TIL: RNBB HE-spam is annoying... but was a real thing

[LT_Rusty_SWO]

From Friedman’s Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnought Era.

[xalmgrey]

That's why i love my KGV. Sets amazing amounts of fire.

[Ace6steel]

so the RN pyromaniac shells wee historical eh? good to know..

[BlailBlerg]

Can you provide more evidence? 

(cool)

[KaptainNemo_1]

I recently purchased the Nelson and have had several games where I wanted to apologize to the poor red ship that I just kept setting on fire. Having been on the receiving end of that I know it's no fun, but it certainly is effective.

Plus the Spare Ship feature of the Nelson's heal is fun, assuming you don't get blapped all at once.

[LT_Rusty_SWO]

3 minutes ago, BlailBlerg said:

Can you provide more evidence? 

(cool)

The quote there is from Beatty after Dogger Bank, iirc. (I’m not at that page anymore.) if you want more, feel free to get a copy of the book.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

[ThRiLl_GmYr]

RN fire starting really hits its stride at the Lion.  As always it is RNG dependent, but I had a game the other day where I set 15 fires including a poor opposing Lion where every volley I hit him with started one or two fires.  He started off with a lot more health than me but I RNGed him to death.

[Rabbitt81]

Quote from the Wikipedia page on Prinz Eugen, " Both German ships concentrated their fire on Hood. About a minute after opening fire, Prinz Eugen scored a hit with a high-explosive 20.3 cm (8.0 in) shell, detonating Unrotated Projectile ammunition and starting a large fire on Hood, which was quickly extinguished."

[Pura__Vida]

Whenever I am on tilt I bring out the Conq… just to piss people off... sure I want to win... but more so to get them on fire and laughmao.

[LT_Rusty_SWO]

4 minutes ago, Rabbitt81 said:

Quote from the Wikipedia page on Prinz Eugen, " Both German ships concentrated their fire on Hood. About a minute after opening fire, Prinz Eugen scored a hit with a high-explosive 20.3 cm (8.0 in) shell, detonating Unrotated Projectile ammunition and starting a large fire on Hood, which was quickly extinguished."

 

Be careful taking that statement at face value. Pretty much every type of shell had an HE bursting charge. It doesn’t necessarily carry the same meaning as it does in game. What we have as HE in-game would be more accurately described as ‘common shell’ instead.

[HazeGrayUnderway]

1 minute ago, LT_Rusty_SWO said:

 

Be careful taking that statement at face value. Pretty much every type of shell had an HE bursting charge. It doesn’t necessarily carry the same meaning as it does in game. What we have as HE in-game would be more accurately described as ‘common shell’ instead.

Bursting Charges!

[BrushWolf]

Yet fire was not the reason they used that explosive in their shells. Fire should not have been in the game as a weapon and instead should have been a side effect of all shooting. Fire should also have not been a set amount of damage and instead should have regular chances to go out but no set burn time. Damage Control could simply be putting more resources on fighting the fire(s) increasing the chance for them to go out. This would make fire more historical, sometimes extremely deadly and sometimes almost nothing.

Just now, LT_Rusty_SWO said:

 

Be careful taking that statement at face value. Pretty much every type of shell had an HE bursting charge. It doesn’t necessarily carry. The same meaning as it does in game. What we have as HE in-game would be more accurately described as ‘common shell’ instead.

Every shell type used by the navies of the era had an explosive charge. The reason HE/bombardment munitions were rarely used against ships is it took very little armor to make it nothing more than a loud bang.

[Crucis]

29 minutes ago, KaptainNemo_1 said:

I recently purchased the Nelson and have had several games where I wanted to apologize to the poor red ship that I just kept setting on fire. Having been on the receiving end of that I know it's no fun, but it certainly is effective.

Plus the Spare Ship feature of the Nelson's heal is fun, assuming you don't get blapped all at once.

I imagine that those real life German warships that were constantly ablaze weren't having much fun either.  

