Atillery Indirect Fire

[K K Rossokolski]

This interesting point illustrates one of the many valid arguments AGAINST the attempt to make CS a game involving important aspects of sea warfare....the "bathtub navy". The issue is a complex, multi-faceted one, but in major aspects, naval gunfire ship-to-ship involving armoured units...battleships for example...may well be more effective at long range, because a shell past its zenith will descend at an increasing angle to the horizontal.
Battleship armour was generally distributed mostly with the thickest horizontally disposed about the ship's vitals.....side armour abreast the command, machinery and weapon spaces, with much thinner horizontal (deck) armour. The classic example were the battlecruiser losses at Jutland in 1916, and the death of HMS Hood in 1941 when hit at long range (about 10 nm) by the German Bismarck. One or more steeply descending shells penetrated her relatively weak deck armour to set off a magazine. Her thick side armour was useless.
The longest range hit against a moving target is believed to be that of HMS Warspite against the Regia Marina's Giulio Cesare in 1940....13 nautical miles.