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JuanG -> RE: Rate of Fire: Yamato vs. Iowa (6/13/2014 8:07:00 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: wdolson
6 inch guns up higher than the main guns as the Yamato had were useless for all purposes. They were incapable of depressing far enough to engage close targets and they didn't have the range to engage targets the main guns were shooting at. It's added weight with virtually no purpose.
The 6 inch guns that went on the Yamato and Musashi were, I believe, left over from the upgunning of the Mogami class just before the war. The Mogamis were built with 6 inch guns so they could be classified as CLs, but the Japanese upgunned them to 8 inch guns just before the war started. The turrets were surplus at that point.
Actually, the depression case is actually the one situation where they might be useful. These guns were capable of 7 degrees depression, which puts their 'minimum range' at only 400 feet or so (~125m or so) from the superfiring turret, less from the deck mounted ones. This is about half of that of the minimum range on the main battery, not to mention how much more practical 5-6 rounds per minute would be over 2 per minute.
As for maximum range - they could reach out to 30,000yards which is enough to cover any kind of practical engagement range.
Obviously, a dual purpose arrangement would still be better, both in terms of weight and utility.
quote:
ORIGINAL: geofflambert
All BBs went into "rapid fire" once the distance was determined. The Iowas had very good radar fire control and would enter "rapid fire" immediately. The Battle of Surigao Straight with three American BBs using Mark 8 fire control system is instructive.
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-079.htm
'Rapid fire' in the context of battleships typically means full salvos after waiting for the preceding one to land and be spotted/corrected, as opposed to the half or one-third salvos often fired for establishing range. Obviously at ranges where time of flight is shorter than loading cycle the loading cycle is the practical limit, but at longer ranges a gain of 10-25% in rate of fire is not worth the loss in accuracy (basically having your adjustments an additional firing cycle behind).
For CAs and particularly CLs, the situation is different, as for example at 20,000yards a Cleveland firing and spotting would be cutting fire volume to ~15% of maximum (compared to an Iowa essetially being unaffected at that range, and cutting it to ~70% at 30,000yards). This is why after initial ranging salvos, the CLs would just cut loose, and then check fire intermittently or when the target became too obscured by impacts.
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