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Belated Battleships (KanColle) [REHOST]

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I, for one, am quite pleased at this turn of events. I've always enjoyed "Nothing major is happening, then suddenly multiple piles of shit hit the fan at once" as a thing in stories, so this is something I will enjoy greatly.
 
Thorthemighty said:
If that Battlecruiser has radar, wouldn't you just be able to screw it over with Electronic Countermeasures? Because to my knoweldge no radar of any type doesn't like being blasted with Electromagentic jamming, of course another thing you could do is have B-52s fly overhead and as the battle starts, have them dump a load of chaff, that ought to screw over radar rangefinders. Might make it a little less bloody.
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MSSB fail. Physics isn't here anymore.
Remember the glass nose B-52s? And Weeabote gaining radar range with waifu's theme song?
 
Didn't theJMPer say that anything used against the Abyssals would scale to the WW2 equivalent?
If so the Foil chaff would work well hell they had radar Jammers on planes back then as well late war anyway.
 
[sigh]

Okay. Thor? Assert less. Ask more questions.

For one, close range is a bad idea. You forgot something important about battleships and battlecruisers: secondary guns. As designed, the Lexingtons had fourteen 6" guns to go with the eight 16" ones. Those have probably been updated and replaced with some kind of 5" or 6" dual purpose gun (giving her nasty long range AA capability). But they can still be fired at ships.

At 30000 yards, Abyssara can throw about sixteen shells a minute. They're big shells, but there's still only sixteen of them- two rounds from each of eight guns. She has radar fire control, but I imagine that Alaska does too. While Abyssara probably has a major advantage in terms of ability to absorb hits, they're at least equally able to score hits. Alaska's armor won't keep out 16" shells, but Abyssara won't be stopping 12" shells either, and Alaska can throw about three salvoes to the Abyssal's two. Twenty-seven rounds per minute, instead of sixteen.

Closer in, the situation turns around.

At no less than 18000 yards, Abyssara can throw, roughly, a hundred shells per minute from the secondary battery. And that's one of the most favorable possible cases- if the 6" secondaries were replaced with 5" dual purpose AA guns. The individual shells won't usually inflict that much harm on a cruiser. Usually. Nevertheless, that is a hundred shells a minute. The Japanese cruisers would be ripped apart. Alaska has enough armor that the secondaries can't penetrate her actual belt or deck protection, but they'll still probably make hash of her superstructure.

If the Abyssal 6" guns were replaced with WWII-vintage 6" guns, the rate of fire drops, probably more like sixty shells per minute. But the effectiveness of the shells goes up, as does their maximum range (roughly 26000 yards).

Basically, battleships designed in the 1920s and earlier had heavy secondary batteries designed precisely to ensure that no cruiser-weight opponent could possibly get within close range where their lighter guns might be effective against the capital ship's armor belt.

...

Meanwhile... Chaff and radar jamming are actually not bad ideas as such, but making it work in the time available is very, very iffy. Chaff is a temporary measure and works best against air search radar. It will not help against a battleship's fire control radars. And planes close enough to Abyssara to interfere with her radar within her gun range will be getting slaughtered by AA fire from her and her escorts. Using the same planes to launch an air attack and hope at least some of the munitions actually hit the target for a change would probably be more effective, if we're looking for ways to expend the pilots' lives in hopes of harming the enemy.
 
Simon_Jester said:
[sigh]

Okay. Thor? Assert less. Ask more questions.

For one, close range is a bad idea. You forgot something important about battleships and battlecruisers: secondary guns. As designed, the Lexingtons had fourteen 6" guns to go with the eight 16" ones. Those have probably been updated and replaced with some kind of 5" or 6" dual purpose gun (giving her nasty long range AA capability). But they can still be fired at ships.

