Exocet6951

Exactly. I honestly can't tell you if that would work out and if it would be balanced, but I feel that it's a much better choice than to have a single shell type that deals AP damage and HE damage simultaneously, for DDs' and CA/CLs' sake.

Just to clarify, in my mind it would still be two distinct types of shells. A high damage AP with some HE damage if the shell doesn't penetrate with overall reduced fire chance, and an "expode on contact" classic HE. The idea being that you wouldn't set fires if you penetrate/overpenetrate since the shell would act like a regular AP(with high damage), but you would be punished in the form of lower HE damage and fire chance with that AP shell if you played like a scrub and just spammed that AP at everything and everyone without giving it a single thought. That gives other CAs and even DDs a fighting chance, otherwise fires + high damage + broken modules + citpen chance? Ugh no, that's obscene.

Because a single overpen doing anywhere between 8 to 10% to your counter-class' hp out of a salvo of 6 to 12 isn't enough? People need to start ****ing accepting that DDs counter BBs, and stop asking for ways to uber buff BBs any more than they already are.

While Danae is underwhelming, it's in a tier full of underwhelming interwar lightly armored light cruisers, so its doesn't look too horrendous, even if playing something with AP only against hordes of ships with very little superstructure and no all-or-nothing armor scheme gets old really fast. But the Emerald? Worst ship in the game without the shadow of a doubt. Citadel as long as a tier2 DD, protruding out of the water in order to get diddled by every type of shell imaginable, even 120mm HE. Anemic guns that barely do a thing, and the're in low numbers, worst armor at that tier, which is a feat considering the Kirov is also tier5. I've had more success with AP at that tier with the Omaha, which is the ship you would be getting instead, since it's superior in every way.

If it's slated to be more like a normal DD, it's probably going to get better torpedoes. 2x3 torpedo tubes with a quick reload and stealth torp ability? Could work. Not transcendent, but workable. Like a C-hull Benson.

Yes, do tell how the HMS Dreadnought and the RN N3 class were instrumental in WWII. Because in a game where ships range from 1902 all the way up to the 1950s, with some of the most widely used ships having been designed in the late 30's, it's a 6 year period in the 1940s that determines the importance of a nation's naval strength in the 20th century. RN fanboys, always present, always the same.

I didn't know my ex girlfriend was a RAF pilot back in WWII

Yes but imagine that French cruiser armor would be at the very very best average at some tiers, and downright laughable at others. The current contender for tier7 has 60mm of belt armor, and the one for tier3 has 30mm of belt armor. That's citpen territory for 203mm HE. Something has to be done to accomodate for that, other else the grind to the first cruiser with a 100m belt armor will be painful. Emerald painful.

It would still be guaranteed HE damage, following the normal HE rules. If you hit the main belt of a BB, you wouldn't do any HE damage. But indeed, very careful testing would be needed, from a gameplay, design and technical point of view. As far as the heals go, I think it will be an absolutely required for low to mid tier French CLs, seeing as like the British, they are extremely poorly armored. So it's either make them bullet sponges or be able to repair some damage, or else they'll be way too glassy to be of use, no matter what additional flavor they have.

The idea of AP shells with some fire chance intrigued me, so I started digging. After a little hop on navweaps.com and some googling about different types of explosives,( which may or may not have landed me on a government watchlist for suspicious bahavior ), I did find that as far as 203mm guns go, French AP shells had an 8kg bursting charge (picric acid) compared to the USN's 2.3kg of explosive D bursting charge on their super heavy shell. The French 155mm gun follows the same trend compared to the German 155mm and American 152mm, but I'm relunctant to draw any conclusions as the only AP shell listed for the French 155 is a SAP shell. That really could mean just about anything, especially considering the French's tendency to not follow conventions. Now, I know that there are some major difference between the explosive used, but I somehow doubt that explosive D is four times more powerful than picric acid, so we're looking at a much bigger boom upon impact. In fact, almost as much as an HE shell. I having no idea exacty how they managed that, but it's more than reasonable to consider that it happened at the expense of penetration. That could be the French niche, a lower penetration AP shell but with guaranteed (and low) HE damage and slight fire chance (following normal HE mechanics rule) and a regular HE shell on the side, although interestingly not as powerful as similar sized HE shells in other branches. Add that to reasonably maneuverable ships, average to above average ballistics, maybe a repair party to help out the very fragile lower tiers, decent AA very reminiscent of USN and RN AA, though without a doubt worse long range performance than the USN 127mm DPAA,and you got yourself a branch of ships that's worth exploring. At the very least concept testing it.

You would be wrong to think that. It's a maneuverable, quick to turn ship that can almost follow cruisers, and can finish a turn in the reload time of an enemy BB (except maybe a Konig). That ability to flex with a BB is absolutely unheard of at that tier, and crush entire teams just by flanking the main enemy BB flock of snipers, or killing everything that doesn't have over 50k hp first.

Log in game, and when you see your port, look at the right, on the stats of your selected ship.The second line (I believe) will be about the artillery a ship has. In other terms, artillery is the guns a ship has. And artillery destroyer is nothing more than a destroyer focused on guns, while a destroyer leader is a larger sort of destroyer.

