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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'm kinda curious what the railguns they're developing would do to an Iowa class. probably turn it into a floating ketchup packet
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Sep 5, 2019 04:29
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Is that actually going into practical use? If we're already not shelling people with big guns, what is the railgun for. And what are the technical limitations that still have to be overcome before this tech works reliably, YouTube video titles notwithstanding.
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Sep 5, 2019 04:35
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I haven't heard anything recently about the railgun. Last I heard it was still slagging the rails with basically every shot, which made it impractical for serious use. The use of railguns is theoretically for cheap repeated bombardment. All you need is a generator, the gun, and a bunch of dumb projectiles that don't take up much space (and can't explode on their own, since they're completely inert). Supposed range is on the order of 100 miles.
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Sep 5, 2019 04:41
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zoux posted:Is that actually going into practical use? If we're already not shelling people with big guns, what is the railgun for. And what are the technical limitations that still have to be overcome before this tech works reliably, YouTube video titles notwithstanding. Well, the Zumwalts basically have no gun at all so what the hell, why not? TooMuchAbstraction posted:I'm kinda curious what the railguns they're developing would do to an Iowa class. The system's is reported at 32 megajoules per shot at a rate of 10 shots a minute, but I can't find something that says whether that's energy input into the system, or projectile energy at the muzzle. But for comparison, the Iowas were armored against the AP rounds from the South Dakota guns, which left the ship packing 350 megajoules of KE. So probably not much
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Sep 5, 2019 04:45
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zoux posted:Is that vaporwaffe or is it on a path to practical use? Also, if we're already not shelling people with big guns, what is the railgun for. And what are the technical limitations that have to be overcome before this tech works Well for starters you need poo poo tons of electrical power to run the thing at any reasonable rate of fire, on the order of a couple dozen MW dedicated to the gun alone. Idk what the railgun is for that isn't already served by tomahawks unless there's a distinct concern about effective countermeasures.
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Sep 5, 2019 04:46
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FAUXTON posted:Idk what the railgun is for that isn't already served by tomahawks unless there's a distinct concern about effective countermeasures. It's cheap. Railgun slugs and fuel to run your reactor are way cheaper than missiles, both to fire and to maintain. Phanatic posted:The system's is reported at 32 megajoules per shot at a rate of 10 shots a minute, but I can't find something that says whether that's energy input into the system, or projectile energy at the muzzle. But for comparison, the Iowas were armored against the AP rounds from the South Dakota guns, which left the ship packing 350 megajoules of KE. So probably not much Aha, thanks.
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Sep 5, 2019 04:49
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FAUXTON posted:Well for starters you need poo poo tons of electrical power to run the thing at any reasonable rate of fire, on the order of a couple dozen MW dedicated to the gun alone. This really isn't a problem on modern ships. At all. 32 megajoules every six seconds is only a shade over 5 megawatts of electrical generation. The Zumwalts, for all their faults, have 78 MW of electric motor. A Burke's engines produce 78 MW of mechanical power to turn the shafts; if you wanted to steal five of that (plus efficiency losses) to generate electricity, you could do it. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Sep 5, 2019 |
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Sep 5, 2019 04:52
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Phanatic posted:This really isn't a problem on modern ships. At all. 32 megajoules every six seconds is only a shade over 5 megawatts of electrical generation. The Zumwalts, for all their faults, have 78 MW of electric motor. A Burke's engines produce 78 MW of mechanical power to turn the shafts; if you wanted to steal five of that (plus efficiency losses) to generate electricity, you could do it. Iirc they devote 25MW or so to it, the 5MW figure might be based on lossless conversions or something.
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Sep 5, 2019 05:00
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FAUXTON posted:Iirc they devote 25MW or so to it, the 5MW figure might be based on lossless conversions or something. There's not a whole lot of loss in taking electricity and charging a capacitor and then discharging it. If they're devoting 25MW to the gun, which at 10 shots a minute is 150 MJ/shot, then I'd guess that 32 MJ is in fact the muzzle energy of the projectile.
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Sep 5, 2019 05:04
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Don Gato posted:Do we count the Scorpion possibly sinking herself as a kill? If that counts, then the CSA was three times as successful as the USA.
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Sep 5, 2019 05:31
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Jobbo_Fett posted:No, because their tanks were poo poo Everybody's tanks were poo poo (except Russia I guess). It was 1935.
