NS Military Realism Consultancy Thread Mk X Purps Safe Space

[Taihei Tengoku]

Subsidizing Infowars is a better use of the money

Not always enough. Even today, sometimes you just need to blow the other sum'bitch to pieces.

I meant "giving Alex Jones $3 billion" in the literal sense

disinfo is the real netfires

[Gallia-]

keiser report in every university economics course

buy gold

[Aquavon]

(Image)

Nice image. Always had a love of naval artillery. Missiles are pretty awesome too, and they are the primary arm of fleet combat, but I just love me some big guns.

[Tekeristan]

(Image)

Nice image. Always had a love of naval artillery. Missiles are pretty awesome too, and they are the primary arm of fleet combat, but I just love me some big guns.

Should cost about the same as a good tractor.

*grumble grumble..*

[Laritaia]

unfortunately 16 inch shells are not cheap and tomahawk cruise missiles can get the job done far more efficiently , for everything else the 5 inch gun on a destroyer is more then enough

I never said they were cheap overall, just potentially comparatively cheaper, as opposed to a bunker-busting cruise missile. If this is not the case, then I stand corrected.

A Tomahawk will take out a hardened target in a single shot, with 16 inch guns you're talking hundreds of rounds per target.

and if it's area saturation you're going for instead, a fuckton of 127/155mm is going to get the job done faster and cheaper

[Gallia-]

mclwg live again

disco age forever

supersonics and bombing iran since 197X

[Aquavon]

A Tomahawk will take out a hardened target in a single shot, with 16 inch guns you're talking hundreds of rounds per target.

and if it's area saturation you're going for instead, a fuckton of 127/155mm is going to get the job done faster and cheaper

Depends. A 16 inch shell is quite potent, and can be very accurate, so I would have to doubt we are talking hundreds of shells to one missile, but you are likely correct that even the 9-12 shells in a large volley would cost more than a single missile.

[Laritaia]

A Tomahawk will take out a hardened target in a single shot, with 16 inch guns you're talking hundreds of rounds per target.

and if it's area saturation you're going for instead, a fuckton of 127/155mm is going to get the job done faster and cheaper

Depends. A 16 inch shell is quite potent, and can be very accurate, so I would have to doubt we are talking hundreds of shells to one missile, but you are likely correct that even the 9-12 shells in a large volley would cost more than a single missile.

"very accurate"

[Aquavon]

"very accurate"

(Image)

"Can be very accurate." Don't cherry pick. It's rude. Source for that diagram, please.

I'm not denying a missile is going to be more accurate than a shell, but to act like naval gunnery is the equivalent of Napoleonic cannon fire is just ludicrous. Even if all you ever really use it for is large-scale saturation fire, as you mentioned, I find it dubious to claim five inch guns can do the job as well, given they have less range, less powerful shells, and to get a "shitton" of them means a lot of ships in a world where few warship designs have more than a turret or two.

In any case, I do believe most of my questions have been answered today. Thanks.

[North Arkana]

"very accurate"

(Image)

"Can be very accurate." Don't cherry pick. It's rude. Source for that diagram, please.

I'm not denying a missile is going to be more accurate than a shell, but to act like naval gunnery is the equivalent of Napoleonic cannon fire is just ludicrous. Even if all you ever really use it for is large-scale saturation fire, as you mentioned, I find it dubious to claim five inch guns can do the job as well, given they have less range, less powerful shells, and to get a "shitton" of them means a lot of ships in a world where few warship designs have more than a turret or two.

In any case, I do believe most of my questions have been answered today. Thanks.

What, you mean the slowest firing 5-inch gun currently in service DOESN'T fire at 20 rds/min with an effective range of 24km? The French 100mm doesn't fire at 78 rds/min with a range of 17km? The Otobreda 127/54 Compact doesn't fire at 40 rds/min, either? The Otobreda 127/64 doesn't fire at 35 rds/min as well?

In a single minute of firing, even the slowest firing of these guns puts more shells into the target area than the potential maximum of two-salvoes from an Iowa class. Extend the length of time of firing, and the number of shells in the target area just grows in disparity, all while being conducted by ships which don't need dedicated escorts of their own.

