The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 —— Hitting Rate of Japanese Army in Toshima Naval Battle

First of all, I quote W.Laird.Clowes. The British officers he met thought that the Japanese army hit 15% and the Beiyang Navy hit 10%.

However, Ma Jifen, a foreign sailor accompanying Zhenyuan Ship, thinks that the shooting percentage of Beiyang is 20%, and that of Japanese is 12%.

I don't think these two figures are credible. It was incredibly accurate that the hit rate reached 15% without accurate ranging and gun control equipment at that time.

What is the actual situation? I chose Akio Toyoda's naval battle as a sample, firstly because I found out the detailed information about the shells fired by the Japanese army (see below), and secondly because Jiyuan escaped and Guangyi ran aground, and the number of bullets fired by Jiyuan and Guangyi was well documented, which provided quite favorable conditions for calculating the hit rate of the Japanese army.

Damage map of Jiyuan ship

The ammunition consumption of Japanese ships is as follows

47mm hutcheson 3-pound gun, which is ignored when calculating the hit rate.

Qiu Jinzhou did not distinguish shooting targets, which brought difficulties to statistical data.

At present, we know that Jiyuan was shot with a large caliber of 10, and Guangyi was shot with a caliber of 10 above 4.7 inches (investigation of Guangyi wreckage boarded by the Japanese army). I assume that the Japanese army has been attacking the Guangyi ship, and the shelling hit rate of the Japanese ship can be calculated as follows:

Japanese ships fired more than 4.7 inches of shells in Jiyuan = 160 rounds, with a hit rate of 6.25%.

Japanese ships fired 209 rounds of artillery shells over 4.7 inches at Guangyi, with a hit rate of 4.78%.

The average hit rate of Japanese ships is 20 hits /369 launches = 5.42%.

Considering that in Akio Toyoda's naval battle, Japanese ships suddenly attacked and provoked the battle at close range, the hit rate should be slightly higher than that in the Yellow Sea naval battle. I boldly speculate that in the Yellow Sea naval battle, the Japanese artillery hit rate was equivalent to that of Beiyang Navy, both of which were 5%. I think this is the true face of history.

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Takeshi 1.5m optical ranging equipment is used to protect the cruiser Yoshino.

This is also the only warship equipped with ranging equipment in two naval battles.

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