at the target, then switch to sea mode to fine-tune your aim.

The whole trick in a sea battle is getting the range right.  Deflection isn't that much of an issue except at extremely long range, and even then it's not very hard to get right, whereas range is a bear.  The longer the range, the harder it gets to tell how far long or short you are, or even if you're long as opposed to short.  So unless you already have a pretty good range estimate when you start shooting, you're probably not going to have much luck.

There are 2 ways to get a good range estimate.  The 1st and best way is to practice a LOT offline to build up mental images what ships look like at different ranges.  Then point your guns to that range as shown on your readout.  The other way is to talk to other gunners in your fleet.  Once they start hitting, they'll usually tell everybody what the range is.  Also, pilots over the nme fleet can sometimes be talked into spotting your fall of shot, but usually they're more interested in nme planes than your shells, and even then most of them aren't trained FOs so you hardly ever get useful feedback.  Thus, most of the time you're on your own for range estimates and fall of shot, so practice offline as much as you can stand.

Once you're pretty good at range estimation, your next big problem will be distinguishing your splashes from all the others in your typical fleet action.  Neither 5" nor 8" have tracer so the ONLY way you can tell your splashes is to know the time of flight of your shells to that range.  And the only way to learn this is to shoot offline at various ranges with a stopwatch, write down your times of flight, and either carve them into your monitor border or memorize them.  And because range is SO critical in naval battles, you need to use your stopwatch online just like real gunnery officers did .

Anyway, I hope that's close enough to A-Z for you

[Bullethead]

Whoops, for got 1 extremely important thing in the naval battles.....

Here is another reason why 8" guns are far superior to 5" in naval battles:  they shoot 3 shells at once.  This is an overwhelmingly huge advantage over 5", NOT because you're likely to get 3 hits at once, but because this makes it possible to straddle the target.  And straddling is what it's all about in terms of getting hits.

At the very long ranges of naval battles, the dispersion of shells is quite large.  This makes it impossible to find "THE" point of correct aim, because you can't make 2 shells follow the same path.  Thus, what you're really doing when you're aiming at the nme is trying to keep him inside your dispersion area.  Then you get a lot of near misses and a few hits, all by chance, depending on where in the dispersion area your shells land.  But that's the best you can do.

The problem with 5" guns here is that because you're only shooting 1 shell at a time, it's pretty much impossible to tell whether a near-miss splash is near the center or the edge of your dispersion area.  IOW, that near miss might have been because the nme is just outside your dispersion area, and chance made your shell land way out near the edge of the area.  So if you keep shooting here, all your shots will miss.

The only way to avoid this with 5" guns is to shoot "bursts" of 4 shots instead of single shots.  Using your stopwatch to time the shells, start looking for a pattern of 4 sequential splashes at the correct times.  They'll be dispersed, and if you're lucky, some will be on both sides of the target.  This is a straddle, which means the target is inside your dispersal area.  Shift to rapid fire and you might get some hits.  But now you can't really tell what splashes are yours, so only fire about 10-15 shots.  Then stop and let all your shells still in flight impact, then tweak your aim a bit and go back to 4-shot bursts until you get another straddle.

With 8" however, it's MUCH easier.  You get 3 splashes every time you pull the trigger, so when you see a straddle, you know it's really IS a straddle.  Then just keep tracking the target and firing as fast as the guns will reload.  You've got it made now, because you're dead-on for range and deflection.  Eventually, you might stop getting straddles, but it'll only be just barely, so you don't have to tweak much to get back to straddling.  But let 2 or 3 salvos fall before tweaking your aim.  The dispersion is random and it could be that you just chanced to get all 3 shells on the same side of the target even though it's still inside the area.  So let several salvos all fall long or short in a row before you decide you're really off-target.

And straddles mean hits.  As long as you're straddling the target, with simultaneous splashes both long and short, you're GOING to hit him with the odd shell ever few salvos.  So work towards getting straddles.  But use the 8", it's much better than 5".

[Seeker]

Great write up, Bullet head.

I'll add a tip if I may.

Use the .wingman command to highlight a friendly; then ask him to fly directly over the target. When he tells you he's directly over head; click on his (white) map dot.

Instant range and bearings

[Grizzly]

Good stuff on ship gunnery. I think this would be a good time to talk about ship control. First of all there needs to be a single captain, one who decides the ship course and stands ready to make critical turns, like when incoming buffs are spotted. One cannot accomplish much when multiple players are fighting over ship control. Once a player takes control of a ship, he should be available to take emergency action, not fly off in a fighter.

Now consider two things. What ship position allows the most guns to aim at target, and what ship course makes the ship hardest to hit. The answer to the first is sideways, or at an angle to the target. The answer to the second is a course where both the range and azimuth to your ship is constantly changing. Both of these conditions are met when your ship is sailing a course at an angle to or away from the enemy (most effectively a 45 degree angle. NEVER sail you ship directly at or away from an enemy base or convoy. Doing so makes your ship a sitting duck and half your guns are unusable.

I see many times people set a tight zigzag course for a convoy. This has a minimal affect on being hard to hit, and a maximum affect on making it hard for your planes to take off and land. Instead, the captain should stand ready to zig or zag at the right time and inform the planes that you are about to turn the ship. On that subject, avoid making slight adjustments to a ship course. The slightest change in course causes the ships to wallow back and forth for minutes after making it hard to take off.

After sinking an enemy fleet avoid sailing your convoy directly into the area the enemy was sunk. In nearly all cases there will be many PT boats. If you insist on mopping up these remnants, approach them at an angle or keep them off your port side. It will be hard for them to hit you with torpedos, but they will be like a turkey shoot for your gunners.

