The quoted RoF is 1.25 - 1.5 rounds per minute - 40 seconds is exactly the top of that range.
1…75 rounds per minute is faster than they could do.
Maybe 1.75 rounds per minute is avaliable when there are ‘ready shells’ inside the turret. US battleships retain it until modernization in 1930s.
Due to the safety reason, those ready shells space were eliminated in 1930s and after that, 40 seconds is ‘theoritically’ maximum reloading speed speed in-game standard battleships could get. In reality, ‘theoritically’ maximum is about 50 seconds.
1 Like
The other main issue is Gaijin still plays two sides in the fire rate, is there anyone remembers USSR’s 180mm gun fire rate? They gave MK-1 on practical fire rate, but on MK-3, they gave trials fire rate. So give the historical rate of fire just depend on which one they love.
1 Like
You might want to actually read the sources that were cited above as the quoted rate of fire of 1.25-1.5 rounds per minute is exclusively for the New York Class battleships with 1.5-1.75 for the Nevada and Pennsylvania Classes.
What is also important to note is that this is the standard sustained rate of fire and is not the highest rate of fire achieved by the guns. In SRBP (Short Range Battle Practice) Drills USS Pennsylvania achieved 2.51 rounds per minute in 1924 and 2.5 rpm remained standard for the vessel through 1938. 1938 saw new safety procedures added which limited reloads in these drills to a minimum 25 seconds because there were concerns that the crew were not properly clearing the bore for safety reasons.
Furthermore quoting directly from Navweaps.com on the subject of US Battleship Rate of Fire:
“The objects of SRBP were to test and train gun pointer groups at pointer fire, to test and train loading crews at maximum safe rates of fire to test material, and to stimulate interest in gunnery. It certainly succeeded in increasing speed. In 1919 battleship main batteries averaged about 1.9 Shots Per Gun Per Minute [SPGPM]. By 1930 the average rate had risen to about 2.5 SPGPM, though for a variety of reasons it never got much higher than this” -Navweaps “Evolution of Battleship Gunnery in the U.S. Navy, 1920-1945”
Interesting - thanks - I assume the short range helped the RoF by having he guns shoot at their loading elevations, hence saving the time required to elevate them??
ETA:
I note the rates of fire for night practices are only about 1/2 what was obtained in the short range ones - can’t quite get the full page on screen for a screenshot, but the column “S.P.G.P.M” = shots per gun per minute
