"How fast did ships fire?" Topic

I dug up a very old set of WW1 naval rules recently, and although they're not great I wouldn't mind giving them a try, but the moves at 1 turn = 1 minute are painfully, painfully slow. To speed things up I'm thinking about 2 or 3 miute moves. So to keep things in balance, how fast did ships fire when in action? The gun rate of fire might be 1 or 2 rounds per minute, but in action I wouldn't expect to be so fast.
Taking into account the time the shell takes to arrive, spotting and computing new ballistic solutions, what would be the rate of fire? Any guidance on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

check the site below. Keep in mind these ROF are probably as fast as can be loaded and fired and not concerned with spotting fall of shot, range to target, fatigue of crew, or sea conditions.

link

Buckeye Bob: It's more the actual rates of fire in a live action that I'm looking for. If I can assume, for example, a salvo every 2 minutes, I can double the speed of ships in the game. The rules are a VERY old 1970's set, simple by today's standards, but their one really good point is the variability of the ships' guns and the damage inflicted, based on Jane's ratings for ships.

The site at the link from Buckeye also contains time of flight info which will typically be sub minute – just do search on the site for "time of flight". I would double the move/time as want and see how it plays, if it feels right, ho with it.

As a rough estimate for ships in action I would halve the rate of fire as quoted in navweaps. In the end it depends on whether you feel the rules give an acceptable result.

Here's a good read:

link

Looks like in a 14 minute battle Bismarck fired 13 salvos/93 rounds, or roughly one 7-gun salvo per minute. I read another source somewhere that she was firing half-salvos every half minute for the same basic rate of fire.

This site: PDF link

Says Washington fired 39 rounds in the first phase 150 seconds in her battle with Kirishima, which is roughly a 9 gun broadside every 37 seconds. In the second phase she fired 36 more rounds in 165 seconds, or roughly a 9 gun broadside every 41 seconds. Popular literature says Washington fired 81 rounds of 16", but 75 is more exact.

Your question is a bit broad in scope…Are you also taking into account the differences between loading/firing a 3 to 4 inch shell versus an 11 to 13 inch one?
Most rules use the theoretical and adjust accordingly but if you want an actual ROF, you might find an action account from the larger ships indicating the time when each salvo was fired and get an idea of the time taken. But for the smaller ship actions they might just say something like the entire action took 60 minutes and the ship fired X rounds.
I have to agree with the other contributors here to halve the ROF for a more general estimate.
You could use other rules like SK5 to get a more typical ROF. SeaPower from the '70s used 6 minute turns but gave pretty close theoretical ROF per minute for each size gun and indicated how to adjust those for sea state etc. Sorry I can't help you more than that.
Having started Naval gaming with Fletcher Pratt in the '60s, I'm curious…what rules did you dig up?

I personally would try to get an oop copy of SeeKrieg IV. In it you'll find pretty much everything you are wondering about. SKV is good, but they've only managed to issue data CDs on the major navies and you have to get them separate. SKIV has ship data soup to nuts, unless you get one of the editions that managed to omit Spain. (?)

SKIV has rates of fire for just about everything. It also has a table restricting fire rates at extended ranges as the fire control needed to wait for salvo 1 to arrive to know how to correct for salvo 2. It also has barrage fire info for when the gunnery boss decided to throw correction out the window and just wail away hoping for the best.

Just my tuppence.

Father Grigori,
Don't know how detailed you are interested in getting, but ignore the ROF figures in Navweaps; they typically represent the maximum mechanical rate of fire under ideal conditions – a rate rarely if ever achieved in battle.

This can be an awesomely complicate issue if one wishes to diver deeply, but a truer "overall" ROF for WW1 ships in action would be -

Heavy caliber guns (11in +) – 1 rpmpg
Medium-heavy caliber guns – (7.5in +) 2 rpmpg
Medium caliber QF guns (5.5in +) – 4 prmpg
Light caliber QF guns (6-8 rpgpm)

- at effective ranges.

