Fire Control Station

[Carwash]

Nice if the cruisers in the task groups had a fire control station.  Maybe I'm missing something, but the 8" guns seem almost useless unless there is a coordinated effort in employing them (such as a spotter, and gunners who bothered to listen to the spotter).   The fire control director should be able to disable individual guns until range and bearing was determined by spotting shots from a single gun (this is how it was done prior to radar directed fire).  The 8" guns could then deal out some real damage to shore installations.  

Just an idea.

[Sabre]

As I recall, capital ships had gun-directors (sort of like big range-finding binoculars) in the gun-director stations atop the masts.  The forward gun-director fed azimuth and elevation to the forward turrets, the aft GD to the aft turrets.  The individual turrets could also direct themselves, but the GD towers gave them better line-of-site (being high up on the masts).  I would like to see the main gun batteries linked to two GD positions (forward to forward, aft to aft), which would control the main batteries remotely.  The five-inchers I'd leave to local control (i.e. from within the turrets), since these are dual-purpose (AS and AA).  This model would of course lay the ground work for battleships .  Next, I'd like to see surface-search radar (make this an arena option to have on or off).  This would give approximate range to surface targets, but would not help with land targets.  Finally, I'd like the option for different ammo types for all ship guns: HE, AP, Smoke, illumination (i.e. "star shells").

[Krusty]

Using simple optics (very simple, having been around since WW1), you can tell the distance to a target by angling two lenses together. When the picture is whole you check the angle, and by knowing the width of each lense, the dial would take the angle and you'd read off the range it was pointing to.

We have no range finding gear in AH. It's without depth, because it's on a 2D screen. This makes shelling anything specific (specifically a shore battery) a big waste of time. 2 bomb-ladden aircraft would be more successful inside 5 minutes than 2 8" gunners firing shells for over half an hour.

[Carwash]

Sabre, you are correct that capital ships had fire control stations atop the mast and fire control equipment within each turret, in case the lightly armored mast was shot all to pieces.  However, optical range finders only approximated the range to target.  A single shot would be fired from the main battery, the splash of the shell could be seen by an observer, and fire corrected accordingly.  Only when the shot was ranged would all batterys open fire.  This is why capital ships (after HMS Dreadnaught) had all main batterys of the same caliber.  They all had the same ballistics.

[Oleg]

Originally posted by Carwash
However, optical range finders only approximated the range to target.  A single shot would be fired from the main battery, the splash of the shell could be seen by an observer, and fire corrected accordingly.  Only when the shot was ranged would all batterys open fire.  This is why capital ships (after HMS Dreadnaught) had all main batterys of the same caliber.  They all had the same ballistics.

Actually, they shoot all (or several at least) guns at once with different rising until splashes land under and over enemy ship. It calls "bracket" if i translate correctly.

[NHawk]

Originally posted by Krusty
.....We have no range finding gear in AH. It's without depth, because it's on a 2D screen. This makes shelling anything specific (specifically a shore battery) a big waste of time. 2 bomb-ladden aircraft would be more successful inside 5 minutes than 2 8" gunners firing shells for over half an hour.

Don't gun much do you?