Radar Directed Gunfire

[fannyhil]

I was reading up on the Channel Dash on Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Dash

My thought was to make an introductory game for my group to air-to-air and air-to-sea combat. I was a little surprised to read about how powerless the British Coastal guns were:

"At noon on 12 February, the Channel guns of the Coastal Artillery went into action. The South Foreland battery with their newly installed K-type radar set started to track the ships of the Brest Group coming up the Channel towards Cap Gris Nez. At 12:19, the first salvo was fired; since maximum visibility was five miles, there was no observation of fall of shot by either sight or radar. The "blips" of the K-set clearly showed the zig-zagging of the ships and full battery salvo firing began without verifying fall-of-shot. 33 rounds were fired at the German ships, which were moving out of range at 30 kn (35 mph; 56 km/h), but all missed."

Seems pretty ineffective. I haven't run the numbers but I think statistically there should have been more hits than zero.

Lately I have been thinking about how making smoke can be used as a shield of invulverability for those who have radar against those who don't. I would prefer to see a negative modifier that still allows fire for all. Obviously those with radar would have some advantage.

Your thoughts?

[regiamarina]

If you have a check through the forum under smoke or radar this issue has been raised many times and Harry is intending to address it in a future update of the game. He agrees that a modifier to hit would have been better than an absolute for firing through smoke.

It's probably the only bugbear I've found with the game and to be honest I'm not sure there is a simple way to fix it. Remeber historically radar was NOT particularly liked or trusted by many of the captains and firing through smoke was simply not done. Technically the radar was advanced enough to do it it's just that the captain wouldn't so you now have the problem of appeasing players who want the rules to reflect closer to historical accuracy or you leave open the option for players who argue that the radar could be used that way so they should have that option. My play group has tried a few different ideas but one that has worked well is if firing blind then all ships doing so fire at the nearest target, no picking out individual targets.

Martin

[mpc2163]

I have never told players about the smoke rule but making them fire blind through smoke makes a lot of sense. Personally, I don't like using smoke because it seems too much like cheating. The only real game of War at Sea I played devolved into one giant smoke screen with the Americans moving in a perfect formation masked by smoke. The Japanese players, including me, could only shoot at the destroyers making the smoke and it took the whole game to pick them off. Once we did, the game would have been ours but we ran out of time. That's why I don't even let smoke screens enter into my games.

[shigure]

In regard to the British Channel guns not hitting the German ships during the Channel Dash as you mentioned the DKM vessels were moving and zig-zagging at 30 knots. This would make them even harder to hit and as the Germans were not firing back. They would probably be free to make more radical maneuvers as they would not have to worry about keeping their own gun directors trained on a target. Also as the guns were in modified land mounts the reloading and firing equipment was most likely not as efficient as on board a ship. It is also doubtful the Germans or the English spent much time on target practice against fast moving targets. If the radar had just been installed I would wonder if the time had been spent to properly calibrate it to the guns.

[theguy]

I would think that radar in 1940 would not have been as effected as short line of sight or even later WW2 radar guided firings. It was brand new back then you know