Another one of those "what is this" questions...

[CrazyHorse_Denver]

On top of the twin 40 gun mount you see a couple of wire like structures. I'm assuming they are some sort of radar or radio beacon transmission devices.  Before I zoomed in I thought that it was a couple of machine guns mounted on top of the cannons. Did ships have such things in this time period. I know that ground based AA used radar but for them size was not a matter and later in the war radar was miniaturized enough to use on night fighters to shoot down bombers.

Do any of our ship experts want to weigh in on if that's what these are. The other thing I find curious is that although you find them on all the twin mounts the 6X40 mounts don't seem to have them and it would seem to be more important for that many guns to have radar assisted aiming. 

[jager_geist]

I guess radar.

[iDuckman]

I'd guess radar too.

Another reason for the gunners to wear their steel helmets.

[AJTP89]

Yeah, it's radar. Late war Bofors were able to be radar guided with an individual mount.

On why the 6x40mm don't have them I'm not sure. I have two guesses. First is that they may be earlier models (installed at construction) and so didn't have the radar, while the other mounts were installed later. Though Lion is mostly a paper ships so I dunno. Also if the bigger mounts are closer to the superstructure they may be able to get target info from a central fire control system, so no need for individual mounts. It may also be that WG had those AA gun models around and stuck them on Lion as they saw fit. While Lion was a very real design I'm sure WG had to fill in a lot of details like exact AA armament.

[HamAndCheez]

It's obviously a paravane skeg. Anyone can see that.   

[Captain_Rawhide]

Kinda makes you wonder why we can't knock out radar like we do other modules.

[LieutenantJebStewart]

Hazemeyer twin 40 mm Mark IV gun mount, with the Type 282 radar director. 

[barbaroja_Ar]

1 hour ago, HamAndCheez said:

It's obviously a paravane skeg. Anyone can see that.   

It's a bimini structure

[CruiserSailor]

23 minutes ago, barbaroja_Ar said:

It's a bimini structure

Imagine a beowulf cluster of bimini structures to mine bitcoin!

[Nevermore135]

2 hours ago, Captain_Rawhide said:

Kinda makes you wonder why we can't knock out radar like we do other modules.

Because radar isn’t a module, it’s a consumable. It can’t be knocked out for the same reason hydro, DFAA, smoke generator, etc, cannot.

[HamAndCheez]

5 minutes ago, Nevermore135 said:

Because radar isn’t a module, it’s a consumable. It can’t be knocked out for the same reason hydro, DFAA, smoke generator, etc, cannot.

All AA mounts can be permanently destroyed on a ship, making DFAA unusable in some cases, correct? TRB is a consumable, but what good is it if your torpedo tubes get destroyed? Gun turrets can be destroyed and then MBRB is unusable. This is actually a good idea. The radar gets damaged and then it could be repaired after a downtime or it could be knocked out of action like torps. Adds more depth to the gameplay, I think.

[Nevermore135]

3 minutes ago, HamAndCheez said:

All AA mounts can be permanently destroyed on a ship, making DFAA unusable in some cases, correct? TRB is a consumable, but what good is it if your torpedo tubes get destroyed? Gun turrets can be destroyed and then MBRB is unusable. This is actually a good idea. The radar gets damaged and then it could be repaired after a downtime or it could be knocked out of action like torps. Adds more depth to the gameplay, I think.

Then the same rules needs to apply to all consumables, like hydroacoustic search, main battery reload booster, aircraft, dcp, and repair parties, as well as engine boost and smoke generator on destroyers.

[brewakeg]

5 hours ago, Captain_Rawhide said:

Kinda makes you wonder why we can't knock out radar like we do other modules.

Yeah I tried that argument too (bad couple of days in a DD vs radar)

My shells can destroy entire AA mounts or gun turrets, but not some flimsy coathanger radar bits above the bridge!

[AdmiralFox08]

2 hours ago, HamAndCheez said:

All AA mounts can be permanently destroyed on a ship, making DFAA unusable in some cases, correct? TRB is a consumable, but what good is it if your torpedo tubes get destroyed? Gun turrets can be destroyed and then MBRB is unusable. This is actually a good idea. The radar gets damaged and then it could be repaired after a downtime or it could be knocked out of action like torps. Adds more depth to the gameplay, I think.

Naturally the day after I get my first radar cruiser someone tries to nerf radar lol

 

[xHeavy]

Actually FLIMSIER bits above the bridge.

Shell comes downstairs from heaven trips over that little grid and detonates. whoops.

Learned to build grid very lightly shell does not know it ran into it.

