Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Kereguelen

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ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Yeah, same gun, different equipment. Which is what Ive been trying to communicate for 3 posts now.

I well understand the point you're making. Have read (easy-to-google) several accounts that the "Kelly-mount" enabled the M1A1 Long Tom to fire at sea-moving targets. Problem with this seems to be that the Kelly-mount was first invented and used in 1943. But the US-Army started to equip mobile coastal artillery units with the Long Tom in 1941 and the USMC started to do this with their defense battalions in 1942.

I simply don't understand why they would have equipped coastal defense units with guns that were not able to fire on naval targets!

(However, for the sake of game balance, it seems nevertheless to be a good idea to make guns in coastal artillery units different from those in normal artillery units.)

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ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

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ORIGINAL: Kereguelen

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ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

Yeah, same gun, different equipment. Which is what Ive been trying to communicate for 3 posts now.

I well understand the point you're making. Have read (easy-to-google) several accounts that the "Kelly-mount" enabled the M1A1 Long Tom to fire at sea-moving targets. Problem with this seems to be that the Kelly-mount was first invented and used in 1943. But the US-Army started to equip mobile coastal artillery units with the Long Tom in 1941 and the USMC started to do this with their defense battalions in 1942.

I simply don't understand why they would have equipped coastal defense units with guns that were not able to fire on naval targets!

(However, for the sake of game balance, it seems nevertheless to be a good idea to make guns in coastal artillery units different from those in normal artillery units.)

You can use the gun to fire at naval targets if you have
1) a sight
2) ammo (AP ammo is not normally used by artillery because...well because it would be bleeding stupid to fire AP indirectly)

If you use the gun in an anti ship role, the crew will have one hell of a time once the ship is outside your ~20 degrees of traverse. Btw, if anyone has any hard numbers of the exact traverse, I'd be more than interested to hear about it. All my sources say "very limited traverse" etc. Because then the gun crew (15) needs to manhandle the gun around, and as you can see in the pictures I posted of the FA version, thats not gonna happen easily.

So therefore, they added a new invention
3) the Kelly mount
that enabled the gun to traverse much easier.

Now, my point is, the gun is still the same gun, but
without 1) you wont be able to hit squat
without 2) you wont be able to sink any ship larger than DD
without 3) you wont be able to use the gun on moving targets

So...it is quite reasonable to say that the difference between the FA version and the CD version is the presence of equipment that enables the gun to be used efficiently against sea-going targets.

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ORIGINAL: Kereguelen
It's not that I disagree with your logic presented here, I just wonder why the US started to equip coastal artillery units in 1941 with the Long Tom when it would not been able to hit ships then (because I think that is what CD units are for).

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Eh...those CD units equipped with 155s surely recieved the ammo and sights necessary to use it in a CD role. What I am objecting to is letting a FA unit use the their 155s as CD.

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ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

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Eh...those CD units equipped with 155s surely recieved the ammo and sights necessary to use it in a CD role. What I am objecting to is letting a FA unit use the their 155s as CD.

Ah, now I get what you are saying now, I didn't ... you are going down the path that a FA group would be hauling HE ammo around with them and a CD group would have a ready supply of armor piercing ammo.

I can't find any accounts of the ammo used by the Long Tom's apart from the fact it was in short supply. Anyone else got some data on that as it would quite obviously mean that the gun have a lower penetration rate if using HE.

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ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

Ooookay Mr. Not-Fanboi! Here's the unit that sunk 3 DDs, half dozen MSWs and PGs, and at least 20+ APs (that I care to remember) with 15-some more APs to sink of damage in coming weeks, when I did my Guadalcanal invasion:

US Army Field Artillery regiment! I guess heavily trained in anti ship coastal defence operations yes? I guess if they had one officer with navy training then it's OK for them to sink half the Japanese navy?

If you still think this is OK then Im afraid this discussion is really pointless.

Kirk Lazarus: I know who I am. I'm the dude playin' the dude, disguised as another dude!
Ron Swanson: Clear alcohols are for rich women on diets.

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ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

20+ lightly armored AP's crowded in close(?) to an invasion beach, staying relatively stationary(?) so that troops can be unloaded, are being fired on (and heavily damaged) by 27 155mm field pieces? this doesn't seem feasible? i'm missing why you find this result hard to believe, oleg...to me, this seems an ahistorical way to perform an invasion...wasn't this why the japanese decided to use the tokyo express down the slot at night? forgive my inability to spot the obvious...if there is an obvious to all this...

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ORIGINAL: Oleg Mastruko

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ORIGINAL: Kwik E Mart

20+ lightly armored AP's crowded in close(?) to an invasion beach, staying relatively stationary(?) so that troops can be unloaded, are being fired on (and heavily damaged) by 27 155mm field pieces? this doesn't seem feasible? i'm missing why you find this result hard to believe, oleg...to me, this seems an ahistorical way to perform an invasion...wasn't this why the japanese decided to use the tokyo express down the slot at night? forgive my inability to spot the obvious...if there is an obvious to all this...

Kwik, I will try to make this my last post on this subject as I believe everything has already been said (even though some late comers appear to be skipping over some posts ).

Invasion was performed with 3-4 solidly escorted transport groups (CLs, MSWs, DDs), supported with 3-4 bombardment groups (80% of IJN BBs, 70% of CAs) and KB-on-steroids, ie. all IJN CVs (though KB wasn't used for ground strikes until the very last moment). Bombardment runs were done almost every night, sometimes twice per night (in the opening phase of the battle anyway).

If that was an "ahistorical" invasion, it was only ahistorical in that it was too strong, ie. much stronger than anything IJN ever performed in real life

Somewhere in the first part of this thread I posted more screenshots, including partial list of sunk ships on my side, and list of ground units on his side.

*THE ONLY* "CD-capable" unit (indeed, only artillery unit) he had on the island was 144th field artillery regiment of the US army. This unit happened to be equipped with dreaded 155mm "field gun" (sic!) which currently has "naval artillery" capability. Nothing I know would suggest this (historic) unit ever had training, equipment (as in sights, stands, etc.) to fire on ships *effectively*. Note I said "effectivelly". Anything and anyone can "fire on ships", the idea is to do this in very effective manner.

Remember this is Lunga, so they fired their guns practically from mud, not from some hi tech stands or anything (this is NOT a dedicated CD unit, just your regular army Rgt.). I do not think army FA Rgts received stands, sights and ammo for CD duty.

All my ships (20-30 in all) in this invasion were lost to that very unit. Couple were lost to mines (I am not even sure of this, lets say there were couple just to be on the safe side), none to subs, none to aircraft, none to USN surface units.

Gameplay wise, having in mind the scope of the game, level of abstraction, enjoyment and realism, I have *NO* problem with the result - I want to make this *100% perfectly clear*. When taking Lunga vs 30k+ soldiers I am always ready to accept 20-30 lost ships. I don't care all that much if I lost them to weapon X or weapon Y.

BUT, if we discuss the OOB for the sake of rhetoric and historicity (as we do in this thread), I must say losing 30 ships to army field arty Rgt feels horribly wrong, and cannot be rationalised by anything I have seen in this thread so far.

Just imagine the outcry if similar thing happened to USN invasion, (almost) beaten by *IJA (army!) field arty regiment*, NO MATTER which weapon those guys happen to posses? Allied players and Allied fanboys in particular would demand urgent changes to that weapon system, that particular unit, OOB, TOE, and the world at large And, in this case, they would be right.

O.

Kirk Lazarus: I know who I am. I'm the dude playin' the dude, disguised as another dude!
Ron Swanson: Clear alcohols are for rich women on diets.