[LT_Rusty_SWO]

7 minutes ago, BrushWolf said:

Yet fire was not the reason they used that explosive in their shells. Fire should not have been in the game as a weapon and instead should have been a side effect of all shooting. Fire should also have not been a set amount of damage and instead should have regular chances to go out but no set burn time. Damage Control could simply be putting more resources on fighting the fire(s) increasing the chance for them to go out. This would make fire more historical, sometimes extremely deadly and sometimes almost nothing.

Every shell type used by the navies of the era had an explosive charge. The reason HE/bombardment munitions were rarely used against ships is it took very little armor to make it nothing more than a loud bang.

 

‘It’s really too bad you don’t have a copy of this available... Friedman cites primary sources who point to the use of common shell specifically for wrecking personnel and softer portions of the enemy ships, even to the extent of firing it in equal amounts for benefits beyond spotting the fall of shot.

[BrushWolf]

It doesn't help that there are missions that require fires.

[Jiggiwatt]

21 minutes ago, BrushWolf said:

Yet fire was not the reason they used that explosive in their shells. Fire should not have been in the game as a weapon and instead should have been a side effect of all shooting. Fire should also have not been a set amount of damage and instead should have regular chances to go out but no set burn time. Damage Control could simply be putting more resources on fighting the fire(s) increasing the chance for them to go out. This would make fire more historical, sometimes extremely deadly and sometimes almost nothing.

Every shell type used by the navies of the era had an explosive charge. The reason HE/bombardment munitions were rarely used against ships is it took very little armor to make it nothing more than a loud bang.

This would make HE even more RNG dependent than it already is, which would be very frustrating for ships designed to use it as their primary ammunition source. How frustrating would it be to land 300 HE hits from a CL, set 10 fires and do almost no fire damage? Yes you might end up causing 100k damage instead but that leaves game play even more up to chance than it already is. You might be able to get away with increasing HE penetration across the board to compensate by allowing more direct damage, but then why not just switch to AP then?

[_RC1138]

The Royal Navy also tended to use MUCH larger bursting charges. It's why so many of their shells shattered instead of penetrating at Jutland and the chief difference between the original 15" Shells and the 15" Green Boys was a reduction in burst charge cavity (thus capacity) to allow greater penetration. If an RN Shell penetrated, it would do more damage than pretty much any other navy's.

[BrushWolf]

13 minutes ago, LT_Rusty_SWO said:

 

‘It’s really too bad you don’t have a copy of this available... Friedman cites primary sources who point to the use of common shell specifically for wrecking personnel and softer portions of the enemy ships, even to the extent of firing it in equal amounts for benefits beyond spotting the fall of shot.

Lyddite had no  incendiary effect so there should not have been many fires directly from it although the larger explosion than other explosives would be be able to better set off explosives on board the target. Also the RN was in the process of replacing Lyddite when WWI started. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_British_ordnance_terms#Common_lyddite

12 minutes ago, Jiggiwatt said:

This would make HE even more RNG dependent than it already is, which would be very frustrating for ships designed to use it as their primary ammunition source. How frustrating would it be to land 300 HE hits from a CL, set 10 fires and do almost no fire damage? Yes you might end up causing 100k damage instead but that leaves game play even more up to chance than it already is. You might be able to get away with increasing HE penetration across the board to compensate by allowing more direct damage, but then why not just switch to AP then?

AP would also cause fires and HE would be the lower but steady damage alternative for when AP wasn't doing the job instead of fire being the weapon and would still cause fires. For some things like fire more RNG would be better.

[Super_Dreadnought]

 

[Phoenix_jz]

If I'm not mistaken, the Lyddite shells not High-Explosive shells, but rather were Common shells (CPC), and these are what the British commonly used in WWI. After the experience at Jutland, where very often British shells failed to pierce German armor it should have been able to (but still inflicted considerable damage), which prompted a change to attempt to increase armor-piercing abilities of shells.