[Laritaia]

"Can be very accurate." Don't cherry pick.

i'm not cherry picking, i'm pointing out that relying on luck is stupid.

"can be very accurate" is a worthless statement as the reverse is equally likely, what matters is average dispersion at a given range.

The 16 inch gun may be "accurate" as far as battleship guns goes, but in the grand scheme of things that doesn't mean much.

Also modern 5 inch guns have a rate of fire of about 20 RPM, and when combined with modern fuzing will turn out more then enough shrapnel damage.

yes the 16 inch shell will make a much bigger boom, but after a certain point more boom is pointless.

as to the graph
https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/mk-7.htm

[Aquavon]

What, you mean the slowest firing 5-inch gun currently in service DOESN'T fire at 20 rds/min with an effective range of 24km? The French 100mm doesn't fire at 78 rds/min with a range of 17km? The Otobreda 127/54 Compact doesn't fire at 40 rds/min, either? The Otobreda 127/64 doesn't fire at 35 rds/min as well?

I don't recall saying that. Firing faster is not always better, and 24 km does not trump 24 miles in terms of range.

In a single minute of firing, even the slowest firing of these guns puts more shells into the target area than the potential maximum of two-salvoes salvos from an Iowa class. Extend the length of time of firing, and the number of shells in the target area just grows in disparity, all while being conducted by ships which don't need dedicated escorts of their own.

I won't argue about the number of shells, but I would say it's debatable whether that is enough to offset the sheer size and destructive force of anywhere from 18 to two dozen sixteen inch shells, but I'd need to dig around a bit to find the necessary information to figure that out.

For me, it seems battleships are no longer the immutable titans they once were, but they are hardly 100% useless. If anything keeps them from ever going to sea again, it will be the sheer expense involved in terms of men and money.

[Tekeristan]

What, you mean the slowest firing 5-inch gun currently in service DOESN'T fire at 20 rds/min with an effective range of 24km? The French 100mm doesn't fire at 78 rds/min with a range of 17km? The Otobreda 127/54 Compact doesn't fire at 40 rds/min, either? The Otobreda 127/64 doesn't fire at 35 rds/min as well?

I don't recall saying that. Firing faster is not always better, and 24 km does not trump 24 miles in terms of range.

In a single minute of firing, even the slowest firing of these guns puts more shells into the target area than the potential maximum of two-salvoes salvos from an Iowa class. Extend the length of time of firing, and the number of shells in the target area just grows in disparity, all while being conducted by ships which don't need dedicated escorts of their own.

I won't argue about the number of shells, but I would say it's debatable whether that is enough to offset the sheer size and destructive force of anywhere from 18 to two dozen sixteen inch shells, but I'd need to dig around a bit to find the necessary information to figure that out.

For me, it seems battleships are no longer the immutable titans they once were, but they are hardly 100% useless. If anything keeps them from ever going to sea again, it will be the sheer expense involved in terms of men and money.

Cost of battleship vs. swarm of anti-ship missiles, mm..

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

The Iowa Class battleships had very accurate guns for their day. They are also rooted in thinking and experiences only a little less than a century old. Using them for anything other than museum ships is asking to be slaughtered in a modern naval engagement; the biggest role battleships played in the First Gulf War, the last time a BB fired in anger, was to act as a decoy to draw Iraqi forces toward the coast and away from the real attack far inland on the Iraqi western flank.

Five inch guns do the job of naval gunfire support well. The Mark 45 Mod 4 has a range of 37 kilometers, only a hair less than the 38 kilometers of the 16" guns on the Iowas. The gun is powerful enough to severely damage any ship afloat(modern warships don't carry much in the way of armor like they used to - it's inefficient). It has the HE power to kill and disable tanks and IFVs with direct hits and near misses, and it has a good enough firing computer to be able to engage airplanes and helicopters far farther out than the CIWS(though the primary weapon for that would be SAMs).

Saturation fires are no longer used in artillery for the same reason carpet bombing is no longer used in bombing. We can be more accurate than that. In WWII, an artillery battery might have to plaster an entire hillside to kill a machine gun nest; nowadays, precision guided munitions can do it at a fraction of the cost and effort.

Large guns are as useful today as the round bullet might have been in the late 1800s. They will still kill the enemy, but it is highly inefficient and God help you if the enemy has modern weapons.

