Yes, thats what i am saying! You mentioned that Rodney had a 62% efficiency during her last rounds, where did you get that information from? Was it nothing about her average performance?dunmunro wrote: What matters, at the end of the day, is what is the average availability rate going to be, not what is it at any particular moment during the action.
KGV Class 14-in Turret Problems
I subtracted the final salvos, and showed that this still resulted in a 67% availability rate. What is telling is the small number of 6 gun salvos compared to the total fired, in fact 5, 4 or 3 gun salvos occurred more than 50% of the time, but this is also true for Rodney, and even Washington missed at least one gun on 14 of 15 salvos (she probably missed more than one gun on several salvos hence 117fired/135 requested) as did WV.Bgile wrote:You took my #2 and answered it as if it were item#1. Obviously you chose to ignore the point about spotting 5" shell splashes.
A lot of the ammunition fired by Idaho was not in the normal ready service area of the magazines, and you knew that. Why are you trying to even compare the two situations? They aren't similar at all. The slow rate of fire at the end was due to the people of the exercise desiring Idaho continue to fire after it was taking a long time to get ammunition to the guns. The single gun salvoes were the result.
The modern US battleships had better storage arrangements, consisting of upper and lower shell flats with concentric rings.
We've all made out points here. You are on a crusade to show that the unusually complex loading system used on the quads didn't result in any unusual problems compared with triple or double mountings. I noticed you were very much in the minority on the other site as well. You obviously aren't going to be convinced othewise.
Personally, I feel that the problems were eventually corrected or worked around, and that the quads were reasonably reliable after they had been in service for several years. That doesn't mean the design didn't introduce complexity over and above other nation's weapons, and I remain convinced it was more prone to failure. I believe the complexity was due to British concern over cordite fires, coupled with the desire to mount 4 guns in a turret. US designers were concerned with the complexity of their own four gun turret and were relieved when they didn't have to use it on North Carolina.
Can you find worse performance by individual ships? Probably. There are a lot of them out there to choose from.
With respect to your determination to concentrate on one very long shoot by DoY in heavy seas, I submit that she did indeed do well under those very difficult circumstances. That doesn't mean the quad mounts weren't unusually complex and prone to turret failure in train. It's a separate issue.
I'm not trying to prove that the KGV's were some kind of superships, only that their quad turrets don't appear too much different in actual service than any others, when we look at the average availability rate. It has already been pointed out that in practice shoots they weren't much different than others. KGV's turrets may have been more prone to certain types of failures, than other turrets, but less prone to other problems, so that the availability rates tend to average to similar values. The RN was correct to be concerned about their mechanical problems, but it appears that they have been singled out for undue criticism, and this has led to the incorrect assumption that a KGV class BB was more likely to suffer a lower availability rate than other BB's, and this is simply not so, especially if we look at the average length of a BB surface combat, where it appears they have had average or above average availability rates.
cheers
Duncan
this is from the navweapons page on the RN 16/45 Mk1:Nellie wrote:
Yes, thats what i am saying! You mentioned that Rodney had a 62% efficiency during her last rounds, where did you get that information from? Was it nothing about her average performance?
cheers3) During the first hour of the "Final Battle" against Bismarck, Rodney fired the equivalent of 1.5 salvos per minute. During the entire battle, she fired 1.6 salvos per minute during salvo firing and 1.1 broadsides per minute during broadside firing with outputs of 77% and 62% respectively (salvos were of four and five guns while broadsides were of all nine guns). The following description of the problems encountered by Rodney is taken from "The Final Action: The Sinking of Bismarck, 27 May 1941" by John Roberts:
Duncan
No, that is not true. Rate of fire cannot be expressed in percentile.Ok, it would means an average rate of fire of approximately 70% for Rodney.
I suggest you guys give up on this discussion as it is sinking ever-deeper into absurdity.
By the way, given the information in Friedman, all we can say about the Idaho success rate is that it's no better than 78.3289817%. Any other figures depend on imagination rather than math. I challenged Duncan some time ago to stop mentioning Idaho until he could show how the exercise was comparable to one of the battle experiences. He never even made an effort to do so, which I take to mean he doesn't understand what the exercise was. Nevertheless he will continue to found his conclusions on it. Anyone else who cares to join him, feel free.
)Tiornu wrote:No, that is not true. Rate of fire cannot be expressed in percentile.Ok, it would means an average rate of fire of approximately 70% for Rodney.
