Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Wishlist => Topic started by: Krusty on November 19, 2009, 11:46:05 PM

Title: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Krusty on November 19, 2009, 11:46:05 PM
Flipping through TV I happened upon "WW2 in HD" on Discovery, and saw a bit of footage of ships shelling Iwo Jima....


Got me to thinking about those big guns in AH. I'd like a one firing mode to fire ONE of the 3 barrels. Reload is the same for all barrels, but you cannot fire a "salvo" until all are reloaded. The other firing mode, of course, would fire ALL THREE barrels at the same point, exactly like they do now.

Why?

Because when you're ranging something you don't need or want the long reload times. You just need to see where the shell is landing, then when you're ranged BAM! Fire all barrels at once.

I suppose you could do the same with 5"-ers as well, but I'm specifically thinking of the big guns.
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Strip on November 19, 2009, 11:56:13 PM
Perhaps a ranging mode where the shots are spread out a predetermined value as well, to aid ranging an enemy target.

Strip
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Krusty on November 20, 2009, 12:03:00 AM
Actually, this is a compromise from a previous wish I'd called for many times: some sort of functioning rangefinder. You enter a mode, and you have to angle the 2 plates/mirrors until the image "looks" like a single image, then you check the range readout.

That'll never happen, it seems, so something to speed up the process we have would be nice: usually by the time I'm anywhere NEAR range of what I want to hit, the ship's already out of the area and heading away (or... sunk because I couldn't hit the SB, etc)

EDIT: For those that don't get the original point:

You can fire 3x as fast, but you still have to wait the same reload time for each gun. That means instead of "fire.... wait 30 seconds.... adjust... oops outta range" you're in "fire, wait 10, adjust, fire, wait 10, adjust, fire" all in the same time frame.
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: phatzo on November 20, 2009, 12:38:09 AM
I wonder if it could be done as simply a dot salvo comand
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: ZZee on November 20, 2009, 01:46:40 AM
+1

seems to be a reasonable request.





Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: waystin2 on November 20, 2009, 06:44:42 AM
+1
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: AWwrgwy on November 20, 2009, 11:59:41 PM
Don't they have lots of guys stuffed in those turrets?  A crew for each gun all doing identical tasks all at the same time?  Would reload time really be that much faster if one crew had to reload their gun while the other two crews stood around and did nothing?

Just something to think about.


wrongway
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Krusty on November 21, 2009, 12:39:29 AM
Yes. They had automated lift elevators, ramrods, powder elevators... They could and did reload shots faster than in this game.

EDIT: I mean single guns were reloaded much faster. It might be that AH models "time x 3" to simulate reloading all guns. I don't know the hows or whys of this.

HOWEVER, my original idea is flawed, as you STILL have to wait for the round to travel down-stream to see where it lands to adjust it.

I'd still like it, as it would be better for walking rounds across strats and so forth, and you could sort of fire a spread of 3, and if your 2nd was closest, go back to that distance (and so on).
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: mcboi on November 23, 2009, 10:10:14 AM
I'd also like to see 1 person be able to fire all the 8"ers on the cruiser if no one else is manning any of them. the other 2 turrets are useless if no one else is in them, but in war we all know every gun on that ship would be firing
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: phatzo on November 23, 2009, 09:35:49 PM
I'd also like to see 1 person be able to fire all the 8"ers on the cruiser if no one else is manning any of them. the other 2 turrets are useless if no one else is in them, but in war we all know every gun on that ship would be firing
like taking the position of ships fire controller?
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: bravoa8 on November 23, 2009, 09:40:35 PM
I like this idea! +1
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: ImADot on November 23, 2009, 10:44:34 PM
"Land Mode"?
Click on spot on map, guns turn and elevate to hit that spot. 
Range and azimuth readout in upper left...
Fire.
Switch to Manual mode if you want to then walk your salvo around the town/strat.

It's already there...forgot about the three different firing modes?
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Strip on November 23, 2009, 11:03:11 PM
It works for firing a known land targets....

How do you figure out targets moving at sea, or unknown targets like shore batteries, this is the basis for Krusty's idea.

