Dual Purpose Guns

Are they a meme?
Wouldn't most WW2 ships have been better off with pure AA guns instead of expensive gun mounts that were worse at both AA and anti ship fire? Ship on ship combat basically never happened at ranges where they would have been effective.

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Are they a meme?
    No, on the contrary they were quite effective at fighting against bomber formations

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >quite effective

      1000+ shells per plane shot down, even with fuze and radar control. Total waste of weight, space and munitions. High flying bombers could not hit ships moving 30knots and turning unless a lucky hit. Vast majority of attacks were close range making these large, slow mounts even more ineffective. Smaller caliber 40mm/57mm were much more effective.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        moron take. All AA is waste by this stupid metric.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Now you're getting somewhere. Vast majority of gun AA is a waste, much better to go fast and turn and let fighters protect you.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Now you're getting somewhere. Vast majority of gun AA is a waste, much better to go fast and turn and let fighters protect you.

        All ANA's primary utility was not in scoring kills but disrupting enemy attacks and forcing early releases. Maneuvering means little if the enemy can leisurely set up a perfect multi-directional attack run, something they cannot do if every second they're within range they're getting lit up by 5" HE

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >Maneuvering means little
          Read any air attack on ships in WW2 and the primary defence was maneuvering. i.e, Dunkirk, Crete. Even in the PoW and Repulse. action It literally took 200 bombers to score 7 bomb hits none of which caused critcal damage, only close in torp bombers got the job done and to protect against that smaller caliber AA in the 40mm range is much better that large slow firing AA.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Holy shit read the entire sentence. I understand it takes longer than a tiktok but important things are contained within

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              the rest of your sentence was hyperbole and can be disregarded.

              1) No such thing as "lesiurely, perfect multi directional attack run" I think you maybe watch to much marvel or something and have no idea about concepts such as the fog of war, or hard it is to direct an attack on things moving 35 mph and turning in unknown directions from your limited visibility aircraft.

              2) "they're getting lit up by 5" HE" That's the point, they weren't. Heavy cailber AA was about as effective as spitting at a fly. 3D vector, target range, speed, fuze time, slow reload, slow tracking/mount training. Waste of space.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                The amount of actual fricking moronation contained in your posts is enough to make me believe you were sitting in admiralty during some of these naval battles you name-drop while knowing nothing about. Please have a nice day. I made that sentence really short so you shouldn't be able to misconstrue it and embarrass yourself any further.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >I don't have an argument so I'm gonna tell him to kys and then bale like a homosexual

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >No such thing as "lesiurely, perfect multi directional attack
                There absolutely are. Any situation without a cap or adequate aa fire allowed aircraft to set up attacks like that. Lighter weapons to hurt exposed systems, bombs to wound the ship, and finally torps to finish it off. The ability to get in closer before the attack run gives the ship less time to maneuver and textbook training bomb and torpedo spreads are a lot harder to dodge.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              And besides it's all pretty irrelevant. If you put capital ships within range of enemy aircraft without fighter cover then you've already lost, no amount of AA will save you. Smaller ships are less likely to get hit due to size, speed and turning and even if they do they are expendable.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Actually, the IJN lost carriers to USN dive bombers.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >High flying bombers could not hit ships moving 30knots and turning
        Boy, I wonder why those planes were flying so high instead of performing low level bombing runs that would have much higher accuracy

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          I see you don't know the difference between a bomber, a dive bomber and a torpedo bomber. Heavy bombers don't get in close moron, a fricking B17 won't be skip bombing a ship at 2000ft.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            And why don't heavy bombers go on lower level bombing runs? I mean, beyond you being a contrarian little attention prostitute who thinks being intentionally obtuse is the pinnacle of wit.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Holy frick you are ignorant. Even a cursory thought or knowledge of these things should suggest issues such as heavy bombers turning like a brick, having engines that are set to perfrom at high altitude, more likely to crash at low level, bomb sights completely unsuitable for anti ship work... please take yourself out of this conversation, you are out of your depth.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                US Bombers DID practice skip bombing because Japanese AA were crap and their dual purpose guns were insufficient.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                You are just trolling, gtfo.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >a fricking B17 won't be skip bombing a ship at 2000ft.
            >The first time skip bombing was used in action by U.S. pilots was against Japanese warships at Rabaul on New Britain on the night of October 22–23, 1942, where B-17 heavy bombers attacked and destroyed the enemy vessels.
            Kindly have a nice day or shut the frick up