I suggest you guys give up on this discussion as it is sinking ever-deeper into absurdity.
By the way, given the information in Friedman, all we can say about the Idaho success rate is that it's no better than 78.3289817%. Any other figures depend on imagination rather than math. I challenged Duncan some time ago to stop mentioning Idaho until he could show how the exercise was comparable to one of the battle experiences. He never even made an effort to do so, which I take to mean he doesn't understand what the exercise was. Nevertheless he will continue to found his conclusions on it. Anyone else who cares to join him, feel free.
It is easy to misuse the terminology, I am sure that Nellie really means is that Rodney maintained a 70% availability rate, not RoF.
This is what US BBs by Friedman (p352) has to say: "... Admiral King ...ordered her to fire her entire complement of main battery ammunition (to fire to exhaustion) as a test of the ability of BBs to maintain their RoF during a protracted engagement..."
I have demonstrated how Rodney was able to fire more rounds during the initial 30 minutes of the engagement, and how a duplicate Rodney would also have fired fewer rounds during this engagement if steered on KGV's track. So KGV's lower number of rounds fired does not mean a lower availability rate.
There is nothing absurd about this discussion, yes we have to make some assumptions but the basic premise, that availability rates will fall in lengthy actions is a correct one, and the question is, will KGV's availability rates, on average, be lower than, the average BB? I think that over short engagements, the answer is clearly no. Over longer engagements, this is unclear, but it seems unlikely, based upon the info that we have available to us.
cheers
Duncan
Availability rate = number of guns fired/number of guns requested to fire
RoF = number of salvos fired
for example, Rodney's gunnery officer requested broadside fire during a 10 minute period.
during the 10 minutes she fires 11 broadsides (full gun salvos) so her RoF is 1.1 salvos/minute.
however, she actually only fires 70 rounds, but 99 were requested, which works out to, 70/99 or 71% availability rate.
cheers
Duncan
RoF = number of salvos fired
for example, Rodney's gunnery officer requested broadside fire during a 10 minute period.
during the 10 minutes she fires 11 broadsides (full gun salvos) so her RoF is 1.1 salvos/minute.
however, she actually only fires 70 rounds, but 99 were requested, which works out to, 70/99 or 71% availability rate.
cheers
Duncan
Hi Duncan,
In the thread on Bob's site you stated:
"Washington fired 75 rounds in 5 min 24 secs, in theory she could have fire 10 or 11 broadsides in this time frame, for 90-99 rounds but she only fired 75 which indicates a 75% to 83% availability rate, or very close to PoW's "poor performance".
You apparently used the designed rate of fire of 2 rounds per gun per minute to arrive at that figure. Let's do the same caculation for KGV:
From 0848 to 0900 she could only fire six guns.
6 guns * 2 rpgpm * 12 min = 144 rounds possible.
From 0900 to 0920 her after turret could fire, so:
10 guns * 2 rpgpm * 20 min = 400 rounds possible.
144 + 400 = 544 possible rounds fired.
You stated that she fired 250 rounds, and that was probably 100% availability. According to my calculations:
250 / 544 = 46%. Not very good, is it?
I'm sure you are going to come up with all kinds of reasons why that isn't a valid number, but I wanted to show you how meaningless your number for Washington is as well.
In the thread on Bob's site you stated:
"Washington fired 75 rounds in 5 min 24 secs, in theory she could have fire 10 or 11 broadsides in this time frame, for 90-99 rounds but she only fired 75 which indicates a 75% to 83% availability rate, or very close to PoW's "poor performance".
You apparently used the designed rate of fire of 2 rounds per gun per minute to arrive at that figure. Let's do the same caculation for KGV:
From 0848 to 0900 she could only fire six guns.
6 guns * 2 rpgpm * 12 min = 144 rounds possible.
From 0900 to 0920 her after turret could fire, so:
10 guns * 2 rpgpm * 20 min = 400 rounds possible.
144 + 400 = 544 possible rounds fired.
You stated that she fired 250 rounds, and that was probably 100% availability. According to my calculations:
250 / 544 = 46%. Not very good, is it?
I'm sure you are going to come up with all kinds of reasons why that isn't a valid number, but I wanted to show you how meaningless your number for Washington is as well.
