High angle fire from conventional, low angle gunnery ships

So - Charis is fielding ships nowadays with conventional guns that fire nearly directly, and the angle gun vessels built specifically for heavy, high-angle more or less indirect fire on target. The former are better for holding the seas; the latter, for shore bombardments for sheer range and for plunging fire against defenses without massive overhead cover.

The bracing for the high angle fire makes for very heavily built ships with relatively few guns, so they do have reason to design them each for their own specific role. Still....

Any ship is likely to have some occasions for shore bombardment, and plunging fire - if you can get it to hit - is great stuff against enemy ships as well.

So I'm wondering about makeshift arrangements for some sort of - relatively light - indirect fire capability on those conventional ships. But I have no idea how crazy these ideas are, or and only a little how necessary.

Here are three:

1 - Alternate guns per gunport. The idea here is to have a second, much smaller high-angle gun sharing a gunport with a larger, longer low-angle one. Maybe they are on tracks to slide fore or aft to bring the second gun to the gunport; maybe the second rests in front of and below the primary gun, so it fires up and out through the gunport and the primary one fires right over it.

Weight at least would be a big issue here. This could be alleviated by making sure they are much smaller guns, where sheer firepower is not nearly so desired as being able to lob the fire up and over instead of straight across, and/or by including less than one secondary gun per larger primary one.

2 - Relatively light high-angle guns on centerline turrets, fore, aft, and/or center. Firing arcs would of course be limited by the sails and masts, and they would lack much protection against fire. But they'd cause less balance problems, and the turret arrangement would mean having targets still in arc without terrible trouble most of the time. (Broadside fire would have them free to fire from all three positions; forward, from the fore one; aft, from the aft.)

3 - Rockets from any deck position. Again, no protection to speak of, but the system is just light-weight rails on swivels for aiming plus rockets that can be kept elsewhere and carried there when it is time to fire.

Similar notions may apply to ironclads fighting on rivers and canals. Being able to lay down indirect fire too may mean a bit more flexibility and a little more independence of marines/cavalry helping clear things on the shore.

JeffEngel wrote:So - Charis is fielding ships nowadays with conventional guns that fire nearly directly, and the angle gun vessels built specifically for heavy, high-angle more or less indirect fire on target. The former are better for holding the seas; the latter, for shore bombardments for sheer range and for plunging fire against defenses without massive overhead cover.

The bracing for the high angle fire makes for very heavily built ships with relatively few guns, so they do have reason to design them each for their own specific role. Still....

Any ship is likely to have some occasions for shore bombardment, and plunging fire - if you can get it to hit - is great stuff against enemy ships as well.

So I'm wondering about makeshift arrangements for some sort of - relatively light - indirect fire capability on those conventional ships. But I have no idea how crazy these ideas are, or and only a little how necessary.

Here are three:

1 - Alternate guns per gunport. The idea here is to have a second, much smaller high-angle gun sharing a gunport with a larger, longer low-angle one. Maybe they are on tracks to slide fore or aft to bring the second gun to the gunport; maybe the second rests in front of and below the primary gun, so it fires up and out through the gunport and the primary one fires right over it.

Weight at least would be a big issue here. This could be alleviated by making sure they are much smaller guns, where sheer firepower is not nearly so desired as being able to lob the fire up and over instead of straight across, and/or by including less than one secondary gun per larger primary one.

2 - Relatively light high-angle guns on centerline turrets, fore, aft, and/or center. Firing arcs would of course be limited by the sails and masts, and they would lack much protection against fire. But they'd cause less balance problems, and the turret arrangement would mean having targets still in arc without terrible trouble most of the time. (Broadside fire would have them free to fire from all three positions; forward, from the fore one; aft, from the aft.)

3 - Rockets from any deck position. Again, no protection to speak of, but the system is just light-weight rails on swivels for aiming plus rockets that can be kept elsewhere and carried there when it is time to fire.

Similar notions may apply to ironclads fighting on rivers and canals. Being able to lay down indirect fire too may mean a bit more flexibility and a little more independence of marines/cavalry helping clear things on the shore.

