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The next steps in gunnery w/ gunboats and Canals

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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by doug941   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 2:28 am

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Several points to consider. When it comes to shore fire support, something along the lines of a LSM(R) would probably work just as good as anything else available.
Six inch naval guns of 1880 vintage generally had ranges of 8-9,000 yards at approx 15 degree elevation. Anything much more modern is not likely to appear on the battlefield in this war.
As for fire support away from the water, bigger is NOT better. Prior to 1900 large caliber guns were normally used for siege warfare from prepared positions. One of the main reasons Japan beat the Russians in 1904 is they defied "commonly known" tactics and hauled 11" howitzers into the hills around Port Arthur. For meeting engagements and most set piece battles, siege artillery simply isn't worth the trouble.
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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by Castenea   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 6:05 am

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Bigger is better, up to a point. That point is determined by your ability to move said guns around. Water borne guns are often larger than guns on land due to issues of moving guns on land. Germany built the largest land based gun ever used, it was used in one campaign, the siege of Sevastopol, due to the trouble of moving that monstrosity.
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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by Dilandu   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 6:39 am

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Castenea wrote:Bigger is better, up to a point. That point is determined by your ability to move said guns around. Water borne guns are often larger than guns on land due to issues of moving guns on land. Germany built the largest land based gun ever used, it was used in one campaign, the siege of Sevastopol, due to the trouble of moving that monstrosity.


Yeah, and this gun failed mizerably; to survive the impact inside the barrel, they were so durable, that the oly way to do some damage with them was to achieve direct hit. When they fall on the ground, they simply made a deep hole, and harmlessly detonated on the bottom.

Germans... They never really knew how to build weapons. :D
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Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by doug941   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 6:56 am

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Castenea wrote:Bigger is better, up to a point. That point is determined by your ability to move said guns around. Water borne guns are often larger than guns on land due to issues of moving guns on land. Germany built the largest land based gun ever used, it was used in one campaign, the siege of Sevastopol, due to the trouble of moving that monstrosity.


Bigger is better, if you can move AND FIRE IT.
The larger guns, 6" or bigger, would have several problems. Without motorized transport they were transported in pieces then assembled on site. They also would most likely be restricted as to firing locations as they tended to be finicky about what ground they could fire from. When motor transport comes into the picture, a lot of the problems are reduced but are still there.

An example of animal drawn artillery is the American Civil War which had 20" Rodman guns but the field guns tended to the 4.62" Napoleon smoothbore and 3" Parrott rifles. Field howitzers got up to 6.4"

The largest SPG was the German Karl which was mounted on a 36.5'x10.33" tracked chassis and was strictly a siege gun. The gun you mentioned was the 80cm Gustav, took 25 freight railcars to carry it, took 250 men 3 days to assemble it, took 2,500 men to lay the double rail line for it and had 2 flak battalions to guard it. All for one round every 30-45 minutes.

As for naval guns, with gunpowder either black or brown, sizing up your tube doesn't gain very much in range. Also any vessel big enough to carry a modern gun is too big to navigate most rivers so they are stuck with coastal missions. Lastly with big guns at long range you will have problems with defilade fire.

All in all, big guns are possible but not likely to be worth making for this war if medium field artillery is available.
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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by Dilandu   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 7:42 am

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An example of animal drawn artillery is the American Civil War which had 20" Rodman guns but the field guns tended to the 4.62" Napoleon smoothbore and 3" Parrott rifles. Field howitzers got up to 6.4"


The big Rodman guns were generally a coastal defense and fortification garrison weapons.
------------------------------

Oh well, if shortening the front is what the Germans crave,
Let's shorten it to very end - the length of Fuhrer's grave.

(Red Army lyrics from 1945)
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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by doug941   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 7:54 am

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Dilandu wrote:
An example of animal drawn artillery is the American Civil War which had 20" Rodman guns but the field guns tended to the 4.62" Napoleon smoothbore and 3" Parrott rifles. Field howitzers got up to 6.4"


The big Rodman guns were generally a coastal defense and fortification garrison weapons.


Which was EXACTLY my point. You can find thousands of photos showing 9, 11, 15" guns but how many are in field emplacements? There will be circumstances where siege guns are needed but the vast majority of battles will be fought with field guns.
Safehold does have the advantage of having dray dragons but hauling a 5-10 ton cannon into battle is a bit much.
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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by pokermind   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 9:20 am

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Those 6" naval rifles on a land carriage might well be the mobile siege gun the 'Long Tom of Safehold.

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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by Captain Igloo   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 12:08 pm

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pokermind wrote:Those 6" naval rifles on a land carriage might well be the mobile siege gun the 'Long Tom of Safehold.

Poker


To infuse some RL arguments, have a look at Lovetts "Development of german heavy artillery"
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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by Weird Harold   » Mon Mar 02, 2015 7:46 pm

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Dilandu wrote:The big Rodman guns were generally a coastal defense and fortification garrison weapons.


Which is sort of the point about the CoGA needing to build adequate coastal artillery before the ICN will be forced to build bigger naval guns.

Something like this:

Image

Which is an 8" rifled muzzle loader originally designed for gunpowder and just barely within the CoGA's tech ability once they tumble to the interrupted screw breech design.

(I don't know that the disappearing mount would necessarily be within CoGA capability, but that's not the only way to mount such guns.)

Coastal Defense around Zion and the southern coast of the Temple Lands and Harchong need some defense against the ICN since defense at sea is pretty much a lost cause. Until something makes the ICN stand further out to sea to bombard coastal defenses, there's no incentive for them to develop better accuracy at long range.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: The next steps in gunnery.
Post by AirTech   » Tue Mar 03, 2015 6:36 am

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Dilandu wrote:
Castenea wrote:Bigger is better, up to a point. That point is determined by your ability to move said guns around. Water borne guns are often larger than guns on land due to issues of moving guns on land. Germany built the largest land based gun ever used, it was used in one campaign, the siege of Sevastopol, due to the trouble of moving that monstrosity.


Yeah, and this gun failed mizerably; to survive the impact inside the barrel, they were so durable, that the oly way to do some damage with them was to achieve direct hit. When they fall on the ground, they simply made a deep hole, and harmlessly detonated on the bottom.

Germans... They never really knew how to build weapons. :D


The lack of a proximity fuse was the core of the problem. The Americans got it working in time to block the V-1 threat but the Germans trailed behind. The 280mm cannon deployed by the US Army was about as big as you can go with road mobile gun as opposed to the railway guns that got extensive use during the first world war (but these require a preexisting rail network to move the components. The German V-3 could have done severe damage to London without the allies air superiority but static guns like this require static front lines.
The ability to hit a target 90km behind your front lines is devastating only if you know what you are hitting. So big guns need airborne spotters or radio equipped forward controllers (read spies).
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