Is there a formula to estimate the height of shell splashes? This is for making realistic height splashes for various calibers. ie; average height of 16"; 8"; 5". etc.
In my field of work for ground based “splashes” we did what was called crater analysis. We could determine azimuth of fire, type and caliber of ammunition, and even the type of fuze used.
A quick search shows that for heavy battleship-caliber armor-piercing (AP) shell, the water splash column typically reaches about 150 feet. There is no reliable way to calculate height based upon caliber though, because too many factors come into play.
Armor-piercing (AP) projectiles that punch into the water before decelerating create tall, narrow, solid columns, whereas high-explosive (HE) shells detonating on impact produce wider, more dispersed, and “feathery” splashes that are harder to measure consistently.
There was a discussion on here not too long ago about splashes caused by minimal angle small arms projectiles hitting the water, but it started to border on the ridiculous,.
I’m not sure there’s a formula for it; according to this forum page on Tapatalk, 5"/38 and 76/62 splashes were about 120-150 feet tall; that page has a number of period illustrations that all show shell splashes twice or more the height of the masthead on ships.
Some 15" shell splashes at Mers-el-Kabir:
The Yarkshire Gaming blog has an article about making shell splash markers for miniature naval gaming, although it doesn’t appear as if there is any information about the size of the splashes.
Yeah, I checked the Yarkshire site, and other sites, and deduced that 14 - 16 " shells can make a splash from 150 - 200 ft., and 8" 75 - 100 ft. Following that, it seems a 5" shell would make a splash around 50 ft high. I just want to make realistic shell splashes in a naval dio.
I made a bunch of them with celluclay, paper clips, and washers. Height didn’t matter much for scale but for fat old gamer fingers.