Sinking ships with flak

[Guthix]

The flak cannon is too op. i am sinking undamaged ships with a few clips of AP.

[Pig Killer]

Whether a few clips should do it or not, I don't know, but the 20cm flak AP penetration looks like enough to put holes in merchant ships. The HE look enough to set stuff on fire. That's a lot of holes with the AP.

[StuKa]

I don't see this as OP at all when accounting for the ultra-fast sinking behavior of base game ships.

Even a 20mm is going cut through merchant hulls like butter. 3 magazines at the water line and now you have 60 leaking holes in your boat and at least some of your crew is probably in pieces.

[Soap]

a ring of small holes can become a large hole, a ring of large hole can become a even larger larger hole.

[Defacto]

In general, ships in this game sink a lot faster than what is realistic. It's pretty unrealistic to sink a merchant ship with thousands of tonnes displacement by shooting a few dozens of 20mm into it, but it's also unrealistic for it to go 'schlurp' into the ocean after being shot with the deck gun a few times. I think flooding is maybe a little overtuned.

One can look into the historical record and see, that engaging ships with 20 and 37mm was definitely done, but if this was done to actually sink a ship it was usually very small ships (like sailing schooners of 150 GRT or similar). For big ships it was mainly done just to confuse the crew and supress defensive gunners.

[Adam]

I don't know how you guys sink ships with just a few magazines of 20mm AP. Do you fire three magazines and then wait a while? Even firing somewhat slowly along the waterline I usually have to expend 10+ magazines before a basic freighter will go down.

[Soap]

burning, shoot HE flak onto the front and/or back flag pole so a fire start. if they put out the fire, ignite again.

if its a tanker, its your lucky day.

[Klavo Hunter]

Originally posted by Adam:

I don't know how you guys sink ships with just a few magazines of 20mm AP. Do you fire three magazines and then wait a while? Even firing somewhat slowly along the waterline I usually have to expend 10+ magazines before a basic freighter will go down.

Yes, have the enemy ship selected from the map screen so you can see its health bar. After firing 2-3 magazines of AP along the waterline, you should see a chunk missing of its health bar, and a ghosted-out segment of the health bar that slowly dwindles. That's water coming in through the holes you've made.

Then target the bow or stern of the ship sticking up into the air (but still close to the waterline if you can manage), and give it another clip. That should finish it off with a little extra time.

Firing HE rounds and hitting the deck of the enemy ship for maximum effect is a lot easier after the enemy freighter starts sinking partway, and can start fires that finish ships off also.

[Adam]

Interesting. I've never played with the health bars on, but maybe I should try it just to get an idea of how much damage I'm doing.

[Promi]

Bullets in real life are much more powerful then we think. For example, I saw a video a while back that shows the danger of 9mm bullet. It is lethal for human 400 meters away. Now imagine 20mm cartridge firing at let say 200 meters?
That thing goes through and kills everything on the inside of the ship. Like one wrote going through like butter. This is a game, but shooting that in real life with 150-200 bullets in a ships waterline, you get a colander.

[Shintai]

Aircrafts was sinking ships and with 20mm. Also the hulls of most merchant ships back then was rubbish. Even a .50 cal could easily shoot through them. Even on corvettes and destroyers.

Its first when you reach cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships you see real hulls that can withstand damage.

[Lakel]

Originally posted by Shintai:

Aircrafts was sinking ships and with 20mm. Also the hulls of most merchant ships back then was rubbish. Even a .50 cal could easily shoot through them. Even on corvettes and destroyers.

Its first when you reach cruisers, battlecruisers and battleships you see real hulls that can withstand damage.

also, like, actual armored hulls. Granted light cruisers were mostly just large vs destroyers

[ELB]

Just adding some numbers

Tribal class hull: 16mm, average value for dds, no double hull

Flak 30 could penetrate up to 23mm up close (100m).

[Feldgrau]

Changelog of the patch which was released few minutes ago:
- Fix: It was too easy to sink ships with a 20 mm gun.

[Adam]

I hope it's not unbalanced in the other direction now.

[Red_Seven_]

Originally posted by Adam:

I hope it's not unbalanced in the other direction now.

I just hammered 2k shots into a T2 tanker and it didn't even blink.