Weighing the Fog of War Part IV

There is another problem with the data in table 1 of [1]. The rates of fire are the same for all of the guns on each side, 2 rounds per minute for the British and 3 rounds per minute for the Germans. Which appear to correspond to the RoF figures quoted on NavWeaps for the British 12 and 13.5" guns and the German 11 and 12" guns.

If a ship waits for its previous salvo to land before firing the next with corrections at the battle ranges involved, rate of fire will be limited to something like 2 salvoes per minute. If instead full rate of fire is employed then the Blucher is firing 6 rounds per minute per gun (or salvoes per minute) and should dominate the hit and damage statistics.

My take on all of this is that the analysis is spoiled by the high effectiveness attributed to the Blucher's 21cm guns compared to the 12" guns on the British ships. This is partially compensated for by limiting Blucher's rate of fire. But even at its attenuated rate of fire I find Blucher will almost always eliminate all of an Invincible's turrets on the engaged side while sustaining only minor losses itself in a single ship on ship engagement under these rules.

References:

1. MacKay N, Price C, Wood J, Weighing the fog of war:Illustrating the power of Bayesian methods for historical analysis through the Battle of the Dogger Bank, Historical Methods 2016 49 (2)  pp80-91