Japanese naval gunnery accuracy

[Tycondero]

I know the accuracy of any WW2 naval engagement between surface vessel wasn't very good, but especially the japanese seem to suffer a lot from extremely inaccurate fire, mostly due to lack of advanced RADAR. Are there ways to improve the accuracy to an acceptable level (say around 85%) when playing as the japanese? Thus far it seems that the best I managed in day light fleet engagements was around 65-75% for the Kongo class BBs (with RADAR active). Am I doing something wrong here? I use the spot firing option.

[Amelia]

Even as the US it's difficult to achieve a solution of >90% when outside 15,000 yards. My advice to you would be to close the range if you are decisively winning against an opponent, manual fire is also extremely effective within these ranges. If the enemy has laid smoke, the best course of action is to pursue at your top speed. Maneuvering also affects your solution, try to fire only when travelling in a straight line, but be sure to maneuver while reloading.

[Johan217]

Radar on the Kongo is for air search, not surface.

[regret]

Killerfish Games [developer] 30 Jun @ 9:41am

Here's some manual excerpts along with other tips, tricks:

Rate of Solution Accuracy Increases with:
- Good visibility to target, at close range
- Using Spotting fire against the target
- Correct identification of target ship class
- Using radar
- Target using radar
- Dark conditions and target illuminated by fire, muzzle flashes or fire
- Tracking target with multiple directors

Rate of Solution Accuracy Decreases with:
- Poor visibility to target, at long range
- Changes in target course or speed.
- Changes in observing ship's course or speed.
- Target is burning or releasing smoke (unless observer using radar)
- Losing contact with target

The AI tends to change course, turn for torpedo attacks etc which makes torpedo hits hard, especially at any significant distance (low speed of USN torpedoes doesn't help either).

Never travel in a straight line...
Always try to have the rudder of lead ship off centre, a gentle turn can really throw off enemy gunnery. But turn too hard and your formation can break down/stall some ships which is far worse.

Travel fast. The more distance you have covered between enemy shell fired and landing, the more likely you are not where the enemy thought you were. Too fast and slower ships can't keep formation and if burning SLOW DOWN. High speed fans fires and fires on ships are very bad.

Bring your broadside onto the target for max guns to fire.

Turn Radar on. This does give the enemy a bonus against you as well, but you can offset that with gentle turning.

Use immunity zones. You can see the armor penetration curves of each gun in the Unit Viewer, use these to your advantage.

Turning your ships front on/away from the target can cause enemy shells to ricochet off belt armour. As long as plunging fire is not a risk, this can buy some time for hull repairs or close/extend distance.

Turn a damaged region of your ship away from the enemy.

ALWAYS fight fires first, hull before superstructure.
Hull is higher priority than superstructure for repairs (except Bridge which if KO'ed incurs significant efficiency penalty to repairs). Better to keep a ship afloat than have it sink with all guns firing.

High sea state = stronger winds and bigger waves. That means fires are harder to put out, flooding spreads more quickly and listing ships can capsize. Don't engage in bad weather unless you have the superior force.

If an enemy ship is slow or stationary, switch to MAN firing as you don't need a solution to hit a stationary target; you already know its position from the minimap. You may need to update your firing position every few salvos to keep it on target, but after landing several full salvos, the target is going to be even slower/stationary or sinking.

Fire At Will mode is kind of the opposite of Focus Fire where each ship acts autonomously. Good if you have lots of ships.

Focus fire: you should not have to micromanage every ship. Select 1 or more ships, turn off Fire At Will, choose a target, press "A" (Attack) command for all ships to open fire on that target. Better to heavily damage a single target and force it to retreat/knock it out than to do minor damage to multiple targets that stay in the fight.

Finally, don't be afraid to retreat!
Disengaging is quite generous giving you the option to back out of a fight. Remember tools like gentle zig-zag and laying smoke to throw off enemy gunfire while you wait for the retreat timer.

Hope this helps and good hunting!

This was from a previous post by the dev, might help

[dangiesey]

The SPOT option gives a temporary boost to solution accuracy that goes away after a few minutes, but it's nevertheless and important tool.

Broadly speaking, IJN gunnery is poor. In daylight with 100% visibility it isn't terrible, but even then there's little sense in engaging beyond 15,000m and accuracy doesn't start to resemble anything close to "good" until 10,000. At 7,500m, at least one shell from each salvo may hit.

The most reliable tactic for improving solution is to close the range. When you have the superior force, this is easy enough to do without undue risk. When you do not, closing the range can be very dangerous. In my opinion, this is why Japanese surface engagements really revolve around the torpedo. A large torpedo attack that's well executed can give you the decisive advantage as range closes, and can hobble an enemy fleet that's closing the range with you.

Otherwise, you can expect to lose any engagement in which you don't have the larger or stronger force -- there are very few situations in which the IJN can engage the USN in an "even" gunnery fight and win.