Really?????? Mk2

Bluesqueak wrote:
Personally, I'd say the Dahak class and the angle-gun bombardment ships are the gunboats. Then the City class become a longer legged version - but still need a sequence of coaling stations to travel the distances required. Actual historical gunboats usually had a support structure providing coal, or still carried sails where they couldn't expect that support structure.

Dilandu seems to be thinking of USS Monitor style gunboats, which are generally called monitors. Merlin and the Inner Circle appear to have paid considerable attention to the faults of that design, because the main problem with using it to attack fortifications was its inability to elevate its guns high enough. They work on that problem even before they build steamships.

In fact, there are many, many historical examples of ships defeating land based defences; mostly WW2 onwards. In WW1 the ships defeated the land based guns in the Dardenelles campaign, but the mines defeated the ships. Does that remind you of anything?

I assumed he was thinking of the Crimean War gunboats built by the RN to operate in the Baltic. These were shallow draft single screw ships around 200-300 tons. The Dapper class carried a 68 pounder, a 32 pounder and a couple 24 pounder howitzers.

The theory was you could build a bunch of these rather than one larger ship and mostly not get hit because they were small. In practice they went in with larger warships because if you didn't have those, enemy frigates or their own gunboats would ruin your day.

Really, the primary example of gunboats as specially designed bombardment vessels was for the Baltic.

Amusingly, even with the Jeune Ecole advocating small warships, IIRC France opted to armor larger ships to survive combat with Russian fortifications and the RN ended up with dozens of these little gunboats.

So it was a relatively short period where gunboats were specifically designed to be bombardment platforms and not just small warships that filled various roles. Originally they were intended for coastal defense or when your real navy got sunk and you had to make do. Monitors eventually took over the bombardment role.

Dilandu wrote:Not exactly. In Dardanelles campaign, naval bombardment were essentially unable to suppress coastal guns despite the number of heavy guns used. Churchill made really stupid mistake; he extrapolated the effect of HOWITZERS against Belgian forts on the naval GUNS against Ottoman forts. And this mistake proven to be fatal. The long-range gunfire simply wasn't accurate enough to hit the individual gun emplacements, and the close-range gunfire was unable to send shells over guns breastworks.

You're assuming that Merlin/RWC is completely unaware of how to do long range gunfire.

I doubt they built a 10,000 ton warship with 10" guns and didn't equip them with good elevation, and decent rangefinders. Granted Merlin doesn't provide all the answers but they do skip a lot of trial and error from his dropped hints.

In any case, you are incorrect. British ships of the period could hit moving targets at 15,000 yds as seen at Jutland.

The Dardanelles forts were suppressed during the Battle of 18 March but the civilian minesweepers withdrew leading to the loss of the battleships.

We will never know whether or not De Robeck could have forced the straits with naval crews aboard the minesweepers on the 19th had he not lost his nerve but what is clear was that by the early afternoon on the 18th the forts were mostly silenced. What remained were mobile batteries and the minefields.

The primary lesson learned ISNT that naval gunfire was ineffective but to not scrimp on minesweepers.

Randomiser wrote:

Silverwall wrote:What I don't get is why the ships are in range anyway, range is based on historical evidence 2000 yards or so maybe up to 2500 yards or one nautical mile. This is spitting distance from the shore for a ship of the period so why are they so close to shore that they can be hit?

My reading of the bombardment of Alexandria (1882) is that closing to this range was considered suicidally short range for ships performing shore bombardment.

IIRC they were trying to force passage through a relatively narrow channel with fortifications on both sides, in order to get to within bombardment range of the harbour and city without risking their one and only battleship. The route chosen was considered the best of their few poor options. The Dohlarans had been expecting the ICN to come for them for quite a while and hadn't been sitting on their hands while waiting. Surprise! Surprise! The main Dohlaran Naval base was in a very defensible and well defended area.

So as Dilandu says ... "Because reasons" if the channel is so narrow as to be blockable by fire then the batteries should be visiable from sea and provoke some rowboat reconnisance or scout sniper investigations. I can't think of any real world situation where artillery was a supprise to a fleet trying to force a channel and the correct course of action has action is to neutralise them first. This is what brought on battles like Fort Donelson, Charlston, The Dardenelles etc.

Vinea wrote:
I doubt they built a 10,000 ton warship with 10" guns and didn't equip them with good elevation, and decent rangefinders. Granted Merlin doesn't provide all the answers but they do skip a lot of trial and error from his dropped hints.

In any case, you are incorrect. British ships of the period could hit moving targets at 15,000 yds as seen at Jutland.

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You are missing the point. The problem is not fire control (albeit without electricity nothing particulary good could be achieved either), the problem is small size of targets. Individual guns are MUCH smaller than warships, and coastal batteries could not be sunk. While fighting enemy warships, you would damage it if you hit it anywhere; while fighting forts, you need to hit specifically the guns. You could turn area between guns into lunar landscape with craters upon craters, but onky the hits that actually hit the guns counts.

