Ships
Basic operation of the task groups are covered pretty well on the HTC web site HERE. I have a couple write ups on how to destroy them.
Torpedoes in Aces High
First is one from "zxs" a.k.a."-oklok" It is old but it is very throe "How to Aim Torpedoes"
Gunning from the CV Group
Here are a couple of short write ups on using the ships guns, first from "Bustr"
Shift Q is land mode.
First choice if you are 10k to 32k yards away is leave your guns at default, pull up the map and pull the target to the center of the map. Then hit shift_Q. Use your mouse and click center of the target on the map. If you are in range and gun arc. the guns will turn to target and adjust to the correct elevation. Just fire. Wait for hit feedback in the buffer, or click around the port, vbase, airfield or twon object box and keep shooting. All the while looking for text buffer feed back.
Second choice 10K and closer. First do everything from the first choice. Then put the map away and goto zoom. You will be looking through a Mil crosshair and see a yellow horizontal Mil hash sitting on top of the targeted area. On full zoom you can watch hits and make corrections with your joystick. The left hand HUD will show you correcting elevation in yards if you want to make granular changes.
In both land\sea modes you are looking through the Mil cross hair at a horizontal hash grid.
...and from "Kingpin"
Land Mode (and Sea Mode) firing does still work, but there are some tricks to it. The first thing I'll address is what I think causes the most confusion which is the "sights".
The first thing to remember that there are TWO "sights". The yellow horizontal sight shows where the rounds will land. The grey cross-hair "sight" in the center of your screen is not really a gunsight, but actually more of a "viewing" cross-hair (although they can be used together to help measure longer lead distances when firing in Sea Mode -- but that is another topic). More on that later...
To avoid the guns rotating the wrong way when first entering Land Mode (Shift+Q), the best thing to do is have your map open with the target zoomed in on the map. Press Shift+Q and then immediately click on your target on the map so the guns don't take as much time possibly rotating in the wrong direction. Pay attention to which way your guns move, because you then want to move your VIEWING crosshair (the grey ones in the center of the screen) onto the yellow gunsight. To do this, CLOSE THE CLIP-BOARD, then move your mouse in the direction the guns moved until you can see the yellow gunsight.
Start by lining up the two (move the grey cross-hairs on top of the yellow sight) as closely as you can. Remember, the grey sight is only where you are LOOKING, not where you are firing. The yellow sight is where your rounds will land. (Note: You will usually start by looking in a different direction than the guns are pointing. I think this is the most common cause for confusion.)
Once you are looking (grey cross-hair) the same way as the guns (yellow sight) you can then zoom in (hit Z key and the brackets keys to zoom all the way in and out). I suggest zooming all the way in (right bracket key) for most precise aiming. Once you get good with manual aiming while zoomed in, you will be able to target specific buildings in a town, individual ack guns on a field or even aim for GVs along the shore or on a field (if the CV is close enough). If you have the same problem I do, which is occasionally bumping the mouse and moving the grey cross-hairs, just open the clip-board while zoomed (push the clip-board off to the left or right, so it's not covering your zoomed view) and then the mouse cursor won't move the viewing cross-hairs.
Another tip: when you are zoomed all the way in and multiple gunners are engaging the same target, sometimes it is hard to determine whose rounds are whose, which makes it hard to adjust your fire. In this case, before you fire, hit the Z key to zoom out. Fire and watch your outgoing rounds (zoomed out) until they get close to target (well inside the grey viewing crosshair) then hit the Z key to zoom in before they land and you will know the landing rounds are yours.
...and from 1ijac
So many times while I am shooting at an enemy CV from my CV, players in other guns will ask: "What is the range?". I'll post here what I do that I find successful when using the 8", 5" and shore battery guns.
There are 3 modes of choice in these guns:
1. Default ( Q Key ) = no grid in sight.
2. Land mode ( shift+Q ) = using map on clipboard to designate where your rounds will land and a yellow grid in sight.
3. Sea mode ( cntrl+Q ) = common sight for visually firing at another CV, pt boat, ect..
Shore Battery, 8" and 5" firing on enemy ships (use Sea mode cntrl+Q):
I will aim the gun at the enemy ship, then hit (cntrl+Q), then move my mouse to find the Yellow range grid in the sight. Using the W,S,A and D keys, I will bring the bottom of the vertical yellow grid lines to the waterline of the ship I am shooting at. Depending on the distance and path of the target ship, you need to lead the target somewhat using the yellow grid graduations each time using the W,S,A and D keys to keep your range. Practice will give you a good feel as to how much lead you need to make and missed shots will allow you to make slight adjustments to the range. The 5" guns fire both AA (proximity fuse flak) and HE (high explosive) rounds. You can toggle between them using the backspace key. I use the HE rounds to damage objects and the AA rounds to shoot at enemy planes. Distances over 13.5K in the 5" gun are tough to hit. Note that Sea mode grid does not seem to function properly less than a distance of 3.5 or so the default mode (Q key) is used in closer ranges.