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Vast majority of skip bombing was medium bombers such as B25 or strike fighters like the Beaufighter. The B17 was the exception not the rule, being much less effective than medium bombers as outlined here they were only used due to range and medium bombers were preferred - https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/article/wwii-pioneers-of-skip-bombing/

              But well done on googling a finding an instance of the B17 skip bombing as some kind of gotcha but use you fricking brain and think why heavy bombers aren't suitable for the task

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >B-17s didn't skip bomb
                >actually they didn't skip bombed often
                Nice backpedalling, retaqrd. Also, you gonna keep trying to argue meaningless technicalities while being a wilfully obtuse, contrarian moron? Just asking because I'm not going to waste more of my time educating your moron ass or paying attention to your moronic opinions anymore in that case.

                You can point out some successes or effects it might had but the stats show only a tiny faction of losses were due to AA, and heavy AA in particular. The vast majority of jap losses were due to american carrier fighters. Now weigh this up and ask if heavy AA was really necessary - it would add 1000's of tonnes to a capital ship weight due to guns, mounts, ammo and especially 100's of crew to man them, not to mention the logistical cost in supplying ammo of which many 1000's would be fired just to down 1 plane. Seems like a lot of cost for very little effect to me. It is like the debate between unarmed bombers or heavy armed i,.e the mosquito medium bomber being unarmed but having the same range and payload as the heavy B17 (due to it's armament) - but the mosquito had far less lose rate due to lots of fators including having the speed to escape interception - putting defensive turrents on the mosquito would have caused more losses.

                >Now weigh this up and ask if heavy AA was really necessary
                Heavy AA objectively was effective in breaking up aerial attacks against ships and limiting attack vectors, and thus was absolutely a necessary part of the overall integrated air defense setup. Heavy AA saved ships. Deal with it, contrarian homosexual.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            B25s and B17s were know for doing this in the Pacific, actually. I don't see why you're being so defensive about something that's factually wrong.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Heavy bombers don't get in close moron
            ITT, what is skip-bombing.

            >2000ft
            LMAO, they did that from far lower than that, moron.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I mean judging from the B-25G and B-25H, yes they would, if it was safe to do.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        You do understand that long range AA starts firing at everything that isn't flying extremely low well before they start making their attacks, yes?

        For an idea of how dangerous that is to aircraft, Japanese pilots got horrendous ptsd anytime they came back alive from an attack on a US battlefleet because from the time they came in range of picket ships to the time they left their range and the range of everything else, they were getting shot at by the kinds of AA the Germans wished they had mounted on their flak towers. Even if it wasn't shooting down aircraft with every shot, they were scoring the shit out of fighter and bomber crews, disrupting their formations and making what attacks went through after traversing a storm of metal far less effective.

        Fighter cover was better at destroying them, but then you remember that one lone destroyer got swarmed, took out 13 jap aircraft, including 2 kamakazes that ran into it, and survived.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          You can point out some successes or effects it might had but the stats show only a tiny faction of losses were due to AA, and heavy AA in particular. The vast majority of jap losses were due to american carrier fighters. Now weigh this up and ask if heavy AA was really necessary - it would add 1000's of tonnes to a capital ship weight due to guns, mounts, ammo and especially 100's of crew to man them, not to mention the logistical cost in supplying ammo of which many 1000's would be fired just to down 1 plane. Seems like a lot of cost for very little effect to me. It is like the debate between unarmed bombers or heavy armed i,.e the mosquito medium bomber being unarmed but having the same range and payload as the heavy B17 (due to it's armament) - but the mosquito had far less lose rate due to lots of fators including having the speed to escape interception - putting defensive turrents on the mosquito would have caused more losses.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Most AA kills by battleships and heavy cruisers, which totaled in the hundreds, were from heavy AA and testimony from captured Japanese pilots indicated how scary they were. There's also the US Navy's studies on the effectiveness of the 3" AA guns, determining that while they had the power to kill pilots but not generally knock the planes out of the sky, a major concern especially later on when kamikazes were becoming a concern.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >1000+ shells per plane shot down, even with fuze and radar control
        >he thinks that's bad

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No they're not a meme. They coupled these with radar and shells that exploded within proximity of a ship. They were devistating versus smaller caliber AA guns.

