So, I had an enlightening experience with quad mounted heavy guns in Fighting Steel a few days ago that confirmed my concerns. I came across a randomly generated bombard scenario that was supposed to be a match up of battle cruisers: 13" Dunkerque/Strasbourg against the 11" armed Scarnhorst, Gneisenau defending. Piece of cake for the French, right? Au contraire, mon frere!
I admit I didn’t employ the forward only quad guns of the French BC’s to best effect, instead unnecessarily turning broadside to engage when I could/should have plunged forward. And in a bit of misfortune the German’s got the range and scored a lucky hit on one of the quad turrets within a few salvos (the computer seems to be able to knock out turrets much more easily than I ever can.) Still, I’ve got bigger guns and won’t need many hits to make up for the early loss of 1/4 of my firepower. Let’s call it equal and proceed…
So we begin slugging it out and while I score a straddle or two, I can’t follow up with real hits, while the Krauts occasionally drop one of their 11" shells on me despite my timing movements after I fire into their splashes. Then something funny happens, my boat with two good turrets stops firing. Mon Dieu! I frantically poke around trying to figure out why it can see the ship ID’s but won’t target…then I get a sinking feeling…what if they hit the forward magazine, disabling it but not detonating it? Sure enough, I check and the magazine is out of action, no more firing from either of the two forward guns. 3/4 of my firepower is now gone, the Kriegsmarine has my range, and I can’t even disengage, because I don’t have any big guns to cover my tail.
And that my friends is a demonstration of just how poor the quad gun turret concept is in practice, particularly when placed all forward. A single hit can take out ALL of a ship’s primary guns. Or it can take out half of them… And if you are really unlucky and have two of these ships you can experience BOTH situations at the same time.
Now, combine this with the wartime experience of both France and the UK with their quad gun turrets: the turrets themselves frequently did not work properly, had excessive dispersion because of the close proximity of the barrels, and were out of action for long critical stretches of intense combat.