 

1 hour ago, LT_Rusty_SWO said:

 

Be careful taking that statement at face value. Pretty much every type of shell had an HE bursting charge. It doesn’t necessarily carry the same meaning as it does in game. What we have as HE in-game would be more accurately described as ‘common shell’ instead.

In this case, it would have been a high explosive shell. German heavy cruisers carried three types of main battery shells (technically four, but only if you include illumination shells); 

• Psgr. L/4,4 (APC)
• Spr.gr. L/4,7 Bdz (HE, Base-Fuse)
• Spr.gr. L/4,7 Kz (HE, Nose-Fuse)

 

In her engagement at Denmark Strait, Prinz Eugen was firing Nose-Fuse HE at Hood, which was in-line with German doctrine (For the Hipper's - if forced to fight a battleship or battlecruiser, they were to fire Nose-Fuse High Explosive and do everything possible to break contact). 

Over the course of the entire engagement, she fired 178 shells of 203mm caliber, none of which were APC, for 5 hits (2.8% hit rate).

The first six 4-gun salvoes (24 shells) were directed at Hood for one hit (4.2%), then switched to fire to Prince of Wales, her first salvo being a broadside. She scored four hits (2.6%), two of which were duds.

 

[Kesh_Lives]

1 hour ago, KaptainNemo_1 said:

I recently purchased the Nelson and have had several games where I wanted to apologize to the poor red ship that I just kept setting on fire. Having been on the receiving end of that I know it's no fun, but it certainly is effective.

Plus the Spare Ship feature of the Nelson's heal is fun, assuming you don't get blapped all at once.

Yeah, loved that yesterday.  Took Nelson out, brawled with a Scharnhorst, and got my angle right, and heard secondary shells bouncing a lot...still ate up some health.  Finished off Scharnhorst, hit the heal, and back to 90%!

[MG1962]

1 hour ago, Rabbitt81 said:

Quote from the Wikipedia page on Prinz Eugen, " Both German ships concentrated their fire on Hood. About a minute after opening fire, Prinz Eugen scored a hit with a high-explosive 20.3 cm (8.0 in) shell, detonating Unrotated Projectile ammunition and starting a large fire on Hood, which was quickly extinguished."

Interesting quote. Ted Briggs a survivor of the sinking tells a very different story. According to him the fire was not put out, and in fact the exploding shells were killing and injuring a lot of the deck crew trying to fight the fire.

[Morpheous]

One mechanism of WoWS that I don't think I have ever complained about is FIRE.... I have read probably more navel histories than I care to admit :) and the one major cause of destruction on a warship was fire, even modern aluminum warships.  Ships are sailing fires just waiting to happen.  Oil, gas, lubricants, wood, plastics, fumes....list goes on and on.  Whether the shell is HE or AP, if it starts a fire, that is a priority for the crew to get under control.  Many ships in WWII were able to deal with the actual physical damage, but it was the fires that ended them when the crews were overwhelmed.   Nobody likes to get burned down in WoWS, but its one of the major ship killers historically.  Not too many, if there are ANY instances where fire didn't have some kind of effect on the sinking of ships during this era.  Even many "quick" kills, due to magazine or torpedo hits, had a component of fire...may have been a flash fire, but it was there.  Some navies did specialize in trying to set fires.  Japanese CA doctrine was to open up with HE and then AP to try and light enemy ships on fire to better see them for the AP salvos.  British DID create higher content explosives that would hopefully start a fire.  Remember a fire on YOUR ship makes it much easier to target RL... and even in game they got that right.

[MG1962]

1 minute ago, Morpheous said:

One mechanism of WoWS that I don't think I have ever complained about is FIRE.... I have read probably more navel histories than I care to admit :) and the one major cause of destruction on a warship was fire, even modern aluminum warships. 

Agree. I also saw it as WOWs way of modeling accumulating damage. BBs have a reputation for being very tough, but their secondary systems were remarkably fragile. So many ships could stay afloat even after their capacity to fight had been reduced to zero