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No. And also, you’re moronic

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      that image proves me point though?
      the 5 inch gun could only do superficial damage while the big guns destroyed machinery and chances to pop magazines

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        5 inch guns weren't designed to penetrate the belt.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          yeah in an era when every capital ship had belt armor making them dead weight

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Which is why you don’t use 5 inch guns on capital ship belt armor.
            You use them to wreck shit like range finders and radar masts, and also to utterly frick up light ships like destroyers and light cruisers.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            that image proves me point though?
            the 5 inch gun could only do superficial damage while the big guns destroyed machinery and chances to pop magazines

            >infantry rifles can't pen MBT armor, so why do we have troops carry them instead of just more RPGs
            I presume you are autistic or just moronic

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        1. That stuff on the top of the ship isn't all superficial and putting a dozen shells in it seriously hampers the ability of a ship to fight.
        2. If somehow I had to choose between one more 5-inch gun or one more 16-inch gun, yeah, the 16 does a wee bit more damage. I don't think there's really an argument there. But remember that your question that you posed was 5 inch vs. nothing but hypothetically better AA.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Wrecking exhaust systems, AA ammo lockers and rangefinders is far from superficial damage. Any of those on their own could be enough to mission-kill a ship and certainly put it under threat.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Where do you think the captain and senior officers are? Where do you think the ship's helm is?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Blinded the ship and reduced fighting effectiveness
        >Superficial damage
        >Superficial

        See

        [...]
        >infantry rifles can't pen MBT armor, so why do we have troops carry them instead of just more RPGs
        I presume you are autistic or just moronic

        . If the optics of a MBT are shot up until they're unusable then the MBT itself can't fight effectively. This is why SPAAGs and IFVs are still considered threats as they can splash the optics and inflict m-kill damage.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >he thinks the superstructure is superficial
        LMAO

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >superstructure
          >superficial
          >super-
          Yep. Literally in the greek roots, get an education.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Are you moronic?

            Wait, don’t answer that.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              thanks for admitting you got owned

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Most WW2 naval engagements were fought by ships with weapons 6" or smaller. Dual purpose guns were the primary AA guns of later WW2 ships and neither their AA or surface roles were compromised by the dual purpose capability.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >neither their AA or surface roles were compromised by the dual purpose capability
      The 5"/38 was literally a compromise. It gave up some velocity in exchange for faster pointing, compared to the older 5"/51. It was still a great gun system, but to say "no compromise" is just wrong. Every engineered device is full of compromises and tradeoffs. In this case the compromises seem to have been made correctly.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    When you're designing a ship you have to ask yourself whether you want a dedicated anti-ship secondary gun AND a dedicated AA mount, both of which take up valuable deck space and both of which require internal space to mount and support, along with both requiring tonnage while half your guns are useless in any given combat situation, or you could make your guns to do both jobs, allowing you to either save deck/internal space or get twice the usable guns for the same weight and space.

    If you're not engineering failures like the krauts or japs then it's really a no brainer.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The US 5"/38s were absolutely fabulous weapons. They were the best secondary battery and best AA weapons of the war.
    Foreigners' shit sucked, like always.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >dual purpose AA guns

    If it can shoot at planes then it can shoot at ships surely?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      ....

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        A heavy flak gun is inherently dual purpose.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      https://i.imgur.com/3SpfMbS.png

      A heavy flak gun is inherently dual purpose.

