The Axis push away anyone who's not pure, then get crushed by the unpure. Just like real life. What's wrong with Nagato's stern guns? Bob H
Nothing wrong with them, I just want mine in the elevated turret, out at 15 deg on one side for the belows. Not sure 2 will fit with the down angle over the aft turret till I try it, why I may go with Jeff's 2 pump option.
The Axis seem to have been giving up everything for more haymakers and sidemounts in general. I may perhaps be crazy, but traditional stern guns still have the most potential for accuracy and are the only real solution for deterrence against attack from the stern quadrant. Although driving a 26 sec ship may have lead me down a heavilly defensive stance with armament seeing as how I did not have the speed to disengage from enemy ships. Might be a difference story in a 24 second ship. Still, dual sterns that are hot n smokin' can still be dangerous. 40Ah delivered from NiMh packs, more than enough juice for all the systems and I wont need to add too much ballast. I do have 2 pumps installed in my Nagato though, just in case. If its worth doing, its worth overdoing!
The problem with putting the stern guns in the upper turret is that while it may allow you to shoot belows, it also makes them very easy to dodge. Angling them off to the side makes them even eaiser to dodge. What you want to do is maximize the utility of the ship. Put the stern guns in the lower turret, and the haymaker in the upper turret. Then a bow sidemount in each of the front two turrets. That is the only way to go with a Nagato. Never mind the two pumps. A Nagato is not a park and shoot boat. Trying to use it like one is a ticket to the bottom. If a Nagato hangs around too long in one place allied slow boats just rip it apart. The trick is to hit and move to hit again. Baffle them with speed and your tactical options. Nagato is a jack of all trades, so don't try to out slug a slugger, or out stern gun a NC. Keep all your options open, and your bow clear to open water.
One does not have to park and shoot to use down angled sterns ... but it does help. heh. My Erin has the stern gun in the upper rear turret, angled 10 degrees down and 10 degrees to the left (haymaker) side of the ship. The stern haymaker is in the lower rear turret pointing off the left rear side of the ship. This gives the Erin a very nasty 1-2 punch off the left stern quarter. It does leave the right stern quarter "undefended", but all it takes is a twitch of the rudder to keep the left rear on the good side of an overtaking ship. Another consideration is that a haymaker in the upper rear turret tends to bounce BBs off the decks of other ships more often than a haymaker in the lower turret closer to the water. I'm finding this gun arrangement to be easier to use in some respects. Although it is pretty much a no-brainer to use straight sterns off the back of a ship, the downangled stern is easy to use givien some patience to set up a shot ... which is nearly the same shot as the stern haymaker. Two for one. During the last battle weekend, I used both the running looping style of battling and the "park and shoot" style. Both worked well, though the park and shoot with a good working reverse was easier to get the down angled stern cannon on target.
I am looking forward to seeing the radetzky working. it's a cool looking little ship. I threw around a lot of gun layouts on the Nagato as well, from copying Jeff's, to variations on it, to 2 sidemounts at the stern and dual bow guns, all kinds of crazy things. I finally settled on a pretty traditional setup, still shipping two pumps with the ability to easilly disconnect the power to one, or pin any one of the cannons if i feel like 2-pumping it. Or go nuts and battle with 7 units! Yeah! Yeah! no? Ok... Hey I heard you built a HMS Nelson way back in the day. How did it fare and was it an ok build for a first time ship? There's a fellow here who wants to build one and I don't really have anything to say about it other than its a big 6 unit ship and for a rookie that might be kind of hard, etc (Generic build a cruiser/battlecruiser stuff).
Yep the Nelson was my first ship. May be good in big gun, but it has alot of freeboard, great target to shoot at in fast gun. Single rudder 26 sec ship. The Axis 24 sec ships here in region 3 flocked to it like seagulls on a trash heap. It did not sink everytime, but it sure required alot, and I mean alot of patching. I only used it at 2 battles and sold it to Mikey D. He was trying to sell it last year, may still have it for sale. I would guess Specialist has not seen Jeff's Nagato setup. Of course Jeff is one of the better captains that I have seen, and ship and guns always work great on his ship's which also help.
Jeff could put guns in a stale loaf of bread and sink most of us before the fish ate the bread. I'd bet that 90% of the guys who try Jeff's set up are going to get crushed. Useing two pumps so you don't have to care how much damage you take just does not work for everyone. But to each his own, some guys just do stuff different.
