I’ve read several accounts of ships engaged in surface warfare where the ships would attempt to chase the splashes of the other side’s last salvo. Why is that? It seems like one would want to get as far away from where the enemy had been aiming.
“The rangekeeper’s target position prediction characteristics could be used to defeat the rangekeeper. For example, many captains under long range gun attack would make violent maneuvers to “chase salvos.” A ship that is chasing salvos is maneuvering to the position of the last salvo splashes. Because the rangekeepers are constantly predicting new positions for the target, it is unlikely that subsequent salvos will strike the position of the previous salvo”
Can you rephrase that? With land based guns, you’d fire the first salvo, when some dipshit drove onto the spot where your last hits occurred, you’d just call ‘Fire for Effect’. What’s different about ships?
It increases Relative speed.
The pattern of the shots will be on the line from where it was to some other place, which have an effective speed.
So the shots have a speed along that line. So if you drive toward the original splashes you are adding your speed to the speed of the shots, and making the distance between you and the shots increase faster… Not only does the distance increase reduce the chance of the shot in the air missing you , this is also reducing the shooters accuracy, because larger the change in distance in the targeting you force on the shooter, the less accurate the change will be!
Its the best erratic choice… rapid changes of direction to keep the shooter from having his track of shots get on your tail and then cross over your path…
::RCA Dog:: 
Isilder: It increases relative speed…but it reduces changes in firing angle! (Bearing? Azimuth? Anyway…) The enemy gunners have less work to do swiveling left and right!
To me, it strikes a little of the gambler’s fallacy. “The roulette wheel never gives 17 twice in a row…”
Now, yeah, the other ship is probably moving too, so if they changed nothing, then they couldn’t possibly hit that same place twice. But they’re spinning all their aiming wheels, making every alteration they can. Surely that could just as easily produce another hit on the same location as any other location, right?
It really just seems to me (ignorant lout who’s never fired anything bigger than a varmint rifle) that you’d just be making the enemy’s job easier, not harder.
I think that, by the time you saw the ship on the spot you had previously hit, you would have already fired your next salvo, at the spot where you thought he would be.
Of course you could just fire all your shots at the same spot and wait for him to steer into them.
But if that became well-known as a naval strategy, then one might shoot at the same spot, knowing the other side’s penchant for chasing the splashes…
Leading to a thinking contest with a Sicilian when death is on the line… “Is he clever enough to know that I wouldn’t shoot at the same spot again? But does he know that I’m clever enough to know that, and will shoot at the same spot again? But is he clever enough…”
The first major hurdle for a warship trying to disable or sink a non-stationary, opposing vessel at a range of 10,000, 20,000 yards distance is to determine it’s own speed and direction of travel. Assuming the targeted vessel is returning fire, these numbers would be constantly updated.
The 2nd major hurdle is to determine the targeted ships speed and direction of travel. Those numbers would also be constantly changing.
They would have to add wind velocity, tempurature, humidity, wave heights, vessel roll, pitch, and yaw, the speed of the ocean/bay/straights current, etc. All of this information would then be fed to fire-control and used to decide the proper angle of elevation for the barrels and to rotate the turret to the best heading to intersect the targeted vessel’s path with the next salvo.
Because a warship is moving, it would never fire a 2nd salvo from the same location as the first. It would be almost impossible for a moving warship to hit the exact same spot in the water UNLESS they recalculate their guns tragectory and direction. Which they would have to do anyway.
The biggest difference between land-base artillery calculations and seagoing artillery calculations is the fact that a warship is moving 20 to 30 mph and so is the targeted vessel. Two ships traveling at 25 mph would close, head on, at 50 mph and never get closer if one were directly astern of the other. One or both ships would need to turn in order to bring more guns to bear.
Two large or equally sized vessels wouldn’t necessarily need to close the distance between themselves in order to land a salvo or two if the guns from both ships can reach far enough. On the other hand, a destroyer’s 5" guns wouldn’t be able to match the range of 14", 15", 16", 18" guns of an opponent. But destroyers did have torpedos and could sink larger vessels IF they could get close enough to use them.
Choosing to “chase the splashes” is one choice of direction change to alter course and force the other vessel to keep recalculate their targeting. It also means that the enemies rounds are falling short, instead of landing behind you, or off either beam (side). Would changing course 10 degrees to port, because that’s where the last salvo landed, be anymore effective than turning 10 degrees to starboard? Maybe, maybe not.
Splash. Turn 10 deg to port. Splash. Turn 13 deg to starboard. Splash. Turn 15 deg to port. Splash. Turn 10 deg to starboard. The object would be close the distance but keep the enemy quessing as to where you’ll be when they’re ready to fire again.
I just keep calling out coordinates. G-2 G-3 G-4, etc.
(I was not expecting the alien force field…)
No, no, you skip over a few, and put all of your shots on diagonal lines too close together for the big ships to hide. Then you just hope you get lucky early and get in a shot on the torpedo boat, because those suckers are hard to find.
I just figured out why this tactic works. The rules say you can’t fire another shot in a cell you already fired at. So by parking yourself up against one of the white pegs, you can now return fire with impunity.
Would tanks do the same thing on land? Especially when fighting other tanks.
I have never heard of chasing splashes for ship-vs-ship combat. I have heard of it when ships are under aerial bombardment. I can understand the concept of chasing splashes with aircraft - if the plane hit that spot over there, it has to move back to a similar spot in the sky to do it again (to a degree). With ships, the rangekeeper and FCS is going to walk the rounds onto the target vessel regardless of where it is.
I doubt it, shorter ranges and flatter trajectories would mean there was little advantage in doing so against other tanks.
For tanks they would mostly be trying to outflank each other to get a shot on the weaker spots in each others’ armor, or using pop-goes-the-weasel shoot-and-scoot tactics, staying behind cover and exposing themselves only to take a shot.
When a 70 ton tank goes “Boo!”, you are allowed to flinch.
Ships will occasionally use similar tactics, but it’s usually not applicable for them, and even the smaller warships are not remotely as agile as even the slower tanks.
Both the shooter and the target are moving, and you don’t aim for where the target is now, you aim at the spot you think the target will be when the shells get there. Your own course and speed will be known, but the enemies will be estimated.
At 10,000 yards, a 2000ft/sec shell takes 15 seconds to arrive on target. A 25 mph ship will move 550 feet in that time.
Chasing salvoes assumes that the enemy won’t hit the same spot in the ocean as last time, as they will be correcting for the fall of shot. At long range, it may be difficult to determine that you are chasing salvoes, as the enemy may assume that they are mis-estimating your course and speed.
Salvo chasing may incur a negative impact to your own fire control solutions, as well.
Never-the-less, salvo chasing is not a perfect defense either.
I don’t think tanks are engaging at the range naval ships are.
They’re almost certainly not if only because ships carry much bigger guns than tanks ever could. And why wouldn’t they? They have much more room for the guns and ammo. Ships also have the space for high-placed spotters’ posts and relatively sophisticated rangefinding and targeting equipment that tanks would have to do without.
Ships also have the benefit of not having, y’know, *terrain *to deal with, as such. Endless flat plains are not as common as tank drivers would wish 