      >5"/25 AA mount
      >5"/50 anti ship mount
      the fact that the anti ship 5" mount had a barrel twice as long as a the AA moutn should tell you that you needed diffrent things for each role. Range being the key among them

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        the 5 inch/54 gun that is in OPs picture is primarily and anti aircraft gun,

        5"/38 (most common 5 inch secondary during ww2) had an AA ceiling of ~11,300 meters

        5"/54 (Handful of carriers had them) had an AA ceiling of ~15,700 meters

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    yeah they should've just used missiles what were they thinking lmao

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      unironically? not a terrible idea. Fritz-X style missiles would have taken up less space and been more accurate for anti-ship work.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        them homies would've won Jutland you're a genius

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          we're talking about WW2 moron

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Tell me, why weren't they used at Jutland or in WWII?

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >"I know better than all of the oceanic navies of WW2"
    Durrr

    They put heavy AA on ships because they were effective at killing planes, doubly so after VT fuses came into use. Even timed fuses had access to constant accurate radar ranging information immediately as they were set and fired. The direction and ranging ability of a ship is far better than even most ground heavy AA installations. The Des Moines class near the wnd of ww2 was the last heavy cruiser the USN built, and even it had its autoloaded 8 inch main guns designed as dual purpose.

    I suspect the issue is OP gets his information about how enemy planes were shot down in the pacific from movies and dramatic camera reels showing the times aircraft got close and were downed by light AA with streams of tracers.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Des Moines main battery was not DP.
      You might be thinking of the Worcesters with DP 6”.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Des Moines main battery was not DP.
        http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_8-55_mk16.php

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          What a waste

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Can someone explain what's going on? Don't dual-purpose guns simply change the mount and add fire control to make a normal gun suitable for shooting aircraft?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Yes, and OP is attempting to argue that they were apparently a waste because he's overly focused on simple metrics (# of planes shot down) and ignoring anything more difficult to quantify such as the difficulties of attacking warships that can shoot back.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >the difficulties of attacking warships that can shoot back.
        Wouldn't that also argue for using the weight for more larger guns since that lets you engage ships further out?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          lol, is it OP's argument that the negligible weight increase of a dual purpose gun over normal guns means something?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Some of USA's dual purpose guns (I think the 5" batteries) were somehow lighter than the surface only variant.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              that's probably something to do with the surface action one being a 51 cal while the duel purpose was generally a 38 cal

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        This.
        In the training exercises when they were developing all these naval bombing tactics the pilots were vastly, vastly more accurate than when they had to fly attack runs against heavy AA.
        Entire air doctrines in WW2 had to be scrapped and rewritten because of the effectiveness of AA.
        Calculating on a piece of paper that AA fire only downed x planes so it might as well have not been there is ultimate armchair generalship.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          He has a point. Medium and small caliber AAA had much better efficiencies. If you you want to increase air defense replacing 5'' mounts with them them get you much better result.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Those smaller mounts can't reach out as far, which means that it's easier for the attacking plane to set up on a good course instead of having to bleed energy doing evasive maneuvers which means higher time in the range of said more lethal AAA and taking a non-ideal path which degrades accuracy. Big guns were the fleet in being of AAA in that them existing forced the attacking planes to have to make a bunch of concessions which lowered both of their efficiencies.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              You give far to much credit and accuracy to heavy AA, just read any stat like it took 1000+ rounds of 5/38 (the best heavy AA) to shoot down 1 plane and you cannot give a good quantifible stat on how effective they were at "degrading" attacks - just because you have a type of gun does not mean you are better protected, especially if those guns have a penalty on other things you could have i.e more medium/small caliber guns. Heavy AA was only really effective at high/medium alt attacks - which wre the least effective compared to dive and torp bombers.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >long range AA had low hit probabilities
                >this means it's worthless and instead we should let torpedo bombers stay in perfect formation for an extra ~7000 yards while the 20mm guns wouldn't even be in range before the optimal range for a torpedo launch

                You seem to think that the important thing is downing the attacking plane, while the actual thing of importance is that the attack run was spoiled and the defending ship survived. High caliber AA was very important for not allowing attacking planes to have the luxury to easily pick targets, T up on them, and begin an attack run with full energy.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Again you're assuming these heavy AA did anything of the sort, there is no data on this being effective and you're simplisitic thinking is more guns = better.