That's just the start. The very concept of a theoretical maximum output is flawed. We know that the guns of America's old battleships could fire every 24 seconds--actually it was even quicker than that, but the navy instituted a rule that no faster rate was permissible. But in an actual fight, the actual RoF might depend on any number of other factors--for example, the role period of the ship when waves of a certain height are coming from a certain direction. You can try to assess the RoF of big guns, and you can try to assess reliability, but you can't pretend to do both at the same time. Excuse me, yes, we can indeed pretend to do both at the same time; that's what's happening in this thread. Bgile has just pointed out how Duncan misuses numbers to manipulate the data in favor of his preconception. Amazing, he turns a success rate of 89% into 75-83%. He'll keep darkening his blinders as long as he lets his conclusions drive his evidence.Tiornu! If i understand you right you mean that you can´t calculate on how many percent you lose on every misfire, depending on that you can´t predict how the gun had been fired if the misfire wasn´t there, you can only relate to the guns theoretical maximum output.
Bgile wrote:Hi Duncan,
In the thread on Bob's site you stated:
"Washington fired 75 rounds in 5 min 24 secs, in theory she could have fire 10 or 11 broadsides in this time frame, for 90-99 rounds but she only fired 75 which indicates a 75% to 83% availability rate, or very close to PoW's "poor performance".
You apparently used the designed rate of fire of 2 rounds per gun per minute to arrive at that figure. Let's do the same caculation for KGV:
From 0848 to 0900 she could only fire six guns.
6 guns * 2 rpgpm * 12 min = 144 rounds possible.
From 0900 to 0920 her after turret could fire, so:
10 guns * 2 rpgpm * 20 min = 400 rounds possible.
144 + 400 = 544 possible rounds fired.
You stated that she fired 250 rounds, and that was probably 100% availability. According to my calculations:
250 / 544 = 46%. Not very good, is it?
I'm sure you are going to come up with all kinds of reasons why that isn't a valid number, but I wanted to show you how meaningless your number for Washington is as well.
KGV, open her A arcs at 9:10 not 9:00. You are forgetting that KGV's RoF corresponded to the ToF to the target and the time required to calculate the firing solution based upon the observed fall of shot, at 20K yards the ToF = 32.4 seconds, add a few seconds or so for computation and we get 1.7 salvos minute or one salvo every 35 seconds. The ToF from Washington to the target was about 12 seconds. Based upon one salvo every 35 seconds Washington could have fired 9.25 salvos in 324 seconds, but the 1st salvo was already loaded due to the interval between engaging Sendai and Kirishima.
In that thread you will note that the actual information on Washington's salvos fired was used:
"I happen to have Washington’s action report here and it lists a total of 14 salvos missed by the battery. It should be noted that this includes the “first phase” against the screening elements upon which the main battery expended 42 rounds. Mathematically that means that the main battery had to expend at least 5 salvos at Sendai (et al) so at least 3 guns missed salvos in this phase. For the second phase at least 9 salvos minimum and it’s more likely that at least 10 salvos were expended against Kirishima. So that would make a total of 15 salvos or a theoretical maximum of 135 rounds; 117 were fired or an output of 87%."
here's the info on WV for comparison (note the range to the target):
"During the Battle of Surigao Strait on 25 October 1944, West Virginia fired thirteen full salvos under full radar control using the after Mark 8 Mod 2 radar. Rapid salvo fire was used after the second salvo and the average time between salvos was 41 seconds. Opening gun range was 22,400 yards (20,480 m) and average range was 20,880 yards (19,090 m). The first salvo fired was a straddle with hits being observed and all subsequent full salvos were straddles. The right gun of turret 1 missed 3 salvos and the right gun of turret 3 missed 7 salvos. These missed salvos were primarily due to shell hoist casualties in those two mountings. From her gunnery report (note the range to the target):
"A total of 89 A.P. and 4 H.C. projectiles were fired, all with service charges. Due to shell hoist casualties in turrets 1 and 3 and the lack of supply in turret 4, the Gun Captains loaded H.C. projectiles, which were available on the table, when there were no A.P. available. Turret 3 fired one H.C. on the 6th salvo. Turret 1 fired one H.C. on each of the 9th and 10th salvos. Turret 4 fired one H.C. on the 15th salvo. Turret 2 was slow on loading after the 12th salvo and missed the 13th salvo. Turret 4 had two projectiles rammed at cease firing and was ordered to continue the load. The left gun misfired on the 15th salvo necessitating a 16th salvo."