At 30000 yards, Abyssara can throw about sixteen shells a minute. They're big shells, but there's still only sixteen of them- two rounds from each of eight guns. She has radar fire control, but I imagine that Alaska does too. While Abyssara probably has a major advantage in terms of ability to absorb hits, they're at least equally able to score hits. Alaska's armor won't keep out 16" shells, but Abyssara won't be stopping 12" shells either, and Alaska can throw about three salvoes to the Abyssal's two. Twenty-seven rounds per minute, instead of sixteen.

Closer in, the situation turns around.

At no less than 18000 yards, Abyssara can throw, roughly, a hundred shells per minute from the secondary battery. And that's one of the most favorable possible cases- if the 6" secondaries were replaced with 5" dual purpose AA guns. The individual shells won't usually inflict that much harm on a cruiser. Usually. Nevertheless, that is a hundred shells a minute. The Japanese cruisers would be ripped apart. Alaska has enough armor that the secondaries can't penetrate her actual belt or deck protection, but they'll still probably make hash of her superstructure.

If the Abyssal 6" guns were replaced with WWII-vintage 6" guns, the rate of fire drops, probably more like sixty shells per minute. But the effectiveness of the shells goes up, as does their maximum range (roughly 26000 yards).

Basically, battleships designed in the 1920s and earlier had heavy secondary batteries designed precisely to ensure that no cruiser-weight opponent could possibly get within close range where their lighter guns might be effective against the capital ship's armor belt.

...

Meanwhile... Chaff and radar jamming are actually not bad ideas as such, but making it work in the time available is very, very iffy. Chaff is a temporary measure and works best against air search radar. It will not help against a battleship's fire control radars. And planes close enough to Abyssara to interfere with her radar within her gun range will be getting slaughtered by AA fire from her and her escorts. Using the same planes to launch an air attack and hope at least some of the munitions actually hit the target for a change would probably be more effective, if we're looking for ways to expend the pilots' lives in hopes of harming the enemy.
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Damn forgot about the secondaries! FUCK! It's always the little things that get you.

But yeah no matter how you slice it Abyssara is going to be one tough bitch to take down.
 
You know what I'm really glad hasn't come up in story? Abyssal Wolf packs.

To my (admittedly very limited, as 75% comes from Sabaton's Wolfpack and reading stuff on wikipedia directly linked to Convey 92's page and some looking into specific classes) knowledge, they were an absolute nightmare to deal with without lots of ASW training, which doesn't work properly with the modern stuff due to Abyssal Spoopieness.

Also, a random thought for next time "why aren't steelhulls shredding abyssals because missiles?" comes up: Via the leveling effect, modern missiles have about the same performance as V2s, which to my (again, somewhat limited) knowledge were wonderful for hitting large, static or extremely slow moving targets, and terrible at everything else.
 
Thorthemighty said:
Damn forgot about the secondaries! FUCK! It's always the little things that get you.
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theJMPer said:
Those are not the "little things", Thor. They're kinda important. Do more research before you spout ideas.
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I feel like his stuff would come across a lot better if he'd just ask questions rather than asserting "this will work, that sounds great."

I mean, if someone asked "would it make sense to try and get really close to Abyssara, like knife-fighting close?" that would at least be a reasonable question even if the answer was a very large no.

It's when someone says "they should jam her radar so they can get knife-fighting close!" that it becomes annoying, because then a knowledgeable reader goes "um, one, radar jamming might not work, and two, getting close is a bad idea."

But instead of feeling like you're answering a question for someone who simply doesn't know a fact that, to be fair, 95% of the population doesn't know... You feel like someone has tried to invade your headspace with their ignorance and cluelessness. It's a much more unpleasant sensation, I've found.
 
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glitchrrr36 said:
You know what I'm really glad hasn't come up in story? Abyssal Wolf packs.

To my (admittedly very limited, as 75% comes from Sabaton's Wolfpack and reading stuff on wikipedia directly linked to Convey 92's page and some looking into specific classes) knowledge, they were an absolute nightmare to deal with without lots of ASW training, which doesn't work properly with the modern stuff due to Abyssal Spoopieness.