8" and 5" guns firing on land based objects, gv and pt boat spawns (use Land mode = shift+Q):
I first hit (shift+Q), then bring up my clipboard map, left click and hold on my target on map, then use the (insert key) to zoom in on the target. I also use the [] keys to zoom in even more. Once zoomed in, I let off the left click and left click again on the target to refine my target range. Your target will move on the map because the CV is in motion. You can keep the map up or close it. If you close it, you will need to use the delete key to zoom the map back out to see the target on the map again and repeat the procedures mentioned before. If I am close to the target then I usually close the clipboard and use the yellow grid to aim (using the W,S,A and D keys to make fine adjustments). In land mode, your target range will automatically adjust while your CV is moving, so slight adjustments are all that is needed. If targeting a Shore battery, once I hit it, I usually just keep firing without any adjustments because the range is being auto adjusted. I might need to make some fine movements right or left with the A or D keys depending on where the rounds hit. If firing on a base, you can use the W,S,A and D keys to move to different targets without left clicking on the map again. Again, I fire HE rounds from the 5" to kill ground objects and anything over 13.5k in distance I find hard to hit with the 5" gun.. You can have some fun using AA rounds on a base, town or enemy CV to catch some planes flying low or taking off from those targets. If shooting at pt or gv spawns, I zoom in as mentioned and left click on the tip of the arrow and the range auto adjusts to the moving CV in land mode.
Shooting at approaching planes in the CV 5" guns:
I use the AA rounds(default) in the 5" guns. Lead your target with the thought that it takes time for the round to get up to the altitude the approaching plane is at. The higher the plane is, the greater the lead will be. Only practice will help you with this.
The before mentioned is what I find an effective use of the guns. There may be other methods used by players. Practice with my suggestions and have a great time. I hope you find these tips helpful.
How to range ships using "Mils" From "Black70"
There has been a previous post about the use of the different crosshairs we have in the 8" cruiser guns. I posted and asked if somebody knew if the grey crosshair was really mils and if it could be used to range a cv with it. I didn't receive any answers yet so I went and did my experiments to see if it really works. Well it does. Let me explain you how you can range and hit a cv with a very good probability of first shot hits.
First thing you need to know is how mils are used to range targets. I won't get into this too much and you can research it yourself but it's a system created by the military to find the specific range of the target so you can engage it accurately. What you need to know to start to do the math is the specific size of the target or something close to a target that you want to engage. For this specific example here it would be the size of the cv. Since the cv can move on angles, the length of it can vary so using this won't be good. One thing that stays the same though is the height of it. It doesn't matter which direction the cv is going, the height will always be the same. Now when I was testing this, I realized after you hit the cv once, the tower explodes or whatever and you can't see the top of it because of the flame like in the picture. With my testing, I found that the height of the cv from the water to the flat top section of where the red arrow is pointing is 40.6 meters.
So here is the formula Meters/Yards x 1000 / Mils = your target range in meters or yards depending on the one u used.
If you look at the picture. The grey crosshairs is horizontal to the water (black arrow) so you can count the lines going up and see that it's very close to the 5 mils line (blue arrow)
So if you do the math with this info. 40.6(meters) x 1000 = 40600 Then 40600/ 5mils= 8120 meter. So 8.1k away. Fire
Like it did in the picture-------> went boom. First shot hits.
Now those are the ranges with the specific amount of mils 2 mils= 20.3k
2.5 = 16.2k
3 = 13.5k
3.5 = 11.6k
4.0 = 10k
4.5 = 9k
5 = 8.1k
The better you are at milranging, the more accurate you can be. I only used those numbers because engaging at 20k is kinda max effective range. You can use the same formula to divide them into smaller mil reading, 1/4 or better. It's even more important at longer range. Example 2.5 mils and 3 mils. might be small but it's still 3k of difference :) Now the yellow indicator is for the lead. You have to try it out and have a feel of the lead you need. In this example, my cv was going the same direction as the nme one and fired at that specific location and got a mid ship hits.
So that is what I was able to accomplish playing with it. If anybody has any questions or comments. I'll try to help :)
And to go along with that, I also have "Fork's Ships Gunnery Table" printing it out and using this table will help you with aiming and ranging the guns.
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