                Aircrews were trained not to break formation under AA fire, this is a basic tenet of attacking as the attack run is the most important part. You seem to think all planes scatter once a few flak burst around them - this is nonsense.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                And yet we have multiple AAR reports from torpedo bombers who felt pressured to release early and missed their target as a result of heavy flak. Of course this can't be quantified because it's a non-numerical thing, but your 'muh small guns' can't be quantified either because comparing pKs without the disruption of heavy AA is impossible because people during that era weren't as moronic as you and didn't do so, in fact having more 5 inch mounts then 40mm on the South Dakota class BBs. You also completely skip over one of the benefits of heavy AA's range and it's ability to cover other ships that are under attack, where as smaller caliber weapons would leave most ships purely defending themselves. Lastly, your vaunted small gun AA would leave the ships with very poor options for engaging small surface combatants such as PT boats which were a constant threat during landing operations.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >engaging small surface combatants such as PT boats

                Again you're imagining things - large ships/troop ships would never be, and never were, unescorted and would be covered by the smaller ships more suitable guns. You think a BB is sailing around by itself? or a troop convoy with 1000's of men? What a silly man.

                >but your 'muh small guns' can't be quantified either

                Look at the fricking stats moron, you have nothing.

                >fact having more 5 inch mounts then 40mm on the South Dakota class BB

                That's complete bullshit. They had around 80 40mm, 80 20mm and 16-20 5in.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                ># of mounts is the same as guns

                This is the level of mouth breather I'm arguing with.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                what are you even talking about moron? 1) what the frick does it matter how many mounts a ship has compared to guns? 2) 80 40mm would be 20 mounts, 20 5in is 10 mounts. And you say i'm a mouth breather? Frick me.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >80 40mm would be 20 mounts

                Actually would be at least 20 - many of them may be single or double, but again what does it matter how many mounts? Jesus what an imbecile.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >Again you're imagining things - large ships/troop ships would never be, and never were, unescorted and would be covered by the smaller ships more suitable guns.
                Is this satire

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                > would be covered by the smaller ships more suitable guns.
                And what guns do you think they would have?
                HINT: medium caliber dual purpose guns like 5”/38

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                He's not "assuming " anything, he's stating objective, proven facts. There is mountains of data and reports - from both sides, at that - on this being effective and you're being a worthless contrarian homosexual who is now reduced to outright lying to try to cling to his moronic hot take that was formed on the basis of nothing but your utter ignorance.

                >Aircrews were trained not to break formation under AA fire
                And in practice, intense heavy AA fire had a habit of making that training FAIL. You seem to think that pilots were perfect, hyperfocused, infallible robots with no human emotions, no capability for failure under pressure, no sense of self-preservation. THAT is what's actual nonsense.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >you cannot give a good quantifible stat on how effective they were at "degrading" attacks
                And in your mind this makes it worthless, an opinion which was not held by anyone else of the period. Howitzers may not have been "efficient" at engaging enemy infantry as light mortars, but that didn't mean that field artillery should have been scraped for more light mortars.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >an opinion which was not held by anyone else of the period

                The people of the period were stuck in inertia and did not have the data we have now - which clearly shows heavy AA was a waste of time especially until 1944 only improving with VT and radar control, and again, only against the least effective air attacks - high/medium alt.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >did not have the data we have now
                Where do you think your data comes? Someone in 1950 belatedly decided to phone up all the AA gunners and asked them to remember how many shots they fired and how many hit?
                They obsessively collected data on every aspect of the war as it happened to inform everything from simple logistics (how many rounds of each type do we produce and load on the ships) and tactics (which guns are we adding in our 4th round of refitting yet more AA to this battleship).
                You having the internet and hindsight isn't as much of advantage as you're making out.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >They obsessively collected data

                As yes the very accurate self reporting, you are a fricking idiot. The stats we have now are confirmed by both sides, the planners wouldn't have had any idea of the real numbers due to inflated claims and fog of war.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >The stats we have now are confirmed by both sides
                Did they perform a seance to ask Lt. Tokugawa whether it was the 5" shrapnel, 40mm or 20mm that really got him?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Do you know how these things are done? Obviously not if your limited brain can only think of a seance.