Ugh you're right, the twin 57s are bofors. The French just have an annoying habit of changing the original gun's name in favor of a "[caliber] Model[year of entry in service]" approach. It'll still just be a normal amount of bofors and oerlikons, nothing you wouldn't find normal on a British or US ship, and that with some ships still keeping the rather poor 37s. Overall, less AA than USN CAs, and probably less mid-range AA than RN CLs since those use very late model bofors and have a crazy amount of dps per mount. As far as being a flat improvement, cruisers still have quite a bit of toys to play with you can tweak to not make a branch overshadow another.If anything, my current concern is that the French cruisers will out-bland USN cruisers, rather than being improvements.

Except that it's hardly the only example, is it? For every large battle, there are ten small skirmishes fought between DDEs, DDs and CLs. The fact that you don't want to acknowledge that a large ship with primitive radar, incapable of pinpointing the bearing and speed of a small ship could be forced to retreat in order to prevent taking unnecessary is not only foolish, but wrong from a historical stand point. BBs were an idiotic, doomed class from the opening days of WWII, and only kept because big guns = coastal bombardment (a role that DDs ultimately managed to grab too, with rocket batteries), and because of the massive propaganda ability you get from it. The fact that you basically want this game to be a 12v12 BB brawl fest is dumb, and you're ruining the game for the rest of us.

The USN added something that was much needed to the French ships in the 40's: bofors. Many bofors. ALL THE BOFORS. DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA *herm* Excuse me. So yeah, they added all sorts of mid caliber goodness. But later on, France had some homegrown 57-100mm guns that were pretty good. Nothing special, but enough to rival Russian CLs. A few even had 152mm DPAA, but those would be, at best, a third of the strength of the Minotaur with generally only one or two turrets per ship.

There's really no way to do so. They're really just bland, with some of them being extremely fragile in terms of armor, somewhat compensating by having supossedly superior compartimentalization (repair party maybe?). At best, they'll have pretty good AA, good gun handling. Make them a mix of USN and RN CA/CLs. They won't be particularily breathtaking, but they'll be functional. Leave the madness to the hands of the BBs and DDs. Those show promise. WG pls, 16x380mm Super Alsace at tier10, and 45knot Le Fantasque.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar There's also another battle where a pair of USN DDs sailed next to each other, and fooled Japanese radars on cruisers into thinking it was only one ship, which lead to the Japanese taking some hits then retreating. Also, lovely as you happen to take literally the only time period and basically the only battle where dreadnoughts where dominant. Now look at every other naval battle after WWI, and see that a big lumbering ship that's easily detectable with both radar, optics and planes is a ridiculous choice. BBs were nothing more than ground pounders and propaganda tools, hence why everyone was smart enough to scrap BBs being laid down in the early 40s in order to convert them in CVs. In the game, they're overbuffed moron machines that break a LOT multiplayer gaming conventions, which are in place for good ****ing reasons.

Except for, ironically, destroyers who still exist today as backbone of any fleet, and cruisers who were still the go-to ship for any fleet action up until the 50s, when guided missiles just made anti-surface guns redundant. BB weren't "completely superior" to every other ship, seeing as there are multiple incidents where destroyers using only their guns fought off battleships. Again, real life wasn't like this game. You had to spot a target, get its bearing, speed, get a firing solution, then hope for the best. I'll let you guess what's easier to shoot at, a small destroyer that can quickly maneuver and adjust its fire, or the massive battleship that takes ages to do any maneuver and has to sequence its salvoes over the course of minutes just to correct its fire. You're so stuck in a "BB master race" mindset, both ingame and IRL, that I feel embarrassed for you.

The funny thing is that you keep defending BBs, but every time you open your mouth, you let slip even more arguments that BBs are the root of every problem in the game. They need to take a hard stance, and decide if BBs are supposed to be well rounded, in which case damage and survival needs to decrease, or if BBs are meant to be damage monsters, in which case survival and maneuverability needs to decrease substancially. There was a running gag back in CBT that the Iowa was the best tier10 cruiser. Never has that been more true.

And what exactly makes BBs of all other classes more deserving to be the better and more fun class? Because of your misguided view on history and gameplay?

[HE intensifies]

That's not at all what the conversation was about. You claimed that naval buffs want to play WoWS because of how dominant BBs were IRL, which was the case for the lesser part of 30 years, and since the late 30s and until this day have given way to CVs as being the general public's and history buffs' idea of a dominant class of ships. The only reason people flock to play BBs aren't necessarily because they're iconic, seeing as the most important and talked about class of ship today is the CV, but because they're simply so attractive looking in game. They simply don't have any critical flaws compared to CA/CLs, and apart from the low tier IJN DDs, that class simply appears subpar at low tiers, really pigeonholing newer players into the "herp derp big ship is better" BB class.

And still less OP than Rasputin, the Halloween Impregnator Nikolai

As if current BB gameplay had anything to do with actual BB behavior IRL. BBs are probably the furthest from reality, and that's including infinite torpedo DDs that can become invisible.

No, I want the real Japanese cold war super project.