I am somewhat thinking we did not have that in WW2, we did however use VT Fuses that goes out, feels a presence of a kamikaze and blows the whole thing out of the sky. Battleships with hundreds of bofars put up a cloud of VT, none shall make it through. (They might... and do sometimes but as dead and dying...)

At least the Japanese other than the rocket fired Bakas did not do what the germans managed to do. Build a Air to Surface Guided weapon with about a 1500 pound warload. They used one to sink the Italian BB Roma on her way to Gibraltar to surrender and be interned. It was essentially TV guided by a second plane after launch. whirwhirwhirwhir straight in. BOOM no more BB. Casulties were a minimum of 1000 dead. Poof all gone.

It was not until Desert Storm when Iraqi's on the coast located the Iowa Class BB actually working shore fire missions and fired a silkworm Ship Attack missile at her directly. One of the british Escorts with her Seadarts knocked it down about 6 miles prior to impact. Its very likely we might have lost that Battleship if it did hit a certain way. We would never hear the end of it.

Back to OP topic.

Sometimes ships build frames around their AA guns entirely. Almost like a cage. These served a specific purpose. Kamikaze comes boring in at a bad angle for you but good for him, say 70 degrees from Vertical and about 30 degrees off your ships heading from above you forward. The result is you aiming your AA weapon at the thing and having to lead the plane to hit it. Well if you did not have the cage there around your mount you very likely will have Tk'ed your officers on the bridge wing above you.

Whoops.

Today's missiles at speeds way above transonic... into the realm of hypersonic are so fast there is no point in shooting anything at them. For one thing its long past the point you are aimed at. And will strike your ship under your mount long before your round arrived too late to where it was. And so you need automatic systems now able to detect a inbound 2 feet above the water itself and engage to end he threat inside of 40 seconds from impact. That means someone screaming missile! Alarm! is a waste of time. Humans would be too slow. Its all computer war now. And getting into the realm of swarming logic where groups of weapons near you decide among themselves who, how many, what, where and when to engage in inbound threat. YOU might have a finger on the button to shoot or not shoot. But otherwise once told to shoot, everything is automatic from that point on until the situation is over.

If by some miracle you detonated a 2000 kg warhead inbound at say 4000 knots maybe 700 yards from you and your ship? The thing (And many of you) is about to be shredded by a metal storm through and through, chopping up people in bulk and turning computer systems into chop suey.

[HamAndCheez]

1 hour ago, AdmiralFox08 said:

Naturally the day after I get my first radar cruiser someone tries to nerf radar lol

 

Nah, not trying to nerf it. Just bringing attention to the fact that a ship's OFFENSIVE capabilities (ability to inflict damage of some sort) can be destroyed, but not a ship's DEFENSIVE capabilities. Why is that?

[AdmiralFox08]

33 minutes ago, HamAndCheez said:

Nah, not trying to nerf it. Just bringing attention to the fact that a ship's OFFENSIVE capabilities (ability to inflict damage of some sort) can be destroyed, but not a ship's DEFENSIVE capabilities. Why is that?

Fair point.

[iDuckman]

1 hour ago, HamAndCheez said:

Nah, not trying to nerf it. Just bringing attention to the fact that a ship's OFFENSIVE capabilities (ability to inflict damage of some sort) can be destroyed, but not a ship's DEFENSIVE capabilities. Why is that?

What, punching holes in the hull doesn't qualify?  The Great Enemy is the Sea, after all.

 

[xHeavy]

I have a feeling at some point in say 50 years or less, being sunk is not a problem. We already have effective platforms that like to sink and stay sunk for months. The only limit is food. Once thats all gone, the 100 or so souls have to come up and buy more at port and be replaced by blue crew or wahtever designated crew so that the sub will go right out onto another war patrol.

We are getting to where we can use magnetic techology to isolate lab spaces. Suspend a powerful radioactive nuclear isotope for example. We already use this in colliders.

What if you can wrap a ship or sub in 1000 mini colliders. The ocean will not be able to enter. No matter how many holes you try to punch in it if you can punch any at all. You might have to resort to truly science fiction type weapons to for example create a gravity charge. Drop that near a future sub. The changes in the local gravity will do the work of tearing apart the warship and killing humans in interesting ways long before they get so taste or swallow any water that might get to them in that time.

Stuff like that can keep one awake at night. What good is a 100 ton main battle tank if you can sort of hold the whole thing into the sky long enough to starve the crew?

Or to aim a truly huge device the size of a oil platform and pop a enemy nation's nuclear missile sub out of the ocean and boost the whole thing into space. It will never be able to come back ever again.