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Sep 5, 2019 10:05
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Nebakenezzer posted:I guess my other question is "is 'it was a shambles' fair', because it sure seems like the RN for once could have the warship engagements it really loved, but still miffed it thanks to lack of attention to detail. Prince of Wales would puncture Bismarck's fuel bunkers, which would lead to Bismarck murder eventually, but this seems pretty small I'm not sure it was a 'shambles' - more that plans made under the fog of war didn't go off exactly as planned, and some decisions that were perfectly sensible at the time seem daft in retrospect when we 'know' where Bismarck was and what her intentions were. As it was almost perpetually in WW2, the RN was stretched thin and had to spread the available Home Fleet cruiser forces along the GIUK gap - three cruisers were patrolling the Iceland-Faroes Passage in case the German ships passed through there. Suffolk and Norfolk were the scouting element in the Denmark Straight. The broad plan was that Hood and Prince of Wales would proceed west of Iceland, the cruisers would pass along their respective passages from the east and the battleships would be able to block the Bismarck and Prinz Eugen on whichever route they were found. This is why Holland opted to maintain radio silence with the cruisers - he didn't want to risk giving away his 'surprise' location at the west of the Straight and give the German ships a chance to evade. Instead he could be reasonably sure that, with the cruisers shadowing on radar and providing the battleships an intercept course, that both RN elements could be brought to bear without direct radio communication (instead of coded signals via the Admiralty) until both RN and KM capital ships found each other and secrecy became moot. Apart from the Hood only the KGV-class battleships were fast enough to usefully pursue and engage the Bismarck and Prince of Wales, for all her lack of preparation, was the only one immediately available in Home waters and in the correct location. King George V was ordered up from Gibraltar but couldn't get up to the northern Atlantic before the German ships would make it out into the open ocean. It all worked very well in the early stages, once Suffolk made radar contact. Then all the chance variables began kicking in. Radar contact was lost for over an hour due to a snowstorm, denying Holland the enemy's whereabouts just as he planned his final intercept and engagement. To try and stop the German ships passing by his force unseen and out into the Atlantic he detached his six destroyers to scout to the north. Even while radar contact was lost, the two forces nearly came into visual sight of each other - they would have made a direct intercept if the Germans hadn't been forced to make a course change to avoid ice and even that would have brought them into visual range if it hadn't been for the poor weather. When the two forces did come into contact Holland was unable to make his prefered close-angle approach which would quickly close the range (and minimise Hood's vulnerability to plunging fire), he didn't have his destroyers to harry the German capital ships and, because of the loss of radar contact, the two cruisers were not able to join the battle in useful time as they had dropped away and, with the wide-angle intercept forced on the British battleships, lacked the speed to close the range. So almost none of Holland's plan worked, but I don't think there's been a military plan in history which actually went off entirely as proposed once it was put into action. Holland drew up a pretty good scheme to use the forces available to him and then had to modify that as circumstances arose, even if the result was to put him in a far from ideal position. With the timescale and ships available, and the RN's other vital commitments at the time, I'm not sure a better idea could have been drawn up that wouldn't have been equally prone to being torn up due to external factors.
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Sep 5, 2019 10:17
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Nebakenezzer posted:I got a model of HMS Prince of Wales recently, 1/700, waterline, from Tamiya. quote:I looked on wikipedia and read about the Hood/Prince of quote:Also PS could the last battleship HMS Vanguard take the Bismarck in a straight fight Jobbo_Fett posted:No, because their tanks were poo poo FrangibleCover fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Sep 5, 2019 |
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Sep 5, 2019 10:33
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FrangibleCover posted:When do we stop talking about tanks as the single and sole arbiter of military power and start considering the Italian Armed Forces in something approaching a holistic manner?
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Sep 5, 2019 10:37
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SlothfulCobra posted:If that counts, then the CSA was three times as successful as the USA.
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Sep 5, 2019 11:10
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Youre more than welcome to write about how they were a top military because of x, y, and z, but tankettes that can be penetrated by machine guns and lack of turrets, as tankettes generally do, kinda just works against them. They had some good stuff in the navy, so I'm told, but what would imply good doctrine, tactics, and equipment for their forces? I'll try to expand my knowledge on their artillery, because I believe they had some decent designs when it came to mountainous terrain.
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Sep 5, 2019 11:37
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Sure, having a bad tank does not decide whether you win or lose, but its one of those nickle-and-dime force multipliers outta Paradox game that add up eventually. Like, your lovely tanks are supported by infantry with lovely MGs...
