The question of secondary values, i.e. Range, AD, Individual turrets, etc. are largely dominated by the scale of the game. Victory at Sea was largely dominated by large gunned battleships.
I.e, An 11 inch gun is modeled in VAS with 1 AD and 1 DD per barrel. An 11 inch gun fires a projectile that weighs approximately 720 lbs.
An 8-inch gun fires a projectile that weighs approximately 270 lbs. Obviously it can't have a 1 AD damage per barrel. The shell weighs a third as much. The answer was to combine the guns in an individual turret. Thus twin 8-inch turrets are rated 1 AD and 1 DD.
A 6-inch gun fires a projectile that weighs approximately 100 lbs. Again we combine the guns in a given turret but this time, because the shell is half the 8-inch, the new stats are 1 AD, 1 DD, with the special trait, Weak.
Now we get to secondary weapons. The are weapon in the 5" and smaller category. A 5-inch gun fires a 54 lb projectile. It takes alot of 5" shells to approximate the throw of a single 11-inch gun.
The weight of 13 5-inch shells is needed to equal the weight of a single 11" shell. However, the firing rate of the 5" is faster than the 11" so it actually works out to be about 1 AD for every 2 or 3 5-inch guns.
BUT, Secondary weapons have been genericised(?) down to a single catch all entry which involves all secondary guns immaterial of emplacement (turret versus casement mounted) or firing arc. Because of that, the number of AD is further reduced to account for the fact that only some of the secondary weapons can fire in any given direction.
Does this reduce the overall firepower of some ships secondary? Yes. But, typically the big ships are only every firing in one direction so the lack of accuracy was deemed acceptable.
Had this game been done on the scale, of say cruisers, then the destroyers would have been much more accurately portrayed.
---- Rich
(cue "big gun vs. hail of fire" debate!)