- – -

The range of engagement influenced rate of fire as well. I'm using approximated figures here out of sheer Saturday laziness, but the result will be valid for the purpose.

Assume you are gunnery officer von Hase on SMS Derfflinger, a German battle-cruiser, whose 12in main battery gun can range (for the sake of computational simplicity) to about 20,000 meters at 16deg elevation.

16deg elevation = ~20,000m = ~36 seconds time of flight.
9deg elevation = ~15,000m = ~24 seconds time of flight.
4 deg elevation = ~10,000m = ~14 seconds time of flight.

Add, say, ~15 seconds for the fall of shot to be spotted by the spotting officer + a range correction to be estimated and transmitted to the FC team + corrected aiming orders to be computed, transmitted to the turrets and applied to the guns.

Therefore, time required between firing the shot and being ready to fire a corrected shot becomes -

20,000m – 36 + 15 = 51 seconds
15,000m – 24 + 15 = 39 seconds
10,000m – 14 + 15 = 29 seconds

In order to economize on ammunition, it was the practice of both the British and German navies of WW1 to fire in salvoes of one- half the guns of the main battery at a time. Four shots in a salvo were sufficient to allow the spotting officer to get a good estimate of salvo MPI (mean point of impact) relative to the target ship and make a decent range adjustment.

So a gun would fire on every other salvo.

If you dictate a game turn of, say, two minutes, your main battery would fire about 2-4 salvoes per turn, depending upon range.

Gotta go!

B

If you want Seekrieg IV data you can download it here
link

Buy a copy of GQ1, GQ2, or GQ3 and be done with it.

He's done the math for you.

Many thanks for all the responses.

Blutarski: exactly what I was after. Thank you!

Dragon6: Very useful. Ta.

Thresher01: GQ1 & 2 are my rules of choice. This is just a one off for some old rules.

During WW1 guns about 5" and smaller were loaded by hand, so their rate of fire was also dependent on the training of the gun crew (5" shells were at the upper limit of weight that could be safely manhandled). Larger guns depended on machinery to a larger or smaller extent, and could be more mathematically calculated, but still crew training played a part (the upper limit of reloading speed was dictated by the machinery not the crew). By WW2 automation had seriously affected loading speed for smaller guns as well so reloading time is much more difficult to generalize.

In fact, even 150mm/6in guns (projectile weight ~100 lbs) were technically hand-loaded as well, with projectile and propellant charge separately handled.

B

Blutarski: Yes. The proceedure is shown in the film Battleship Potemkin. The shells and charges get brought up by hoist and then laid separately on the deck near the gun.

To add even more annoying complication to the topic, there were complaints after Jutland that British capital ship 6in secondary batteries, after ready-use ammunition had been used up, could only manage a sustained rate of only about 3 rounds pre minute due to limitations in the rate of ammunition supply from below.

Once again, the Devil always lurks in the details.

A Happy Russian Orthodox (I'm guessing from your forum nickname) Christmas to you and yours!

B

Merry Christmas gospodi Blutarski.

Although Orthodox in sympathy it's a nickname from my work many years ago. I had long hair and a long beard, and one of the women in the office kept calling me Father Grigori because I looked like one G. Rasputin, and it kind of stuck.

I highly recommend Seas of War: panzer-war.com
The gunnery, armor and damage system is the best I've seen (except for mine of course) and it's free.

IIRC the secondary guns on a battleship were all fired as a salvo at one target. A secondary gun rangefinder would give the battery the elevation and azimuth and they would all fire when a gong sounded.

I've had a few hours of conversation with Blutarski on WWI naval warfare. He's spent hundreds of hours researching the original documents. He knows his stuff and is not giving you opinions.