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Sep 5, 2019 12:23
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zoux posted:How many warships have US subs sunk Quite a lot, they got 8 Japanese aircraft carriers, Shinano, Taiho, Shokaku, Unryu, Shinyo, Chuyo, Akitsu Maru and Taiyo (Though aircraft carrier is a grand term for Akitsu Maru and Chuyo, both were mainly aircraft trucks). A significant proportion of those losses are at the point where Japan has so few escort ships and even fewer planes so they are using aircraft carriers to ferry suicide planes and the like to outlying bases with minimal escort. They shouldnt neccesarily have got Taiho but her damage control was a shambles. They sunk Kongo and a destroyer in the same incident.They got two of the Takao heavy cruisers and a light cruiser at Leyte Gulf. They got at least double digits of destroyers in total and a fair amount of light cruisers. Polyakov fucked around with this message at 13:10 on Sep 5, 2019 |
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Sep 5, 2019 12:24
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JcDent posted:Sure, having a bad tank does not decide whether you win or lose, but its one of those nickle-and-dime force multipliers outta Paradox game that add up eventually. Man poor Italy is going to get simply hosed with that system. At least give them a modifier for their out there pith helmets.
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Sep 5, 2019 13:11
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SeanBeansShako posted:Man poor Italy is going to get simply hosed with that system. Hampered by a lack of water for pasta prep.
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Sep 5, 2019 13:49
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People know that the water for pasta thing was made up by a board game designer, right?
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Sep 5, 2019 13:54
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When the Brits first came under fire fire from the Breda 30, they thought it was a machinegun!
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Sep 5, 2019 13:57
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Fangz posted:People know that the water for pasta thing was made up by a board game designer, right? yes that is why people keep referencing it because it is a joke
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Sep 5, 2019 13:59
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Nenonen posted:When the Brits first came under fire fire from the Breda 30, they thought it was a machinegun! doesn't this work better as "they thought it was two guys with carcanos"
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Sep 5, 2019 14:00
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I made an effort post about Italian WW2 machine guns in an older thread. It's astounding how much effort they put into ignoring all established knowledge in firearms design.
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Sep 5, 2019 14:54
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I understand that the Italian mountaineer troops were decently good, as was their special forces, their frogmen disabled a British cruiser in the Alexandria harbor did they not? The Italian navy's cipher also wasn't yet broken by the enigma and let the Italian navy act decently as a fleet in being that acted half decently as a check on the British naval forces in the Med until the Germans forced them to use the enigma and it screwed them. Early in the war it did seem like the Italian navy was performing fairly well based on what I remember reading.
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Sep 5, 2019 14:57
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Jobbo_Fett posted:Youre more than welcome to write about how they were a top military because of x, y, and z, but tankettes that can be penetrated by machine guns and lack of turrets, as tankettes generally do, kinda just works against them.  Italian-French Border  Italian-Swiss Border  Italian-Austrian-Yugoslav Border triple point Of course they had poo poo tanks, should we bash Uzbek Submarines next? Meanwhile in 1935-36 the CR.32 was doing so well in Spain that it broke the brains of the Italian Air Force and they ordered another biplane fighter in 1938. The Navy were building the Littorio class battleships which were probably the best battlewagons in the world when the first one was launched and nigh obsolescent when the third one was commissioned. Italy was a first tier military in 1935 that failed to keep up into 1940 when they actually needed it. Also the Brixia entered service in 1935. It was definitely innovative but I'm prepared to accept a difference of opinion as to whether it was good.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:08
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chitoryu12 posted:I made an effort post about Italian WW2 machine guns in an older thread. It's astounding how much effort they put into ignoring all established knowledge in firearms design. The worlds first Dadist MG.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:14
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FrangibleCover posted:What were the Italians going to use proper tanks for? That was the opportunity to build walking Star Wars tanks. Of course the internet would be intolerable if we had to debate the merits of AT-AT destroyers so it's probably for the best.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:14
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FrangibleCover posted:What were the Italians going to use proper tanks for? If you’re going to build tanks based on your local conditions, you should try not invading Africa with them. The tankettes were pretty useless even there.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:16
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FrangibleCover posted:What were the Italians going to use proper tanks for? That’s like posting a picture of the Rockies and asking why the Colorado National Guard needs tanks. The Italians were fighting, and planning to fight, in tons of good tank terrain. North Africa as an easy starting point. Creating a new Italian overseas empire was a huge thing for Mussolini. This is before you get into the fact that tanks are still useful in hilly and mountainous combat. Plenty of tank fighting happened during the long slog up the Italian peninsula itself in WW2.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:19