The long-barreled naval guns are poorly suited for that role. Even with high angle mountings, they aren't howitzers. Their shells are far too fast, and on long ranges are far to inaccurate. Howitzers have short stubby barreks for a reason, you know - so thr shell would NOT be too fast, and its ballistic flight would be as short and predictable as possible.

Dilandu wrote:
You are missing the point. The problem is not fire control (albeit without electricity nothing particulary good could be achieved either), the problem is small size of targets. Individual guns are MUCH smaller than warships, and coastal batteries could not be sunk. While fighting enemy warships, you would damage it if you hit it anywhere; while fighting forts, you need to hit specifically the guns. You could turn area between guns into lunar landscape with craters upon craters, but onky the hits that actually hit the guns counts.

The long-barreled naval guns are poorly suited for that role. Even with high angle mountings, they aren't howitzers. Their shells are far too fast, and on long ranges are far to inaccurate. Howitzers have short stubby barreks for a reason, you know - so thr shell would NOT be too fast, and its ballistic flight would be as short and predictable as possible.

The point is you made 2 assertions:

1) Naval artillery could not hit targets at long range. They could. The QEs hit german battle cruisers at 19,000 yards at Jutland.
2) Dardanelles showed that naval gunfire was unable to silence forts. They did.

Now you have new incorrect assertions:

1) Fire control requires electricity. You can use speaking tubes/voice pipes and relay messages from the fire director to turrets. That allows them to use rangefinders as well as report shots and walk fire into their stationary targets. Firing tables and mechanical computers are useful without electricity. HMS Victory had and used voice pipes at Trafalgar.
2) Individual guns are too small to hit because they are smaller than ships. What? So are turrets. And more than one fort was disabled by magazine hits (Chinese ones but eh) and certainly guns were hit over time.
3) You need to hit the guns to silence them. The brits didn’t destroy every Ottoman gun but the forts WERE silenced by early afternoon. If it wasn’t for the mines they would have successfully forced the straights.

Dilandu wrote:

Vinea wrote:
I doubt they built a 10,000 ton warship with 10" guns and didn't equip them with good elevation, and decent rangefinders. Granted Merlin doesn't provide all the answers but they do skip a lot of trial and error from his dropped hints.

In any case, you are incorrect. British ships of the period could hit moving targets at 15,000 yds as seen at Jutland.

.

You are missing the point. The problem is not fire control (albeit without electricity nothing particulary good could be achieved either), the problem is small size of targets. Individual guns are MUCH smaller than warships, and coastal batteries could not be sunk. While fighting enemy warships, you would damage it if you hit it anywhere; while fighting forts, you need to hit specifically the guns. You could turn area between guns into lunar landscape with craters upon craters, but onky the hits that actually hit the guns counts.

The long-barreled naval guns are poorly suited for that role. Even with high angle mountings, they aren't howitzers. Their shells are far too fast, and on long ranges are far to inaccurate. Howitzers have short stubby barreks for a reason, you know - so thr shell would NOT be too fast, and its ballistic flight would be as short and predictable as possible.

Dilandu, you are ignoring both textev and history. Textev is clear on this point: most Charisian shot and shell does NOT hit the gun.

However, the Charisians are sufficiently accurate that they can hit a fort (especially using high-angle guns), and they can fire much, much faster than the guns firing back at them and from a much, much greater range.

There is only one ending to a battle where one side has a greater range, a faster rate of fire, an ample ammunition supply, more destructive power - and is reasonably accurate. That ending is 'statistics win'.

This is not an (well, only partly) exercise in accurate-to-within-12-sq-foot ballistics. They don't have to hit the gun that accurately. They just have to hit the general area (bigger than the average ship) of the guns, then the small variations in aim caused by a moving gun platform will do the rest for them. Those small variations will mean that their fire covers a larger area - and the gun is somewhere within that area.

Statistics win. They saturate the larger target of the bombardment platform with shot or shell; eventually enough of their shot/shell will be on target.

If they don't hit the guns themselves, they might also hit the overhead protection, bringing it down on the gun crews and taking it out of action. Or they might hit something which creates debris which can kill the gun crew. Or they accidentally manage a direct hit on the commanding officer, so that the gunners can't fight efficiently. But statistics will win.

Textev is that it took hours.

Vinea is much better at the detailed history of this period than I am, but history is that "A ship's a fool to fight a fort" was out-of-date by the late Nineteenth Century. Merlin, OWL and the Inner Circle have the advantage of all that historical knowledge. They know exactly which weapons were used by ships to destroy land-bases, and they know exactly which ones don't use (or don't have to use) electricity.

Bluesqueak wrote:
However, the Charisians are sufficiently accurate that they can hit a fort (especially using high-angle guns), and they can fire much, much faster than the guns firing back at them and from a much, much greater range.

Which is exactly an exercise in wasting ammunition. Hitting the fort itself does nothing to reduce its combat power until you start to hit the guns. And long-range bombardment of pre-electric era just weren't accurate enough.