[Laritaia]

For me, it seems battleships are no longer the immutable titans they once were, but they are hardly 100% useless. If anything keeps them from ever going to sea again, it will be the sheer expense involved in terms of men and money.

The immense expense of their operation is what makes them useless.

For the same cost in both money and manpower you can get a significantly greater combat value in guided missile destroyers which can do everything that the battleship can do well enough that the slight increase in capability in the limited area of shore bombardment just isn't worth expending such a vast amount of resources on.

The Iowa's hung around for so long purely because they were in the reserve fleet and in relatively good condition. if they had been fully deactivated after the Korean war the Secretary of the Navy wouldn't have floated the idea of building new battleships for the shore bombardment role in Vietnam.

[Austrasien]

Cost of battleship vs. swarm of anti-ship missiles literally one torpedo, mm..

Nothing warms my heart like seeing a "modern battleship" in GE&T protected by dozens of CIWS, lasers, medium range SAMs, long range SAMs and... AN/SLQ-25 Nixie.

[North Arkana]

What, you mean the slowest firing 5-inch gun currently in service DOESN'T fire at 20 rds/min with an effective range of 24km? The French 100mm doesn't fire at 78 rds/min with a range of 17km? The Otobreda 127/54 Compact doesn't fire at 40 rds/min, either? The Otobreda 127/64 doesn't fire at 35 rds/min as well?

I don't recall saying that. Firing faster is not always better, and 24 km does not trump 24 miles in terms of range.

Why are you comparing the max range of the 16-guns to the effective range of the 5-inch guns?
Statistical cherry picking.

Cost of battleship vs. swarm of anti-ship missiles literally one torpedo, mm..

Nothing warms my heart like seeing a "modern battleship" in GE&T protected by dozens of CIWS, lasers, medium range SAMs, long range SAMs and... AN/SLQ-25 Nixie.

Heavy-weight ASROC style torpedo system, yum yum, get that BB in my belly.

[Padnak]

>mfw shore bombardment

PLAN into removal of Ameri-scum from south china sea

[The Akasha Colony]

What, you mean the slowest firing 5-inch gun currently in service DOESN'T fire at 20 rds/min with an effective range of 24km? The French 100mm doesn't fire at 78 rds/min with a range of 17km? The Otobreda 127/54 Compact doesn't fire at 40 rds/min, either? The Otobreda 127/64 doesn't fire at 35 rds/min as well?

I don't recall saying that. Firing faster is not always better, and 24 km does not trump 24 miles in terms of range.

I won't argue about the number of shells, but I would say it's debatable whether that is enough to offset the sheer size and destructive force of anywhere from 18 to two dozen sixteen inch shells, but I'd need to dig around a bit to find the necessary information to figure that out.

Firing faster is generally better, though.

It mostly comes down to physics, as detonations generally obey the inverse-square law. Thus, doubling the explosive radius of an explosion will require four times as much explosive weight. Conversely, this means that a single very large shell like that fired from a 16" gun will have a much smaller explosive radius than, say, the 27 individual 5" Mark 116 shells that would weigh the same amount as a single 16" Mark 13 HC round. 27 Mark 116s would also deliver greater explosive weight than a single Mark 13 anyway since they have a greater filler percentage and have roughly the same range as the 16" Mark 7 (38 km).

This is why even on land, armies have generally retired their larger artillery pieces. Where once large railway guns, siege mortars, and other heavy guns were very common in WWI and WWII and some lived all the way through Korea and Vietnam, they've been retired and taken out of service in almost every army except the Russian Army in favor of 6" (155 mm) pieces, which have a good balance between range, rate of fire, lethality per shot, and mobility. A 155 mm gun can do virtually everything you might think to ask of it, and anything it cannot do can be dealt with by the occasional bunker-buster or cruise missile or what not.

"Destructive force" is nice and all, but it's not especially relevant nor is it really a quantifiable effect. For the weight of two dozen 16" shells, you could fire literally hundreds of 5" or 6" rounds, covering a much wider area. If you are attempting to suppress a hostile force on the beach, this is obviously superior as you can suppress more of it for the same weight. The 6 meter crater created by a 16" round is not particularly inspiring either compared to actual bunker-buster munitions that can burrow much further than this before detonating.