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Raenir Salazar posted:I understand that the Italian mountaineer troops were decently good, as was their special forces, their frogmen disabled a British cruiser in the Alexandria harbor did they not? The Italian navy's cipher also wasn't yet broken by the enigma and let the Italian navy act decently as a fleet in being that acted half decently as a check on the British naval forces in the Med until the Germans forced them to use the enigma and it screwed them. Italian Mountain Troops were good, but generally poorly used by high command. Their frogmen were, on the whole, revolutionary, and iirc, are considered pioneers of the field.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:19
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Italian frogmen were very good, and I think that when accounting for them, Italian naval ops became more successful the less ships/boats were involved.Polyakov posted:Quite a lot, they got 8 Japanese aircraft carriers, Shinano, Taiho, Shokaku, Unryu, Shinyo, Chuyo, Akitsu Maru and Taiyo (Though aircraft carrier is a grand term for Akitsu Maru and Chuyo, both were mainly aircraft trucks). A significant proportion of those losses are at the point where Japan has so few escort ships and even fewer planes so they are using aircraft carriers to ferry suicide planes and the like to outlying bases with minimal escort. They shouldnt neccesarily have got Taiho but her damage control was a shambles. They sunk Kongo and a destroyer in the same incident.They got two of the Takao heavy cruisers and a light cruiser at Leyte Gulf. They got at least double digits of destroyers in total and a fair amount of light cruisers. There's a nasty irony there that the Japanese focus on using submarines to prepare for the decisive battle sunk fewer enemy warships than the US strangling the main Japanese lines of communication, setting up perimeters around their operations and taking what came. However it didn't bear fruit till later in the war. There's a lot of converting damaged ships sailing home for repairs into kills, for instance. Just another way the difference between a decisive battle and decisive campaign shows up in WWII. xthetenth fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Sep 5, 2019 |
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Sep 5, 2019 15:29
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xthetenth posted:Italian frogmen were very good, and I think that when accounting for them, Italian naval ops became more successful the less ships/boats were involved. Do you mean specifically Midway or was the decisive battle strategy pursued by the IJN throughout the war
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Sep 5, 2019 15:34
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Polyakov posted:Quite a lot, they got 8 Japanese aircraft carriers I bet if you told an IJN admiral this was going to happen back in 1940 he would have challenged you to a sword duel right then and there.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:36
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FrangibleCover posted:What were the Italians going to use proper tanks for? I'm glad to find out that there is no flat terrain anywhere in those areas, or their rear areas, or that tanks can't be used in any other terrain aside from flat ground. My point was that the tankettes they had were poo poo, and compensated with high numbers to promote the idea that Italy was a war-winning nation, despite having no basis for it. The CR.32, good for 1935, sure, but it was a biplane fighter that attracted the same ideals of manoeuverability over speed and armor as the Japanese, which was immediately ditched for monoplanes. What made the infantry so good? The brixia itself wasn't that fantastic, mostly because the round it launched lacked explosive weight and underperformed.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:42
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bewbies posted:I bet if you told an IJN admiral this was going to happen back in 1940 he would have challenged you to a sword duel right then and there. Wasn't this not really a thing in Japan. The Government stamped down hard on the Samurai class during modernization.
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Sep 5, 2019 15:44
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zoux posted:Do you mean specifically Midway or was the decisive battle strategy pursued by the IJN throughout the war Decisive battle conceptualized in strategy. There's a case to be made that in aggregate the campaigns of 1942, both the Guadalcanal fighting and the combination of Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz formed a 'decisive campaign' in terms of both sides wearing their forces down in the sense that a decisive battle would do, but that in itself wasn't even decisive because both sides got worn down rather than one getting locked in a lanchestrian death spiral. Raenir Salazar posted:Wasn't this not really a thing in Japan. The Government stamped down hard on the Samurai class during modernization. During modernization, yeah. poo poo got wild when they started to get into hagakure inspired fascism though. That wouldn't be a samurai class thing, it'd be a samurai flavored fascism thing. A brief timeline of 1930s coup attempts in Japan (Sorry I'm a lazy poo poo and linking wiki but I'm at work): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_Incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_15_Incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Academy_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_26_Incident xthetenth fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Sep 5, 2019 |
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Sep 5, 2019 15:54
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Speaking of Italian mountains, this always struck me as strange:Wikipedia on Carcano posted:In 1941, the Italian military returned to a long-barrelled infantry rifle once again (slightly shorter than the original M91), the Carcano M91/41.[7] True sniper versions never existed, but in World War I a few rifles were fitted with telescopic lenses and issued for service use (World War II scoped rifles were strictly prototypes). Nearly everyone was investing in some sniper rifles but Italy seems to have gone to WW2 with only carbines with lovely sights. Maybe 6.5mm Carcano's calibre would have been insufficient for proper sniping but it seems like they hadn't really thought this through.
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Sep 5, 2019 16:05
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FrangibleCover posted:What were the Italians going to use proper tanks for? Good thing they didn't have tanks to impede them in their conquest of Greece 
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Sep 5, 2019 16:08
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