Most captains shoot stern guns more acuratly than sidemounts, so it makes sence to maximize their effectiveness. This may not be true for Jeff. Jeff is a special case. Stern guns with range provide you with tactical options that otherwise you would not have. If your dealing with faster ships it can give you enough range to reach out and hit them. Also it restricts the options your oponent has in manuvering (without taking damage) this can be a valuble tool. Stern guns in the upper turret then to either be ineffective at close range if they are ranged out, or if they are ranged in, useless at far out. If raised stern guns were good, then the VV would be the axis NC. And we know this is not true. In fact the Scharnhorst is generally considered a better tripple platform. The issue with haymakers bouncing off decks can be delt with by taking better aim. Or in some ships it does not matter- for instance the Iron Duke can have its haymaker in the upper turret, and still just clear the deck. I think that Brian Lamb's at nats this year had this feature. Also you need to consider what the other guys have, if your going to be forever chaising others around, real bow sidemount are handy, as are stern guns. Haymaker are nice if you get them cornered, but how many do you need? If you are arming your ship for defence (you plan to run away) Then stern guns are clearly the gun of choice, and a haymaker nice to have in case they catch up. But you need to have other guns, as an undefended side is not so nice. So you put a bow sidemount on, so at least you can shoot back. You can put other configurations on a ship, but it changes and often limits what you can do with the ship. I have tried all sidemounts, and they do have some advantages, but also have some rather supprizing weeknesses.
Like I mentioned, I'm happy with the Erin's gun setup. I set the ship up to be a slugger, not a defensive ship. I want to make those 50 point belows, not 10 point aboves. The stern 10/10 cannon (10 degrees down, 10 degrees out) coupled with the haymaker on the left side gives me two stern sidemount options depending on the position and range of the target ship. And like I already mentioned, the Erin has enough manuverability to keep the target ship on the cannons side of the stern. The right side isn't really undefended ... it has a bow sidemount. If someone did get on the right rear of the ship, I can either turn out of the situation or reverse to bring bow sidemount to bear. Not saying that stern cannons aimed straight out is a bad thing ... otherwise the Allies wouldn't be in NC and SoDaks. heh. But on a slugger ship like the Erin, Iron Duke, etc where the ship tends to be close to other ships and most effective, a downangled stern will do more damage vs a defensive setup. Dave may chip in about the haymaker in the upper turret. He originally had the haymaker in the upper turret and bounced a lot of BBs off decks. Since changing to the haymaker in the lower turret, he seems happier with the results. So much so that when it came time to put cannons into the Erin, I followed his example and stuck the haymaker in the lower turret. So far, its been a good choice.
I like the haymaker in my lower turret also. I find you start out closer to the water so your distance to waterline is closer than the upper one. Building your ship for the type of battling you are going to do is very important.
I'm getting confused. I thought that a haymaker was a sidemount that could rotate, as opposed to merely being a sidemount.
A haymaker is any stern sidemount. High turret, low turrest, 50 round, 75 round does not matter. As long as it's a stern sidemount.
I found with the Duke everyone closed the distance so that the hulls were rubbing. If you do not exceed the 20 deg down angle, the upper mount just hits the other ships deck, unless the guns stuck out from the side of the ship, which I did not want. Ask Chris K what happens when you do that. Being a fairly new captain, and not that skilled yet, slowly getting better for sure. I moved all the guns so that the side mounts were mounted in the lower turrets, with the barrels laying in the casemates on the Duke, luckly the Duke has both forward and aft casemates. Now if you come along side and want to rub, you pay for it. I don't have to bother aiming, I go for the rub and then just start shooting. I actually shot Jeff up pretty well on Friday, before he called in the rest of his fleet.
I saw Chris' gun. I told him he should be able to get some wicked down angle with it now... that must have been one hell of a hit. I thought a haymaker was any gun that made you go "HEY!!!!" what I meant about mine was the rear at 15' off center laying on top of the deck. You can't rub but if you put a gap between us, I can put a nice smiley face there just like Mike did to mine
His Imperial Japanese Majesty's Ship Nagato is transferring construction yards to the Olson yards. BANZAI!!!
Sweet, Finally a Nagato and a cool "Rising Sun" shirt too. Here comes the "BANZAI Banger Boys" Hot-chaa
