2014 STGOD OOC Commentary Thread 1

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah, but how are you going to get past the part where you're only actually delivering sixty or so kilograms of explosive, with a typical hit rate measured in the single digits, at a range a small fraction of what a missile could achieve?

Rocket-assisted laser-guided shells? I know the Iowas had laser-guided rounds, and I know rocket-assisted artillery has been around for a while, so combining the two to boost range and accuracy shouldn't be impossible. As for the payload, use a shell design specifically for bombardment rather than penetrating armour, one with the maximum possible amount of explosive aboard. Plus use more modern, more powerful explosives than leftover shells from the 40's.

[Thanas]

Rocket-boosted shells might be the only way there, essentially turning shells into missiles - which is what Rheinland did in the 70s. Still, too costly for modern warfare really, especially due to manpower needed for BBs. Though honestly, any shore target which gets a 4-5 ton shell dropped on it is dead anyway.

But like I said, Rheinland keeps them around for historical reasons. Not utility. There is a reason we did not built any of them after 1950 after all.

[TimothyC]

True. Still, I would imagine with continued development of battleship guns and improved metallurgy we can reduce the life-expectancy problem for the barrels.

It's not the metallurgy, it's the propellant/propellant bags. With modern equipment I'd expect an 18"/48 barrel to have a lifespan of around 500 rounds. This is based on the 16"/50 Mk 7 going from ~300 in the early 1940s to ~1500 in the late 1980s (the 16"/56 - which was the basis for the 18"/48 - had a lifespan of just 125 rounds when developed in the 1930s)

[Simon_Jester]

Re: Maddoctor:

A five inch rocket with a shaped charge warhead can penetrate more armor plate than WWII-era armor-piercing shells from a 16" gun.

There are shaped charge antiship missiles with enough penetration that... I think the figure I heard, which I cannot locate at the moment, was as follows:

Take the turret front from a Yamato-class battleship; this was among the heaviest armor on the ship. Actually, better yet, take ALL THREE turret fronts and stack them one in front of the other. Then add the main armor belt from the left side of the ship, and the main armor belt from the right side of the ship.

Stack up all this armor in one big slab.

The shaped charge will still penetrate.

That's one of the things you get from being able to pack 500 kg of explosives in a missile warhead, rather than 30 kg in a shell's bursting charge.


Also, heavily armored targets in the modern era are usually small (in which case battleship gunfire is unlikely to ever land a direct hit), or very deeply buried bunkers (in which case battleship gunfire will most likely have no effect)

Yeah, but how are you going to get past the part where you're only actually delivering sixty or so kilograms of explosive, with a typical hit rate measured in the single digits, at a range a small fraction of what a missile could achieve?

Rocket-assisted laser-guided shells? I know the Iowas had laser-guided rounds, and I know rocket-assisted artillery has been around for a while, so combining the two to boost range and accuracy shouldn't be impossible. As for the payload, use a shell design specifically for bombardment rather than penetrating armour, one with the maximum possible amount of explosive aboard.

The sixty-kilogram figure? That was the shell design specifically for bombardment rather than penetrating armor, with the maximum possible amount of explosive aboard. It's about thirty kilograms for the armor-piercing version.

The problem is, if your shell has to be shot out of a cannon, it must withstand tremendous accelerations (tens of thousands of gravities) without breaking apart, which means it has to be roughly 90% or 95% steel by weight. Improved materials might improve on that a little, but not much.

To get much more bursting charge into a shell you must sharply decrease the acceleration it experiences... in which case you have to decrease muzzle velocity and therefore range.

Or you could fire rocket-assisted shells that gain a lot of velocity with more gentle acceleration from the rocket after leaving the barrel. But in that case you have to add a rocket engine that takes up extra weight inside the shell and must itself withstand extreme acceleration.

In the extreme limiting case, the efficient designs appear to converge on using rocket assist for all or nearly all the projectile's velocity, so as to allow low accelerations throughout. This permits a staggeringly large warhead, and also allows the projectile to have much larger overall size than any shell that can be fired out of a gun without blowing up the breech or wrapping said breech in several hundred tons of steel.

In other words, a missile.

Plus use more modern, more powerful explosives than leftover shells from the 40's.