I do not think that any of these ideas are needed as Charis is basically no longer producing wooden ships if they can help it and all if their current iron clad sailing ships are equipped with guns cpable of relitivly high angle fire if I am recalling cirrectly. Also their new steam powered iron clad ships are also being equipped with breach loading guns cpable of around I think 15 degrees of elevation. While this does not give them theme ability to deliver plunging fire with their current weapons at maximum elevation they are capable of firing at such a long range that they would be I capable of hitting another vessel. Also with the length of current Charisian weapons it would be very dificult to allow them to be elevated to the angles which they elevate their black powder weapons.

captinjoehenry wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:So - Charis is fielding ships nowadays with conventional guns that fire nearly directly, and the angle gun vessels built specifically for heavy, high-angle more or less indirect fire on target. The former are better for holding the seas; the latter, for shore bombardments for sheer range and for plunging fire against defenses without massive overhead cover.

The bracing for the high angle fire makes for very heavily built ships with relatively few guns, so they do have reason to design them each for their own specific role. Still....

Any ship is likely to have some occasions for shore bombardment, and plunging fire - if you can get it to hit - is great stuff against enemy ships as well.

So I'm wondering about makeshift arrangements for some sort of - relatively light - indirect fire capability on those conventional ships. But I have no idea how crazy these ideas are, or and only a little how necessary.

Here are three:

1 - Alternate guns per gunport. The idea here is to have a second, much smaller high-angle gun sharing a gunport with a larger, longer low-angle one. Maybe they are on tracks to slide fore or aft to bring the second gun to the gunport; maybe the second rests in front of and below the primary gun, so it fires up and out through the gunport and the primary one fires right over it.

Weight at least would be a big issue here. This could be alleviated by making sure they are much smaller guns, where sheer firepower is not nearly so desired as being able to lob the fire up and over instead of straight across, and/or by including less than one secondary gun per larger primary one.

2 - Relatively light high-angle guns on centerline turrets, fore, aft, and/or center. Firing arcs would of course be limited by the sails and masts, and they would lack much protection against fire. But they'd cause less balance problems, and the turret arrangement would mean having targets still in arc without terrible trouble most of the time. (Broadside fire would have them free to fire from all three positions; forward, from the fore one; aft, from the aft.)

3 - Rockets from any deck position. Again, no protection to speak of, but the system is just light-weight rails on swivels for aiming plus rockets that can be kept elsewhere and carried there when it is time to fire.

Similar notions may apply to ironclads fighting on rivers and canals. Being able to lay down indirect fire too may mean a bit more flexibility and a little more independence of marines/cavalry helping clear things on the shore.

I do not think that any of these ideas are needed as Charis is basically no longer producing wooden ships if they can help it and all if their current iron clad sailing ships are equipped with guns cpable of relitivly high angle fire if I am recalling cirrectly. Also their new steam powered iron clad ships are also being equipped with breach loading guns cpable of around I think 15 degrees of elevation. While this does not give them theme ability to deliver plunging fire with their current weapons at maximum elevation they are capable of firing at such a long range that they would be I capable of hitting another vessel. Also with the length of current Charisian weapons it would be very dificult to allow them to be elevated to the angles which they elevate their black powder weapons.

I'm sure that there will come a point where the capacity for "upper register" firing will be needed.

JeffEngel wrote:So I'm wondering about makeshift arrangements for some sort of - relatively light - indirect fire capability on those conventional ships. But I have no idea how crazy these ideas are, or and only a little how necessary.

Here are three:

Four: (Infantry) mortars fired from the main deck. Range limited, but more capable of plunging fire than any other type of weapon.

Weird Harold wrote:

JeffEngel wrote:So I'm wondering about makeshift arrangements for some sort of - relatively light - indirect fire capability on those conventional ships. But I have no idea how crazy these ideas are, or and only a little how necessary.

Here are three:

Four: (Infantry) mortars fired from the main deck. Range limited, but more capable of plunging fire than any other type of weapon.

D'oh! I had been thinking of that and forgot it in the post, yes. You wouldn't need to keep them there and exposed either, like the rockets. They'd also be fine candidates for the little "gun" forward of the main one below decks. I think.

The Rotweillers were built with the main deck sheltered by armour rather than having gunners exposed to fire, except directly through the gunports.

