3 inch shells against a battleship...naw. Not going to work.

16 inch shells against a tank...even a near miss will flip the tank over. USS Wisconsin and USS Missouri did that to Iraqi tanks in Desert Storm, and those are much heavier than an old Panzer IV.

And they against Nagamon too, so no match! 8D

"Do not want. No lolis."

And Nagato was just firing type 3 shells.

"The Nagato class armour is not just for show!"

z905844 said:

And Nagato was just firing type 3 shells.

Actually Type 3 shells are better at destroying ground targets than destroying planes.

I always did love sinking American cruisers and Essex-class carriers with a Tiger I parked on the shoreline back in my days playing Aces High.

laisy said:

Actually Type 3 shells are better at destroying ground targets than destroying planes.

That's mostly because a land target isn't moving as quickly as a plane. The primary problem with san-shikis were that they had to be manually aimed by a turret crew with a turret that turns far, far slower than an aircraft can fly across the ships's visual arc.

As another commenter put it, most aircraft crews viewed san-shikis as pleasant fireworks displays more than an actual threat, and they were easily avoided by simply not flying directly at the giant, totally obvious gun barrels aimed directly at them.

A tank crew has more trouble getting out of the path of the shell in time.

"Effectiveness" with a 40-cm cannon has more to do with accuracy than shell type. 40-cm shells tend to ruin the day of anything it hits, even if it's divided up into multiple shotgun-style incendiary rounds.

NWSiaCB said:
"Effectiveness" with a 40-cm cannon has more to do with accuracy than shell type. 40-cm shells tend to ruin the day of anything it hits, even if it's divided up into multiple shotgun-style incendiary rounds.

The Fragmentation rounds do precisely jack to armored vehicles. Including any armored ship; direct strikes by 14 inch Type 3 shells bounced off cruiser armor during the close range actions off Guadalcanal. For trying to target armor you would use normal HE shells and hope to get close, the chances of this are poor, but with a shell as large as a battleship large steel fragments may be able to inflict some damage if they burst behind or above a vehicle.

OOZ662 said:

I always did love sinking American cruisers and Essex-class carriers with a Tiger I parked on the shoreline back in my days playing Aces High.

Hehe, my brother... though I personally tended to have more fun being seemingly the only guy on earth that knew how the indirect firing system on the cruisers worked and raining shells on dudes camping bases. Really some of the combined arms fights near the shore where you had tanks spawning from opposing bases, carrier fleets blundering into each other, and a swarm of planes all over could be pretty damn epic. I still recall one fight over a peninsula base that went for like an hour straight that ended up involving two CV fleets on both sides, at least three attempted amphibious landings, continuous air strikes on everything involved, and an overland attack by a tank mission of at least like 20 guys that to this day is one of my most vivid gaming memories.

Tk3997 said:

The Fragmentation rounds do precisely jack to armored vehicles. Including any armored ship; direct strikes by 14 inch Type 3 shells bounced off cruiser armor during the close range actions off Guadalcanal. For trying to target armor you would use normal HE shells and hope to get close, the chances of this are poor, but with a shell as large as a battleship large steel fragments may be able to inflict some damage if they burst behind or above a vehicle.

Although I know it was ineffective against cruisers, would it really be ineffective against a (relatively) lightly armored 25-ton tank? It's not like the aircraft of any other nation but Japan went into battle unarmored - they had to be at least powerful enough to pierce the armor of aircraft after traveling a distance from the detonation point.

I know san-shikis were bad, but surely they weren't THAT bad.

Tk3997 said:

Hehe, my brother... though I personally tended to have more fun being seemingly the only guy on earth that knew how the indirect firing system on the cruisers worked and raining shells on dudes camping bases. Really some of the combined arms fights near the shore where you had tanks spawning from opposing bases, carrier fleets blundering into each other, and a swarm of planes all over could be pretty damn epic. I still recall one fight over a peninsula base that went for like an hour straight that ended up involving two CV fleets on both sides, at least three attempted amphibious landings, continuous air strikes on everything involved, and an overland attack by a tank mission of at least like 20 guys that to this day is one of my most vivid gaming memories.

I used to love using Land and Sea aiming modes to cause people all sorts of problems from the cruiser. For a while I was decently well known for ship gunnery and task force evasive maneuvers, especially in evading torpedoes in one of the Coral Sea scenarios. My two cruiser bombardment forces tied up the entirety of the Japanese torpedo force since it was their first objective and the commander refused to pull them off the task in true Japanese style. It was good to be well known for those...since my air combat skills were never much to behold even after 7 years.

My greatest gaming memory came from Aces High as well, back when the Tiger I was the king of the tanks in the game since the only other contenders were the T34/76 and the Panzer IV-H. With myself in a Tiger and a friend in a plane alternating between dogfighting and quick ground scouting, we held a town against three of the top tankers of the time, members of the LTARs. I killed 16 of their Tigers in that hour or so. I was even more proud when I recounted the story years later and two of them remembered and we chatted about it. Was a great community there.

OOZ662 said:
I used to love using Land and Sea aiming modes to cause people all sorts of problems from the cruiser. For a while I was decently well known for ship gunnery and task force evasive maneuvers, especially in evading torpedoes in one of the Coral Sea scenarios. My two cruiser bombardment forces tied up the entirety of the Japanese torpedo force since it was their first objective and the commander refused to pull them off the task in true Japanese style. It was good to be well known for those...since my air combat skills were never much to behold even after 7 years.

My greatest gaming memory came from Aces High as well, back when the Tiger I was the king of the tanks in the game since the only other contenders were the T34/76 and the Panzer IV-H. With myself in a Tiger and a friend in a plane alternating between dogfighting and quick ground scouting, we held a town against three of the top tankers of the time, members of the LTARs. I killed 16 of their Tigers in that hour or so. I was even more proud when I recounted the story years later and two of them remembered and we chatted about it. Was a great community there.

It really was, maybe still one of the best I've ever been in. What always struck me then and still does looking back was how mature and reasonable everyone was and the high average skill level. There aren't too many games where you can get just 20 random guys together and not only NOT have it devolve into a total cluster fuck, but actually accomplish something! You got some interesting guys playing it too, one guy in a clan I was part of for awhile was like 75 and had actually flown piston engine bombers in the late 40s, heard some interesting stuff from him while flying long escort missions (he ran most of the groups bomber missions, no surprise).

Tk3997 said:

You got some interesting guys playing it too, one guy in a clan I was part of for awhile was like 75 and had actually flown piston engine bombers in the late 40s, heard some interesting stuff from him while flying long escort missions (he ran most of the groups bomber missions, no surprise).

Aye, we actually had a WWII German bomber pilot flying in my squadron in a frame of one of the Battle of Britain events; he couldn't really understand us, but he made the radio traffic feel a bit more genuine.

OOZ662 said:

I always did love sinking American cruisers and Essex-class carriers with a Tiger I parked on the shoreline back in my days playing Aces High.

I ammo racked 2 T29's and burnt out an IS tank from a distance with a Tiger 1....... They were pissed and it was hilarious......