Sure. You fill your shell with better explosives; I will fill my missile with better explosives. Are you going to end up farther ahead in the arms race than you were before?

[Eternal_Freedom]

No, you're right. However, we still have our BB's, and they still carry cruise missiles for precision strikes. But if you need to blast defenders from a beach, or utterly demoralize enemy troops, I think a big shell is going to be more cost-effective than a missile.

TimothyC: Damn, I hadn't realised barrel lives were quite that short. Oh well, with continued manufacturing and continued research I'm sure that figure can be improved.

[Skywalker_T-65]

That's what I meant when I said the Arcadian navy knows damn well their BBs are anachronistic. We know that missiles are better, but we don't care

[Eternal_Freedom]

That's what I meant when I said the Arcadian navy knows damn well their BBs are anachronistic. We know that missiles are better, but we don't care

Yup, big guns are cooler than missiles anyhow

[Beowulf]

Rocket-boosted shells might be the only way there, essentially turning shells into missiles - which is what Rheinland did in the 70s. Still, too costly for modern warfare really, especially due to manpower needed for BBs. Though honestly, any shore target which gets a 4-5 ton shell dropped on it is dead anyway.

But like I said, Rheinland keeps them around for historical reasons. Not utility. There is a reason we did not built any of them after 1950 after all.

Even 20" guns won't be 4-5 tons. Japan actually had one designed. It ended up being 2 tons of shell. I can think of more effective ways to drop a 2 ton munition on someone. It's called an aircraft.

This allows the ship to carry far more ammunition (good for shore bombardment), because the number of rounds you can fit in a magazine of fixed size scales with... either the inverse square or the inverse cube of the gun caliber, it depends.

It's probably inverse square until the shells get small enough that you can fit two levels of them on a deck. This may also be weight dependent, as you'd need to be able to move shells off the top level. It's probably in the 6 in range, depending on shell length. Guided shells tend to be longer as they are aerodynamically stabilized instead of spin.

For it is written, in the Little Blue Book, "Infantry is the queen of battle. Artillery is the king of battle. What do king do to queens?"

Yes. This is why the DPRK/DPRT border has very large amounts of artillery.

[The Romulan Republic]

If our history is roughly that of the world we know, that's taking things back into medieval times. A bit early for most nations to have founded major overseas colonies.

The European age of exploration began in the 1400's. I agree that my country was founded a little early, but I'm hoping it will work.

Still, if the moderators feel that the timeline needs to change, I can make my country a little younger or find a closer nation to have Corona secede from.

[RogueIce]

And who else is talking about building big fleets of CVNs?

Beowulf has 9 large CVNs in his orbat. Which is fine, as we are on similar GDPs (he has 7, i have and he doesn't have a long frontier/land war to focus on.

Just for disclosure, I'll likely have a similar number as well. But then, FWIW I'm an island nation so obviously a strong Navy is something I'd obviously require. Plus aircraft and probably coastal missile batteries, to keep people off my beaches.

So yeah, we might be trying to "keep up with the Rheinlanders" in naval strength, but then our Navy is our first line of defense and basically our only means of a 'Big Stick' so there's that.

I do plan on having a smaller Army of course. I'm actually building off the old SDNW2 points system for an Imperium, which IIRC people said would actually make you understrength and based off a smaller total GDP ($5 trillion VS my theoretical max of $7 trillion) so we'll see. But once I can get it posted I'll be open to discussion and refinement.

That may take a bit, though. Just got out of the hospital with an appendectomy so not at 100% yet to put together an OrBat.

[The Romulan Republic]

When was the former Britonian colony next to Corona colonized? If it was Britonian when Corona seceded, it might have played a part in the Coronan War for Independence.

[Thanas]

Rocket-boosted shells might be the only way there, essentially turning shells into missiles - which is what Rheinland did in the 70s. Still, too costly for modern warfare really, especially due to manpower needed for BBs. Though honestly, any shore target which gets a 4-5 ton shell dropped on it is dead anyway.

But like I said, Rheinland keeps them around for historical reasons. Not utility. There is a reason we did not built any of them after 1950 after all.