                You see what happens after an action is the people who come back do this thing called debriefing - usually with an intelligence officer who records what they say and collagtes all the statements. Then the ones who come back also write a action report and this is submitted.

                You need this explained any more?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Japanese aircraft learned to loiter just outside the range of the US 5"/38. When the Brits showed up with their longer range 5.25" the Japanese had to change their tactics.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                And? This isn’t the diss you thought it was. They know to stay OUTSIDE the range of the AA as if it was like anti aircraft or something and they were in planes.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >When the Brits showed up
                When was that?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Please educate yourself about the role the Brits played in the Pacific. Seriously. It's rather too big of a topic to start classes on frickign PrepHole on.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Oh yeah they did so many valiant retreats and surrenders and then built some railroads for the Japanese like compliant little cvcks

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Uh huh. Care to prove your ignorance further instead of actually trying to educate yourself?

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                List all the major contributions the UK made to defeating Japan.
                Fricking around in the jungle in Thailand is not a contribution btw.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >the role the Brits played in the Pacific
                .
                .
                ......

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >He's a butthurt bong
                of course he is, he's probably still seething about the Washington Naval Treaty.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Actually, heavier AA had higher hit probabilities both because they could benefit from AA Rangefinders and air bursting fuses. The additional range also helped cover nearby ships.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yes they seem to be ignoring the distinction. 40mm bofors was the best AAA gun in the war, with the most kills and best efficiency. It was the most effective gun against the most common attacks - dive bombing and torpedo bombers, which heavy AA was next to useless against. Heavy AA might be able to break up formations of high flying bombers, but this was the least effective way of attacking ships.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Only 40mm had better results. You'd have to prove that they weren't complementary.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Some of you seem to have an aversion to numbers and would rather pull shit out of you ass and make believe about amazing heavy AA, but these stats are a damming indictment of AAA gunnery - a couple of 100 planes a year out of 10,000's. This is with 1000's of guns and millions of rounds of ammo, materials which should have instead gone to carriers and figthers. As a comparsion the Hellcat itself had over 6000 kills in the pacific.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                To use a tank term is part of the survivability onion

                Lets assume our theoretical task force has all three layers: A Combat Air Patrol of Fighters, Heavy AA, and Light AA and there is an oncoming attack from a few flights of Japanese planes.

                They’re engaged by the outer layer of Fighters, take losses but make their way through. Because of the fighters calling in and radar the Japanese planes are then engaged by Heavy AA. The Heavy AA scores some kills but more importantly keeps the enemy under attack and under pressure the whole time they’re trying to line up attack runs. Finally when the enemy closes in they’re engaged by the lighter AA.

                Without heavy AA the enemy has that entire middle area to catch their breaths and line up their attacks to be more effective then if they were engaged the entire time.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >The Heavy AA scores some kills but more importantly keeps the enemy under attack and under pressure the whole time

                The effectiveness of this is what is on debate here and whether all the cost of heavy AA, such as weight, manpower, logsitics and resources could not have been better used on more effectiive things such as more medium/small caliber guns which have much better records or fighters. Heavy AA was not effective vs low flying dive / torp bombers due to reasons you can look up yourself and said in earlier comments, and was better used against high flying targets - which as stated earlier was the least effective means of attack vs ships due to difficulty hitting moving targets with dumb bombs from high altitude.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Okay you fricking moron

                By the time a dive bomber gets into range of 20mm and 40mm guns it’s almost ready to drop its bombs. Japanese AA 20mms were absolutely useless because of this

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                So 40mm shot done far more planes that any other type of AA and you think they are useless? You are the fricking moron, you ignore all the data and pull shit out of your ass.

                Japs didn't use 20mm - they used 25mm and it wasn't very effective because very low rate of fire due to 15 round mag - at least get your facts right.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >And poor traverse rates
                >and poor ammo
                >and poor sighting
                >and poor mountings
                >and poor doctrine
                >and....

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                I’d say it would be worth it for the same reason it would be worth it to spend AA shells or a missile to shoot down an Ali-Express drone with a mortar shell on it.