I would expect the Haarahlds to incorpoate that same feature or something like it. Is so, you could have a mortar battery on the main deck without concern of being exposed to conventional fire. However, if an opponent is able to introduce plunging fire, that becomes a new problem.

Don

Depending on the layout of the bilge tanks or stabilization system (if any) on the ship, a tricky emergency measure might be to shift water in the tanks and heel the ship to increase the angle elevation of the main battery.

No doubt this would be dangerous and scary as hell for the ship's crew, but if they absolutely had to deliver plunging fire, or shoot at improbably long range targets beyond the standard elevation of the guns, then this would be about the only way to do this. A relatively small amount of heel should be used, the real key would be to elevate the guns to an effective 800mils from horizontal to achieve the longest range and have the shells take the highest practical arc without putting the ship in danger.

Thucydides wrote:Depending on the layout of the bilge tanks or stabilization system (if any) on the ship, a tricky emergency measure might be to shift water in the tanks and heel the ship to increase the angle elevation of the main battery.

No doubt this would be dangerous and scary as hell for the ship's crew, but if they absolutely had to deliver plunging fire, or shoot at improbably long range targets beyond the standard elevation of the guns, then this would be about the only way to do this. A relatively small amount of heel should be used, the real key would be to elevate the guns to an effective 800mils from horizontal to achieve the longest range and have the shells take the highest practical arc without putting the ship in danger.

Perhaps they won't have to. The elevation on that battery is going to be adjustable. They may well be able to lift the elevation far enough to deliver plunging fire where needed.

Don

n7axw wrote:

Thucydides wrote:Depending on the layout of the bilge tanks or stabilization system (if any) on the ship, a tricky emergency measure might be to shift water in the tanks and heel the ship to increase the angle elevation of the main battery.

No doubt this would be dangerous and scary as hell for the ship's crew, but if they absolutely had to deliver plunging fire, or shoot at improbably long range targets beyond the standard elevation of the guns, then this would be about the only way to do this. A relatively small amount of heel should be used, the real key would be to elevate the guns to an effective 800mils from horizontal to achieve the longest range and have the shells take the highest practical arc without putting the ship in danger.

Perhaps they won't have to. The elevation on that battery is going to be adjustable. They may well be able to lift the elevation far enough to deliver plunging fire where needed.

Don

The limiting factor on smooth bore, solid shotted guns is the effective range, falling shot has less punch than direct fire. Mortars and other high angle guns compensate by using explosive shells - a technological shift.
Next issue is gun ports - muzzle loading guns need to recoil inboard for reloading so high angle guns are either deck mounted or firing through slots in the hull - really bad for sea keeping (or keeping the sea out depending on your perspective).
Once you put rifled guns on deck, on hydraulic recoil absorbing pintle mounts, modifying the mounts for either direct fire or indirect fire is simple mechanics (it just requires the mount to be high enough so the breach doesn't hit the deck in recoil and offset so it clears the mount.
The Japanese went as far as to design and use the 16" main turret guns on their battle ships for anti aircraft use.
Indirect fired shells tend to be subtly different from the direct fire shells too, for aerodynamic stability you want the weight ahead of the center of pressure on the shells so they fall nose down (for best penetration) (spin stabilization actually interferes with accuracy, and they tend to fall butt first or side ways (key hole), but the tight fit helps with range).

Thucydides wrote:Depending on the layout of the bilge tanks or stabilization system (if any) on the ship, a tricky emergency measure might be to shift water in the tanks and heel the ship to increase the angle elevation of the main battery.

No doubt this would be dangerous and scary as hell for the ship's crew, but if they absolutely had to deliver plunging fire, or shoot at improbably long range targets beyond the standard elevation of the guns, then this would be about the only way to do this. A relatively small amount of heel should be used, the real key would be to elevate the guns to an effective 800mils from horizontal to achieve the longest range and have the shells take the highest practical arc without putting the ship in danger.

During WW1 the Royal Navy used such techniques, including flooding anti-torpedo bulges and filling tanks and bunkers with concrete on board HMS Revenge/(renamed Redoutable in 1915), an obsolescent "pre-Dreadnaught" battleship of the "Royal Sovereign" class of 1889 design.