(http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-45_mk6.htm)
We can also see that firing the H.C. in lieu of A.P. is arguably a missed round, since they were requesting A.P. rounds.
cheers
Duncan
I don't see why people appear to be upset here. You've stated your case for what you believe is the availability rate on Washington and WV, and I stated mine. We don't have to agree, and we cannot pretend to know the exact answer without a lot of digging, but it doesn't really matter. We can all agree that the availability rates are statistically unlikely to be higher than 90% and I am sure we all agree that they will fall as the length of the action increases. Based upon the available data, I am arguing that the KGV's were as likely to have a statistically high availability rate during an action of average length, as any other BB. If you would simply stop and think about it, I suspect that we would agree upon this. In an action of longer lengths the KGV's availability rate will suffer, but whether it will be worse than the average is open to question. I am arguing that over the course of the action KGV and Rodney appear to have had very similar availability rates, and that DoY's availability rate was probably similar to any comparable BB, during the North Cape action.Tiornu wrote: That's just the start. The very concept of a theoretical maximum output is flawed. We know that the guns of America's old battleships could fire every 24 seconds--actually it was even quicker than that, but the navy instituted a rule that no faster rate was permissible. But in an actual fight, the actual RoF might depend on any number of other factors--for example, the role period of the ship when waves of a certain height are coming from a certain direction. You can try to assess the RoF of big guns, and you can try to assess reliability, but you can't pretend to do both at the same time. Excuse me, yes, we can indeed pretend to do both at the same time; that's what's happening in this thread. Bgile has just pointed out how Duncan misuses numbers to manipulate the data in favor of his preconception. Amazing, he turns a success rate of 89% into 75-83%. He'll keep darkening his blinders as long as he lets his conclusions drive his evidence.
You don't have to wait for fall of shot if you have a good fire control solution. Fall of shot is then just used to verify your solution. The Germans called that "Good Rapid" fire. So that isn't a good excuse for KGV unless their gunnery was so bad they couldn't straddle a 7 knt target repeatedly. Is that what you are saying?
Incidentally, Washington was firing by turret ready light, not broadside. I believe that means that as soon as a turret reports ready, it is fired. 75 rounds fired could easily mean the firing key was activated 13 times, for 100% gun participation. It doesn't in fact mean that because we know there were missed salvoes. What probably happened on Washington was the turret officer activated his ready light if one or more guns were ready and he knew one or more guns were going to be "slow". My point is that we don't know how many guns missed salvoes on KGV, but there is absolutely no reason to believe their gun crews were any better than Washington's, or that their guns were more reliable.
To my knowledge, US battleships weren't susceptible to turret jams due to mishandled shells. I've been in the shell flats of North Carolina and it's hard to imagine how you could manage it. Another design flaw in KGV?
Incidentally, Washington was firing by turret ready light, not broadside. I believe that means that as soon as a turret reports ready, it is fired. 75 rounds fired could easily mean the firing key was activated 13 times, for 100% gun participation. It doesn't in fact mean that because we know there were missed salvoes. What probably happened on Washington was the turret officer activated his ready light if one or more guns were ready and he knew one or more guns were going to be "slow". My point is that we don't know how many guns missed salvoes on KGV, but there is absolutely no reason to believe their gun crews were any better than Washington's, or that their guns were more reliable.
To my knowledge, US battleships weren't susceptible to turret jams due to mishandled shells. I've been in the shell flats of North Carolina and it's hard to imagine how you could manage it. Another design flaw in KGV?
My problem with your position is you are insisting that the British quad turrets had gun availability as good as US ships in spite of their well documented problems. Your clear inference is that US guns were always inferior and that once the interlock and jamming problems were corrected, the British guns were much better than US guns. I have a big problem with that because I've never seen anything to indicate US ordinance was inferior.dunmunro wrote: I don't see why people appear to be upset here. You've stated your case for what you believe is the availability rate on Washington and WV, and I stated mine. We don't have to agree, and we cannot pretend to know the exact answer without a lot of digging, but it doesn't really matter. We can all agree that the availability rates are statistically unlikely to be higher than 90% and I am sure we all agree that they will fall as the length of the action increases. Based upon the available data, I am arguing that the KGV's were as likely to have a statistically high availability rate during an action of average length, as any other BB. If you would simply stop and think about it, I suspect that we would agree upon this. In an action of longer lengths the KGV's availability rate will suffer, but whether it will be worse than the average is open to question. I am arguing that over the course of the action KGV and Rodney appear to have had very similar availability rates, and that DoY's availability rate was probably similar to any comparable BB, during the North Cape action.