                Materially it may be a bit of a waste but is it worth your soldiers lives to just let it through.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >low flying dive
                For use against the ocean? They designed VT fuzes for use against low flying planes.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >Only 40mm had better results.
              By weight of rounds per kill (smaller is better)
              20mm>40mm>76mm>5'' VT>5'' Com
              Also low caliber guns much higher weight of launched projectiles per minute per gun installation weight than larger caliber

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Let’s replace all our AA with 20mm, what can go wrong

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                >bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzrrrrrrrrttttttttttttttzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                They were firing on targets out of range conservation wasn't their biggest concern.

                During the 8 months of 1945, when approximately half of the war's kills were made, rounds per bird dropped off. Except for those attacking the fast carrier force, many enemy planes were outmoded types, comparatively slow and operated by unskilled pilots. Gunners had improved in accuracy as a result of increased experience in action and increased training.

                The 40 mm. developed into the most effective weapon in the fleet. The 20 mm., which was the most important weapon during the first 2 years of the war, was passed by both the 5-inch and 40 mm. in the percentage of planes knocked down during 1944 and 1945.

                https://www.history.navy.mil/research/library/online-reading-room/title-list-alphabetically/a/antiaircraft-action-summary.html#VI

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            “He”

            You mean you moron

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It wasn't quite that simple.
      The US Navy had a 5" 38 cal gun and a longer 5" 51 cal gun. The 5" 38 was lighter with reduced rotational inertia which made it better for aircraft use where tracking fast moving targets was critical.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Shore bombardment. And also sneeky breeki light craft before CIWS was around. Believe it or not, the fire ranging computers to hit the stationary targets on land while whipping about at sea at max distance fricked up shore batteries. Before fire control systems advanced enough, the guns on land would be able to use their tables to have dominance over shipping. Add in radar to the equation, and they did pretty damn good as an all-arounder. Not to mention them being on destroyers or subs, they were just so versatile, also star shells to be able to light up any area at the edge of a fleet.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    after zepplins stopped being a theoretical threat to planes and before VT fuzes, yes
    before and after frick to the no

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    How many ships were disabled by guns vs planes? Because it seems to me planes were a far bigger threat to ships than guns were in WW2.

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    No. They can do two things, which makes them twice as good as a gun that can only do one thing.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Not always true.
      Counter example: those moronic 18 inch beehive shells the nips used as AA weapons

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Don't forget that the 5"38 on US ships was a standard gun across the whole fleet. A Fletcher needed no extra ammo types compared to a North Carolina or Baltimore, and a 5" gunner from any of these ships could transfer to another without too much trouble.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    OP bravo on A+ trolling work.

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    main battery mental gymnastics
    >I'm useful because I destroy the enemies' engine, electronics and magazines
    AA gun mental gymnastics
    >I'm useful because I destroy enemy attack aircraft
    Dual Purpose gun mental gymnastics
    >There's a .5% chance I could damage a range finder
    >somehow my VT fuses are better than the ones in normal AA guns
    >if you read some biased AARs...
    >even though I reduce the weight and rate of a ship's AA fire, I scare enemy pilots
    >according to drachinfel...

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      > somehow my VT fuses are better than the ones in normal AA guns
      What “normal AA guns”?
      Because technology wasn’t there in the 40’s to allow you to put VT fuses on a 40mm. Therefore, the 5”/38 WAS the normal AA gun

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      DP gun enjoyer mental gymnastics
      >I provide air defense
      >I provide effective fire against Destroyers and Cruisers
      >I provide marginally useful fire against capital ships
      >I provide effective shore bombardment
      >I provide other utility fire such as starshells and ranging shots
      >I do all of this in a single platform, resulting in major space and weight savings

      After the Battle of Midway, the USN studied their AA effectiveness there. They determined that the 20mm and 40mm guns made mostly "revenge kills". That is, planes destroyed after they had deployed their weapons. Not a good outcome, because those dead pilots might have sunk your ship. The 5"/38 was used to shoot out on the horizon or at altitude. Perhaps less accurate, but the range was greater. They compensated with more ships to shoot with the fleet, and the total throw weight nearly doubled, big and small. Find this study on ibiblio.

      Dual purpose comes relatively cheap, why would it be considered a negative?