Even 20" guns won't be 4-5 tons. Japan actually had one designed. It ended up being 2 tons of shell. I can think of more effective ways to drop a 2 ton munition on someone. It's called an aircraft.

5k lbs, sorry. Got the unit confused due to springsharp. That being said, we don't keep them around for utility.


And with three nations now fielding that many carriers, I will definitely reconsider redoing my orbat - certainly after the spending percentages have done.

[Simon_Jester]

I get that you want the world's largest navy and you certainly are likely to have a good chance at it. But... it's going to be virtually impossible for you to adhere to a "two power rule" or anything like it; you don't have the GDP and there are too many other countries whose national survival depends on a strong navy just as much as yours.

That's what I meant when I said the Arcadian navy knows damn well their BBs are anachronistic. We know that missiles are better, but we don't care

I'm fine with that. On the other hand, it's worth considering that your idea of 'big guns' may have evolved in interesting ways over time (say, 12" guns firing rocket-assisted guided shells, instead of just OHMIGOD ENORMOUS MONGO GUNS).

[Thanas]

I get that you want the world's largest navy and you certainly are likely to have a good chance at it. But... it's going to be virtually impossible for you to adhere to a "two power rule" or anything like it; you don't have the GDP and there are too many other countries whose national survival depends on a strong navy just as much as yours.

Wow, thanks for stating the obvious, especially about things I never stated I wanted to go for.

[Skywalker_T-65]

I decided a while back to not go for super-guns. Montana is a useful placeholder, but by no means does that mean I'll stick with it. If nothing else, this discussion has given me food for thought.

[TimothyC]

That's what I meant when I said the Arcadian navy knows damn well their BBs are anachronistic. We know that missiles are better, but we don't care

I'm fine with that. On the other hand, it's worth considering that your idea of 'big guns' may have evolved in interesting ways over time (say, 12" guns firing rocket-assisted guided shells, instead of just OHMIGOD ENORMOUS MONGO GUNS).

This. The USN had programs for 13" and 11" subcaliber rounds (with longer ranges, and submunition options). I've heard of sketches of ramjet shells. If you have a goodly number of big gun ships, and are willing to spend the money, that's one thing you can spend it on.

[Simon_Jester]

I get that you want the world's largest navy and you certainly are likely to have a good chance at it. But... it's going to be virtually impossible for you to adhere to a "two power rule" or anything like it; you don't have the GDP and there are too many other countries whose national survival depends on a strong navy just as much as yours.

Wow, thanks for stating the obvious, especially about things I never stated I wanted to go for.

Given the extent of the concern you seem to display about ramping up your own navy as others publish their orders of battle, I was honestly beginning to think you did want a two-power rule for your navy.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I must be one of the few that has altogther scrapped all the battleships and big gun cruisers and gone for rocketry.

[The Romulan Republic]

I'll probably use missiles in my fleet, but their will most likely be some artillery too. Corona's modern combat ships have very powerful anti-aircraft weaponry because they lack carriers. Their main ship-killers are the submarines.

[TimothyC]

Due to a large number of not so big islands, the Royal Steamship Companies operate large numbers of small cargo/passenger ships throughout the Pacific basin:

[Siege]

Look, I get that people are invested in having a large navy as a deterrent to other players getting fancy, or simply because it makes sense for their nations to have one, and I don't mind this per se. But if this is going to turn into an SDNW#3 style naval arms race where people obsess endlessly over warship minutiae then the moderatorship will be forced to put hard caps on carrier numbers to put a stop to that. I'm guessing nobody wants that, so kindly work a reasonable and acceptable solution out amongst yourselves.

[Beowulf]

I must be one of the few that has altogther scrapped all the battleships and big gun cruisers and gone for rocketry.

I don't think we're that few. I have no battleships, or guns bigger than 155mm on escort ships.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I must be one of the few that has altogther scrapped all the battleships and big gun cruisers and gone for rocketry.

I don't think we're that few. I have no battleships, or guns bigger than 155mm on escort ships.

Sure hope not. It's like a circus of freaks out there.

[Steve]

More targets for our SSNs and CGs and strike aircraft.

[Eternal_Freedom]

More targets for our SSNs and CGs and strike aircraft.

Which is exactly why my BB's have escorts and a heavy SAM armament