Wolfhag

Wolfhag is correct on the handling of the secondary and anti-torpedo-boat batteries. Just one or two side-notes:

Secondary casemate batteries were typically organized into two or three groups – forward/aft or forward/midships/aft – with each group having different but overlapping arcs of fire (R A Burt's "British Battleships of World War 1" has some good arc of fire diagrams). For example (in a simplified way), the forward group's arc of fire might cover from dead ahead to 45deg abaft the beam and the after group cover from dead astern to 45deg before the beam, giving an arc overlap amidships of ~90deg where both groups could bear.

More guns were often in the forward group, as the optimum approach for attack by torpedo was from ahead, with launch point 2 or 3 points (20-30deg) before the beam.

Different targets approaching on different bearings would be engaged by separate groups, with the fire of each separately controlled.

- – -

OK, now for Blutarski's plaintive appeal to naval wargamers interested in maintaining some sort of realism in their games:

Torpedo attacks should not be treated as banzai charges in which all the DDs are considered expendable as long as one torpedo hit is scored before the last DD slips beneath the sea. Torpedo boats and destroyers were considered to be IMPORTANT and VALUABLE ships; the fleet would not put to sea if it did not have sufficient DDs available to provide an effective anti-submarine screen.

WW1 Royal Navy tactical doctrine for torpedo attack, even against a single ship target, was to not approach closer than about 5,000 yards, since the risk attached to a closer approach could not be justified versus any possible improvement in the chance to hit the target.

My recommendation for "house rules" to enforce an economization of ships in a game:

> Each ship has a damage penalty value (PV) = tonnage/1000.

> If the ship is damaged but remains afloat and can be returned to a safe harbor (either under own power or by tow), the penalty = DPV for each 20pct damage or fraction thereof.

> If the ship is sunk, but the surviving crew is saved by friendly ship(s), the penalty = DPV for each month it took for the original construction of the ship.

> If the ship is sunk, but the crew has been lost, add 50pct to the above penalty.

- – -

So … what does this mean in terms of tabletop calculus? Two British M Class DDs (DPV = 1 ea) make a torpedo attack against SMS Seydlits (DPV = 28)

Case 1 –
One torpedo hit causes 20pct damage on Seydlitz = 28 DPV; one British destroyer takes 60pct damage for 3 DPV. Good exchange for the British.

Case 2 -
Same as above for Seydlitz (28 DPV), but both British destroyers (18 months to build) are sunk with crews lost:
(18+9) x 2 = 54 DPV. Bad exchange for British.

FWIW.

P.S. – Hope everyone got lots of toys for Christmas, so they will have things to paint and base during the coming year!

B

That's an interesting idea for making players care more about ship survival. I get reminded over the rows between Fisher and Churchill over the risks to ships in the Dardanelles Campaign.

Re shooting speeds, this is a little earlier, but I picked up the Osprey volume on Russian battleships and cruisers in the RJW over Christmas. On page 7 it states that while the theoretical rate of fire for Russian 12" guns was about one round every ninety seconds, the actual rate of fire was about one round every three to five minutes. I think this was for the 1890s, but it might still be relevant for the older ships serving in fleets in WW1.

Rate-of-fire is dependent on many factors. Many large turret guns lacked an 'all elevations' capacity which would mean that a gun at 30 deg elevation may have to depress to just 5 deg to load and then re-elevate. Some older systems (pre 1899) actually lacked broadside loading and the turret or gun house might have to return to 'fore and aft' to load, then return to the broadside bearing and re-elevate. We are now talking minutes.

Another factor is time-of-flight of the projectiles. When Ajax and Achilles opened fire at the Battle of the River Plate the quoted time-of-flight of their 6-inch projectiles was around 60 seconds. Given that the fall-of-shot then has to be plotted and the rate-of-change, etc, recalculated even a 'fast firing' gun like a 6-inch is going to be limited to 80 or 90 seconds per salvo at long range.

Finally ammunition supply has to be considered. Old wargaming friends of mine were particularly keen on the WW2 Japanese 3.95-inch AA in surface combat given its very high rate-of-fire. I then pointed out that, given its ammunition supply, at 18-rounds a minute it would blow away 100 rounds in less than six or seven minutes.