And it is actually fairly unlikely you will encounter fortifications requiring this kind of firepower. If you do, you're assaulting the wrong beach and should find a less defended one. Yes, yes, this is NS and all, but that doesn't mean that turning beaches into the Atlantic Wall is any better of an idea now than it was then, unless your coastal areas are tiny and thus easily fortified.

[Taihei Tengoku]

I thought it was 8 since 4/3 pi r cubed

[The Akasha Colony]

I thought it was 8 since 4/3 pi r cubed

Lazy math on my part.

[Aquavon]

Why are you comparing the max range of the 16-guns to the effective range of the 5-inch guns?
Statistical cherry picking.

I'm saying the battleship gun can reach out and touch someone much further, which it can. I do not ignore the maximum effective range of that five inch gun, but it does not match the 16, not by a long shot, no pun intended, and I would argue that additional range, in addition to the punch of the shell itself, matters.

Firing faster is generally better, though.

Of course, and thanks for breaking down the physics of it. I do hope you won't be offended if I do my own fact checking. If you will be...eh...

As to assaulting the wrong beach? It isn't always the attacker's choice, and this being NS and all, many nations are not governed by strict realism. As I said before, I'll probably keep battleships in line in any case, because I am here to enjoy myself, and this is a game. I was mainly just curious.

That said, thanks for the information.

[Laritaia]

and lo the second of the bi monthly "modern battleships, are they practical ?" arguments comes to a close

ending in basically the same way they always do

[The Akasha Colony]

Why are you comparing the max range of the 16-guns to the effective range of the 5-inch guns?
Statistical cherry picking.

I'm saying the battleship gun can reach out and touch someone much further, which it can. I do not ignore the maximum effective range of that five inch gun, but it does not match the 16, not by a long shot, no pun intended, and I would argue that additional range, in addition to the punch of the shell itself, matters.

The effective range of a modern 5" naval gun with a maximum-strength charge is the same as a 16" battleship gun of WWII.

The effective range of a modern 6" gun like AGS exceeds that of a 16" WWII battleship gun. This is also true of land-based 6" artillery with long barrels like PzH 2000 and all the G6 clones.

Yes, you could go and develop a fancy modern 16" gun to put on your fancy new modern battleships but this would be an even bigger waste of money than just keeping a few Iowas in service. It defeats any "cost effectiveness" arguments.

If you are absolutely, positively obsessed with the notion of large-caliber guns for shore bombardments, just build a monitor or something. Trot it out now and then whenever you need it then leave it in mothballs to save money when you don't. There's no reason you need all of the other things a battleship had (armor, flagship facilities, secondary batteries) just to bombard a few beaches.

As to assaulting the wrong beach? It isn't always the attacker's choice, and this being NS and all, many nations are not governed by strict realism. As I said before, I'll probably keep battleships in line in any case, because I am here to enjoy myself, and this is a game. I was mainly just curious.

It is always the attacker's choice. Because the attacker can always simply choose not to attack if they feel the target is too heavily entrenched.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

To shift the conversation....

The Prussian Air Force is going to be based around gaining air superiority over East German skies in a shooting war. Given the period(1972) what would be the best planes to do this with?

I'm thinking the main fighter to use would be the F-4E. Speed is armor, and a big, powerful plane like that would be able to rocket in, intercept East German planes, and GTFO back to friendly air cover real quick. The Phantom would be equally as good in the ground attack role, able to carry a large bomb assortment to break up armored formations. Operating Phantoms in concert with AWACS planes like the E-2 or E-121 would allow rapid coordination of forces. Additionally, the Phantom's use is supplanted by the Harrier.

Would the Phantom be able to fulfill most required roles for the German civil war? I feel that using aircraft better set up for close air support would put the pilots at great risk from the very reputable air defenses available, and large planes for strategic bombing isn't really up the Luftwaffe's alley. I considered also using the F-111, but that and the F-4 are too similar to use both, the only difference being the F-111 can carry slightly more bombs and is less setup for dogfighting.

Also, how would the F-4E contend with MiG 21s and 23s that the East German Air Force had?