Strip
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Vadjan-Sama on November 25, 2009, 02:34:40 AM
You don't understand what they are talking about ImADot, Is not the same trying to measure range looking a hit every 15secs than looking the hit every 5secs.

I think it's a good idea, a way in which a single rapid fire 8" gun to measure range and then switch to normal mode once u got range and destroy it.


+1
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Bino on November 25, 2009, 02:12:20 PM
IJN ships often used colored dyes to mark shell splashes.  That way two or more ships could fire on the same target ship and have some chance of correcting their aim.  Might be useful if each turret could be assigned - or choose - a color...?
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: lyric1 on November 25, 2009, 06:54:45 PM
Why?

Because when you're ranging something you don't need or want the long reload times. You just need to see where the shell is landing, then when you're ranged BAM! Fire all barrels at once.

I suppose you could do the same with 5"-ers as well, but I'm specifically thinking of the big guns.
Or you can do what I have seen with some squads. They have every target on a base figured out so once you have hit a certain target you know exactly how far it is to range the next item you want to hit.

In very short order they have disabled an entire field of set targets they want to take out long before they even need visual of that base. I would imagine it would take a lot of work to figure it all out but if you are serious about doing it I can confirm there are individuals who have done it.
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: phatzo on November 25, 2009, 11:09:07 PM
Or you can do what I have seen with some squads. They have every target on a base figured out so once you have hit a certain target you know exactly how far it is to range the next item you want to hit.

In very short order they have disabled an entire field of set targets they want to take out long before they even need visual of that base. I would imagine it would take a lot of work to figure it all out but if you are serious about doing it I can confirm there are individuals who have done it.
yep I know a guy who doesn't play anymore who had field and town down before you new it.
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: mechanic on November 26, 2009, 12:09:50 AM
even more usefull than reloading the same gun twice is the fact that you could fire barrel 1, then adjust and fire barrel 2, then adjust and fire barrel 3. Then while you wait for the rounds to land you reload all three guns.

If you see what i'm getting at, single fire mode would be most usefull if you could fire the three barrels in sequence, not just use one barrel for ranging.
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Krusty on November 26, 2009, 02:26:58 AM
^-- That's actually what I was trying to request in the first place!
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: fbEagle on November 27, 2009, 05:54:29 PM
Quote
I'm specifically thinking of the big guns.
Only 1 problem with your theory... the 8inchers in AH are relatively small compared to some other naval "Big guns"
8inchers are nothing compared to the other guns on American ships.
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Motherland on November 27, 2009, 05:57:18 PM
Don't they have lots of guys stuffed in those turrets?  A crew for each gun all doing identical tasks all at the same time?  Would reload time really be that much faster if one crew had to reload their gun while the other two crews stood around and did nothing?

Just something to think about.


wrongway
Even if the guns were individually reloaded, by staggering the fire/reloads you could for practical purposes cut reload time by 33%.
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: fbEagle on November 27, 2009, 05:58:16 PM
Better yet lets just get bigger naval guns with the 2 modes for firing. Lets make them fire a little more realistically while were at it... These are the 16inchers on the USS Wisconsin.
(http://www.usswisconsin.org/Pictures/Big%20Guns/002a.jpg)
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Oleg on November 28, 2009, 12:47:44 AM
These are the 16inchers on the USS Wisconsin.

I doubt it will fit our cruiser.
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: waystin2 on November 28, 2009, 09:13:08 AM
I doubt it will fit our cruiser.


Who said anything about the cruiser?  BRING on the battleships!!! :rock
Title: Re: Secondary fire mode on 8" guns
Post by: Pongo on November 28, 2009, 10:06:32 AM
In weather like exists in AH, the Baltimores ranging radar would have given immediate range to the targets.
But what would be the game fun of that. AH has 1860 gun control because doing it any more accurately would make the ships so deadly that they would have to take away their buffed up survivability. So we have probably far better AA gun control then existed in WW2 and way worse surface gun control then existed in ww2.
A fire control position to aid the gunners in knowing range would be interesting and give a good advantage to the ship that had it manned with a competent player.

A dot command to switch the guns from a latteral
* * *
pattern
to a vertical
  *
  *
  *
pattern might be usefull, and a salvo command to spread the vertical out for ranging.