There is only one ending to a battle where one side has a greater range, a faster rate of fire, an ample ammunition supply, more destructive power - and is reasonably accurate. That ending is 'statistics win'.

Alexandria bombardment beg to differ. British fleet have nearly absolute artillery superiority over Egyptians, but they managed to silence only a few guns. Forts was abandoned by demoralized personnel, but their combat power weren't significantly reduced.

This is not an (well, only partly) exercise in accurate-to-within-12-sq-foot ballistics. They don't have to hit the gun that accurately. They just have to hit the general area (bigger than the average ship) of the guns, then the small variations in aim caused by a moving gun platform will do the rest for them. Those small variations will mean that their fire covers a larger area - and the gun is somewhere within that area.

One problem. Ships haven't got unlimited ammunition supply (while the forts could have a good approximation).

Vinea is much better at the detailed history of this period than I am, but history is that "A ship's a fool to fight a fort" was out-of-date by the late Nineteenth Century.

Naval history begs to differ. Both WW1 and WW2 demonstrated, that the only way of defeating coastal defense is through superior concentration of firepower on limited number of targets.

Dilandu wrote:

Bluesqueak wrote:
However, the Charisians are sufficiently accurate that they can hit a fort (especially using high-angle guns), and they can fire much, much faster than the guns firing back at them and from a much, much greater range.

Which is exactly an exercise in wasting ammunition. Hitting the fort itself does nothing to reduce its combat power until you start to hit the guns. And long-range bombardment of pre-electric era just weren't accurate enough.

Congratulations on missing the point entirely. As well as the guns.

Your solution to the 'fort' problem is: oh, well, we're not accurate enough to hit the actual guns, so we're going to - what, exactly? Talk to them sternly?

The Charisian solution to the 'fort' problem is: oh, well, we're not accurate enough to hit the actual guns, so we need more ships, more ammunition, and guns that can fire over walls. Enough shot and we WILL hit those ... blasted... guns. Or kill everyone inside. Or, hopefully, they'll realise they can't win and honourably surrender. But whichever way we do it, we will take that fort out.

Bluesqueak wrote:There is only one ending to a battle where one side has a greater range, a faster rate of fire, an ample ammunition supply, more destructive power - and is reasonably accurate. That ending is 'statistics win'.

Dilandu wrote:Alexandria bombardment beg to differ. British fleet have nearly absolute artillery superiority over Egyptians, but they managed to silence only a few guns. Forts was abandoned by demoralized personnel, but their combat power weren't significantly reduced.

Point the first: which history book are you reading? I had a quick double check, and the RN guns defeated Ras El Tin, Fort Marabout and managed to hit the magazine of Fort Abba. The other batteries then surrendered.

Point the second: statistics won. The Egyptians decided they weren't going to carry on when the outcome was obvious. The object is not to hit the guns (because, as you keep pointing out, the naval guns aren't that accurate), it is to remove the shoreside batteries. That removal is just as successful if the batteries surrender as if you hit every single gun with one super-accurate multi-missile.

Bluesqueak wrote:This is not an (well, only partly) exercise in accurate-to-within-12-sq-foot ballistics. They don't have to hit the gun that accurately. They just have to hit the general area (bigger than the average ship) of the guns, then the small variations in aim caused by a moving gun platform will do the rest for them. Those small variations will mean that their fire covers a larger area - and the gun is somewhere within that area.

Dilandu wrote:One problem. Ships haven't got unlimited ammunition supply (while the forts could have a good approximation).

One answer. Logistics.

It is possible to calculate how much ammunition you'll need, you know. Then make sure you have the required transport for the needed ammunition, before you consider sailing off to take on a shoreside battery. Even on Safehold, armies and navies have been doing this for a long time.

The Charisians, especially, are rather good at maths.

Bluesqueak wrote:Vinea is much better at the detailed history of this period than I am, but history is that "A ship's a fool to fight a fort" was out-of-date by the late Nineteenth Century.

Dilandu wrote:Naval history begs to differ. Both WW1 and WW2 demonstrated, that the only way of defeating coastal defense is through superior concentration of firepower on limited number of targets.

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US campaign in the Pacific, UK campaign in the Falklands both would beg to differ with you. The Dardenelles would also have been pretty successful if it hadn't been for the sea-bombs, sorry, naval mines.

Why the need to hit the guns? As always, it's the crew that is soft and squishy.

Dilandu wrote:
Naval history begs to differ. Both WW1 and WW2 demonstrated, that the only way of defeating coastal defense is through superior concentration of firepower on limited number of targets.

You like making grandiose assertions and then backing them up with enthusiastic hand-waving. Or in this case, such a vague generalization that it's meaningless.

Battleships were often employed to silence coastal defenses. By definition they had a superior concentration of firepower when they succeeded because when you have an inferior concentration of firepower generally nothing very good happens.

This is a far cry from "Merlin and Churchill was stupid because they thought battleships could beat forts because battleship guns can't hit things at long range because they are too inaccurate".