On land bases mind the shore guns, PT spawn points, and don't get too close to shore. It's better that your LST shoulld travel a little than getting your carrier sunk.

[Bullethead]

Seeker said:
I'll add a tip if I may.

Damn good tip.  Never thought of that one .

[Bullethead]

Grizzly said:
One cannot accomplish much when multiple players are fighting over ship control. Once a player takes control of a ship, he should be available to take emergency action, not fly off in a fighter.  ...

sailing a course at an angle to or away from the enemy (most effectively a 45 degree angle. ...

I see many times people set a tight zigzag course for a convoy. This has a minimal affect on being hard to hit, and a maximum affect on making it hard for your planes to take off and land.

Damn straight, Griz.  Fleets need 1 skipper who is doing nothing but driving the boat, not shooting and especially not flying in combat.  He has to be focused on the big picture stuff like watching for torps, buffs, and nme shells starting to get close, so he can turn the boat when needed.  Otherwise, he should keep it going steady so his gunners can track the target and his pilots can fly.

Unfortunately, you can't see jack from the CV's bridge, and you can't get on the CA's bridge without shooting 8" guns, which the skipper needs to leave to somebody else.  So the next best place for the skipper is in the CV's forward 4x40mm.  This doesn't significantly reduce firepower but it gives the skipper a pretty good view of the whole fleet so he can spot trouble coming.  Failing this, circling around the fleet in a plane works, but only if there's no nme planes to chase you.  Once the skipper gets involved in ANYTHING other than looking for threats to his fleet, his fleet is in big trouble.

I wish HTC would do us some favors here.  Like when you're in command of a fleet online, you can't do anything but drive the boats, with your POV on the CA's bridge with the 8" gunners.  If you go fly or man a gun, you automatically give up command.  And every gunner and pilot flying from the CV should see some text on their screen showing if somebody's in command and who he is.  Then they'd know if nobody was driving the boat and could jump in themselves.  Many times I've seen gunners screaming for somebody to turn the boat, but nobody's at the helm .

I think making CV command an EXCLUSIVE job would solve a lot of the problems of absentee skippers.  I mean, if that was all you could do, then nobody would do it who didn't want to.  You wouldn't have a bunch of guys pulling rank just to move it closer to the field they want to go attack in planes.  Maybe give the skipper some points somehow for what his gunners do, but OTOH why bother?  I'd rather guys driving the boat effectively as its own reward than doing it for points anyway.

[DamnedRen]

Originally posted by Bullethead
I wish HTC would do us some favors here.  Like when you're in command of a fleet online, you can't do anything but drive the boats, with your POV on the CA's bridge with the 8" gunners.  If you go fly or man a gun, you automatically give up command.  And every gunner and pilot flying from the CV should see some text on their screen showing if somebody's in command and who he is.  Then they'd know if nobody was driving the boat and could jump in themselves.  Many times I've seen gunners screaming for somebody to turn the boat, but nobody's at the helm .

How many times have people screamed, "stop turning the boat so I can land!" There's a fine line between moving the boats around for perceived defence versus really needed. Or someone turning the boat just so he can close with a coastline. Both could be as equally destructive to the fleet carrier operations. Fleet carrier ops is its principle purpose in life. That being the case pilots need to be able to take over and get the ship in landing position.

I think making CV command an EXCLUSIVE job would solve a lot of the problems of absentee skippers.  I mean, if that was all you could do, then nobody would do it who didn't want to.  You wouldn't have a bunch of guys pulling rank just to move it closer to the field they want to go attack in planes.  Maybe give the skipper some points somehow for what his gunners do, but OTOH why bother?  I'd rather guys driving the boat effectively as its own reward than doing it for points anyway.

I see problems with that. The principle duty of a CV group is to support flight operations. Unfortunately, many folks don't do that and fighters in the area use the CV as a safe haven. This allows them more time over the target area without a need to fly 25 miles for home. So now you take away the principle function for your own field bombardment use and leave the fighters hanging. Or, you end up taking the CV so close to an enemy field that it must continuously turn to evade bombing. This leave's planes trying to landing on a twisting deck with their tanks on empty. Or, puts the CV into so much harms way that it gets sunk.  If anyone doesn't realize it, control of the air is paramount for taking land.  If you don't have the odds of your getting bombed go up dramatically. And sinking your CV due to commanders incompetence is a great way to influence people and make friends and sometimes make people wonder just who's on who's side.

____________________
Ren
The Damned

[Grizzly]

I guess there are two kinds of players. Those who like to work as a team toward an objective, and the other who just want to furball and vulch. The latter often could care less about the carrier and want it as close as possible to the enemy base. They can keep it at a safer distance and only have to fly a few more miles to the mehlee.

If I give suggestions in the arena they are ignored or result in insults. After all, why should they listen to me? I'm just another voice amoung the whiners. But there needs to be instruction, even for those who do not seek it. I think threads like this are good for that and should be continued on various topics as a matter of routine. What better way to teach the new players than bringing the training to them, like in this forum.

[DamnedRen]

Originally posted by Grizzly
I guess there are two kinds of players. Those who like to work as a team toward an objective, and the other who just want to furball and vulch. The latter often could care less about the carrier and want it as close as possible to the enemy base. They can keep it at a safer distance and only have to fly a few more miles to the mehlee.

Both require the ability to use the CV. Usually fighters up are after a field capture with others capping for air superiority. Most fighters would rather the CV stay clear enuff to provide access but not an easy target. When a CV is lost it leaves alot of fighters out there with no place to go.