Interwar U.S battleships

[lwd]

...Yeah, well... I think that shooting further was mostly wasted ammo. The same holds true for battleships, as rifleman: the rifle can kill further than the rifleman can. That 30-06 can kill at 900 yards, easy, but the ability to to hit something that far out is a whole 'nother story. That 16" gun might send the shell 40,000 yards, but hit something, like another ship? Purely a Hail Mary shot, in WW2. At 30,000, looking through large mounted binoculars from 60 feet above the water, you can barely see the top of a large warship.

Pretty much true pre WW2 although both the US and Japan had great hopes for arial spotting to increase the range. Once you have good radar fire control that's no longer the case however and especially in BB vs BB engagements "plunging" fire is potentially much more leathal. Note that most navies wanted their BB guns to reach out beyond 40,000 yard by 1940.

[Dave Saxton]

Part of the problem of scoring hits at extreme battle ranges has to do with ballistics rather than precise targeting. Radar can potentially provide the precise range and bearing of the target, allowing you to straddle the target more often, but it's still a matter of probability if you score a hit from a straddle. The old saying of : "Good shooting gets you straddles, but only God provides hits" becomes even more acute as the range increases. Even a battleship is only a sliver on the vast expanse of the ocean, with a beam of about 30-35 meters. As the range increases, the angle of fall increases, and the spread of the salvo groupings also increase, and therefore the probability of scoring a hit from each salvo steadly decreases with increasing range, regardless of the targeting data. The possibility is always there, but the probability is a different matter. The only real solution to this connudrum was guided ordnance.

One may eventually be able score a few hits but the ammunition expenditure will be high. Hence the delay until the range had closed to less than 22,000 yards at Surigao ( Sorting out and being sure of friend from foe among the radar returns was also a major factor in the delay, but 26,000 yards was specified as max). A 1945 gunnery manual on BB59 defined extreme range as 27,000 yards.

The Allied firecontrol radars for much of the war, such as Type 284M and MK3 (FC), had max BB to BB ranges of 29,000 yards and 28,000 yards respectively. Commenting on the range of Type 284M Howse (citing Admirality sources) reports that the Royal Navy considered 29,000 yards as plenty sufficient for a KGV class battleship. Although the max range of the 14" gun was specified as 36,000 yards, it would rarely fire at ranges exceeding 28,000 yards in practice.

[Bill Jurens]

I have published or co-authored a number of detailed papers on the subject of long-range gunfire accuracy -- at least amongst American ships -- in Warship International. These should provide readers a good jumping off point for further discussions.

Bill Jurens

[Bgile]

I have published or co-authored a number of detailed papers on the subject of long-range gunfire accuracy -- at least amongst American ships -- in Warship International. These should provide readers a good jumping off point for further discussions.

Bill Jurens

I tried to order them and I probably have them, but I bought quite a pile of WI issues over the xmas holidays and I haven't gotten through them all yet.