The next major section in chapter 10 of [1] is a quote from Dunnigan [2] on fire control.
Dunnigan points out that the FPWR employ a form of ladder about the estimated range to model the dispersion in the fall of shot, which is uncontentious enough. He then goes on to tell us that with a ladder the shells would almost certainly bracket the target on the first broadside. Now my memory may be starting to fail but I seem to recall that finding and keeping the range in the Fletcher-Pratt game was not easy, which is confirmed by the accounts of players in earlier chapters of the book [1]. This in my case at least with ship models over-scale compared to the floor scale. From this we can probably conclude that Dunnigan never played the FPWR.
Dunnigan then moves on to observe that a ladder system was used only by the Germans at Jutland, the RN employed a slower method to find the range but employed better fire control systems so would be potentially more accurate in the long run [3](the inherent statistical errors of range finder range, and systematic differences between geometric, gun and rangefinder ranges even after calibration mean that the rangefinder range is/was not sufficiently accurate to allow their use without modification from observation of fall of shot [3]). The lack of adequate facilities at Rosyth for gunnery practice ensured that the main body of the Battlecruiser Fleet's gunnery was crap despite having superior gunnery control systems. The criticism of the gunnery system of the FPWR on the grounds that it is only (a bit) like that of one of the protagonists at Jutland is absurd. First because it is even less like the systems employed by the cruisers and destroyers at Jutland, and by anyone at any later date. The gunnery system is a game mechanism not a model of the systems on a particular day, which should be represented by special mods for the particular game for that day (by modifying the ladder size depending on the number of salvos fired at a particular target and/or adding random ranging errors to one or both sides opening salvos at a target, or ...).
Throughout Dunnigan criticises FPWR essentially for being general rather than specific to Jutland, which to some extent is understandable since at the time he was preoccupied with the SPI Jutland game. However exactly the same sort of criticisms could be made if we focus on a particular naval engagement, and are irrelevant to a general set of rules, it is the gamers responsibility to introduce day specific features.
Dunnigan's comments about fire control at night go off at half cock because he confounds factoids related to Jutland with factoids from later in WW1 and from WW2. These can safely be ignored.
John Curry comments after the quoted text from [2] that Dunnigan whet on to criticise FPWR for not representing the fog of war adequately, which he points out was a misconception due to Dunnigan not having access to all of the FPWR as documented in the earlier chapters of [1].
Summary: The quoted text criticises FPWR for not being a detailed and/or accurate model of battleship and battlecruiser gunnery at the end of May 1916. This is a fair criticism in the sense that you can criticise an apple for not being a banana.
References
1. Curry, J., Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame, the history of wargames project 2011
2. Dunnigan, J., Article in Strategy and Tactics, Vol1, 1967
3. Brooks, J., Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland: The Question of Fire Control, Routledge, 2005
Dunnigan points out that the FPWR employ a form of ladder about the estimated range to model the dispersion in the fall of shot, which is uncontentious enough. He then goes on to tell us that with a ladder the shells would almost certainly bracket the target on the first broadside. Now my memory may be starting to fail but I seem to recall that finding and keeping the range in the Fletcher-Pratt game was not easy, which is confirmed by the accounts of players in earlier chapters of the book [1]. This in my case at least with ship models over-scale compared to the floor scale. From this we can probably conclude that Dunnigan never played the FPWR.
Dunnigan then moves on to observe that a ladder system was used only by the Germans at Jutland, the RN employed a slower method to find the range but employed better fire control systems so would be potentially more accurate in the long run [3](the inherent statistical errors of range finder range, and systematic differences between geometric, gun and rangefinder ranges even after calibration mean that the rangefinder range is/was not sufficiently accurate to allow their use without modification from observation of fall of shot [3]). The lack of adequate facilities at Rosyth for gunnery practice ensured that the main body of the Battlecruiser Fleet's gunnery was crap despite having superior gunnery control systems. The criticism of the gunnery system of the FPWR on the grounds that it is only (a bit) like that of one of the protagonists at Jutland is absurd. First because it is even less like the systems employed by the cruisers and destroyers at Jutland, and by anyone at any later date. The gunnery system is a game mechanism not a model of the systems on a particular day, which should be represented by special mods for the particular game for that day (by modifying the ladder size depending on the number of salvos fired at a particular target and/or adding random ranging errors to one or both sides opening salvos at a target, or ...).
Throughout Dunnigan criticises FPWR essentially for being general rather than specific to Jutland, which to some extent is understandable since at the time he was preoccupied with the SPI Jutland game. However exactly the same sort of criticisms could be made if we focus on a particular naval engagement, and are irrelevant to a general set of rules, it is the gamers responsibility to introduce day specific features.
Dunnigan's comments about fire control at night go off at half cock because he confounds factoids related to Jutland with factoids from later in WW1 and from WW2. These can safely be ignored.
John Curry comments after the quoted text from [2] that Dunnigan whet on to criticise FPWR for not representing the fog of war adequately, which he points out was a misconception due to Dunnigan not having access to all of the FPWR as documented in the earlier chapters of [1].
Summary: The quoted text criticises FPWR for not being a detailed and/or accurate model of battleship and battlecruiser gunnery at the end of May 1916. This is a fair criticism in the sense that you can criticise an apple for not being a banana.
References
1. Curry, J., Fletcher Pratt Naval Wargame, the history of wargames project 2011
2. Dunnigan, J., Article in Strategy and Tactics, Vol1, 1967
3. Brooks, J., Dreadnought Gunnery at the Battle of Jutland: The Question of Fire Control, Routledge, 2005
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