Then there is crew fatigue. A gun may be able to 'go rapid' for a few rounds but when fatigue, cold, hunger, casualties etc start to bite, the rate-of-fire will soon drop.

Barry

Hi Father Grigori,
Are you seeking information of RJW-era naval weapons?

B

Hi Warspite1,
RN WW2 gunnery doctrine was to fire salvo ladders for ranging purposes – double salvoes for capital ships (and 8in cruisers IIRC) and triple salvoes for ships with smaller, faster firing main batteries. This method was introduced after Jutland (perhaps emulating German practice) per the "1916 Spotting Rules". This evolved to quite a sophisticated level by the beginning of WW2, whereupon the introduction of efficient gunnery radar generated further alterations.

FWIW.

Happy, healthy New Year to all.

B

Hi Blutarski. Happy New Year, and apologies for a very late reply. (Family issues….)

Both RJW and WW1 shooting speeds.

Hi Father Grigori,
I can provide some information which might be helpful. Please be a little patient, though.

RJW first.

B

Hi Father Grigori,
First installment of information on miscellaneous guns from various sources –

Obukhov – 1885
203mm / L35
Maximum Firing Rate – 0.4 rounds per minute
Cruiser Rurik (1892)

Vickers – 1906-
254mm / L50
Maximum Firing Rate – 2 rounds per minute
Cruiser Rurik (1906)

Obukhov – 1895
305mm / L40
Maximum Firing Rate – 0.75 rounds per minute
Battleship Poltava (1894)

Vickers – 1913
356mm / L52
Maximum Firing Rate – 3 rounds per minute (claimed, probably 2 rpm)
Intended for Borodino Class Battlecruisers (1915)

Bolshevik MK-15 – 1938
305mm / L54
Maximum Firing Rate – 3 rounds per minute (claimed)
Intended for Kronstadt Class Battlecruisers (1939)

Bolshevik MK-1 – 1937
406mm / L50
Maximum Firing Rate – 2.5 rounds per minute (claimed)
Intended for Sovetskiy Soyuz Class Battleships (1938)

- – -

The following data are described as reported "loading times" for RJW Russian ships; the times given do not necessarily include time required to setting of sights and aiming –

Ship – - – - – - – - – - – - – - Gun Type – - – - – - – - – Loading Time

Ekaterina II – - – - – - – - – - 12in L30 – - – - – - – - – - 3m 50s

Sinop – - – - – - – - – - – - – - 12in L30 – - – - – - – - – - 3m 20s

Imperator Aleksandr II – - 12in L30 – - – - – - – - – - 4m 14s

Apostolov – - – - – - – - – - – 12in L30 – - – - – - – - – - 4m 15s

Navarin – - – - – - – - – - – - – 12in L35 – - – - – - – - – - 2m 22s

Sisoi Veliki – - – - – - – - – - – 12in L40 – - – - – - – - – - 2m 22s

Petropavlovsk
Sevastopol
Poltava – - – - – - – - – - – - – 12in L40 – - – - – - – - – - 2m to 2m 30s

Kniaz Potemkin – - – - – - – 12in L40 – - – - – - – - – - 4m (RJW; 0m 40s after post-RJW re-build)

Orel
Slava
Imperator Aleksander III
Kniaz Suvurov
Borodino – - – - – - – - – - – - 12in L40 – - – - – - – - – - 1m 30s

Posliabia
Pobieda
Peresviet – - – - – - – - – - – - 10in L45 – - – - – - – - – - 1m 20s

Certain RJW Ships were not named, as no specific information was available. For gaming purposes, it would probably be reasonable to estimate from above data based upon gun caliber and construction dates.

Disclaimer – Times cited in different sources do not always coincide. The above information is from someone whom I respect who has studied the Imperial Russian Navy closely.

Hope this helps.

B

Blutarski: May, many thanks.