      >Dual purpose comes relatively cheap, why would it be considered a negative?
      Because in his mind, that 1.6% of a North Carolina's tonnage taken up by DP guns is a travesty

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    After the Battle of Midway, the USN studied their AA effectiveness there. They determined that the 20mm and 40mm guns made mostly "revenge kills". That is, planes destroyed after they had deployed their weapons. Not a good outcome, because those dead pilots might have sunk your ship. The 5"/38 was used to shoot out on the horizon or at altitude. Perhaps less accurate, but the range was greater. They compensated with more ships to shoot with the fleet, and the total throw weight nearly doubled, big and small. Find this study on ibiblio.

    Dual purpose comes relatively cheap, why would it be considered a negative?

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    In retrospect what kind of naval combat boats would you build in WW2 without future tech?

    Just aircraft carriers and subs?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Carriers, their escorts, and cruisers would be my real answer but since it's not funny I say big ass ice carrier and big ass battleship with big ass guns.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      anti-aircraft cruisers too

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Which navy?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Destroyers, Light Cruisers, unironically Battle Cruisers, light carriers and fleet carriers.

      Use the DDs and CLs to form a perimeter of radar coverage for the carriers while the BCs handle AA and Shore Bombardment. The reason why I'd use BCs rather than BBs is that Carriers were a lot faster than BBs of that era because they didn't have to carry all those guns and armor. You'd want the BCs to keep up with the fast moving CVs.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        only thing I would bring up with that is that the fast battleship and the up armoring of battlecruisers had really blurred the line between what was a battleship and a battlecruiser. Ive heard some fairly well through out arguments that ships like the Iowa could have been called a battlecruiser when you compare them to the Montanas

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          That's fair. I could argue for Heavy Cruisers instead. The idea I was going for was that there's no real point in investing in these top of the line Fast Battleships when the Age of Carriers is right around the corner. Even though the Iowas were great ships they didn't have much to do.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            That's why the Shinano was altered to a carrier design halfway through its construction

            I still like the fact that the crazy Japs had AA rounds for Yamamoto's 18" main cannons.

            they were well aware that their AA was god awful and ineffective, so they tried everything including the biggest ratshot ammo ever known to mankind

            only thing I would bring up with that is that the fast battleship and the up armoring of battlecruisers had really blurred the line between what was a battleship and a battlecruiser. Ive heard some fairly well through out arguments that ships like the Iowa could have been called a battlecruiser when you compare them to the Montanas

            Montanas were a dumb idea- fast battleships like the Iowa class more than filled the the bridge between battlecruisers and aircraft carriers and nothing else like them needed to be built. i mean shit, we were still using them to murk towelheads in the 90s and that was literally only for funsies

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >All these trolls failing to understand OP's brilliance
    OP you're onto something, multi-purpose weapon systems are a waste and specialization is the future. Except the M113, it's the exception that proves the rule with regards to multipurpose vehicles/guns.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Unironically true given how much ass the M113 is kicking in Ukraine.

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >with pure AA guns instead of expensive gun mounts that were worse at both AA and anti ship fire
    yeah the Nips subscribed to your dumbfrick view by festooning 23mm everywhere and their AA performance was nothing short of laughable

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      And yet they dominated the pacific for two years until American production kicked in.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >2 years

        They didn't dominate shit after getting blown out at Midway.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Only because the USN got sucker punched at Pearl Harbour. Even then, most of the 25mm guns were later refits when Japan started loosing air supremacy.

        It should be noted that Japan didn't have radar guided AA which meant that they couldn't get the most out of the DP guns they had. The lighter AA guns also couldn't protect nearby ships because they had only gunsights for fire control.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          The 25mm was often found in remote-controlled mounts with backup local sights. With several gun mounts all controlled from a single position.
          The single mounts were local sights however.

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    modular/dual purpose equipment is based and specialistgays are dumb basically

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous
  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Basically yes. In fact most WW2 ships would've been better off being aircraft carriers and air defense can be carried out by CAP, not little gunz.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I still like the fact that the crazy Japs had AA rounds for Yamamoto's 18" main cannons.

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    for me, it's duel purpose guns

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