How-to-Springsharp Guide/Guns

SpringSharp does not understand the concept of “broadside”. If you have 4 casemate guns on each side, firing 100kg shells, your “Broadside weight” will be shown as 800kg. Correctly, the broadside weight is actually only 400kg.

## Gun Types

* Muzzle Loading: this is for guns left over from the age of sail.
* Breech Loading: abbreviated "BL"; your standard type for guns generally larger than 4-6"
* Quick Firing: abbreviated "QF" on British guns and "RF" for rapid fire on American gun; sliding-breech, with single-piece or "cased" ammunition; as a guide, British guns 6" and smaller from WW1 on are typically QF
* Anti-Air: abbreviated "AA" or "AAG"; it is reasonable to also use this for small or pre-1920 QF HA mounts.
* Dual Purpose: abbreviated "DP"; a gun which is suitable for both anti-surface and anti-air work; a post-1920 QF HA mount is usually this. An example of a DP gun would be the US 5"/38
* Auto Rapid Fire: Similar to Anti-Air, except for automatic cannons such as the 40mm Bofors. Rarely used as for automatic cannons, Anti-Air is still acceptable.
* Machine Gun: Self-explanatory, though Anti-Air can also be used for machine-guns.

## Mount Types

* Broadside: this is for ships barely out of the age of sail, and represents that era of gunnery.
* Cole/Ericsson turret mount: this is what very early Ironclads, such as Monitor, had.
* Open Barbette: this has a similar handling rooms and hoists as turret on barbette, but only a platform above deck; it was common on ironclads and early pre-dreads.
* Turret on Barbette: this is the standard mount for heavy 20th century guns.
* Deck and Hoist: this is standard for lighter mounts that are still in a turret; early heavy cruisers had 8" guns in deck and hoist, later ones had proper barbettes below deck.
* Deck mount: this means the gun is just on the deck, common for light weapons.
* Casemate: this is a must for above deck casemates.

## Gun Location

### Mount Height

#### Above Deck

Guns located above deck are usually super-firing, placed on top a bridge structure, or similar.

#### On Deck

Most ships have some of their main battery and secondaries immediately atop the hull. With the right hull shape, you can imitate super-firing, but be careful that you are actually providing enough height for this to work.

#### Below Deck

Guns located Below deck are usually hull casemates or broadside mounts. Most other mount types will produce an error.

### Mount Location

There is often more than one way to arrange the guns you want. Generally you want to do it in as few groups as possible, so you don't have to use two batteries to represent one gun.

#### Centreline

For most ships, most or all of the main armament is along the ship's center. Other guns that are within that region are also listed here.

#### Sides

If a gun isn't on the center of a ship, it is here.

#### Distributed

This is for guns evenly spaced across the ship.

#### Ends

This groups the guns at each end. Choose fore >= aft if you want the odd gun out to be on the ship's front and aft >= fore if you want that gun to be on the aft. The classic 3x3 one super-firing layout common in WW2 designs would be 3 triples arranged on the ends with the majority forward and one mount super-firing.

#### Fore Deck

This is the front of the Ship. All of your guns can be are here, as in a Tone style design. This is also useful it you want to place a single gun somewhere.

#### Aft Deck

This is the back of the ship. It's used in much the same way as the Fore Deck, but note that it is often lower, which means guns here take less comp.

#### Forward

Guns don't have to be in the center of a Deck, but instead to one side or the other. This option forces them to the portion of the deck closest to the Forecastle.

#### Aft

Much like the forward guns, guns can be in placed closer to the Quarter Deck. One way to represent en echelon guns is to place one gun on the aft-most portion of the Fore deck side – Sides - Fore Deck Aft – and the other gun Sides - Aft Deck Forward.

#### None

This is the default, Springsharp will throw an error until you change to one of the other listed locations because guns have to be on your ship to be on your ship.

## Gun Armour

[Other above deck] generally consists of side, rear, and roof armor. For turrets, a rough rule of thumb for area is that the face, each side, and the rear are equal, and the roof is equal to their sum.

Advanced: input armour value as straight-line thickness on the horizontal; increase accordingly if sloped.

[Barbette / Hoist] Springsharp measures this from the waterline to the freeboard. Distributed mounts use the average freeboard on the fore/aft deck. If your barbette design is not a solid tube from the waterline to the weather deck, adjust the armour thickness accordingly to obtain the correct weight.

## More Info

http://navweaps.com/Weapons/index\_weapons.php#Naval\_Guns