Also, a random thought for next time "why aren't steelhulls shredding abyssals because missiles?" comes up: Via the leveling effect, modern missiles have about the same performance as V2s, which to my (again, somewhat limited) knowledge were wonderful for hitting large, static or extremely slow moving targets, and terrible at everything else.
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What about if you fire a missile in Semi-Active mode? Then would it be like Fritz-X? Where you have to manually guide the thing?
 
It probably depends on the missile, and the details.

What I suspect it comes down to is that the best antiship missiles in the world would probably perform like a Fritz-X (the best air-dropped antiship munition of World War Two). Exactly what constitutes "best" is deliberately vague.

Meanwhile, any 'lesser' antiship weapon, with less than superb guidance and/or less than a superb warhead, would perform less well, like more typical bombs or torpedoes. The kind where you could drop dozens and only score one hit, except under ideal conditions, and where you had to fly very level and predictable courses and make yourself vulnerable to return fire.
 
Simon_Jester said:
It probably depends on the missile, and the details.

What I suspect it comes down to is that the best antiship missiles in the world would probably perform like a Fritz-X (the best air-dropped antiship munition of World War Two). Exactly what constitutes "best" is deliberately vague.

Meanwhile, any 'lesser' antiship weapon, with less than superb guidance and/or less than a superb warhead, would perform less well, like more typical bombs or torpedoes. The kind where you could drop dozens and only score one hit, except under ideal conditions, and where you had to fly very level and predictable courses and make yourself vulnerable to return fire.
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Which would mean that stuff like SM-2s would work better than Harpoons because they can be set to Semi-Active Homing, but unless you are shooting at a Destroyer, Protected Cruiser, Destroyer Escort, Corvette, Frigate, and some classes of Light Cruiser an SM-2 is going to do diddy crap against an Abyssal. Plus you would still need to fire a large number of number of them for it to be effective.
 
What's the force composition at Panama? There's Wiskey and 'A few ancient frigates..." Are those Burkes, or something else? It just seems silly to me to leave something as important as Panama with very little ASW, considering that the Atlantic has mostly been sub attacks, not surface combat.
 
I wonder if you can get around some of that spoopy shipgirl bullshit by using shipgirls and conventional assets together. Use the shipgirls to send out the location, speed, and direction of an Abyssal and then have that sent to an Arleigh Burke out of gunnery range. Modern targeting computers can use that to aim missiles set for a straight line course or with thermal seekers. Magical AAA guns will still get some of them probably, but it's better than nothing.
 
SuperHeavy said:
I wonder if you can get around some of that spoopy shipgirl bullshit by using shipgirls and conventional assets together. Use the shipgirls to send out the location, speed, and direction of an Abyssal and then have that sent to an Arleigh Burke out of gunnery range. Modern targeting computers can use that to aim missiles set for a straight line course or with thermal seekers. Magical AAA guns will still get some of them probably, but it's better than nothing.
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That trick could work with the A-6E SWIP Intruder, we got about fifty of the things sitting in the AMARC. They had a computer system that worked very similar to that, but I don't know. However forming HUK-Groups with Kanmusu and regular forces working together? If it works, then ships like the Kirov class Nuclear Powered Battlecruiser would simply become a case of more dakka.

Then again @theJMPer is the word of God when it comes to this story, so it's up to him.
 
Thorthemighty said:
That trick could work with the A-6E SWIP Intruder, we got about fifty of the things sitting in the AMARC. They had a computer system that worked very similar to that, but I don't know. However forming HUK-Groups with Kanmusu and regular forces working together? If it works, then ships like the Kirov class Nuclear Powered Battlecruiser would simply become a case of more dakka.

Then again @theJMPer is the word of God when it comes to this story, so it's up to him.
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Thor... shipgirl magic. Stop proposing things when you've established you've got no understanding of the story's magic rules and a tenuous at best understanding of the tech involved. At the very least, cite some sources in your posts.
 
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